Bilingual First Language Acquisition - 9.11.24
BFLA
Simultaneous: from birth, 2 L1s
Sequential: 2nd language added sometime before age 3, 2 L1s
SLA (second language acquisition)
early : after age 3, language is introduced (before 6-7 y/o)
Late: after 7 y/o
Adult: after 15 y/o
How do children learn language?
Imitation (memorization)
Evidence against
Produce sentences they do not hear
Cannot repeat sentences without right stage of development
Cam apply grammar rules they never heard of before
Analogy (new sentence based on modeling)
Doesn’t always work with grammar
eg. I painted a barn red → I painted a barn blue → I saw a barn red
Active grammar construction
Some errors are never made
Bilingual Language Acquisition Cont - 9.16.24
Telegraphic speech
Contain only N, V, Adj, and Adv
7 inflections
Negative
Starts in first part of sentence @ 1 word + first sentences
‘No’ before verb as they get older
Main conclusions
Lang acquisition is predictable for all languages
Each stage is compatible with universal language principals
No “wild grammar” but there is variation
“Errors” not in line with language = do not occur
Second Language Acquisition
Course of development (stages)
Same general milestones
Same developmental steps but smaller specificities may arise due to cross linguistic interference
Rate
Speed of development
Overall similar if exposed sufficiently to both
But interference from other language may occur and cause language delay
Proficiency attained
Native proficiency is possible
Some dominance may occur based on amount of exposure and use of language
Learning strategies
Same as MLFA
Vocabulary
BL generally has slower vocabulary development
Bad to compare BL children to ML children
Why is there a delay?
A functional separation → know only the words they are used to using in daily life
BL generally have larger total vocabulary
Conceptual vocab = same or more than ML
Translation equivalents around only 30%
balanced/maximal BL have significantly larger conceptual vocabulary
Language dominance → can change with age or exposure
Vocabulary sizes
Overall proficiency
Performance + experiments: speed in naming tasks, word recall times, etc.
Comparing grammar of BL and ML
Difference in rate mainly due to influence
Quantitative interference - BLFA
Particular structure is positively reinforced in the input
Temporarily incorrectly overused by learner in one or both
Errors made are only ones using aspects of the specific language (eg. word order: svo)
Pro-drop = pronoun drop
English = non-pro-drop (i love you vs love you)
Spanish = pro-drop (te queiro vs yo te queiro)
Qualitative int. - SLA (direct/negative transfer)
‘Non-target’ structure is temporarily used by a learner
Very common type of error among late/adult L2 learners
Not many instance recorded
BL systems
Unitary system
One system
Old hypothesis
Implies that human language faculty = prepared for ML acquisition and that BL acquisition represents a burden on it
Initially one system then turn into two
no/little overlap in lexicon
Language mixing → not random, rule governed
Often due to lexical gap filling (doesn’t know a word for something so they use words from other language. eg. catch phrases)
Knows who should be spoken to in what language
Main factors influencing bilingual proficiency
age/early exposure
Less cross-linguistic interference
Input
Amount and type of exposure of language
Through use you get more input
How much/what kind of exposure?
