This is a year long in-depth, longitudinal case study of Noa, a six-year-old female in a bilingual first grade class which documents and analyzes her literacy development in a multilingual setting. Data collection for the study includes: written artifacts, anecdotal records, informal interviews with Noa, formal interviews with Noa's teachers, and videotapes. The research questions and their answers are summarized as: (1) What types of written genres does Noa develop? Noa developed 25 different written genres. The genres were categorized according to the distinction between language as an end in itself and language as a means toward an end, based on Halliday's ideas of learning about language and learning through language. (2) How does Noa use Hebrew, English and Spanish in her writing development? English was Noa's predominant written language. Only 10% of Noa's writings were written in languages other than English. (3) How does Noa use technology in her literacy development? Noa used the computer for two main reasons: as a stylistic device and as an ownership device. (4) What kind of questions does Noa ask about language learning? Noa wondered aloud about language intensively during the duration of the study. (5) What types of tensions influence Noa's writings? Three types of tensions were documented: Language learning: between invention and convention. The genres categorized as language as an end in itself did not show any development throughout the year. In the genres categorized as language as a means toward an end, the tension between inventions and conventions were obvious and gave a clear sense of Noa's literacy development. Settings: between home and school. The settings in which Noa wrote impacted her writings. All of the genres related to language as an end in itself were explored in the school setting only. Important relations between Noa's writing experiences at home and in the school were discussed. Editing: between teacher centered and student centered. Noa's editing provides insight about teacher centered and student centered editing. Noa's assimilation and accommodation of the teacher's editing behaviors and the student centered editing were discussed.

Many adults who have dual language experience describe themselves as "passive bilinguals," able to understand two languages, but speak only one. The aim of this study was to examine the relation between language production and comprehension in bilingual children in order to determine whether bilingual comprehension is more readily achieved than production. ... Productive and receptive skills in both languages were assessed using standardized tests. Children's relative amount of exposure to each language, as well as their language choice during production was measured via interview with the primary caregiver.... Language exposure as measured via dominance in one language over another appears to affect productive language differently than receptive language, further evidencing that language exposure is a significant predictor of acquisition that predicts production and comprehension differently. Additionally, when input is held constant, child language choice is uniquely related to productive and receptive language skill. The results of this study not only describe patterns of productive and receptive language skills and their correlates in young bilinguals, but they also address competing theories regarding the roles of input and output in the development of language comprehension and production. / by Krystal M. Ribot. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

This study investigated the effects of family composition and properties of children's dual language exposure on bilingual first language acquisition. Mothers of 29 toddlers (13 boys and 16 girls, M age = 25.66 months, SD = .44) kept a language diary, providing measures of the amount, the contexts, and the persons with whom the children experienced English and Spanish. Measures of the children's vocabulary balance were obtained from English and Spanish language inventories. Results showed that only children with two native Spanish-speaking parents had larger Spanish than English vocabularies and experienced more hours of Spanish-only exposure and Spanish-only conversational contexts. Analysis of covariance demonstrated that the effect of family composition on vocabulary balance was completely mediated by the balance of English and Spanish in the children's language exposure. There was no evidence of a unique effect of experiencing Spanish-only conversational contexts or partners on children's acquisition of Spanish. / by Silvia Place. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Previous studies have found that bilingual children’s vocabulary development benefits more from child-directed speech from native speakers than child-directed speech from nonnative speakers. The current study compared the native English child-directed speech of 20 English monolingual mothers, the nonnative English child-directed speech of 20 Spanish-English bilingual mothers, and the native Spanish child-directed speech of the same bilingual mothers in terms of three aspects of input previously associated with children’s language development: data-providing properties, topic contingency, and speech function. There were significant differences between native English and nonnative English child-directed speech, and between nonnative English and native Spanish. The results suggest two sources of influence shaping child-directed speech: quality differences related to native speaker status and cultural factors primed by the language being spoken. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thugadh sùil mhionaideach air cleachdadh susbaint le ochdnar cloinne da-chànanaich (aois 3 agus 4) bho dhiofar theaghlaichean stèidhichte ann am Barraigh agus Glaschu. Chaidh sgrùdadh a dhèanamh air dòigh a rinn pàrantan roghainnean a thaobh cànan na susbaint (eadar a' Bheurla agus a' Ghàidhlig) nuair a bha iad a' taghadh susbaint dhan chuid cloinne. Rannsaicheadh mar a bha poileasaidh cànain nan teaghlaichean agus cleachdaidhean susbaint ag obrachadh còmhla. Chaidh leabhraichean-latha susbaint a lìonadh air cleachdaidhean susbaint na cloinne agus chaidh agallamhan a chumail le pàrantan. Tha an rannsachadh a' sealltainn nach do chleachd a' chlann uile susbaint Ghàidhlig uile gu lèir mar a dh'fhaodadh iad agus gun robh diofaran ann eatorra. Chaidh fada a bharrachd susbaint Bheurla na susbaint Ghàidhlig a chleachdadh am measg na cloinne air fad. Chuir cuid de theaghlaichean luach air susbaint mar ghoireas poileasaidh cànain agus iad ga cleachdadh airson cothroman cànain-a-steach sa Ghàidhlig adhbhrachadh agus bha cuid ann nach do chleachd susbaint Ghàidhlig sam bith. Thug iomadh factar buaidh air roghainnean susbaint agus tha na factaran sin air an sgrùdadh. Tha na diofaran a nochd ann an cleachdadh susbaint air an cnuasachadh ann an co-theacsa poileasaidh chànain theaghlaich. Cha robh poileasaidh cànain làidir a thaobh cleachdadh na Gàidhlig a-staigh daonnan a' ciallachadh gun robh susbaint Ghàidhlig air a cleachdadh. Thugadh molaidhean seachad do luchdpoileasaidh cànain agus luchd-poileasaidh nam meadhanan Gàidhlig air leasachaidhean a dh'fhaoidte dèanamh gus cleachdadh susbaint Ghàidhlig a neartachadh.

