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Language

Language Use

As one of the pioneers to the study of child language and bilingualism, Werner F. Leopold often used his daughter, Hildegard, to record his observations on this subject 1: ( https://web.stanford.edu/~hakuta/Publications/(1989)%20-%20AN%20INTERVIEW%20WITH%20WERNER%20F.%20LEOPOLD.pdf). In his studies, he observed that Hildegard had "loose connections" between the (phonetic) structure of words and their semantics (meaning) because of her frequent substitutions of English words with German words and vice versa. This was noted in her everyday speech and well-rehearsed songs or rhymes. He noted that she had a greater flexibility in the use of language that was unobserved in other monolingual children of her age. Leopold considered that perhaps this loose connection between the meaning and form of a word could result in more abstract thinking or greater mental flexibility for bilingual children. [10] (move the ten to the end of the paragraph) Following this study, several others were formed to test similar things and find out more about the mental abilities of bilinguals with relation to their languages.

* 1953, but use as introduction/set up

Semantic Development

Anita Ianco-Worrall, author of Bilingualism and Cognitive Development,[11] designed a study to test Leopold's[10] observations and was able to replicate them. She tested two groups of monolingual and bilingual children at ages 4–6 and 6–9. These participants were given tasks to assess whether they showed a semantic or phonetic preference when categorizing words. An example of one task given in the study was to decide which of the two words, either can or hat, was more similar to the word cap. The semantic choice would be hat while the phonetic which would be can. Other tasks were designed to provide a choice between semantic and phonetic interpretation of objects. For instance, in a hypothetical situation, could you call a cow a dog and if you did, would this dog bark?

The results of Ianco-Worrall's study showed that although both monolingual and bilingual children had no differences in the way they understood the words used, 54% of the younger bilingual children consistently showed a semantic preference in contrast to their monolingual peers. In monolingual children, semantic preference increased with age, suggesting that bilingual children reach a stage of semantic development 2–3 years earlier than their monolingual peers.[11] This finding is in stark contrast to the early research and claims about bilingualism, which warned that bilingualism stunts children's linguistic development.

Language Structure and Awareness

In their book In Other Words, Ellen Bialystok and Kenji Hakuta, both professors studying bilingualism, examined the idea that "the knowledge of two languages is greater than the sum of its parts." They argued that the linguistic benefits of being bilingual are more than simply being able to speak two languages. For instance, if a child is learning two languages whose structures and rules are significantly different from each other, this would require the child to think in more complicated ways. Take for example the arbitrariness of labels for objects, or distinguishing between and using two different grammatical or syntactical structures.[12] These areas would be quite difficult for a child to learn, but would increase the understanding of the structure of language and help gain a greater awareness of meaning. This greater awareness of meaning for bilinguals is what is referred to as metalinguistic awareness (see above section).[13][14]

Reading Ability

Bialystok argues that metalinguistic awareness also increases bilinguals' control of linguistic processes, such as having a greater ability to detect grammatical or syntactical errors, and recognize words in continuous speech.[15]

Bilinguals have also been found to outperform monolinguals in reading ability, as seen in another study by Bialystok. To analyze this area of bilingualism, Bialystok discussed the representational principle, which refers to the symbolic representation of spoken language, or the connection between spoken and written language systems. Understanding this principle would help one with acquiring literacy. For the testing of this principle, she gave children a "Moving Word Task" where the child had to appropriately match the written word to the object on a card. If they could correctly match the two after some rearranging of the cards, it was agreed that they could understand written words as representations of specific words whose meanings cannot change. (1997 bialiystok). The study was taken further in order to see when bilinguals grasped this principle in comparison to monolinguals. The results showed that bilingual children were correct on their "Moving Word Task" over 80% of the time, which is a percentage equal to that of monolinguals who were one year older than the bilinguals being tested. Overall, the bilinguals seemed to understand the representational principle earlier than monolinguals, meaning they were earlier prepared for literacy acquisition. (2000 b, s, c, study on page 199).

In another study done by Durgunoglu, Nagy, and Hancin-Bhatt, this same concept for bilinguals' reading abilities was also studied. For this specific study, native Spanish speaking children who were learning to read English were tested. The researchers observed these bilinguals to find that their levels of phonological awareness and word recognition in Spanish could predict how well they would be able to recognize words in English. Basically, the results showed that the phonological awareness skills established in one language could be transferred to the reading ability in another language.(1993 and 1998 study on page 200). Again, bilinguals seem to be more advanced than monolinguals when it comes to reading ability.

and better reading skills in L1 were demonstrated with as little as an hour a week of L2 learning,[17] suggesting that being bilingual is also advantageous in the development of reading as well as spoken language.

