Question to the community

[Kathryn J. Kohnert]

Good evening,
A couple of other studies which serve to further temper static notions of
language balance and dominance in developing bilinguals (in this case,
young second language learners) are provided below. It seems that what's
dominant varies as a question of what's measured (e.g., receptive vs.
expressive skills; processing efficiency vs. overall knowledge etc) as a
function of language and cognitive experience as well as individual
differences. Language dominance, like language proficiency, is very dynamic
in these young L2 learners, and the clinical utility of identifying a
dominant language at a certain point in time is unclear. Dominance is also
a relative notion--- using a within-child comparison--- so getting back to
the very interesting original post to the list, I feel that the critical
question underlying the method  for establishing dominance is the
rationale/motivation for doing so in a given population.
Kohnert, K. & Bates, E. (2002). Balancing Bilinguals II: Lexical
Comprehension and Cognitive Processing in Children Learning Spanish and
English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 347  359.

Kohnert, K. (2002). Picture Naming in Early Sequential Bilinguals: A 1-Year
Follow-up. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 759  771.
            Kohnert, K. J., Hernandez, A. E., & Bates, E. (1998). Bilingual
performance on the Boston Naming Test: Preliminary      norms in Spanish
and English. Brain and Language, 65, 422-440.
In addition to the studies cited above, Pui Fong Kan, as part of her
graduate research at the UMN, has done work looking at preschoolers
learning a second language (Hmong-English bilinguals). Her lexical
production study was presented at SRCLD/IASCL,Madison WI (2002) [Kan &
Kohnert], and her receptive studies will be presented at ASHA in Nov 2002
in Atlanta (Kan & Kohnert).

Take care,
Kathryn
At 01:00 PM 11/5/02 -1000, Catherine Kawahata wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I'm not sure if this is the study Katie is referring to, but I think it
>addresses the same questions and documents the crossover effect in this
>particular population of children:
>
>Kohnert, K. J., Bates, E., & Hernandez, A. E. (1999). Balancing
>bilinguals:  Lexical semantic production and cognitive processing in
>children learning Spanish and English. Journal of Speech, Language, and
>Hearing Research, 42, 1400-1413.
>
>Katie, I wonder if you remember which language pairs your students looked
>at.  Also Spanish-English?  I'd be interested in hearing more.
>
>I've lost the beginning of this thread, but to the person who asked the
>original question (Ellina?), do you think the literature on bilingual
>digit span would be helpful?  I've lent out my copy of the following
>article, but if memory serves me, it might relate to your question of
>establishing dominance.
>
>Chincotta, D., & Underwood, G. (1998). Non temporal determinants of
>bilingual memory capacity:  The role of long-term representations and
>fluency. Bilingualism:  Language and Cognition, 1(2), 117-130.
>
>I'm not that familiar with this type of work, but hope it helps.
>
>Good luck!
>
>Cathy
>
>Catherine Kawahata
>University of Hawai'i at Manoa
>Department of Linguistics
>1890 East-West Rd., Moore 569
>Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
>
>
>On Tue, 5 Nov 2002, Alcock, Katie wrote:
>
> > Some slightly more objective work than the anecdotes suggested here (sorry,
> > I just have a hard time with the idea of asking someone to lose a
> language!)
> > has been done by Kathy Kohnert, particularly looking at naming skill and
> > speed as children who started schooling with one language go through
> school.
> > I can't recall the exact reference but I think it's in Brain and Language.
> >
> > In summary if you start school at about 6 then you become equal in home and
> > school languages at about 8 and then cross over at 10 to become dominant in
> > school language.
> >
> > Two of my undergraduates have replicated this - one only in 9 year olds
> > (they were English dominant or equal in the two languages, and ones who
> were
> > equal in the two knew more names of objects - if allowed to name in either
> > language - than English monolinguals, if I recall correctly).  The other
> > looked at development and roughly replicated Kathy's findings.
> >
> > Her paper may be under Kohnert-Rice.
> >
> > Katie
> >