Cover not available
Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 10:4 (2020) ► pp.471–498

Input-output effects in the bilingual first language acquisition of English and Polish

A usage-based perspective

ORCID logo | City and Islington College
This diary study looks at the acquisition of early words in two bilingual sisters (0;9–2;03.22 and 0;9–1;09.13) exposed to English and Polish from birth. It examines whether their parents’ input recorded on video can explain the proportions of different types of words learnt. Their bias for social words is explained by these words being heard in isolation; that for nouns by competitive proportions of noun types heard in the input. Contrarily, the late acquisition of closed-class items is explained by their high usage rates as part of constructions. Meanwhile, high numbers of early verbs in both children’s Polish are explained by inflected Polish verbs being heard (a) in isolation and (b) at the beginning and end of utterances more frequently than their uninflected English counterparts. These results are discussed within the context of the usage-based theory, with focus on the impact of word types for the acquisition of word groups.
Keywords: input-output, lexical acquisition, bilingual
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1The noun bias
    • 2.2Towards a usage-based account of lexical development
    • 2.3The rationale for a bilingual study
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data sampling
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1The English lexicon
    • 4.2The Polish lexicon
    • 4.3Input frequencies
    • 4.4Accessibility of words in utterances
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 1 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17072.gas
References (47)
References
Abbot-Smith, K. & Tomasello, M. (2006). Exemplar learning and schematisation in a usage-based account of syntactic acquisition. The Linguistic Review, 231, 278–288. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B. (2009). Review of Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Golinkoff, R. M. (2005) Action Meets Word: How Children Learn Verbs. Infant and Child Development, 181, 99–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B. & Lieven, E. V. M. (2011). Child Language Acquisition. Contrasting Theoretical Approaches. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, E., Marchman, V., Thal, D., Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, S., Reilly, J. & Hartung, J. (1994). Developmental and stylistic variation in the composition of early vocabulary. Journal of Child Language, 211, 85–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, E., Bretherton, I., & Snyder, L. (1988). From First Words to Grammar: Individual Differences and Dissociable Mechanisms. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Brent, M. R. & Siskind, J. M. (2001). The role of exposure to isolated words in early vocabulary development. Cognition, 811, B33–B44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (2001). Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caselli, M. C., Casadio, P. & Bates, E. (1999). A comparison of the transition from first words to grammar in English and Italian. Journal of Child Language, 261, 69–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
David, A. (2004). The Developing Bilingual Lexicon – Ph.D thesis, Birkbeck College, University of London. Available from: [URL] (Accessed on 20/01/2014)
David, A. & Li, W. (2008). Individual differences in the lexical development of French English bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, 111, 1–21 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2007). Parental language input patterns and children’s bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 411–424. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eriksson, M. (2001). Children’s words in inventories and tests: what questions do they answer? Paper presented at the Early Lexicon Acquisition seminar, Lyon, France.
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, S. Bates, E. Thal, D. & Pethick, S. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 591, (5, serial no. 242) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ganger, J. & Brent, M. R. (2004). Re-examining the Vocabulary Spurt. Developmental Psychology, 40(4), 621–632. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gaskins, D. (2018). Learning Polish in the UK: a case study of a bilingual two-year old and the effects of input on her emerging nominal inflections. In P. Romanowski and M. Jedynak (Eds.), Current Research in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Warsaw: Springer.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. (1982). Why Nouns are Learned Before Verbs: Linguistic Relativity versus Natural Partitioning. Language, 2(1), 301–334Google Scholar
Goodman, J., Dale, P. S. & Li, P. (2008). Does frequency count? Parental input and the acquisition of vocabulary. Journal of Child Language, 351, 515–531. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwyn, S. & Acredolo, L. (1993). Symbolic gesture versus word: is there a modality advantage for onset of symbolic use. Child Development, 641, 688–701. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, M., Barlow-Brown, F. & Chasin, J. (1995). The emergence of referential understanding: pointing and the comprehension of object names. First Language, 151, 19–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hart, B. & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Hoff, E., Core, C., Place, S., Rumiche, R., Seňor, M., and Parra, M. (2012). Dual language exposure and early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 391, 1–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holowka, S., Brosseau-Laprè, F. & Pettito, L. A. (2002). Semantic and conceptual knowledge underlying bilingual babies’ first signs and words. Language Learning, 521, 205–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackson-Maldonado, D., Thai, D., Marchman, V., Bates, E. & Gutierrez-Clellen, V. (1993). Early lexical development in Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers. Journal of Child Language, 201, 523–549. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, D., Macken, W. J., & Nicholls, A. P. (2004). The phonological store of working memory: is it phonological and is it a store? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(3), 656–64.Google Scholar
Jusczyk, P. W. & Aslin, R. N. (1995). Infants’ detection of the sound patterns of words in fluent speech. Cognitive Psychology, 291, 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keren-Portnoy, T. (2006). Facilitation and practice in verb acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 331, 487–518. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, M., McGregor, K. K. & Thompson, C. K. (2000). Early lexical development in Englishand Korean-speaking children: language-general and language-specific patterns. Journal of Child Language, 271, 225–254. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lieven, E. Pine, J. & Barnes, H. (1992). Individual differences in early vocabulary development: redefining the referential-expressive distinction. Journal of Child Language, 191, 287–310. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lucas, R. I. G. & Bernardo, A. B. I. (2008). Exploring noun bias in Filipino English bilingual children. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 169 (2), 149–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2014). ‘’Item-based Patterns in Early Syntactic Development’’. In T. Herbst, H. J. Schmid, & S. Faulhaber. (Eds.), Constructions, Collocations, Patterns. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malone, M. J. & Guy, R. F. (1982). A comparison of mothers’ and fathers’ speech to their 3- year-old sons. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 11, 599–608. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A. (1992). The relation of children’s single word utterances to single word utterances in the input. Journal of Child Language, 191, 87–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1999). Pathbreaking verbs in syntactic development and the question of prototypical transitivity. Journal of Child Language, 261, 619–653. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pearson, B. Z., Fernandez, S., Lewedeg, V. and Oller, D. K. (1997). The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 181, 41–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rondal, J. A. (1980). Fathers’ and mothers’ speech in early development. Journal of Child Language, 71, 353–369. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical Learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 2741, 1926–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmid, H. J. (2017). ‘A framework for understanding linguistic entrenchment and its psychological foundations.’ In H. J. Schmid Entrenchment and the Psychology of Learning: How We Reorganise and Adapt Linguistic Knowledge’. Washington, DC: APA & Walter De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, B. (2005). Language users as creatures of habit: a corpus-linguistic analysis of persistence in spoken English. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 1(1), 113–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stoll, S., Abbot-Smith, K. & Lieven, E. V. M. (2009). Lexically Restricted Utterances in Russian, German, and English Child-Directed Speech. Cognitive Science 331, 75–103. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Szuman, S. (1968). O rozwoju języka i myślenia dziecka [On the Formation of the Child’s Speech]. Wrocław: PWN.Google Scholar
Tardif, T. (1996). Nouns are not always learned before verbs: evidence from Mandarin speakers’ early vocabularies. Developmental Psychology, 32(3): 492–504. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tardif, T., Shatz, M. & Naigles, L. (1997). Caregiver speech and children’s use of nouns versus verbs: a comparison of English, Italian and Mandarin. Journal of Child Language, 24, 53, 5–565.Google Scholar
Thordardottir, E. (2014). The typical development of simultaneous bilinguals: Vocabulary, morphosyntax and language processing in two age groups of Montreal pre-schoolers. In T. Grüter, & J. Paradis (Eds.), Input and Experience in Bilingual Development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1992). First Verbs: a Case Study of Early Grammatical Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Zarębina, M. (1965). Kształtowanie się systemu językowego dziecka [The Formation of the Child’s Language System]. Wrocław: PWN.Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Gaskins, Dorota, Marianna Falcone & Gabriella Rundblad
2024. A usage-based approach to metaphor identification and analysis in child speech. Language and Cognition 16:1 ► pp. 32 ff. DOI logo
De Houwer, Annick
2023. Polish-German preschoolers develop and use heritage Polish differently depending on whether they heard German from birth or not. Frontiers in Psychology 14 DOI logo
Gaskins, Dorota & Maria Frick
2023. Embodiment in directive sequences: The case of triadic interactions in a Polish-English bilingual family. International Journal of Bilingualism 27:1 ► pp. 122 ff. DOI logo
Budde-Spengler, Nora, Steffi Sachse & Tanja Rinker
2021. The relationship between input factors and early lexical knowledge in Turkish-German children. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 24:8 ► pp. 1091 ff. DOI logo
Quick, Antje Endesfelder, Dorota Gaskins & Maria Frick
2021. Priming of Frames and Slots in Bilingual Children’s Code-Mixing: A Usage-Based Approach. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 september 2024. 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.