Iliana Reyes

Functions of Code Switching in Schoolchildren's Conversations.

Abstract This study examined the code-switching patterns in the speech of immigrant Spanish-speaking children. Seven- and 10-year-old boys and girls from bilingual classrooms were each paired with a mutually selected friend, and their speech was collected in two contexts: while the children waited for an expected science experiment and when they worked together to follow an instruction worksheet about hands-on magnetic materials. This study presents data on the discourse characteristics of childrens code switching, and the functions that Spanish and English have according to context. In addition, the data are described in relation to childrens language competence and preference. The study found that code switching occurred both within and across turns. The older childrens switches were more frequent and were deployed for a wider variety of functions than the younger childrens. The results challenge the negative view that code switching by children who are learning two languages is due to lack of proficiency, and instead support the view that it is used as a strategy to extend their communicative competence during peer interaction.

Exploring connections between emergent biliteracy and bilingualism

This article explores the ways in which young emergent bilingual children begin to develop literacy in two languages, Spanish and English.Three case studies of four-year-old Mexican-background children and their families living in southern Arizona are presented from a qualitative socio-psycholinguistic perspective. The children’s home and classroom interactions were observed and analyzed for patterns of language and literacy in their two languages. The findings show that these emergent bilinguals learn and develop their own ‘theories’ and ‘concepts’ about language and literacy from an early age. The conversational participants and interlocutors were among the factors that directly influenced children’s development of language and literacy in Spanish and English. In addition, context was another important factor that contributed positively to the development of their emergent bilingualism and biliteracy. Finally, I discuss the language-literacy strategies that these Mexican-background children use as they try to make sense of their metalinguistic and biliteracy knowledge, while developing additional literacy tools and resources in both Spanish and English.

Within- and Between-Language Priming Differ: Evidence from Repetition of Pictures in Spanish-English Bilinguals

In the current study, the authors used an immediate repetition paradigm with pictures to observe whether repetition enhances word production in bilinguals. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to name pictures that were named previously in the same language (Spanish-Spanish or English-English) or in the opposite language (Spanish-English or English-Spanish). Results revealed a repetition effect both within languages and between languages. Furthermore, there was an asymmetry within language, with repetition priming being larger in Spanish than in English. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that lag interacted with language for both within- and between-language priming. However, lag resulted in a decrease in the asymmetry for within- but not between-language priming. The results are consistent with the view that within- and between-language repetition priming are mediated by different mechanisms.

Child codeswitching and adult content contrasts

This paper discusses links between the conditions of developing child bilingualism and the adult outcomes in semiotic contrast in elicited speech and codeswitching. Analysis of interaction of children raised as bilinguals shows that from the beginning they can recognize the appropriate language for addressees. When the lexical repertoire is inadequate, borrowing occurs, and codeswitching of longer segments appears before age two. Throughout childhood and adolescence, codeswitching has increasing interactional functions as childrens pragmatic skills grow. Some adult codeswitching relies on semiotic differences implied by language. It is likely that both such codeswitching and the dual selves shown in elicited discourse in different languages are limited to specific sociolinguistic situations and personal histories. These include education in a second language, adult immigration, and frequent contact with a monolingual community.

Sentence Interpretation Strategies in Emergent Bilingual Children and Adults.

This study examined sentence processing in emergent bilingual children and young adults in both English (second language – L2) and Spanish (first language – L1). One hundred participants from five different age groups (5;4–7;11, 8;0–10;11, 11;2–13;11, 14;0–16;8 years, and college-age adults) participated in this study. An online sentence interpretation paradigm was used to explore participants’ processing patterns. Results of both choice and reaction time experiments provide new information about consolidation and “in between” strategies for Spanish–English bilinguals; on the use of the distribution of local vs. topological cues (namely early reliance on word order in both languages, followed by an integration of late-emerging subject-verb agreement cues from 11 to 13 years of age). The nature of these syntactic strategies and their implications for developmental theories of bilingualism are discussed.

Negotiating worlds: a young Mayan child developing literacy at home and at school in Mexico

In Mexico almost ten million people speak an indigenous language. Recognizing the pluralistic nature of the nation, the Mexican Constitution mandates bilingual‐intercultural education; in reality, however, the school system typically imposes the Spanish language and dominant culture on indigenous children. For these children their academic success comes at the expense of their own language and culture. In this article we share the case study of Yadira, a Mayan girl living in Yucatan, Mexico, whom we met when she was in first grade. Using ethnographic tools we document the different literacy events in which Yadira participates at home and at school, and how these shape her understandings about print. We discuss how Yadira negotiates between two worlds using informal sources of Maya and Spanish to construct meaning from written language.

