Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study reported in this thesis investigates the grammatical and socio-pragmatic characteristics of the conversational code switching (CS) of three Afrikaans-English bilingual children. The study was conducted by analysing spontaneous conversational CS, elicited during multiple play sessions. Three eight year old Afrikaans-English bilingual boys from Paarl in the Western Cape, with varying language backgrounds, participated in the study. Unstructured play sessions were audio and video recorded and transcribed. All three participants took part in one triadic conversational play session and in two dyadic play sessions. The thesis differentiates between the phenomenon of CS and related sociolinguistic phenomena such as borrowing and interference in order to facilitate a clearer classification of the different types of CS. The identification of the matrix language under the asymmetry principle is done by means of a quantitative analysis, while the grammatical characteristics of the children’s CS are qualitatively evaluated under Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame and 4-M models. The socio-pragmatic characteristics of the children’s use of intersentential CS are qualitatively evaluated by means of Conversation Analysis, in which the emphasis falls on turn taking and adjacency pair sequences as well as the negotiation of power relations. The study also aims to contribute towards a better understanding of children’s CS, not only in terms of insights into how CS manifests on the surface level of language production, but also in terms of why CS occurs on a deeper language processing and competence level. The general reasons for which the different types of CS occur, and the examination of which grammatical and/or socio-pragmatic difficulties may drive children to use specific types of CS are investigated, while also considering whether the context and the hidden meaning of an utterance have an influence on how and why CS takes place, and where each type of CS occurs. The study reveals that, in terms of characterising the types of CS that occur in the data, all four conversations provided proof of extrasentential, intrasentential and intersentential CS. A preference was observed for intrasentential single code switched forms and for intersentential CS, which occurs due to the negotiation of context, topic and theme. Such negotiation primarily occurs due to combinations and sequences of talk, self-talk, interaction, conversation, narration and role play. Although all types of CS occurred within the data in both Afrikaans and English forms, Afrikaans was identified as the matrix language of the corpus and the majority of the conversations. The asymmetrical occurrence of different morpheme types provides evidence for the two-system hypothesis, namely that Afrikaans and English occur as two different systems within the children’s brains and that language processing occurs by means of the allocation of different morphemes from both languages at the lexical and formulator level to produce language. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie wat in hierdie tesis gerapporteer word analiseer die grammatikale en sosiopragmatiese eienskappe van gespreks-kodewisseling by drie Afrikaans-Engelse tweetalige kinders. Die studie is uitgevoer deur spontane gespreks-kodewisseling, wat tydens veelvuldige speelsessies voortgebring is, te evalueer. Drie agt-jarige Afrikaans-Engelse seuns wat van die Paarl, in die Wes-Kaap, afkomstig is en verskillende taalagtergronde het, het aan die studie deelgeneem. Klank- en video-opnames is van die ongestruktureerde speelsessies gemaak en getranskribeer. Al drie seuns het aan een drietallige speelsessie asook twee tweetallige speelsessies deelgeneem. Die tesis onderskei tussen die fenomeen van kodewisseling en ander verwante sosiolingu stiese fenomene soos leenwoorde en taalkundige inmenging om klaarheid gedurende die klassifisering van die verskillende tipes kodewisseling te verskaf. Die identifisering van die matrikstaal van die korpus is deur middel van ’n kwantitatiewe analise volgens die asimmetriese beginsel geïdentifiseer. Die grammatikale eienskappe van die kinders se kodewisseling word kwalitatief deur middel van Myers-Scotton se Matrikstaal Raam en 4-M modelle ge valueer. Die sosio-pragmatiese eienskappe van die kinders se gebruik van intersententiële kodewisseling word kwalitatief ge valueer deur middel van gespreksanalise, waar die afwisseling van gespreksbeurte, die opeenvolging van aangrensende pare asook die onderhandeling van magsverhoudings tussen deelnemers beklemtoon word. Die studie beoog enersyds om by te dra tot 'n beter begrip van kinders se oppervlakkige taalproduksie in terme van kodewisseling en andersyds om beter insig te verkry in hoe kodewisseling op ’n dieper taalprosesserings- en taalkompetensie vlak plaasvind. Die algemene rede(s) vir die voorkoms van verskillende tipes kodewisseling, asook die ondersoek na watter grammatikale of sosio-pragmatiese moeilikhede verantwoordelik mag wees vir die tipes kodewisseling wat voorkom by kinders, word beklemtoon. Daar word ook in ag geneem of die konteks en weggesteekte betekenis van ’n uiting ’n invloed het op hoe en waarom asook waar kodewisseling sal plaasvind. Die studie toon dat, in terme van die karakterisering van verskillende tipes kodewisseling wat in die data voorkom, alle gesprekssessies bewyse van ekstrasentensiële, intrasentensiële en intersentensiële kodewisseling bevat. ’n Voorkeur vir intrasentensiële enkelwoordkodewisselingsvorms is opgemerk, asook ’n voorkeur vir intersentensiële kodewisseling wat plaasvind as gevolg van die onderhandeling tussen konteks, tema en onderwerp. Sulke onderhandeling is primêr gegrond op kombinasies en opeenvolging wat voorkom deur middel van praat, self-gerigte praat, interaksie, gespreksvoering, vertelling en rolspel. Alhoewel alle tipes kodewisseling in die data voorkom in beide Afrikaanse en Engelse vorms, is Afrikaans as die matrikstaal vir die korpus asook die meerderheid van die gesprekssessies ge dentifiseer. Die oneweredige voorkoms van verskillende morfeemtipes dien as ondersteuning vir die twee-sisteem hipotese wat aanvoer dat Afrikaans en Engels as twee aparte sisteme in ’n kind se brein voorkom en dat taalprosessering geskied deur middel van die toekenning van verskillende morfeme van beide tale op die leksikale en formuleringsvlakke van taalproduksie.

M.A. / The literature is unclear whether bilingualism has cognitive advantages, disadvantages or neutral cognitive effects on the child. In order to investigate this discrepancy in the research data, this study aimed at comparing the nonverbal cognitive abilities of a fairly large sample monolingual versus bilingual girls, while comparing for certain variables, not addressed in the literature. The research question is thus formulated as follows: Are there differences in the nonverbal cognitive abilities of monolingual versus bilingual girls, when measured with four non-verbal cognitive test batteries? According to the literature, first language development can be divided into pre-linguistic and linguistic speech, while second language development is either acquired simultaneously or sequentially. Many theories attempt to explain how first and second languages are acquired and used. These theories on the developmental process of first and second languages can be divided into learning, nativist and cognitive theories. Learning theories focus on the effect the environment has on language acquisition, while nativist theories accentuate the influence of genetic factors. Cognitive theories focus on the child's cognitive development as a prerequisite for language acquisition and functioning. Bilingualism is defined differentially in the literature, which presents one of the major reasons for divergent results. In this study a person was defined as bilingual when he or she was capable of one language function, such as reading, writing, listening or speaking at any level of proficiency. Various factors may, however, influence a person's bilingual status. In this regard, age and method of acquisition is important, as well as patterns of sage of the second language, socio-emotional factors and the linguistic relationship between the two languages.

Research suggests numerous views to account for the influence on practice of teachers’ beliefs. One view states that teachers’ lived experiences shape their beliefs about practice. Another view attributes the influence to school experiences. This research sets out to gain insight into teachers’ beliefs on the role of extensive reading in second language learning. A case study of 9 teachers from 3 schools in Grahamstown, South Africa selected purposefully and conveniently was utilised. The teachers were viewed to be knowledgeable on this matter by virtue of their profession while the 3 schools were selected to represent a private school, a former Model C and former Department of Education and Training (DET) school. Data was mainly collected by means of semi-structured interviews, which utilised in-depth open-ended questions to yield teachers’ past experiences. The findings revealed the following: all the teachers appeared to believe that extensive reading was invaluable and enhanced language skills. However, white and black teachers differed in terms of their early experiences of reading. Whereas for white teachers early experiences with literacy were encountered in the home, for black teachers the school was where they had their first exposure to literacy. In addition formal training in the form of an ACE (Advanced Certificate in Education) seemed to have influenced black teachers’ beliefs about the subject at hand, whereas the role of teacher education/ training was not as significant for white teachers.

