Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-sbgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-25T13:29:59.264Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dual language exposure and early bilingual development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2011

ERIKA HOFF ,
CYNTHIA CORE ,
SILVIA PLACE ,
ROSARIO RUMICHE ,
MELISSA SEÑOR  and
MARISOL PARRA
ERIKA HOFF*
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
CYNTHIA CORE
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
SILVIA PLACE
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
ROSARIO RUMICHE
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
MELISSA SEÑOR
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
MARISOL PARRA
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
*
Address for correspondence: Erika Hoff, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL 33314. e-mail: ehoff@fau.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The extant literature includes conflicting assertions regarding the influence of bilingualism on the rate of language development. The present study compared the language development of equivalently high-SES samples of bilingually and monolingually developing children from 1 ; 10 to 2 ; 6. The monolingually developing children were significantly more advanced than the bilingually developing children on measures of both vocabulary and grammar in single language comparisons, but they were comparable on a measure of total vocabulary. Within the bilingually developing sample, all measures of vocabulary and grammar were related to the relative amount of input in that language. Implications for theories of language acquisition and for understanding bilingual development are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

[*]

Erika Hoff, Silvia Place, Rosario Rumiche, Melissa Señor and Marisol Parra, Department of Psychology. Cynthia Core, formerly in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, is now in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, The George Washington University. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD054427 to Erika Hoff and HD054427-S1 to Melissa Señor).

References

REFERENCES

Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2005). Consequences of bilingualism for cognitive development. In Kroll, J. F. & de Groot, A. M. B. (eds), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches, 417–32. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2007). Language acquisition and bilingualism: Consequences for a multilingual society. Applied Psycholinguistics 28, 393–98.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2009). Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12, 3–11.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. & Feng, X. (2011). Language proficiency and its implications for monolingual and bilingual children. In Durgunoglu, A. Y. & Goldenberg, C. (eds), Language and literacy development in bilingual settings, 121–38. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., Peets, K. F. & Yang, S. (2010). Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(4), 525–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, J. S. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences, 2nd edn.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Conboy, B. T. & Thal, D. J. (2006). Ties between the lexicon and grammar: Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of bilingual toddlers. Child Development 77, 712–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Houwer, A. (2009). Bilingual first language acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. (2002). American's children: Key national indicators of well-being. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J. P., Pethick, S. & Reilly, J. S. (1993). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: User's guide and technical manual. San Diego: Singular Publishing Group, Inc.Google Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. (2002a). Command of the mass/count distinction in bilingual and monolingual children: An English morphosyntactic distinction. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (eds), Language and literacy in bilingual children, 175–206. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. (2002b). Grammatical gender in bilingual and monolingual children: A Spanish morphosyntactic distinction. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (eds), Language and literacy in bilingual children, 207–219. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. (2002c). Monolingual and bilingual acquisition: Learning different treatments of that-trace phenomena in English and Spanish. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (eds), Language and literacy in bilingual children, 220–54. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. & Hoff, E. (2007). Input and the acquisition of language: Three questions. In Hoff, E. & Shatz, M. (eds), Blackwell handbook of language development, 107–127. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. & Thomas, E. M. (2009). Bilingual first-language development: Dominant language takeover, threatened minority language take-up. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12, 213–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genesee, F. (2006). Bilingual first language acquisition in perspective. In McCardle, P. & Hoff, E. (eds), Childhood bilingualism: Research on infancy through school age, 45–67. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L. R. & Newport, E. L. (1995). The invention of language by children: Environmental and biological influences on the acquisition of language. In Osherson, D. N. (ed.), An invitation to cognitive science: Vol. 1. language, 2nd edn, 1–24. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hakuta, K. (1986). Mirror of language: The debate on bilingualism. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.Google Scholar
Hoff, E. (2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review 26, 55–88.Google Scholar
Jackson-Maldonado, D., Thal, D. J., Fenson, L., Marchman, V., Newton, T. & Conboy, B. (2003). El inventario del desarrollo de habilidades comunicativas: User's guide and technical manual. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.Google Scholar
Junker, D. A. & Stockman, I. J. (2002). Expressive vocabulary of German–English bilingual toddlers. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11, 381–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, K. & Fogle, L. (2006). Raising bilingual children: Common parental concerns and current research. Center for Applied Linguistics Digest, www.cal.org/resources/digest/RaiseBilingChild.html.Google Scholar
Kovács, A. M. & Mehler, J. (2009a). Flexible learning of multiple speech structures in bilingual infants. Science 325, 611–12.Google Scholar
Kovács, A. M. & Mehler, J. (2009b). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(16), 6556–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lidz, J. (2007). The abstract nature of syntactic representations: Consequences for a theory of learning. In Hoff, E. & Shatz, M. (eds), Blackwell handbook of language development, 277–303. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A., Fernald, A. & Hurtado, N. (2010). How vocabulary size in two languages relates to efficiency in spoken word recognition by young Spanish–English bilinguals. Journal of Child Language 37, 817–40.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A. & Martínez-Sussmann, D. (2002). Concurrent validity of caregiver/parent report measure of language for children who are learning both English and Spanish. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 45, 983–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marchman, V. A., Martínez-Sussmann, C. & Dale, P. S. (2004). The language-specific nature of grammatical development: Evidence from bilingual language learners. Developmental Science 7, 212–24.Google Scholar
McCardle, P. & Hoff, E. (2006). An agenda for research on childhood bilingualism. In McCardle, P. & Hoff, E. (eds), Childhood bilingualism: Research on infancy through school age, 157–65. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. (eds)2002. Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Oller, D. K., Pearson, B. Z. & Cobo-Lewis, A. B. (2007). Profile effects in early bilingual language and literacy. Applied Psycholinguistics 28, 191–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paradis, J. & Genesee, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: Autonomous or interdependent? Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18, 1–25.Google Scholar
Parra, M., Hoff, E. & Core, C. (2011). Relations among language exposure, phonological memory, and language development in Spanish–English bilingually-developing two-year-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 108, 113–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, J. L. (2004). Comparing bilingual and monolingual toddlers' expressive vocabulary size: Revisiting Rescorla and Achenbach (2002). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 47, 1213–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patterson, J. L. & Pearson, B. Z. (2004). Bilingual lexical development: Influences, contexts, and processes. In Goldstein, B. A. (ed.), Bilingual language development and disorders in Spanish–English speakers, 77–104. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.Google Scholar
Pearson, B. Z. & Fernández, S. C. (1994). Patterns of interaction in the lexical growth in two languages of bilingual infants and toddlers. Language Learning 44, 617–53.Google Scholar
Pearson, B. Z., Fernández, S. C., Lewedeg, V. & Oller, D. K. (1997). The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics 18, 41–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, B. Z., Fernández, S. C. & Oller, D. K. (1993). Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms. Language Learning 43, 93–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petitto, L. A., Katerelos, M., Levy, B. G., Gauna, K., Tetrealt, K. & Ferraroi, V. (2001). Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth: Implications for the mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 28, 453–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Petitto, L. A. & Kovelman, I. (2003). The bilingual paradox: How signing–speaking bilingual children help us resolve bilingual issues and teach us about the brain's mechanisms underlying all language acquisition. Learning Languages 8, 5–18.Google Scholar
Place, S. & Hoff, E. (in press). Properties of dual language exposure that influence two-year-olds' bilingual proficiency. Child Development.Google Scholar
Snedeker, J., Geren, J. & Shafto, C. L. (2007). Starting over: International adoption as a natural experiment in language development. Psychological Science 18, 79–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S. & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Squires, J., Potter, L. & Bricker, D. (1999). Ages and stages questionnaire: Parent-completed child monitoring system, 2nd edn.Baltimore: Brookes Publishing.Google Scholar
Thordardottir, E., Rothenberg, A., Rivard, M. & Naves, R. (2006). Bilingual assessment: Can overall proficiency be estimated from separate measurement of two languages? Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders 4, 1–21.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2006). Acquiring linguistic constructions. In Kuhn, D., Siegler, R. S., Damon, W. & Lerner, R. M. (eds), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 2, cognition, perception, and language, 6th edn, 255–98. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.Google Scholar
Tseng, V. & Fuligni, A. J. (2000). Parent–adolescent language use and relationships among immigrant families with East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American backgrounds. Journal of Marriage and the Family 62, 465–76.Google Scholar
Vagh, S. B., Pan, B. A. & Mancilla-Martinez, J. (2009). Measuring growth in bilingual and monolingual children's English productive vocabulary development: The utility of combining parent and teacher report. Child Development 80, 1545–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Werker, J. F. & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2008). Bilingualism in infancy: First steps in perception and comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12, 144–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Werker, J. F., Weikum, W. M. & Yoshida, K. A. (2006). Bilingual speech processing in infants and adults. In McCardle, P. & Hoff, E. (eds), Childhood bilingualism: Research on infancy through school age, 1–18. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Wong Fillmore, L. (1996). What happens when languages are lost? An essay on language assimilation and cultural identity. In Slobin, D. I., Gerhardt, J., Kyratzis, A. & Guo, J. (eds), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essay in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, 435–48. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar