Workshop on Measuring bilingual proficiency
The goal of the workshop is to discuss issues relating to the construct bilingual proficiency and
how best to measure it in a range of different bilingual/L2 populations (simultaneous and
sequential bilinguals, heritage language learners, bilingual learners with language impairments).
This workshop is a satellite anniversary event to EMLAR X organised by Elma Blom (Utrecht
University) and Sharon Unsworth (Radboud University Nijmegen), with financial support from
UiL OTS.
Date and time: Thursday, April 17 2014, 9.15 AM – 5 PM
Location: Drift 21, room 0.03, Utrecht University
Pre-registration: Participation is free, but space is limited and hence we kindly ask participants to
register beforehand by sending an email to Robert Grimm at r.m.g.grimm@uu.nl.
Detailed programme:
Time
Topic
9.30-10:00
Introduction + issues (organizers)
10:00-10:45
Norbert Francis (Northern Arizona University):
Proposal for a better understanding of subtractive bilingualism in
language assessment
Break
10.45-11:15
12:00-12:30
Elin Thordardottir (McGill University):
How informative is monolingual assessment of bilingual children?
Discussion I
12.30-14.00
Lunch
14.00-14.45
15.30-16.00
Silvina Montrul (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign):
Dominance and proficiency in early and late adult bilingualism
Tanja Kupisch (University of Hamburg and Lund University):
Comparing adult bilinguals’ proficiency in a minority and a majority
language setting
Break
16.00-17.00
Discussion II
11.15-12:00
14.45-15.30
Proposal for a better understanding of subtractive bilingualism in language assessment
Norbert Francis (Northern Arizona University)
First language (L1) attrition is the subject of new research in the field of bilingualism studies.
Also known as “subtractive bilingualism” (contrasted to the so-called “additive” type), an
important confirmation of work in this area has been to recognize loss of L1 competence as a
normal outcome of child second language learning. Worldwide, as schooling expands to include
greater numbers of previously marginalized and excluded language-minority school-age
children, the subtractive variant may even become, with time, more common. In language
assessment, this circumstance presents challenges for practitioners, foremost among which is
developing a clear framework for avoiding misinterpretation of testing results based on imprecise
conceptions of deficient language ability, often categorized impressionistically as
“semilingualism.”
How informative is monolingual assessment of bilingual children?
Elin Thordardottir (McGill University)
A full evaluation of the language skills of a bilingual child needs to include assessment of both
languages. However, in clinical (and research) work, such assessments are fairly rare.
Difficulties are related to the lack of clinicians with the required language skills, lack of test
materials and normative data across languages, and time restrictions. In light of these
constraints, it is important to make maximal use of the assessment results that can be obtained.
This talk will address how monolingual assessment data can be put to maximal use, in the
identification of language impairment in bilingual children, in treatment decisions and
assessment of the child’s functioning in various situations.
Dominance and proficiency in early and late adult bilingualism
Silvina Montrul (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
In bilingualism, language dominance typically refers to the relative fluency, proficiency and
degree of language use of each language. Although the concept of equal linguistic proficiency in
the two languages is a possibility, the reality is that in most bilinguals one language is more
dominant or stronger than the other either in terms of proficiency, degree of language use, or
both. In this talk I make a distinction between dominance and proficiency, illustrating how these
have been estimated and measured in representative research. I then turn to consider how
proficiency and dominance have been assumed in most studies of unbalanced bilinguals whose
family language is the weaker language (also known as heritage speakers in the United States),
and actually measured in a few others. I will discuss why these measures, although not ideal, are
important and necessary for research investigating the linguistic abilities of heritage speakers in
their weaker language on the one hand, and for comparing the linguistic abilities of heritage
speakers and second language learners, on the other. I will also show how these measures
correlate with degree of language transfer from the stronger language and with other measures in
these populations. Although measuring one or the two languages of bilinguals may contribute to
the monolingual view of bilinguals (Grosjean 2008, Treffers-Daller 2010), I argue that
measuring proficiency, and assessing language dominance more generally, is not only a crucial
component of rigorous experimental research, but it also has uses and implications for
educational and clinical practices.
Comparing adult bilinguals’ proficiency in a minority and a majority language setting
Tanja Kupisch (Lunds Universitet/ Universität Hamburg)
This presentation is concerned with the measurement of relative language proficiency in 20 adult
bilinguals all of whom have been exposed to two languages simultaneously from birth. Half of
these grew up in France with German as a minority language, and half grew up in Germany with
French as a minority language. Both groups comprise very fluent speakers of both languages
only. The major research questions are (i) what single measure is the most faithful with respect
to speakers’ actual proficiency- differences between both languages; (ii) among several measures
that are applied to the same data, which point in the same direction, and which give prima facie
contradictory results (e.g., a relatively higher or lower proficiency rating in language B than in
language A on measure Mn, but vice versa on measure Mn+1). Measures discussed include:
gender marking, cloze tests, global accent, speech rate, and self-reported language preference.
Here, the terms dominant and more proficient are used synonymously; both are defined generally
with respect to the resemblance of the data to monolingual norms. We also briefly discuss
problems arising for such definitions.