Ocena zasobu słownictwa u dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym – nowe narzędzie testowe

Assessment of vocabulary size – a new tool for testing preschool childrenThe paper presents the first phase of research aimed at the construction of Picture Vocabulary Test (part I – Comprehension; OTS-R). Development of a mental lexicon is one of the basic components of linguistic and communicative competence (Michnick-Golinkoff et al., 2000; Hall and Waxman, 2004). Vocabulary size affects other aspects of language acquisition e.g. grammar (Dale et al., 2000; Dionne et al., 2003). Presented measure aims at the assessing word comprehension in preschool Polish children. In this phase of research, 351 children (age 2–6) took part in the study. Word comprehension was assessed by a picture choice task. Children were presented with a series of four pictures charts, each containing pictures depicting a target word (noun, verb, or adjective) and three distractors related to the target word phonetically, semantically, and thematically. Results show a gradual increase of vocabulary with age, better understanding of verbs over nous and adjectives, and a greater proportion of semantic errors over the other two types of errors. The study enabled the preparation of a new version of assessment tool which is going to be used in the subsequent phase of the research (norming study)

How does L1 and L2 exposure impact L1 performance in bilingual children? : evidence from Polish-English migrants to the United Kingdom

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual, 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years; months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition) and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ and short term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input

Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers.

Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here, we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for "all," "none," "some," "some…not," and "most" in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-y-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language- and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the National Academy of Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.160134111

A crosslinguistic study of symmetrical judgments

A longstanding puzzle in developmental linguistics is why children are more permissive than adults in assigning distributive interpretations to sentences with the universal quantifiers each, every, and all under certain experimental conditions. One well-known controversial issue in this area is children’s symmetrical judgments of universally quantified sentences. Symmetrical judgments are elicited when a child is asked to judge if a sentence including a universal quantifier describes a visual context depicting an incomplete distributive relation. The following three judgment types have been included in the set of symmetrical judgment types in the literature (examples from Kang, 2001).peer-reviewe

Vocabulary of early bilingual children acquiring Polish in immigrant setting

W niniejszej pracy podjęto problem wczesnego rozwoju wybranych kompetencji językowych u dzieci pierwszego pokolenia polskich emigrantów w Wielkiej Brytanii i Irlandii. Porównano je do rozwoju językowego dzieci jednojęzycznych wychowywanych Polsce. Istotnym aspektem badań z punktu widzenia teorii było uwzględnienie wczesnej dwujęzyczności przyswajania językowego dzieci w warunkach, w których język używany w domu jest językiem mniejszości. Z uwagi na brak (według naszej wiedzy) tego typu badań dla języka polskiego lub innego języka słowiańskiego, analizy miały przede wszystkim charakter eksploracyjny. Zaprezentowane zostały badania z użyciem polskiej i angielskiej wersji językowej kwestionariusza McArthur Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory (MB-CDI) i kwestionariusza KRiJ (Kwestionariusz: rozwój dziecka i jego zaplecze językowe). Obejmowały one zasób słownictwa czynnego, kompozycję słownika umysłowego, łączenie słów oraz charakterystykę kontaktu z każdym z języków wraz z oceną wpływu zróżnicowanego kontaktu językowego na rozwój zasobu słownictwa czynnego. Dodatkowo przeprowadzono eksplorację czynników ujętych w danych z KRiJ, w celu sprawdzenia, które z nich są powiązane z niższym zasobem słownictwa. Wyniki wskazują, że dzieci przyswajające język polski w warunkach wczesnej dwujęzyczności nie mają takich samych kompetencji w tym języku w zakresie zasobu słownictwa czynnego, wybranych kategorii semantycznych i łączenia słów, jak dzieci wychowywane w Polsce. Wszystko wskazuje jednak na to, że tendencja rozwojowa jest taka sama, chociaż w odniesieniu do łączenia słów przebiega z pewnym opóźnieniem. Analizy kontaktu z każdym z języków i zasobu słownictwa czynnego wskazują, że grupa dzieci z rodzin polskich wychowywanych za granicą przyswaja język pierwszy dwujęzycznie. Dane potwierdzają, że już na tak wczesnym etapie rozwoju językowego w rodzinach z dominującym użyciem języka społecznej mniejszości, obserwujemy statystycznie istotne różnice pomiędzy wynikami dzieci z Polski i wychowywanymi w warunkach emigracji. Zaobserwowano różnice zarówno dla ogólnego wskaźnika pomiaru zasobu słownictwa czynnego, jak i w poszczególnych kategoriach wyszczególnionych w IRMiK (semantycznych i częściach mowy). Co więcej, różnice te w odniesieniu do ogólnego wyniku dla zasobu słów były istotne we wszystkich wyróżnionych grupach wiekowych (22-26; 27-31; 32-38 miesięcy). Dzieci uzyskały niższe wyniki niż ich rówieśnicy w Polsce, pomimo tego, że aż 96% rodzin deklaruje zdecydowaną dominację języka polskiego. Dzieci miały nieróżnicujący zasób słów przy uwzględnieniu wyników z obydwu języków razem. Różnice zaobserwowano jednak w zasobie słownictwa pojęciowego. Używanie przede wszystkim języka ojczystego w środowisku domowym dzieci wychowywanych w warunkach emigracyjnych nie daje pewności, że osiągną one takie same kompetencje w tym języku, jak dzieci jednojęzyczne. Potrzebne jest dodatkowe wsparcie rozwoju języka rodzimego.In the following thesis we examine an early language development of Polish children living in UK and Ireland whose parents are first generation immigrants. They were compared to monolingual peers living in Poland. The relevant issue, from a theoretical point of view, was the investigation of early bilingual language acquisition. Due to (to the best of author’s knowledge) the lack of similar studies for Polish or other Slavic languages, our study was primarily exploratory. The expressive vocabularies were assessed using Polish and when relevant British English adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI). General information and language exposition patterns were assessed by KRiJ (Questionnaire: Child development and its language resources). The assessment included expressive vocabulary, composition of mental vocabulary, word combination, characteristics of language exposition, the possible effect of diverse language exposition on the development of expressive vocabulary. Additionally, we explored factors (taken from the data collected in KRiJ) which might be related to lower vocabulary scores of bilingual group. Results indicate that children acquiring Polish language in early bilingual setting do not have language skills in Polish on the same level as Polish monolinguals living in Poland. The differences were observed in expressive vocabulary, investigated semantic categories, and early word combination. However, it seems that children in both groups have the same developmental tendency but the emergence of word combination is observed later. The investigation of language exposition patterns indicated that the children being raised in UK and Ireland can be considered as those who bilingually acquire first language. The results confirm that already, at such an early stage of their development in the environment where Polish is a minority language, we can observe significant statistical differences in total expressive vocabulary, as well as in investigated semantic categories and parts of speech. The observed differences were significant in all age groups (22-26; 27-31; 32-38 months). Their results were lower than those of their monolingual peers even though 96% of the families declared Polish to be the dominant language used at home. The differences were also observed in Total Conceptual Vocabulary but not in the Total Vocabulary (measures which considered both languages). Overall, results indicated the dominant use of Polish at home in an immigrant setting does not guarantee the attainment of the same language competence that is demonstrated by monolingual children. Additional support of the heritage language is needed

