Impact of Caregivers＇ Language Input on the Language Output of Bilinguals  

作　　者：XIN Jun-feng ZHU Feng-mei 

机构地区：[1]Ningbo Dahongying University, Ningbo, China

出　　处：《US-China Foreign Language》2013年第8期619-625,共7页美中外语（英文版）

摘　　要：Children＇s early specific vocabulary acquisition has received a considerable amount of scholarly attention in child language development. Despite prior discussions on this topic among monolinguals, few studies have literally attempted to explore the case in bilingual children. Therefore, how bilinguals acquire specific lexicons remains a largely unexplored area. Fifteen Mandarin-English bilingual pre-school children were recruited in this study. The naturalistic interactions between the bilingual children and their bilingual caregivers were tape-recorded for 30 minutes each time. From the perspectives of noun and verb, the present study also addressed the relationship between children＇s language production and the salient positions of the caregivers＇ language input. The findings show that caregivers＇ language input produces certain impact on the language output of bilinguals. Specifically, in Mandarin, caregivers＇ frequency of nouns in the final position of utterances seemed to influence the noun bias displayed in bilinguals＇ early lexicons. In English, the frequency of nouns in the final position of caregivers＇ language input was a robust variable, which was most likely to predict the noun bias manifested in bilingual children＇s early vocabularies. This highlights the fact that caregivers＇ language input is a crucial factor influencing the language output of bilinguals

关 键 词：IMPACT noun bias verb bias bilingual children salient positions correlation 

分 类 号：TP334.23[自动化与计算机技术—计算机系统结构] G610[自动化与计算机技术—计算机科学与技术]