Project Description


Title: Effects of Bilingualism on the Grammatical Development of Hispanic Children
  1. Major Contributors
    • Jennifer Austin, Rutgers University, Newark
    • Gretchen Van de Walle
    • Cassandra Foursha
  2. Lab (s) Name (s): The Rutgers Infant Cognition Center
  3. URL: http://infant.rutgers.edu/
  4. Coverage (countries): (countries) the U.S.
  5. Languages: English, Spanish
  6. Date: Current
  1. GENERAL PROJECT DESCRIPTION

    2. We are investigating how bilingualism affects the trajectory of grammatical
    development in young Hispanic children as well as language processing in
    adults who have grown up speaking Spanish and English from an early age. To
    determine the age at which bilingual children begin to show knowledge of
    separate syntactic systems, we have designed a series of experiments that
    examine grammatical development in 18- to 30-month-old children who are
    acquiring both Spanish and English. Our research investigates how the
    acquisition of a second language affects the development of language
    comprehension in very young bilinguals. In addition, we ask whether
    bilingual children experience language-specific advantages (or challenges)
    for the acquisition of pronouns or word order. For example, it is possible
    that bilingual children might recruit knowledge of Spanish syntactic
    structures in interpreting ambiguous or ungrammatical sentences in English.
    To these ends, we are collecting comprehension data from both
    Spanish-English bilingual children and also a monolingual English-speaking
    sample.
  2. PURPOSES OF THE PROJECT
    Our research on adult bilingualism is designed to determine whether there
    are differences in the speed and accuracy of language processing in
    monolingual English and Spanish speakers compared to early Spanish-English
    bilinguals, i.e. adults who have grown up speaking these languages from
    early childhood. Earlier studies indicate that the later in life a learner
    has acquired a second language, the less accurate his/her performance is
    likely to be on grammaticality judgment tasks, and that early, balanced
    bilinguals display native-like performance in making these judgments
    (Birdsong 1999, Johnson & Newport 1989). Our experiments permit us to
    examine how early, balanced bilinguals differ from monolinguals in speed of
    reaction time as well as accuracy in performing grammaticality judgments.

    In addition, we are investigating the specific areas of grammar that are
    most susceptible to cross-linguistic influence in early adult bilinguals. A
    number of recent studies suggest that the pragmatic-syntactic interface is
    particularly vulnerable to transfer from one language to another (Müller &
    Hulk 2001, Serratrice et al. 2004). However, we have developed two novel
    methodologies that have revealed evidence for cross-language influence in
    knowledge of core syntax as well. Our current research employs a
    combination of our newly developed methods as well as previously developed
    ones to identify the specific sources of cross-linguistic influence in our
    early bilinguals.
  3. LEADING QUESTIONS
  4. RATIONALE AND AGENDA
  5. PARTICULAR STUDIES
  6. CURRENT STATUS OF PROJECT
  7. PEOPLE
  8. CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
  9. PAPERS/BOOKS PUBLISHED
  10. PAPERS IN PREP
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