Discourse conditions on subject pronoun realization: Testing the linguistic intuitions of older bilingual children
This study investigates the acceptability of Italian and English pronominal subject forms in −topic shift [−TS] and +topic shift [+TS] contexts in English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children aged 6–7 and 8–10, age-matched monolingual children, and monolingual adults. The aim was to disent...
| Publicado en: | Lingua Vol. 119; no. 3; pp. 460 - 478 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Elsevier B.V.
Mar2009
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=36393460&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 36393460 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00243841 3OB jtl: Lingua issn: 00243841 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2009 vid: 119 iid: 3 pid: 1004 pub: Elsevier B.V. artinfo: ui: 36393460 10.1016/j.lingua.2008.09.008 ppf: 460 ppct: 18 formats: tig: atl: Discourse conditions on subject pronoun realization: Testing the linguistic intuitions of older bilingual children aug: au: Sorace, Antonella Serratrice, Ludovica Filiaci, Francesca Baldo, Michela affil: The University of Edinburgh, UK The University of Manchester, UK su: Bilingualism Bilingualism in children Italian language English language Sentences (Grammar) Multilingualism Multicultural education Foreign language education Concentrated study sug: subj: Bilingualism Bilingualism in children Italian language English language Sentences (Grammar) Multilingualism Multicultural education Foreign language education Concentrated study keyword: Cross-linguistic influence Discourse English Italian Pronouns ab: This study investigates the acceptability of Italian and English pronominal subject forms in −topic shift [−TS] and +topic shift [+TS] contexts in English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children aged 6–7 and 8–10, age-matched monolingual children, and monolingual adults. The aim was to disentangle possible effects of cross-linguistic influence from the more general effects of bilingualism and the use of ‘default’ forms. A further aim of the study was to test the influence of input and exposure to Italian by comparing bilinguals living in Italy and bilinguals living in the UK. The results showed no statistically significant differences in English: regardless of age, language combination, and language of the community, participants overwhelmingly rejected ungrammatical sentences with a missing subject and chose sentences with an overt subject pronoun. In Italian, by contrast, the patterns of results were much more varied. Younger monolingual and bilingual children chose significantly more pragmatically inappropriate overt subject pronouns than older children and adults. A significant interaction between age and language of the community also showed that at the age of 6–7 English-Italian bilinguals in the UK chose significantly more pragmatically overt pronouns than all the other groups of children, while at the age of 8–10 it was the Spanish-Italian bilinguals that performed significantly less accurately than all other groups of children. Bilingual children, regardless of age and language combination, also accepted some infelicitous null subject pronouns. This pattern of results indicates that variables beside cross-linguistic influence must be considered as explanatory factors in this particular domain. It also suggests that it is important to differentiate among different discourse conditions affecting subject pronouns in context. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2009 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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