Language
Development in Bilingual Children
Lisa M. López, Ph.D.
Internationally, bilingualism
is not consistently viewed as a benefit for children’s cognitive development.
While some countries, mainly in the European Union, embrace bilingualism,
other countries are trying to do away with it. The
What is bilingualism?
Bilingualism is basically the knowledge of two languages. However the degree to which a bilingual person knows each of the two languages may vary. Valdez and Figueroa (1994) describe “bilingualism as a continuum with individuals falling on the continuum at different points relative to each other based on strengths and cognitive characteristics of their two languages” (p. 8). Language strengths may also be dependent on the situation.
A bilingual person may indicate different strengths in one of his or her languages depending on how the language is being used. The nature of the interaction needs to be taken into consideration when determining the person’s strength in a language. A bilingual person may indicate different strengths in a language dependent on the topic being discussed, the domain of the activity, as well as how formal or informal the situation may be (Valdés and Figueroa, 1994).
Types of Bilingualism (Valdés & Figueroa, 1994)
Researchers and practitioners focus on different aspects of bilingualism when differentiating between this group as a whole. When discussing the age of acquisition of the second language, a bilingual person may be considered an early bilingual if they achieve a state of bilingualism early on, or a late bilingual if their acquisition of the second language takes place in adolescence or adulthood. A person may also be considered a sequential or simultaneous bilingual. Generally a sequential bilingual learns one language first, and then learns a second language, while a simultaneous bilingual learns both languages at the same time.
As mentioned previously the abilities of a person may differ in their two languages. Incipient bilinguals are just learning the second language. Receptive bilinguals understand the second language, but do not have the oral or literacy skills needed to communicate. Finally the productive bilingual has oral and literate skills in the second language. While all are considered bilingual they fall on different levels of the continuum described by Valdés and Figueroa (1994).
Along with age of acquisition and ability in each language, the relationship between the two languages yields differentiation of groups. Ambilingual relates to both languages being native languages for the speaker. Equilingual, also known as balanced bilingual, have the same proficiency in both languages. The context of acquisition also plays a role in the level of bilingualism. A coordinate bilingual acquires each of his or her languages in a different cultural context, while a compound bilingual acquires both languages in the same context.
While bilingualism is considered a state of knowing two languages, this state is prone to change within the same person. For example, a person may be developing more functionality in L2, considered an ascendant bilingual, or in reverse, the person may be losing functionality in L2, considered a recessive bilingual. Immigrant children, as well as second and third generation immigrants are often recessive bilinguals. While the children may have knowledge of the native language while they are at home, once they enter school and begin interacting with the community they are prone to becoming recessive bilinguals, losing their functionality of their native language.
A final label for bilingual speakers refers to their circumstances for becoming bilingual. People become bilingual for many different reasons and because of many different reasons. Those bilinguals who learn two languages due to the circumstances they find themselves in are considered circumstantial or natural bilinguals. Others choose to become bilingual. These are considered elective, academic, or elite bilinguals. They elect to take a course in a foreign language or to study abroad based on their own interest in the language.
Motivations for Bilingualism (Bialystok, 2001)
Why might somebody become bilingual? It may be that they are forced to take a foreign language in school, or they choose to take a language as an elective. This is the difference between circumstantial and elective bilinguals. It may also be that they are born in a biliterate society where the community speaks and operates using two different languages. There may be a dialectal language and a standard language. Another possibility is that the home language is different from the community language, due to immigration, dislocation, or a temporary move to another country.
The reasons why a person becomes bilingual influence the motivation for learning the second language. Language is not incidentally learned, but instead must be worked on and perfected. The motivation to learn a language may impact how much effort you put into learning the second language. When second language learning is seen as a chore a child is not fully invested in learning it appropriately. This is considered negative motivation. Other examples of negative motivation include associating the language with that of authority figures, as well as the assumption of not needing to learn because you are only someplace temporarily.
