Disparities between comprehension and production in the early stages of bilingual lexical development

(From a longitudinal study of a Russian-German bilingual child)

Elena Dieser

SFB 441 (University of Tübingen, Germany)

Introduction

Question:

Do bilingual children separate both languages from the very beginning of language acquisition?

Theoretical background

“one system theory“

“Children acquiring two languages from birth or early infancy pass through a stage in which the two languages are undifferentiated to a gradual separation of the two systems” (Swain & Wesche 1975, 17).

Theoretical background

The three-stage model of bilingual language development (Volterra and Taeschner, 1978)

I. The child has only one lexical system comprising words from both languages.

II. Distinct lexical systems develop, but children still rely on one syntax for both languages.

III. Distinct grammatical systems develop, resulting in differentiation of two linguistic systems.

Theoretical background

“two system theory”

Children are able to differentiate between two language systems (Meisel 1986; De Houwer 1990; Genesee 1989) from the early stage of language acquisition.

The high rate of code-mixing in early bilingual first language acquisition is not an indicator of fusion of the two languages, but instead „[…] a sign of increasing sensitivity to the linguistic behavior of their environment“ (Meisel 2004).

Theoretical background

Types of Bilingual Acquisition in Childhood

‚One Person – One Language‘ ‚Home Language – Enviroment Language‘

‚Mixed Languages‘

The aim of this study

to explore the process of differentiation in the early stages of bilingual lexical development

by analysing data from a child who was born into a bilingual environment in which both parents spoke both languages

Russian-German bilingual child

Place of birth / residence: Germany

Native language: Russian (both parents)

‘Mixed languages’ method--Romaine (1996)

Input:

From birth until the age of 2;9:

Russian: parents and grandparents, Russian-speaking friends of parents, or 65-70% of total input

German: parents and German-speaking friends of parents, or 30 – 35 % of total input

Data

Video (with simultaneous audio) recordings

to date 80 of these have been transcribed and analysed (1;0 – 2;10)

mean length: 60 minutes mean time intervals: 2 weeks conversations with the parents (Russian, German) conversations with German-speaking and Russian-speaking

adults and children and the child’s “solliloquies”

Diary recordingsTime intervals: until age one, and after age 3, weekly;Between the ages of 1 and 3, every day or every other day

Transcription

Conversations transcribed according to the notation model CHAT / (from the Internet project CHILDES).

transcribed in words, not phonetically; each line is introduced with an asterisk followed

by the abbreviated name of the speaker (*CHI for child studied, *MOT for the child’s mother)

Results/ Comprehension

When did the child first understand cross-language synonyms?

• first test of comprehension of equivalents at age 1;1.19• understood first equivalent pair at age 1;1.19

What, if any, is the relationship between the Russian and German passive vocabularies?

• at ages 1;6.13; 1;9.26 and 2;0.0, passive vocabulary two-thirds Russian, one-third German

• passive vocabulary make-up reflected language input

Results/ Production

ONE-WORD STAGE (1;2 – 2;2)

• Russian baba ‘grandma’, djadja ‘uncle/man’, (Antoxa) (Standard Russian: Antoshka (a first name), Kartoxa (Standard Russian: kartoshka, ‘potato’), uxo ‘ear’, da ‘yes’, tjotja ‘aunt’ and ba-ba(x), which means ‘fell down’ in child language.

• German: Auto, da (when pointing), hallo, heiß, nein, auch as well as aua ‘au’ and wau-wau ‘bau-bau’ from child language.

• Words that were both Russian and German and have the same meaning: mama, papa

Table1.List of the first words between ages 1;2 and 2;2

1;11.19wau-wau

0;10.22Mann2;9.201;10.28djadja

0;9.29Oma2;8.191;10.20baba

1;0.5mashinka2;9.11;8.26Auto

1;5.6bol’no2:10.161;5.10aua

ca. 1;4papa

ca. 1;2mama

Time interval in yy; mm.

dd

EquivalentAge at which

equivalent was first produced

Age at which word

was first produced

Word

0;9.24Frau2;10.92;2.15tjotja

0;8.13ja2;10.282;2.15da (yes)

0;8.6tozhe2;10.182;2.12auch

0:5.1net2;7.132;2.12Nei(n)

0;8.26Ohr2;11.32;2.7uxo

1;0.17Kartoffel3;2.152;1.28Kartoshka[Kartoxa]

2;1.8Antoshka [Antoxa]

0;8.7gorjachij2;9.252;1.8heiß

0;11.3privet3;0.12;0.28(h)allo

2;0.10ba-ba(x)

0;8.16tam2;8.162;0.0da (there)

Results/ Production

the first homonym pair:

Example 1 (age of child 2;6.3)

*MOT: a gde slon? Where is the elephant?*CHI: da. (There)……………………*MOT: i ruchki my tebe kremom pomazali? Did we put

cream on your hands?*CHI: da. (Yes)

Results/ Production

The reason why the child initially chose the particular equivalent of the two possible equivalents?

• input frequency (?)

• pronunciation: degree of difficulty

Results/ Production

TWO-WORD STAGE (2;2-2;9)

rapid increase in vocabulary

Phase 1 (2;2 -2;4) 46 words were acquired, but no equivalents used amount of code-switching varied according to the person

spoken to• to his parents in Russian/German: used approx. 50%

German words /50% Russian words• to German-speakers in German, 80-90 % German words

and 10-20% (sometimes less than 5%) Russian words.

Results/ Production

Example 2 (age of child 2;3.24)

*GRM: skazhi dym. (Russian: ‘Say smoke’)

*CHI: heiß. (German: ‚hot‘)

*GRM: skazhi golova. (Russian: ’Say head’)

*CHI: Kopf. (German: ‘head’)

*GRM: skazhi mashina. (Russian: ‘Say car’)

*CHI: Auto. (German: ‘car’)

Results/ Production

TWO-WORD STAGE Phase 2 (2;4 -2;9) child began to use equivalents Lexical borrowings frequently produced sentence-

internally

Example 3 (age of the child, 2;5.19)

*CHI: heiss čaj (German ‘hot’ Russian ‘tea’) word-internally code- mixing such as: plak-en [2;5.6]

from plak- (Russian ‘to cry’) and –en (the German infinitive ending

Results/ Production

Example 4 (age of the child, 2;7.19)

*CHI: auch knizhka. (German ‘also’ Russian ‘book’)

*MOT: vot e’to chto? (and what’s that? (Russian))

*CHI: ein # tort. (German ‘a’ Russian ‘cake’)

*MOT: a e’to kto? (and who (what)’s that? (Russian))

*CHI: ein zajchik. (German ‘a’ Russian ‘rabbit’)

Results/ Production

• THREE AND FOUR -WORD STAGE• occasional cases of self-correction, especially in cases

when Russian words were used during conversations

with monolingual German speakers • after a three-week stay in Russia word-internally code-

mixing such as: laufen-t’ ‘to run’, essen-t’ ‘to eat’ [2;8.27], unlike plak-en [2;5.6]

Results/ Production

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

1;10 1;11 2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5 2;6 2;7 2;8 2;9

Age

Nu

mb

er o

f w

ord

s

Vocabulary growth

Words with equivalents

Results/ Production

0

50

100

150

200

250

1;10 1;11 2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5 2;6 2;7 2;8 2;9

Age

Nu

mb

er o

f w

ord

s

Vocabulary grow th inRussian

Vocabulary grow th inGerman

Conclusion

Disparities between comprehension and production

The comprehension tests showed that the child completely accepted the existence of cross-language

synonyms from the age of 1;1,19

Interpreting a child’s language production is not an easy

task.

Conclusion

The following supports the one system theory:

no equivalents in the child’s active lexicon until the age

of 2;4

sentence-internal as well as occasionally word-internal mixing until the age of approx. 2;8

Conclusion

The following supports the two system theory:

at the beginning of language production the child used very few lexical borrowings from Russian when speaking with monolingual German speakers

→ more evidence for the two system theory

Conclusion

other findings of this study:

• asymmetrical development of active and passive lexicon (De Houwer 2005);

• the fact that the degree of phonetic difficulty was a factor in the order of word acquisition in the lexicon