{"title":"Comprehension and production of non-canonical word orders in Mandarin-speaking child heritage speakers","authors":"Jiuzhou Hao, Vasiliki Chondrogianni","doi":"10.1075/lab.20096.hao","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nAcross languages, structures with non-canonical word order have been shown to be problematic for both child and adult heritage speakers. To investigate the linguistic and child-level factors that modulate heritage speakers’ difficulties with non-canonical word orders, we examined the comprehension and production of three Mandarin non-canonical structures in 5- to 9-year-old Mandarin-English heritage children and compared them to age-matched Mandarin-speaking monolingual children and adults. Specifically, we examined how linguistic properties, such as linear word order, presence or absence of morphosyntactic cues, and surface structural overlap between languages, as well as child-level factors, such as chronological age and current home language use affect the acquisition of non-canonical structures in heritage children and their monolingual peers. Results showed that although heritage children could use morphosyntactic cues, they did not show monolingual-level sensitivity to passive-related morphology. Additionally, children produced more canonical SVO word order, which is shared between English and Mandarin, and preferred the reverse interpretations of non-canonical structures in comprehension. These responses were taken as evidence for cross-linguistic influence from the majority to the minority language. Finally, although non-canonical structures caused difficulties for child heritage speakers, their performance was modulated by structure and improved with age, over and above heritage language use.","PeriodicalId":48664,"journal":{"name":"Linguistic Approaches To Bilingualism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Linguistic Approaches To Bilingualism","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.20096.hao","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Across languages, structures with non-canonical word order have been shown to be problematic for both child and adult heritage speakers. To investigate the linguistic and child-level factors that modulate heritage speakers’ difficulties with non-canonical word orders, we examined the comprehension and production of three Mandarin non-canonical structures in 5- to 9-year-old Mandarin-English heritage children and compared them to age-matched Mandarin-speaking monolingual children and adults. Specifically, we examined how linguistic properties, such as linear word order, presence or absence of morphosyntactic cues, and surface structural overlap between languages, as well as child-level factors, such as chronological age and current home language use affect the acquisition of non-canonical structures in heritage children and their monolingual peers. Results showed that although heritage children could use morphosyntactic cues, they did not show monolingual-level sensitivity to passive-related morphology. Additionally, children produced more canonical SVO word order, which is shared between English and Mandarin, and preferred the reverse interpretations of non-canonical structures in comprehension. These responses were taken as evidence for cross-linguistic influence from the majority to the minority language. Finally, although non-canonical structures caused difficulties for child heritage speakers, their performance was modulated by structure and improved with age, over and above heritage language use.
期刊介绍:
LAB provides an outlet for cutting-edge, contemporary studies on bilingualism. LAB assumes a broad definition of bilingualism, including: adult L2 acquisition, simultaneous child bilingualism, child L2 acquisition, adult heritage speaker competence, L1 attrition in L2/Ln environments, and adult L3/Ln acquisition. LAB solicits high quality articles of original research assuming any cognitive science approach to understanding the mental representation of bilingual language competence and performance, including cognitive linguistics, emergentism/connectionism, generative theories, psycholinguistic and processing accounts, and covering typical and atypical populations.