Entropy convergence in early bilinguals’ syntactic packaging

Abstract

A core question in developmental and cognitive research concerns the way linguistic variation affects the acquisition process. Previous research on monolinguals suggests that children, but not adults, tend to regularize inconsistent input, resulting in reduced variation. Some recent claims explain regularization as a general bias linked to cognitive load. However, little is known about bilingual acquisition contexts where children naturally experience both increased variability and cognitive load. This study investigated the impact of between- and within-language variability in syntactic packaging (i.e., how semantic elements are mapped onto syntactic units) on simultaneous bilinguals’ acquisition of motion event encoding. In this domain, French is considered highly variable, in contrast to low variability demonstrated by English. Based on this crosslinguistic contrast, 96 English–French bilingual children (aged 4–11 years) and 96 age-matched monolinguals of each language described 32 animated cartoons showing complex motion events. Children’s variability of selected syntactic patterns was measured using the information-theoretical concept of entropy. Results indicated that bilingual children significantly reduced syntactic variation relative to monolingual peers, but only in French, the more variable language. Moreover, bilingual children converged in entropy levels across the two languages and patterned mid-way between respective monolinguals. These findings suggest that the cognitive load inherent in bilingualism is not sufficient to explain reduced linguistic variation. Instead, the asymmetric drop in entropy highlights the strong impact of crosslinguistic differences and thus underlines the importance of taking language-specific factors into account in theories of cognitive load.

Uyghur–Chinese early successive adult bilinguals’ construal of caused motion events

“…Now, the asymmetry of CLI in Uyghur–Chinese adult bilinguals’ motion descriptions across VM versus CM events echoes previous research showing that bilingual children and adults alike display greater degrees of CLI when verbalizing CM than VM (cf. Engemann, 2016, 2022a, 2022b; Filipović, 2022; see also Hendriks et al, 2008 and Hendriks & Hickmann, 2011 for similar observations on English L2 learners of French). But what is clear is that neither the structural overlap hypothesis nor the coactivation hypothesis can offer a principled account of the rather dynamic patterns of CLI that characterize Uyghur–Chinese adult bilinguals’ motion construal.…”

“…There is also some initial evidence that patterns of CLI interact with the semantic properties of the denoted event in a more dynamic fashion. For example, the same English–French bilingual children have been found to show much stronger and persistent CLI when verbalizing CM (Engemann, 2016, 2022b) than VM (Engemann, 2022a), and similar patterns have been observed for advanced English learners of L2 French (cf. Hendriks et al, 2008 vs. Hendriks & Hickmann, 2011).…”

“…Recall that in these bilinguals, it is their French verbalizations that were affected by English patterns. And it has been argued that the French motion system is highly opaque in that speakers display great variability in encoding motion, which creates ‘noise’ in the input for (monolingual and bilingual) child and adult learners alike (e.g., Engemann, 2022b; Hendriks et al, 2021; Hickmann et al, 2018). In contrast, our bilinguals dealt with two highly transparent motion systems, i.e., Uyghur systematically verb-framed and Chinese equipollently-framed.…”

Uyghur–Chinese early successive bilingual children's acquisition of voluntary motion expressions

“…Put differently, while avoiding the use of syntactically complex motion constructions (unless necessitated by the communicative task) may be a tendency of V-language speakers, it may be more pronounced or persistent in bilingual speakers due to the challenges inherent in dual language processing and use (cf. Filipović, 2022;Filipović & Hawkins, 2019; also see Engemann, 2016Engemann, , 2022 for simultaneous and successive bilingual children's similar tendencies in expressing caused motion) 5 .…”