Children learn language in the family. They also learn about the ways in which language can be used to communicate needs, share ideas, express cultural identity and negotiate and reinforce group membership. In bilingual and minority language families children also learn about the existence of different languages, of different ways of talking about the same object and expressing the same ideas, and the appropriate time and place to use each language. The place of language in the development of cultural identity and group membership is particularly important for people who speak more than one language and feel attachments to more than one culture. This study explores what it is to be a bilingual parent of young children. Parents who were themselves bilingual were asked about their own experiences with language, and their experiences with raising their children. The dissertation is organized around the themes of language learning in the family, in the community, and within the context of school. This study has resulted in a broad range of findings, among which are: that raising children to be bilingual is a deliberate act requiring considerable, conscious effort on the part of parents, that parents who have a mentor, someone they know who has successfully raised bilingual children, are more likely to persist with their efforts despite difficulties, and that close religious, cultural or familial ties to other speakers of the minority language are positive influences on both parents and children. Another important finding is that parents are greatly encouraged by meeting health and/or educational professionals who are positive and informative about bilingualism in young children. Conversation is the methodology for this study because it allows the participants and the researcher to work together toward a greater understanding of the topic under study. Through conversations with other interested people I was able to invite them into my questions. Sharing stories of language, and reflecting on what these stories mean and how they have affected and continue to affect us, opens the possibilities for a much greater understanding of what it means to speak more than one language in this society, and how that will affect our children. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Many bilingual Spanish-English preschool aged children are impacted by speech sound disorders; and research has shown that bilingual speech sound systems develop differently than monolinguals'. Research has also shown that, for monolingual English and Spanish speakers, parent reports can be a valid tool for identification and single-word assessments can effectively diagnose speech disorder, yet little, if any, normative data or information about the validity of parent reports as an identification tool exists for bilingual Spanish-English speakers. The purpose of the present study was to create bilingual speech normative data for English single-word assessment scores for percent consonants correct (PCC), percent vowels correct (PVC), and the index of phonetic complexity (IPC). It also sought to determine correlations of speech scores and parent reports, which was done as an extension of Stertzbach's 2005 study with monolingual Spanish speakers. Fifty-six bilingual Spanish-English 4-year-olds were administered a single-word assessment in English and normative data was generated from the PCC, PVC, and IPC scores. That normative data was correlated with Likert values from the parent surveys to establish the validity of the report as an identification tool, and finally, the disordered scores (as determined by the normative data) were explored in relation to previous suspicion or diagnosis of disorder. The normative data showed 89% of speech scores falling within the typical range for both PCC and PVC and 93% for IPC. Pearson coefficients were computed by regression analysis and parent reports were deemed a valid tool for identification based on statistically significant correlations (at the .05 level) for 6 of 10 questions. Previous suspicions of disorder, based on parent report or examiner questionnaire, were 87.5% and 91% accurate, respectively, while current diagnosis, based on the presence of an existing Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), was 93% accurate. The results were consistent with previous research showing the prevalence of speech disorder as well as the validity of the parent report.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

Research suggests that children are only able to flexibly apply more than one label (e.g. mouse and animal) in one situation with one conversational partner after they pass standard false belief tasks. Both abilities have been attributed to the understanding of perspective. The aim of the studies was to extend previous research to examine the disambiguation effect, children’s tendency to select an unfamiliar object in the presence of another but familiar object as referent for a novel word. Theoretical considerations suggest this effect initially results from a lack of understanding perspective. Five studies were conducted in Scotland and Austria, involving 243 children between the ages of 2.5 and 6.5. Studies 1 to 3 compared the standard disambiguation task with a task in which a strong pragmatic cue indicates the familiar object is the correct referent. Performances on these tasks were compared with performances on the false belief task, the alternative naming task, as well as tests of executive functioning. Studies 4 and 5 extended these methods to examine bilingual children’s metacognitive abilities in relation to word learning. Children become able to suspend the disambiguation effect when presented with strong pragmatic cues at the same time as they pass false belief and alternative naming tasks (Experiment 1). This can neither be attributed to impulsivity or the ability to inhibit a response, nor order effects of pragmatic cues and novel words (Experiment 2). Children’s ability to apply two labels to one object in a correction task also related to their perspectival understanding. Previous findings that suggested that younger children could produce multiple labels in a misnaming paradigm were not replicated (Experiment 3 a, b). The developmental change in children’s metalinguistic behaviour was demonstrated to follow the same trajectory in monolinguals, bilinguals and children exposed to another language (Experiment 4 and 5). Bilinguals show a marginally better ability to recall novel foreign language labels. The disambiguation effect is the result of cognitive immaturity in young children. Older children show a change in behaviour at the same time as they present more metacognitive maturity. Common development with theory of mind and metalinguistic abilities is attributed to an understanding of perspective.

The purpose of this study was to identify the personality traits of effective elementary bilingual/ESL teachers, to identify the personality traits of effective traditional elementary teachers, and to compare the two groups.

