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Psycholinguistic Approaches to Production and Comprehension in Bilingual Adults and Children
Edited by Leigh B. Fernandez, Kalliopi Katsika, Maialen Iraola Azpiroz and Shanley E.M. Allen
[Benjamins Current Topics 117] 2021
► pp. 237–267

Production, comprehension and repetition of accusative case by monolingual Russian and bilingual Russian-Dutch and Russian-Hebrew-speaking children

| University of Amsterdam
ORCID logo | Bar-Ilan University

The present study explores the acquisition of the Russian accusative [acc] case inflections in two groups of bilingual children (Russian-Dutch and Russian-Hebrew) who acquire Russian as their Heritage Language (HL) and two groups of monolingual Russian-speaking children within the Unified Competition Model (MacWhinney, 2008, 2012). Seventy-two typically developing children participated in the study. Children’s performance on three tasks was compared: elicited production, forced-choice comprehension and sentence repetition.

The current study confirmed the predictions of the Unified Competition Model: monolingual children view the [acc] case inflection as a reliable cue. Conversely, bilingual children showed lower accuracy on nouns which require the use of a dedicated [acc] marker. Similarly, the percentage of children manifesting sensitivity to [acc] case cue was low in bilinguals. The findings of the study extend the Unified Competition Model to patterns of HL acquisition in bilinguals. Cue detection in HL for bilinguals is challenged when exposure is limited.

Keywords: accusative case, Russian, Heritage Language, the Unified Competition Model
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Case marking and word order in Russian
    • 1.2Case marking and word order in Dutch and Hebrew
    • 1.3Acquisition of Russian case in monolingual and bilingual children
    • 1.4The current study
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Experimental design
      • 2.2.1Elicited production task
      • 2.2.2Comprehension task
      • 2.2.3Sentence repetition
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Production of [acc] case inflections
    • 3.2Comprehensions of [acc] case inflections
    • 3.3Sentence repetition
    • 3.4The impact of HL exposure on [acc] production, [acc] comprehension and sentence repetition in bilingual children
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1[acc] case in monolingual Russian-speaking children
    • 4.2[acc] case in bilingual children who acquire Russian as a Heritage Language
    • 4.3[acc] acquisition in bilingual children and uninterrupted length of HL acquisition and home language exposure
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.117.10jan
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