Pronoun comprehension and cross-linguistic influence in monolingual and bilingual children

Abstract

Pronoun comprehension can present challenges for young bilingual and monolingual children. The current study aimed to assess cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and pronoun comprehension in early childhood. Several studies have demonstrated the role of overlap across languages and its impact on language development. The present study investigates the influence of the acquisition of another language containing third-person pronouns on pronoun comprehension in English. Additional possible social influences are also discussed. In addition to the completion of language surveys and vocabulary tests, toddlers and preschoolers were presented with a forced-choice test to identify the pronouns ‘he/she/it’ between a man doll, a woman doll, a ball, and a monkey. Accuracy in pronoun comprehension was analysed based on age and preschooler’s accuracy was compared across language groups (monolingual in English, bilingual with and without third-person pronouns). Overall, the results demonstrated that, although young toddlers were able to comprehend ‘it’, children struggled with ‘he’ and ‘she’ until 3 years of age. In addition, bilingual preschool children that were learning a language that distinguished between the third-person pronouns, ‘he’ and ‘she’, performed similarly to monolingual English-speaking children and both groups performed better than bilingual children learning a language that did not distinguish between ‘he’ and ‘she’. The findings are discussed in the context of within- and between-language factors that can impact comprehension. Most recent research on early pronoun development involves production. This study presents evidence of early pronoun comprehension and investigates the role of CLI in this difficult, yet common component of language. The results suggest that learning a language with different features can negatively impact pronoun comprehension in another language. The findings are discussed in the context of an integrated system for bilinguals.