Virginia Yip

Syntactic transfer in a Cantonese-English bilingual child*

Research on early bilingual development has suggested that syntactic transfer in bilingual acquisition is dependent on patterns of dominance and properties of the dual input the child is exposed to. In a case study of a Hong Kong bilingual child we present evidence of transfer from Cantonese to English in three areas where the two languages contrast typologically: wh-in-situ interrogatives, null objects and prenominal relatives are observed at a period when Cantonese is dominant as measured by MLUw. Comparisons with monolingual development show both qualitative and quantitative differences attributable to transfer. Language dominance is seen as the major determinant of transfer, with input ambiguity playing a role in the domain of null objects. While two distinct and separate linguistic systems are simultaneously developing in the bilingual mind, the pervasiveness of transfer implies a high degree of interaction between them. The findings show that the bilingual subject in our case study has taken a different path from monolinguals toward the target. This paper reports findings on the syntactic development of a Cantonese‐English bilingual child in Hong Kong, demonstrating a wide range of transfer effects from Cantonese to English. The specific ways in which Cantonese influence manifests itself in the development of English in the bilingual subject in different areas of grammar argue for a high degree of interaction between the two grammars. In one of the first systematic studies of syntactic acquisition of bilingual children involving this language pair, our analysis shows both qualitative and quantitative differences between bilingual and monolingual development. The pervasiveness of transfer effects is evident in three areas of grammar which involve core contrasts between Cantonese and English: wh-in-situ interrogatives, null objects and prenominal relatives are documented in the subject’s English. These structures are either not found or are substantially less frequent in monolingual data. The findings are discussed in terms of language dominance as well as the possibility of input ambiguity. The bilingual data presented in this paper contribute empirically to the expanding database on bilingual acquisition, and theoretically to the study of cross-linguistic influence and interaction of linguistic systems in bilinguals. Cross-linguistic influence and syntactic transfer in bilingual development

Neural systems for word meaning modulated by semantic ambiguity

One important issue in neuroimaging research on language is how the brain processes and represents lexical semantics. Past studies with various paradigms reveal that the left inferior prefrontal and mid-superior temporal regions play a crucial role in semantic processing. Those studies, however, typically utilize words having a precise and dominant meaning as stimuli and have not manipulated lexico-semantic ambiguity, a key feature of human language, as an experimental variable. Here, we used a word generation paradigm to examine whether neuroanatomical networks for meaning are modulated by lexical ambiguity. We found that, compared with semantically precise words, semantically ambiguous words were mediated by strong brain activations in the left dorsal-lateral frontal areas, the anterior cingulate, and the right inferior parietal lobe. Semantically precise words, instead, were associated with the left inferior prefrontal and mid-superior temporal sites. These findings indicate that semantic analysis of written words is a dynamic process involving coordination of widely distributed neural subsystems, which are weighted by semantic ambiguity.

Assessing Language Dominance in Bilingual Acquisition: A Case for Mean Length Utterance Differentials.

The notion of language dominance is often defined in terms of proficiency. We distinguish dominance, as a property of the bilingual mind and a concept of language knowledge, from proficiency, as a concept of language use. We discuss ways in which language dominance may be assessed, with a focus on measures of mean length of utterance (MLU). Comparison of MLU in the childs 2 languages is subject to questions of comparability across languages. Using the Hong Kong Bilingual corpus of Cantonese–English childrens development, we show how MLU differentials can be a viable measure of dominance that captures asymmetrical development where there is an imbalance between the childs 2 languages. The directionality of syntactic transfer goes primarily from the language with higher MLU value to the language with lower MLU value, and the MLU differential matches the pervasiveness of transfer effects, as in the case of null objects discussed here: The greater the differential, the more frequent the occurrence of null objects. Cantonese-dominant children with a larger MLU differential use null objects more frequently than those with a lower MLU differential. In our case studies, MLU differentials also matched with language preferences and silent periods but did not predict the directionality of code-mixing.

