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VOT production, writing skills, and general proficiency in multilingual learners of French: approaching the intertwinement of different linguistic levels
Abstract
We investigate the interrelations between pronunciation and writing skills in French as a foreign language produced by two groups of bilingual learners (German-Russian; German-Turkish) and a monolingually raised German control group (each n = 10). As an indicator of the learners’ pronunciation skills, we refer to a perceptually relevant acoustic feature of stop production, “Voice Onset Time” (VOT). Our aim is to explore whether the learners’ proficiency at the level of pronunciation is mirrored in (1) their global language competencies and (2) their writing skills. We applied an extreme-cases approach based on the learners’ VOT productions in L3 French. Both positive and negative deviations from the French target pronunciation were found in all groups. In orthography, bilinguals showed lower correctness scores as compared to monolinguals. The VOT measurements yielded more target-like results for the bilinguals. For the monolinguals, the results reveal no correlation between pronunciation and general language proficiency as well as writing skills. In the bilinguals the investigated phenomena were more interrelated. Our analysis of semi-focused interviews conducted with all participants revealed that more target-like VOT productions correlate with a greater degree of phonological and multilingual awareness. This suggests that phonological and cross-linguistic awareness should be fostered in today’s multilingual classrooms.
... This finding indicates that the environmental language, which is also the main language of instruction in FL teaching, outranks the HL as a basis of positive transfer. The results of the studies by Dittmers et al. (2018) and Gabriel et al. (2018Gabriel et al. ( , 2021, who analyzed stop production in English, French, and Russian learned as FLs by young Turkish-German and Russian-German bilingual learners in the German educational system, point in the same direction. Regarding the realization of the voiceless stops /p t k/ in L3 French, the multilinguals got closer to the target than their monolingually raised German classmates. ...
... RQ 1). Against the backdrop of the intonational similarities between the learners' HL Turkish and the target language French and given that previous studies on segmental aspects of French phonology in Turkish-German bilingual learners such as Dittmers et al. (2018) and Gabriel et al. (2018Gabriel et al. ( , 2021 did report positive transfer from Turkish onto French (cf. Section 2.1), this finding comes somewhat unexpected at first sight. ...
This paper investigates the intonation of L3 French, produced by six bilingual learners (ages: 15–17) who speak Turkish as a heritage language (HL) along with German and six same-aged monolingual German learners. We examined of a corpus of read speech in two respects: first, we determined the number of accentual phrases (APs) and, second, we extracted F0 values for each segment, normalized them, and calculated the deviations from the average values produced by three native controls (age: 21–23). Although the bilinguals were expected to outperform the monolinguals due to certain similarities between the intonational systems of French and Turkish, their mean deviation from the native contours was only slightly smaller than that of the monolinguals (difference not significant). To determine how strongly the bilinguals’ Turkish intonation was influenced by German and whether it could serve as a basis for positive transfer whatsoever, we compared their production in Turkish with data recorded from three monolingual Turkish L1 speakers (ages: 21–32) and five German learners of L2 Turkish (ages: 22–43). Results show that the bilinguals’ Turkish intonation does not deviate substantially from the monolinguals’ one, in contrast to the contours produced by the L2 learners. This suggests that metalinguistic and prosodic awareness should be fostered in heritage bilinguals to make them benefit from their full linguistic repertoire.
... Research into L3 phonological acquisition of Romance languages, particularly in the context of migration-induced bilingualism -i.e., in learners who speak a heritage language (HL; see Valdés, 2000;Montrul, 2016;Polinsky, 2018) along with the surrounding language on a regular basis -is still rather sparse and is restricted to specific phonological domains. Some studies have investigated the production of L3 French initial stop consonants, namely Voice Onset Time (VOT) patterns, by early bilingual learners speaking Mandarin Chinese, Russian, or Turkish along with German and found signs of positive transfer from the HLs into the target language in some cases (Llama & López-Morelos, 2016;Gabriel et al., 2016Gabriel et al., , 2018Gabriel et al., , 2021; see also Geiss et al., 2021, for VOT in L3 English produced by Italian-German bilinguals). Others have looked at the realization of voiced obstruents and rhotics in syllable-final position as well as at the intonational patterns of L3 French produced by German-Turkish learners, though with contradictory outcomes: Özaslan & Gabriel (2019) and Gabriel et al. (2022) observed less negative transfer of phonological rules (final obstruent devoicing and vocalization of the rhotic sound in coda position) 1 from German to L3 French in these bilingual learners than in their monolingual German peers. ...
... Tab. 2). Eine methodische Alternative zur Aufdeckung von Zusammenhängen bildet die Beschränkung auf Extremfälle (Jahnukainen 2010;Gabriel et al. 2021); angesichts der Stichprobengröße würde das Sample dann aber noch kleiner.Wir interpretieren die Ergebnisse daher als Hinweise auf mögliche kausale Zusammenhänge. Deren Verifikation bedarf letztlich größerer Stichproben. ...
This volume presents interdisciplinary findings on the relevance of multilingualism for the educational biographies of students in Germany. The focus is on linguistic, personal, and contextual factors that can influence learners' language development. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used.
... Tab. 2). Eine methodische Alternative zur Aufdeckung von Zusammenhängen bildet die Beschränkung auf Extremfälle (Jahnukainen 2010;Gabriel et al. 2021); angesichts der Stichprobengröße würde das Sample dann aber noch kleiner.Wir interpretieren die Ergebnisse daher als Hinweise auf mögliche kausale Zusammenhänge. Deren Verifikation bedarf letztlich größerer Stichproben. ...
European companies are losing significant amounts of business due to a lack of foreign language skills (CILT 2006). The command of languages other than German is nowadays required of almost 70 percent of all employees in Germany (Hall 2020). Although especially the use of the lingua franca English is widespread, Russian and Turkish are among the most useful languages in German foreign trade. In order to meet the labour market demand for multilingual skills on the one hand, and to improve personal career opportunities on the other hand, it appears important to motivate students to invest in their multilingual skills. According to rational choice theoretical approaches (e.g. Becker 1964; Boudon 1974), the perceived labour market value of multilingual skills can be assumed to be a potential determinant of students’ investments in their language skills and, as such, of their actual language skills. Using questionnaire data and language test results from the third wave of the study “Multilingual development: A longitudinal perspective” (MEZ), we investigate (1) how mono- and multilingual secondary school students perceive the labour market value of multilingual skills with respect to the realization of their individual occupational aspirations and (2) how the anticipated labour market benefits of multilingual skills are related to the students’ actual language skills. We focus on the school-taught foreign language English and the participants’ heritage languages Russian and Turkish. We estimate ordered logistics regression models to identify background-adjusted differences in the importance multilingual and monolingual students attribute to multilingual skills. Further, we estimate linear regression models in which students’ language skills are modelled as a function of the importance they attribute to the respective language skills. We find that both mono- and multilingual students are aware of the importance of multilingual skills in realizing their personal occupational aspirations. The analyses further reveal that multilingual students’ perceptions about the value of their multilingual skills are a significant predictor for their actual language skills as measured by our test instruments, whereas no systematic association was detected in the group of monolinguals.
Bilingualism and the study of speech sounds are two of the largest areas of inquiry in linguistics. This Handbook sits at the intersection of these fields, providing a comprehensive overview of the most recent, cutting-edge work on the sound systems of adult and child bilinguals. Bringing together contributions from an international team of world-leading experts, it covers all aspects of the speech perception, production and processing of bilingual individuals, as well as surveying cross-linguistic influences on the phonetics and phonology of bilingualism. The thirty-five chapters are divided into thematic areas covering the theoretical foundations and methodological approaches employed to investigate bilingual speech, overviews of major findings and developments in child and adult bilingual phonology and phonetics, descriptions of the major areas of research within the speech perception, production and processing of the bilingual individual, and examinations of various predictors of cross-linguistic influence and variables affecting the outcomes of bilingual speech.
El turco, lengua de herencia de muchos alumnos alemanes, presenta una serie de rasgos segmentales compartidos con el español que hasta ahora no han sido suficientemente abordados en la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera en Alemania. En esta contribución, analizamos los tiempos de inicio de la sonoridad (ingl. Voice Onset Time (VOT)) en las oclusivas sordas producidas por un grupo de alumnos bilingües de alemán y turco antes, durante y después de completar una serie de fichas de trabajo diseñadas para resaltar las semejanzas entre el turco y el español. Aunque los valores del VOT turcos son inferiores a los típicos del alemán, el rendimiento de los alumnos bilingües no se aproxima más a la lengua meta que el del grupo de control monolingüe alemán. Si bien los promedios durativos de ambos grupos de alumnos mejoran ligeramente tras completar el módulo de aprendizaje, el estudio demuestra que la adquisición de la pronunciación es muy individual y no se correlaciona directamente con los conocimientos teóricos sobre pronunciación.
Beginnend mit den späten 1980er Jahren sind die orthographischen Fertigkeiten mehrsprachiger Jugendlicher im Kontext des deutschen Schulsystems mehrfach mit Bezug auf die Umgebungs-und Unterrichtssprache Deutsch untersucht worden (u. a. Thomé 1987; Fix 2002; Jeuk 2009; Müller et al. 2021). Weitgehend unbeachtet geblieben sind diesbezüglich hingegen die Herkunfts-und Fremdsprachen. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt eine Pilotstu-die zur Rechtschreibkompetenz deutsch-türkisch bilingualer Jugendlicher (n = 10) in den schulischen Fremdsprachen Englisch und Französisch und der Herkunftssprache Türkisch vor. Ausgewertet werden schriftliche Produktionsdaten, die im Rahmen des Forschungs-projekts "Mehrsprachigkeitsentwicklung im Zeitverlauf" (2014-2019) erhoben wurden. Die fremdsprachlichen Daten werden mit Vergleichsmaterial von lebensweltlich monolingual mit der Erstsprache Deutsch aufgewachsenen Jugendlichen (n = 10) kontrastiert, die herkunftssprachlichen Schreibproben werden mit monolingualen Vergleichsdaten aus der Türkei abgeglichen. In beiden Fremdsprachen erzielen die Mehrsprachigen ähnliche Korrektheitsraten wie die lebensweltlich Einsprachigen. Im Türkischen treten jedoch bei den herkunftssprachlichen Jugendlichen deutlich mehr Normabweichungen auf als bei den in der Türkei aufgewachsenen. Dies betrifft im Wesentlichen die Verwendung der Diakritika, die die Jugendlichen in Ermangelung formaler Bildung in der Herkunftssprache nicht normgerecht erworben haben. Transferleistungen aus dem Türkischen in die Fremdsprachen treten nur in Einzelfällen auf. Dies spricht dafür, dass ein migrationsbedingt mehrsprachiger Hintergrund zwar keinen Vorteil, aber auch keinen Nachteil für den Erwerb orthographischer Kenntnisse in schulischen Fremdsprachen darstellt.
Ausgehend von Ergebnissen einer Teilstudie des MEZ-Projekts geht die Untersuchung den Gründen für die starken interindividuellen Unterschiede in der Aussprache stimmhafter und stimmloser Plosive bei russischen Herkunftssprachler*innen im Russischen, Deutschen und in den Schulfremdsprachen nach. Es wird geprüft, ob sich diese Unterschiede auf subjekt- und umgebungsbezogene außersprachliche Faktoren zurückführen lassen. Die Studie berücksichtigt Selbstauskünfte, die aus Fragebogen, Sprachbewusstheitstests und sprachbiografisch orientierten Interviews stammen. Sie operiert im Wesentlichen mit quantitativen Daten, von denen einige im Sinne eines Mixed-Method-Designs aus qualitativen Daten gewonnen wurden. Die Studie belegt, dass nicht die Dauer und Intensität des Sprachkontakts, sondern die Motivation, eine Sprache gut zu sprechen, und die Fähigkeit, sprachliche Kompetenzen realistisch einzuschätzen, positiv mit der Aussprache zusammenhängen.
El desarrollo multilingüe, ¿refuerza u obstruye el éxito educativo? Esta fue la pregunta inicial del proyecto de investigación “Desarrollo multilingüe - una perspectiva longitudinal” que se presenta en este artículo. Si bien el multilingüismo se ha citado a menudo como una desventaja, también hay indicios de que favorece el éxito del aprendizaje (de idiomas). Por consiguiente, uno de los objetivos del proyecto fue obtener información primaria sobre el desarrollo lingüístico de los alumnos de escuelas secundarias multilingües en Alemania, a fin de contribuir a aclarar más esta cuestión. El proyecto se basa en datos de competencias lingüísticas receptivas (lectura) y productivas (escritura) en alemán (el idioma de escolarización), ruso y turco como idiomas de herencia de los inmigrantes, inglés (el primer idioma extranjero que se enseña desde la escuela primaria) y, para una parte de la muestra, francés o ruso (como segundos idiomas extranjeros que se enseñan en las escuelas secundarias de carácter académico). Con esta variedad, fue posible examinar los perfiles lingüísticos de los participantes, así como las influencias recíprocas entre los idiomas. La muestra incluyó alrededor de 2.000 estudiantes, a los que se pasó una prueba en cuatro momentos a lo largo del curso escolar. Esta investigación constituye el primer estudio interdisciplinario en todo el mundo que incluye la complejidad del desarrollo multilingüe con una muestra sustancial de encuestados, que midió los datos lingüísticos una amplia gama de datos de contexto para el control estadístico de los factores contextuales que pudieran influir. De ese modo, el proyecto crea nuevos conocimientos sobre la complejidad del desarrollo lingüístico en el contexto de la migración, así como una nueva base para la concepción de la enseñanza de idiomas en escuelas lingüísticamente heterogéneas. En esta contribución nos centramos en uno de los principales resultados de nuestro proyecto: la elaboración de una prueba innovadora para la medición de las aptitudes de escritura multilingüe
Does multilingual development bolster or obstruct educational success? This was the starting question for the research project “Multilingual Development - a Longitudinal Perspective” that will be presented here. While multilingualism has often been cited as a disadvantage, there are also indications that it supports successful (language) learning. It was therefore a goal of the project to obtain primary information on the language development of multilingual secondary school pupils in Germany in order to contribute to the further clarification of this question. The project is based on data of receptive (reading) and productive (writing) language skills in German (the language of schooling), Russian and Turkish as immigrants’ heritage languages, English (the first foreign language taught in primary school already) and for a part of the sample French or Russian (as second foreign languages taught in academic track schools). With this range, it was possible to examine the linguistic profiles of the participants as well as reciprocal influences between languages. The sample included roughly 2000 students, tested at four measurement points in the course of secondary schooling. This is the first interdisciplinary study worldwide which includes the complexity of multilingual development on the basis of a substantial sample of respondents, measured language data a wide range of background data for statistical control of influencing background factors. The project thereby creates new knowledge about the complexity of language development in the context of migration, as well as a new basis for the design of language education in linguistically heterogeneous schools. In this contribution, we focus on one of the premier outcomes of our project: the development of an innovative test for the measurement of multilingual writing skills.
This PhD thesis investigates patterns of crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in the acquisition of English as a third language (L3) across two contrasting grammatical domains, namely perceived global accent (phonetics/phonology) and embedded wh-questions (syntax). We examine 21 adult-aged early bilingual speakers in their three languages: Italian (the heritage language), German (the majority language), and English (the L3) using accent rating and acceptability judgement methodologies. By comparing patterns of CLI across the domains of phonology and syntax within the same population of speakers, the thesis responds to recent calls for studies that assess patterns of CLI across multiple domains of the grammar (e.g., Rothman, González Alonso & Puig-Mayenco, 2019). In addition, the thesis brings to the field insights from an understudied population: heritage speaker L3 learners. Not only are heritage bilinguals interesting from a theoretical perspective since they have two early-acquired language systems to draw from, but they also make up an increasingly large proportion of students in foreign language classrooms worldwide. In order to investigate the extent to which the HL – as the non-dominant language – can also affect the L3, a secondary aim of the thesis is to shed light on the role of HL proficiency and HL use for the occurrence of CLI, as well as for outcomes in the HL itself.
We analyze the production of [±voiced] stops in French as a foreign language by multilingual learners who speak Russian or Turkish as a heritage language along with their dominant language, German. Control data produced by monolingually raised German learners are taken into account. It is shown that the bilingual learners perform more target-like than the monolinguals for the voiceless stops /p t k/, but not for their voiced counterparts /b d ɡ/. This suggests that the (non-)aspiration of voiceless stops is perceptually more salient for the learners than the presence or absence of pre-voicing in the realization of voiceless stops. We interpret our overall results as an example of an at least partial multilingual advantage in foreign language learning. Résumé : Nous analysons la production d'occlusives (non-)voisées en français langue étrangère par des apprenants plurilingues parlant ou le russe ou le turc comme langue d'origine en plus de leur langue dominante, l'allemand. Les données de contrôle proviennent d'enregistrements réalisés avec des apprenants monolingues allemands. Les résultats montrent que les apprenants plurilingues sont avantagés en comparaison des monolingues par rapport à la production d'occlusives sourdes, ce qui n'est pas valable pour leurs contreparties voisées. Cela suggère que la (non-)aspiration de /p t k/ est perceptivement plus saillante pour les apprenants que la présence ou l'absence du pré-voisement de /b d ɡ/. Nous interprétons nos résultats généraux comme un avantage, du moins partiel, du plurilinguisme lors de l'apprentissage de langues étrangères.
This study investigates the effect of bilingualism on learning English as a
foreign language (L3), examining the impact of manner and sequence of
bilingual acquisition and learning as well as language use practices in
language minority children. With a sample of 1295 German eighth and
ninth graders (bilingual: n = 456, monolingual: n = 839), we examined if
certain aspects of bilingualism present an advantageous condition for
learning English as a foreign language in bilingual language minority
students. Controlling for socio-economic status, indicators of cultural
capital, and gender, the regression analyses revealed higher L3 listening
and reading outcomes for bilinguals who received formal instruction in
their minority language, had acquired both languages in their first three
years, and switched more often between their two languages, when
compared to their other bilingual and monolingual peers. The discussion
focuses on the importance for bilingual children in immigrant
communities to have high proficiencies in both majority and minority
languages in order to develop advantages in foreign language learning.
This study addresses the production of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in French as a foreign language (FFL). The learners are young multilingual learners who speak Mandarin Chinese as a heritage language along with German. To determine potential effects of the learners’ multilingual background, these multilingual learners were compared to three control groups: (1) monolingual German learners of FFL, (2) monolingual Mandarin Chinese learners of FFL, and (3) native speakers of French (L1). In addition, a perception experiment was carried out to find out to what extent the VOT values measured in the production data contribute to the perception of foreign accent. Our results show that multilingual learners perform similar to monolingual learners, suggesting that multilingual learners are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged when acquiring the phonology of a foreign language. Furthermore, the learners’ perceived accent in the perception data study mirrors the results from the production study.
Aims and Objectives
The main goal of the present study is to investigate effects of crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition by simultaneous bilinguals. We address the following research questions: Do both languages contribute to crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition, or is one of them chosen as the sole source of influence? Is crosslinguistic influence always from the typologically more similar language? Is crosslinguistic influence always facilitative, or can it also be non-facilitative?
Methodology
The paper reports on a grammaticality judgment task with two word order conditions, both related to verb movement (verb-second in Norwegian and subject-auxiliary inversion in English).
Data and Analysis
An experiment was carried out with three groups of 11-14-year-old participants, Norwegian-Russian bilinguals ( n=22), Norwegian-speaking monolinguals ( n=46), and Russian-speaking monolinguals ( n=31). The data were analyzed using a generalized linear mixed effects logistic regression allowing us to estimate the effects of condition ( Adv-V, Aux-S), language (Norwegian, Norwegian-Russian, Russian) and their interaction on the correctness of judgments.
Findings
The analysis reveals that while L1 Norwegian children over-accept ungrammatical sentences in English with a word order that reflects verb movement (V2), bilingual Norwegian-Russian children notice these errors significantly more often, just like L1 Russians. At the same time, the bilinguals score lower than L1 Russian children on grammatical trials, suggesting the presence of non-facilitative influence from Norwegian.
Originality
This study argues for the Linguistic Proximity Model, which proposes incremental property-by-property learning and allows for both facilitative and non-facilitative influence from one or both of the previously acquired languages.
Significance
The Linguistic Proximity Model and supporting experimental data contribute to existing models in third language acquisition by indicating that not just typological proximity but also structural similarity at an abstract level should be considered an important factor in third language acquisition.
Aims and objectives
In this study, we investigated crosslinguistic influence in the phonetic systems of simultaneous bilinguals (2L1s) during adulthood.
Methodology
Specifically, we analyzed the voice onset time (VOT) of the voiceless stop /k/ in the spontaneous speech of 14 German–French bilinguals who grew up in France or Germany. We looked at both languages, first comparing the groups, second comparing their VOT to their global accent.
Data and analysis
The material consisted of interviews, lasting for about half an hour.
Findings/conclusions
Most 2L1s showed distinct VOT-ranges in their two languages, even if they were perceived to have a foreign accent in the minority language of their childhood environment. We conclude that the phonetic systems of 2L1s remain separate and stable throughout the lifespan. However, the 2L1s from France had significantly shorter VOTs in German than the 2L1s from Germany, and their speech was overall more accented. These findings are discussed with respect to the role of intra- and extra-linguistic factors.
Originality
Our study adds a new perspective to existing VOT studies of bilinguals by using naturalistic speech data and by comparing two groups of 2L1s who have the same language combination but grew up in different countries, which allows us to evaluate the impact of their childhood environment on VOT development.
Significance/implications
Language exposure during childhood seems to be beneficial for pronunciation during adulthood.
In this paper, we investigate the language development of children with migration backgrounds who live in Hamburg and are currently learning English as a foreign language in school. With data collected from bilingual Russian-German, Turkish-German, and Vietnamese-German children, we evaluate both the quality and the quantity of transfer effects. The investigated linguistic features are subject-verb-agreement and the use of articles. We interviewed 160 12- and 16-year old test subjects, distributed equally according to language cluster and age, comparing the results to test subjects’ developmental levels in their heritage language and German, which were investigated independently. In addition to the main cohorts, additional cohorts of L1 speakers of Turkish, Russian, and Vietnamese with English as an L2 as well as adult bilinguals in Germany were interviewed. After factoring out language external phenomena, we can observe that both L1 and L2 have an influence on the acquisition of English, but that these effects depend on the phenomenon investigated and the language pairs involved. Our findings suggest a model of language transfer in which the grammatical status of a phenomenon interacts with the learner’s developmental level yielding qualitatively different transfer effects.
Cet article présente une synthèse des recherches en psychologie cognitive sur les connaissances implicites et explicites et leur mode d'apprentissage du point de vue de la didactique du français écrit, particulièrement pour l'enseignement de l'orthographe grammaticale, afin d'en extraire les conséquences pour l'enseignement. Des exercices de grammaire dans du matériel scolaire sont ensuite analysés sous cet angle pour déterminer à quel point ils permettent de préparer l'élève à la maitrise de la morphographie dans les textes qu'il écrit. Il en ressort que les exercices devant lesquels se retrouvent les élèves ne semblent développer bien ni les connaissances explicites ni les connaissances implicites. Enfin, les premiers résultats d'une expérimentation de la dictée 0 faute et de la phrase dictée du jour dans 21 classes du primaire et du secondaire montrent que l'appropriation de connaissances explicites sur la langue a un effet positif important sur la gestion des accords à l'écrit.
Orthographic depth has been studied intensively as one of the sources of cross-linguistic differences in reading, and yet there has been little detailed analysis of what is meant by orthographic depth. Here we propose that orthographic depth is a conglomerate of two separate constructs: the complexity of print-to-speech correspondences and the unpredictability of the derivation of the pronunciations of words on the basis of their orthography. We show that on a linguistic level, these two concepts can be dissociated. Furthermore, we make different predictions about how the two concepts would affect skilled reading and reading acquisition. We argue that refining the definition of orthographic depth opens up new research questions. Addressing these can provide insights into the specific mechanisms by which language-level orthographic properties affect cognitive processes underlying reading.
Getting to the bottom of orthographic depth.. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275217141_Getting_to_the_bottom_of_orthographic_depth [accessed Apr 29, 2015].
This study investigates the acquisition of two properties of the null subject parameter in L3
English: subject-verb inversion in declarative sentences and null expletive subjects. The
participants are L1 Arabic-advanced L2 French adults learning L3 English in a formal foreign
language context. The study considers the nature ofthe grammar in the L3 initial stages and
which of the L1 or the L2 constitutes the source ofmorphosyntactic transfer. The predictions
of two L3 transfer scenarios are tested, the Typological Primacy Model and the L1 transfer
scenario. The results of an acceptability judgementtask and a preference task seem show that
L1 Arabic is the source of morphosyntactic transfer in the L3 initial stages, overriding the
effect of language proximity, typology and psychotypology that would have instigated the
transfer of L2 French.
In this article we study the acquisition of sentential negation in English by bilingual (Spanish/Basque) learners in an institutional setting. The learners were divided into three groups according to the age at which they had begun to learn English (four, eight and eleven years respectively). At the time the oral interviews were held, they had all received a similar amount of instruction. The analysis is carried out in terms of the presence/absence of functional categories, the use of cognitive (not UG-driven) strategies, and the transfer of the order of the functional projections NegP and TP. We conclude that placement of the negative marker appears to be independent of the realization of tense and agreement features.
Research in the field of third language acquisition has consistently identified two key factors which have an effect on the ways in which the two known languages may influence the acquisition of a third. These factors are language distance (typology) and language status (more specifically, second language, L2, or non-native language status). To date, however, the findings have not been conclusive regarding whether one of the two factors has a greater influence than the other. In this study, we investigated whether L2 status or typology would be the stronger predictor in the selection of a source language for phonological influence in L3 acquisition. Two groups of learners of Spanish as an L3, one with English L1 and French L2, the other with French L1 and English L2, were recorded reading word lists containing voiceless stops in onset, stressed position. Paired-samples t-tests were used to compare the rates of presence (English-influenced) or absence (French-influenced) of aspiration (operationalised as voice onset time values). Results point to L2 status as the determining factor in the selection of a source language for the production of voiceless stops in stressed onset position in L3 Spanish for both groups.
Cross-language transfer in vowel spelling is difficult to detect because the relation between a vowel and its grapheme is often ambiguous within a writing system and the interpretation of transfer complex. This study examined French spelling patterns of German fourth graders with French as Foreign language cross-linguistically by applying a fine-grained measure to the differences in spelling, tested with a dictation. The study differentiated between phonologically and graphematically joint vs. unshared vowel graphemes in French and German and the contribution of each category to transfer. Instead of testing orthographic knowledge as in applying the orthographic norm correctly, it used the model of the ‘graphematic solution space' [Neef, M. (2015). Writing systems as modular objects: Proposals for theory design in grapholinguistics. Open Linguistics, 1(1), 708–721.] that takes into account spelling that is graphematically licensed within the involved writing system. The analysis distinguished between poor and good German spellers to get insights on the relation of the pupils’ competence in the German and French spelling. Results showed an influence of the phonological and graphematic overlap in the spelling patterns, but also inconsistencies with both writing systems. The findings challenge statistical learning in multilingual contexts as the produced graphotactic patterns are rather French-like than French.
This longitudinal study tests effects of minority and majority-language proficiency in the early foreign language learning of English in German primary schools. In a study with monolingual German and bilingual students who speak a minority language at home (N = 200), we find that the bilingual group scores lower than the monolingual group overall, yet bilingual students outperform monolingual German students in vocabulary and grammar in early foreign language learning, once socio-economic factors are controlled for. Vocabulary in the minority language acts as a significant predictor for early achievement in the foreign language for bilingual students. However, positive effects of bilingualism abate from grades 3 to 4, and proficiency in the majority language emerges as a significant predictor of English vocabulary. This change suggests that bilingual ad-
vantages wither unless they are explicitly fostered by teachers and educators.
In empirical educational research, reading and writing are often considered separately. Reading, mostly focused on reading comprehension, is considered a key competence for educational success and often serves as an indicator of overall language skills. The complementary ability to produce texts is the focus of research in linguistics or second language teaching. The relationship between receptive and productive abilities is less frequently discussed. Our contribution is concerned primarily with the question of what conclusions can be drawn about the ability to read, i. e. the understanding of texts, on the ability to produce texts—or vice versa. Special attention is paid to determining whether there are differential relationships between text comprehension and text production skills for learners at different stages of literacy acquisition. Based on previous research on the development of language competence in adolescence, assumptions about the interrelationships of reading and writing skills were formulated and translated into a theoretical model that was subjected to empirical testing. The analysis is based on data from three phases of the panel study “Mehrsprachigkeitsentwicklung im Zeitverlauf (MEZ)”, funded by the BMBF. In this study, the language development of approximately 2000 young people growing up with German-Russian, German-Turkish and monolingual-German is examined over a period of three years. Based on the analysis of language data in German, the current contribution presents the initial results revealing students’ language development over time. The analyses relate latent variables on reading comprehension and lexical diversity in writing on each other in the context of cross-lagged panel models. Results indicate that receptive skills initially have a significant influence on productive skills, however, this influence becomes weaker. This indicates that other factors relevant to the development of writing skills come to the fore.
Dieses Buch vermittelt auf verständliche Weise das Wissen, um qualitative und Mixed-Methods-Daten mit MAXQDA auszuwerten. Die Autoren verfügen über jahrzehntelange Forschungserfahrung und decken in diesem Buch ein breites Methodenspektrum ab. Sie beschränken sich nicht auf einzelne Forschungsansätze, sondern vermitteln das Know-how, um verschiedene Methoden – von der Grounded Theory über Diskursanalysen bis zur Qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse – mit MAXQDA umsetzen zu können. Darüber hinaus werden spezielle Themen fokussiert, wie Transkription, Kategorienbildung, Visualisierungen, Videoanalyse, Concept-Maps, Gruppenvergleiche und die Erstellung von Literaturreviews.
Der Inhalt
• Wie MAXQDA optimal in jeder Phase Ihres Projekts genutzt wird
• Wie Daten transkribiert, exploriert und paraphrasiert werden
• Wie Sie Daten codieren und Kategoriensysteme gestalten
• Wie Sie mit Memos, Variablen und Zusammenfassungen arbeiten
Wie spezielle Datenarten analysiert werden (Fokusgruppen, Online-Surveys, Literaturangaben etc.) • Wie Sie effizient im Team Daten mit MAXQDA analysieren
Die Autoren
Dr. Stefan Rädiker ist freiberuflicher Berater und Trainer für Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation. Im Zentrum seiner Tätigkeiten steht die computergestützte Analyse von qualitativen und Mixed-Methods-Daten mit der Analysesoftware MAXQDA.
Dr. Udo Kuckartz ist emeritierter Professor für empirische Erziehungswissenschaft und Methoden der Sozialforschung an der Philipps-Universität Marburg.
This study examined the role of immigrant bilingualism in third language learning (L3 = English). It focused on the respective effects of students' competence in the minority language (L1 = Turkish or Russian) and language of instruction (L2 = German). We analyzed a sample of 8752 German 10th-grade students (N = 7964 monolinguals, N = 436 Turkish German students, N = 352 Russian German students) and drew on standardized tests in L1, L2, and L3. OLS-regression models showed L3 advantages for balanced bilinguals at a high level in both language groups compared to their average monolingual peers when third variables were controlled, while advantages in the L2 dominant bilinguals could only be observed in the Russian-German sample. Balanced bilinguals at a low level and L1 dominants attained lower L3 levels than monolinguals. However, comparisons with comparably high proficient monolinguals, as well as further analyses with the bilingual samples separately, revealed that only L2 competence – and not L1 competence – explained immigrant students' L3 proficiency. Our findings indicate that the advantages of immigrant bilinguals in L3 learning mainly depend on their competence in the language of instruction.
Cambridge Core - Cognitive Linguistics - Heritage Languages and Their Speakers - by Maria Polinsky
This study identified robust predictors of expressive skills in academic English as a foreign language. The participants were 92 Korean-speaking learners of English. The field test of the Pearson Test of English Academic was used as a secondary data analysis. Four communicative skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and six enabling linguistic traits (written discourse, oral fluency, grammar, pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary) were analyzed using writing and speaking skills as dependent variables. The greatest overlapping variance was found in the relationship between reading and writing. When listening and speaking skills were controlled, the unique variance accounted by reading in the prediction of writing became marginal. The results of this study demonstrated that L2 oral language skills became increasingly important to L2 writing outcomes as language proficiency improved over time.
The longitudinal study “Multilingual Development: A Longitudinal Perspective” (MEZ) follows two cohorts of secondary school students with monolingual German, German-Turkish and German-Russian language backgrounds over the course of three years. The project investigates language-based, personal, and contextual factors that influence students’ multilingual development and examines how multilingual skills are related to other dimensions of educational success (e.g., transition decisions and processes in the educational system). The objective of MEZ is to identify starting points for developing strategies to increase young people’s chances for educational success.
List of Appendices .- List of Figures .- Glossary .- Chapter 1 Introduction .- Chapter 2 What is self-concept? .- Chapter 3 Understanding self-concept in the FLL context .- Chapter 4 How do learners form their self-concepts? .- Chapter 5 Internal frames of reference in FL self-concept formation .- Chapter 6 External frames of reference in FL self-concept formation .- Chapter 7 Implications for educators and researchers .- References .- Appendices .
In several studies it is highlighted that the early acquisition of a language in the home results in phonetic and phonological benefits, and that it is not uncommon for early learners to achieve native-like pronunciation in their heritage language. However, most of these studies have been carried out with bilinguals. The present contribution aims at extending the research focus to trilingual teens, and more specifically to Spanish heritage speakers (HSs), schooled mainly in English, and taking part in a French immersion programme. How do they manage the task of learning a third phonological system? We set out to explore whether and to what extent these sequential trilinguals can produce native-like speech in all of their languages. To this end, we recorded a group of Spanish HSs while completing three picture-naming tasks (in English, Spanish, and French), which led to the production of monosyllabic and disyllabic words with a voiceless stop in stressed onset position. Our results show that they tend to produce monolingual-like stops in their dominant languages, Spanish and English, but seem to fail to do so in French. In our discussion, we resort to language dominance and context of acquisition to shed light on our findings.
This study investigates the effect of bilingualism on the achievement in English as a foreign language from elementary to secondary school. Using longitudinal data of 1032 German students from sixth to eighth grade, we examined if speaking both a minority language at home and the instruction language presents an advantageous condition for English foreign language development. Controlling for confounded background characteristics, the regression analyses revealed that, although a significant advantage of bilingualism is found in elementary school, it disappears as students proceed into secondary school, yielding differential gains for the language minority and monolingual groups. Moreover, the level of exposure to the minority language plays an important role for the English achievement development for bilingual students as they proceed into secondary school.
Migrationsbezogene Disparitäten bei rezeptiven verkehrssprachlichen Kompetenzen sind inzwischen auch national gut untersucht, vornehmlich im Bereich der Lesekompetenz. Ein zentraler Befund dabei ist, dass Disparitäten nicht über alle Herkunftsgruppen hinweg in gleichem Maße auftreten. Zu den Ursachen für Disparitäten zwischen Migrantengruppen in der Aneignung der Verkehrssprache liegen Untersuchungen vor, die sich auf sozioökonomische Faktoren, kulturelles Kapital, Merkmale der Migrationsgeschichte und auch psychologische Aspekte wie Einstellungen zum Aufnahmeland beziehen. Diese erklären aber die Divergenzen in der rezeptiven Sprachaneignung unterschiedlicher Herkunftsgruppen nur teilweise. Bislang kaum untersucht sind Transfereffekte von Fähigkeiten in der Herkunftssprache sowie die Entwicklung produktiver sprachlicher Fähigkeiten. Die in diesem Beitrag vorgestellte Untersuchung intendiert, den Forschungsstand zu migrationsbezogenen Disparitäten in dreierlei Hinsicht zu ergänzen: durch die Berücksichtigung von 1) Sprachperformanz in der Verkehrssprache Deutsch als bisher vernachlässigten zu betrachtenden produktiven Fähigkeitsbereich sowie 2) herkunftssprachlicher Performanz der Jugendlichen und Wortschatz der Eltern als mögliche Einflussgrößen auf die Entwicklung der Performanz im Deutschen und 3) Einflüssen der Akkulturationseinstellungen bei Jugendlichen mit russischem, türkischem und vietnamesischem Sprachhintergrund und deren Eltern. Wir stellen Teilergebnisse einer Pilotstudie vor, deren Intention die Erprobung von (vor allem methodischen) Strategien für die Langzeitbeobachtung von Sprachentwicklung im Mehrsprachigkeitskontext ist. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich ein marginaler Effekt der Performanz in der Herkunftssprache auf die Entwicklung der Performanz im Deutschen über ein Jahr. Die Akkulturationsstrategien der Jugendlichen und ihrer Eltern zeigen weder Effekte auf den Stand der sprachlichen Performanz im Deutschen noch auf deren Entwicklung über die Zeit. Abstract The literature provides substantial evidence on migration-related disparities in receptive competencies in the language of schooling, particularly on differences in reading competencies. A key finding of the respective studies is that these disparities differ between groups of immigrants. Empirical studies point to the influence of socioeconomic conditions, cultural capital, conditions related to peoples’ migration biographies, and psychological factors such as attitudes towards the residential country. Nevertheless, these aspects only partly explain differences between groups with different migration histories. Only little research exists on the transfer effects of abilities in heritage language on the development of productive language skills. The present article aims to extend the literature on disparities between groups with different migration histories by considering: (1) productive language performance in German as the language of schooling, (2) productive language performance in the heritage language, and (3) influences of acculturation attitudes of youths with a Turkish, Russian, or Vietnamese language background and their parents. The article provides first results from a pilot study that aims to empirically test strategies for the longitudinal investigation of language acquisition in multilingual settings. The results indicate a marginal effect of adolescents’ performance in their heritage language on changes in their performance in German over the span of one year. The acculturation attitudes of adolescents and their parents neither directly affect their language performance in German nor changes in their performance over time.
http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/book/978-90-481-9568-8
Die Ergebnisse der internationalen Schulleistungsvergleichsstudien haben zwar erwiesen, dass die Kenntnis der Unterrichtssprache
– gemessen als Lesefähigkeit – relevant für schulische Leistungsfähigkeit ist. Aber sie haben nicht genauer gezeigt, wie die
sprachlichen Fähigkeiten beschaffen sein müssen, die die Aussicht auf schulische Leistungsfähigkeit erhöhen. Hier setzt das
Konzept der Bildungssprache an. Es richtet sich nicht auf Sprachfähigkeit allgemein, sondern auf einen bestimmten Ausschnitt dieser Fähigkeit – genannt:
ein Register –, der in Kontexten formaler Bildung besonders relevant ist. Dieses Register soll im ersten Teil vorgestellt
werden. Maßnahmen zur sprachlichen Unterweisung von Kindern und Jugendlichen mit Migrationshintergrund sind häufig als additive
Förderung konzipiert, die zusätzlich oder parallel zum Unterricht angeboten wird, wenn eine Schülerin oder ein Schüler Auffälligkeiten
in der Zweitsprache Deutsch erkennen lässt. Der mit dem Konzept der Bildungssprache einhergehende Anspruch einer Durchgängigen Sprachbildung richtet sich hingegen auf den Unterricht insgesamt: auf die Gestaltung von Sprachbildung nach einem Gesamtkonzept, das über
die Jahre, die Institutionen und die Fächergrenzen hinweg angelegt ist. Diese im deutschsprachigen Kontext neue Perspektive
steht im Mittelpunkt des zweiten Teils unseres Beitrags.
What C-tests actually measure has been an issue of debate for many years. In the present research, the authors examined the hypothesis that C-tests measure general language proficiency. A total of 843 participants from four independent samples took a German C-test along with the TestDaF (Test of German as a Foreign Language). Rasch measurement modelling and confirmatory factor analysis provided clear evidence that the C-test in question was a highly reliable, unidimensional instrument, which measured the same general dimension as the four TestDaF sections: reading, listening, writing and speaking. Moreover, the authors showed that language proficiency was divisible into more specific constructs and that examinee proficiency level differentially influenced C-test performance. The findings have implications for the multicomponentiality and fluidity of the C-test measurement construct.
Compared to monolinguals, multilingual learners possess a larger repertoire of phonetic-phonological parameters, have a higher degree of language and meta-linguistic awareness, and have developed increased phonological knowledge. This, combined with the increased cognitive flexibility that accompanies experienced learners, supports their acquisition of the pronunciation of further foreign languages.
This paper first considers the dearth of research in the field of L3 phonology with respect to transfer phenomena. In a second step, it explores phonetic similarities between English (as L2) and German (as L3) which can be used to promote positive transfer by learners of the target language German, before turning to pedagogical implications of these similarities. Finally, we consider the necessity for further research in the area of L3 phonetics, especially when considering language constellations whereby L2 and L3 are more closely related to each other than to the L1.
Early acquisition of a second language influences the development of language abilities and cognitive functions. In the present study, we used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate the impact of early bilingualism on the organization of the cortical language network during sentence production. Two groups of adult multilinguals, proficient in three languages, were tested on a narrative task; early multilinguals acquired the second language before the age of three years, late multilinguals after the age of nine. All participants learned a third language after nine years of age. Comparison of the two groups revealed substantial differences in language-related brain activity for early as well as late acquired languages. Most importantly, early multilinguals preferentially activated a fronto-striatal network in the left hemisphere, whereas the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) was activated to a lesser degree than in late multilinguals. The same brain regions were highlighted in previous studies when a non-target language had to be controlled. Hence the engagement of language control in adult early multilinguals appears to be influenced by the specific learning and acquisition conditions during early childhood. Remarkably, our results reveal that the functional control of early and subsequently later acquired languages is similarly affected, suggesting that language experience has a pervasive influence into adulthood. As such, our findings extend the current understanding of control functions in multilinguals.
In this paper we argue that investigation of third language (L3) acquisition by adults and children provides essential new insights about the language learning process that neither the study of first language (L1) nor second language (L2) acquisition alone can provide. The focus of this paper concerns the role the learner's L1 plays in succeeding language acquisition. Specifically, does the L1 maintain a privileged role in all subsequent language acquisition or is it possible that all languages known can play a role in subsequent language acquisition? Results from several ongoing L3 acquisition studies investigating adults and children learning English as an L3, whose L1 is Kazakh and whose L2 is Russian, are reported in this paper. We compare the learners' patterns of acquisition in production of three types of restrictive relative clauses. Adults are compared to children; speakers are compared at comparable levels of linguistic competence in the languages. Results indicate that the L1 does not play a privileged role in subsequent acquisition. At the same time, results indicate subtle differences between adults and children. We argue that such findings would not be possible in the context of an L1 or L2 study alone. Results are used to support the proposed "Cumulative Enhancement Model for Language Acquisition." (Contains 6 tables, 1 figure and 2 notes.)
In many countries in the world, English is identified as a foreign language with no official status but is increasingly used
as the language of wider communication. In a number of these countries it is common that English is learned as a third language.
Recent psycholinguistic research on third language acquisition and trilingualism has made clear that the acquisition of an
L3 shares many characteristics with the acquisition of an L2 but it also presents differences. Accordingly, the educational
aspects of teaching English as an L3 differ from those of teaching English as an L2 and have more implications concerning
the optimal age for the introduction of the different languages and the desired level of proficiency in each. In the Basque
Country there are two official languages, Basque and Spanish, and English is taught as a third language. Several projects
have been carried out in order to improve proficiency in English: the early introduction of English in kindergarten, the use
of content based approaches, and the use of English as one of the languages of instruction. This chapter describes the characteristics
of these projects and discusses their outcomes as they relate to specific research conducted on third language acquisition.
Voice onset time (VOT) is known to vary with place of articulation. For any given place of articulation there are differences from one language to another. Using data from multiple speakers of 18 languages, all of which were recorded and analyzed in the same way, we show that most, but not all, of the within language place of articulation variation can be described by universally applicable phonetic rules (although the physiological bases for these rules are not entirely clear). The between language variation is also largely (but not entirely) predictable by assuming that languages choose one of the three possibilities for the degree of aspiration of voiceless stops. Some languages, however, have VOTs that are markedly different from the generally observed values. The phonetic output of a grammar has to contain language specific components to account for these results.
The acquisition of English as an L3 by Catalan/Spanish bilinguals
- María Gorgone
- Paula
Gorgone, María Paula. 2018. The acquisition of English as an L3 by Catalan/Spanish bilinguals.
Tromsø: UiT MA Thesis. https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/13708 (accessed 29 June 2021).
Ksenia Abashkina & Giulia Cauli
- Marion Krause
- Tetyana Dittmers
Krause, Marion, Tetyana Dittmers, Ksenia Abashkina & Giulia Cauli. 2021. Sprachbiografisch
orientierte Interviews als qualitative Zugänge zu sprachlichen Erfahrungen: Erhebung,
Transkription und Codierung (MEZ Arbeitspapiere 11). Hamburg: Universität Hamburg.
Romanische Schriftsysteme im Vergleich: Eine diachrone Studie
- Trudel Meisenburg
Meisenburg, Trudel. 1996. Romanische Schriftsysteme im Vergleich: Eine diachrone Studie.
Tübingen: Narr.
Orthographieerwerb mehrsprachiger Kinder in der ersten Klasse
- Stefan Jeuk
Jeuk, Stefan. 2012. Orthographieerwerb mehrsprachiger Kinder in der ersten Klasse. In
Wilhelm Grießhaber & Zeynep Kalkavan (eds.), Orthographie-und Schriftspracherwerb bei
mehrsprachigen Kindern, 105-124. Freiburg: Fillibach/Klett.
Mehrsprachigkeit. Eine neurowissenschaftliche Perspektive
- Cordula Nitsch
Rechtschreibung und Zeichensetzung des Französischen
- Trudel Meisenburg
Meisenburg, Trudel. 2002. Rechtschreibung und Zeichensetzung des Französischen. In
Ingo Kolboom, Thomas Kotschi & Edward Reichel (eds.), Handbuch Französisch, 173-178.
Berlin: Erich Schmidt.