scholarly journals The relationship between phonological awareness and executive attention in Chinese-English bilingual children

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hwajin Yang ◽  
Sujin Yang ◽  
Carissa Kang
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Awareness ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Executive Attention ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
The Relationship

Factors affecting L2 phonological awareness in Chinese-Dutch preschoolers

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128
Author(s):  
Han Yuan ◽  
Eliane Segers ◽  
Ludo Verhoeven
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Awareness ◽  
First Language ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Initial Phoneme ◽  
Rhyme Awareness ◽  
Bilingual Group ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The present study compared the relationship between Dutch phonological awareness (rhyme awareness, initial phoneme isolation), Dutch speech decoding and Dutch receptive vocabulary in two groups in different linguistic environments: 30 Mandarin Chinese-Dutch bilingual children and 24 monolingual Dutch peers. Chinese vocabulary and phonological awareness were taken into account in the bilingual group. Bilingual children scored below their Dutch monolingual counterparts on all Dutch tasks. In the bilingual group, Dutch rhyme awareness was predicted by Dutch speech decoding, both directly, and indirectly via Dutch receptive vocabulary. When adding Chinese proficiency to the model, Chinese rhyme awareness was found to mediate the relationship between Dutch speech decoding and Dutch rhyme awareness. It can thus be concluded that second language (L2) phonological awareness in Chinese-Dutch kindergartners is affected by their L2 speech and vocabulary level, on the one hand, and their level of phonological awareness in the first language (L1).

High proficiency across two languages is related to better mental state reasoning for bilingual children

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE R. GORDON
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Preschool Age Children ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTPast research suggests that bilingualism positively affects children's performance in false belief tasks. However, researchers have yet to fully explore factors that are related to better performance in these tasks within bilingual groups. The current study includes an assessment of proficiency in both languages (which was lacking in past work) and investigates the relationship between proficiency and performance in a variety of mental state tasks (not just false belief). Furthermore, it explores whether the relationship between language proficiency and performance in mental state tasks differs between bilingual and monolingual groups. Twenty-six Spanish–English bilingual and twenty-six English monolingual preschool-age children completed seven mental state tasks. Findings provide evidence that high proficiency in English is related to better performance in mental state tasks for monolinguals. In contrast, high proficiency in both English and Spanish is related to better performance in mental state tasks for bilinguals.

Inter-sentential Code-switching and Language Dominance in Cantonese–English Bilingual Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-105
Author(s):  
Chit Fung Lam ◽  
Stephen Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Code Switching ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Language Dominance ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Hong Kong Cantonese ◽  
Measurement Variance ◽  
Language Context ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Gradient Measurement

This paper examines the relationship between language dominance and the under-investigated topic of inter-sentential code-switching in Hong Kong Cantonese–English bilingual children. Longitudinal data for six children showing different dominance patterns were analysed. MLU differentials (Yip & Matthews, 2006) were adopted to measure dominance based on five criteria: methodological compatibility, typological comparability, gradient measurement, variance validity, and multifaceted compatibility. Our results showed that bilingual children produced more inter-sentential code-switching in the context of their non-dominant language and less in their dominant-language context. We account for this asymmetry in relation to mechanisms of inhibitory control (Gross & Kaushanskaya, 2015). Further, we propose that intrasentential and inter-sentential code-switching each have a different status in bilingual children’s developing grammar, underlining the methodological importance of separating the two constructs in future investigations. We also suggest that, in societies where intra-sentential code-switching is a social norm, inter-sentential code-switching could serve as signs of early bilinguals’ dominance status.

Effects of SES on Executive Attention in Malay–English bilingual children in Singapore

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1042-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARISSA KANG ◽  
FELIX THOEMMES ◽  
BARBARA LUST
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Low Ses ◽  
Executive Attention ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Cultural Variations ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Attentional Network

Thirty-four 4 to 6-year-old Malay–English bilinguals (both balanced and dominant) characterized as low SES on income and parental education were tested on the child-Attentional Network Task (ANT) (Rueda, Rothbart, McCandliss, Saccomanno & Posner, 2004) measuring executive attention. Although SES measures fell below the Singapore median, Malay children's performance on the child-ANT remained high when compared to other age-matched monolingual and bilingual children previously tested with the child-ANT (Yang, Yang & Lust, 2011), and Chinese–English Singaporean bilinguals (Yang, Yang & Kang, 2014). None of the three SES measures – father's and mother's education, and income – significantly correlated with child-ANT components. Regression analyses confirmed that none of the SES measures significantly predicted performance on the child-ANT. Both balanced and dominant bilinguals displayed high executive control. We consider the possibility that cultural variations, (e.g., simultaneous and pervasiveness of bilingualism in Singapore, or pervasive code-switching), may ameliorate potential negative effects of SES on executive control development.

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