Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T18:40:40.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lexical acquisition over time in minority first language children learning English as a second language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2008

HEATHER GOLBERG ,
JOHANNE PARADIS  and
MARTHA CRAGO
HEATHER GOLBERG
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
JOHANNE PARADIS*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
MARTHA CRAGO
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Johanne Paradis, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E7, Canada. E-mail: johanne.paradis@ualberta.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The English second language development of 19 children (mean age at outset = 5 years, 4 months) from various first language backgrounds was examined every 6 months for 2 years, using spontaneous language sampling, parental questionnaires, and a standardized receptive vocabulary test. Results showed that the children's mean mental age equivalency and standard scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition nearly met native-speaker expectations after an average of 34 months of exposure to English, a faster rate of development than has been reported in some other research. Children displayed the phenomenon of general all-purpose verbs through overextension of the semantically flexible verb do, an indicator of having to stretch their lexical resources for the communicative context. Regarding sources of individual differences, older age of second language onset and higher levels of mother's education were associated with faster growth in children's English lexical development, and nonverbal intelligence showed some limited influence on vocabulary outcomes; however, English use in the home had no consistent effects on vocabulary development.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 41 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, R. (2004). First language loss in Spanish-speaking children: Patterns of loss and implications for clinical practice. In Goldstein, B. (Ed.), Bilingual language development and disorders in Spanish–English speakers (pp. 187–212). Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes.Google Scholar
Arriaga, R. J., Fenson, L., Cronan, T., & Pethick, S. J. (1998). Scores on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory of children from low- and middle-income families. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 209–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
August, D., Carlo, M., Dressler, C., & Snow, C. (2005). The critical role of vocabulary development for English Language Learners. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 20, 50–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Miller, B. (1999). The problem of age in second language acquisition: Influences from language, structure and task. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2, 127–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgemeister, B., Hollander Blum, L., & Lorge, I. (1972). The Columbia Mental Maturity Scale. New York: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Carroll, J., & Sapon, S. (1959). The Modern Languages Aptitude Test. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Cobo-Lewis, A. B., Pearson, B. Z., Eiler, R. E., & Umbel, V. C. (2002). Effects of bilingualism and bilingual educations on oral and written English skills: A multifactor study of standardized test outcomes. In Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. E., (Eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children (pp. 43–63). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Collier, V. (1987). Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academic purposes. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 617–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, V. (1989). How long? A synthesis of research on academic achievement in a second language. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 509–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G., & Jones, M. (1997). Verb use in specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 40, 1298–1313.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummins, J. (1991). Interdependence of first- and second-language proficiency in bilingual children. In Bialystok, E. (Ed.), Language processing in bilingual children (pp. 70–89). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dörnyei, Z., & Skehan, P. (2003). Individual differences in second language learning. In Doughty, C. & Long, M. (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 589–630). Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, L., & Dunn, L. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (3rd ed.). Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, D. J., & Pethick, S. J. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59 (Serial No. 242).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flege, J. (1999). Age of learning and second language speech. In Birdsong, D. (Ed.), Second language acquisition and the critical period hypothesis (pp. 101–132). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Genesee, F., & Hamayan, E. (1980). Individual differences in second language learning. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1, 95–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genesee, F., Paradis, J., & Crago, M. (2004). Dual language development and disorders: A handbook on bilingualism and second language learning. Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L. R., Cassidy, K., Nappa, R., Papafragou, A., & Trueswell, J. C. (2005). Hard words. Language Learning and Development, 1, 23–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hakuta, K., & D'Andrea, , (1992). Some properties of bilingual maintenance and loss in Mexican background high-school students. Applied Linguistics, 13, 72–99.Google Scholar
Harley, B. (1992). Patterns of second language development in French immersion. French Language Studies, 2, 159–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harley, B., & King, M. (1989). Verb lexis in the written compositions of young L2 learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 11, 415–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1992). American parenting of language-learning children: Persisting differences in family–child interactions observed in natural home environments. Developmental Psychology, 28, 1096–1105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff, E. (2003a). The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74, 1368–1378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E. (2003b). Causes and consequences of SES-related differences in parent-to-child speech. In Bornstein, M. & Bradley, R. (Eds.), Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development (pp. 147–160). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hoff, E., Laursen, B., & Tardif, T. (2002). Socioeconomic status and parenting. In Bornstein, M. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol 2. Biology and ecology of parenting (pp. 231–251). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1998). The relation of birth order and socioeconomic status to children's language experience and language development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 603–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jia, G. (2003). The acquisition of the English plural morpheme by native Mandarin Chinese-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 1297–1311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jia, G., & Aaronson, D. (2003). A longitudinal study of Chinese children and adolescents learning English in the United States. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 131–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, W., & Taylor, E. (1990). Coping with cultural racial diversity in urban America. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Paradis, J. (2005). Grammatical morphology in children learning English as a second language: Implications of similarities with specific language impairment. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 36, 172–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peña, E., Bedore, L. M., & Rappazzo, C. (2003). Comparison of Spanish, English, and bilingual children's performance across semantic tasks. Language, Speech & Hearing Services in the Schools, 34, 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, M., & Bode, J. (1993). GAPS in the verb lexicons of children with specific language impairment. First Language, 13, 113–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, M., & Wexler, K. (2001). Test of early grammatical impairment: Examiner's manual. New York: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Saunders, W., & O'Brien, G. (in press). Oral language. In Genesse, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W., & Christian, D. (Eds.), Educating English language learners: A synthesis of empirical evidence (pp. 24–97). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sawyer, M., & Ranta, L. (2002). Aptitude, individual differences, and instructional design. In Robinson, P. (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 319–353). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thordardottir, E., & Ellis Weismer, S. (2001). High-frequency verbs and verb diversity in the spontaneous speech of school-age children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 36, 221–244.Google ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Umbel, V. M., Pearson, B. Z., Fernández, M. C., & Oller, D. K. (1992). Measuring bilingual children's receptive vocabularies. Child Development, 63, 1012–1020.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhallen, M., & Schoonen, R. (1993). Lexical knowledge of monolingual and bilingual children. Applied Linguistics, 14, 344–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermeer, A. (2001). Beadth and depth of vocabulary in relation to L1/L2 acquisition and frequency of input. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 217–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watkins, R. V., Kelly, D. J., Harbers, H. M., & Hollis, W. (1995). Measuring children's lexical diversity: Differentiating typical and impaired language learners. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 1349–1355.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weber-Fox, C., & Neville, H. (2001). Sensitive periods differentiate processing of open- and closed-class words: An ERP study of bilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 44, 1338–1353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Windsor, J., & Kohnert, K. (2004). The search for common ground: Part I. Lexical performance by linguistically diverse learners. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 47, 877–890.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wong Fillmore, L. (1991). When learning a second language means losing the first. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 6, 323–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar