Laia Fibla
Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, PSL Research University. Paris, France
Charlotte Maniel
Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, PSL Research University. Paris, France
Alejandrina Cristia
Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, PSL Research University. Paris, France
Download article
Published in: Proceedings of the joint workshop on NLP for Computer Assisted Language Learning and NLP for Language Acquisition at SLTC, Umeå, 16th November 2016
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 130:3, p. 18-23
Published: 2016-11-15
ISBN: 978-91-7685-633-8
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
Most previous research on young infants’ spoken word comprehension has focused on monolinguals. These results may not generalize to non-monolingual populations because lexical processing may be more intricate for infants exposed to more than one language. Do toddlers learning multiple languages recognize words similarly to their monolingual peers? Answering this question will require extensive efforts, to which we contribute word comprehension data collected through a procedure aiming to be both precise and ecological. French-learning toddlers (N = 38; age range 1;11-3;4) were tested in their daycare, using a French-spoken promptto-picture matching task implemented on a child-friendly touch screen. Our results document some differences in accuracy, but not response time or number of trials completed, among toddlers differing in the number of languages they routinely hear. Additionally, these data suggest that it is feasible to collect good quality data from multiple children tested at once in daycares, opening the path to largerscale studies. Future research could disentangle the many factors that are often empirically confounded with monolingual versus bilingual/multilingual status.
Bilingualism, multilingualism, empirical research, tools for investigating language acquisition, lexical comprehension
[Bialystok et al.2010] Ellen Bialystok, Gigi Luk, Kathleen F Peets, and Sujin Yang. 2010. Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(04):525–531.
[de Houwer2009] Annick de Houwer. 2009. Bilingual first language acquisition. Multilingual Matters Textbook, Bristol.
[Fernald et al.1998] Anne Fernald, John P Pinto, Daniel Swingley, Amy Weinbergy, and Gerald W McRoberts. 1998. Rapid gains in speed of verbal processing by infants in the 2nd year. Psychological Science, 9(3):228–231.
[Friend and Keplinger2008] Margaret Friend and Melanie Keplinger. 2008. Reliability and validity of the computerized comprehension task (CCT): Data from American English and Mexican Spanish infants. Journal of Child Language, 35(01):77–98.
[Hendrickson et al.2015] Kristi Hendrickson, Samantha Mitsven, Diane Poulin-Dubois, Pascal Zesiger, and Margaret Friend. 2015. Looking and touching: What extant approaches reveal about the structure of early word knowledge. Developmental Science, 18(5):723–735.
[Hoff2013] Erika Hoff. 2013. Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: Implications for closing achievement gaps. Developmental Psychology, 49(1):4.
[Hurtado et al.2008] Nereyda Hurtado, Virginia A Marchman, and Anne Fernald. 2008. Does input influence uptake? Links between maternal talk, processing speed and vocabulary size in Spanish-learning children. Developmental Science, 11(6):F31–F39.
[Maniel2016] Charlotte Maniel. 2016. Effet du statut socio-économique sur la compréhension de mots des jeunes enfants à Paris. Master’s thesis, Université Pierre et Marie Curie.
[Marchman et al.2010] Virginia A Marchman, Anne Fernald, and Nereyda Hurtado. 2010. How vocabulary size in two languages relates to efficiency in spoken word recognition by young Spanish–English bilinguals. Journal of Child Language, 37(04):817–840.
[Pearson et al.1997] Barbara Z Pearson, Sylvia C Fern´andez, Vanessa Lewedeg, and D Kimbrough Oller. 1997. The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18(01):41–58.
[Place and Hoff2011] Silvia Place and Erika Hoff. 2011. Properties of dual language exposure that influence 2-year-olds bilingual proficiency. Child Development, 82(6):1834–1849.
[Poulin-Dubois et al.2013] Diane Poulin-Dubois, Ellen Bialystok, Agnes Blaye, Alexandra Polonia, and Jessica Yott. 2013. Lexical access and vocabulary development in very young bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17(1):57–70.
[Shneidman and Goldin-Meadow2012] Laura A Shneidman and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2012. Language input and acquisition in a Mayan village: How important is directed speech? Developmental Science, 15(5):659–673.
[Unsworth2013] Sharon Unsworth. 2013. Current issues in multilingual first language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33:21–50.