While the previous examples show negative motivation for learning a second language there are also some positive motivations which help a child to work hard in learning the language. The most evident motivation is that of assimilating into the society, most likely at the cost of the native language. Other possibilities include valuing other languages and cultures and feeling a sense of identity, or psychosocial motivation.
It is important to focus not only on the child and his or her personal motivation for learning a second language or becoming bilingual. There are also social factors that play a role in a child’s development of more than one language. The parents’ educational level may result in them wanting their child to be cultured in other languages. On the other hand limited parental education might result in the child having to learn a language in order to take on the role of translator for their parent, who does not speak the community language. Educational level also plays a role in influencing the expectations parents have for their children. These expectations are varied with some parents wanting the child to only learn the community language first and then at some point in the future possibly learn the home language, while other parents expect their child to communicate fluently both in the home and community language from the onset.
Along with parental factors with regard to education and expectations, the literacy levels of models in the home and community may dictate the grasp the child gains with regard to that language. If the model speaks but cannot read or write in a language, the child may only be expected to gain receptive skills in the language to be able to understand directions. The purpose for using the languages then will dictate how well the language is learned. If a language is needed to communicate in school and with authority figures it may be learned in a more formal style than language used informally with family and peers.
All of these factors, along with other family and community factors play a role in how well children learn to speak and become literate in a first or second language. These factors must be taken into account when evaluating a child’s language skills and measuring the level of bilingualism in a particular child. Children’s motivation for learning a language as well as familial and community pressures for learning the language are all important pieces of information to obtain before determining the best way to help a child progress in his or her language learning.
The Development of Language Skills
In comparing the development of a child’s first language to the development of a second language, it depends on whether the children are learning the languages simultaneously or sequentially. Sequential learners of language often use what they have learned in the first language to help them in learning the second language. With these children, the learning of a language will differ significantly across languages. Children have already learned techniques for language learning and are comfortable in using these techniques to decipher new languages.
Many languages have components that transfer across languages; these are titled cross-linguistic abilities. For example, a child who learns the concept of rhyming in Spanish, when being taught sounds in English will be able to determine which words rhyme without yet having a full grasp of the language. Phonology, grammar, and vocabulary in the first language provide a child with a guide for these aspects of language in their second language (Bialystok, 2001). However, it is possible that relying on their first language will result in their committing transfer errors. These are errors made due to differences in rules and sound production across languages.
Early research, such as that done by Macnamara (cf Bialystok, 2001) indicates that learning a second language results in the child developing deficits in language abilities. He theorized that contrasting two languages would create interference for the child when trying to learn the languages. Additionally it was thought that learning a language was only possible when one was completely assimilated in the culture of the language. Inadequate language models would result in the child “incorrectly” learning a language. The final critique Macnamara had on children learning two languages was that because a child had to learn two languages, he or she had less time to dedicate to each language, therefore resulting in poor vocabulary. Current research has disproven many of Macnamara’s hypotheses.
Assessing Language
When assessing bilingual children’s languages it is important to understand their experiences with that language. As mentioned previously it is important to understand the motivation and factors involved in the child learning the language. It is impossible to interpret an outcome of an assessment objectively if you are not aware of the context. Research has indicated differences in children’s experiences with different languages (Pearson, 2002).
Oftentimes children will speak one language at home and one language at school. They therefore have specific experiences related to each language. When talking about home and using vocabulary related to the home, the child is more likely to revert to his or her home language. However when a child talks about school or academic experiences, he or she will most likely have vocabulary associated with school and have developed a more academic language. It is possible that the bilingual child will have less mastery in each language due to these circumstances, but when looking at both languages together, they have more extensive communicative abilities than a monolingual.
Children’s experiences with a language are evident based on the vocabulary words they have learned in that language. It is not just to assess a bilingual child in one language and compare their score to that of a monolingual child. A monolingual child has all of his experiences in just one language, while a bilingual child has experiences in two languages.
