A usage based approach into the acquisition of relative clauses

ABSTRACT: Previous research has shown that cross-linguistically relative clauses are acquired late and are considered as a signal of linguistic complexity. This study adapts a usage-based account of relative clause acquisition in Turkish. A corpus based on three databases including 170 recordings of naturalistic mother-child interaction was analysed. The age of children in these three databases are 02;00-03;06, 01;00-02;04 and 00;09-02;09, respectively. The analyses revealed that the use of relative clauses in both the children’s productions and in child-directed speech were extremely scarce. Though previous research underlined the linguistic complexity of relative clauses as a reason for late acquisition, the results of this study point out that scarcity of input should also be regarded as a powerful predictor. The study underlines the availability of other constructions that are functionally parallel to relative clauses. The findings suggest that such structures which are syntactically and morphologically less complex than relative clauses are common in both child directed speech and in children’s productions

Does Turkish child-directed speech predict the acquisition order of wh-questions?

Does Turkish child-directed speech predict the acquisition order of wh-questions? The very early studies about children’s acquisition of questions have provided a cognition-based rationale. They claimed that “why” and “when” are acquired later than “what” and “where” because of their cognitive constraints (Bloom et al. 1982) However; in the follow-up studies, it is found that as well as cognitive perspective, there are two other explanations. One of these is the syntactic function of the wh-word, whereas the other is about the semantic generality of the main verb (Bloom et al. 1982). This point of view has highlighted the role of complexity on children’s acquisition of question. According to this; “what” and “where” are firstly acquired through the copula. Secondly, they are used with semantically general verbs. Then, wh-sententials along with descriptive verbs are used. However, this account based on that order has been challenged by Clancy’s explanation (1989). It is claimed that frequency of wh-word and verbs in child-directed speech can be a significant factor on acquisition of question (Rowland et al. 2003). In a longitudinal study with 12 English children and their mothers, it was found that input frequency of wh-questions and verb combinations was a powerful predictor when compared to linguistic complexity (Rowland et al. 2003). In the light of these discussions, the study aims at investigating Turkish child-directed speech in terms of its role on children’s acquisition of questions and at evaluating the role of cognitive/linguistic complexity account on acquisition of questions. This research was based on the naturalistic data of 9 one- to three-year old children and their mothers. References Bloom, L., Merkin, S. & Wootten, J. (1982). Wh-questions: linguistic factors that contribute to the sequence of acquisition. Child Development, 53, 1084-1092. Clancy, P. (1989). Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 16, 323-347. Rowland, C., & Pine, J. (2000). Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh- question acquisition: what children do know? Journal of Child Language, 27, 157-181. Rowland, C., Pine, J. Lieven, E. Theakston, A. (2003). Determinants of acquisition order in wh- questions: re-evaluating the role of caregiver speech. Journal of Child Language, 30, 609-63

Language abilities in bilingual children : the effect of family background and language exposure on the development of Turkish and Dutch

Aims and objectives: The study investigates the effects of family background and language exposure on the language abilities of Turkish-Dutch bilingual children in their heritage language, Turkish, as well as in the majority language, Dutch. Methodology: Thirty-five children (3;01-6;11) participated in the study. All children took two standardized proficiency tests: CELF-Preschool 2 in Dutch and TEDIL in Turkish. Parents were interviewed on the family background and on the children's use of and exposure to Dutch and Turkish. Data and analysis: Children's test scores in Dutch and Turkish were analyzed in relation to the amount of exposure to Dutch and Turkish and the socio-economic and linguistic background of the parents. Findings: The results reveal that the children's home context-both the linguistic background of the parents and the socio-educational level of the mother-affected the children's scores, especially for Dutch. The amount of exposure to and use of Dutch and Turkish was correlated to the Dutch and Turkish scores. A qualitative discussion of children's profiles revealed that children's performance can only be fully understood when details of the home context, obtained through interviews with the parents, are taken into account. Originality: To date, few studies on bilingual children from families with a migration background have examined young children's general language abilities in both the heritage language and the majority language. Limitations: The children's language abilities were mapped on the basis of widely recognized standardized tests originally developed for the assessment of monolingual children. As more bilingual instruments are being tested and developed, future research will benefit from these tools

Unravelling the input: the effect of language exposure on the lexical development of Turkish-Dutch bilinguals and monolingual Dutch children

Unravelling the input: the effect of language exposure on the lexical development of Turkish-Dutch bilinguals and monolingual Dutch children In this paper, we examine the early lexical development in Dutch of Turkish-Dutch successive bilinguals in an immigrant context and compare it to the lexical development of monolingual Dutch children. Early childhood bilingualism appears in different forms in relation to the age of onset or amount of language exposure (De Houwer, 2007). Research findings have shown that bilingual children’s language proficiency develops in line with the amount of exposure to the languages involved (Duursma et al. 2007). Most studies are based on children raised in One Parent-One Language (OPOL) homes as the languages in focus are easier to quantify (De Houwer, 2007). Studies on the early lexical development in early immigrant bilingualism, however, are rare and, to our knowledge, our study is the first to map the semantic distribution in the Dutch lexicon of very young (17-36 months) bilingual Turkish-Dutch children through the M-CDI. In the study, we compare the composition of Turkish-Dutch succesive bilinguals’ early lexicon and Dutch monolinguals based on the lexical categories in the M-CDI. A total of 90 children were involved in the study, all living in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. They were divided into three groups according to Home Language: a Monolingual Dutch Group (MonoDu, N = 36), a One Parent-One Language Group (OPOL, N = 18) and a Turkish Parents Group (TUP, N = 36). As expected, results revealed significant differences between the groups in the overall size of the productive and receptive lexicon (Kruskal-Wallis, H=18.947, df=2, p <.05): overall, the MonoDu Group had a larger lexicon (M=308, s.d.=212) than the OPOL Group (M=205, s.d.=140) and the TUP Group (M=104, s.d.=122), though there were important individual differences between children. The results should not be interpreted as a deficit resulting from bilingualism, but they reveal that input quantity in the home context where two languages interact is extremely important in the composition of successive bilingual children’s early lexicon, especially in immigrant families. In the analysis, we focus on the effect of Age of First Exposure to the community language, Dutch, and the semantic distribution in the productive and receptive lexicon of the children. In sum, the study shows that the size and composition of the lexicon of bilingual children from OPOL and TUP homes are considerably different from each other , showing the influence of input quantity and quality. The results will be discussed in light of the often reported underachievement of Turkish-Dutch successive bilinguals in a school context. References De Houwer, A. (2007). Parental language input patterns and children’s bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 411-424. Duursma, E., Romero-Contreras, S., Szuber, A., Proctor, P., Snow, C., August, D., & Calderón, M. (2007). The role of home literacy and language environment on bilingual English and Spanish vocabulary development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 171-190