Subject realization in Greek preschool learners of English

Bibliographic Data

ID11655989
AuthorsFaidra Faitaki (0000-0002-7960-0150, corresponding author), Victoria A Murphy (0000-0001-9399-0653, University of Oxford)
Year2023
Volume40
Issue4
Pages911-933
Publication date2023-09-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSecond language Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0267-6583 • E-ISSN: 1477-0326
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02676583231195308
OpenAlexW4386988328
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited40

Languages differ in their realization of the subject argument: non-null-subject languages, like English, require subjects to be phonologically overt; rather, null-subject languages, like Greek, allow the subject to be overt or null. This cross-linguistic difference can lead to the transfer of grammatical properties across languages during bilingual language acquisition. The direction of crosslinguistic transfer is known to be affected by structural overlap and linguistic dominance. This exploratory study was conducted to establish whether structural overlap or linguistic dominance affect the production patterns of Greek children who acquire English at preschool. If structural overlap determines the direction of transfer, then children will overuse overt subjects in Greek; if dominance determines the direction of transfer, then children will overuse null subjects in English. Two groups of Greek children (between 3;6–4;5 and 4;6–5;8) attending a monolingual English immersion programme in Greece participated in a novel oral elicitation task that tested their use of null and overt subjects in both languages. Both groups produced significantly more null and fewer overt subjects in English than an English monolingual control group, but the same number of null and overt subjects in Greek as a Greek monolingual control group. This finding suggests that the preschoolers, who start learning English at 3;0 years, experience crosslinguistic transfer from Greek, their dominant language, to English – thus highlighting the role that dominance plays in determining the direction of crosslinguistic transfer among successive bilingual children

Affect (linguistics · Dominance (genetics · First language · Linguistics · Modern Greek · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Subject (documents · Communication · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development

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