Meir Natalia
Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Front Psychol. 2018 Aug 13;9:1318. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01318. eCollection 2018.
Previous studies evaluating morpho-syntactic abilities in the Weaker Language of unbalanced bilingual children are scarce; and they bring inconclusive evidence on the nature of the Weaker Language development. The current study looked into morpho-syntactic profiles of bilingual Russian-Hebrew speaking children in the Weaker Language [the Weaker Heritage Language (HL-Russian) and the Weaker Societal Language (SL-Hebrew)] as compared to balanced bilinguals, unbalanced bilinguals in the Dominant Language and bilinguals with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Four groups of bilingual children aged 5;5-6;5 participated: unbalanced bilinguals with the Weaker HL-Russian and the Dominant SL-Hebrew (HL-weak: = 39), unbalanced bilinguals with the Weaker SL-Hebrew and the Dominant HL-Russian (SL-weak: = 19); balanced bilinguals (BB: = 38), and bilinguals with SLI (biSLI: = 23). Children's morpho-syntactic abilities in both languages were investigated using LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) Sentence Repetition Tasks (based on Marinis and Armon-Lotem, 2015). Quantitative analysis of morpho-syntactic abilities showed that unbalanced bilinguals scored lower in the Weaker Language as compared to balanced bilinguals and unbalanced bilinguals in the Dominant Language, yet, higher than bilinguals with SLI. Error patterns were similar across bilingual groups with TLD and could be traced to cross-linguistic influence. By contrast, error profiles of unbalanced bilinguals in the Weaker Language and bilinguals with SLI bore fundamental differences. Whereas unbalanced bilinguals in the Weaker Language opted for complex structures, relying on the available resources from the Dominant Language; bilinguals with SLI simplified complex syntactic structures. To conclude, the study shows that the Weaker Language of unbalanced bilinguals with TLD develop qualitatively similarly to the languages of balanced bilinguals and the Dominant Language in unbalanced bilinguals, albeit delayed or influenced by the Dominant Language to a larger extent. Conversely, the study brings evidence that linguistic profiles of unbalanced bilinguals with TLD in the Weaker Language and bilinguals with SLI differ, pointing at a deviant pattern of acquisition in children with SLI.
以往评估非平衡双语儿童弱势语言形态句法能力的研究很少；而且这些研究关于弱势语言发展的本质给出的证据并不确凿。本研究调查了说俄语-希伯来语的双语儿童在弱势语言[弱势传承语言（俄语）和弱势社会语言（希伯来语）]中的形态句法特征，并与平衡双语儿童、优势语言非平衡双语儿童以及患有特定语言障碍（SLI）的双语儿童进行比较。四组年龄在5岁5个月至6岁5个月的双语儿童参与了研究：弱势传承语言为俄语且优势社会语言为希伯来语的非平衡双语儿童（弱势传承语言组：n = 39）、弱势社会语言为希伯来语且优势传承语言为俄语的非平衡双语儿童（弱势社会语言组：n = 19）；平衡双语儿童（BB组：n = 38），以及患有特定语言障碍的双语儿童（双语SLI组：n = 23）。使用LITMUS（多语言环境下的语言障碍测试）句子重复任务（基于Marinis和Armon-Lotem，2015年）调查了儿童在两种语言中的形态句法能力。形态句法能力的定量分析表明，与平衡双语儿童和优势语言非平衡双语儿童相比，非平衡双语儿童在弱势语言中的得分较低，但高于患有特定语言障碍的双语儿童。不同双语组在主题语言脱落（TLD）方面的错误模式相似，并且可以追溯到跨语言影响。相比之下，弱势语言非平衡双语儿童和患有特定语言障碍的双语儿童的错误特征存在根本差异。弱势语言非平衡双语儿童选择复杂结构，依赖于优势语言中的可用资源；而患有特定语言障碍的双语儿童则简化复杂的句法结构。总之，该研究表明，患有TLD的非平衡双语儿童的弱势语言在质的方面与平衡双语儿童的语言以及非平衡双语儿童的优势语言发展相似，尽管有所延迟或在更大程度上受到优势语言的影响。相反，该研究提供的证据表明，患有TLD的非平衡双语儿童在弱势语言中的语言特征与患有特定语言障碍的双语儿童不同，这表明患有特定语言障碍的儿童存在异常的习得模式。
