Bilingualism and language acquisition in early childhood: research and application

Bilingualism and language acquisition
in early childhood: research and
application
Virginia Yip (CUHK) and Stephen Matthews (HKU)
Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre
Outline
z
Early bilingual acquisition as an emerging field
standing at the intersection of the fields of
bilingualism and language acquisition.
z Bilingual development in 2 groups of bilingual
children in our longitudinal studies:
(a) one parent-one language families;
(b) one parent-two language families.
z Integration of research and application:
need for education practices,
parental strategies to be informed
by current research
2
Workshop on
Bilingualism and Language Acquisition
Bilingualism
Language Acquisition
Bilingual
Language
Acquisition
3
Language acquisition across monolingual and
bilingual contexts
First Language
Acquisition
Second Language
Acquisition
Bilingualism
4
Different Language Policies
One Parent One Language
One Parent Two Languages
5
Children from
one parent-one language families
z Currently 7 children in Hong Kong
Bilingual Child Language Corpus from one
parent-one language families.
z 6 children’s longitudinal development in
Cantonese and English has been analyzed
and presented in our book The Bilingual
Child (2007: Cambridge University Press)
6
7 bilingual children in CHILDES
Timmy
Kathryn
Sophie
Llywelyn
Alicia
Charlotte
Janet
7
Launch of new longitudinal corpora
Kasen 2;4 -4;0
Darren 2;0 -3:8
• Children from one parent-two language families
with both parents speaking Cantonese as L1 and
English as L2
• An increasingly common situation in Hong Kong
8
Children from
one parent-two languages families
z Kasen: 2;04- 4;00 (20 English files and 20
Cantonese files)
z Darren: 1;07-3;11 (28 English files and 27
Cantonese files)
z Parents are native speakers of Cantonese who
speak English as a second language.
z Children are addressed in both languages with
varying degrees of code-mixing.
9
Different types of input conditions
z Both one parent-one language and one parent-
two languages families provide support for
development of early bilingualism
z With consistent and frequent exposure to dual
input, children are able to develop bilingualism
in the first few years
of their life.
10
Kasen
I speak English and
Cantonese. (2;11;05)
11
Video clip
12
Research questions for
one-parent two-languages children
z Is code-mixing quantitatively or qualitatively
different from one-parent one-language children?
z Is cross-linguistic influence similar to or different
from one one-parent one-language children?
13
Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) in
Cantonese and English - Kasen
6
4
3
2
1
age
1.1
1
3;
1
9.0
7
3;
0
6.3
0
3;
0
3;
0
5.0
5
3.0
9
3;
0
0.0
3
3;
0
0.0
2
2;
1
8.1
1
2;
0
6.1
6
2;
0
4.0
7
0
2;
0
mlu (words)
5
14
kasen_mlu_can
kasen_mlu_eng
age
1.2
4
3;
1
8.1
8
3;
0
6.2
9
3;
0
6.0
7
3;
0
4.1
8
3;
0
2.2
0
3;
0
0.0
7
3;
0
0.0
3
2;
1
8.2
0
2;
0
7.0
8
2;
0
4.2
9
2;
0
3.0
8
2;
0
0.1
0
2;
0
9.1
7
1;
0
7.2
3
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1;
0
mlu (words)
Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) in
Cantonese and English - Darren
darren_mlu_can
15
darren_mlu_eng
Wh-in situ questions
Kasen: occasional use of wh-in situ
z It’s who? (Kasen 2;06.16)
z She is so angry with who? (Kasen 2;11.05)
z Do you know the next one is where?
(Kasen 3;11.11)
Darren: rare use of wh-in situ
z they clean what body
(Darren 3;10.10)
16
Code-mixing by Kasen
in Cantonese and English contexts
z
Kasen’s code-mixing pattern is asymmetrical:
consistently more mixed utterances in Cantonese
contexts than in English contexts.
CHI: 我 drink 囉
I drink SFP
‘I drink obviously’
INV: 你飲呢個嘅?
