Literature on production vs. receptive language?

Thu Feb 21 14:54:09 UTC 2013

Dear All,
I missed this point when Annick originally made it, but it would be great to hear cases, even anecdotally, from the people who experienced this sudden switch from passive to active bilingualism--and be able to probe the details of their background and perhaps the level of their preschool L1.

I have never heard of someone who is a passive "speaker" becoming fluent in a week, even in a strong immersion situation.  I have had people describe cases where it took a week or more for someone who had been very fluent and then didn't use the language for a long period to regain their former fluency.  The heritage language studies also provide a lot of counter-evidence.

I realize this is veering off Helen's original question, but I guess it is potentially a new thread.  If anyone can give us some specifics on this, please write in--through the forum or off-line. It would be a great help to the field (and to parents around the world frustrated by children's reluctance to speak the "other" language.)  I, for one, would have to change the advice I give families and what I tell students.

Till soon, I hope,
Barbara

************************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
Co-director, Language Acquisition Research Center (LARC)
Research Associate, Depts of Linguistics and   Communication Disorders
c/o 226 South College
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst MA 01003
413-545-5023

bpearson at research.umass.edu<mailto:bpearson at research.umass.edu>
http://www.umass.edu/aae/bp_indexold.htm
http://www.zurer.com/pearson
On Feb 21, 2013, at 9:26 AM, William Snyder wrote:

Interesting point!

- William

On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 3:52 PM, Annick De Houwer <annickej at yahoo.com<mailto:annickej at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Dear William, Helen and other members--

The case that William adduces is similar to that of many children who grew
up hearing two languages from birth but learned to speak only one of them
fluently (a common case - see my 2009 book on Bilingual First Language
Acquisition). The other language could then be not produced at all, or just
in single words, or in two word utterances, even when the child is 4 or 5.
Preschool aged children who did say something at least in this "other"
language have been reported to become fluent speakers of the language in
about a week after they were in changed circumstances (for instance, when
they went on vacation and HAD to use the hitherto hardly used language in
order to be understood). There are very few linguist-documented cases,
though, and details about precisely which structures are then being used
are, to my knowledge, lacking.

Best to all,
Annick

Annick De Houwer, PhD
University of Erfurt, Germany and NICHHD, USA
European Research Network on Bilingual Studies ERBIS, www.erbis.org<http://www.erbis.org>

On Saturday, February 16, 2013 1:17:28 PM UTC+1, William wrote:

Dear Helen (et al.)

Karin Stromswold has done some potentially relevant work on the
syntactic abilities (in comprehension) of a child who, during his
pre-school years, was producing only one-word utterances, but who
tested normally on comprehension measures of syntax. What I don't
recall is whether she tested him on RCs....

With best wishes,

William

On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 8:50 PM, yvne... at gmail.com
<yvne... at gmail.com> wrote:
Dear All,

I am interested in research into how much production is relevant for
language acquisition (e.g. does a child need to actually produce
relative
clauses in order to acquire them? Might he have a full representation of
RCs
in his grammar, but never have uttered one?).  I'm interested in the
relationship of production to acquisition in general with respect to
syntax
and morphology.

Is there literature that makes specific claims about this?  I welcome
feedback from both theoretical and clinical perspectives.

Any references you can point me toward are greatly appreciated.

Best,

Helen Stickney

--
Department of Linguistics
Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
University of Pittsburgh, 2831 CL
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
http://www.pitt.edu/~hes41/
Office: +1 412-624-5918

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