Ling 197a: Language Acquisition and Development Tuesday ...

Ling 197a: Language Acquisition and Development Tuesday, March 20
Bhatia & Ritchie: The bilingual child Sophia Malamud

Key assumptions
 UG
 Critical period

 evidence
 easy and effortless acquisition only till about puberty
 Lenneberg 1967 – there is a “window of opportunity” for language learning just from
hearing/seeing it.

 biological basis
 Lenneberg – loss of brain plasticity, lateralisation
 Krashen & colleagues – lateralisation complete by 5years of age
 Neville & colleagues – brain maturation
 English monolinguals, early bilinguals (w/Chinese), late bilinguals (after 11+ years)
 good sentences (controls), sentences violating English syntax, sentences violating UG
For example (NOT the sentences or structures used, just my examples):
John still loves the woman whom he had met at the movies
*John still loves the woman whom he had met whom at the movies
*John still loves the woman whose he had met sister at the movies
 ERP results: mono- and early bilinguals – more concentrated reactions to violations in
left anterior temporal region of the brain han in late bilinguals; similarities in
semantic/lexical processing in all three groups
 for certain constraints – differences in ERPs even between monolinguals/before-4-
exposure bilinguals on the one hand and after-4-early bilinguals on the other hand
 Johnson and Newport – behavioral evidence
 English bilinguals exposed at ages 0-7, 8-10, 11-15 (first language Chinese & Korean)
 12 different types of violations (English-specific)
• 4-7 – native-like performance, 8-10 – worse, particularly bad with determiners, 11-
15 – even worse, problems with many other sorts of structure violations
 universal violation (subjacency): *Who should the policemen who found _ get a reward?
• 4-7 – non-significant difference from native speakers, 8+ - significant difference,
continuous declide of performance with age

 Acquisition vs Learning
 different mechanisms of learning; different results
 Krashen 198x - subconscious vs conscious learning - “conscious” learners, in essence,
“faking it” - lacks empirical content (we should be able to tell a difference! If they are
faking knowledge so well that behaviour is the same, they've got the knowledge)
 Schwarz et alia 199x - negative evidence (in-class instruction to avoid some structures) is
generalized by 10-11-year-old 2nd-language learners differently than UG principles

Input conditions
 Natural: e.g., India – nothing special is done about input from either language.

Unnatural: e.g. USA – strategies for controlling input from one or both languages – may result
in a different input pattern than that provided by a more natural environment

a) one parent/one language (never really works 100%, but see Leopold 1939-1949)
b) one place/one languge

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c) language/time (one day one language, next day another etc.)
d) topic-related approach
 school-language (sometimes called “late bilingualism”)
 age & amount of exposure: simultaneous/early = about equal exposure from birth; sequential =
exposure to one language first, to the other sometime later (if that time is in adulthood = late
bilingualism)
 main problem – what's the cutoff age for “early” “from birth” “simultaneous” exposure? - this is
an empirical question
 different terminology: Child First Language Acquisition = simultaneous (full exposure to both
languages by 1-word stage); Child Second Language Acquisition = sequential (later)
 other factors – migration, schooling, social & political linguistic attitudes in the environment
 Romaine 1989: three important ones

(a) language(s) that parents use to child;
(b) parents' native language(s)
(c) extent to which the parent's language(s) reflect the language(s) of the community
 The above may be overestimating & overgeneralising the role of parents vs other familyor
daycare
 actual pattern more complex than that based on Romaine 1989 (e.g., Nair 1984)

Input & stages of development
 Bilingual competence: keep the two linguistic systems separate; mix them in rule-based ways

(code-switching)
 How do children separate the languages from mixed input?