A dissertation submitted to The Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology School of Human and Community Development Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand In fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts in Speech-Pathology March, 2017 / Purpose: There is a need to develop and refine assessment measures on bilingual children, since language measures used on monolingual individuals cannot and should not be directly applied to the bilingual population (Hoff et al., 2012; O’Brien, 2015). The occurrence of Afrikaans-English bilinguals in South Africa provides a rewarding area of investigation for the Speech-Language Therapist (SLT) (Penn & Jordaan, 2016), as the Afrikaans language is well-researched and many individuals from this population are considered to be more balanced bilinguals than other bilingual groups (Coetzee-Van Rooyen, 2013).The assessment of vocabulary in bilingual children has received particular attention because limited vocabulary is one of the first signs of language impairment (Ellis & Thal, 2008). This research aimed to determine how Grade 1 Afrikaans-English bilingual children perform on a bilingual vocabulary assessment. Design: A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional and comparative design was used in this study. Method: The Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test 4 (EOWPVT-4) (Martin & Brownell, 2011a) and the Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test 4 (ROWPVT-4) (Martin & Brownell, 2011b) were used to assess 30 grade 1 Englishspeaking monolinguals. In addition an adapted Afrikaans expressive one word vocabulary test based on the EOWPVT-4 and an adapted Afrikaans receptive one word vocabulary test based on the ROWPVT-4 were used to assess 30 grade 1 Afrikaans-English bilinguals. Permission from the schools involved, informed consent from the parent/s or guardian/s as well as child assent were obtained. The data gathered from testing was tabulated, interpreted with the use of mean scores and standard deviations (SD) and analysed using within- and between -group statistical comparisons. Mean raw scores were converted to percentages for ease of comparison between receptive and expressive scores. Results: Within-language comparisons revealed that on the English test, receptive and expressive scores within both the English monolingual and bilingual groups were significantly correlated. Expressive scores could therefore be predicted from receptive scores or vice versa in both the English monolingual and bilingual groups. However, the receptive and expressive score on the Afrikaans tests were not significantly correlated. In the bilingual group, the receptive score in Afrikaans was significantly higher than the expressive score suggesting that although the bilingual participants had good knowledge of Afrikaans vocabulary they could not always express this in a naming test. They frequently used the English word. Afrikaans is possibly being used less in the home and school environments so that the English words are more familiar. Nonetheless, both the monolingual and bilingual participants had significantly higher scores on the receptive vocabulary assessment than on the expressive vocabulary assessments in both English and Afrikaans. Between-group comparison revealed that the differences between the scores of the English monolingual and Afrikaans-English bilingual learners were not significant on either the receptive or expressive vocabulary measure in English. The bilingual group performed as well as the English participants on the English tests, suggesting that they are not disadvantaged in the language of instruction. The norms used in the EOWPVT and the ROWPVT were applicable to both the monolingual and bilingual groups’ scores for the age range of the participants and highlighted that these tests were suitable in assessing an English monolingual and Afrikaans-English bilingual child in South Africa. When composite scoring was used the bilinguals scored significantly better than their monolingual peers on both the receptive and expressive measures, which confirmed the premise behind this study- that composite scoring should be used to gain an accurate assessment of a bilingual child’s vocabulary. Adaptation of the English tests into Afrikaans, as opposed to O’Brien’s study (2015), which adapted English tests into isiZulu, may have positively affected the results as all English words had direct translation equivalents in Afrikaans, which was not the case in isiZulu. The comparison between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals within the bilingual group demonstrated that the simultaneous bilinguals’ mean receptive and expressive scores surpassed those obtained by the sequential bilingual participants. A significant difference was identified between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals’ composite receptive scores and Afrikaans expressive scores. Finally, only one monolingual participant scored below the peer group mean on both the receptive and expressive vocabulary tests, indicating low proficiency in English and risk of language impairment; however no bilingual participants were found to be language impaired when composite scoring was used. Conclusion: Bilingualism remains a rewarding area of investigation in South Africa. Afrikaans-English bilingual children performed significantly better than O’Brien’s (2015) isiZulu-English participants on a translated, originally English vocabulary test. Throughout this study the refinement of valid assessment tools for accurate description of bilingual children’s vocabulary was highlighted. The well-researched technique of composite scoring has proven to be valuable in avoiding overdiagnosis in South African bilingual children. / MT2018

The current study addressed several questions about the use of language intermingling in child-directed speech and its influence on children's English and Spanish language acquisition on children's language code-switching, Participants were 65 children (Mean age=30.93 months, SD=0.44, 28 boys and 37 girls) who had been exposed to English and Spanish from birth and for whom at least one parent was a native Spanish speaker.... Measures of the children's lexical, grammatical, receptive, and productive language development in English and in Spanish were collected concurrently.... Consistent with sociolinguistic theories that propose that language separation is necessary for heritage language maintenance, children who were exposed to more language intermingling were more English-dominant. Both sensitivity to the language context and children's language dominance were related to children's production of mixed utterances. Children code-switched more when speaking in their less proficient language and when in the context of minority language use. / by Silvia Place. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.