The current studies tested the hypothesis, that early exposure is sufficient for
nativelike proficiency. Study 1 compared the English skill of 116 5 year olds who had
been exposed to English and Spanish from birth with English monolingual and found that
the bilingual children had significantly lower levels of vocabulary skill. Study 2 assessed
65 adult bilinguals, comparing them to 25 English and 25 Spanish monolinguals on a
battery of language measures. The bilinguals had lower scores in Spanish in 7 of the 8
domains of language skill measured. The bilinguals were not different from the English
monolingual speakers in most, but not all, aspects of language proficiency. These
findings provide evidence that the monolingual-bilingual gap observed in childhood is no
longer evident among adult bilinguals, but that despite early exposure and continued use
into adulthood, second generation immigrants are not native-like in their heritage
language skills. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_39758 |
| Contributors | Giguere, David (author), Hoff, Erika (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 70 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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