Inhalt: - 1. Mythos Mehrsprachigkeit - 2. „Ein Kopf – ein Chor“: Sprachmischung bei bilingualen Sprechern - 3. Doppelter Erstspracherwerb (2L1) - 4. Früher L2-Erwerb - 5. Quellen im Text - 6. Literaturempfehlungen von Prof. Dr. Rosemarie Tracy

We examined the relationship between orthographic processing and spelling in French immersion children. Study 1 included 148 first graders and they were assessed on orthographic processing and spelling in English and French. In Study 2, we followed 69 second graders for two years. Orthographic processing and spelling in English and French were administered in second and third grade. In Study 3, we analyzed the spelling errors made by the third graders in Study 2. In Study 1, we found a within-language relationship in English and French between orthographic processing and spelling. Cross-language transfer from French orthographic processing to English spelling was also observed. In Study 2, Grade 2 English spelling predicted gains in Grade 3 English and French orthographic processing. Study 3 showed that children made transfer errors when spelling in English and French. Overall, the current research highlights the importance of orthographic processing and spelling in French immersion children.

The main objective of this dissertation is to investigate the effects of acquiring a second language (L2) at later periods of language development and native-like homonym processing in the first language (L1) from the perspective of Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP) using a cross-modal lexical decision task. To date, there is a lack of neurophysiological investigations into the effect that acquiring an L2 can have on processing strategies in the L1, and whether or not there is a precise age at which L2 exposure no longer affects native-like language processing. As such, my goal is to pinpoint this sensitive period specifically for homonym processing. To achieve this, I will present and discuss the results of two studies. The first study employs behavioural response measures using a cross-modal lexical decision task where participants simultaneously heard a sentence and made a decision to a visually-presented pseudoword or real word. The second study employs ERP measures using a novel ERP paradigm which investigates not only the main objective of this dissertation, but the second objective as well. This second objective is for this dissertation to become the first to evaluate the outcome of combining the cross-modal lexical decision task with ERPs. The behavioural and neurophysiological results for the monolingual group support the Reordered Access Model (Duffy, Morris, & Rayner, 1988) while the results for the bilingual groups do not. The results of the current studies indicate that those bilinguals who acquired French as an L2 rather than as a second native L1 show increasing divergence from monolingual native speakers in L1 homonym processing, with later acquirers exhibiting an exponentially marked divergence. This was found even though the task was carried out in English, the L1 (or one of the L1s) of all participants. The diverging performances of the bilinguals from the monolinguals were apparent in behavioural responses as well as in the amplitude, scalp distribution, and latency of ERP components, These differences were unique to each group, which supports the hypothesis that the acquisition of an L2 influences processing in the L1 (Dussias & Sagarra, 2007). Specifically, the early and late bilingual groups exhibited a marked divergence from the monolingual group as they revealed syntactic priming effects (p<.001) as well as lexical frequency effects (p<.001). They also revealed the greatest P600-like effect as they processed target words which were inappropriately- related to the priming homonyms (such as skin in Richard had a shed in the back of the garden). This suggests a heightened sensitivity to surface cues due to the L2 influencing homonym processing in the L1 (Cook, 2003; Dussias & Sagarra, 2007). Comparatively, the monolingual group revealed equal N400-like effects for lexical ambiguities overall compared to the unrelated conditions, and a context-by-frequency-interaction slowing their processing of the target word that is appropriately-related to the subordinate reading of the priming homonym, suggesting that they are not as sensitive to these same surface cues. Importantly, these results confirm that using ERPs along with a cross-modal lexical decision task is a promising paradigm to further study language processing.

