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Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism: Online-First Articles

Shared syntax and cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children

Evidence from between- and within-language priming

ORCID logo | Radboud University
This paper investigates the role of structural priming in cross-linguistic influence, a well-established yet poorly understood characteristic of bilingual language development. More specifically, we test the proposal that cross-linguistic influence may be conceptualized as between-language priming, that is, as the result of prior linguistic exposure (Serratrice, 2016) and shared syntactic representations between languages (Hartsuiker et al., 2004). In Experiment 1, we primed bilingual English-Dutch children between languages using possessive structures (e.g., the astronaut’s dog, the dog of the astronaut). In Experiment 2, we compared the same group of children with bilingual Spanish-Dutch and monolingual Dutch children using within-language priming. Within-language priming was stronger than between-language priming. In both experiments, we examined the relation between priming behaviour and individual differences in language exposure, use and proficiency. Experiment 1 found between-language priming with long-lasting effects modulated by proficiency. The results of Experiment 2 were consistent with inverse priming effects in within-language priming modulated – to a degree – by properties of the bilingual children’s other language. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the proposal that between-language priming is a plausible mechanism underpinning cross-linguistic influence and that bilingual children develop shared syntactic representations for structures which are similar across their two languages.
Keywords: bilingual children, cross-linguistic influence, structural priming, proficiency, shared syntax
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Factors affecting structural priming in bilingual adults
    • 1.2Structural priming and cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children
    • 1.3Possessive structures in Dutch, English and Spanish and their acquisition
  • 2.Experiment 1: Between-language priming in bilingual English-Dutch children
    • 2.1Method
      • 2.1.1Participants
      • 2.1.2Materials and design
        • Item selection
        • Elicitation task
        • Syntactic priming task
        • Picture-naming task
      • 2.1.3Procedure
      • 2.1.4Coding and analysis
    • 2.2Results
    • 2.3Discussion
  • 3.Experiment 2: Within-language priming in bilingual English-Dutch and Spanish-Dutch children and monolingual Dutch children
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Materials and design
      • 3.1.3Procedure
      • 3.1.4Coding and analysis
    • 3.2Results
    • 3.3Discussion
  • 4.Experiment 1 & 2 compared: Between- vs. within-language priming in English-Dutch bilingual children
  • 5.General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Data availability
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 10 October 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.22093.uns
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