Trends in Bilingual Acquisition (Trends in Language Acquistion Research)

297 Pages·2001·1.46 MB·English

by  International Association for the Study of Child Language

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TrendsinBilingualAcquisition
Trends in Language Acquisition Research
OfficialpublicationoftheInternationalAssociation
fortheStudyofChildLanguage(IASCL).
IASCLwebsite:http://atila-www.uia.ac.be/IASCL
SeriesEditors
AnnickDeHouwer
[email protected]
UniversityofAntwerp/UIA
StevenGillis
[email protected]
UniversityofAntwerp/UIA
Volume1
TrendsinBilingualAcquisition
EditedbyJasoneCenozandFredGenesee
Trends in Bilingual Acquisition
Edited by
Jasone Cenoz
UniversityoftheBasqueCountry
Fred Genesee
McGillUniversity
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
TM ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
8
NationalStandardforInformationSciences–PermanenceofPaperforPrinted
LibraryMaterials,ansiz39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
TrendsinBilingualAcquisition /editedbyJasoneCenoz,FredGenesee.
p. cm.(TrendsinLanguageAcquisitionResearch,issn1569–0644;v.1)
Rev.papersoftheVIIIthInternationalCongressfortheStudyofChildLanguageheld
July1999inSanSebastián,Spain.
“IASCL;InternationalAssociationfortheStudyofChildLanguage”--Cover.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.(cid:1)Language acquisition--Congresses. 2.(cid:1)Bilingualism in children--Congresses.
I.(cid:1)Cenoz, Jasone. II.(cid:1)Genesee, Fred. III.(cid:1)International Association for the Study of
ChildLanguage.IV.(cid:1)InternationalCongressfortheStudyofCildLanguage(8th:1999
:SanSebastián,Spain)V.(cid:1)Series.
P118.T734 2001
401.93--dc21 2001037884
isbn902723471(cid:1)X(Eur.)/158811099(cid:1)0(US)(Hb;alk.paper)
©2001–JohnBenjaminsB.V.
Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyform,byprint,photoprint,microfilm,orany
othermeans,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCo.·P.O.Box36224·1020meAmsterdam·TheNetherlands
JohnBenjaminsNorthAmerica·P.O.Box27519·Philadelphiapa19118-0519·usa
Contents
Preface vii
Firstwords 1
FredGeneseeandJasoneCenoz
1. Thesimultaneousacquisitionoftwofirstlanguages:
Earlydifferentiationandsubsequentdevelopmentofgrammars 11
JürgenM.Meisel
2. Theemergenceofverbalmorphologyandthelead-lagpattern
issueinbilingualacquisition 43
LudovicaSerratrice
3. Earlylanguagedifferentiationinbilingualinfants 71
LauraBoschandNúriaSebastián-Gallés
4. Languagedifferentiationinbilingualinfants:
Evidencefrombabbling 95
DianePoulin-DuboisandNaomiGoodz
5. Pasttenseverbforms,discoursecontextandinputfeatures
inbilingualandmonolingualacquisitionofBasqueandSpanish 107
MargaretaAlmgrenandItziarIdiazabal
6. Findingfirstwordsintheinput:Evidencefromabilingualchild 131
ElenaNicoladis
7. Managinglinguisticboundariesinearlytrilingualdevelopment 149
SuzanneQuay
8. Bilingualfirstlanguageacquisition:Adiscourseperspective
onlanguagecontactinparent–childinteraction 201
ElizabethLanza
9. Bilingualchildren’srepairstrategiesduringdyadiccommunication 231
LianeComeauandFredGenesee
vi Contents
Lastwords 257
BrianMacWhinney
References 265
Index 285
Preface
We are very proud to present the first volume in the new series ‘Trends in
LanguageAcquisitionResearch’.AsanofficialpublicationoftheInternational
AssociationfortheStudyofChildLanguage(IASCL),theTiLARSeriesaimsto
publish two volumes per three year period in between IASCL congresses. All
volumes in the IASCL-TiLAR Series will be invited (but externally reviewed)
edited volumes by IASCL members that are strongly thematic in nature and
thatpresentcuttingedgeworkwhichislikelytostimulatefurtherresearchto
thefullestextent.
Besides quality, diversity is also an important consideration in all the
volumes: diversity oftheoretical and methodological approaches, diversity in
thelanguagesstudied,diversityinthegeographicalandacademicbackgrounds
ofthecontributors.Afterall,liketheIASCLitself,theIASCL-TiLARSeriesis