 Language Acquisition 

Metalinguistic awareness has therefore been shown to benefit the individual in the acquisition and use of language, giving bilingual individuals (who acquire metalinguistic awareness earlier in life than their monolingual peers) a firm advantage. However, it has also been proposed that metalinguistic awareness could result in advantages in other cognitive abilities besides language, giving individuals a generalised cognitive advantage over monolinguals (see below).[4][5][12]

Finally, studies have shown that regardless of the language in use at a present time, both languages are constantly active both phonologically and semantically in bilingual individuals, as indicated by electrophysiological measures of performance, even though behavioural measures such as reaction times often do not indicate such an interference.[18][19][20][21]

Vocabulary

It is a well-replicated finding that bilinguals have a smaller vocabulary size than their monolinguals counterparts.[22][23][24][25][26] Given that bilinguals accumulate vocabulary from both their languages, when taking both languages into account, they have a much larger vocabulary than monolinguals. However, within each language bilinguals have a smaller vocabulary size and take longer to name pictures as seen in standardized vocabulary tests, such as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (can wiki link) and Boston Naming task (can wiki link). A possible explanation may be that the frequency of use of words is related to increased lexical accessibility, meaning that words that are used more frequently are accessed more quickly.[26][27][28] Therefore, bilinguals may be 'less proficient' relative to monolinguals, purely because they use one sole language less frequently than monolinguals, who use the same language all the time. In addition, the need to select the appropriate language system makes ordinary linguistic processing more effortful. The simple act of retrieving a common word is more effortful for bilinguals than monolinguals due to the competition of the two languages.[26]

Other things to consider in this area of a bilingual's language were pointed out in Bialystok, Luk, Peets, and Yang's study from 2010. They mentioned how certain tests could cause disparities for bilingual children based on their living situation. For example, this group of researchers found that a subset of 6-year-olds in their study, whether monolingual or bilingual, had similar scores on words that were associated with schooling. However, when the words were associated with the home, the scores were significantly lower for all children. This finding made sense because the monolingual and bilingual children were equally exposed to the school context in the same language (English), but English was not commonly used in the home environments of the bilingual children. Therefore, the bilingual kids do not seem to show any disadvantage as compared to the monolingual children who do receive English input at home. Overall, this argues for a greater vocabulary size in bilinguals because when the vocabulary deficit is present for home words in English, the bilingual children have the ability to use the words in their non-English language to fulfill this area. (cite 2010 study on page 194).

Effects to L1

It has been suggested that prolonged naturalistic exposure to L2 affects how the L2 is processed, but it may also affect how the L1 is processed. For example, in immersion contexts (link to wiki language immersion), the individual experiences reduced access to L1 and extensive contact with L2, which affects and facilitates the processing of the L2.[29][30] However, this may also consequently affect processing of their L1, such as with increased difficulty in naming objects and phonology.[31][32]

To test this hypothesis, Dussias & Sagarra (2007)[36] investigated how individuals interpreted temporarily ambiguous phrases. For example: ' Alguien disparó al hijo de la actriz que estaba en el balcón'/  'Someone shot the son of the actress who was on the balcony'. When asked the question, ' ¿Quien estaba en el balcón?'/  'Who was on the balcony?' , monolingual Spanish speakers will typically answer  'el hilo'/  'the son'  as they have a high attachment preference, meaning they attach the modifier to the "higher" verb phrase [shot the son]. This differs from monolingual English speakers who will typically answer  'the actress'  as they have a low attachment preference, meaning they attach the modifier to the "lower" verb phrase [the actress who was on the balcony].[35][37] The researchers found that Spanish-English bilinguals in a Spanish-speaking environment showed preference for the typical Spanish high-attachment strategy. However, Spanish-English bilinguals in an English-speaking environment showed preference for the typical English low-attachment strategy, even when reading the phrase in Spanish, their dominant language. This may be because they have more exposure to English constructions, making it more available to them.[35] But altogether, this supports the idea that the L2, English in this case, is affecting the way the native Spanish speakers use their L1.