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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COGNITIVE-LINGUISTIC TASK DIFFICULTY AND L1-L2 INTERACTION FOR ACADEMIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN TURKISH–DUTCH EMERGENT BILINGUALS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 November 2021
Abstract
This study investigated the relationship between the level of cognitive-linguistic difficulty of task input and the size of the cross-linguistic relationship for academic listening comprehension in emergent bilinguals. It was theoretically motivated by task-dependent cross-linguistic interaction frameworks. We hypothesized that task item sets that involve a higher level of cognitive-linguistic difficulty, drawing on a number of sources of item difficulty, would show a smaller strength of interaction than sets involving a lower level. Using a task-based assessment instrument, listening comprehension was measured in 75 Turkish–Dutch bilingual children at first-grade entry (Mage = 6;7). Partial L1-L2 correlations indicated that cognitively more demanding item sets tended to coincide with smaller L1-L2 correlations. This finding was, in part, consistent for cognitive difficulty, yet inconclusive for linguistic difficulty. An explanation is discussed that, in line with information-processing theory, highlights a trade-off between cognitive-linguistic task demands and cross-linguistic influence.
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- Research Article
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- © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
This investigation was supported financially by the Education Department of the City of Ghent, Belgium. We wish to thank handling editor Andrea Révész, reviewer Jan Hulstijn, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and valuable suggestions. We are grateful to all children, parents, teachers, headmasters, and school advisers who have made this investigation possible. Special thanks go to Elke Flament, Ayşe İşçi, Tuğba Kalaz, Günnur Karataş, Liesbet Philippaert, Magda Seynaeve, Lieve Stalpaert, and Çiğdem Vandegehuchte for their participation in the test administration. We also owe thanks to Orhan Ağırdağ, Katrien Bultynck, Griet Ramaut, and Machteld Verhelst for their vital contributions. Finally, we thank Mustafa Sağlam for the translation of SALTO into Turkish and Fauve De Backer for her comments on an earlier version of this article.
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