31.2351, Diss: English; Hebrew; Applied Linguistics: Author: Miri Yochanna: '' Narrative Abilities in English-Hebrew Bilingual Preschool Children''

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-31-2351. Wed Jul 22 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.2351, Diss:  English; Hebrew; Applied Linguistics: Author: Miri Yochanna: '' Narrative Abilities in English-Hebrew Bilingual Preschool Children''

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Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2020 15:20:23
From: Miri Yochanna [mirismkb at gmail.com]
Subject: Narrative Abilities in English-Hebrew Bilingual Preschool Children

 
Institution: Bar-Ilan University 
Program: Department of English Literature and Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2014 

Author: Miri Yochanna

Dissertation Title: Narrative Abilities in English-Hebrew Bilingual Preschool
Children 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)
                     Hebrew (heb)


Dissertation Director(s):
Joel Walters

Dissertation Abstract:

Bilingual preschool children are able to produce narratives that include
structural features needed to create a story in both their languages. Whether
simultaneous (acquiring two languages at home) or sequential (acquiring one
language at home and another outside the home), they have access to both
languages and are able to make use of both lexicons. How these two lexicons
serve bilingual children when producing a narrative and how the children make
use of them are two aspects of lexis in narrative ability that this research
looks into. The study examines the quantity and diversity of the lexis needed
to tell stories in both their languages, and how that lexis is deployed in
different structural components of their narratives.  

The results showed that the English-Hebrew bilingual preschool children
investigated were able to produce well-formed narratives in both languages
with diverse lexis. The familiar stories elicited longer, more detailed
narratives than the unfamiliar stories.Children’s lexical knowledge in both
languages was diverse, enabling the inclusion of a variety of words in their
storytelling. Lexical transfer was found in both the familiar and the
unfamiliar stories. However, there was more lexical transfer in the familiar
stories than in the unfamiliar stories. Much of the codeswitching and
code-interference observed were in the English stories, with Hebrew
influencing the language production. 

Bilingual children’s lexicon includes a variety of lexical features in both
languages: number of words, number of different words and word types, use of
general purpose and story specific content words and descriptors. These
features, especially lexical diversity (number of different words) and lexical
density (number of different content words) are indicators of abilities to
produce appropriate language in a variety of contexts (in this case, the
different story grammar components).

    
Bilingual phenomena – lexical transfer, codeswitching and code interference –
are indicators of language dominance and lexical availability. The bilingual
preschooler’s lexicon exhibits instances of lexical codeswitching and
code-interference. Lexical access activates these bilingual phenomena and
indicates what types of lexical items may be prone to codeswitching and
code-interference.




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