(Kasen 2;07)
‘You drink this?’
z
Mixed utterances are rare in English contexts:
CHI: let me show you 呀
CHI: 呢度喇
(Kasen 3;03.09)
17
2;
04
.0
2; 7
05
.0
2; 5
06
.1
2; 6
07
.0
2; 0
08
.1
2; 1
09
.0
2; 1
10
.0
2; 2
11
.0
3; 5
00
.0
3; 3
01
.0
3; 0
03
.0
3; 9
04
.0
3; 6
05
.0
3; 5
06
.0
3; 8
06
.3
3; 0
08
.0
3; 3
09
.0
3; 7
10
.0
3; 7
11
.1
4; 1
00
.0
9
percentage of mixing
Code-mixing by Kasen
in Cantonese and English contexts
Mixing pattern by Kasen
CA context
Eng context
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Age
18
The bilingual vs monolingual child
z Bilingual and monolingual
Monol
in
gual
al
u
ing
l
i
B
development show
quantitative and qualitative
differences
z Bilingual children may take
a different path to reach the
target
z They are not two complete
or incomplete
monolinguals but have
their own unique profile
19
Bridging research and application
z Application of research findings in bilingual
acquisition to early childhood education.
z Systematic research integrating bilingualism
and language acquisition is needed more than
ever in informing educators as well as
developing assessment tools that are sensitive
to bilingual children’s profiles.
z We argue that research and application go
hand in hand in deepening our understanding
of how children develop bilingual competence
in early childhood.
20
Common views among parents
z Bilingualism as burden:
“two languages may be too much for my child”
z Preference for sequentialbilingualism:
“let’s wait until her English is established first,
then we can teach her Chinese”
21
Our views as linguists
z Parents who delay exposing children to both
languages on the grounds that it will be a
burden for them are under a misapprehension.
z When the input conditions are favorable, there
are strong grounds for children to learn two or
more languages in tandem from early on and
thus achieve bilingual competence.
22
Our views as linguists
z The first few years of life are the golden years for
language acquisition: the child is equipped to
acquire multiple languages in an effortless
manner.
z Some researchers even argue that merely
exposing the child to one language is tantamount
to underutilizing the child’s potential.
z The outcome of bilingual acquisition in most
respects converge with adult native speakers. By
age 3-4, the child has mastered a high level of
complexity in phonology and structure of the
languages.
23
From bilingual to trilingual
z Growing demand in Hong Kong for children to
be exposed to and receive trilingual education
in Cantonese, English and Mandarin.
z While encouraging children to learn English
and Mandarin, it is important to preserve
Cantonese as a foundation for the acquisition
of additional languages, and as part of the
cultural heritage of the majority of speakers in
Hong Kong.
24
Implications for preschool teachers
z Awareness of language development: how
language develops over time from infancy to
early childhood; code-mixing as natural part of
bilingual development
z Adult’s role in supporting development
z Learning and teaching that
address the youngest age group
including infants
25
Teacher training
z Take courses that connect linguistics and
teaching; early childhood education, child
development
z Preferably taught by educational linguists who
can relate learning to the real work of teachers
z A challenge: inspire teachers of young children
and bring about improvement in teaching and
learning for our children
26
Conclusions
z Bilingual acquisition draws on and interacts
with many fields: L1 acquisition, L2
acquisition, bilingualism, early childhood
education, developmental psycholinguistics
z The collective research on childhood
bilingualism in the international academic
community including our own shows: It’s not
too early to regularly expose children to two or
three languages from birth. The child will
benefit from the host of advantages of early
bilingualism.
27
Acknowledgments: thank you
z Our research team for the study of Kasen and Darren:
Angel Chan, Jacky Chan, Andrew Chau, Cheng Siu
Pong, Antonio Cheung, Jacqueline Lai, Elaine Lau,
Phyllis Lo, Kelly Shum, Alice Tse, Eunice Wong,
Hinny Wong and Reace Wong.
z The data collection and corpus construction were
fully supported by General Research Fund (GRF)
grants “Childhood Bilingualism and Second
Language Acquisition in Hong Kong Children”
RGC Ref. no. CUHK4692/05H and “From Lexicon
to Syntax in Childhood Bilingualism” RGC Ref. no.
CUHK 453808.
28
References
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Bialystok, E. 2007. Language acquisition and bilingualism:
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Yip, V. 2006. Early bilingual acquisition in the Chinese context.
In Li P., L-H .Tan, E. Bates & O. Tzeng. (eds.) Handbook of East
Asian Psycholinguistics (Vol.1). Cambridge: Cambridge
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Yip, V. and S. Matthews. 2007. The Bilingual Child: Early
Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Yip, V. and S. Matthews. 2010. The acquisition of Chinese in
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Yip, V. and S. Matthews. (In Preparation). Bilingual Development
29
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.