Narrative competence of Italian–English bilingual children between 5 and 7 years

Roch, Maja; Florit, Elena; Levorato, Chiara

doi:10.1017/s0142716415000417

Cited by 60 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…On the other hand, several studies point to the importance of language exposure, showing that the narrative structure in bilinguals might be better in L1 than in L2 ( Kapalková et al, 2016 ; Roch et al, 2016 ). A study on L1 Russian narratives in Russian-Norwegian preschoolers suggests that the L1 story structure might be dependent on the amount of exposure to L1 (e.g., Rodina, 2016 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

et al. 2017

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Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

et al. 2017

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“…The Spanish-English bilingual children studied by Pearson (2002) likely produced narratives with better developed macrostructure features than would be found in preschoolers due to more experience listening to and telling stories, and more experience producing macrostructure in both of their two languages. Lending support to the idea that cross-language associations may not be found in younger bilinguals are the findings of Roch, Florit, and Levorato (2016), who examined the narratives of two age groups of Italian-English bilingual children. Positive associations were found between Italian and English macrostructure scores for the older children, ranging in age from 6 to 7 years.…”

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confidence: 89%

The narrative macrostructure production of Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers: Within- and cross-language relations

Bitetti¹,

Hammer

López

2019

Applied Psycholinguistics

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Despite the importance of understanding the narrative abilities of bilingual children, minimal research has focused on Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers. Therefore, this study examined the cross-language macrostructure and within-language microstructure relations in the English and Spanish narratives of bilingual preschoolers and examined whether language dominance impacted these relations. Narratives were elicited from 200 preschool-aged children of Latino heritage. Microstructure measures included the number of different words, the mean length of utterance in words, and the subordination index. The narrative scoring scheme measured macrostructure (Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010). Using standardized language testing of expressive vocabulary and sentence comprehension, the children were classified into two groups: balanced dominance and Spanish dominant. Results revealed that English macrostructure and Spanish macrostructure were not related after controlling for microstructure measures within languages. Children’s microstructure abilities in each language were strongly related to their macrostructure abilities within that language. Dominance did not moderate these relations. Consistent with previous research on school-age children, vocabulary was a unique predictor of macrostructure production. This study highlights the additional importance of utterance length within both languages to macrostructure during the preschool years. The absence of unique cross-language macrostructure relations and the absence of dominance group moderation may have been due to the immaturity of the children’s narratives.

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“…Narrative assessment may be particularly appropriate for such children because it provides a systematic way to examine oral language proficiency in both the first (L1) and second language (L2), and is considered less biased because it taps into both language-specific and language-universal skills (Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2011). It has also been found to be developmentally sensitive (Heilmann, Miller, & Nockerts, 2010;Roch, Florit, & Levorato, 2016;Squires et al, 2014;Suggate, Schaughency, & Reese, 2011), and it may be especially informative in the first few years of formal schooling when children's language abilities are evolving most rapidly (Bohnacker, 2016).…”

Section: Oral Narrative Assessment For Emergent Bilingual Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both tasks provide information about children's understanding of holistic narrative elements alongside linguistic development (Muñoz et al, 2003;Roth, Speece, Cooper, & De La Paz, 1996), and both likely activate story schema (Merritt & Liles, 1989). Nonetheless, the tasks require different cognitive and linguistic skills (Gutiérrez-Clellen, 2002;Lever & Sénéchal, 2011;Roch et al, 2016), and children may perform differently on macrostructure and microstructure depending on the task (Spinillo & Pinto, 1994).…”

Section: Spontaneous Story Generation Versus Retellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On one side, spontaneous story generation may be more difficult because producing a story based on picture cues alone is cognitively demanding (Liles, 1993;Merritt & Liles, 1987). Children have to conceptualize all possible elements and systematically organize them into a coherent narrative without the benefit of a model to draw on (Ripich & Griffith, 1988;Roch et al, 2016). Furthermore, while children likely understand what makes a good narrative at an early age, they may not apply this knowledge to spontaneously-produced stories (Lever & Sénéchal, 2011).…”

Section: Spontaneous Story Generation Versus Retellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Narrative assessments with first grade Spanish-English emergent bilinguals

Lucero

Uchikoshi

2019

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This study used qualitative analyses to investigate similarities and differences in narrative production across two task conditions for four first grade Spanish-English emergent bilingual children. Task conditions were spontaneous story generation and retelling using the same story. Spanish stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in vocabulary, while English stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in overall discourse skills. Results show that when the total number of words used was similar across Spanish narratives, the retell included more different words and higher quality story structure than the spontaneous story. When overall discourse scores in the English examples were similar, the spontaneous story required more words than the retell, but also included more central events and greater detail. Yet, the retell included more advanced narrative components. This study contributes to our understanding of narrative skills in young Spanish-English bilinguals across task conditions.

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Narrative competence of Italian–English bilingual children between 5 and 7 years

Cited by 60 publications

References 28 publications

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

The narrative macrostructure production of Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers: Within- and cross-language relations

Narrative assessments with first grade Spanish-English emergent bilinguals

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