29,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
- Sprache: Englisch
Examination Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: There is interdependent development in BFLA. Several studies could show that the systems are influencing each other and they can not be regarded as minor to argue for an autonomous development. Furthermore, there are different methods of predicting which grammatical domains will be influenced and the direction of influence. These are language internal factors, dominance or epiphenomena of speech production. Nevertheless, there are problems as some children did not show the predicted influence. Possible suggestion to the problem is a modification of the criteria already developed and an inclusion of the possibility of individual differences due to different learner types.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009
Ähnliche
Page 1
Page 3
1 Introduction
In today’s society more and more children grow up in a multilingual environment and acquire two languages from birth or soon afterwards. This can be regarded as an advantage and as a chance for these children to acquire more than one mother tongue. On the other hand, even today there are concerns about exposing children to two or more languages from birth since it might confuse them linguistically, cognitively and emotionally. Parents fear that the language development of their children might be delayed and that the children might not be able to keep their two languages apart. This may lead to incomplete knowledge of both languages. (Meisel 2004: 91) Increased linguistic and psycholinguistic research on bilingualism during the last 30 years has helped to eliminate some concerns and aided in our understanding of the linguistic behaviour of bilingual children. The development of the two morphosyntactic systems in particular has been of interest for research, and they examined whether the children could separate their two languages in the course of acquisition or if the systems are influencing each other. This paper will seek to show that there is evidence for cross-linguistic influences on the level of competence in BFLA and that a combination of language-internal and language-external factors can account for this development. First, researchers assumed that children cannot keep their languages apart and argued for a gradual separation. This concept is called the Single System Hypothesis. Until the late 1980s and 1990s, research on Bilingual First Language Acquisition (henceforth, BFLA) developed the view that the children acquire two separate linguistic systems from the beginning, and that there is no language influence on the level of competence. This development is called Autonomous Development. Recently, these two concepts are no longer regarded as completely opposing each other. Some researchers assume that there is interaction between the two morphosyntactic systems of bilingual children in the course of language acquisition. These interactions are called cross-linguistic influences, which cause different acquisition patterns from those of monolingual children, called Interdependent Development. This view is controversial, as some argue that these influences are not manifested at the level of competence. Furthermore, the question remains which factors account for this development. To create a background for the discussion, the term bilingualism will be defined and a brief overview on concepts and theories in BFLA will be given.
Page 4
Many different definitions of bilingualism can be found in the literature. As this study deals with the simultaneous acquisition of two languages from birth, there will be a focus on this domain, which is called BFLA (Meisel 1989, De Houwer 1990). In the following section, the factors influencing BFLA will be examined as they determine the development of the systems. The age at which children are first exposed to the second language influences their pattern of acquisition. Hence, it is necessary to outline the role of age for the outcome of this process, as the simultaneous acquisition from birth can be characterised as multiple first language development. If this is the case, the universals of First Language Acquisition (henceforth, FLA) could apply in a multiple way. These theories need modification to be transferred to BFLA. Theoretical approaches on the access to Universal Grammar (UG) and to the question of whether the human language faculty is capable of multilingual acquisition will be discussed. UG is activated by input of the target language, and in the bilingual situation the input consists of two languages. The question arises how children differentiate between their languages and what the results of the limited input compared to a monolingual child are. The different amount of input may lead to dominance of one language, which can be regarded as a factor determining cross-linguistic influences. Especially, the storage and separation of the two linguistic systems has been an issue of research for the last decades. There will be a short overview of how the issue has been treated in the literature in the past. It was not always assumed that the two linguistic systems develop separately but that they start out as one system which is differentiated later in development. Volterra and Taeschner (1978) suggested a three-stage model to characterise this development of the linguistic systems of a bilingual child. This model has proved highly controversial, both for empirical and theoretical reasons. Particularly the works of Meisel (1989) and Genesee (1989), written as a reaction to the model, have proved it wrong and have shown that there is an early separation of systems. However, the form which the relationship between the two developing systems takes remains a controversial topic in literature. One position holds the view that the development takes place without cross-linguistic influences. The second position claims that there are quantitative and qualitative differences compared to monolingual FLA which are due to cross-linguistic influences in certain domains. Autonomous and interdependent development will be defined according to Paradis and Genesee (1996). These definitions will be used to test
Page 5
whether there is evidence for Interdependent Development in the morphosyntactic development in BFLA. Different methodologies and explanations have been proposed to predict the domain and the language influenced in BFLA. Some argue in favour of language-internal factors being the reason for this influence, e.g. Döpke (1998) and Müller et al (2002, 2006). They have defined criteria to predict the domain affected by cross-linguistic influences and which language will influence which. Others argue for language-external factors such as dominance or individual learner types. These methodologies will be theoretically explained and described.
