The Role of Cognates and Language Distance in Simultaneous Bilingual Children's Productive Vocabulary Acquisition

IF 3.5 1区文学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Language Learning Pub Date : 2024-08-03 DOI:10.1111/lang.12666

Elly Koutamanis, Gerrit Jan Kootstra, Ton Dijkstra, Sharon Unsworth

{"title":"The Role of Cognates and Language Distance in Simultaneous Bilingual Children's Productive Vocabulary Acquisition","authors":"Elly Koutamanis, Gerrit Jan Kootstra, Ton Dijkstra, Sharon Unsworth","doi":"10.1111/lang.12666","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study examined the influence of cognate status and language distance on simultaneous bilingual children's vocabulary acquisition. It aimed to tease apart effects of word‐level similarities and language‐level similarities, while also exploring the role of individual‐level variation in age, exposure, and nontarget language proficiency. Children simultaneously acquiring two closely related languages (n = 203) or two more distant languages (n = 109) performed extended versions of the LITMUS Cross‐Linguistic Lexical Task (Haman et al., 2015), a productive vocabulary test with words varying in their phonological similarity to their translation equivalents. Children speaking closely related languages obtained higher vocabulary scores than children speaking more distant languages, who showed a stronger positive effect of phonological similarity. The effect of language distance on vocabulary was not solely driven by the presence of (near‐)identical cognates in the test. These findings show that similarities beyond specific test items and/or beyond the phonological level play a role in vocabulary acquisition.","PeriodicalId":51371,"journal":{"name":"Language Learning","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language Learning","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12666","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study examined the influence of cognate status and language distance on simultaneous bilingual children's vocabulary acquisition. It aimed to tease apart effects of word‐level similarities and language‐level similarities, while also exploring the role of individual‐level variation in age, exposure, and nontarget language proficiency. Children simultaneously acquiring two closely related languages (n = 203) or two more distant languages (n = 109) performed extended versions of the LITMUS Cross‐Linguistic Lexical Task (Haman et al., 2015), a productive vocabulary test with words varying in their phonological similarity to their translation equivalents. Children speaking closely related languages obtained higher vocabulary scores than children speaking more distant languages, who showed a stronger positive effect of phonological similarity. The effect of language distance on vocabulary was not solely driven by the presence of (near‐)identical cognates in the test. These findings show that similarities beyond specific test items and/or beyond the phonological level play a role in vocabulary acquisition.

查看原文本刊更多论文

同声传译和语言距离在同步双语儿童高效词汇习得中的作用

本研究探讨了同源语地位和语言距离对同步双语儿童词汇习得的影响。研究旨在区分词汇层面的相似性和语言层面的相似性的影响，同时探索个体在年龄、接触和非目标语言能力方面的差异的作用。同时学习两种密切相关语言（n = 203）或两种较远语言（n = 109）的儿童进行了扩展版的 LITMUS 跨语言词汇任务（Haman 等人，2015 年），这是一种生产性词汇测试，测试中的单词与其对应翻译的语音相似性各不相同。使用近亲语言的儿童比使用较远语言的儿童获得了更高的词汇分数，而语音相似性对他们的积极影响更大。语言距离对词汇量的影响并不完全取决于测试中是否存在（接近）相同的同义词。这些研究结果表明，超越特定测试项目和/或超越语音水平的相似性在词汇习得中发挥着作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Language Learning Multiple-

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

15.90%

发文量

期刊介绍： Language Learning is a scientific journal dedicated to the understanding of language learning broadly defined. It publishes research articles that systematically apply methods of inquiry from disciplines including psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, educational inquiry, neuroscience, ethnography, sociolinguistics, sociology, and anthropology. It is concerned with fundamental theoretical issues in language learning such as child, second, and foreign language acquisition, language education, bilingualism, literacy, language representation in mind and brain, culture, cognition, pragmatics, and intergroup relations. A subscription includes one or two annual supplements, alternating among a volume from the Language Learning Cognitive Neuroscience Series, the Currents in Language Learning Series or the Language Learning Special Issue Series.