The Bilingual Development of Immigrant Children in Western Canada: Predictors and Outcomes of Cross-Linguistic Influence

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Daskalaki, Evangelia

• SSHRC IDG awarded 2020: To date, the vast majority of heritage studies in the North American context examine the development of immigrant children's heritage/home language separate and apart from the development of the societal language. These studies have consistently shown that immigrant children show patterns in their heritage language (HL) that could be the results of cross­linguistic influence from the societal language. For Instance, heritage learners of a language with a flexible word order, who are born and raised in an English (ENG) dominant country, tend to use a more rigid Subject­Verb­Object word order compared to monolingual learners of the same language. What is considerably less well-researched is whether cross-­linguistic influence may occur in the reverse direction (from the heritage to the societal language) and whether this depends on child­-level factors such as immigrant children's relative amount of HL/ENG use at home and immigrant children's age of exposure to English schooling. Accordingly, the aim of the proposed research program is to identify the child-­level factors that determine the occurrence, magnitude, and directionality of cross­linguistic influence in heritagecontexts. To this end, we will focus on two language groups that are well-represented in Western Canada: (Levantine) Arabic-­English bilingual children and (non­Caribbean) Spanish-­English bilingual children. We will ask two questions: 1. Is cross-linguistic influence bidirectional? 2. Is cross-linguistic influence contingent on the generation, age of exposure to ENG, HL/ENG relative amount of use, and HL/ENG proficiency of immigrant children?

• Date created

  2020-02-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Insight Development Grant
  • IDG
  • SSHRC
  • Bilingual Development
  • Immigrant Children
  • Syntax
  • Morphology
  • Linguistic Typology
  • Individual Differences
  • Linguistics
  • Education
  • 2020AD-2022AD
  • Western Canada
  • Canada

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-57x6-h419

• License

  ©️Daskalaki, Evangelia. All rights reserved other than by permission. This document embargoed to those without UAlberta CCID until 2024.