Ocena zasobu słownictwa u dzieci w wieku przedszkolnym – nowe narzędzie testowe

Assessment of vocabulary size – a new tool for testing preschool childrenThe paper presents the first phase of research aimed at the construction of Picture Vocabulary Test (part I – Comprehension; OTS-R). Development of a mental lexicon is one of the basic components of linguistic and communicative competence (Michnick-Golinkoff et al., 2000; Hall and Waxman, 2004). Vocabulary size affects other aspects of language acquisition e.g. grammar (Dale et al., 2000; Dionne et al., 2003). Presented measure aims at the assessing word comprehension in preschool Polish children. In this phase of research, 351 children (age 2–6) took part in the study. Word comprehension was assessed by a picture choice task. Children were presented with a series of four pictures charts, each containing pictures depicting a target word (noun, verb, or adjective) and three distractors related to the target word phonetically, semantically, and thematically. Results show a gradual increase of vocabulary with age, better understanding of verbs over nous and adjectives, and a greater proportion of semantic errors over the other two types of errors. The study enabled the preparation of a new version of assessment tool which is going to be used in the subsequent phase of the research (norming study)

Retelling a model story improves the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children

Reading and telling stories to children improves their narrative skills, which is well-documented for monolinguals, but not for bilinguals. We investigated whether bilingual narratives improve when the child is provided with a model story. We studied the narratives of Polish-English bilingual children (n = 75, mean age 5;7 years; months) raised in the UK. We elicited narratives through picture stories in two modes: told spontaneously and retold after a model provided by an adult experimenter. The bilinguals told and retold stories in Polish and English. The study combined a within-subject design, comparing the bilinguals’ two languages, and a between-subject design, comparing the stories told and retold in Polish by the bilinguals and by Polish age-matched monolinguals (n = 75). We investigated whether retelling might improve bilingual and monolingual storytelling to the same extent. In the stories, we assessed both the macrostructure (e.g. story structure and answered comprehension questions) and microstructure (e.g. type-token ratio). We found a positive effect of retelling for the macrostructure in both monolinguals and bilinguals (regardless of the language). As for the microstructure, when retelling, children told longer stories, regardless of the language (Polish, English) and group (bilingual, monolingual). We argue that retelling stories improves the narrative skills of bilinguals

A cross-linguistic study of the acquisition of clitic and pronoun production

This study develops a single elicitation method to test the acquisition of third-person pronominal objects in 5-year-olds for 16 languages. This methodology allows us to compare the acquisition of pronominals in languages that lack object clitics (“pronoun languages”) with languages that employ clitics in the relevant context (“clitic languages”), thus establishing a robust cross-linguistic baseline in the domain of clitic and pronoun production for 5-year-olds. High rates of pronominal production are found in our results, indicating that children have the relevant pragmatic knowledge required to select a pronominal in the discourse setting involved in the experiment as well as the relevant morphosyntactic knowledge involved in the production of pronominals. It is legitimate to conclude from our data that a child who at age 5 is not able to produce any or few pronominals is a child at risk for language impairment. In this way, pronominal production can be taken as a developmental marker, provided that one takes into account certain crosslinguistic differences discussed in the article