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Cross-linguistic influence in Welsh–English bilingual children's adjectival constructions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2014

ELENA NICOLADIS  and
ANDRA GAVRILA
ELENA NICOLADIS*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Canada
ANDRA GAVRILA
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: Elena Nicoladis, University of Alberta – Psychology, P217 Biological Sciences Building, Edmonton, Alberta T6 G 2E9, Canada. e-mail: elenan@ualberta.ca
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Abstract

Cross-linguistic influence (CLI) refers to the linguistic influence of one of a bilingual's languages while processing the other. Researchers have debated whether CLI is better explained by the structure of bilinguals' two languages or by a combination of processing demands and structure. In this study, we test if Welsh–English bilingual children manifest CLI when producing adjectival constructions. Welsh adjectives typically appear postnominally, English adjectives typically appear prenominally. Since these structures do not overlap, there may be no CLI. If, however, CLI is a result of competition between languages, children's adjectival constructions may be reversed in both languages. We elicited adjectival constructions from Welsh–English bilingual children and English monolingual children between three and six years of age. The bilingual children produced more reversals than monolinguals and equivalent rates of reversals in both languages. In other words, the results support an interpretation of CLI resulting, at least in part, from processing demands.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , July 2015 , pp. 903 - 916
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

[*]

Grants to the first author from both the ESRC and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada provided partial funding for this study. Enlli Thomas was an invaluable resource about Welsh and made sure the study ran even when the first author was no longer in Wales. Catrin Hughes, Emily Roberts, and Kathryn Sharp helped with the data collection.

References

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