The acquisition of rhetorical questions in bilingual children with Italian as a heritage language
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15087363 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maria Francesca Ferin (0009-0000-1203-3967, University of Konstanz, corresponding author), Theodoros Marinis (0000-0002-4120-3141, University of Konstanz), Tanja Kupisch (0000-0002-2653-2692, University of Konstanz) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-14 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bilingualism Language and Cognition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1366-7289 • E-ISSN: 1469-1841 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1366728923000974 |
| OpenAlex | W4391814560 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 43 |
Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are a complex phenomenon at the interface of pragmatics, prosody and syntax, which requires reasoning on intentions and goals, and which involves a mismatch between literal and intended meaning. In Italian, RhQs can be marked by optional particles and verbal morphology. We investigated when children aged 6-9 acquire the relevant patterns of optional modification and exploit them in the appropriate pragmatic context. In an elicited production study with 84 monolingual and 88 Italian–German bilingual children, we found that development in monolinguals was determined by age with a progression between 6 and 9 years, while bilingual development was influenced by proficiency in the heritage language and dominance more generally. These results are in line with Tsimpli's (2014) proposal that “very-late-acquired phenomena”, especially interface domains, depend on their timing in acquisition. Unlike for other pragmatic phenomena, such as irony and conversational competence, there was no evidence for a bilingual advantage
Heritage language · Linguistics · Rhetorical question · Language Development and Disorders · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development
Cross-linguistic transfer in adjective–noun strings by preschool bilingual children
Scalar Implicatures in Child Language
Emmeans
Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and pragmatics
Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax–pragmatics interface
Syntactic Acquisition in Bilingual Children
Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4
The Contribution of Gestures to the Semantics of Non-Canonical Questions
Between syntax and discourse
Storytelling in bilingual children
Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual development
Early, late or very late
The influence of conversational context and the developing lexicon on the calculation of scalar implicatures
Non-literal speech comprehension in preschool children – an example from a study on verbal irony
Discourse particles, clause structure, and question types
The production of preverbal and postverbal subjects by Italian heritage children
Italian adaptation of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives
Main
What Defines Language Dominance in Bilinguals
On the syntax/pragmatics interface
Rhetorical question comprehension by Italian–German bilingual children
Growing syntactic structure and code-mixing in the weaker language
Bilingual children's sensitivity to specificity and genericity
Heritage languages and their speakers
The bilingual adaptation
From Hell to Polarity
Is Italian Clitic Right Dislocation grammaticalised? A prosodic analysis of yes/no questions and statements
Bilingual bootstrapping
Contrast and Information Structure
The acquisition of figurative meanings
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |