Article published in:
Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual SocietiesEdited by Kurt Braunmüller and Christoph Gabriel
[Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism 13] 2012
► pp. 101–120
Discourse cohesion in the elicited narratives of early Russian-German sequential bilinguals
Natalia Gagarina | ZAS Berlin, Germany
This study examines aspects of discourse cohesion in the elicited narratives of early Russian-German sequential bilinguals at age four to six and compares them to the narratives of monolingual Russian-speaking children at the same age as well as to a group of monolingual adults. This examination quantitatively and qualitatively inspects two groups of devices that establish referential and relational cohesion: (anaphoric) pronouns and connectives. The results show that bilinguals of all age groups produce longer utterances and use more word tokens per story in comparison to monolinguals. The younger group of bilinguals demonstrates higher rates of the use of referential and relational cohesive devices. Moreover, in bilingual children the extension of the use of cohesive devices from the local level to the level of more general discourse organization is more pronounced than in monolinguals. This finding is explained as a bilingual advantage over monolinguals reflecting the sensitivity of bilinguals to establishing cohesive ties in discourse. Thus, the results of this study expand evidence showing that advantages of bilinguals over monolinguals in some areas of language and cognitive competence.
Published online: 22 August 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsm.13.08gag
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsm.13.08gag
Cited by
Cited by 11 other publications
Andreou, Maria, Eleni Peristeri & Ianthi Maria Tsimpli
Brehmer, Bernhard & Tatjana Kurbangulova
Brehmer, Bernhard & Irina Usanova
Fichman, Sveta & Carmit Altman
Korecky-Kröll, Katharina, Neriman Dobek, Verena Blaschitz, Sabine Sommer-Lolei, Monika Boniecki, Kumru Uzunkaya-Sharma & Wolfgang U Dressler
Mak, Pim, Julia Lomako, Natalia Gagarina, Ekaterina Abrosova & Elena Tribushinina
Makarova, Veronika, Natalia Terekhova & Amin Mousavi
Otwinowska, Agnieszka, Marcin Opacki, Karolina Mieszkowska, Marta Białecka-Pikul, Zofia Wodniecka & Ewa Haman
Rodina, Yulia
Sauermann, Antje & Natalia Gagarina
Tribushinina, Elena, Elena Dubinkina & Ted Sanders
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.