The later stages of bilingual acquisition : crosslinguistic influence in older English-Greek bilingual children
Previous studies on bilingual first language acquisition have shown that even though bilingual childrenâs language systems develop separately, the possibility of the two languages to have an influence on each other is not excluded. Recent studies have argued that syntax-pragmatics interface structures, which instantiate a surface overlap between the two languages are vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence in bilingual acquisition. Until now, this proposal has been mainly tested with young bilingual children. This thesis explores the possibility of crosslinguistic influence, and its restriction to interface domains, in older bilingual children. We present experimental data from thirty-two English-Greek eight-year-old bilingual children, sixteen Greek-dominant living in Greece and sixteen English-dominant living in the UK, and monolingual control groups. A series of elicited production and acceptability judgement tasks were administered to investigate whether specific syntax-pragmatics interface structures, i.e. the distribution of null and overt subject pronouns and preverbal and postverbal subjects in wide-focus contexts, are more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence from English to Greek than purely
Argyri, Efrosyni
The later stages of bilingual acquisition : crosslinguistic influence in older English-Greek bilingual children. Previous studies on bilingual first language acquisition have shown that even though bilingual childrenâs language systems develop separately, the possibility of the two languages to have an influence on each other is not excluded. Recent studies have argued that syntax-pragmatics interface structures, which instantiate a surface overlap between the two languages are vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence in bilingual acquisition. Until now, this proposal has been mainly tested with young bilingual children. This thesis explores the possibility of crosslinguistic influence, and its restriction to interface domains, in older bilingual children. We present experimental data from thirty-two English-Greek eight-year-old bilingual children, sixteen Greek-dominant living in Greece and sixteen English-dominant living in the UK, and monolingual control groups. A series of elicited production and acceptability judgement tasks were administered to investigate whether specific syntax-pragmatics interface structures, i.e. the distribution of null and overt subject pronouns and preverbal and postverbal subjects in wide-focus contexts, are more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence from English to Greek than purely
later stage bilingual_acquisition crosslinguistic influence old_english greek bilingual_child previous_study bilingual first language_acquisition show even_though bilingual_child language system_develop separately possibility two_language influence exclude recent_study argue syntax pragmatics interface structure instantiate surface overlap two_language vulnerable crosslinguistic influence bilingual_acquisition proposal mainly test young bilingual_child explores possibility crosslinguistic influence restriction interface domain old bilingual_child present experimental_data thirty english_greek year_old bilingual_child sixteen greek dominant living greece sixteen english dominant living monolingual control_group series elicit production acceptability_judgement task administer investigate_whether specific syntax pragmatics interface structure distribution null overt subject pronouns preverbal subject wide focus context vulnerable crosslinguistic influence english_greek purely