The overall aim of the study was to take part of teachers' experiences and work force mother-tongue education and literacy development in the Sámi School. The study was conducted through interviews with twelve teachers who teach at two Sámi schools. The focus has been on looking how to work with native speakers teaching at the Sámi School, what factors promote / hinder students' development of their first or second language, and the importance of collaboration between the schools` various professions work with multilingual students reading and writing skills. Through interviews of various categories of teachers, I have tried to visibility problems of the education of minority language children and their reading and writing skills. I discuss the teaching, the importance and the lack / availability of communication and consensus between different categories of teachers. The study reveals the importance of adequate education for the teachers and the lack of Sámi teaching materials. From a sociocultural perspective, the situated and creative learning opportunities, where the teaching is based on students' prior knowledge and experience, is a factor that contributes to literacy development. The study also shows that mother tongue education contributes to students' identity is strengthened and that they will be confident with their background. / Det övergripande syftet med studien var att ta del av lärares erfarenheter och arbetsformer gällande modersmålsundervisning och läs- och skrivutveckling i sameskolan. Studien har genomförts genom kvalitativa intervjuer med tolv lärare som undervisar vid två sameskolor. Fokus har lagts på att titta hur man arbetar med modersmålsundervisningen vid sameskolorna, vilka faktorer främjar/hindrar elevernas utveckling av sitt första respektive andraspråk samt vilken betydelse samverkan mellan specialpedagoger, klasslärare och modersmålslärare har kring arbetet med flerspråkiga elevers läs- och skrivutveckling. Genom intervjuer av olika lärarkategorier har jag försökt synliggöra problematiken kring undervisning av minoritetsspråkiga barn och deras läs- och skrivutveckling. I studien diskuteras det kring undervisningen, vikten av och bristen/tillgången på kommunikation och samsyn mellan olika lärarkategorier. Studien synliggör även vikten av adekvat utbildning till undervisande pedagoger och bristen på samiskt läromedel. Ur ett sociokulturellt perspektiv är de situerade och kreativa lärande tillfällena, där undervisningen utgår från elevernas tidigare kunskaper och erfarenheter, en faktor som bidrar till läs- och skrivutveckling. Studien visar också att modersmålsundervisningen bidrar till att elevernas identitet stärks och att de blir trygga.

This dissertation documents the work of two teacher collaborators who brought a focus on linguistic and cultural diversity into their literacy teaching even while teaching in English medium schools. The research was carried out during eighteen months utilizing collaborative case study methodology in conjunction with two teachers in highly multilingual and multicultural public elementary schools in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This study explores the pedagogical possibilities that are made available by teaching for transfer and highlights the resource that students’ linguistic diversity can be even when the instructional setting is monolingual. The dual language literacy pedagogies of the two teachers provide the basis for an analysis of the paths for knowledge construction and identity development that were made available for students through this work. I examine the role that teacher identity and societal influences play in enabling or constraining a redefinition of literacy for the increasingly globalized context of schools. The image of the child, of literacy and of bilingualism projected by the work of the two participating teachers shape the analysis of their identity and role definition as educators. By examining teaching practices that integrate students’ linguistic and cultural identities into the fabric of the literacy curriculum several themes are considered: (a) the role of teacher identity and choice in creating learning contexts that draw on students’ interests and prior knowledge, (b) the link between student engagement and a classroom ecology that values students’ identities and, (c) the different types of knowledge that are generated in the process of participating in the dual language literacy work. Results suggest that students were able to utilize their first language skills in the service of learning English. They also experienced a renewed motivation to extend their first language skills into the sphere of literacy as a result of its affirmation within the classroom. In the case of both first and second language development, students’ ability to engage cognitively and affectively in their literacy work was heightened by virtue of the integration of their language and culture into the curriculum.