Neural Correlates of Nouns and Verbs in Early Bilinguals

Previous neuroimaging research indicates that English verbs and nouns are represented in frontal and posterior brain regions, respectively. For Chinese monolinguals, however, nouns and verbs are found to be associated with a wide range of overlapping areas without significant differences in neural signatures. This different pattern of findings led us to ask the question of where nouns and verbs of two different languages are represented in various areas in the brain in Chinese–English bilinguals. In this study, we utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a lexical decision paradigm involving Chinese and English verbs and nouns to address this question. We found that while Chinese nouns and verbs involved activation of common brain areas, the processing of English verbs engaged many more regions than did the processing of English nouns. Specifically, compared to English nouns, English verb presentation was associated with stronger activation of the left putamen and cerebellum, which are responsible for motor function, suggesting the involvement of the motor system in the processing of English verbs. Our findings are consistent with the theory that neural circuits for linguistic dimensions are weighted and modulated by the characteristics of a language.

Activity levels in the left hemisphere caudate–fusiform circuit predict how well a second language will be learned

How second language (L2) learning is achieved in the human brain remains one of the fundamental questions of neuroscience and linguistics. Previous neuroimaging studies with bilinguals have consistently shown overlapping cortical organization of the native language (L1) and L2, leading to a prediction that a common neurobiological marker may be responsible for the development of the two languages. Here, by using functional MRI, we show that later skills to read in L2 are predicted by the activity level of the fusiform–caudate circuit in the left hemisphere, which nonetheless is not predictive of the ability to read in the native language. We scanned 10-y-old children while they performed a lexical decision task on L2 (and L1) stimuli. The subjects’ written language (reading) skills were behaviorally assessed twice, the first time just before we performed the fMRI scan (time 1 reading) and the second time 1 y later (time 2 reading). A whole-brain based analysis revealed that activity levels in left caudate and left fusiform gyrus correlated with L2 literacy skills at time 1. After controlling for the effects of time 1 reading and nonverbal IQ, or the effect of in-scanner lexical performance, the development in L2 literacy skills (time 2 reading) was also predicted by activity in left caudate and fusiform regions that are thought to mediate language control functions and resolve competition arising from L1 during L2 learning. Our findings suggest that the activity level of left caudate and fusiform regions serves as an important neurobiological marker for predicting accomplishment in reading skills in a new language.

The acquisition of Chinese in bilingual and multilingual contexts

As the field of bilingual acquisition has made significant advances in recent years, there has been a surge of interest in the acquisition of Chinese languages in bilingual and multilingual contexts. This article serves a dual purpose: (1) to discuss some theoretical and methodological issues in bilingual acquisition with special reference to Chinese languages as target languages in bilingual and multilingual contexts; and (2) to highlight the important contributions made by the five articles in this volume, with some commentary on the issues raised by each study.The five articles to be discussed present highly original and dynamic research involving the acquisition of a Chinese language in children acquiring two or more languages simul-taneously from birth. The children featured in these studies come from three very different speech communities: Hong Kong, Australia and Paraguay. In most cases, either Mandarin or Cantonese (referred to collectively as Chinese here) is paired with English, with one case study also involving Taiwanese and Spanish. The combination of a Chinese language with English or another European language (such as Spanish in the case of Paraguay) being acquired by children in childhood raises new and challenging questions about bilingual development.The diversity in the backgrounds of the children featured in this volume provides a window into the complexity of language acquisition across different bilingual and multilingual contexts. These studies provide important results that future work on bilingual development of a Chinese language will have to take into consideration. They are also valuable in contributing to the fast growing body of longitudinal corpus-based studies by expanding the empirical base of bilingual acquisition and addressing theoretical issues of interest to the field at large.

Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in Cantonese–English bilingual children: The case of right-dislocation:

This corpus-based study demonstrates a case of bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of right-dislocation by Cantonese–English bilingual children and interprets the results in relation to Hulk and Müller’s hypothesis for cross-linguistic influence. Longitudinal data reveal qualitative and quantitative differences between bilingual and monolingual children in the development of right-dislocation in English and Cantonese. While right-dislocation lies at the syntax–pragmatics interface, both delay and acceleration are observed in bilingual development. The article’s findings in general support Hulk and Müller’s hypothesis for cross-linguistic influence in bilingual first language acquisition, but the bidirectional influence observed is not predicted by their formulation of the hypothesis. Moreover, the results suggest that language dominance may influence the directionality of cross-linguistic influence.

An Aspectual Account of "ba" and "bei" Constructions in Child Mandarin.

This study examines the ba and bei constructions in Mandarin using data from the Tong corpus, a new multimedia longitudinal child language corpus. A unified aspectual account of the two constructions is proposed: both require telic predicates, and should thus correlate with the perfective rather than imperfective aspect for learners. Analysis of corpus and diary data reveals that Tong is generally sensitive to the telic requirement when he begins to use the two constructions around 2;0. His ba and bei sentences occur far more frequently in perfective than imperfective aspect, consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis. However, while the majority of the child’s bei passives are perfective, the majority of his ba sentences are produced without overt aspect markers, among which most are irrealis (imperatives, modal sentences, etc.). The difference mirrors the pattern in adult input. These findings are corroborated by additional child Mandarin corpora. The acquisition of the aspectual properties of the ba and bei constructions is influenced by inherent knowledge, input and language-specific features of Mandarin, consistent with the multi-factorial account proposed by earlier studies.

Expressing displacement in heritage Cantonese: Cross-linguistic influence and structural vulnerability:

Aims and objectives: Heritage languages spoken by speakers in overseas communities can diverge significantly from the language spoken in the home country. Recent investigations have suggested that some grammatical structures or features are more vulnerable than others. This paper investigates the role of cross-linguistic influence, incomplete acquisition and attrition in heritage Cantonese in contact with English, focusing on the grammar of the pretransitive zoeng-construction in displacement contexts. Methodology: An elicited oral production task modelled on the fruit cart experiment was used to elicit displacement instructions in Cantonese. Fourteen heritage speakers and thirteen émigré speakers participated. All had acquired Cantonese as their first language but experienced a shift of language dominance to English due to immigration and education. Seventeen native speakers of Cantonese in Hong Kong served as the baseline. Data and analysis: The utterances were manually transcribed and coded. Production and error rates were calculated. Statistical results revealed quantitative differences among the three groups of Cantonese speakers. The baseline speakers preferred the zoeng-construction in displacement contexts, whereas the heritage and émigré speakers made greater use of canonical and topicalization structures. Nevertheless, the zoeng-sentences produced by the heritage and émigré speakers were all grammatical and felicitous. Findings: The basic structure of the zoeng-construction is kept intact in less than half of the heritage and émigré speakers’ Cantonese grammar. The zoeng-construction is thus vulnerable to intergenerational language change induced by language contact and individual differences, which is partially attributable to cross-linguistic influence from English. Originality: This is the first experimental study to investigate the grammar of heritage Cantonese. Significance: The study provides new empirical evidence of structural vulnerability and variability of heritage grammar and sheds light on the role of incomplete acquisition, cross-linguistic influence and attrition in such vulnerability.

Multiple Correspondence and Typological Convergence in Contact-Induced Grammaticalization

This paper examines the emergence of perfective aspect in Cantonese-English bilingual children from the perspective of contact-induced grammaticalization, focusing on the novel use of already . Although the adverbial already seems to serve a function similar to that of the Cantonese perfective marker zo2 in the bilingual children, other model constructions suggest that the function of already may combine those of several Cantonese particles such as the sentence-final particle laa3 . The results suggest that in contact-induced grammaticalization, it is possible to develop a new category in the replica language based on multiple different but related categories in the model language. Adopting an evolutionary approach to language transmission (Mufwene, 2001), we discuss why grammaticalization in the Cantonese-English bilingual children does not seem to involve coevolution of form and meaning, why the grammaticalization phenomena in the bilingual children are only transient, and how the study of bilingual acquisition can contribute to contact linguistics.