ERIC Number: EJ992462
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Oct
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7164
EISSN: N/A
Pronominal Objects in English-Italian and Spanish-Italian Bilingual Children
Serratrice, Ludovica; Sorace, Antonella; Filiaci, Francesca; Baldo, Michela
Applied Psycholinguistics, v33 n4 p725-751 Oct 2012
This study investigated the role of typological relatedness, language of the community, and age, in predicting similarities and differences between English-Italian, Spanish-Italian bilingual children and their monolingual child and adult counterparts in the acceptability of pre- and postverbal object pronouns in [[plus or minus]focus] contexts in Italian and in English. Cross-linguistic influence occurred in [-focus] contexts as a function of typological relatedness and language of the community. English-Italian bilinguals in the UK accepted pragmatically inappropriate postverbal pronouns in [-focus] contexts in Italian twice as often as all the other groups. Cross-linguistic influence was unidirectional from English to Italian as shown by the categorical rejection of preverbal pronouns in [-focus] contexts in English. In [+focus] contexts, in English no significant differences existed between the monolinguals and the bilinguals in the low accuracy with which they chose pragmatically appropriate stressed pronouns. Similarly, the choice of appropriate pronouns in [+focus] contexts in Italian was problematic for monolingual and bilingual children irrespective of the language of the community and of the bilinguals' other language. Age was a factor only for the Italian children who approached adultlike performance in [+focus] contexts only by the age of 10. These findings point to the need for a multifaceted approach to account for similarities and differences between the linguistic behavior of bilingual and monolingual children.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, English, Spanish, Italian, Children, Comparative Analysis, Adults, Linguistic Borrowing, Pragmatics, Accuracy, Age Differences, Form Classes (Languages), Bilingualism, Monolingualism, Psycholinguistics, Prediction
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A