Maria Blume

Assessing child bilingualism: Direct assessment of bilingual syntax amends caretaker report

Aims and objectives: In this paper we investigate measures for the evaluation of a child’s bilingualism. Methodology: We compare a caretaker report on the estimated quantity and quality of a child’s bilingualism to results from direct assessment of the bilingual child’s production of complex sentences in Korean and English. We adopt an integrated methodology in which two case studies, closely matched on caretaker report and general background, are investigated directly through an elicited imitation task, for their knowledge of syntactic factors underlying development of coordinate sentence structure in both languages. Data and analysis: The participants are two four-year-old Korean-English bilingual children. We compare the caretaker report on the estimated quantity and quality of the children’s bilingualism to results from the direct assessment of their production of comparable complex sentences in both languages. We adopt an integrated methodology in which the two case studies, closely matched on caretaker report and general background, are investigated directly through an elicited imitation task for their knowledge of syntactic factors underlying development of coordinate sentence structure in both languages. Findings: Direct assessment reveals significant differences between the two children in the quantity and quality of their bilingualism, in spite of commonalities in caretaker reports. Limitations: This study compared only two children and two languages, and focused on language production. Replication with a larger number of subjects, including variation in child age, and measurement through other tasks, for example, tests of language comprehension, are merited. Implications: Results are interpreted as motivating both the refinement of caretaker report questionnaires and the necessity for direct assessment of bilingual participants, and suggest the elicited imitation task as a valuable method for conducting such direct assessment.

Research methods in language acquisition: Principles, procedures, and practices.

The purpose of this manual is to introduce the concepts, principles, and procedures of a unique field of linguistic study, that of language acquisition. Our objective is to provide an overview of scientific methods for the study of language acquisition and to present a systematic, scientifically sound approach to this study. We hope to lead the reader to a greater understanding of the subject matter while providing him or her with the foundations to build a new body of knowledge through the scientific generation and analysis of new data. Specifically, we intend to provide the background for one to be able to answer the following questions:

Creating Linked Data for the Interdisciplinary International Collaborative Study of Language Acquisition and Use: Achievements and Challenges of a New Virtual Linguistics Lab

In this paper, we describe and exemplify our development of a cyber-tool, the Data Transcription and Analysis tool (DTA tool) that is currently being implemented in the Virtual Center for Language Acquisition through a Virtual Linguistic Lab (VLL). We review this cyber-tool’s design and accomplishments to date, assessing its ability to address. We explicate the architecture and usability of the DTA tool, we summarize its current status, possibilities for expansion, and related challenges we currently confront. We focus on the conceptual and functional structure of this tool here, and not on technical aspects of its programming.

Bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world : linguistic and cognitive perspectives

Introduction 1. What does it mean to be bilingual? 2. Bilingual brains, bilingual minds 3. Bilingual development and bilingual outcomes Conclusions.