Cross-linguistic influence in the English of a trilingual child : a case study of trilingual acquisition
This thesis is a case study of simultaneous trilingual acquisition examining a child's (S) development of English as she acquires English, Italian and Scottish Gaelic simultaneously from birth. It investigates the effect that the acquisition of three languages from birth has on the development of the child's English. S's trilingual language development is examined to see how it correlates to monolingual and bilingual acquisition. Specifically, this thesis reviews S's MLU development and her general development, whilst focusing on phenomena that are salient in the acquisition literature, and compares it to the language development of monolingual and bilingual children presented in the literature. It is clear that although S's development of English is largely in keeping with that reported in monolingual and bilingual acquisition literature, it differs to her monolingual and bilingual counterparts in relation to target deviance. The target deviance observed in S's data is examined in order to provide evidence for cross-linguistic influence in multilingual language acquisition. The first phenomenon analysed in detail looks at S's data only whereas in the second phenomenon, elicitation tasks involving S and her
Devlin, Megan
Cross-linguistic influence in the English of a trilingual child : a case study of trilingual acquisition. This thesis is a case study of simultaneous trilingual acquisition examining a child's (S) development of English as she acquires English, Italian and Scottish Gaelic simultaneously from birth. It investigates the effect that the acquisition of three languages from birth has on the development of the child's English. S's trilingual language development is examined to see how it correlates to monolingual and bilingual acquisition. Specifically, this thesis reviews S's MLU development and her general development, whilst focusing on phenomena that are salient in the acquisition literature, and compares it to the language development of monolingual and bilingual children presented in the literature. It is clear that although S's development of English is largely in keeping with that reported in monolingual and bilingual acquisition literature, it differs to her monolingual and bilingual counterparts in relation to target deviance. The target deviance observed in S's data is examined in order to provide evidence for cross-linguistic influence in multilingual language acquisition. The first phenomenon analysed in detail looks at S's data only whereas in the second phenomenon, elicitation tasks involving S and her
cross_linguistic influence english child case_study acquisition case_study simultaneous acquisition examine child development english acquire english_italian scottish_gaelic simultaneously birth investigates_effect acquisition language birth_development child english language development examine see correlate monolingual bilingual acquisition specifically review development general development whilst focus phenomena salient acquisition literature compare language development monolingual bilingual child present literature clear although development english largely keep report monolingual bilingual acquisition literature differs monolingual bilingual counterpart relation target deviance target deviance observe data examine order_provide evidence cross_linguistic influence multilingual language_acquisition first phenomenon analysed detail look data whereas second phenomenon elicitation task involve