This study investigates the acquisition of English lexical stress by Cantonese-English bilingual children and compares the bilinguals with English monolingual children of the same age. The aim of this study is to find out how Cantonese-English bilingual children develop English lexical stress under the possible interaction of the two phonological systems. Two age groups were included: 2;06 and 3;0. Two acoustic correlates for lexical stress were measured: syllable duration and peak F0. Words in two language contexts were examined: disyllabic words in English speech and code-switched English words in Cantonese speech. / Data of eight bilingual children and seven monolingual children were used. All the bilingual data came from CHILDES database and monolingual data came from multiple sources. Disyllabic words were extracted from English utterances, and the stressed/unstressed syllable duration and peak F0 ratios were calculated to see how contrastive the stress patterns were. Results indicated that the monolingual children displayed a more contrastive stress pattern in both acoustic correlates, although syllable duration is found to be more reliable than peak F0 in stress distinction. Stress pattern in code-switched words were also analyzed. It was found that bilingual children displayed a stronger pitch difference in code-switched words, more contrastive than the patterns in their English speech. The results suggest that between 2;06 and 3;0, Cantonese-English bilingual children used less duration and pitch contrast for lexical stress than English monolingual children did, and they were slower in developing native-like lexical stress pattern during this period. On the other hand, Cantonese-English bilingual children used acoustic properties for lexical stress differently in the two language contexts, indicating that they possessed some kind of metalinguistic awareness at such an early age. / 本研究探索粵語和英語雙語兒童對英語詞重音的早期習得情況，並將雙語兒童與英語單語兒童進行對比討論。研究目的旨在探討雙語語音系統之間是否存在相互影響，以及此影響如何改變雙語兒童的語言韻律發展。研究對象包括處於2 歲6個月及3 歲這兩個年齡階段的粵英雙語及英語單語兒童。文章選取兒童自然對話中,位於句中位置的雙音節詞，對其音節時長和音高峰值進行測量。此外，本研究發現雙語兒童存在代碼轉換的現象，即在粵語表達中插入英語辭彙，因此本文同時也對被插入的英語辭彙的詞重音進行探究，以期對詞重音的雙語習得獲得更詳盡的瞭解。 / 本研究所用數據來自八名粵英雙語兒童和七名英語單語兒童。雙語兒童數據取自“兒童語言資料交換系統”（CHILDES）中的“香港雙語兒童語料庫”，單語兒童數據則來自多方資料。研究將所提取的雙音節詞的重音音節與非重音音節的時長及音高峰值分別測量之後，計算出重音音節與非重音音節的比值。比值越大表明兒童在產出中越能明顯區別重音音節與非重音音節，即對英語詞重音的掌握越好。 / 研究結果發現單語兒童的表現領先于雙語兒童，體現在單語兒童可以將重音與非重音音節的時長與音高明顯區分，而雙語兒童產出的雙音節詞中，重音音節和非重音音節在時長和音高方面的區別都不明顯。然而對於被插入粵語句子中的英語雙音節詞，雙語兒童卻能很好地區分開重音音節和非重音音節的音高 。 / 研究結果表明，在2 歲6 個月至3 歲之間的這段時間，粵語和英語雙語兒童對英語詞重音的習得逊於英語單語兒童。但另一方面，粵語和英語雙語兒童表現出對語言環境的敏感，可以根據語言環境和交流對象的不同改變對語音特徵的運用，展現出一定程度的元（後設）語言覺識。 / Li, Jingwen. / Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-65). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 11, October, 2016). / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

