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1	The Acquisition of Russian in a Language Contact Situation : A Case Study of a Bilingual Child in Sweden Ringblom, Natalia January 2012 (has links) This case study investigates the acquisition of Russian in a language contact situation. It examines a simultaneous Swedish-Russian bilingual child born and raised in Sweden. Qualitative analysis is provided from age 1;4 to 8;5 focusing especially on the earliest stages (before the end of the critical period at 4;5). The aim was to investigate (a) whether the child reaches the same milestones as monolingual children, (b) whether there is evidence that two separate linguistic systems have been developed, (c) whether the child’s grammatical competence in both languages might be qualitatively different from that of monolingual children and (d) whether there is interaction between the languages. The hypothesis tested is that ample input is needed to construct and develop two linguistic systems on a native-speaker level. The main result is that the two linguistic systems do not develop independently from each other; rather, 2L1s develop in permanent interaction where the weaker language – Russian – happens to be influenced by the stronger one – Swedish. The bilingual environment per se might lead to decreased structural complexity in the weaker language. Language dominance is viewed as a major determiner of cross-linguistic effects. This could lead to the development of a new individual variety of Russian (outside Russia). The results confirm the hypothesis that, even though there was exposure to both languages from birth onwards, the amount of input in the weaker and grammatically more complex language (Russian) received before the critical period was not enough to completely develop full native command of it. The lack of input has an impact on the acquisition of morphology: some morphological categories may have been set randomly or not at all. The structures observed are more typical of L2 than L1 acquisition. Morphology may be considered a vulnerable domain since complex morphological rules in Russian cannot develop without ample input. Language acquisition childhood bilingualism bilingual first language acquisition language contact language separation input dominance mother tongue Russian Swedish weaker language Sweden
2	Vliv doby působení druhého jazyka na chápání vztažných vět u dětí školního věku / Effect of time of exposure to L2 on the comprehension of relative clauses in primary school children Brabcová, Alžběta January 2018 (has links) This study investigates the impact of second language age of onset on the development of syntactic competence in bilinguals. Forty-five bilingual children were tested using a picture- matching task with relative clauses. In this paradigm, children are aurally presented with relative clauses of various kinds and are asked to match what they hear with the appropriate picture (out of four choices) on the screen. More specifically, our experiment compared the comprehension of subject- vs. object-extracted center-embedded relative clauses and contained sentences with noun phrases (NPs) that did or did not match in number (both NPs singular or plural = match, one NP singular, one NP plural = mismatch). We compared the performance of a group of Simultaneous bilinguals (two languages since birth), Early sequential bilinguals (first exposure to L2 - English between the ages of 1 to 4) and Late sequential bilinguals (first exposure to L2 -English after the age of 4 but latest at the age of 6 - primary school). The mean age of the participants at the time of testing was approx. 10 years of age. The results show that there is a varied pattern in the comprehension strategies used among the three bilingual groups. The group of Simultaneous bilinguals showed more reliance on the syntactic information contained in...
3	Same Mother Tongue - Different Origins : Implications for Language Maintenance and Shift among Hungarian Immigrants and their Children in Sweden György-Ullholm, Kamilla January 2010 (has links) This study investigates intergenerational language transmission amongst Hungarian immigrants, using in-depth interviews and participant observation as the main methods. The analysis examines the experiences of parents and their school-aged children in 61 families living in Sweden´s two main cities, Stockholm and Göteborg. The sample families were separated into four groups, based on two pre-contact factors, namely (1) the parents´ linguistic environment and (2) their social identity prior to migration. Three of the four groups turned out to be comparable in size and serve as the focus groups of the study. Group 1 comprises families in which one or both parents are former majority members from monolingual parts of Hungary. Group 2 comprises families in which one or both parents are former majority members from Hungary, but in contrast, these parents grew up in bilingual areas, being exposed to other languages in their childhood settings. Group 3 comprises families in which often both parents grew up as members of a vital ethnic minority in bilingual or multilingual settings in Transylvania (Romania). It was hypothesised that the parents´ childhood experiences would have an effect on their ways of raising children in a migrant situation, which, in turn, will affect children´s bilingualism as well as the group´s maintenance chances. The results of the statistical analysis confirm the hypothesis and show significant differences between the focus groups in a number of factors, e.g. marriage pattern, religious engagement, cultural orientation, children’s opportunities to meet other group members, and language awareness. Most importantly, the investigation revealed broad variation in language use norms among the sample families, especially for family and group internal communication. This, together with the poor demographic conditions of the group, seriously threatens group cohesion. The prospects for Hungarian language maintenance in Sweden are therefore seen as limited. Language maintenance and shift intergenerational language transmission childhood bilingualism heritage languages Hungarian Swedish as a second language migrant families Sweden Nyelvcsere nyelvmegtartás nyelvhasználat Svédország magyar kivándorlók nyelvátadás bevándorló családokban gyermekkori kétnyelvüség Språkbyte och språkbevarande språköverföring i familjen invandrarspråk ungerska i Sverige invandrarfamiljer skolbarn simultan och successiv tvåspråkighet barns tvåspråkighet Bilingualism Tvåspråkighet Swedish language Svenska språket Finno-Ugric languages Finsk-ugriska språk Children's language Barnspråk

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