thereforchildlanguageresearchersfromallovertheworld.
Although it is IASCL policy to try and link one of the two tri-annual
volumesintheSeriestothemaintopicoftheprecedingIASCLcongress,the
IASCL-TiLAR series is emphatically not intended as congress or symposia
proceedings.Thisimpliesthatinthevolumesrelatedtocongressthemesthere
can be contributions by IASCL members that were not presented at the
congress.
WeareverypleasedtopresentthefirstvolumeoftheTiLARseries,which
is devoted to Bilingual Acquisition, the central theme of the 1999 IASCL
Congress in San Sebastian. The volume editors, Jasone Cenoz and Fred
Genesee, bring together nine contributions on various aspects of bilingual
acquisition, representing three main traditions in the field. Thus rather than
trying to present one unified theoretical perspective, this volume intends to
bring its readership up-to-date on the most recent developments in
bilingualismresearch.Thevolumeconcludeswithadiscussionchapterwritten
byBrianMacWhinney,inwhichacriticalappraisalofthevolumeasawhole
is given, and the relevance of the individual chapters for present and future
researchareassessed.
Finally we would like tothank Brian MacWhinney, the present president
of the IASCL, for his enthusiastic support in setting up the IASCL-TiLAR
viii Preface
Series, to Seline Benjamins and Kees Vaes of John Benjamins Publishing
Companyfortheirprofessionalandcreativeinputthroughoutthepreparation
of this volume as well as the series as a whole, and, of course, to the external
reviewerswhoseconstructivecriticismsandjudgementscontributedmuchto
thequalityofthisbook.
‘Trends in Language Acquisition Research’ is made for and by IASCL
members. We hope it can become a source of information and inspiration
whichthecommunityofchildlanguageresearcherscancontinuallyturntoin
theirprofessionalendeavours.
Antwerp,March2001
TheGeneralEditors
First words
Fred Genesee and Jasone Cenoz
The theme of this volume was inspired by the theme of the VIIIth Interna-
tional Congress for the Study of Child Language which was held in San
Sebastián,Spain,inJuly1999.Thechaptersinthisvolumearebasedonpapers
thatwerepresentedatthatmeeting.Thesechaptersprovideasnapshotofthe
current state of research on bilingual acquisition and reflect the diversity of
issues, methodologies, and language combinations that can be found in
contemporaryworkinthefield.Researchonthesimultaneousacquisitionof
twolanguagesduringinfancyandtheearlychildhoodyearshashadaremark-
ably long history, beginning with the pioneering work of Ronjat in 1913 and
followed by Leopold’s monumental classic study of his two bilingual daugh-
ters,publishedbetween1939and1949.DespitetheearlyworkofRonjatand
Leopold, further research remained sparse until the 1980s. During the inter-
vening years, beginning in the 1950s, researchers focused largely on issues
pertainingtobilingualismingeneral.Theresearchconductedduringthisera
mademanyvaluablecontributionstoourunderstandingofthesocialpattern-
ingofbilingualism(includinglanguagespreadandloss),thesocialpsychologi-
calandcognitiveprecursorstoandconsequencesofbilingualism,andalterna-
tive conceptualizations of the diverse types of bilingualism. We are referring
heretotheclassicworksofJoshuaFishman,WallaceLambert,JohnMacnam-
ara, William Mackey, and Uriel Weinreich. The work of these scholars, and
otherswhomwehavenotbeenabletomentionbecauseofspacelimitations,
were relevant to bilingual acquisition, the topic of this volume, but in a
relativelygeneralandinferentialwayratherthandirectly.
Beginning in the late 1980s, there was an upsurge in theoretical and
empirical attention devoted directly to bilingual acquisition. This surge in
interestcanbeattributedtoseveralfactors.First,thereistherecognitionthat
simultaneousacquisitionoftwoormorelanguagesisnotuncommon.While
we lack definitive statistics, it has been speculated that there are as many or
even more children who grow up bilingual as monolingual (Tucker 1998).