 Hypothesis 1: if caretakers keep two systems apart, the task is easier
 stronger version: ONLY if they keep'em apart, the task is possible

 Problems:
 separation may lead to poor acquisition of pragmatics (which contexts are appropriate for
which utterances) in one or more languages (“Do all dads speak German?”)
 Language mixing is the rule – full separation is impossible
 Empirical studies – mixed input does not result in any deficiency

Garcia (1983) – Spanish-English preschoolers, mixed input from mother: very little code switching,
no difficulty keeping the systems separate
Nair (1984) – mosaic-like input, neither parent spoke Hindi natively: child separates Hindi &
English easily, systematically; Hindi always ahead of English

 Children acquiring two languages do not rely on superficial & overt factors, but rather on
their ability to perform tacit structural analyses & use those properties of the languages to
separate them – bilinguals exhibit more metalinguistic awareness than monolingual children
– evidence that children use formal features to distinuish the two systems in mixed input

 Language mixing/code-switching is not random & messy – it is systematic, with both
grammatical & pragmatic factors determining the way it happens

 Hypothesis adopted here: the question is not whether inpur is separate or mixed, but whether the
input can serve as sociolinguistically realistic.
 Empirical question: under what conditions is the input sociolinguistically realistic?
 The only exceptions where child cannot really separate the systems:
 pidgin/creole input
 parents are not balanced bilinguals (so one or more languages are not well-represented
in the input)

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 Progression & regression
 when input conditions change, one of the languages can “turn off” - if prolonged, resulting in
total language loss (at least at the performance level)
 Empirical question: what are the minimal input requirements for promoting/sustaining
competence?
 Input quantity & quality
 the more the merrier
 quality: on-line input - natural setting, readily available (as opposed to TV or radio)
 Positive & negative evidence; social attitudes
 Parents to child: don't mix languages! - while mixing them: contradictory & negatively
evaluated evidence may result in monolingualism
 Sociolinguistically realistic positive/negative evidence promotes rate & accuracy of
bilingual acquisition – i.e. Parental use of code-switching for normal purposes, such as
clarification/paraphrasing, atteention getting, disciplinary or emphatic

Stages in language development
 same major stages as monolingual – babbling, one-word, two-word, multiple-word
 same stages at the same ages
 not clear if mechanisms are the same in detail:

 phonological development
 “what is important is not single sounds, but the distinctions among sounds” (Jacobson 1967)
– remember Jusczyk
 ability to separate two languages is critical in arriving at appropriate contrasts for each!
 e.g. In Nair 1984, child used syllable length, phonotactics, place & manner of
articulation to sort out Hindi from English (evidence from onset of 1-word stage).
 At that point, English output was mostly 1-syllable CVC varied in segment type, Hindi
was mostly 2-syllable CVCV with preference for dental segments
 other examples: Paradis 1996 (German & English), Ingram 1981 (English & Italian)
 if more input from one language than the other – non-dominant language is delayed and
gains momentum only after the phonology for the dominant one is in place (Fantini
1985, Burling 1959)
 In one case (Burling 1959), consonants for English did not develop until 3;6 when the
family returned to the US (quality/quantity of input!) - before, Garo consonants used in
both languages

 vocabulary development – similar to monolinguals in each language (under- & over-extension)
 Nair 1984: different phonological rules for different languages
 no word-internal language mixing/blending – no “stage of temporary confusion”

 morpho-syntactic development
 order of syntactic acquisition same as in monolinguals
 with simultaneous input, same rate & stages of acquisition as monolinguals
 with less-natural or less-plentiful input from one of the languages, first the syntax of the
dominant language is acquired while the non-dominant one stagnates; when more input
presented, catches up quickly – initial interference from dominant language where structures
differ significantly, but quickly corrected
 Meisel 198x: compared French/German bilinguals with German monolinguals – bilinguals
acquired German word-order and case at earlier ages than monolinguals
 DeHouwer 1990: Dutch/German - two grammars develop in parallel.

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 Idedadze 1967: Russian/Georgian – concepts learned simultaneously in both languages
(e.g., instrumental case markers appeared first in Georgian, 3 days later in Russian). If one
pattern less complex than corresponding pattern in the other lang – less complex one
acquired first.

The two linguistic systems
 do they separate the two systems initially?

 Hypothesis 1: initially single system, later separated (Volterra & Taeschner 1978)
 Stage 1: single hybrid lexicon, no translational equivalents
 Stage 2: slow separation of lexicons, synonyms appear. Single set of syntactic rules applies
to both languages
 Stage 3: both syntax & vocabulary separated

Initial evidence for this: especially from Leopold 1978 – claims of single phonological system, no
translational equivalents, presence of interference/language mixing
Later challenged.

 Hypothesis 2: no initial stage of confusion, differentiate early
 Against stage 1:

– Absence of translational pairs does not mean the child lacks translational pairs – competence vs
performance. Pragmatic factors overlooked by earlier researchers: e.g., German-speaking adult
cannot expect children to respond in Italian or English!

– Re-examination of the data showed there were some translational pairs: six pairs out of 64 in one
child, 14 out of 73 in the other in one study, 18 out of 47 pairs in another study (difference in
proportion of pairs due to methodology) (although translational pairs from adult usage doesn't mean
children use them as translationally equivalent)

– mutual exclusivity might be interfering with initial acquisition of pairs, although it doesn't really
 Against stage 2:

– Stage boundaries seem to be unclear and in fact overlap in the speech of children in the studies!
– Some children used mixed vocabulary when they are developing syntax – stages I & II
– Some children used parallel (different) structures for negation in each language when using

adjective placement rule that is supposedly applied in both languages – stages II & III
– Interference may be used to argue for two systems or for one – is not evidence either way
– No support from phonology – two distinct phonological systems from the start enable children to

keep two languages separate
 Evidence for dual hypothesis:

– Ingram 1981: separate phonological systems
– Nair 1984: phonological separate systems, different rules for English & Hindi
– Idaizabal 1988, 1991, DeHouwer: bound morphologydeveloped in language-specific manner
– Deuchar 1992, Meisel 1989, DeHouwer 1990 inter alia: language-specific subject-verb agreement

used from 2-word stage
– articles, plurality, gender, tag questions & indirect object, tense-aspect, agreement all develop in

two separate paths
 Autonomous or interdependent systems?

 Paradis & Genesee 1996 – French/English bilinguals from 2 to 3 years
What would count as evidence of interdependence?
– if a grammatical element is transferred from one language into a construction of another language

only sometimes, that's code mixing
– if it's transferred systematically and always present, that's true transfer/interdependence

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– acceleration or delay in acquisition of one or the other of the two languages will then be presen
What did they find?
– Previous studies found that French & English monolingual learners differ:

– French children use finite verbs from age 2, English use no finite forms till age 3
– finiteness works differently in French & English syntax, interacting with negation
(1)
a. French:
ca tourne pas
that turns not
b. English:
that doesn't turn
– Initially, there is no movement in child syntax – nonfinite verbs both in French & English

monolinguals
– Verb raising is simple, verb lowering is complex; French has richer verb morphology than

English, so it's easier to notice – French finiteness acquired earler
– Negation in French children: negative pas sentence-initial with nonfinite verbs (2a), postverbal

with finite verbs (1a, also 2;1 same child as 2a)
– Negation in English children: first in sentence-initial position (2b), later after the subject (2c),

both with non-finite verbs
(2)
a. pas chercher les voitures (Phillippe 2;1)

not look-for the cars
b. No Leila have a turn (Nina 2;1)
c. me no go home (Peter 2;1)

– French has weak & strong pronouns; child French – weak pronouns only with finite verbs,
strong with both finite & nonfinite verbs. (Theoretical explanation – weak ones are not real
pronouns, but rather agreement markers). English pronouns are like French strong pronouns

– Bilinguals:
– French developed finiteness earlier than English;
– French did not speed up English finiteness by comparison to English monolinguals;
– French postvebal negation predominated (indicated finite verbs & verb raising), while at the
same time these structures were absent from English
– Pronominal subjects – similar proportion with finite & nonfinite verb in English, 100% with
finite verbs in French (for weak pronouns)

So: no interference and no transfer.
So: autonomous systems.

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