The language of 5 1/2-year-old children from homes where Macedonian, Vietnamese and an Aboriginal tribal language are used as the language of the home

Abstract

Throughout the world migration patterns and changing attitudes towards education and other cultures have led over the past three or four decades to a remarkable growth in the learning of second or foreign languages. Within this area the learning of English by speakers of other languages takes up the largest numbers and is to be found in every part of the globe. Nevertheless to date comparatively little is known of processes and patterns in second language development. Evidence on phonological and semantic development is exceedingly skimpy. Hernandez (in Ervin-Tripp 1970), Malmberg (1945), Wode (1976) and Ervin-Tripp (1974) have examined the order of the development of sounds and differences between older and younger, and literate/non literate children in sound-system processing. This work does not so far seem to have been carried much further. Ervin-Tripp (1974) is also one of the few to have worked on the semantic aspect, noting which words appear to be learned first and differences between age groups in semantic processing in the second language..