Amount of exposure → important to reach the critical mass necessary for acquisition
20% of waking hours = minimum needed of each language (3-4 hours/day)
Quality of exposure
Rich and varied linguistic input at each stage
Different types of language proficiency (casual vs formal language exposure)
BICS = casual/conversational language → basic
CALP = academic language
Cognitive academic language proficiency
Non-verbal contextual cues = absent
Second Language Acquisition - 9/18/24
Younger is often better
Younger is not always better
Harder for adults to learn
Process of L2 acquisition
Natural SLA = untutored SLA
Developmental states
Silent period
Formulaic speech & telegraphic speech
use of so called ‘language chunks’: fixed phrases (eg. how are you, I don't know) and sentence formulas (eg. my name is… can i have…)
Use of simplified speech → propositional simplification (eg. me no blue crayon)
Productive sentence construction
Production of novel sentences show active grammar learning
Pronouns
First either no pronouns or indiscriminate use
Then follow a universally set order
Acquisition of features is gradual and goes in stages
Apparent “regression” in stages 3-4
Irregular past tense rule = acquired only @ stage 5
Knowledge of a rule + reconstructed through the stages until target norm is acquired
Language transfer (SLA is different from BFLA)
BFLA L1 transfer of the “incorrect” word order seems to be rare or non-existent
Error analysis
Global vs local error
Error of emission → due to telegraphic speech
Error of communication → incorrectly used grammatical morpheme or structure
Developmental errors → point to particular level
Transfer errors → influence of one language on the other
eg:
pronunciation error (foreign accents)
grammatical errors (word order)
direct/neg. = qualitative interference
Positive transfer = quantitative interference → preference for a structure in L2 parallels structure in L2
Family Language Policy - 9.23.24
Bilingual acquisition types according to home/community language exposure
What are the parents’ “strategies” in communicating with children, i.e. what language or languages are spoken at home/in the family
Is the community language the same as the home language
Is the home lang a minority language
Factors of relevance
Amount and type of exposure
Social status of the language
Types
One Parent One Language (OPOL) → home is bilingual/multilingual, parent speak different languages to child, community is monolingual, community may or may not coincide with one of the home languages
Type 1: home La and Lb; community Lb
Type 2: home La & Lb; community Lc
Type 3: La, Lb; community La
Minority Language at Home (mL@H) → home is (mostly) monolingual in minority language, wider community is monolingual in different language
Typical of immigrants and expats
Type 1: home La; community Lb
Type 2: Home La (but parent 2 non-natively); community Lb
Mixed Languages → Both home and community are bilingual and code switching or just the home is bilingual and the community is monolingual
Bilingual communities
Type 1: home La and /or Lb; community La and/or Lb
Type 2: home La and/or Lb; community is monolingual
Time and Place (T&P) → Less studied → parents may be speaking the minority language on special occasions, not as a matter of regular routine (eg. visiting family)
Family Language and Policy
defined as explicit and overt planning in relation to language use within the home among family members.
However, FLP is believed to also include implicit and covert action in relation to language use within home.
Emphasis in research has been on parents’ actions influencing FLP and on language outcomes for children
But there are other reagents of FLP, eg. children, siblings, and peers
And other languages
Outcomes
Linguistic outcomes: language proficiency, language use, language maintenance or shift
Socio-emotional outcomes: positive or negative emotions can develop related to language proficiency or use. Issues with identity, heritage, and culture
Cognitive outcomes: inhibitory control, selective attention, working memory, metalinguistic awareness
Components
Language beliefs → what people think about language
Language use → what people do with language
Language management → efforts to modify or influence those language practices through language planning, intervention or management → what people try to do with language
Parental beliefs and attitudes
Ideas about social status of language and what functions languages should play in relation to social status, based on their social attitudes toward the language
Attitudes toward particular types of language interactions, which then impact their own child-directed speech
Attitudes toward language learning and bilingualism can influence their interactional strategies
Ideas about thor own impact; impact belief - degree to which parents think they are responsible for the child’s linguistic development
There is a direct relationship with things and it's not always rational
Parental beliefs and attitudes → parental linguistic choices and interaction strategies → children’s language development
Parental discourse strategies
How does a parent react to the child using the other language
These reactions are not necessarily conscious but when consistent they become apparent to the child
Minimal grasp strategy: adult indicates no comprehension of the child's language choice
Expressed guess strategy: adult asks a yes/no question using the other language
Adult repetition: of the content of the child’s utterance, using the other language
A move on strategy: not react to the child's language choice, just move on and continue conversation
Adult code-switches
Each strategy shifts the child further along (FIND IN SLIDES AND ADD LATER)
FLP and language outcomes: minority language acquisition
Quantity and quality of parental input → ~20% of the time spent communicating needed for adequate language acquisition
Incredibly important
There is no neg effect on the proficiency in the majority language when the minority develops
How mindful/explicit FLP is
Parent’s beliefs and attitudes affect their language practices
Language management
Extending the language input in different way is critical for the mL development (eg. books, videos, playmates, travel, etc)
Providing motivation and opportunities for willing use (eg. positive reinforcement, praise, etc)
Bilingual Individual - 9.25.24
(Last class before focusing on sociolinguistic aspects of bilingualism)
Bilingual deficit
Elite bilinguals = people who chose to learn another language
People who are forced to learn another language (eg. from moving) are at a disadvantage
60s/70s
People started coming up with studies that were trying to dispute the myth
Bilingual benefit
Bilingual benefit
Greater metalinguistic awareness
Some cognitive advantages
Greater cultural/social awareness
methodological note
In studies, participants (children) need to be carefully selected and matched on a number of variables
Age
Type of bilingualism (age of acquisition, proficiency level, and balance)
Literacy levels
IQ
SES (socioeconomic status)
School type (public/private)
That benefits typically go to those with high proficiencies and relatively pbalanced knowledge in two languages
How supportive the two languages will be of each other can depend on language pairs
Eg. transfer between Sp and It are different than Sp and Chi
Certain types of linguistic knowledge are not transferable and have to be acquired separately in each language
Bilingual benefit
Metalinguistic awareness → the ability to understand how language works (eg. recognizing grammatical rules, distinguishing meaning from form, being able to reflect on language)
Referential arbitrariness of linguistic sign
The relation between form and meaning is conventional
Whenever the task requires separating the meaning front he form and paying attention to the form only, BLs perform better
Have to be able to disassociate the meaning of the word from the form
Word meaning awareness - semantic relationships between words: sentence match vs dictionary match
eg. dog-bark → sentence match (how words are typically used)
eg. dog-cat → dictionary match (how words are organized more abstractly, as part of mental lexicons, into semantic categories, and what the components of their meaning are)
Phonemic awareness - segmentation into syllables and sounds
Syllable segmentation → eg. clapping for syllables
Sound segmentation → counting sounds (go vs again), sound replacement (mop vs cop)
The concept of print (letters are conventional symbols)
Bilinguals were right about 82% of the time, MLs only 38% of the time
Cognitive skills
BL have some cognitive advantages
Selective attention → ability to focus on task at hand while ignoring misleading and/or extraneous information
BLs better at di regarding misleading information in linguistic tasks
eg. focusing on linguistic form (and disregarding the meaning)
BLs are also better at disregarding misleading information in non-linguistic tasks
Eg. BLs are better at grammatically judging of nonsensical sentences → apples grow on trees vs apples grow on noses
Divergent thinking
Social benefits
Greater culture/social awareness and tolerance
More tolerant social perception → study done tested ML and BL children who needed to pick pictures of other kids in a photo stack (generally of latino/hispanic origin or european origin), depending on what classroom they were in (three types: 1+2 were monolingual [english] 1 was all white english speakers. 2 was white and latino. 3 was bilingual with a mix of races). All children picked photos of children who shared their own features more often.
Awareness of linguistic relativity
Bilingualism and personality
Do we behave differently when we speak different languages? Could we say that we express different personalities when we speak different languages?
Language is one of the main mediums of acculturation
BLs engage in cultural frame switching (CFS) or cultural accommodation
Language Choice and Diglossia - 9.30.24
Language choice in a monolingual setting
Starting Questions:
Do we change/vary how we speak in the course of our daily lives?
yes
What factors are relevant if we do? How do we know we got it right?
What about our speech changes depending on these factors?
Formality changes, “prenominal differences” = forms of address (eg. titles you use for people)
Dialects change
Register → changing what kinds of words/tone you use
Variation and functional separation exists in monolingual speech
A range of different “varieties” or “forms” of a language a person has mastery over = verbal repertoire
Out linguistic competence (knowledge of the language rules) is part of a broader set of language skills = Communicative competence
What makes part of our verbal repertoire?
Regional dialects: geographic variation
Sociolects: variation across social groups
Styles: variation according to the context of speech (eg. according to the formality level) → style-shifting
Registers and jargons: variation according to communities of practice/profession
What can vary in language?
Pronunciation (eg. car vs cah)
Lexical choices
soda/pop/coke, but/purchase. Forms of address
Grammatical forms
will/gonna for future reference
T vs V pronoun use
Honorifics (eg. korean has 6 levels)
Language choice in a monolingual setting
What contextual and social factors govern the choice of a variant in a ML setting?