I dagens mångkulturella samhälle är det många barn som talar två eller flera språk. Det är viktigt att kunna bemöta flerspråkiga barn och ge dem rätt språkligt stöd vid behov. Denna studie baseras på MAINs testmaterial som är utformat inom ramarna för COST projekt IS0804 för bedömning av barns narrativa förmåga och använder berättelser till bildserier som ett sätt att samla in barns narrativer. Syftet med studien är att beskriva narrativ förmåga hos tvåspråkiga rysk-svensktalande barn och bidra med referensdata till ovannämnda projekt. Deltagarna var tio simultant tvåspråkiga rysk-svensktalade barn mellan 6:8 och 7:10 samt tre successivt tvåspråkiga barn. Barnen fick berätta på ryska och svenska kring två makrostrukturellt lika bildserier samt svara på en rad förståelsefrågor utifrån bildernas innehåll. Insamlade ryska och svenska narrativer analyserades på makro- och mikrostrukturell nivå. Resultaten visade att det fanns tydliga skillnader mellan barnens prestationer i berättandet och förståelsen. Narrativernas övergripande struktur vad gäller story grammar och komplexitet stämde väl överens mellan språken oavsett barnets språkbehärskningsnivå. Däremot fanns det stora skillnader i förekomsten av Internal State Terms tokens mellan ryska och svenska narrativer som bara kunde förklaras med rent kulturella skillnader mellan språken. Detta resultat ifrågasätter värdet av jämförelse av IST tokens mellan språk. De små skillnader som påvisades vid en kvantitativ analys av narrativernas mikrostrukturer vad gäller yttrandelängd och lexikal variation kan förklaras med språkspecifika morfo-syntaktiska distinktioner mellan ryska och svenska. En kvalitativ analys av barnens narrativer påvisade att fel ordval, utelämningar och kodväxlingar var mer typiska för barnens svagaste språk. Kongruenssvårigheter påträffades i båda språken hos simultant tvåspråkiga barn men inte i ryska narrativer hos barn vars modersmål var ryska. Det behövs mer forskning inom ramarna för COST Action IS0804 som handlar om berättandeförmåga hos tvåspråkiga barn med språkstörning. Detta kan i sin tur leda till att testmaterialet blir standardiserat och kan användas inom logopedisk verksamhet. / In today's multicultural society there are many children who speak two or more languages. It is important to be aware of possible problems and provide them with adequate language assistance if needed. This study is based on the MAIN test material designed within COST project IS0804 for the assessment of children's narrative skills, which uses a number of picture sequences to elicit children’s narratives. The study aims to investigate the storytelling abilities of a group of bilingual Russian-Swedish speaking children and provide reference data for the above-mentioned project. The participants were ten simultaneously bilingual Russian-Swedish speaking children between the age of 6 years and 8 months and 7 years and 10 months, as well as three age-matched children with Russian as their native language and Swedish as a second language. Children were asked to tell a story in Russian and Swedish using two picture sequences with parallel macrostructure and then answer comprehension questions based on the content of the pictures. The Russian and Swedish narratives were analyzed on both macro- and microstructural levels. The results showed that there were clear differences between the children’s storytelling and their understanding. Overall narrative structure in terms of story grammar and complexity was quite similar in both languages, irrespective of language exposure pattern. However, there were significant differences between the prevalence of Internal State Terms tokens in Russian and Swedish narratives that could only be explained by purely cultural differences between the languages. This result questions the feasibility of straightforward of IST tokens between languages. The minor differences revealed by quantitative analysis of the stories’ microstructures in terms of utterance length and lexical diversity could be explained by language-specific morphosyntactic differences between Russian and Swedish. A qualitative analysis of the narratives showed that wrong choice of words, omissions and code-switching were more typical of the child's weakest language. Difficulties with inflections were found in both languages for simultaneous bilingual children but not in Russian stories told by children with Russian as their first language. More research is needed within the framework of COST Action IS0804 on the storytelling abilities of bilingual children with language impairment. This may in its turn lead to the test material being standardized and put into common use in speech-language therapy.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-250) / Microfiche. / xiv, 250 leaves, bound ill., maps 29 cm

Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-185). / Electronic reproduction. / "Over the last three decades, the study of codeswitching has attracted many data-oriented and theory-oriented sociolinguists and syntacticians. It provides an avenue to understanding the relationship between social processes and linguistic forms. In this vein, the present study examines Thai/English codeswitching practiced by a group of Thai people in Hawai'i from two perspectives: sociolinguistic as well as syntactic. In this study, different theoretical models are tested against each aspect of codeswitching. ..."--Abstract. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xv, 185 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

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The present body of research examined adult bilinguals who acquired a second language (L2) from an early age and who subsequently developed language dominance in that language. The question investigated is whether such "early L2-dominant bilinguals" attain a native level of proficiency in their second language. This possibility was explored by comparing bilinguals who had Cantonese L1 (logographic, morphosyllabic), Vietnamese L1 (alphabetic, morphosyllabic) or some "Other" L1 (alphabetic, non-morphosyllabic) to English monolinguals on various tasks in English (L2). The ability to process spoken stimuli was examined using phoneme deletion, spelling-to-dictation, and auditory comprehension tasks. The results showed that bilinguals from all backgrounds had greater difficulty than monolinguals on tasks that required sublexical skills, with the morphosyllabic groups performing the most poorly. The processing of print was investigated using reading aloud and reading comprehension tasks. In contrast to the auditory tasks, only Cantonese L1 bilinguals displayed any discernable difference from monolinguals on reading. Cantonese L1 bilinguals did, however, outperform monolinguals on orthographic memory tasks, such as the spelling of idiosyncratic L2 words. The findings therefore indicated that L1 linguistic structure influences L2 processing in adulthood, despite the former having become subordinate. In order to elucidate whether transfer effects arise solely from early exposure to L1, or whether L1 maintenance also plays a role, the L1 and L2 proficiency of a separate sample of Cantonese L1 bilinguals was examined. However, no meaningful relationship between L1 and L2 proficiency was found. Finally, a sample of late bilinguals were also tested in order to determine whether the L1-specific effects observed in early bilinguals are simply an attenuated version of those in late bilinguals,. The results revealed that the development of language dominance in L2 does lead to qualitatively different outcomes in L2 for early bilinguals. The findings from the present research are most consistent with the Competition Model (e.g., Hernandez, Li, & MacWhinney, 2005), which espouses the notions of L1 transfer and entrenchment to explain second language acquisition. Overall, the research indicates that native attainment in L2 is not assured for all early L2-dominant bilinguals.