English-Spanish bilingual learners of Portuguese as a third language: non-redundant acquisition and its typological nature

This chapter has two goals: (a) to discuss the Spanish-Portuguese interface in current formal language acquisition research and (b) to highlight the contributions of this language pairing in the emerging field of formal third language acquisition. The authors discuss two L3 acquisition studies (Montrul, Dias, & Santos, 2011; Giancaspro, Halloran, & Iverson, in press) examining Differential Object Marking, a morphological case marker present in Spanish but not in Portuguese, arguing that the results show how data from Spanish-English bilinguals learning Brazilian Portuguese as an L3 illuminate the deterministic role of structural and typological similarity in linguistic transfer. The data provide supportive evidence for only one of three existing L3 transfer models: the Typological Proximity Model (Rothman, 2010, 2011, 2013).

Production and on-line comprehension of definiteness in English and Dutch by monolingual and sequential bilingual children

The present article examines production and on-line processing of definite articles in Turkish-speaking sequential bilingual children acquiring English and Dutch as second languages (L2) in the UK and in the Netherlands, respectively. Thirty-nine 6–8-year-old L2 children and 48 monolingual (L1) age-matched children participated in two separate studies examining the production of definite articles in English and Dutch in conditions manipulating semantic context, that is, the anaphoric and the bridging contexts. Sensitivity to article omission was examined in the same groups of children using an on-line processing task involving article use in the same semantic contexts as in the production task. The results indicate that both L2 children and L1 controls are less accurate when definiteness is established by keeping track of the discourse referents (anaphoric) than when it is established via world knowledge (bridging). Moreover, despite variable production, all groups of children were sensitive to the omission of definite articles in the on-line comprehension task. This suggests that the errors of omission are not due to the lack of abstract syntactic representations, but could result from processes implicated in the spell-out of definite articles. The findings are in line with the idea that variable production in child L2 learners does not necessarily indicate lack of abstract representations (Haznedar and Schwartz, 1997).

Conflicting language ideologies and contradictory language practices in Singaporean bilingual families

Informed by family language policy (FLP) as the theoretical framework, I illustrate in this paper how language ideologies can be incongruous and language policies can be conflicting through three multilingual families in Singapore representing three major ethnic groups – Chinese, Malay and Indian. By studying their family language audits, observing their language practices, and engaging in conversations about their language ideologies, I look at what these families do and do not do and what they claim to do and not to do. Data were collected over a period of 6 months with more than 700 minutes of recording of actual interactions. Analysis of the data reveals that language ideologies are ‘power-inflected’ and tend to become the source of educational and social tensions which in turn shape family language practices. In Singapore these tensions are illustrated by the bilingual policy recognising mother tongues (MTs) and English as official languages, and its educational policy establishing English as the medium of instruction. The view of English as having instrumental values and MTs as having cultural functions reveals that language choices and practices in family domains are value-laden in everyday interactions and explicitly negotiated and established through FLP.

English compound and non-compound processing in bilingual and multilingual speakers: effects of dominance and sequential multilingualism

This article reports on a study investigating the relative influence of the first and dominant language on L2 and L3 morpho-lexical processing. A lexical decision task compared the responses to English NV-er compounds (e.g., taxi driver) and non-compounds provided by a group of native speakers and three groups of learners at various levels of English proficiency: L1 Spanish-L2 English sequential bilinguals and two groups of early Spanish-Basque bilinguals with English as their L3. Crucially, the two trilingual groups differed in their first and dominant language (i.e., L1 Spanish-L2 Basque vs. L1 Basque-L2 Spanish). Our materials exploit an (a)symmetry between these languages: while Basque and English pattern together in the basic structure of (productive) NV-er compounds, Spanish presents a construction that differs in directionality as well as inflection of the verbal element (V[3SG] + N). Results show between and within group differences in accuracy and response times that may be ascribable to two factors besides proficiency: the number of languages spoken by a given participant and their dominant language. An examination of response bias reveals an influence of the participants' first and dominant language on the processing of NV-er compounds. Our data suggest that morphological information in the nonnative lexicon may extend beyond morphemic structure and that, similarly to bilingualism, there are costs to sequential multilingualism in lexical retrieval.

Nurturing bilingual learners: challenges and concerns in Singapore

Singapore’s bilingual policy legitimises English not only as the language of governmental administration and interethnic communication, but also as the medium of instruction in all schools on all levels and across all subjects except mother tongues (MTs). As a result of these politics of language recognition, a visible shift has occurred in all ethnic groups away from MTs towards English. To rectify the language shift situation, the government has emphasised that developing bilingualism and raising bilingual children should begin in preschools. In this paper, we examine two top-down official documents: Review of Mother Tongue Languages Report, issued in 2011, and Nurturing Early Learners Framework for Mother Tongue Languages, developed in 2013. Attempting to identify some of the complex factors that influence language shift, we present an intertextual analysis of the Report and the curriculum Framework. In doing so, we compare the consistencies and locate the implicit inconsistencies in the policy position on bilingual education in preschools. We conclude the article by outlining the implications for changing the current bilingual educational models and providing teacher training programmes that maximise the learning opportunities of young bilingual learners.

Temporal indicators of language dominance in bilingual children

In the field of bilingualism it is of particular interest to stablish which, if any, of a speaker’s languages is dominant. Earlier research has shown that immigrants who acquire a new language tend to use elements of the timing patterns of the new language in their native language. It is shown here that measurements of timing in the two languages spoken by bilingual children can give information about the relative dominance of the languages for the individual speaker.

Análise da adaptação de um dicionário bilíngue francês-português europeu para a variante brasileira

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Dicionários bilíngues pedagógicos: análise, reflexões e propostas

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Metáforas do universo lexical português e italiano das zonas erógenas: ânus, nádegas, pênis, seios, testículos e vulva

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Princípios teóricos e metodológicos para a elaboração de um dicionário bilíngue de verbos português-alemão

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Uso do dicionário no ensino de língua espanhola: proposta de guia teórico-metodológico para professores

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

Lematização verbal em juruna: discussões lexicográficas

The production of a dictionary always generates controversy about decisions to be taken by the lexicographer. They are based – a priori – in previous theoretical and methodological choices. What we mean by dictionary? Why making certain choices rather than others? How to reconcile (if there is a reconciliation) the different approaches to describe the lexicon? The objective here is to contribute with theoretical and methodological reflections related to the Juruna Lexicography (Yudjá), as well as for lexicographical studies camp. This text addresses critical points of dictionaries production processes – if we may so call it – the history of the act of making a dictionary, so we can discuss choices to be taken to the entries of verbs in the Juruna-Portuguese bilingual dictionary assembly provided as a long term project result, in which some collaborators are working, including community’s indigenous. The work contains sections that will raise historical and linguistic discussions about the compilation of a dictionary and how this act binds to the applicability for the subjects that use this instrument firming / mobilizer of the lexicon visions. The focus here will be to discuss the verbs entries in the Juruna dictionary (stemming), taking lexicographical history as a contributor to certain choices of dictionaries production nowadays, whether for mother tongue, for foreign language, specialized lexicons, semantic groups, and systematizations for languages that are starting/beginning a first publication of dictionaries

Expressões Idiomáticas bilíngues relativas ao campo lexical do vestuário: uma reflexão sobre suas metáforas e metonímias

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)