Sun He, Yin Bin
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
School of Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2020 Aug 12;11:2023. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02023. eCollection 2020.
The current study seeks to explore the impact of multimedia input at home on bilingual children's language outcomes. Two hundred and two Singaporean English-Mandarin kindergarteners' multimedia experience (i.e., the resources and the amount of multimedia input) and conventional language exposure (e.g., language use with family members) were investigated with a parental questionnaire. A series of English and Mandarin tests were conducted to assess children's proficiency (i.e., in receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, verbal fluency) by standardized measures. Results demonstrated that the diversity of multimedia input is more important than the amount of multimedia input in promoting children's Mandarin language maintenance, while controlling for children's conventional language exposure, SES, and language aptitude. The number of multimedia sources is significantly and positively related to children's general Mandarin proficiency. In contrast, English multimedia exposure at home exerts little impact on children's general English proficiency. The findings indicate the unique contribution of multimedia diversity to children's early heritage language maintenance. The strong social relevance of the study is discussed at the end of the paper.
本研究旨在探讨家庭中的多媒体输入对双语儿童语言发展结果的影响。通过家长问卷对202名新加坡英-华双语幼儿园儿童的多媒体体验（即资源和多媒体输入量）以及传统语言接触情况（如与家庭成员的语言使用）进行了调查。通过标准化测试进行了一系列英语和汉语测试，以评估儿童的语言能力（即接受性词汇、接受性语法、口语流利度）。结果表明，在控制儿童的传统语言接触、社会经济地位和语言能力的情况下，多媒体输入的多样性在促进儿童汉语语言保持方面比多媒体输入量更为重要。多媒体来源的数量与儿童的总体汉语能力显著正相关。相比之下，家庭中的英语多媒体接触对儿童的总体英语能力影响甚微。研究结果表明了多媒体多样性对儿童早期母语保持的独特贡献。论文结尾讨论了该研究的强大社会意义。