When zebras become painted donkeys: Grammatical gender and semantic priming interact during picture integration in a spoken Spanish sentence.

This study investigates the contribution of grammatical gender to integrating depicted nouns into sentences during on-line comprehension, and whether semantic congruity and gender agreement interact using two tasks: naming and semantic judgement of pictures. Native Spanish speakers comprehended spoken Spanish sentences with an embedded line drawing, which replaced a noun that either made sense or not with the preceding sentence context and either matched or mismatched the gender of the preceding article. In Experiment 1a (picture naming) slower naming times were found for gender mismatching pictures than matches, as well as for semantically incongruous pictures than congruous ones. In addition, the effects of gender agreement and semantic congruity interacted; specifically, pictures that were both semantically incongruous and gender mismatching were named slowest, but not as slow as if adding independent delays from both violations. Compared with a neutral baseline, with pictures embedded in simple command sentences like “Now please say___”, both facilitative and inhibitory effects were observed. Experiment 1b replicated these results with low-cloze gender-neutral sentences, more similar in structure and processing demands to the experimental sentences. In Experiment 2, participants judged a pictures semantic fit within a sentence by button-press; gender agreement and semantic congruity again interacted, with gender agreement having an effect on congruous but not incongruous pictures. Two distinct effects of gender are hypothesised: a “global” predictive effect (observed with and without overt noun production), and a “local” inhibitory effect (observed only with production of gender-discordant nouns).

Las prácticas de lectoescritura en los hogares de inmigrantes mexicanos

Resumen Pese a que existe un corpus de literatura bien establecido acerca del bilingüismo escolar en español e inglés de los niños latinos en los Estados Unidos, el desarrollo del bialfabetismo y las prácticas relacionadas con la lectoescritura en el hogar han recibido escasa atención por parte de la comunidad de investigación educativa. Es necesario un cambio en esta situación por la utilidad que puede tener para los educadores el conocimiento sobre los recursos lingüísticos y de lectoescritura que hay en el hogar a la hora de mejorar los curricula escolares y de atender mejor las necesidades de un alumnado de gran diversidad cultural y lingüística. Esta investigación sobre las prácticas lingüísticas y de lectoescritura de dos familias mexicanas en el contexto del hogar es nuestra contribución a ese empeño. Los resultados de este estudio sugieren que las interacciones familiares, así como el contexto del hogar en general, son factores cruciales para el impulso al desarrollo del lenguaje oral y de la lecto- escritura tanto en español como en inglés. Una observación importante y repetida a lo largo de nuestro estudio es el andamiaje que los padres emplean en español como parte de sus prácticas de lectoescritura. Además, los niños actúan como agentes en su propio aprendizaje del español, y en el establecimiento de nexos entre éste y sus conocimientos del inglés.

An ecological perspective on minority and majority language and literacy communities in the Americas

In this paper I discuss current sociolinguistic situations in linguistically diverse communities in the Americas, thereby contributing toward the development of a theoretical model that focuses on the ecology of emergent bilingualism and biliteracy for both language-minority and language-majority children. I analyze different examples in which children’s participation during family literacy events mediate the learning of the second language and their construction of meaning from print they encounter in their bilingual surroundings. The review points to the potential to develop bilingualism and biliteracy that might exist within each child’s immediate environment and are enhanced when community members (e.g., parents, peers, schoolteachers, neighbors) provide direct scaffolding during child-adult interactions. The studies are discussed within an eco-sociocultural framework making pedagogical connections and recommendation to the optimal development of bilingualism and biliteracy.

A study of sentence interpretation in Spanish monolingual children

The present study investigated grammatical strategies developed by Spanish monolingual speakers. Children and young adults were presented with a sentence interpretation task in which they listened to a sentence comprised of two nouns and a verb, and had to decide which of these two referents was responsible for doing the action in the sentence. This task was used to examine syntactic and morphological cues that children use to determine agent roles during sentence processing. In line with previous developmental studies, the results indicate an early reliance on canonical word order and a crossover in syntactic preference from word order to subject-verb agreement cues. This early preference of word order over subject-verb agreement cues is different from results observed in adult Spanish speakers. This difference and the developmental patterns are considered within the framework of crosslinguistic work in previous sentence interpretation studies.