Sources of variation at the onset of bilingualism: The differential effect of input factors, AOA, and cognitive skills on HL Arabic and L2 English syntax

Soto‐Corominas, Adriana; Daskalaki, Evangelia; Paradis, Johanne; Winters-Difani, Magdalena; Al‐Janaideh, Redab

doi:10.1017/s0305000921000246

Cited by 11 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 51 publications

(104 reference statements)

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“…This type of scoring is highly correlated with other, more fine-grained types of scoring (Soto-Corominas et al, 2021). A detailed description of this task in both languages appears in Soto-Corominas et al (2021). The stimuli for the English SRT are presented in Appendix S1 (Supplementary Materials).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…In Hamann et al (2020) and Paradis et al (2020), moderate and positive correlations between AOA and L2 outcomes were present in the samples for each study; however, AOA did not emerge as a significant predictor in regression models of German L2 syntax, and English L2 vocabulary and morphology, respectively, in spite of there being a wide range of AOAs in the samples. In contrast, Soto-Corominas et al (2021) did find older AOA to be a significant predictor of stronger syntactic abilities in English L2 syntax. Paradis et al (2020) and Soto-Corominas et al (2021) are of particular relevance because these studies were based on data from the first wave of data collection from an overlapping sample of the Syrian refugee children who participated in this study; the present study is based on the second wave of data collection (one year later).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…In contrast, Soto-Corominas et al (2021) did find older AOA to be a significant predictor of stronger syntactic abilities in English L2 syntax. Paradis et al (2020) and Soto-Corominas et al (2021) are of particular relevance because these studies were based on data from the first wave of data collection from an overlapping sample of the Syrian refugee children who participated in this study; the present study is based on the second wave of data collection (one year later). The hypothesized importance of AOA in refugee populations and the mixed findings from the first wave prompted us to include AOA in this study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…It is relevant to point out that mothers spoke almost exclusively in Arabic with their children (Table 1), so the positive influence on L2 development cannot be attributed to proximal L2 input and interaction. Instead, the influence could be attributed to the more distal effects of higher education on parenting and family social cultural capital (De Cat, 2021; Rowe, 2018) or perhaps indirectly to the L2 via influence on the L1 through interdependence (Blom, Soto-Corominas, Attar, Daskalaki & Paradis, 2021; Soto-Corominas et al, 2021). Because participating families were generally low SES in terms of other components, the strong impact of maternal education could suggest that higher maternal education is a mitigating factor against the adversity of low SES background post-migration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The limited existing research on AOA and refugee children has shown mixed results. Three studies have examined the bilingual development of Arabic L1 – German L2 and Arabic L1–English L2 refugee children in Germany (Hamann, Chilla, Abed Ibrahim & Fekete, 2020) and Canada (Paradis, Soto-Corominas, Chen & Gottardo, 2020; Soto-Corominas, Daskalaki, Paradis, Winters-Difani & Al Janaideh, 2021). In Hamann et al (2020) and Paradis et al (2020), moderate and positive correlations between AOA and L2 outcomes were present in the samples for each study; however, AOA did not emerge as a significant predictor in regression models of German L2 syntax, and English L2 vocabulary and morphology, respectively, in spite of there being a wide range of AOAs in the samples.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of socioemotional wellbeing difficulties and adversity in the L2 acquisition of first-generation refugee children

et al. 2022

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First-generation refugee children often experience pre- and post-migration adversity and display high levels of mental health/wellbeing difficulties, but to date, research has not examined the impact of such factors on refugee children's L2 acquisition. Accordingly, this study examined the influence of externalizing and internalizing problem behaviours (wellbeing), time in refugee camps and low socioeconomic status (SES) (adversity) on the English-L2 abilities of 117 Syrian refugee children (7–14 years) in their third year of residency in Canada. Wellbeing difficulties and adversity factors accounted for variance on L2 vocabulary, morphosyntax, listening comprehension and narrative production tasks, beyond the variance accounted for by age of L2 acquisition and length of L2 exposure. Specifically, externalizing problem behaviours, time in refugee camp, maternal education and maternal employment predicted variance in L2 abilities. It is concluded that refugee children could have influences on their L2 acquisition that are different from those of bilinguals with other backgrounds.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The role of socioemotional wellbeing difficulties and adversity in the L2 acquisition of first-generation refugee children

et al. 2022

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The interplay between syntactic and morphological comprehension in heritage contexts: The case of relative clauses in heritage Syrian Arabic

Daskalaki,

Soto-Corominas,

Barisé

et al. 2023

Applied Psycholinguistics

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Previous studies show that even though monolingual children find subject relatives easier than object relatives, their comprehension of object relatives can be facilitated by morphological cues. Given that in heritage contexts functional morphology is a vulnerable domain, a question that needs to be addressed is whether bilingual children, who are heritage speakers of their L1, will also be able to use morphological cues to comprehend complex syntax. To contribute to this line of research, we focused on monolingual (N = 18; Mean Age: 11.43) and bilingual/first generation (N = 108; Mean Age: 11.98), Syrian Arabic-speaking children in Canada, and examined their ability to use gender morphology in their comprehension of relative clauses, while taking into consideration cognitive, environmental, and age-related variables. To this end, we used two offline sentence-picture matching tasks targeting relative clauses and gender (as encoded in SV agreement and object clitics). Results showed that, like monolingual children, first-generation, Arabic-speaking children living in Canada used morphological cues to comprehend complex syntax in their L1. Furthermore, even though there was an association between comprehension of gender agreement and comprehension of relative clauses, performance in gender agreement was higher than performance in relative clauses, suggesting that challenges with complex syntactic structures are not necessarily an epiphenomenon of a morphological deficit.

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Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals

Paradis

2023

J. Child Lang.

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Bilingual children are a more heterogenous group than their monolingual counterparts with respect to the sources of variation in their language learning environments, as well as the wide individual variation in their language abilities. Such heterogeneity in both individual difference factors and language abilities argues for the importance of an individual differences approach in research on bilingual development. The main objective of this article is to provide a review and synthesis of research on the sources of individual differences in the second language (L2) and heritage language (HL) development of child bilinguals. Several child-internal and child-external individual difference factors are discussed with respect to their influence on children’s dual language abilities. In addition, the emergent research on individual differences in bilingual children with developmental language disorder is reviewed. Both the theoretical and applied relevance of individual difference approaches to bilingual development are discussed.

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Sources of variation at the onset of bilingualism: The differential effect of input factors, AOA, and cognitive skills on HL Arabic and L2 English syntax

Cited by 11 publications

References 51 publications

The role of socioemotional wellbeing difficulties and adversity in the L2 acquisition of first-generation refugee children

The role of socioemotional wellbeing difficulties and adversity in the L2 acquisition of first-generation refugee children

The interplay between syntactic and morphological comprehension in heritage contexts: The case of relative clauses in heritage Syrian Arabic

Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals

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