Sources of variation at the onset of bilingualism: The differential effect of input factors, AOA, and cognitive skills on HL Arabic and L2 English syntax
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Date
2022Author
Soto-Corominas, Adriana
Daskalaki, Evangelia
Paradis, Johanne
Winters-Difani, Magdalena
Al Janaideh, Redab
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Despite growing research on individual differences in child bilinguals, few studies have
focused on the development of syntax, included both languages, and studied newly
arrived school-age migrant children. Accordingly, this study investigated the syntactic
development of heritage language (HL) Syrian Arabic and L2 English by Syrian refugee
children (N = 119) recently arrived in Canada using a sentence repetition task. Regression
analyses showed that a partially overlapping set of child-level (input and cognitive skills)
and language-level (syntactic structure) factors accounted for performance in each
language. HL performance was particularly sensitive to language, cognitive, and input
variables indexing cumulative HL exposure. L2 performance, however, was sensitive to
cognitive and environmental variables indexing current and cumulative L2 use. Finally,
despite stronger performance in Arabic than in English, results revealed interdependence
between the two languages, indicating that participants with stronger syntactic abilities in
their HL tended to have stronger syntactic abilities in their emerging L2.
Citation
Soto-Corominas, A., Daskalaki, E., & Paradis, J., Winters-Difani, M., & Al Janaideh, R. (2022). Sources of variation at the onset of bilingualism: the differential effect of input factors, AOA, and cognitive skills on HL Arabic and L2 English syntax. Journal of Child Language, 49, 741-773. doi:10.1017/S0305000921000246