The status of the “weaker” language in unbalanced French/German bilingual language acquisition

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the status of the so-called "weaker" language, French, in French/German bilingual first language acquisition, using data from two children from the DuFDE-corpus (see Schlyter, 1990a), Christophe and François. Schlyter (1993, 1994) proposes that the "weaker" language in the unbalanced children she studied has the status equivalent to that of a second language (L2). I will verify this assumption on the basis of certain grammatical phenomena, such as the use of subject clitics, null subjects and negation, with respect to which L1 and L2 learners show different developmental patterns. The results indicate that the "weaker" language of the children analyzed in this study cannot be interpreted as an L2. Both children behave predominantly like monolingual and balanced bilingual L1 learners in both languages.

Unbalanced bilingual acquisition as a mechanism of grammatical change

“…But the validity of this conclusion depends on whether there is cross-linguistic influence between the child's developing grammars. Bonnesen's (2007) data on negation are mostly (with exceptions such as his example (21f)) consistent with his view that the weaker language in unbalanced BFLA is more like a first language, but they are also consistent with the possibility of interaction between the two systems in the form of positive transfer which, because the languages are so similar, is undetectable. When we turn to typologically divergent language pairs such as Japanese-English and Cantonese-English, interactions are unmistakable.…”

“…The debate over the status of unbalanced BFLA is, in any case, tangential to M's research question. Bonnesen (2007), for example, is concerned with the ways in which unbalanced BFLA is like first and second language acquisition respectively. His study does not address the question of cross-linguistic influence, which is crucial to the question of bilingual acquisition as a mechanism of contact-induced change.…”

Aspect acquisition in Russian as the weaker language: Evidence from a Turkish–Russian child

“…First of all, the inconsistency in the acquisition of RA between S. and the other bilinguals may indirectly suggest the existence of a certain minimum threshold of the input within the critical period which is essential for monolingual-like acquisition. The question of how much minimum input in a language is required for a child to acquire this language has been raised by some scholars (Bonnesen, 2006;Montrul, 2008;Goldin-Meadow, 2006;Horowitz, 1987); however, though all of them refer to indirect evidence in favour of the threshold existence, none of them has been able to define the threshold quantitatively, mostly because the threshold cannot be considered as an absolute average quantity of the input since it is likely to depend on the constellation of different internal and external factors and would vary among individuals (Dopke, 1992). Based on this argument, our results allow us to speculate that in S.'s case, the quantity of the input is reduced but still it seems to reach and satisfy his threshold, which has allowed the child to acquire the category of RA in the monolingual-like manner.…”

“…Most of the studies investigating such asymmetrical development in bilingual first language acquisition focus on the interaction between the stronger and the weaker language (WL) in the bilingual's repertoire, particularly, on the cross-linguistic influence and codeswitching between them (Dopke, 2000b;Hulk & Mueller;Mueller;1998;Yip & Matthews, 2007 to name a few). There have been rather fewer studies that explore acquisition of the WL by bilingual children (Bonnesen, 2006;Dopke, 2000a;La Morgia, 2011;Shlyter, 1993;Schlyter & Hakansson, 1994). These studies focus on the analysis of norm-deviant forms found in the production of their bilingual participants when they speak their WL, and show that acquisition of the WL is marked with more numerous and persistent use of deviant forms than that of their monolingual and balanced bilingual counterparts.…”

An Outline of Processability Theory and Its Relationship to Other Approaches to SLA

“…However, this does not at all imply that only two or three research groups have shown an interest in developing L2 systems since the mid 1990s. A quick look at the articles published in the last 10 years in the journals Second Language Research and Bilingualism: Language and Cognition reveals quite the opposite, namely a strong and continuous interest in L2 developmental regularities, their empirical basis, and the developmental problem, for instance, Bonnensen (), Donaldson (), García Mayo and Olaizola (), Jaensch (), Schulz (), and van de Craats and van Hout ().…”