Word-final clusters have been reported to develop earlier than word-initial clusters for children learning English (Kirk & Demuth, 2005),German (Lleo & Prinz, 1996), and Dutch (Levelt, et...Show moreWord-final clusters have been reported to develop earlier than word-initial clusters for children learning English (Kirk & Demuth, 2005),German (Lleo & Prinz, 1996), and Dutch (Levelt, et al.,2000). This is opposite to the development of singleton consonants which generally develop in word-initial position first, e.g. /m, n, t/ (Mennen et al., 2006). In this study I investigated the possible role of frequency in the acquisition of consonant onset and coda clusters. The hypothesis was that the frequency of the input of adult child-directed speech which here was a child’s name (repeated by caregivers many times a day and directly to a child) influences the child’s ability to acquire certain type of consonant clusters. Ideally Floortje would acquire onset clusters before codas and Max would acquire coda clusters before onset ones. The evidence collected however, suggests that there is no immediate association between a child’s name and the acquisition of consonant clusters in words. So here, the frequency accounts do not seem to provide a satisfactory explanation for the two way developmental path of cluster acquisition. Nevertheless, the research may be treated as a pilot study and will hopefully stimulate further exploration of the problem.Show less
Previous studies have indicated that native and non-native listeners’ attention to differences in segments and lexical tones is heightened when language context is removed. Do they also display...Show morePrevious studies have indicated that native and non-native listeners’ attention to differences in segments and lexical tones is heightened when language context is removed. Do they also display greater sensitivity to intonational differences in the absence of language context? To examine this question, this thesis tests the ability of Dutch and Mandarin listeners to identify Mandarin questions and statements that differ only in intonation in three different levels of language context: no language context, a neutral language context, and a constraining language context. All listeners were found to identify questions and statements better with each increasing level of language context. This suggests that the presence of a meaningful semantic context facilitates the perception of intonational meaning. Moreover, Mandarin listeners were better at identifying questions and statements than non-native listeners in sentences with language context. But the difference between Mandarin and Dutch listeners’ abilities was minimal in sentences without language context. This result suggests that the effect of language experience on intonation perception is diminished at the lower auditory processing level.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
closed access
Bilingual adults are faster at reading cognates than non-cognates in both their first (L1) (Van Assche et al., 2009) and second language (L2) (Duyck et al., 2007). This cognate effect has been...Show moreBilingual adults are faster at reading cognates than non-cognates in both their first (L1) (Van Assche et al., 2009) and second language (L2) (Duyck et al., 2007). This cognate effect has been shown to be gradual in the L1: recognition was facilitated when words had higher degrees of cross-lingual similarity (Van Assche et al., 2009). Many studies on bilingual language processing have used this effect to indicate a co-activation of lexical representations in two languages. Recent research has shown that the gradual cognate facilitation effect can also be found in bilingual children’s receptive vocabulary (Bosma et al., 2016). However, it is still unknown to what extent it can be found in bilingual children’s reading. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether cognate facilitation can also be observed in bilingual children’s reading. To answer this question, Frisian-Dutch bilinguals (n = 18) between 9 and 12 years old performed a reading task in both of their languages. All children had Dutch as their dominant reading language, but most of them spoke mainly Frisian at home. Identical cognates (e.g., boek-boek ‘book’), non-identical cognates (e.g., beam-boom ‘tree’), and non-cognates (e.g., beppe-oma ‘grandmother’) were presented in a sentence context, and eye-movements were recorded. The results showed a non-gradual cognate facilitation effect in Frisian: identical cognates were read faster than non-identical cognates and non-cognates. In Dutch, however, no cognate facilitation effect could be observed. These results show that bilingual children use their dominant reading language when reading in their non-dominant one.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Aspects of the acquisition of one or more languages are influenced by many variables, e.g. age of acquisition, quality and quantity of input, social economic status, and the presence of older...Show moreAspects of the acquisition of one or more languages are influenced by many variables, e.g. age of acquisition, quality and quantity of input, social economic status, and the presence of older siblings. The influence of these factors has been investigated in monolingual learners, adult second language learners, less in child second language learners, and not at all in young bidialectal speakers. This study investigated how various factors influenced vocabulary scores of bidialectal children from Limburg, the Netherlands. Results show that input quantity and age of acquisition are significant predictors of vocabulary scores, but in a different manner than in traditional bilinguals. Other significant predictors are mother fluency and socioeconomic status. The specific situation of bidialectal speakers in the Netherlands might be of influence on their language acquisition, making it different from traditional bilingual language acquisition.Show less
