Vocalen uit canonieke babbels van Engels en Frans lerende jonge kinderen zijn geanalyseerd en vergeleken. De F1 en F2 zijn gemeten en spreidingsdiagrammen van deze formanten werden verkregen. Ook...Show moreVocalen uit canonieke babbels van Engels en Frans lerende jonge kinderen zijn geanalyseerd en vergeleken. De F1 en F2 zijn gemeten en spreidingsdiagrammen van deze formanten werden verkregen. Ook de vocaalratio is gemeten door de F1 door de F2 te delen. Zowel de verschillende vocalen als de gemiddelden van alle vocalen zijn geanalyseerd. Er zijn geen significante verschillen gevonden tussen de vocaalratio’s van de baby’s uit een Engelse taalomgeving en baby’s uit een Franse taalomgeving. Het resultaat van deze studie biedt steun voor de theorie dat babbelen vooral een universeel proces is, dat tot stand komt door de compositie van het spraakkanaal en de nog niet volledig ontwikkelde controle over taaluitingen en het spraakkanaal.Show less
Inconsistent findings in studies that have examined whether there is a bilingual cognitive advantage in comparison to monolinguals, have caused a bilingual advantage debate. In addition, the...Show moreInconsistent findings in studies that have examined whether there is a bilingual cognitive advantage in comparison to monolinguals, have caused a bilingual advantage debate. In addition, the available evidence in published work that bilinguals may have a cognitive advantage, may have resulted from publication bias. The aim of the present study was to see whether there is a bilingual advantage and whether there is a publication bias in the linguistic scientific world with regards to studies that used the Simon task to research the effect of bilingualism. Therefore, a meta-analysis was conducted and 40 Simon task studies were included. The findings of the meta-analysis resulted only in weak evidence for the bilingual advantage, since only a small effect size was found for bilinguals showing faster Reaction Times than monolinguals. Furthermore, evidence for a publication bias was found, but the Test for Moderators showed that studies earlier published are mostly contributing to the effect size. An explanation for this can be that these studies were conducted at the time when the common belief was that bilinguals had an advantage, resulting in the publication of only large, positive effect sizes.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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It has often been found that bilingualism has a negative effect on children’s nonword repetition (NWR) performance (e.g., Kohnert et al., 2006; Windsor et al., 2010; Engel, 2011). There are two...Show moreIt has often been found that bilingualism has a negative effect on children’s nonword repetition (NWR) performance (e.g., Kohnert et al., 2006; Windsor et al., 2010; Engel, 2011). There are two types of NWR tasks: language-specific tasks based on the phonology of a specific language and tasks based on a more universal phonology. Previous studies have found some evidence of phonological transfer in bilingual children on language-specific NWR tasks (see Lee & Gorman, 2013; Sorenson Duncan & Paradis, 2016). Performance on a quasi-universal task relies less on language-specific knowledge. Therefore, we would expect less phonological transfer in this task. The present study extends previous research by comparing 22 monolingual and 81 bilingual children (aged 2-4) on two NWR tasks: a language-specific task based on the phonology of Dutch and a task based on a quasi-universal phonology. The present study examines the effects of bilingualism on performance and error patterns in the two NWR tasks. This study also aims to discover whether the additional errors made by bilingual children on either task can be explained by phonological transfer. The most important finding was that there are clear differences between the performance and error patterns of the two groups of children. Bilingual children produce more errors in general, and particularly more vowel substitutions and omission errors. Some of the additional errors produced by bilingual children may indeed be attributed to phonological transfer, but only on the language-specific NWR task. This highlights the benefits of using a quasi-universal NWR task in the assessment of bilingual children.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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The current thesis investigates the preference of Dutch monolingual infants for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Our study is a contribution to the ManyBabies 1...Show moreThe current thesis investigates the preference of Dutch monolingual infants for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS). Our study is a contribution to the ManyBabies 1 project (Bergmann et al., 2018), which is the first large-scale replication project in infant research. We use the head-turn preference procedure and test all the infants at the age of 8-12 months with the stimuli in North American English. We hypothesize that the infants in the present study prefer IDS to ADS because of IDS exaggerated prosodic properties. The linguistic content of the stimuli is not available to the infants because the stimuli are in English, a language they have not been exposed to before. Moreover, we want to find out if there is any difference between younger (8-month-olds) and older infants (11-month-olds). Previous research has demonstrated that younger infants show a more reliable preference for IDS over ADS in comparison with older infants. We statistically analyze the results using a linear-mixed effects model because of its advantages such as taking into consideration random variables and dealing well with non-normal data.Show less
In alignment with the previous research attempts to determine the interaction between the first languages of bilinguals (Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein 2005; Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein 2010;...Show moreIn alignment with the previous research attempts to determine the interaction between the first languages of bilinguals (Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein 2005; Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein 2010; Goldstein & Bunta 2011), the present study examines the influence of German as the dominant language on Greek phonology in the Greek-German bilinguals. The results collected are built on the accuracy scores as well as on the patterns used by 3 Early Greek-German bilinguals and 3 Greek Heritage speakers (aged 7-8) living in Germany. The phonemes under investigation were the [x]-[ç] allophones that are present in both Greek and German phonology but appear in different environments and the [zm] consonant sequence that is common in Greek but absent in the German language. The results revealed a German to Greek phonological influence in the form of transfer in both parts of the experiment as well as a deceleration compared to their monolinguals peers (Genesee & Paradis, 1996).These findings are discussed in the light of Speech Learning Model (Flege, 1995; 2007) and of the Interdependence Hypothesis (Genesee & Paradis, 1996) as well as on the findings of Barlow’s (2014) paper.