Affiliation:
1. Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
2. School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
Abstract
Purpose:
This study examined language group differences in English syntactic knowledge based on performance on a sentence repetition task.
Method:
Fourth and sixth grade students who were monolinguals (
n
= 30), early bilinguals (i.e., simultaneous;
n
= 27), or late bilinguals (i.e., sequential;
n
= 29) completed an English sentence repetition task. Their responses were analyzed as a function of sentence length (short vs. long), sentence type (active vs. passive), phrase type (noun, verb, and prepositional), and word type (content vs. function).
Results:
Overall, early bilinguals' performance did not differ significantly from that of the monolinguals. However, these bilinguals recalled significantly more content words than function words on the long sentences. At each level of analysis, the late bilinguals' performance was less accurate than the other groups. The magnitude of these group differences was larger for passive sentences and prepositional phrases.
Conclusion:
Findings highlight areas of syntactic development that differ among groups and should be targeted for additional instruction with English language learners in elementary school.
Publisher
American Speech Language Hearing Association
Subject
Speech and Hearing,Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
Cited by
2 articles.
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