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“I Readed the Book Last Week.” The Role of Dominant Language, Receptive Vocabulary and Language Structure on Morphosyntactic Awareness in Monolingual and Heritage Language Children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2016

DENISE DAVIDSON ,
SANDRA B. VANEGAS ,
ELIZABETH HILVERT  and
IEVA MISIUNAITE
DENISE DAVIDSON*
Affiliation:
Loyola University Chicago
SANDRA B. VANEGAS
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
ELIZABETH HILVERT
Affiliation:
Loyola University Chicago
IEVA MISIUNAITE
Affiliation:
Loyola University Chicago
*
Address for correspondence: Denise Davidson, Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, 1032 W. Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60660. ddavids@luc.edu
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Abstract

In this research, 5- and 6-year-old monolingual (English) and heritage language (English–Spanish, English–Urdu) children completed a grammaticality judgment test to assess their awareness of grammatically correct and incorrect morphosyntactic structures in English. Results demonstrated that language group differences were minimized when heritage language children exhibited average receptive vocabulary proficiency for the sample, and when more difficult morphosyntactic structures were assessed. In this middle range, only two group differences were found. Our findings highlight the need to consider factors such as receptive vocabulary when assessing morphosyntactic awareness and language group differences.

Keywords

Morphosyntactic AwarenessLanguage DominanceReceptive VocabularyHeritage Language Children
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 20 , Issue 5 , November 2017 , pp. 1045 - 1062
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

We would like to thank the children, parents, and staff at Hermosa Community Organization, St. Sylvester School, St. Peter Catholic School, St. Francis of Rome School, the Islamic Center for Chicago, and the Islamic Foundation School who made this study possible. We are grateful to Ramsha Khan for her assistance in translations, recruitment and data collection. Portions of this research were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, 2011.

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