FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION/ CHILD BILINGUALISM
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Caretaker speech
- shorter utterances than speech to other adults
grammatically simple utterances
- few abstract or difficult words, with a lot of repetition
- clearer pronunciation, sometimes with exaggerated INTONATION patterns
- helps sound-meaning correspondences
- prosodic bootstrapping
PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
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What do cross-linguistic similarities in early babbling imply?
- Early babbling is independent of exposure to language.
What is the importance of babbling?
- Babbling which begins around 6 months is very important for speech development.
- Reduplicated (Canonical) vs. Nonreduplicated (Variegated) Babbling
- Lack of babbling is an indicator of deafness
- Tachniques: HAS (High Amplitude Sucking), Habituation, Head-turn, Infant directed
speech
What are the general tendencies in early phonology?
- Preference for parents’ language appears in 1-2 days
- Around 10-12 months, crosslinguistic sound sensitivity disappears
- Vowels before consonants
- Stops > Other consonants
- Place of articulation: Labials first > Alveolars >
Velars >
Alveopalatals
(p, m, b, w) (t,d,n,s,z,l,r,sh) (k, g, ng, w)
(sh, z, tf, dz)
- Perception > Production
- Early processes:
- Syllable deletion (spaghetti), Syllable simplification (stop), Substitution (stopping-singting; fronting-go-do; Gliding: rock-wock; Denasalization: spoon-bud), Assimilation (dogigogi)
Stages of Phonological Development
Period 1: Prelinguistic (0-12 months)
- Speech sounds emerge
Period 2: Pre-representational Phonology (12-18 months)
- First words
- Sounds of words are represented on a word-by-word basis
Period 3: Representational Phonology (18 months- 3 years)
- System for producing individual sounds
- 50-word vocabulary
Period 4: Phonetic Inventory Completion (4-7 years)
- Mastery of the remaining sounds
- Multisyllable words
- Morphophonological rules (past tense, plural)
- Counting the number of word segments, rhyme, puns
Period 5: Advanced Phonology (7-12 years)
- Conscious understanding of the sound-meaning relationship
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Process of Phonological Awareness
- The best predictor of reading and spelling
- Important for word recognition
Word recognition  Syllable awareness  Onset-rime awareness  Phoneme awareness
(3-4)
(4-5) Rhyme- Common endings (6) Usually appears after
reading instruction
READING MODELS
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Dual-Route Model
Phonological Route
- letter sets of letters phoneme
- letter-sound translation rules
- decoding the word: grapheme-phoneme
conversion
- good for transparent languages
- unfamiliar words
Visual Route
- direct access from memory
- rote-learning
-no conversion, no parsing
- familiar words
- irregular spelling
- PA is less necessary
Switches between the routes 
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Modified Dual-Route Model (Ehri, 1992) (Visual- Phonological Route)
- Lack of PA in visual route is problematic
- Rote-learning means heavy load on the memory
- Readers apply rules for even irregular words
- The Visual-Phonological Route
- Specific connections with the visual mode and pronunciation
- Access by “seeing the pronunciation of the word”
- The links between words and meanings are not arbitrary.
- Letter-sound cues
1) Grapheme-phoneme conversion
2) Thru experience, the conversion is not necessary
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Analogy Model
- Pronunciations of both regular and irregular words are accessed thru using similar
spelling patterns from memory. (eg. bake-cake)
- More advanced than decoding
- Requires complex knowledge
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Connectionist Models
- Computation of orthographic, phonological, semantic codes
- Gradually formed associations thru interactions between codes
- Simples connections (grapheme phoneme)
- Complex connections (grapheme1, grapheme2  phoneme)
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WORD RECOGNITION MODELS
 Developmental Model (Frith, 1985)
1. Logographic Stage
2. Alphabetic Stage
-sight word reading
-grapheme-phoneme
-no PA, no conversion
conversion
-salient graphic features, visual - alphabetic knowledge
features, context
- Rudimentary stage: Partial
- arbitrary associations btw.
letter-sound correspondences
sounds and letters
-Mature stage: Analysis of
eg. Pepsi
spellings
-can read familiar words
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Phase Model (Ehri, 1996)
1. Pre-alphabetic
Phase
-No PA
-Memorization via
visual cues
-Can read brands
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3. Ortographic Stage
-instant recognition
-automaticity
2.Partial Alphabetic
Phase
-Reading by
sight/prediction
-Partial connections
-Initial-last letter
saliency
-No segmentation
3.Full-alphabetic
Phase
-Complete associations
-Grapheme-phoneme
conversion
-Complex connections
-Analogy/Decoding
4.Consolidated
Alphabetic Phase
-Overlap with the
previous phase
-Analogy, analysis,
remembering the
chunks of multisyllabic
words, unfamiliar
words, pseudowords
What is the impact of bilingualism on literacy development?
LEXICAL DEVELOPMENT
What are the main characteristics?
- First words appear around 10-15 months
- The word spurt / 50-word vocabulary threshold (18 months)
- 13.000-word vocabulary at 6 years
- 2nd and 3rd are the most productive
Is there a pre-lexical stage?
- Context-bound words may be proto-words
- Context-bound words  Referential words (De-contextualization)
- Noun Bias
- Comprehension Vocabulary vs. Production Vocabulary
Errors
- Overextension: eg. dog. for cow/horse
- Based on perceptual similarity
- Compensation for vocab limitations;
Evidence: As soon as the right word is learned, it disappears
Overextension is observed in production, but not in comprehension
- Underextension: eg. kitty only for the family’s pet
- single dimension: tall-short
- more dimensions: thick-thin
Individual differences
- Analytic vs. Holistic Children
- Referential vs. Expressive Children
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MODELS of LEXICAL DEVELOPMENT
1. Whole Object Assumption (sheep refers to the whole animal rather than parts)
2. Type Assumption (sheep is a type of animal)
3. Basic Level Assumption (alikeness)
4. Mutual Exclusivity
Semantic Feature Theory (Clark)
- Semantic features are acquired one at a time over an extended period
- Direction: From general to specific
- From overextension to narrowing
Critics
Overextension is not that common.
It occurs relatively late.
Impossible to identify the features
Some referents may have common features.
Lexical Contrast Theory
- Contrast
- Conventionality
Prototype Theory
- Referents as prototypes
- Critics
Definition of prototype is problematic.
Cultural differences
Event Representation Theory
- Daily events
- Sequence, People, Objects, Slots
- Context-bound words
- Critics
Not all children have vocab spurt.
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CODE-MIXING
Child Code-switching
Adult Code-switching
-incompetence, confusion?
-sociolinguistic factors
- Bilingual children code-mix when they try to
-deliberate, non-random
improve at a stage of development when they
-meta-communicative purposes
have incomplete proficiency.
-useful
eg. Lexical bootstrapping (to fill the lexical gap)
-sophisticated
un petit bird
-rule-governed
-Tendency for code-mixing in the less proficient
language
-sign of development, resourcefulness, not
incompetence
General Tendencies
- Reasons:
- Unitary System Hypothesis, Lexical Gap Hypothesis, Pragmatic Account, Social Norms
Account
- Code-mixing is grammatically constrained.
- Equivalence constraint: Code-switching at points where the surface structures of two
languages ma
- No fundamental difference between child and adult code-mixing
- Flagging by pausing, asking for the word (a pragmatic strategy)
- Code-mixing: Intra-utterance vs. Code-switching: Inter-utterance
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Why is code-mixing not good evidence for the fused system hypothesis?
Unitary System Hypothesis
- Volterra and Taeschner (1978)
Words differentiate later, but grammar does not
Dual-System Hypothesis
-Genesee (1989)
Counter-evidence
Are the abstract constraints that young children
who learn two languages are exposed to from
the outset different than/specific to each of the
languages being learned?
->If unitary system hypothesis were true
1. Structural constraints in one language could
explain all of the children’s early productions.
2. A hybrid system of syntax would apply to all
productions.
- Children can keep their languages separate in
different contexts.
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Weinreich’s Classification (1953)
- Compound Bilingualism
- Cooperate Bilingualism
- Subordinate Bilingualism
Grosjean’s Language Modes
- a state of activation of the bilingual’s language and language processing mechanism
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KEY STUDIES
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Genesee et al. (1978)
- One parent, one language rule
- Observation on 3 different contexts (mother alone, father alone, both parents)
- Children can keep their languages separate in different contexts.
- Evidence against the unitary system hypothesis.
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Paradis & Genesee (1996)
- In French-English bilinguals aged 2-3 finite forms emerged earlier in French
- The negators were put in the right place
- No significant delay or acceleration
- Linguistic Differentiation
Classroom Code-Switching
Non-classroom Code-switching
BILINGUALISM
Benefits
-Inhibition (Sun-Moon problem, Stroop test, symbol substitution
-Control-analysis (Executive functions)
-Vocab: awareness of lexical /referential arbitrariness
-Slight influence on metalinguistic awareness
-Inconsistent and temporary results in this domain
-Phonological Awareness: Language structure and literacy instruction
are more important
-Print awareness if two writing systems are involved
-Syntax: Especially good at detecting form-meaning conflicts (anomaly)
-Richer repertoire of phonemic distinctions
-Delay in discrimination of some phonetic contrasts
-Creative thinking, Flexibility of thought
- Delay in dementia (Bialystok, 2004)
Drawbacks
-Smaller vocab in each
language
-slower development
* Being fully balanced bilingual is important for the advantage
-Cummins’ Threshold Hypothesis
-Language distance
*These are just potential effects
*Task effects: tasks which lead children to ignore misleading info, in
explicit tasks there’s no difference
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Bilingual Lexicon
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Hierarchical Models
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BILINGUAL EDUCATION MODELS
A. MONOLINGUAL EDUCATION (NULL)
1. Submersion
- Sink or swim
- No inclusion of minority children
- No recognition of linguistic diversity
- Assimilationist
2. Submersion + Withdrawal Second Language Classes
- Requires the least resources; thus the most popular
- Withdrawn for L2 education
- As soon as Ss become bilingual, withdrawal for lg. instruction ceases
3. Structured immersion
- Aims to accelerate the acquisition of the majority language
- Little consideration of quality
- As soon children become bilingual, they are transferred to the mainstream monolingual
classes
- In the US, known as shelter programs
4. Segregationist
- Sole use of minority language
B. WEAK BILINGUAL EDUCATION
1. Transitional
- Initially the minority language is used and the majority lg. is L2
- Transition to monolingual class takes place gradually
2. Mainstream + Withdrawal FL/SL
- Teaching majority lg. students foreign languages
3. Mainstream + Supplementary FL/SL
C. STRONG BILINGUAL EDUCATION
1. Separatist + Withdrawal L2
- Political power aims
2. Two-way/Dual language
- Compartmentalization
- Heterogeneous groups
3. Mainstream + Supplementary heritage classes
4. Maintenance
5. Immersion
- Initially, minority language is used, later majority lg. is also used.
- Both languages are used later.
6. Mainstream bilingual
7. Two-multi-way mainstream/ Multi-Bilingual
Additive vs. Subtractive Bilingualism
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