A Case Study of Cross-Linguistic Transfer in Bilingual Child Language Acquisition1
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DOMINANCE OR PREFERENCE?: A CASE STUDY OF CROSS-LINGUISTIC TRANSFER IN BILINGUAL CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION1 Erin Wright 1.0 Introduction The child growing up with two languages provides a unique opportunity to investigate the myriad cognitive and environmental factors affecting language production. Much research in this area has focused on the evidence of language mixing in the oral production of bilingual children. While it has been argued that language mixing may indicate an inability on the part of the bilingual to differentiate between two language systems, there has also been significant research in favor of two differentiated systems that occasionally overlap (Vihman 1985, Genesee 1989, Genesee et al 1995, Lanza 1997). The differentiation between two languages becomes more salient as the bilingual passes from the early stages of childhood acquisition into pre-adolescence and is able to maintain a higher degree of control over both languages. As the child approaches adolescence, the question of language mixing becomes complicated by social, cognitive, and environmental factors. While mixing can take many forms, lexical and syntactic transfer are two domains in which the interaction between languages is perhaps most salient for pre-adolescent bilinguals. In examining the occurrence of cross-linguistic interference, it is important to assess some of the underlying factors that govern language mixing, namely, language dominance and language preference. While language dominance refers primarily to the linguistic abilities of the bilingual child, language preference suggests a degree of influence from social and environmental factors, including language domain (where the language is being spoken), conversation topic, confidence level, and language of the interlocutor. The frequency with which one language is used over another may also contribute a significant practice effect that permeates both dominance and preference in simultaneous or subsequent situations. This case study examines the oral production of a 10 year-old French-English bilingual in an attempt to determine the nature of cross-linguistic transfer as it relates to language dominance and preference. While a variety of transfer phenomena were observed, this preliminary report focuses on the occurrence of lexical and syntactic transfer in oral language production. When is cross-linguistic transfer seen in bilingual children? Crosslinguistic transfer in bilingual speech has been found in a number of different structures, from syntax to phonology. Lexical insertions are among the most observable forms of transfer in that they clearly stray from the norm of the language being spoken. These insertions consist of a word or words from one language used in another language to meet a lexical need and are often differentiated phonologically with pronunciation that 1 This paper was originally written for TESL 522 Language Acquisition (Fall 2003, Professor Naomi Baron) at American University, Washington, DC. 2 corresponds to the language of the inserted word. In a study examining the language samples of five Spanish-English bilingual children between the ages of 2;10 and 6;2 living in the United States, Lindholm and Padilla (1977) found that the most common type of mix involved the insertion of single lexical items, most commonly English nouns into Spanish utterances. Most nouns were inserted into a sentence following an article or a demonstrative. Lindholm and Padilla note that while “the children’s choice of number agreement was always correct…the gender of the functors was not always consistent with the gender of the noun” (1977, p. 328). Swain and Wesche (1975) examined the oral production of a three-year old French-English bilingual for instances of lexical mixing. They also found a high frequency of lexical insertions that may be attributed to the cognitive dominance of the word or phrase in one language over the same item in another language: “language mixing consists primarily of isolated words or phrases introduced into a foreign context” (1975, p. 21). Müller (1998) examines the ambiguity of German complementizers in which a variety of word orders are possible. Her study specifically concerns syntactic transfer in subordinate clauses as a relief strategy used among bilingual children “to cope with ambiguous input” (1998, p. 168). When, as Müller claims, “one of the languages leaves open the possibility for more than one grammatical analysis, the bilingual individual may, in compensation, use parts of the analysis of the second language, that is, s/he transfers parameter values or feature specifications of categories” (1998, p. 168). When the bilingual child encounters such ambiguity in the input language (presumably the child’s dominant language), the ambiguous structure is then transferred to the target language. Explaining cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual children Lindholm and Padilla conclude that “bilingual children employ language mixes either when they lack the lexical entry in the appropriate