Journal of Child Language最新文献

The current study examined the relationship between interest, the home environment, and young Chinese children's development of English as a second/foreign language in Hong Kong. Two hundred and seventy-four Hong Kong kindergartners were assessed on their interest in learning English and their English language skills (i.e., expressive and receptive vocabulary). Their parents completed questionnaires eliciting family socio-economic status, parental beliefs, and home learning environment. The results indicated that (1) interest was related to children's English language abilities after controlling for children's gender, non-verbal intelligence, and kindergarten type; (2) parents' beliefs about their child's English ability and self-efficacy were related to children's interest in learning English; and (3) interest uniquely contributed to children's English language ability in the home environment. The present findings provide evidence of the active role that children play in their second/foreign language development and highlight the significant influence of parental beliefs on children's interest in learning English.

Although family factors are considered important for children's language acquisition, the evidence comes primarily from affluent societies. Thus, this study aimed to examine the relations between family factors (family's socioeconomic status [SES], home literacy activities, access to print resources, and parental beliefs) and children's vocabulary knowledge in both urban and rural settings in China. Data from 366 children (urban group: 109, 4.85 years; rural group: 257, 4.89 years) were collected. Results showed that whereas family's SES significantly predicted access to print resources and children's vocabulary knowledge in the rural group, parental beliefs directly predicted children's vocabulary knowledge in the urban group. Multigroup analysis showed that the associations of family's SES and access to print resources with children's vocabulary knowledge were stronger in the rural group than in the urban group. Our findings highlight the importance of considering contextual settings when conceptualising the role of family factors in children's language acquisition.

Noun bias is the tendency to acquire nouns earlier than other syntactic categories. Whether it is universal or language and culture dependent is debated. We investigated noun bias in the receptive lexicon of Palestinian-Arabic-learning infants and examined whether maternal input and cultural values are related to lexicon composition beyond the language's structural properties. Thirty-one infants (16-24 months) completed a Computerized Comprehension Task in Palestinian Arabic, and mothers described picture narratives to their children, and completed demographic and cultural values questionnaires. Results showed a noun bias in infants' receptive lexicon. While no significant correlation was found between maternal noun usage and infants' noun bias, higher verb usage significantly correlated with reduced noun bias. Neither maternal education nor cultural values significantly predicted maternal input composition. These findings suggest that while noun bias exists in Palestinian Arabic, exposure to verbs may moderate it, highlighting the complex interplay between language structure, input, and early lexical development.

While previous studies highlight the role that children’s interest in natural categories predicts their learning of new label-object associations in these categories, the long-term implications of such a relationship – the extent to which children’s interest shapes lexical development – remain unclear. The current study examines whether children’s interests in different natural object categories predict their subsequent interest and the number of words children know in those categories 6 months later. Using data from 67 children tested at 18 and 24 months of age, we found that parents’ estimates of interest in natural object categories at 18 months predicted their reports of their child’s interests at 24 months. Parent interest reports at 18 months also predicted the number of words that children are reported to know in that category at 24 months. Taken together, this study documents the longitudinal relationship between children’s interests, parents’ awareness of their children’s interests, and later vocabulary development.