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Does Exposure to Code-Switching Influence Language Performance in Bilingual Children?

ABSTRACT: This study investigated whether the effect of exposure to code-switching on bilingual children's language performance varied depending on verbal working memory (WM). A large sample of school-aged Spanish-English bilingual children (N = 174, M_age = 7.78) was recruited, and children were administered language measures in English and Spanish. The frequency with which the children were exposed to code-switching was gathered through parent report. For children with high verbal WM, greater exposure to code-switching was associated with higher levels of language ability. In contrast, for children with lower verbal WM, greater exposure to code-switching was associated with lower levels of language ability. These findings indicate that children's cognitive processing capacity dictates whether exposure to code-switching facilitates or hinders language skills.

SUBMITTER: Kaushanskaya M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7816522 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Does Exposure to Code-Switching Influence Language Performance in Bilingual Children?

Kaushanskaya Margarita M Crespo Kimberly K

Child development 20190328 3

This study investigated whether the effect of exposure to code-switching on bilingual children's language performance varied depending on verbal working memory (WM). A large sample of school-aged Spanish-English bilingual children (N = 174, M<sub>age</sub> = 7.78) was recruited, and children were administered language measures in English and Spanish. The frequency with which the children were exposed to code-switching was gathered through parent report. For children with high verbal WM, greater ...[more]

PMID: 30919944

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Project description:When bilingual speakers use two languages in the same utterance, this is called code-switching. Previous research indicates that bilinguals' likelihood to code-switch is enhanced when the utterance to be produced (1) contains a word with a similar form across languages (lexical triggering) and (2) is preceded by a code-switched utterance, for example from a dialogue partner (interactive alignment/priming of code-switching). Both factors have mostly been tested on corpus data and have not yet been studied in combination. In two experiments, we therefore investigated the combined effects of interactive alignment and lexical triggering on code-switching. In Experiment 1, Dutch-English bilinguals described pictures to each other in a dialogue game where a confederate's code-switching was manipulated. The participants were free to use either Dutch, English, or a combination of Dutch and English in describing the pictures, so they could voluntarily code-switch or not. The pictures contained a cognate [e.g., roos (rose)], a false friend [e.g., rok (skirt, false friend with rock)], or a control word [e.g., jas (coat)]. Participants code-switched more often when the confederate had just code-switched (indicating interactive alignment). They also code-switched more often when cognates were involved, but only when the confederate had just code-switched. This indicates that lexical triggering is driven by interactive alignment. False friends did not enhance the likelihood of code-switching. Experiment 2 used a similar dialogue game with participants from the same population but focused specifically on how to account for interactive alignment of code-switching. Rather than aligning on their dialogue partner's pragmatic act of code-switching, bilinguals aligned on the language activation from the utterance produced by their dialogue partner. All in all, the results show how co-activation of languages at multiple levels of processing together influence bilinguals' tendency to code-switch. The findings call for a perspective on bilingual language production in which cross-speaker and cross-language processes are combined.

Dataset Information

Does Exposure to Code-Switching Influence Language Performance in Bilingual Children?

Publications

Does Exposure to Code-Switching Influence Language Performance in Bilingual Children?

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