Learning foreign labels from a foreign speaker: the role of (limited) exposure to a second language

Abstract

Three- and four-year-olds (N = 144) were introduced to novel labels by an English speaker and a foreign speaker (of Nordish, a made-up language), and were asked to endorse one of the speaker's labels. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared to bilingual children and English-speaking children who were regularly exposed to a language other than English. All children tended to endorse the English speaker's labels when asked 'What do you call this?', but when asked 'What do you call this in Nordish?', children with exposure to a second language were more likely to endorse the foreign label than monolingual and bilingual children. The findings suggest that, at this age, exposure to, but not necessarily immersion in, more than one language may promote the ability to learn foreign words from a foreign speaker.

Children’s use of linguistic information when learning in a bilingual context

“…Bilingual children have been found to attend and respond more to social partners' communicative cues than have monolingual children (e.g., Brojde, Ahmed, & Colunga, 2012;Yow & Markman, 2011); such greater attention to communicative cues may have helped bilingual children in this study to better attend to information that signaled differences between the two speakers' language backgrounds (e.g., when the bilingual speaker spoke in Japanese). In addition, bilingual children's greater understanding of others' language knowledge (e.g., Akhtar et al, 2012;Byers-Heinlein et al, 2014;Diesendruck, 2005) may have also allowed the bilingual children in this study to better differentiate the two speakers' language backgrounds. That is, bilingual children's greater attention to social partners and enhanced metalinguistic awareness may have allowed bilingual children to differentiate the speakers, identify with whom they shared community membership, and form a preference for whom to imitate.…”

“…Monolingual children have indeed been found to have difficulties with metalinguistic awareness, especially in understanding their own and others' language backgrounds (Akhtar et al, 2012;ByersHeinlein et al, 2014). For monolinguals, a speaker's language background may be irrelevant information to consider as long as there is a common language between the monolingual child and speaker.…”

“…Similarly, exposure to multiple languages during early childhood makes English-speaking children more likely to learn novel words from a foreign speaker than from an English speaker (Akhtar, Menjivar, Hoicka, & Sabbagh, 2012). Preschool-aged bilinguals are also aware of their own language background; when asked what language they speak, most bilingual children answer correctly, whereas most monolingual children do not (Akhtar et al, 2012). In addition, children who speak different languages are capable of differentiating between and using the appropriate language in a given context by the time they start speaking (e.g., Nicoladis, 1998;Petitto et al, 2001;Slobin, 1978).…”

“…If, however, the shared experience of being bilingual is important for bilingual children, we expected both Japanese-English Bilinguals and Other Bilinguals to prefer to imitate the Japanese-English bilingual actor. Although the Other Bilinguals do not speak the same two languages as the Japanese-English bilingual actor, the Other Bilinguals may be able to recognize-via enhanced metalinguistic awareness (Akhtar et al, 2012;Byers-Heinlein et al, 2014;Diesendruck, 2005)-that they share a bilingual language experience with the bilingual actor. …”

“…For instance, young children who speak two languages better understand others' language backgrounds; bilingual children understand that a monolingual speaker lacks knowledge of another language, whereas monolingual children do not (Byers-Heinlein, Chen, & Xu, 2014;Diesendruck, 2005). Similarly, exposure to multiple languages during early childhood makes English-speaking children more likely to learn novel words from a foreign speaker than from an English speaker (Akhtar, Menjivar, Hoicka, & Sabbagh, 2012). Preschool-aged bilinguals are also aware of their own language background; when asked what language they speak, most bilingual children answer correctly, whereas most monolingual children do not (Akhtar et al, 2012).…”