In the next chapter, studies will be introduced which provide evidence for the three potential forms of interdependent development in BFLA: transfer, acceleration and delay. Furthermore, the applicability of the methods previously introduced to explain these patterns will be tested. In conclusion, there will be general evaluation on the methodology of the studies presented in this paper. Furthermore, the data and results of the studies will be compared to present an overall picture of the studies to provide evidence for Interdependent Development. The reasons for this development will be critically examined to suggest an explanation which combines language-internal and language-external factors. The domain affected seems to be determined by language-internal factors, but the question of whether this development can be observed in the individual is determined by individual language-external factors. Finally, some general implications on the process of language acquisition will be made which allow phenomena such as cross-linguistic influences and provide a contribution to theories on monolingual FLA.
Page 6
2 Definitions, Terminology and Concepts on BFLA
Bilingualism has been of interest for linguistic research for many years. In this chapter, an introductory overview on BFLA will be given to understand the discussion on which this paper is based. First of all, the term "BFLA" will be defined and problems resulting from different definitions will be discussed. Next, the most important factors influencing BFLA will be presented as they determine the linguistic development of a bilingual and deliver the theoretical basis for discussion. Finally, a short overview will be given on the discussion on the linguistic development in BFLA with focus on the issue of separation of the two systems.
2.2 Definition of BFLA
The term bilingualism has many different facets and is used very differently in the literature. This section will introduce and discuss the different distinctions to outline the special features of BFLA. One of the basic distinctions to be made is between individual and societal bilingualism (Baker 2006: 2). This paper deals with individual bilingualism and not with the phenomenon within a certain group or society. But even with this restriction to the individual level, it is not easy to define the term bilingualism or to determine who is bilingual and who is not. Bilingualism involves very complex cognitive and linguistic processes and varies within different individuals. It is not simply about two languages as monolingualism is about one (Baker 2006: 2). Hence, definitions are different and problematic. While some authors put emphasis on the underlying competence, such as Bloomfield (1935: 56), who defined a bilingual as a person who has “native-like control of two languages”, others, such as Weinreich (1953: 5) prefer a wider definition by putting emphasis on use, and call bilingualism the “practice of alternatively using two languages”. Haugen (1953: 7) goes even further in his definition: for him individuals who are fluent in one language but who “can produce complete and meaningful utterances in the other language” are bilinguals. Beatens Beardsmore (1982: 3-4) points out the problems of these definitions as they reach from a very broad to a very narrow spectrum. For Bloomfield (1935) the degree of proficiency has to be very high and furthermore, the problem of defining “native-like” arises. He even admits himself that it is impossible to “define a degree of perfection at which a good foreign speaker becomes a
Page 7
bilingual: the distinction is relative” (Bloomfield 1935: 56). Haugen (1953), on the other hand, includes everyone who is able to say just a word or a phrase in another language. Today, there is a tendency to adopt a broader view and bilinguals are defined as “individuals or groups of people who obtain communicative skills, with various degrees of proficiency, in oral and/or written forms, in order to interact with speakers of one or more languages in a given society” (Butler and Hakuta 2004: 115). This includes many speakers who may also be in a process of acquiring a second language; hence, it is necessary to classify individual bilingual speakers into different categories. There are certain key variables needed to classify and to define a bilingual person which are according to Wei (2007: 5): “age and manner of acquisition; proficiency level in specific languages; domains of language use; selfidentification and attitude.” According to these variables a large number of different categories for individual bilinguals can be defined. This paper focuses on bilingual children who acquire two languages simultaneously from birth or soon afterwards, a process which is called BFLA. The term was introduced by Meisel (1989) and defined more precisely by DeHouwer (1990: 3): “BFLA refers to these situations in which
a) a child is first exposed to language B no later than a week after he or she was first exposed to language A, and
b) a child’s exposure to language A and B is fairly regular, i.e. the child is addressed in both languages almost every day”
She places emphasis on the time when the child is exposed to the second language, and sets a very narrow time frame when the exposure to the second language has to start. This will be discussed at greater depth in 2.2. In the following, categories relevant for these bilinguals will be introduced which are frequently used in the literature.
The children are exposed to two languages from birth, so this form is sometimes called early or infant bilingualism. They acquire these languages in a naturalistic context which means that they have bilingual or multilingual parents or grow up in a bilingual or multilingual community. This can be contrasted to adults or children who acquire a second language successively through formal instruction (Wei 2007: 5). Hence, BFLA is labelled simultaneous and natural bilingualism.
When measuring the proficiency level, some distinctions have to be taken into consideration. There has to be a distinction between the performance of a
Page 8
speaker and the underlying competence (Baker 2006: 3). The outcome of BFLA should be native-like competence in both languages (Müller et al. 2006: 13). When the relationship between the competence in the languages is equal, which means that they are fluent in both languages, the form of bilingualism is called balanced (also: equilingual, ambilingual). When there is higher proficiency in one language, the child is a dominant bilingual. (Butler and Hakuta 2004: 115) Although children acquiring two languages from birth should be fairly balanced, it frequently occurs that a child is dominant in one language. But it is necessary to state that BFLA does not imply the same frequency of usage but “that both input languages start to be used in regular communication with the child at the same time in development” (De Houwer 2005: 31). Through individual circumstances such as the surrounding language environment, the child can temporarily become more proficient in the other language.