There are different ways for assessing vocabulary for a bilingual child (Pearson, 2002). First you can obtain the total vocabulary in each of the child’s languages. Oftentimes bilingual children who are dominant in one of the languages will resemble monolingual speakers of that dominant language. Second, one can obtain the total vocabulary for both languages combined. This would be similar to obtaining the total vocabulary for a monolingual speaker. It would include all the words in a child’s repertoire regardless of language. Finally the total conceptual vocabulary, also referred to as breadth of vocabulary can be calculated. To calculate the breadth of vocabulary, each word known is counted once regardless of language. Therefore if a child knows the words “zapato” and “shoe” this would count for one word because both obtain the same meaning. This calculation provides an idea of how many concepts children have a label for regardless of the language of the experience.
Language Learning
As mentioned previously, vocabulary (semantics), syntax (grammar), and (sounds) phonology have transferable qualities across languages. While vocabulary has to be learned independently for each language, cognates do exist across languages, such that knowing a word in one language may aide the knowledge of the word in the second language. An example of this would be “air” and “aire”. The words are very similar to each other and represent the same concept in English and Spanish.
Another transferable skill with regard to vocabulary is the idea of a word representing a concept. Children begin to understand that words represent objects, people, and places and that a word has meaning. This is true of all words regardless of the language. Therefore if the object has a label in one language, it must have a label in the other language. Oftentimes children will use the label they know, even if it is in the incorrect language, until they are provided a new label in the other language.
The development of grammar is similar in monolingual and bilingual learners (Bialystok, 2001). Those children who are learning two languages understand that there are differences between the two languages and learn the structure similarly to their monolingual peers. Oftentimes the child will learn the grammar of the easier language first and then transfer the rules from that language to the more complex language. “The syntactic development of bilingual children is never exactly like that of monolinguals learning each of their languages” (Bialystok, 2001, 68). This is due to the influence of the simpler language structure on the more complex structure. Children tend to generalize both within language and across languages until they are taught the appropriate rules.
The development of phonology is also very similar in monolingual and bilingual learners (Bialystok, 2001). Children are born with the ability to distinguish between sounds in languages other than their own native language. This skill begins to diminish after the first year. Children begin paying close attention to only those sounds needed in their lives, losing the ability to discriminate across sounds that appear different in other languages. Native-like phonology stems from this predisposition for phonemic distinctions across languages. Native-like accents are most likely to develop for those languages most similar and most different from one’s own language. By the time a child reaches about the age of eight it becomes more difficult to develop native-like intonations for intermediate sounds (Bialystok, 2001).
By starting to learn a second language earlier in life, children are able to acquire greater language proficiency than is usually acquired if language learning occurs in adolescence or adulthood. The success rate for learning a second language is much higher for children than for adults. This, however, does not mean that it is easy to learn a second language, it is just easier at an earlier age due to the plasticity of their brain.
Language Models
Two main theories of bilingual language systems in the brain have been hypothesized. Both models focus on the development of the representational systems of the two languages. Volterra and Taeschner (cf Bialystok, 2001) propose a three stage theory titled the Unitary Language System Hypothesis. In this hypothesis the child begins with one lexical system made up of words from both languages. As children develop this system divides into two distinct lexical systems, while syntax remains the same across languages. The final stage has the systems separating into two distinct linguistic systems with their own vocabulary and syntactic structure. If this hypothesis were shown to be true, then bilingual children’s language acquisition would be very different from that of a monolingual. Additionally children would constantly be switching languages as they speak regardless of the listener.
The second hypothesis proposed by Genesee and colleagues (Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004) is that of the Dual Language System Hypothesis. Unlike the Unitary Language System hypothesis, bilingual children are thought to have differentiated linguistic systems from the onset. The languages are never represented in the same system. This hypothesis is shown to be accurate as children develop their vocabulary and obtain language equivalents of concepts in both languages. If both systems were represented by one system then the child would only learn one label for the object.
Progression of Language
The learning process of language begins even before children are born. Within twenty-four hours of the birth of the child, the newborn already prefers the voice of the mother over the voice of any other female. By two months the baby can differentiate between words in the native language of the family and words in a language foreign to the child. The child has developed a repertoire of sounds and uses this as a template for comparison. Words that fit the template are considered native while words that do not fit the template are foreign (Genesee et al., 2004) This template helps the child in determining which words to focus on.
By the time the child is seven and a half months old the child can pick out native words from continuous speech. The ears of the infant have become adapt to discriminating only the sounds of the language he or she will be learning. This discrimination becomes defined by the tenth month of life. The sensitivity to sounds is being shaped by their language experiences. At this time the child begins babbling and the babbling resembles the features of the input language. The child produces language specific sounds.
Bilingual children being exposed to two languages simultaneously are demonstrating the same milestones in the two languages with regard to word segmentation and babbling as monolinguals demonstrate with their input language (Genesee et al. 2004). The only difference that may set apart monolingual and bilingual learners is the rate of exposure to each language. Children who are exposed to a language at smaller rate are less likely to be developmentally at the same level as a monolingual learner who is receiving a more advanced rate of exposure. However if children are being stimulated with both of their languages consistently the development of language skills should be consistent with that of monolingual children.
With regard to metalinguistic awareness bilingual children are considered to be at an advantage. Genesee and colleagues define metalinguistic awareness as “the ability to reflect on and manipulate the elements of language independently of their communicative use” (Genesee et al., 2004, 55). It is important however to take into account the level of proficiency children obtain in each language. Cummins (1979) Threshold Hypothesis discusses the importance of proficiency in the two languages with regard to cognition. Cognition refers to the child’s ability to process information, solve problems, analyze information, and identify different points of view. Children with high levels of proficiency in both languages experience higher cognitive abilities and are those considered advantageous with regard to metalinguistic ability. On the other hand, children with low levels of proficiency in one or both languages may experience lower levels of cognitive abilities. Children considered having neither high nor low proficiency have neither an advantage nor disadvantage with regard to cognition. Based on this hypothesis, children should be raised bilingual only if the resources are available to insure that the child can achieve advanced bilingualism through sustained, enriched, and consistent bilingual experiences.
Bilingual Environments
There are two types of bilingual language environments, subtractive and additive (Genesee et al). With subtractive bilingual environments the acquisition of the majority language comes at the cost of loss of the native language. As children learn the second language, they lose functionality in the first language. This is typically seen with immigrant children, migrant children, and indigenous children. It has been found that children who receive less than 25% of their language input in a language will not achieve success in that language. Often the language then becomes passive. While the child may continue to have receptive skills in the language, so much as to understand what is being told to him, he will not be able to develop oral skills in that language. The ability even to understand may diminish over time.
Additive bilingual environments, on the other hand, provide support for children to maintain their native language as they acquire an additional language. This is often seen in countries where children are expected to speak several languages. This may also be true in communities with a large cultural community who speak a language different from that of the greater community.
Typical Stages for Learning a Second Language (Tabors, 1997)
Sequential learners of a second language oftentimes learn the community language once they begin formal schooling and are socialized in this greater environment. Children are often placed in classroom situations where their home language is not represented. Children in this situation go through several stages in learning and adapting to their new language environment. First children come into the classroom speaking their home language unaware that their peers will not understand them. After determining that they cannot be understood, children transfer into a nonverbal period. During this nonverbal period the child is accumulating receptive vocabulary and communicating through gestures. During this time period it is crucial that these children interact with peers and be socialized into the language. Older children tend to move through this period at a quicker rate than younger children. Once children have learned phrases and developed the sound system for the language, they move into the telegraphic and formulaic speech stage. During this stage they vocalize imitative utterances and memorize phrases. They may be capable of labeling objects, counting, and identifying colors. There productive speech however focuses on what they have overheard and consists of several main words. Once the child begins using his or her own words instead of memorized phrases they have reached the productive language use stage and are quickly learning their new language.
Conclusion
Bilingualism is a complicated aspect of language development. Differences abound between the development of language skills for simultaneous and sequential learners of language. The motivation, environment, and focus of bilingualism play important roles on the development of the two languages. When assessing language development in both languages it is important to take all of these factors into consideration before determining outcomes. It is also imperative to understand these factors when working with bilingual children.
References
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