Abstract not available

This is the first Japanese-English Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) longitudinal study carried out within the framework of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998a). The informant of this study is Hannah, who was raised in Australia in a one-parent one-language environment from birth. Hannah’s speech production in each language was collected in a language-specific setting with different interlocutors (i.e., Japanese with the Japanese-speaking mother and English with the English-speaking father), from the time she was 1; 11 (one year and eleven months) until she was 4;10. This study investigates Hannah’s lexical development, the acquisition of morphology and syntax in the two languages. Unlike previous studies in bilingual children’s lexicon (Deuchar and Quay, 2000), this study focuses on the composition of the lexicon in each language to test for language-specific developmental patterns (Gentner and Boroditsky, 2001).The study also compares the development of these two languages in terms of MLU, lexical, morphological and syntactic development. Furthermore, the study examines the relationships between lexical and grammatical development within each of the two languages and tests the Critical Mass Hypothesis (Marchman and Bates, 1994) in a bilingual context. One of the central issues in the field of BFLA, identified by scholars such as DeHouwer (2005) and Meisel (1990a), is to characterise the relationship between the two developing languages of one child. Does a bilingual child initially develop the two languages as one linguistic system that later separates into two as expounded by Volterra and Taeschner (1978), or does a bilingual child develop the two languages separately from the beginning, as represented by De Houwer’s (1990) Separate Development Hypothesis (SDH)? Previous BFLA studies addressing this issue (e.g., De Houwer, 1990; Meisel, 1990a; Mishina, 1997; Paradis and Genesee, 1996) did not have a common point of reference to compare the development of two different languages directly. In the present study, PT provides a common point of reference for a direct comparison of the development of two typologically distant languages. Results indicate that both Japanese and English of the child developed in the sequence predicted by PT. They also support the SDH for lexical development, the acquisition of morphology and word order. The study confirms the Critical Mass Hypothesis in bilingual context. The results from the present study suggest that, for one bilingual child, Japanese and English each developed in parallel but in a separate manner. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Univ., Diss.--Hamburg, 2004.

Bilingual speakers have shown better performance than their monolingual peers on tasks that examine a range of cognitive abilities (e.g. attention, phonological awareness); however, other studies report no group differences. Two reasons may explain the inconsistencies across studies: 1) many studies did not examine and control, when needed, group differences in cognitive abilities that could influence performance on the ability in question; 2) variability in the language proficiency and linguistic similarity between first (L1) and second (L2) language. The current project examined language-related cognitive abilities (i.e. phonological awareness) and general cognitive abilities (i.e. attention and inhibition) in two studies of 8-10 year-old children in Hong Kong. Study 1 investigated whether these abilities, as well as reading, were affected by bilingualism and L1-L2 linguistic distance. There were three groups: English monolingual, Cantonese- English bilingual, and European language-English bilingual. All children had similar educational backgrounds, as they attended English speaking International schools. Particular effort was made to control for group differences in cognitive abilities that could act as confounding variables, which included: intelligence, English proficiency, working memory, and short-term memory. There were no group differences on the tasks of attention and inhibition. However, there were for phonological awareness and reading. L1-L2 linguistic distance provided an advantage over the monolinguals on phonological awareness as only the European bilinguals group performed better than the monolinguals. Whereas, bilingual children of linguistically distant L1- L2 (Cantonese-English) demonstrated difficulty with phonological awareness and reading tasks using nonwords but not real words compared with the other groups. The results suggest that children who speak two linguistically distant languages may have difficulty transferring L2 skills from familiar words to novel words, which is a skill needed in literacy development. Study 2 explored the influence of L2 proficiency on the two sets of abilities. The data from the English monolingual and Cantonese bilingual group in Study 1 was analyzed with data from a new group of children, those who spoke Cantonese (L1) and were learning English as a L2 (ESL). Once again, particular effort was made to statistically control for cognitive abilities that could act as confounding factors. The results of the general cognitive abilities show no group differences. The results of the phonological awareness task show that the ESL group performed worse than the English monolingual and Cantonese bilingual group. This was explained by their low L2 proficiency, as well as difference in the instructional method of English reading. The results of this project advance our understanding of bilingualism. Bilingual advantages are not observed in all children learning a L2 but are influenced by factors embedded in bilingualism (i.e. L2 proficiency, L1-L2 linguistic distance). This highlights that the effects of bilingualism need to be qualified. Additionally, bilingualism does not produce wide-spread advantages; rather, the influence of speaking two languages can affect one cognitive domain, such as language-related abilities, but not the general cognitive abilities within the same groups of children. The results are discussed in relation to the larger body of work and direction of future work is suggested. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy