Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective
Bilingual children regularly hear sentences that contain words from both languages, also known as code-switching. Investigating how bilinguals process code-switching is important for understanding bilingual language acquisition, because young bilinguals have been shown to experience processing costs...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Carnegie Mellon University Library Publishing Service
2023-09-01
|
| Series: | Language Development Research |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://lps.library.cmu.edu/LDR/article/id/662/ |
| _version_ | 1797302914437349376 |
|---|---|
| author | Amel Jardak Casey Lew-Williams Krista Byers-Heinlein Lena V. Kremin |
| author_facet | Amel Jardak Casey Lew-Williams Krista Byers-Heinlein Lena V. Kremin |
| author_sort | Amel Jardak |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Bilingual children regularly hear sentences that contain words from both languages, also known as code-switching. Investigating how bilinguals process code-switching is important for understanding bilingual language acquisition, because young bilinguals have been shown to experience processing costs and reduced comprehension when encountering code-switched nouns. Studies have yet to inves-tigate if processing costs are present when children encounter code-switches at other parts of speech within a sentence. The current study examined how 30 young bilinguals (age range: 37 – 48 months) processed sentences with code-switches at an uninformative determiner-adjective pair before the target noun (e.g., “Can you find le bon [the good] duck?) compared to single-language sentences (e.g., “Can you find the good duck?”). Surprisingly, bilingual children accurately identified the target object in both sentence types, contrasting with previous findings that sentences containing code-switching lead to processing difficulties. Indeed, children showed similar (and in some cases, better) comprehension of sentences with a code-switch at an uninformative adjective phrase, relative to single-language sentenc-es. We conclude that functional information conveyed by a code-switch may contribute to bilingual children’s sentence processing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T23:45:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0460882313e34c2d8407dfac05bbd5ce |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2771-7976 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T23:45:48Z |
| publishDate | 2023-09-01 |
| publisher | Carnegie Mellon University Library Publishing Service |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Language Development Research |
| spelling | doaj.art-0460882313e34c2d8407dfac05bbd5ce2024-02-19T12:30:55ZengCarnegie Mellon University Library Publishing ServiceLanguage Development Research2771-79762023-09-013110.34842/zyvj-cv60Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjectiveAmel Jardak0Casey Lew-Williams1Krista Byers-Heinlein2Lena V. Kremin3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4010-490XPsychology, Concordia UniversityPsychology, Princeton UniversityPsychology, Concordia UniversityPsychollgy, Concordia UniversityBilingual children regularly hear sentences that contain words from both languages, also known as code-switching. Investigating how bilinguals process code-switching is important for understanding bilingual language acquisition, because young bilinguals have been shown to experience processing costs and reduced comprehension when encountering code-switched nouns. Studies have yet to inves-tigate if processing costs are present when children encounter code-switches at other parts of speech within a sentence. The current study examined how 30 young bilinguals (age range: 37 – 48 months) processed sentences with code-switches at an uninformative determiner-adjective pair before the target noun (e.g., “Can you find le bon [the good] duck?) compared to single-language sentences (e.g., “Can you find the good duck?”). Surprisingly, bilingual children accurately identified the target object in both sentence types, contrasting with previous findings that sentences containing code-switching lead to processing difficulties. Indeed, children showed similar (and in some cases, better) comprehension of sentences with a code-switch at an uninformative adjective phrase, relative to single-language sentenc-es. We conclude that functional information conveyed by a code-switch may contribute to bilingual children’s sentence processing.https://lps.library.cmu.edu/LDR/article/id/662/code-switchingbilingualismlanguage processinglanguage acquisitionchildren |
| spellingShingle | Amel Jardak Casey Lew-Williams Krista Byers-Heinlein Lena V. Kremin Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective Language Development Research code-switching bilingualism language processing language acquisition children |
| title | Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective |
| title_full | Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective |
| title_fullStr | Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective |
| title_short | Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective |
| title_sort | bilingual children s comprehension of code switching at an uninformative adjective |
| topic | code-switching bilingualism language processing language acquisition children |
| url | https://lps.library.cmu.edu/LDR/article/id/662/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ameljardak bilingualchildrenscomprehensionofcodeswitchingatanuninformativeadjective AT caseylewwilliams bilingualchildrenscomprehensionofcodeswitchingatanuninformativeadjective AT kristabyersheinlein bilingualchildrenscomprehensionofcodeswitchingatanuninformativeadjective AT lenavkremin bilingualchildrenscomprehensionofcodeswitchingatanuninformativeadjective |