Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:55:19.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

INTRODUCTION: Recent developments in early bilingualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2018

TANJA KUPISCH
TANJA KUPISCH*
Affiliation:
University of Konstanz, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
*
Address for correspondence: Tanja Kupisch, University of Konstanz, Department of Linguistics, Universtätsstrasse 10, D-78457 KonstanzGermany[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This Special Issue (SI) is dedicated to early bilinguals, who acquire two languages during early childhood, before age 6, simultaneously (2L1 bilinguals) or sequentially (cL2 bilinguals). Recently, the notion of heritage speakers (HSs) − bilinguals who grow up speaking a minority language at home − has become prominent in this context. HS research has typically targeted bilinguals at a mature (adult) state, but early developing bilinguals may of course be HSs too, though not uniformly labelled as such. HSs of a moribund language or variety are another type of early bilingual, representing the final or penultimate, often 4th or 5th, generation of speakers. Unfortunately, ‘deficiency’ or ‘incompleteness’ is a common thread linking much HS research − despite a wealth of evidence demonstrating HSs’ maintenance of complexity in many grammatical domains along with differences to monolinguals (see, e.g., Kupisch & Rothman, 2016; Putnam & Sánchez, 2013). This SI brings together studies on how and why the morphosyntax and phonology of early bilinguals might differ from that of monolinguals.

Keywords

early bilingualismheritage speakersAge of Onsetinputcrosslinguistic influence
Type
Introduction
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 21 , Special Issue 4: Recent developments in child bilingualism: Cross-linguistic influence, incomplete acquisition, critical periods and the advantages of bilingualism , August 2018 , pp. 653 - 655
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahamson, N., & Hyltenstam, K. (2009). Age of onset and nativelikeness in a second language: listener perception versus linguistic scrutiny. Language Learning, 59, 249−306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderssen, M., Lundquist, B., & Westergaard, M. (2018). Crosslinguistic similarities and differences in bilingual acquisition and attrition: Possessives and double definiteness in Norwegian heritage language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, doi: 10.1017/S1366728918000330CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, G. (2013). Gender in Italian-German bilinguals: A comparison with German L2 learners of Italian. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 538–557.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döpke, S. (1998). Competing language structures: The acquisition of verb placement by bilingual German–English children. Journal of Child Language, 25, 555–584.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egger, E., Hulk, A., & Tsimpli, I. (2018). Crosslinguistic influence in the discovery of gender: the case of Greek-Dutch bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, doi: 10.1017/S1366728917000207CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flege, J. E. (1995). Second-language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In Strange, W. (ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research, pp. 233–273. Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Frieda, E., & Nozawa, T. (1997). Amount of native-language (L1) use affects the pronunciation of an L2. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 169–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granfeldt, J. (2018). The development of gender in simultaneous and successive bilingual acquisition of French – evidence for AOA and input effects. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, doi: 10.1017/S1366728916001140CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulk, A., & Müller, N. (2000). Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 227–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J. S., & Newport, E. (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: the influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 60–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kehoe, M. (2018). The development of rhotics: A comparison of monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, doi: 10.1017/S1366728916001279CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kupisch, T. (2012). Generic subjects in the Italian of early German-Italian bilinguals and German learners of Italian as a second language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 736–756.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kupisch, T. (2014). Adjective placement in simultaneous bilinguals (German-Italian) and the concept of cross-linguistic overcorrection. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 222–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kupisch, T., & Rothman, J. (2016). Terminology matters! Why difference is not incompleteness and how early child bilinguals are heritage speakers. International Journal of Bilingualism, doi: 10.1177/1367006916654355. Published online by SAGE journals, June 22, 2016.Google Scholar
Lleó, C. (2018). Aspects of the Phonology of Spanish as a Heritage Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, doi: 10.1017/S1366728917000165CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (2009). Second language acquisition in early childhood. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 28, 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (2008). Child second language acquisition or successive first language acquisition? In Haznedar, B. & Gavruseva, E. (eds.), Current trends in child second language acquisition, pp. 55–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (2018). Early child second language acquisition: French gender is German children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, doi:10.1017/S1366728916000237CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, N. (1998). Transfer in bilingual first language acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 151–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, C., & Singleton, D. (2011). A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment. Language Teaching, 44, 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paradis, J., & Genesee, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: autonomous or independent? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, M., & Sánchez, L. (2013). What's so incomplete about incomplete acquisition? A prolegomenon to modeling heritage language grammars. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3, 576−506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothweiler, M. (2006). The acquisition of V2 and subordinate clauses in early successive acquisition of German. In Lleó, C. (ed.), Interfaces in multilingualism: acquisition, representation and processing, pp. 93−115. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sharwood-Smith, M., & Kellerman, E. (1986). Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition: An Introduction. In Kellerman, E. & Sharwood-Smith, M. (eds.), Crosslinguistic influence in second language acquisition, pp. 1–9. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Treffers-Daller, J., & Silva Corvalán, C. (2015) (eds.). Language Dominance in Bilinguals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Unsworth, S. (2014). Comparing the role of input in bilingual acquisition across domains. In Grüter, T. & Paradis, J. (eds.), Input and experience in bilingual development, pp. 181−201. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Unsworth, S., Argyri, F., Cornips, L., Hulk, A., Sorace, A., & Tsimpli, I. (2016). On the role of age of onset and input in early child bilingualism in Greek and Dutch. Applied Psycholinguistics, 35, 765−805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unsworth, S. (2016). Early child L2 acquisition: Age or input effects? Neither, or both? Journal of Child Language, 43, 603−634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed