University of Malta, Malta.
University of Melbourne, Australia.
J Child Lang. 2020 Jul;47(4):737-765. doi: 10.1017/S0305000919000886. Epub 2020 Feb 24.
This study evaluates the ability of different measures of socioeconomic status (SES) to predict lexical outcomes for preschoolers raised in a context of nationwide bilingualism. The participants were 58 children aged 3;11-4;3 from Maltese-dominant homes who attended state preschools. Receptive picture name judgement and picture naming, in Maltese and English, were employed to measure receptive and expressive lexical abilities, respectively. Lexical outcomes for four individual SES variables and a single composite SES measure were similar but not directly interchangeable. The composite SES variable emerged as most strongly predictive of children's lexical performance. Receptive judgement of phonological accuracy improved similarly in both languages with higher composite SES. Naming skills increased significantly in English but not in Maltese, suggesting differences in English input related to parental SES. A focus on SES in relation to lexical skills in two majority languages is novel and adds to current understanding of normative bilingual acquisition.
本研究评估了不同社会经济地位（SES）衡量指标预测在全国双语环境中成长的学龄前儿童词汇发展的能力。参与者为 58 名 3 岁 11 个月至 4 岁 3 个月大的来自马耳他语占主导地位家庭的儿童，他们就读于国立幼儿园。采用接受性图片命名判断和图片命名测试分别测量接受性和表达性词汇能力，马耳他语和英语各有一项。四个个体 SES 变量和一个单一的综合 SES 测量的词汇结果相似但不能直接互换。综合 SES 变量对儿童词汇表现的预测作用最强。在两种语言中，较高的综合 SES 对语音准确性的接受性判断都有相似的提高。英语的命名技能显著提高，但马耳他语没有，这表明与父母 SES 相关的英语输入存在差异。关注两种主要语言中与词汇技能相关的 SES 是新颖的，增加了对规范双语习得的现有理解。
