Transfer Phenomena in Bilingual Language Acquisition
The Case of Caused-Motion Constructions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5901150 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nikolas Koch (0000-0001-6917-9318, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, corresponding author), Katharina Günther (Independent Scholar, 80539 Munich, Germany) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 25 |
| Publication date | 2021-02-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Languages (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/languages6010025 |
| OpenAlex | W3126994845 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
Usage-based approaches suggest that children gradually build abstract syntactic patterns, called constructions, through processes of abstraction and schematization from the input they receive. Bilingual children have the challenge of learning two sets of non-equivalent constructions when they build their constructicon. This can result in deviations from monolinguals, which are commonly referred to as transfer. Targeting the expression of the caused-motion construction, the present study focuses on idiosyncratic utterances, those that do not correspond to monolingual adult language use, in three different age groups (4, 6, and 8 years old) of German-French bilingual children in comparison to monolingual control groups. The quantitative analysis showed that idiosyncrasies could be found in both groups, but with significantly higher rates in bilinguals at all ages. In a qualitative analysis, idiosyncratic utterances were clustered into three different types: syntactic patterns, use of verbs, and directional phrases. Regarding the analysis of these types, the influence of French could be shown. In order to classify this linguistic phenomenon in a usage-based approach, we propose to consider transfer as a form of overgeneralization within the bilingual constructicon
Abstraction · Age groups · German · Linguistics · Motion (physics · Natural language processing · Sociology · Transfer (computing · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence
Constructions at Work
Child Language Acquisition
Language Dominance in Bilinguals
The Dynamics of the Linguistic System
The item-based nature of children’s early syntactic development
Is Syntax Separate or Shared Between Languages?
Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics
The relationship between bilingual exposure and vocabulary development
Constructively combining languages
Convergence in the domains of static spatial relations and events of putting and taking. Evidence from bilingual speakers of Romansh and German
Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax
Arguing about innateness
Caused motion across child languages
Exemplar-learning and schematization in a usage-based account of syntactic acquisition
Static and dynamic location in French and in English
Similarity, analogy and development in radical exemplar theory
Against stored abstractions
Children use verb semantics to retreat from overgeneralization errors
Learning argument structure generalizations
From Usage to Grammar
Slot-and-Frame Schemas in the Language of a Polish- and English-Speaking Child
Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |