Category: Interdisciplinary topics Degree Level: Undergraduate ...
Category: Interdisciplinary topics Degree Level: Undergraduate Abstract ID# 1368 Abstract: Current literature demonstrates that cognition and perception in bilinguals are affected by language background in ways that don’t occur in monolinguals. We conducted four studies to investigate how aspects of language background effect production as well as perception of linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli. Two of these studies investigated perception. One used survey responses to investigate metaphor comprehension by Japanese–English bilinguals and hypothesizes that earlier bilinguals reporting greater English proficiency would be likely to recognize English metaphors better than other bilinguals. The results showed the opposite to be true. (Experiment 1) The next one is on color perception effects in Greek-English bilingual children. Greek has two separate words for light/sky and dark blue, unlike English. The research showed that later bilinguals held onto this distinction as adults. This study found that early exposure to English with the L1 (Greek) led to less distinction between dimensions of Greek blue. (Experiment 2) The other two studies investigate production. One investigated how bilinguality effects Italian–English speakers, and how later acquirers of English reflect the acquisition process of monolingual Italian children with respect to pro-drop. We hypothesized that cross-linguistic influence will surface in the form of inappropriate pro-drop, and that Italian-dominant bilinguals will drop pronouns more than their English-dominant counterparts. (Experiment 3)The final study was conducted focusing on yes/no questions formed in English to find if there was a grammar transfer from sequential bilinguals who have a native language of Hindi and acquired English late in the form of non-SAI (subject-auxiliary inversion) questions or tag questions. (Experiment 4)
Theoretical Background: 1.
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This study seeks to investigate how bilinguality affects metaphor recognition in English– Japanese bilinguals. The work of Pomp (2013), which suggests that Dutch dominant German bilinguals are less able to recognize metaphors than Dutch monolinguals, was used to shape this study. Athanasopoulos et al. (2015) also found that language context is a crucial factor in determining how language background can influence cognitive processing in bilingual individuals. While English has one word for “blue” that can be made more descriptive with adjectives like “dark” and “light”, Greek has two completely separate words for “light blue” (ghalazio) and “dark blue” (ble). Researchers were able to identify these two color chips as the boundary between ble and ghalazio across the board. According to the results, the advanced group tended to shift their ble focus towards blue, while the intermediate group shifted that same focus one step away from blue. Italian is a “null subject language where subject arguments can be omitted if the argument is co-referential with the topic antecedent" (Grimshaw & Samek-Lodovici, 1998). Italians will pro-drop in almost any linguistic situation, unless it involves topic change (Serratrice et al., 2004), while English does not allow for pro-drop at all. Subject omission occurs when the subject is coded for morphologically within the remainder of the utterance, making the presence of an overt subject unnecessary. Müller (1998) proposed that languages are separate but are not autonomous, and can influence each other despite the fact that they are acquired and recognized separately by children from a young age. Question formation in Hindi and English happens differently between the two languages for both types of questions. Yes/no questions in English are formed by inverting the subject and the auxiliary verb in a process called subject aux inversion. Hindi yes/no question formation is done with a question word particle, kyaa, that is added to the beginning or end of a sentence that transforms the sentence into a question.
Aim: These studies endeavored to find how significantly factors of bilinguality affect perception and perception in sequential or simultaneous bilinguals. This effect will prove a connection between languages in the mind of bilinguals and support a common underlying proficiency or a connection between grammars for bilinguals.
Method: 1.
2. 3.
4.
The study was conducted using a 50-question survey; ten questions index English metaphors, ten questions index Japanese metaphors, and ten questions index metaphors from both languages. The remaining twenty questions were filler questions. The survey was written in English first and then translated to Japanese so that results for Japanese monolinguals could be compared between languages. Color chips will be presented to each child and they will be asked to provide the corresponding color term in Greek. We acquired 10 Italian-dominant bilinguals over age 17, and 10 English-dominant bilinguals over age 17. Each of these subjects will complete a survey tailored to determining their rate of pronoun omission in each of the two languages. Part 1 of the survey will be in the form of a self-report, and Part 2 will consist of a series of judgementbased questions, where participants are asked to judge how acceptable the statement is on a scale from 1 to 7. The statements were divided into 6 types: English Pro-drop with Topic Change, Italian Pro-drop with Topic Change, English Pro-drop without Topic Change Italian Pro-drop without Topic Change, English Fillers, and Italian Fillers. Participants are shown a picture of a scene from a cartoon and then prompted to ask a yes/no or a content question in English by posing this question to the characters in the scene. Participants will also fill out a language background self report.
Results: 1. It was found that, Japanese speakers taking the survey in English conformed more to English-speaking norms and recognized more English language metaphors when they demonstrated traits that lend themselves to Japanese language dominance, including lower self-rating of English proficiency, and later age of acquisition. 2. "ble" and "ghalazio" had the highest standard deviations of any color group in the data. This provides evidence that the participants did not perceive a clear difference between the two dimensions of blue, and it can be assumed that the lesser distinction between the two Greek blues in bilingual children is due to interference from their L1 (English). 3. The results obtained do not suggest a major cross-linguistic influence in how Italian-English bilinguals handle prodrop in either language. Our results were also fairly inconclusive regarding whether or not dominance in ItalianEnglish bilinguals influences the acceptability of pro-drop in both Italian and English sentences. We found that English-dominant and Italian-dominant bilinguals performed similarly in all question areas, and late learners of English don’t tend to behave similarly to children acquiring English. 4. Participants showed this optional failure of SAI however not in the expected way. Several different methods and strategies were used to compensate for failure of SAI with the most common of these strategies being a “Do you think…” type question. This allowed participants a plug it in type of formula for question formation. This effect would not be as present in monolinguals or simultaneous bilinguals after acquisition.
Conclusion: The results of each of our experiments leave us with mixed conclusions about the effects of bilinguality on various language acquisition behaviors. Results from experiments 1, 2, and 4 suggest a strong influence of certain factors in how language is produced and/or perceived in a bilingual individual. Experiment 4 suggests that there may not be a strong influence between these factors and the production of either language in a bilingual. While the four experiments overall provide more evidence for bilingual effects on perception of language rather than production, all of these experiments should be left open to further interpretation or extension in the future. References: Agnihotri, R. K. (2007). Hindi: An Essential Grammar. New York, NY: Routledge. Athanasopoulos, P., E. Bylund, G. Montero-Melis, L. Damjanovic, A. Schartner, A. Kibbe, N. Riches, and G. Thierry. "Two Languages, Two Minds: Flexible Cognitive Processing Driven by Language of Operation." Psychological Science (2015): 518-26. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. Beek, Wouter. "Linguistic Relativism: Variants and Misconceptions." (2004): n. pag. Web. 18 Oct. 2015. Carnie, A. (2007). Syntax: A Generative Introduction (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Grimshaw, J. & Samek-Lukdovici, V. (1998). Optimal subjects and subject universals. In P. Barbosa, D. Fox, P. Hagstrom, M. McGinnis & D. Pesetsky (eds.), Is the best good enough? Optimality and competition in syntax, pp. 193-219. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Müller, N. (1998). Transfer in Bilingual First Language Acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1 (3), 151-171. Pomp, Jennifer. Processing of Metaphors in the Context of Bilingualism: An Event-Related Potential Study. BA Thesis. University of Twente, Enschede. Web. June 2013 Serratrice, L. & Sorace, A. (2002). Overt and Null Subjects in Monolingual and Bilingual Italian Acquisition. Paper presented at the BUCLD 26 Conference, Boston.
Theoretical Background: 1.
2.
3.
4.
This study seeks to investigate how bilinguality affects metaphor recognition in English– Japanese bilinguals. The work of Pomp (2013), which suggests that Dutch dominant German bilinguals are less able to recognize metaphors than Dutch monolinguals, was used to shape this study. Athanasopoulos et al. (2015) also found that language context is a crucial factor in determining how language background can influence cognitive processing in bilingual individuals. While English has one word for “blue” that can be made more descriptive with adjectives like “dark” and “light”, Greek has two completely separate words for “light blue” (ghalazio) and “dark blue” (ble). Researchers were able to identify these two color chips as the boundary between ble and ghalazio across the board. According to the results, the advanced group tended to shift their ble focus towards blue, while the intermediate group shifted that same focus one step away from blue. Italian is a “null subject language where subject arguments can be omitted if the argument is co-referential with the topic antecedent" (Grimshaw & Samek-Lodovici, 1998). Italians will pro-drop in almost any linguistic situation, unless it involves topic change (Serratrice et al., 2004), while English does not allow for pro-drop at all. Subject omission occurs when the subject is coded for morphologically within the remainder of the utterance, making the presence of an overt subject unnecessary. Müller (1998) proposed that languages are separate but are not autonomous, and can influence each other despite the fact that they are acquired and recognized separately by children from a young age. Question formation in Hindi and English happens differently between the two languages for both types of questions. Yes/no questions in English are formed by inverting the subject and the auxiliary verb in a process called subject aux inversion. Hindi yes/no question formation is done with a question word particle, kyaa, that is added to the beginning or end of a sentence that transforms the sentence into a question.
Aim: These studies endeavored to find how significantly factors of bilinguality affect perception and perception in sequential or simultaneous bilinguals. This effect will prove a connection between languages in the mind of bilinguals and support a common underlying proficiency or a connection between grammars for bilinguals.
Method: 1.
2. 3.
4.
The study was conducted using a 50-question survey; ten questions index English metaphors, ten questions index Japanese metaphors, and ten questions index metaphors from both languages. The remaining twenty questions were filler questions. The survey was written in English first and then translated to Japanese so that results for Japanese monolinguals could be compared between languages. Color chips will be presented to each child and they will be asked to provide the corresponding color term in Greek. We acquired 10 Italian-dominant bilinguals over age 17, and 10 English-dominant bilinguals over age 17. Each of these subjects will complete a survey tailored to determining their rate of pronoun omission in each of the two languages. Part 1 of the survey will be in the form of a self-report, and Part 2 will consist of a series of judgementbased questions, where participants are asked to judge how acceptable the statement is on a scale from 1 to 7. The statements were divided into 6 types: English Pro-drop with Topic Change, Italian Pro-drop with Topic Change, English Pro-drop without Topic Change Italian Pro-drop without Topic Change, English Fillers, and Italian Fillers. Participants are shown a picture of a scene from a cartoon and then prompted to ask a yes/no or a content question in English by posing this question to the characters in the scene. Participants will also fill out a language background self report.
Results: 1. It was found that, Japanese speakers taking the survey in English conformed more to English-speaking norms and recognized more English language metaphors when they demonstrated traits that lend themselves to Japanese language dominance, including lower self-rating of English proficiency, and later age of acquisition. 2. "ble" and "ghalazio" had the highest standard deviations of any color group in the data. This provides evidence that the participants did not perceive a clear difference between the two dimensions of blue, and it can be assumed that the lesser distinction between the two Greek blues in bilingual children is due to interference from their L1 (English). 3. The results obtained do not suggest a major cross-linguistic influence in how Italian-English bilinguals handle prodrop in either language. Our results were also fairly inconclusive regarding whether or not dominance in ItalianEnglish bilinguals influences the acceptability of pro-drop in both Italian and English sentences. We found that English-dominant and Italian-dominant bilinguals performed similarly in all question areas, and late learners of English don’t tend to behave similarly to children acquiring English. 4. Participants showed this optional failure of SAI however not in the expected way. Several different methods and strategies were used to compensate for failure of SAI with the most common of these strategies being a “Do you think…” type question. This allowed participants a plug it in type of formula for question formation. This effect would not be as present in monolinguals or simultaneous bilinguals after acquisition.
Conclusion: The results of each of our experiments leave us with mixed conclusions about the effects of bilinguality on various language acquisition behaviors. Results from experiments 1, 2, and 4 suggest a strong influence of certain factors in how language is produced and/or perceived in a bilingual individual. Experiment 4 suggests that there may not be a strong influence between these factors and the production of either language in a bilingual. While the four experiments overall provide more evidence for bilingual effects on perception of language rather than production, all of these experiments should be left open to further interpretation or extension in the future. References: Agnihotri, R. K. (2007). Hindi: An Essential Grammar. New York, NY: Routledge. Athanasopoulos, P., E. Bylund, G. Montero-Melis, L. Damjanovic, A. Schartner, A. Kibbe, N. Riches, and G. Thierry. "Two Languages, Two Minds: Flexible Cognitive Processing Driven by Language of Operation." Psychological Science (2015): 518-26. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. Beek, Wouter. "Linguistic Relativism: Variants and Misconceptions." (2004): n. pag. Web. 18 Oct. 2015. Carnie, A. (2007). Syntax: A Generative Introduction (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Grimshaw, J. & Samek-Lukdovici, V. (1998). Optimal subjects and subject universals. In P. Barbosa, D. Fox, P. Hagstrom, M. McGinnis & D. Pesetsky (eds.), Is the best good enough? Optimality and competition in syntax, pp. 193-219. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Müller, N. (1998). Transfer in Bilingual First Language Acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1 (3), 151-171. Pomp, Jennifer. Processing of Metaphors in the Context of Bilingualism: An Event-Related Potential Study. BA Thesis. University of Twente, Enschede. Web. June 2013 Serratrice, L. & Sorace, A. (2002). Overt and Null Subjects in Monolingual and Bilingual Italian Acquisition. Paper presented at the BUCLD 26 Conference, Boston.