context/situation
social sphere/domain (eg. work, home, church, school)
Concrete setting/situation: eg. inside the classroom, outside the classroom, during class time, during free discussion, during group work, etc
Topic
Participants/interlocutors
The nature/types of relationships between them, cf. fisherman’s “role relationships”
Pragmatic functions of the language → eg. a choice of a variety for emphasis or clarification
Social attitudes also influence the choice of a variety to be used → eg. distancing vs. expressing social solidarity, divergence vs. convergence in speech
Societal Bilingualism and Diglossia
Fergusson’s 1959 article
An in-between case: between monolingual verbal repertoire and bilingual verbal repertoire
Strictly socially enforced langage choice
Four case studies
Egyptian/classical arabic in Egypt
actually, three, not two, varieties of arabic co-exist in most arabic speaking countries
Classical arabic (CA): old arabic
Contemporary classical arabic: modern standard arabic (in western usage)
Colloquial arabic: native language of this population
Great frustration in, and linguistic insecurity and anxiety related to having to write for those who attend(ed) school
Uneducated individual have very limited exposure (only in prayers and listening to it on TV: news and daily televised prayer)
The qur’an is not allowed to be translated into other languages (CA is symbol of islam and being a muslim)
Arabic colloquial languages are very different from country to country, symbolize belonging to a particular nation, associated with ideas of greater social equality
Dimotiki/katharevousa in Greece
Haitian creole/french in Haiti
Swiss german/high german in Switzerland
Diglossia - basics
Two varieties are genetically related and typically considered to be the “same” language by the community members while they are also significantly different
One variety is socially prestigious (H variety = variety with a high social status) and the other one isn’t (L variety = variety with a low social status).
The H variety is used in a range of formal contexts, while the L is used in a range of informal contexts
Diglossia: 1. The two varieties are significantly different linguistically
Lexical difference:
H and L have many cognate words, but H and L also have many doublets (i.e. different words for even the most basic concepts)
Lexical separation → clear distinction between lexical domains for which H and L have developed vocabularies (eg. words for scientific concepts exist in H vs home objects words come from L)
Grammatical differences:
L is often simpler morphologically than H
Why is that?
L varieties have been developing freely, often under instance contact with other language varieties → contact often has simplification effects on language structure
H varieties are older, literary and highly codified, and more isolated from contact and tend to preserve older forms of morpho-syntactic complexity
The different in morphological complexity between H and L often create problems for literacy and full acquisition of H
Phonetic/phonological differences:
Cases vary from not too many differences and very different
Phonological systems may be simplified in L, the H variety due to innovations (such as mergers)
Differences may be an issue for literacy in H
Diglossia: 2. The two varieties are significantly different in function
Strict social compartmentalization of varieties according to the function and formality level
Proper usage has great social importance and is socially sanctioned
Diglossia: 3. H is a written language, L isn’t
H is the language of an important literary heritage or religious text
H is standardized and used in writing
H is more stable (i.e. more resistant to naturally occurring language change)
Diglossia: 4. H has great social prestige; L doesn't
H is a written, literar, standardized language
Is thereby also associated with educated (and wealthy) social elites
Perceived as superior
It's an official language of the country
Diglossia: 5. L is acquired in families, H isn’t
L is acquired through natural language acquisition within families
It is the native language of the given population
H is acquired through education
H is not accessible to everyone as acquisition is tied to formal education
This creates social access restrictions
These access restrictions help perpetuate social inequality
Typical social circumstances in which diglossia occurs
Pronounced social stratification and strictly enforced social separation between social classes/social groups
Limited literacy, restricted to a small elite and attainable by H only
L is not standardized and recognized as a valid variety for literacy
Extended Diglossia
Fergusson’ restricted diglossia to ‘genetically’ related varieties, ie. those belonging to the same immediate language family
Others extended it to non-related varieties, ie. bilingual/multilingual societies
Colonial languages and local languages in many countries around the world
Hebrew/Yiddish in eastern european jewish communities
Italian/Croatian in Istria
How useful is fergusson’s restriction to genetically related varieties?
Which situation do you think is likely to be more stable over time? Diglossia involving an ancestral H language vs diglossia involving a colonial H language?
Eg. arabic situation where H is an ancestral language vs haitian where H is a colonial language
Domains of Language Choice and Attitudes in Bilingual Communities - 10.2.24
Review
Extended Diglossia
Diglossia involving different languages
spanish/guaraní in paraguay
Triglossia:
Three language varieties may coexist in a given society
Double diglossia
Italian population in croatia
2 L-varieties
2 H-varieties
Istrain
Relationship between diglossia and bilingualism
Does diglossia (in society) imply individual bilingualism?
Both diglossia and bilingualism
SwissGer/Ger, upper social strata in diglossic societies
Diglossia without bilingualism
Prototypical diglossia in Haiti or egypt in the lower sections of these societies
Bilingualism without diglossia
Transitional bilingualism in immigrant communities and in other language shift contexts
Neither bilingualism nor diglossia
Strictly monolingual communities where there is no language varieties exist; very rare
Domains of Language Choice and Attitudes in Bilingual Communities
Within-group (intragroup) vs between groups (intergroup) multilingualism
Language choice in bilingual speech communities
Change in environment (school vs home) might make some linguistic choices strange or unnatural because the languages we use are distributed differently based on use
Domain of language choice
Studied alternating use of spanish and english in puerto rican communities in nyc
Proposed the concept of domain of language choice to account for how language choice is guided in in-group communication in bilingual communities
Identified the main domains in which there was language variation, ie. both english and spanish were usually used for in-group communication but to a different degree
(lg choice more predictable) (more spanish) Family → friendship → religion → employment → education (more english) (lg choice less predictable)
Definition of domain of language choice: a social sphere of activity that combines specific times of uses, setting, topics and role relationships between interlocutors
Diff choices will be appropriate depending on,
Social sphere of activity (eg. home or education)
Contextual variable, (ie. topics, participants/interlocutors, and setting)
Respondents were tested on their concept of congruence of communication contexts and language choices
Low congruence domains = those without a clearly socially established functional separation between the languages–language use is more variable and the choice of language less predictable
More on language choice:
Discussion of the ‘source of variance’
Group membership (participants)
Language choice is symbolic of the group that one belongs to or wants to belong to. (Identity)
Situational styles (setting)
Indicate different levels of informality/formality
Have symbolic value, can express meanings such as social solidarity or power differentials
Can be used strategically in discourse and add social (implied) meaning to the message
Topic
Ideas about language(s): bilingual communities and language attitudes
Language attitudes are feeling and beliefs people have about language as such, whether their own language or the language of other people
These can be personal feelings/beliefs, but often there are patterns of attitudes that exist in a community and are shared by different community members → language ideology
Lambert looked at language attitudes, devised the famous matched guise experiment (also called ‘verbal guise’) to look at attitudes toward social groups in an indirect way
Matched guise experiment
One person, a balanced and fluent BL, reads the exact same text in two different languages. Experiment includes ‘distractors’ and respondents are not aware that this is the same person reading in two different languages
Respondents listen to the text read in two languages and are asked to express opinions about the reader.
Competence (intelligence, ambition, etc)
Personal integrity (dependability, kindness, etc)
Social attractiveness (sociability, even physical attractiveness, etc)
Study showed language based differences as well as gender differences, and social class
Language Planning and Policy - 10.7.24
Societal multilingualism
Most societies/countries are multilingual, meaning that there is more than one ethnolinguistic group within their borders
How do gov deal with thies reality in terms of communication on the national level and for the purpose of conducting affairs?
Most states engage in a process of assigning different functions or roles to one or more languages spoken within its borders
Official language
Has sufficient standardization
Known by a cadre of educated citizens and actively used in government business on the national level
National language
Symbol of national identity for a significant proportion of the population
Widely used for everyday purposes
Widely and fluently spoken within the country
No major alternative national languages in the country
Acceptable as a symbol of identity and authenticity
Possesses an acceptable degree of standardization and social status, closer to H end of the diglossia continuum
Link with the ‘glorious’ past
Seens as a needing to fulfill the ‘unifying…
How is the selection of the national language usually made?
Typical cases:
Politically and or culturally dominant dialect of a language
Unifying language spoken by most people
Official vs nation language
Official = national
Often for nation states, the national and official language are the same (eg. france, italy etc.)
The same lang plays a strong symbolic and unifying role as well as being a practical choice of a tool for all government business
Official ≠ nation
Can be different when an official language comes from the “outside”
Official language is often picked for its participatory role
Access to international business, culture, diplomacy, education, eg. india, tanzania, singapore
True national language serves as an effective symbol of citizenship for a large majority of the population
True official language as opposed to a language that has simply been so decares is actually used in day to day administration
Other generalities related to official/national languages