Turkish- and German-speaking bilingual 4-to-6-year-olds living in Sweden: Effects of age, SES and home language input on vocabulary production

This paper investigates vocabulary production in the minority home languages of 40 Turkish-Swedish and 38 German-Swedish bilingual preschoolers aged 4;0–6;11, growing up in Sweden. We explore how age, SES, and exposure via mother-tongue instruction and home language use in the family affect child vocabulary skills. This has not previously been investigated in Sweden. Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs; Haman, Łuniewska & Pomiechowska, 2015) were used to test noun and verb production in Turkish and German. Background information was collected using a parental questionnaire. The two bilingual groups performed equally well in their respective home languages, Turkish and German. There were no effects of age, socio-economic status (SES) or mother-tongue instruction on vocabulary. However, input in the home setting had a clear effect. Children whose parents used the home language to the child and to each other had significantly higher vocabulary production scores. Having additional home-language input providers such as friends also affected the scores. These results from a Swedish context echo findings from studies of other language combinations and reveal the importance of input for the development of expressive vocabulary

Typical and atypical language development in Turkish-Swedish bilingual children aged 4–7

This thesis investigates the vocabulary and narrative macrostructure skills of 102 typically-developing (TD) 4- to 7-year-old Turkish-Swedish bilingual children (cross-sectional), the development of these skills over time from age 4 to 6 in a subgroup of 10 children (longitudinal), and six Turkish-Swedish children with a language impairment (LI) diagnosis (clinical). The children’s health, family and language backgrounds, their language use and input patterns are explored through parental questionnaires, family interviews, and interviews with teachers and speech-language pathologists. In both Turkish and Swedish, comprehension and production are assessed with comparable materials: Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT; Haman et al., 2015), and Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN; Gagarina et al., 2012). For vocabulary (CLT), age development, language differences (Turkish vs. Swedish), differences between comprehension and production, and effects of language use and input are explored. For narrative macrostructure (MAIN), age development, language differences and task differences (Cat/Dog vs. Baby Birds/Baby Goats) are analyzed. LI children’s scores are compared with TD children, with additional focus on the LI children’s communicative, linguistic and social behavior.  In both vocabulary comprehension and production, the youngest TD groups performed better in Turkish than in Swedish, but by age 6, Turkish and Swedish vocabulary scores matched due to rapid improvement in Swedish. Factors related to vocabulary scores were: daily language input, parents’ language use with each other and with the child, and child’s language with the sibling(s). For narratives, comprehension was ahead of production. There was no difference between Turkish and Swedish MAIN comprehension, but for both languages a task effect was found (higher scores on Cat/Dog than Baby Birds/Baby Goats). Narrative production scores were generally low for both languages, but increased more with age in Swedish than in Turkish. The longitudinal study largely confirmed the patterns found in the cross-sectional data. The majority of the LI children performed far below their TD peers in both their languages. Some LI children performed very low in only one language, despite extensive and long-term exposure to that language. In contrast, TD children with very low scores in one language usually had very limited exposure to that language. LI children were also reported to have difficulties with word learning, pragmatics, and attention, and a family history with language problems. It is suggested that bilingual children with potential language impairment should be assessed holistically in both their languages and extensive information about their family backgrounds and language input characteristics be collected.

Ordförrådsutveckling hos arabisk-svensktalande och turkisk-svensktalande barn i förskoleåldern och vid skolstart

This paper investigates the receptive and expressive vocabulary skills of 202 Arabic/Swedish-speaking and Turkish/Swedish-speaking bilingual children aged 4-7 growing up in Sweden, in their home/minority language (Arabic, Turkish) and in Swedish. We explore how vocabulary is affected by age, age of onset, socio-economic status (SES), and minority language exposure in the family (via parents) and via home-language (mother tongue) instruction. The comprehension and production of nouns and verbs was assessed with the Arabic, Turkish and Swedish versions of the Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLTs, Haman m.fl. 2015). Background information was collected via a parental questionnaire. In this cross-sectional study, there was a clear and positive effect of age on receptive and expressive vocabulary scores, though the effect was more pronounced for the majority language Swedish, and less so for the home language. Length of exposure had a positive effect on Swedish scores. For minority language vocabulary, language use in the home played an important role: Children whose parents mostly spoke Arabic or Turkish to them had significantly higher vocabulary scores in Arabic/Turkish than other children. For neither language was there any effect of SES (parental education). These results from a Swedish context complement vocabulary studies of other language combinations and reveal the importance of input for the development of receptive and expressive vocabulary in bilingual children.https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-434152</p

Kültürel Bellek 2017

KÜLTÜREL BELLEK 2017 kitabımızda, 7-8-9 Kasım 2017'de üniversitemizin Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri Koordinasyon Birimi'nin desteğiyle gerçekleştirdiğimiz sempozyumdan seçilmiş yazılar ve konuyla ilgili olduğunu düşündüğümüz araştırma yazıları toplanmıştır. Başta Hacettepe Üniversitesi olmak üzere Ankara Üniversitesi, Anadolu Üniversitesi, Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi, TED Üniversitesi, Çankaya Üniversitesi gibi Ankara'daki üniversiteler ile Tekirdağ Üniversitesi, Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit Üniversitesi, Balıkesir Üniversitesi, Nevşehir Üniversitesi, Sakarya Üniversitesi, Özyeğin Üniversitesi gibi ülkemizin farklı kentlerindeki üniversitelerden ve Varşova Üniversitesi'nden araştırmacıların çalışmalarını biraraya getirmekten mutluyuz. Disiplinlerarası yaklaşımı ve farklı bakış açılarını birleştirmeyi amaçladığımız bu seçkide sanat tarihi, psikoloji, halkbilimi, arkeoloji gibi insani bilimler alanlarından, Türk dili ve edebiyatı, Fransız dili ve edebiyatı, İngiliz dili ve edebiyatı, İtalyan dili ve edebiyatı gibi filoloji alanlarından, seramik, mimarlık, şehir ve bölge planlama gibi güzel sanatlar ve mimarlık fakültelerinden, psikiyatri ve nöroloji gibi tıp alanlarından araştırma yazıları yer almaktadır. Unutmamak için biz hatırlamayı, öğrenmeyi, görmeyi, araştırmayı seçiyoruz. Unutmamak için, unutulduysa hatırlamak ve hatırlatmak için, bilmeyenlere göstermek, anlatmak ve belleğimize sahip çıkmak için başladığımız bu yolculukta çağrımızı kırmayan değerli araştırmacılara şükranlarımızı sunuyoruz. Unutmayalım ki, kültürel bellek hepimizi birleştiren güçtür