Growing up in a socially bilingual environment: simultaneous acquisition of a typologically close language (Crecer en un entorno social bilingüe: adquisición de una lengua de forma simultánea a otra lengua tipológicamente similar)

Abstract

Previous research indicates that developmental contexts influence language development. These developmental contexts include bilingualism, which is the focus of the current paper. This study analyses the influence that the acquisition of a language, Catalan, has when the simultaneous acquisition of another similar language, Spanish, occurs. This influence is examined according to degree of exposure to the languages. The parents of 801 children completed the Catalan version of the MacArthur-Bates CDI-II questionnaire, which assesses the acquisition of vocabulary, morphology and grammatical complexity. Subjects were divided into three groups according to age and linguistic context (Catalan monolingual, medium bilingual and familiar bilingual). The results do not reveal substantial differences according to linguistic context. However, children aged 26-30 months with a medium bilingual profile show a higher level of vocabulary as compared to the other groups. The results are discussed in relation to the sociolinguistic context, caregiver diversity, typological distance between the languages and developmental stages of language acquisition. RESUMENEstudios previos señalan que los contextos de desarrollo influyen en el desarrollo del lenguaje. Entre ellos está el contexto bilingüe en el que se centra el presente artículo, que analiza la influencia en la adquisición de una lengua, el catalán, de la adquisición simultánea de otra lengua, el español, en función del grado de exposición. Los progenitores de 801 niños contestaron a la adaptación catalana del cuestionario MacArthur-Bates CDI-II. Esta muestra se dividió en tres grupos de edad y tres grupos de contexto lingüístico (monolingüe-catalán, bilingüe medio y bilingüe familiar), analizando la adquisición del vocabulario, de la morfología y de la complejidad gramatical. Los resultados no muestran diferencias substanciales en función del contexto lingüístico. Sin embargo, en los niños de 26-30 meses se observa un nivel de vocabulario mayor en el grupo bilingüe con exposición media en comparación con los otros grupos. Estos resultados se discuten en relación con el contexto sociolingüístico, la diversidad de ARTICLE HISTORY

Multilingual use assessment questionnaire: a proposal for assessing language and literacy experience

“…The application of the MUAQ revealed that answers to basic questions about home and preferred language(s) offer limited insights into the linguistic profiles of our study population and/or sociolinguistic context, Catalonia, where there is no majority language (Serrat et al, 2021). In our study, every participant is bilingual to some extent; responses regarding their language of comfort and languages spoken at home were evenly divided between Spanish, Catalan, and both languages.…”

“…The need for tools that measure multilingualism as a multidimensional factor becomes especially relevant in sociolinguistic situations like the one in Catalonia, the context of our study, where two official languages, Catalan, and Spanish, coexist and none of them is a minority language (Serrat et al, 2021). While Catalan is the main language of schooling, both languages are widely used, and there is virtually no monolingual Catalan population (Camus and Aparici, 2020;Tolchinsky et al, 2022).…”

Language acquisition in a post-pandemic context: the impact of measures against COVID-19 on early language development

“…As the literature suggests, exposure to vocabulary items spoken by different talkers results in faster and more accurate development than exposure to the same items spoken by a single talker (Richtsmeier et al, 2009). In the same line, Rojas et al (2016) or Serrat et al (2021) also found that preschoolers with access to input by different interlocutors show higher rates of expressive language skills, due to the wider range of topics, referents and vocabulary items that children are exposed to and, subsequently, acquire. However, an important limitation regarding the present study lies in the way sociocommunicative diversity was measured, given the fact that the question that was addressed to parents in the questionnaire might have been interpreted differently by different participants.…”

“…The pre-Covid group was created by selecting a sub-sample from the normative sample of the Catalan MB-CDI ( Serrat et al, 2022 ). To create this control group, we randomly selected those children who matched the post-Covid children in the following variables: (a) age; (b) sex; (c) prematurity status; (d) linguistic context (i.e., degree of exposure to languages other than Catalan, see Serrat et al, 2021 ); (e) birth order; and (f) education of mothers (see Table 1 for sociodemographic variables).…”

“…Furthermore, research also shows that access to input variability seems fundamental for young learners, in order for them to acquire the patterns and rules of the language they are exposed to ( Perry et al, 2010 ; Rowe, 2012 ; Jones and Rowland, 2017 ; Serrat et al, 2021 ; Kartushina et al, 2022 ). In particular, talker variability has been described to facilitate linguistic development ( Richtsmeier et al, 2009 ; Rost and McMurray, 2009 ; Rojas et al, 2016 ).…”