Are translation equivalents special? Evidence from simulations and empirical data from bilingual infants

Tsui, Rachel Ka Ying; Gonzalez-Barrero, Ana Maria; Schott, Esther; Byers‐Heinlein, Krista

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105084

Cited by 6 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(158 reference statements)

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“…The evidence in Table 4 shows that a bilingual infant produces cross-linguistic synonyms at the beginning of her speech, which she uses to express her needs, interact socially with others, name objects in their environment, express the actions that they are performing and inform others about the environment. This study corroborates with other studies on the early presence of TEs in bilingual children Gonzalez-Barrero et al, 2020;Quay, 1995;Tsui et al, 2022).…”

Section: Production Of Equivalentssupporting

confidence: 93%

Lexical development in an Indonesian-Balinese bilingual child

Adnyani¹,

Wisudariani²,

Swandana³

2022

Indonesian J. Appl. Linguist.

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It is debatable whether bilingual children can distinguish between their two languages from an early age. This study aims to describe how a bilingual infant differentiates between her two languages, focusing on the acquisition of a dual vocabulary. This topic is addressed in a bilingual case study of an infant who acquired a national language (Indonesian) and an indigenous language (Balinese) simultaneously from birth until the age of one year and eleven months. Within the family, the two languages are used interchangeably. The parents' native language is Balinese, and Indonesian is the neighbourhood’s lingua franca. However, within the peer group, Indonesian is the dominant language. Daily diaries are used to record the child's vocabulary development in combination with weekly video recordings in the two language settings. The study shows that the child develops vocabulary in both Indonesian and Balinese. Since Indonesian and Balinese are closely related, the child also develops words that are shared by the two languages. During the development of the child’s vocabulary, Indonesian words outnumbered Balinese words due to the dominant use of Indonesian in the environment. The research demonstrates that translation equivalents (TEs) mean those language choices are available from the early stages of language development. The study shows that translation equivalents (TEs) demonstrate those language choices are available from the initial stages of language development. The findings highlight that a child who is exposed to two closely related languages can differentiate different language systems from an early age. Despite the child's ability to differentiate between the two languages, the national language develops at a far quicker rate than the indigenous language.

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Section: Production Of Equivalentssupporting

confidence: 93%

Lexical development in an Indonesian-Balinese bilingual child

Adnyani¹,

Wisudariani²,

Swandana³

2022

Indonesian J. Appl. Linguist.

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“…(2015) and by Tsui et al. (2022) for toddlers with smaller vocabulary sizes below 300 words. A preference for doublets may explain the higher total vocabulary sizes of bilinguals compared to monolinguals in our sample, as an ease of learning translation equivalents may make it easier for bilinguals to acquire more words in their total vocabulary than monolinguals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…(1993) and Tsui et al. (2022) for toddlers with larger vocabularies exceeding 300 words. The Neutral Account posits that translation equivalents are neither easier nor more difficult to learn than new concepts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…A recent study by Tsui et al. (2022) suggested that there may be developmental differences in the acquisition of translation equivalents based on the child's vocabulary size. While toddlers with larger vocabulary sizes (300 words or more) showed patterns that followed predictions of the Neutral Account, those with smaller vocabulary sizes showed patterns supporting a Preference Account.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Words that are learnt earlier in one language are also often learnt earlier in other languages (Łuniewska et al., 2016). Therefore, the words known in each language by bilinguals who have balanced vocabulary sizes are likely to have high conceptual overlap, regardless of whether this acquisition of doublets is incidental or due to a preference toward learning translation equivalents (Pearson et al., 1995; Tsui et al., 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Double it up: Vocabulary size comparisons between UK bilingual and monolingual toddlers

Siow,

Gillen,

Lepădatu

et al. 2023

Infancy

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We compared vocabulary sizes in comprehension and production between bilingual toddlers growing up in the United Kingdom (UK) and age‐matched UK English monolinguals (12–36 months old) using parent‐report vocabulary questionnaires. We found that bilingual toddlers' vocabulary sizes in English were smaller than the vocabulary sizes of their monolingual peers. Notably, this vocabulary gap was not found when groups were compared on conceptual vocabulary in comprehension. Conceptual scoring also reduced the vocabulary gap in production but group differences were still significant. Bilingual toddlers knew more words than monolinguals when words across their two languages were added together, for both comprehension and production. This large total vocabulary size could be attributed to a high proportion of doublets (cross‐linguistic word pairs with the same meaning) in bilinguals' vocabularies. These findings are discussed in relation to language exposure, facilitation from cross‐linguistic overlap and maturation constraints on vocabulary size.

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Cognates are advantaged over non-cognates in early bilingual expressive vocabulary development

MITCHELL,

TSUI,

BYERS-HEINLEIN

2023

J. Child Lang.

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Bilinguals need to learn two words for most concepts. These words are called translation equivalents, and those that also sound similar (e.g., banana–banane) are called cognates. Research has consistently shown that children and adults process and name cognates more easily than non-cognates. The present study explored if there is such an advantage for cognate production in bilinguals’ early vocabulary development. Longitudinal expressive vocabulary data were collected from 47 English–French bilinguals starting at 16–20 months up to 27 months (a total of 219 monthly administrations in both English and French). Children produced a greater proportion of cognates than non-cognates, and the interval between producing a word and its translation equivalent was about 10–15 days shorter for cognates than for non-cognates. The findings suggest that cognate learning is facilitated in early bilingual vocabulary development, such that phonological overlap supports bilinguals in learning phonologically similar words across their two languages.

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Are translation equivalents special? Evidence from simulations and empirical data from bilingual infants

Cited by 6 publications

References 73 publications

Lexical development in an Indonesian-Balinese bilingual child

Lexical development in an Indonesian-Balinese bilingual child

Double it up: Vocabulary size comparisons between UK bilingual and monolingual toddlers

Cognates are advantaged over non-cognates in early bilingual expressive vocabulary development

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