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores the abstract rule learning mechanism as proposed by Marcus et al. (1999). While Marcus et al. (1999) indicated that 7-month-old infants can recognize and generalize rule-like...Show moreThis thesis explores the abstract rule learning mechanism as proposed by Marcus et al. (1999). While Marcus et al. (1999) indicated that 7-month-old infants can recognize and generalize rule-like patterns (i.e., ABA or ABB patterns) in linguistic input, Saffran et al. (2007) showed that infants can also learn rules from visual input. This thesis aims to investigate whether visual rule learning is still connected to language in the form of lexical knowledge, as rule learning could be facilitated by familiarity with the label pertaining to a visual object. To explore this notion, Saffran et al. (2007) is replicated with 12- to 14-month-old infants, using socks with different colour schemes as the stimuli, since the word sock should be familiar to the participants. Furthermore, the role of within-stimulus variety between A and B items is explored by comparing the results from the current study to Van Leeuwen (2016), who used entirely different objects as A and B items in a similar experiment.Show less
In the field of second language acquisition, the role of the mother tongue in acquiring a brand new linguistic system has been widely debated by many researchers. For a long time, experts in the...Show moreIn the field of second language acquisition, the role of the mother tongue in acquiring a brand new linguistic system has been widely debated by many researchers. For a long time, experts in the field held on to conservative notions about the relationship between the L1 and L2, and research and language acquisition paradigm in the past leaned towards an L1 interference model, which had blamed the mother tongue for most, if not all, challenges experienced by learners in acquiring an L2. Modern literature surrounding language acquisition, however, point to a change in trend and attitudes involving the use of L1 in acquiring an L2. Extensive studies involving primary research data have been undertaken to dispel the notion of L1 interference and, instead, encourage incorporating L1 in L2 instruction. The research questions that this thesis hopes to address and answer are: Does using L1 in the L2 classroom benefit English as a second and foreign language learners? What factors might hinder the effectiveness of using L1 in acquiring an ESL/EFL in the classroom? In the end, this paper will endeavour to suggest ways L1 should be integrated into classroom language teaching situations. This research study will undertake to review and consolidate all previous work done on the hindrance of using the L1, on one hand, and the effectiveness of L1 use in the L2 classroom on the other. Practical ways of using the L1 will be provided, using examples from research done involving primary data from the literature. To substantiate this section, teacher attitudes and classroom practices in using L1 in ESL situations in an international school in Amsterdam will also be presented.Show less
As the number of immigrants to the Netherlands has grown substantially, providing education for immigrant children has become an important issue. Through a literature study, this thesis attempts to...Show moreAs the number of immigrants to the Netherlands has grown substantially, providing education for immigrant children has become an important issue. Through a literature study, this thesis attempts to answer the question what the best policy is in providing education for immigrant children in the primary school age – whether these children should enter regular education, or whether they need to learn Dutch through a specialized program such as transitional or immersion education before enrolling in regular classes. Literature consistently shows that specialized programs for language-minority children are most effective in providing these children with education; both to learn Dutch and to learn curriculum content. If possible these programs should be bilingual, as continued development of the children’s L1 facilitates second-language learning. Second language education should not just focus on language acquisition, but also on acquiring academic language and literacy skills. Apart from linguistic and cognitive factors, the social context should also be taken into consideration: specialized programs should be integrated within mainstream schools in order to give immigrant children the chance to interact with native peers and help them to fit in. Additionally, teachers should be affirmative of the children’s identities. These social factors are beneficial for immigrant children’s second-language acquisition and overall academic achievement as well.Show less
In this research we looked at whether infants (12- to 14-month-old) can succesfully use their lexical knowledge to aid them in acquiring an abstract grammatical rule about visually presented...Show moreIn this research we looked at whether infants (12- to 14-month-old) can succesfully use their lexical knowledge to aid them in acquiring an abstract grammatical rule about visually presented grammars. The infants in the known condition were unable to generalize this grammatical rule. However, there was learning in the nonsense condition.Show less
Would it not be great if any child could grow up bilingual? Because of the many benefits of bilingualism, a start-up company developed a program called TuMi Mundo that attempts to make it possible...Show moreWould it not be great if any child could grow up bilingual? Because of the many benefits of bilingualism, a start-up company developed a program called TuMi Mundo that attempts to make it possible for infants to acquire a second language via non-live exposure only. This study reflects on the first experiment to test if this is indeed possible. A Head Turn Preference Procedure was conducted to test the language preference of the infants after two months of near-daily exposure. Previous studies showed that monolinguals prefer their native language and bilinguals prefer both languages equally. We compared the babies exposed to the app with a monolingual control group and found that the exposed infants indeed showed no preference, but the monolinguals did neither. This lack of expected preference in the monolinguals makes the bilingual-like behavior of the exposed infants uninterpretable. The results of this study are therefore not enough to answer the question whether non-live exposure is enough to make an infant perceive the language as native.Show less
