can bilinguals "replace" monolinguals in experimental data collection?

[Susannah Kirby]

Hi all,

Thank you to everyone who responded with such interesting and helpful
insights to my mono/bilingual question! The general consensus seems to be
that my proposed solution is too complicated to work without significant
background work (e.g. parental questionnaires) to assess the children's
input/knowledge in English - and that even if it eventually did work, and I
could do the stats correctly, I might still never get my results published.

I think that ultimately I will start to incorporate bilingualism as a
crucial part of what I look at. The problem at the moment is that I am
already about one-third of the way through data collection to answer a
"burning" question that has been haunting me for several years. I would hate
to give up the data that I already have, and am hoping to (at some point)
finally get the other monolinguals I need, to get an answer to this
question.

In case anyone is interested, the specific topic I'm examining is
English-speaking children's acquisition of raising-to-object and object
control structures - so somewhat complex, biclausal constructions. I am
assuming that these structures take some time to learn, and that kids need
to have enough experience with them, over time, in the input. I proposed
raising the age for inclusion to allow kids who are getting less input in
English (per day, as the day is split among languages) enough time to "catch
up".

Thanks again for all your suggestions and materials!

Best,
Susannah.

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