Subject realization and crosslinguistic interference in the bilingual acquisition of Spanish and English: what is the role of the input?

Abstract

This study investigated whether crosslinguistic interference occurs in the domain of subject realization in Spanish in a bilingual acquisition context. We were also interested in exploring whether the source of the interference is due to child-internal crosslanguage contact between English and Spanish, as is commonly assumed, or due to the nature of the language input in a bilingual family, a factor which has not typically been considered in studies of crosslinguistic influence. The use of subjects in a null subject language like Spanish is a phenomenon linked to the pragmatics/syntax interface of the grammar, and thus, is a domain where crosslinguistic interference is predicted to be likely to occur in bilingual acquisition (Müller & Hulk, 2001). Using spontaneous language data available from CHILDES (www.childes.psy.cmu.edu), we examined the use of overt subjects in Spanish by two Spanish monolingual children (ages: 1;8–2;7 and 1;8–1;11) one Spanish–English bilingual child (age 1;9–2;6) and their parental interlocutors. We looked at the proportions of overt versus null subjects as well as the discourse-pragmatic contexts of overt subject use by the children in order to uncover bilingual/monolingual differences in the distributional properties and the functional determinants of subject realization. We also looked at identical variables in the speech of the children's parental interlocutors to investigate the potential influence of the input on the children's output. Our results suggest that the bilingual child showed patterns in her subject realizations in Spanish that could be interpreted as due to crosslinguistic effects from English; however, there is also evidence that these effects may have a source in the input, rather than resulting from internal crosslanguage contact. While our data do not permit us to distinguish conclusively between these two possible sources, they indicate that future research on crosslinguistic influence in bilingual acquisition should take input into account.

Domain-General Versus Domain-Specific Accounts of Specific Language Impairment: Evidence From Bilingual Children's Acquisition of Object Pronouns

“…In addition to facilitation effects in bilingual acquisition, researchers have examined cross-linguistic influence between the languages of simultaneous bilingual children at the discourse-pragmatics syntax interface with respect to argument omission and pronominalization (Hulk (2000), Müller and Hulk (2001), Paradis and Navarro (2003), Serratrice, Sorace, and Paoli (2004)). Such cross-linguistic effects may be at the root of the skew in error types shown in Table 3 in which the bilingual children used more strong pronouns in direct object position than the monolinguals.…”

Selectivity in L1 Attrition: Differential Object Marking in Spanish Near-Native Speakers of English

“…Much previous research on second language (L2) acquisition has focused on the influence of the L1 on the L2 (Argyri & Sorace 2007;Belletti et al 2007;Hertel 2003;Hopp 2009;Lozano 2006Lozano , 2009Montrul 2004a;Paradis & Navarro 2003;Rothman 2009;Serratrice et al 2011;Serratrice et al 2004;), but to a much lesser extent on the influence that the L2 might have in the native language (L1) of nonnative speakers. This phenomenon is known as 'L1 attrition', and it refers to the changes in a speaker's L1 as the result of the acquisition of an L2.…”

“…bilingual children, near-native speakers and L1 attriters). Previous research addressed aspects such as the effects of The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10936-015-9372-4 4 semantic or discourse factors in the acquisition of word order (Belletti et al 2007;Hertel 2003;Hopp 2009;Lozano 2006;Montrul 2004a;Wilson 2009), or the influence of pragmatics in the acquisition of null versus overt pronominal subjects and objects (Argyri and Sorace 2007;Belletti et al 2007;Lozano 2009;Montrul 2004b;Paradis and Navarro 2003;Rothman 2009;Serratrice et al 2011;Serratrice et al 2004;Tsimpli et al 2004). Structures that are sensitive to pragmatic or contextual conditions have been an especially privileged ground for research.…”

How suitable is the macro-micro parametric distinction in acquisition?

“…Comprehension data discussed in Orfitelli & Hyams (2012) shows that children assign a different interpretation to null subjects than adults during the null subject stage. It has been found that bilingual English-Spanish children overuse overt subjects in Spanish (Paradis & Navarro 2003). Overall, these results seriously question the view that macroparameters, even those as fundamental as V2 and the NSP, are acquired fast and without problems.…”