language or when the mixed entry is more salient to the child” (1977, p. 334). Swain and Wesche’s findings echo those of Lindholm and Padilla where lexical substitutions are often due to knowledge of the word in only one language (1975, p. 21). Swain and Wesche take the notion of salience one step further to include sociolinguistic context as a determining factor in lexical choice: “in cases where he knows the word in both languages, the immediate verbal context appears at times to make a word or phrase more available than its counterpart in the other language” (1975, p. 21). In these cases, the child in their study inserted a word used by the researcher in an immediate previous utterance. Given the influence of conversational topic on lexical choice, especially in instances where translation from a previous conversation or event is required, it seems plausible that words or phrases from the original verbal context may play a role in transfer in much the same way. The influence of sociolinguistic context Caldas and Caron-Caldas (2000) examine the effects of sociolinguistic context on language use among bilingual children. They look specifically at the influence of family, school, and community on the language preference of three bilingual French-English children. The home domain was predominantly French-speaking, while the community 3 domain shifted between French and English as the family traveled between French- speaking Quebec and English-speaking Louisiana (2000, p. 365). Two of the children were in a French immersion school program throughout the three years the study took place, while the third was enrolled in an American school. The study uses a domain- sensitive longitudinal measure—the bilingual preference ratio (BPR)—to calculate the children’s overall language preference and their preference in each of the given domains. Fluctuations in BPR indicate that the most significant factor governing language preference is the language spoken in the community (where language preference changes to correspond to the primary language of the community as the subjects moved between Louisiana and Quebec) (2000, p. 373). The children in French immersion school programs, however, exhibited a higher BPR for French while at home in Louisiana. Caldas and Caron-Caldas attribute this finding to the influence of French immersion at school (2000, p. 365). The overall BPR shows a French language preference for these children and an English language preference for the third (2000, p. 376). With respect to language dominance and language preference, Caldas and Caron-Caldas conclude, The strongest factor influencing the fluctuation in the children’s bilingual preference is the predominant language of the community…bilingual dominance, as opposed to preference, may more narrowly refer to the disproportionate influence that one of a bilingual’s two languages exerts on the other one, perhaps manifesting itself at the level of grammatical structure, vocabulary, or, more likely, both…being in a classroom where only [one language] is permitted is enough to significantly bolster their [use of that language] in the home. First, the language is being legitimated…Second, they are learning certain subjects (and their associated vocabulary) exclusively in [that language]. (2000, pp. 377-9) In view of the previous research on the nature and occurrence of transfer in the oral production of bilingual children, the current study aims to examine the extent to which lexical and syntactic transfer is governed by language dominance or preference. It is hypothesized that language dominance plays a significant role in determining the nature of transfer while conversation topic is a significant factor governing the occurrence of transfer. 2.0 Research Questions 2.1 Is lexical and syntactic transfer in bilingual children more a factor of language dominance or preference? Does the occurrence of transfer appear to be a result of salience (dominance) of a particular lexical item or syntactic structure, or more a result of preference according to the language context (see below). 2.2 Is conversation topic a significant factor in governing transfer? Specifically in cases where the conversation topic is relevant to the language used (e.g. school in the US, a trip to France), is there a greater occurrence of transfer when the language does not match the language of the original conversation or cultural situation. 4 3.0 Hypotheses 3.1 The nature of lexical and syntactic transfer is significantly affected by language dominance/salience, i.e. in cases where the child knows the word in only one language, or where the context in which it was learned (e.g. school) renders the word more salient in one language. 3.2 Conversation topic, specifically the retelling of events that originally took place in English, is a significant factor governing the occurrence of transfer. Transfer in these cases may be a result of translation attempts when recalling events. 4.0 Method 4.1 Subject2 The data for this study were drawn from a corpus collected over a period of two months from a female French-English bilingual child, Olivia, age 9;10-10. Olivia was born in Paris to a French middle-class couple now in their forties.