Input and literacy effects in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals: The performance of Albanian–Greek-speaking children in sentence repetition

Abstract

Aim: The present study examines input and literacy effects in simultaneous and sequential bilinguals with the aim of (a) investigating the differences between bilingual and monolingual populations and (b) disentangling the individual contribution of different factors in bilingual syntactic abilities. Methodology: A sentence repetition task (SRT) in Greek with eight structures (Subject Verb Object [SVO], negative clauses, clitic structures, complement clauses, coordinated sentences, adverbial clauses, wh-questions and relative clauses) was employed. All bilinguals additionally participated in a standardized expressive vocabulary task in Greek to measure their lexical ability. Data: Sixty 8–10-year-old children (20 monolingual, 20 simultaneous and 20 late sequential bilinguals) were tested. Findings: The analysis showed that (a) monolinguals outperform sequential bilinguals in sentence repetition, (b) clitic structures are highly problematic for all participants, (c) vocabulary and syntactic skills are closely related for simultaneous but not for sequential bilinguals, (d) home language practices in the early years affect SRT performance and (e) sequential bilinguals benefit from literacy practices that support syntactic skills in the language tested. Overall, we found that the effect of input overrides the effect of a traditionally categorical factor in bilingualism: age of onset (AoO) of exposure to L2. Originality: The contribution of this study includes (a) the examination of syntactic abilities in bilinguals in connection with language input early in life and at the time of testing, (b) the non-pervasive role of age of exposure to the L2 in SRT performance and (c) the role of literacy measures as key factors affecting syntactic skills in bilinguals. Implications: Quality of input and literacy in particular have been shown to affect bilingual syntactic skills, suggesting that enhancing literacy exposure as a language policy for bilinguals has a significantly positive impact on language development.

Linguistic Profiling of Heritage Speakers of an Endangered Language: The Case of Vlach Aromanian–Greek Bilinguals

“…Starting with the early life language practices, VAS was reported as the home language during childhood by L1VAS-L2GR bilinguals and 2L1s bilinguals but only by 25% of L1GR-L2VAS bilinguals with an overall very late exposure to the heritage language. The impact on language development due to variations in the amount of language input has been similarly documented in earlier work (Jia and Fuse 2007, Thordardottir 2011, Kaltsa et al 2020 and the use of the minority language as the home language has been associated with positive language outcomes as in our study (De Houwer 2007, La Morgia 2011. It is also important to note that all participants attended schools using only the majority language for instruction, namely, Greek, and only L1VAS-L2GR and 2L1s bilinguals would use VAS during recess to interact with peers.…”

“…With regard to language input, the literature has shown that measures of input quantity have been employed to explain variation in several grammatical phenomena (Gathercole 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, Montrul and Potowski 2007, Unsworth et al 2014, Prentza et al 2019 or in the overall development of grammatical abilities (Jia and Fuse 2007, Chondrogianni and Marinis 2011, Thordardottir 2011, Kaltsa et al 2020. Recent research has also interestingly pointed out the positive effect of the quality of input in bilingual development as this was measured in terms of biliteracy exposure (Oller and Eilers 2002, Gathercole and Thomas 2009, Crago and Genesee 2011, Prentza et al 2019, Kaltsa et al 2020. Given that VA does not have a written from, literacy measures in our study considered literacy practices and schooling in Greek as well as any other languages that our participants used regularly.…”

How language environment, age, and cognitive capacity support the bilingual development of Syrian refugee children recently arrived in Canada

“…Regarding home literacy practices in particular, Prevoo et al (2014) found that reading in Dutch increased the Dutch vocabulary of Turkish–Dutch 5- and 6-year-olds. Kaltsa et al (2019) found that language and frequency of early and current home literacy practices in Greek had a positive impact on 8- to 10-year-old Albanian children’s syntactic abilities in their Greek L2.…”

“…In the Canadian context, economic immigrants undergo a separate selection process from refugees: the former is a competitive process based on skills, education, and resources and the latter is a process based on humanitarian concerns. Furthermore, the bulk of research on language environment and bilingual development has been conducted with young children, mainly 3-8 years old, (e.g., Pham & Tipton, 2018;Place & Hoff, 2016;Prevoo et al, 2014;Sorenson Duncan & Paradis, 2020a) and research with older bilingual children and youth focuses mainly on those with longer residency and who have had most or all their education in the host country (e.g., Bayram et al, 2017;Flores, Santos, Jesus, & Marques, 2017;Kaltsa, Prentza, & Tsimpli, 2019; except see Jia &Aaronson, 2003 andJia &Fuse, 2007). Syrian families have recently migrated to Canada as refugees with children and youth of various ages.…”

Linguistic Diversity, Multilingualism, and Cognitive Skills: A Study of Disadvantaged Children in India

“…The child questionnaires were adapted from previous studies with bilinguals by Kaltsa et al (2019) and Rothou and Tsimpli (2017). Regarding bi/multilingualism, children were asked which languages were spoken at home by their parents, siblings, or other relatives and best friends-and in which languages they use to respond.…”