Caregiver Responses to the Language Mixing of a Young Trilingual

The situation once described by Hoffmann (1985), in which children grow up exposed to three languages from an early age, is a reality for an increasing number of families. In Europe – as elsewhere – greater mobility is leading to greater numbers of mixed-language couples (Piller 2002), and, by extension, multilingual families. For such families, questions concerning the acquisition and maintenance of three or more languages in a natural environment are of direct relevance. Researchers in bilingualism have already pointed out the importance of social context for the acquisition of two languages in childhood, focusing in particular on the quantity and quality of exposure to the languages (De Houwer 1990; Döpke 1992; Okita 2002; Lanza 2004) or the prestige of the languages (Lambert 1977). In this paper, I will make use of the insights gained by such researchers and test them in a trilingual setting. The paper will focus mainly on one aspect, namely the conversational style of parents and caretakers. The data come from research being carried out in Switzerland and consist of 33 interviews with multilingual families, as well as case studies of two trilingual children. The findings attest to the importance of conversational style, but at the same time indicate that a number of further factors are also of great significance.

Universal ontology: attentive tracking of objects and substances across languages and over development

Previous research has demonstrated that adults are successful at visually tracking rigidly moving items, but experience great difficulties when tracking substance-like ‘‘pouring’’ items. Using a comparative approach, we investigated whether the presence/absence of the grammatical count–mass distinction influences adults and children’s ability to attentively track objects versus substances. More specifically, we aimed to explore whether the higher success at tracking rigid over substance-like items appears universally or whether speakers of classifier languages (like Japanese, not marking the object–substance distinction) are advantaged at tracking substances as compared to speakers of non-classifier languages (like Swiss German, marking the object–substance distinction). Our results supported the idea that language has no effect on low-level cognitive processes such as the attentive visual processing of objects and substances. We concluded arguing that the tendency to prioritize objects is universal and independent of specific characteristics of the language spoken.

The Prophecies of Zechariah : with special reference to the origin and date of chapters 9-14

Leipzig, Univ., Diss., 1896

An outline of German historical grammar,

"The present book is far from being a mere new edition of [the author's 'The sound and history of the German language'] ... In a sense ... [it] may be considered a precursor of the author's comprehensive grammar of the Germanic languages."--Pref.

A comparative Germanic grammar,

Mode of access: Internet.

Slavs and Teutons, the oldest Germanic-Slavic relations,

Mode of access: Internet.

Grundriss der germanischen Philologie /

Vol. 3, 1900; v. 1-2, 1901-09.

The effect of the disruption on the Hebrew thought of God.

Reprinted from the American journal of Semitic languages and literatures, vol. XXXII, no. 4, July, 1916.

Commentary to the Germanic laws and mediaeval documents,

"The Gothic Bible [and the Skeireins]": p. xxxiii-lxi.

Publications of the University of Pennsylvania.

Nos. 12 and 15 lack series title.

The Journal of English and Germanic philology.

Mode of access: Internet.

The American journal of theology.

Title from caption.

The Journal of English and Germanic philology.

Imprint varies: Urbana, Ill. : University of Illinois, 1907-Jan. 1978; Champaign, Ill. : University of Illinois Press, April 1978-