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The literature on bilingual language development often reports cases of cross-linguistic interaction of the two languages being acquired. In this paper, we investigate possible cross-linguistic interaction outputs in the development of branching onsets in the bilingual acquisition of French and Portuguese. Thirty French–Portuguese bilingual children, aged between 3;6 and 6;1, participated in our study. Their elicited productions were collected using two picture naming tasks containing 29 clusters in French and 57 clusters in Portuguese. Almost all the children acquire branching onsets earlier in French than in Portuguese, independently of the quality of cluster type (Consonant + Rhotic (Cr) clusters vs. Consonant + Lateral (Cl) clusters). Epenthesis is more present in Portuguese than in French. Shared structures in both languages are not acquired at the same time. These results show that bilingual children follow separate patterns of development, close to the ones reported for monolinguals, during the acquisition of their two languages. Moreover, the bilingual children show higher rates of development of clusters in Portuguese than the ones reported for monolinguals, suggesting an accelerated acquisition of clusters in Portuguese due to a positive influence of French. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research shows that family language patterns (i.e., which languages are spoken in the family and by whom) are associated with bilingual children's language use. However, it is unclear how input properties such as input quantity, parental proficiency, and language mixing may differ across family language patterns. It is also unclear whether the effects of family language patterns on children's language proficiency remain when differences in input properties are controlled. We investigated (i) which family language patterns occurred in bilingual families in the Netherlands (n = 136), (ii) whether input properties differed across patterns, and (iii) how patterns related to children's proficiency, once input properties were controlled. Home language situations were assessed through a questionnaire, children's proficiency in Dutch and the minority language through vocabulary tests and parent ratings. Three language patterns were found: one-parent-one-language, both parents mixed languages or used the minority language. The results showed differences in input properties across all patterns, as well as effects of these patterns on children's proficiency in Dutch and the minority language that disappeared once input properties were controlled. These findings do not provide robust evidence that family language patterns predict children's proficiency, but rather, that input quantity is crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has highlighted the significance of the family and community in minority language revitalisation, whilst raising concern for efforts solely focused at the school level. This article draws upon research with children in Gaelic Medium Education, in Scotland, to explore their experiences and perceptions of their language use. The findings illustrate the dominance of English language across multiple aspects of children's lives and highlight the opportunities/threats of recent revitalisation efforts to push the bilingual benefits of language learning. The findings suggest the need for a more considered approach, such as translanguaging pedagogies, in order to effectively revitalise Gaelic language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingual children may choose to reply to utterances in one language with another language. This behavior, which we call interspeaker code-switching, reportedly varies in frequency across children yet the sources of such variation are not well understood. While its use has been linked to variation in proficiency both concurrently and longitudinally, quantitative analyses of this relationship are limited. Here we measure frequency of interspeaker code-switching in a new population, French–English bilinguals in France (ages 5–8), using parental report and relate it to children's self-reported language attitudes and perceptions of dominance, English receptive and expressive vocabulary, and sentence repetition ability. These children use interspeaker code-switching infrequently and nearly exclusively in the direction of French. Use is predicted by children's expressive lexical and grammatical proficiency but not their attitudes toward English and French and exhibits only a marginally significant relationship with self-reported dominance. It shows a closer relationship with proficiency than other more well studied experience variables such as current exposure and output, especially for children with lesser English use. These results support a strong link between interspeaker code-switching and proficiency but not for children's attitudes in a context where they are generally favorable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that bilingual children outperform monolinguals on tasks testing cognitive control. Bilinguals' enhanced cognitive control is thought to be caused by the necessity to exert more language control in bilingual compared to monolingual settings. Surprisingly, between-group research of cognitive effects of bilingualism is hardly ever combined with within-group research that investigates relationships between language control and cognitive control. The present study compared 27 monolingual Dutch and 27 bilingual Turkish-Dutch children matched on age and fluid intelligence on their performance in a nonverbal switching task. Within the group of bilinguals, the relationship between nonverbal switching and language switching was examined. The results revealed no between-group differences on nonverbal switching. Within the bilingual sample, response times in the language switching and nonverbal switching tasks were related, although no relationships were found between accuracy, switching cost and mixing cost on both tasks. The results support the hypothesis that children utilize domain-general cognitive control in language switching, but this relationship does not entail that bilinguals have better cognitive control than monolinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study investigates wh-in-situ transfer for sequential bilingual children whose first language (L1) is Korean and early second language (L2) is English. Previous research has shown evidence that bilingual children who speak one in-situ language and one wh-movement language often show transfer from the dominant language to the weaker language, and from the in-situ language to the wh-movement language. The purpose of this study is to explore whether wh-in-situ is transferred to English, under the influence of Korean. The research questions are as follows: Do K-E bilingual children produce more wh-in-situ questions in English than their monolingual counterparts? If so, do these wh-in-situ questions appear in illicit constructions? Design/Methodology: The design of this study is longitudinal in nature, in order to best capture a holistic picture of the children’s productions of English over time. Seven K-E children spanning ages 2;4 to 7;11 were observed in their spontaneous play interactions over approximately two years. Data/Analysis: The data consists of 120 recordings, which were transcribed and coded in ELAN. Monolingual comparison data were obtained from the CHILDES database. Findings/Conclusions: Results show no instances of wh-in-situ in the children’s English; the bilingual children pattern similarly to English-monolingual children in wh-in-situ production. No direct influence from Korean to English for wh-in-situ formation was found, contrary to what has been found in studies with other language pairs. Originality: This paper provides new evidence from a language pairing that has not been previously explored for crosslinguistic influence of wh-in-situ questions. Significance/Implications: The findings suggest that a dominance approach or structural complexity approach to predicting crosslinguistic influence for bilingual speakers may not fully capture the conditions for such influence to occur and may require some modification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents, teachers and institutions often attempt to implement monolingual policies in bilingual settings, believing that they thereby facilitate children’s bilingual development. Children, however, often have their own communicative agendas. In this study, we investigate how the twofold language policy of an English-medium preschool in Sweden is put into practice in everyday interaction. The results show that children (aged 3–4) develop a broader range of code alternation practices than the staff uses in their interaction with the children. The paper analyses several examples of spontaneous interaction either between staff and children, or among children playing with each other in the preschool. We show how the preschool’s English language profile in practice becomes a bilingual policy, which encourages children not only to acquire English and Swedish in the preschool, but also to learn different ways to manage their bilingualism in the school context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines longitudinal standardized test scores in both languages of a group of successive bilinguals with L1 English acquiring L2 French. Participants included 22 native English-speaking children living in France. French was evaluated using a standardized receptive vocabulary test, as well as tests of phonology and morphosyntax. English was evaluated using the Core Language Score subtests from the CELF-4-UK. The children varied in age (6;9–12;7) and length of exposure (0;11–3;9) to French and were tested twice at 12-month intervals. At T1, 7 children scored below norms in both languages, while only 3 did so at T2. Two out of these 3 were arguably not typically developing children. Length of exposure to French emerged as an important factor only at T1, when a number of children were in early stages of acquisition (≤18 months of exposure). English scores varied by age and weekly use of English. In successive bilingual children, language performance on L2 standardized tests can be expected to be (well) below norms during the first 18 months of exposure. English scores revealed that weak L1 performance is part of typical development in this bilingual context, but that L1 retention is also a possibility. Learning outcomes The reader will be able to: (1) describe challenges associated with language assessment of successive bilingual children, (2) describe the impact that age and length of exposure can have on language performance in bilinguals, and (3) understand how assessing successive bilinguals using monolingual norms can lead to underestimation of language abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study of family language policy unites research in child language acquisition and language policy to better understand how parents' language decisions, practices and beliefs influence child outcomes (King, Fogle & Logan-Terry, 2008). Thus far, this work has focused on how family language policy shapes children's language competencies, formal school success (e.g., Snow, 1990), and the future status of minority languages (e.g., Fishman, 1991), with less attention to children's active roles in shaping parents' ideologies and practices (cf. AUTHOR1, 2009; Luykx, 2003). Addressing this gap, this paper examines how child agency and language use patterns influence parental language behaviors. We draw from three studies of transnational families (Russian/English-speaking international adoptive families and Spanish-English bilingual homes), to describe four aspects of child-parent discourse: (a) children's metalinguistic comments, (b) children's use of resistance strategies, (c) parental responses to children's growing linguistic competence, and (d) enactments of family-external ideologies of race and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates morphological vulnerability in incomplete bilingual L1 acquisition. It examines the production of L1 inflections by L2-dominant bilingual children, with the aim of exploring causes of difficulty in agreement marking. Spontaneous data (18 hours) from six Hungarian-English bilingual children, aged seven to nine, is used to compare the production of possessive inflections and verbal inflections, which are expressed by identical surface morphology in Hungarian. Drawing on recent analysis of Hungarian (Alberti, 1995; Szabolcsi, 1994), the paper asks where and why agreement morphology is susceptible to variability in bilingual children's weaker L1. Results indicate significant differences in the accuracy of agreement morphology. Inflections are almost error-free in possessive nominals and subject-verb agreement. However, they are frequently omitted in possessive be-clauses, which can be attributed to a combination of factors: (i) influence of semantic-syntactic properties of English have on Hungarian be possessive construction (transfer from L2); (ii) difficulty with long-distance agreement in Hungarian be-possessives (structural complexity of L1); and (iii) influence of Hungarian existential and locative constructions on possessive-be (ambiguity in L1). It is argued that morphological variability is selective, and the main source of vulnerability is the syntax-semantics interface where the weaker L1 is most susceptible to L2 influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article proposes a theoretical approach to bilingual development that is in line with general guidelines on language behavior. As we view bilingual development as a particular case of language development we first present a general approach to language development. We argue that language development is dependent upon a number of prerequisites; this includes socialization processes, the development of the functions for which language will be used, and the existence of language-behavior models in the child's environment. The principal feature of this model is that it attempts to take simultaneously into account a macrological analysis at the societal level, a micrological analysis at the individual level and the interface between both. In accordance with the Bates and MacWhinney approach, we suggest that language develops through a constant form-function, form-form, and function-function mapping We apply this approach to bilinguality and analyze a number of case studies of bilingual development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]