Development of language in SOV and SVO bilingualism Essay Example
Development of language in SOV and SVO bilingualism Essay Example

Development of language in SOV and SVO bilingualism Essay Example

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  • Pages: 8 (2037 words)
  • Published: April 22, 2022
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The knowledge of language is one of the most important and necessary skills a person needs to have especially in modern society. This is because humans, like most other animals, are social beings and we are constantly bombarded by written and oral language just by walking outside of our homes. We need language, in simple and complex forms, to facilitate social relationships. Furthermore, with mass immigration and migration, many regions around the world have become more multilingual. Therefore, being able to understand and speak multiple languages has become increasingly important. But at which rate does language develop in infants, and are there any significant differences between monolingual infants and bi-or multi-lingual infants?Language is complex and can be broken down into multiple, differing units of information and development (e.g., phonemes, graphemes, prosody, grammatical cues, etc.).

In one study investigating p

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honeme distinction, a conditioned head turn task procedure was used to compare English-learning infants, English-speaking adults and Hindi-speaking adults (Werker & Desjardins, 1995). They found infants were better at discriminating phonemic differences in languages they were not learning, but by the age of 10 to 12 months they had similar results to adults. Moreover, in a different study, by around nine months old English-learning infants listened to words in their native language significantly longer than words from a nonnative language (e.g., Dutch), suggesting a sensitivity and preference towards their native language (Jusczyk et al., 1993).

This sensitivity may be an indicator of an infant’s reduced ability to discriminate between nonnative phonemes, and may suggest when they start to focus more on developing their native language. In addition to having a sensitivity for native phonemes, infants also appear to hav

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a sensitivity towards grammar (Shi, Werker & Morgan, 1999; Siegel, 2004). In this study, grammatical distinction was determined by the sucking rates of a pacifier. And when presented with a list of new words and words they were habituated with (either grammatical or content based), infants, ages one to three days old, were able to use perceptual characteristics of words to discriminate whether they were grammatical or content-based words. Moreover, in a different study using the familiarization preference procedure, seven month old infants were able to discriminate between inconsistent sentences for a fake grammatical language condition they were taught (Marcus et al., 1999).

So, from early on, infants are able to internalize rules and in this specific case, grammatical rules that may be necessary for their native language. Besides being sensitive to phonemic and grammatical cues, another important variable for language development is how often an infant is exposed to the language. In Western cultures, it is common that children are asked questions very early on with some of those questions being wh-questions (Rowe, Leech & Cabrera, 2015). In a longitudinal study conducted with two year olds, parent-child interactions were videotaped, and productive vocabulary and verbal reasoning skills were recorded (Rowe, Leech & Cabrera, 2015).

They found that when asked wh-questions (e.g., who, what, where, when, how), children developed greater vocabulary and verbal reasoning skills even when looking at samples of low socioeconomic status. So, depending on the level of language and type of language exposure, the rate of more complex language development may be different which may make it difficult to pinpoint a specific age at which specific language processes may grow. In addition, language usage

matters. In a different longitudinal study using bilingual children at 30 months of age, there was an effect of the rate of language development in terms of expressive vocabulary and receptive language (Ribot, Hoff & Burridge, 2018). Essentially, these terms were examining their understanding of a language and their ability to communicate in it.

And the languages they chose to observe the development in were Spanish and English split into four conditions depending on whether they were spoken to in English or Spanish and if they responded back in the corresponding language or not. They found that in children who spoke more English than they were spoken to in English developed their (English) expressive skill faster, but there were no significant differences between receptive skills. Ribot, Hoff, and Burridge (2018) also go on to suggest that similar results should be expected between monolingual children who talk less compared to those who talk more. But what about bilingualism between different linguistic typology?

An instance of this would be Korean and English. Korean primarily has sentences structured as subject-object-verb (SOV) while English has sentences structured as subject-verb-object (SVO) because the study mentioned previously examined English and Spanish which are both structured as SVO. In a study from South Korea, Yim, Yoon, and Lee (2016) investigated whether standardized language tests would be adequate for bilingual children. They found that when evaluated in both English and Korean bilingual children dominant in either language (e.g., Korean, English) did not have significant differences between their scores when compared to native Korean monolinguals.

However, what if we were to investigate Korean-English bilingualism between the United States of America and South Korea? Could there be a

difference between the development of bilingualism between the countries?

In a longitudinal study, the rate of language development would be investigated in three different sample populations (e.g., English, Korean, Korean-English). First, I hypothesize that there would be no significant differences between acquiring language itself because newborns are able to distinguish between grammatical rules and discriminate between phonemes (Jusczyk et al., 1993; Werker & Desjardins, 1995; Marcus et al., 1999). Second, I hypothesize that there could be a difference between the rate of language development between bilingualism with SOV and SVO languages (e.g., Korean, English) when compared to monolinguals. Third, I hypothesize that there may be a significant difference between the development of bilingualism and monolingualism in children growing up in different countries. This is because exposure to one language may be higher than the other including wh-questions, and a preference for what type of language to respond it could be different which could influence the development.

Participants will be 60 Korean-learning infants from South Korea, 60 English-learning infants from the United States of America, and 60 Korean-English-learning infants from both the United States of America and South Korea. Participants will be matched for socioeconomic status. Additionally, the participants will be from the age of nine months old because that is when their sensitivity and ability to discriminate between differing language phonemes start to occur (Jusczyk et al., 1993; Werker & Desjardins, 1995).

To assess differences in phonemic distinction, a conditioned head turn task will be used. But instead of just using English and Hindi as done in Werker and Desjardins work (1995), English, Korean, and Hindi will be used. This is because one of the native languages being

tested is Korean so for the sample that is Korean-learning, the results may vary greatly when asked to discriminate phonemes from Hindi and English. Furthermore, much like how Hindi has /Ta/-/ta/ which sounds like t to a native English speaker, Korean has distant double consonant-based phonemes that may be considered allophones for native English speakers. For example, /빠(bba)/-/ 바(ba)/ would sound like b to a native English speaker.

In this task, the participants will be conditioned to turn their head towards the source of sound when there is a change in phonemic category (Werker & Desjardins, 1995). There will also be a reinforcement for correct answers using a visual and auditory stimulus. The caretakers of the participants will be asked to visually record verbal caretaker-child interactions, so a filming device will be required. The device may be a video-camera or a smartphone. The Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test ((REVT)-III for English and-R for Korean), Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-fourth edition (PPVT-IV) will be used to measure expressive and receptive vocabulary language skills (Yim, Yoon & Lee, 2016). The REVT is comprised of two parts (PRO-ED, 2018). The first presents participants with an item on the first plate and is testing them on a series of words.

The participants then have to pick one out of six images that goes best with the word they are being tested on. If they miss two consecutive matches, they move on to a new plate, and each plate is a set of the six images they have to choose from. In the next section of the test, participants are presented with a stimulus word and have to discuss it in as much

detail as possible. The PPVT-IV presents the participants with a word and they have to indicate “yes” or “no” when the experimenter points to each picture option for the given word (Stein & Lukasik, 2009).

The infant participants will be asked to complete the conditioned head turn task by an experimenter (Werker & Desjardins, 1995). To do so, the infant will sit in the lap of the caretaker towards the experimenter or an assistant. The experimenter or assistant will have toys to keep the focus of the infant on them while a set of continuous syllables play in the background. The infant will be conditioned to turn their head towards the source of phonemes when there is a phonemic category change with a visual and audio stimulus when they correctly discriminate between the categories. The visual and audio stimulus will be a short, positive-affect animated clip that was pre-tested for.

Additionally, the experimenter or assistant will clap and provide positive verbal encouragement. The phonemic categories will be randomized and range from Korean, English, and Hindi. Once this task is complete, caretakers will be asked if they would like to participate in the next part of the study which would involve them recording verbal interactions with the infant. They would be asked to record the interactions for a month for each season, for approximately 27 months. At the 15-month mark, the caretakers would also be asked to come in for an update. The child would be approximately two years old, and should have sufficiently knowledge on language to take the REVT and PPVT-IV. Afterwards, they would come in again at the 27-month mark from when they started the

study with the child being approximately three years old. The child would be re-tested with the REVT and PPVT-IV.

To see if the results can be replicated, an independent t-test will be conducted to examine whether there is a difference in the quantity of phonemic discriminations there are between each sample group. I would expect there to be no differences in the amount of discriminations made between the sample groups.

A factorial ANOVA will also need to be conducted to look at the differences between the monolingual and bilingual children with the responding language they choose to answer their caretaker and how many wh-questions and non-wh-questions are asked; and PPVT-IV and REVT scores. After accounting for levels of language exposure related to the frequency of wh-questions, in bilinguals for the results of the English expressive vocabulary and receptive language, I would expect the scores to be significantly greater if they were the Korean input-English output interactions when compared to Korean-input-Korean output group. And similarly for Korean expressive vocabulary and receptive language, I would expect the scores to be significantly greater if they were the English input-Korean output versus English input-English output. I would also expect the Korean input-English output and native English monolinguals to have similar results; and the English input-Korean output and native Korean monolinguals to have similar results.

From previous research, I would expect no differences for the first phonemic task because Bialystok and collaborators (2009) suggest that monolingual and bilingual children acquire the phonological basis for both of their native languages around the same time that monolingual children do. Therefore, even though Korean and English have different linguistic typologies, phonological acquisition should not be influenced.

Moreover, some phonological differences in Korean are allophones in English. So, if there was a difference between bilinguals and monolinguals it most likely would not be significant. And as mentioned previously, if we were to account for differences in exposure of language based on wh-questions, I would expect the more English-dominant bilinguals to have similar results to native English monolinguals, and Korean-dominant bilinguals to have similar results to native Korean monolinguals. Especially so when considering there might the differences between bilinguals raised in America versus bilinguals raised in Korea because these children might be expected to be more expressive in one language over the other depending on the country’s native language.

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