Cover not available
Part of
Processability and Language Acquisition in the Asia-Pacific Region
Edited by Satomi Kawaguchi, Bruno Di Biase and Yumiko Yamaguchi
[Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Research & Teaching 9] 2023
► pp. 167–194

Chapter 7
The bilingual development of plural marking in a Malay-English child

| International Islamic University Malaysia
| Western Sydney University
| Western Sydney University

This study investigates the development of plural encoding in a Malay-English bilingual first language acquirer from a Processability Theory (PT) perspective. In Malay, plurality is encoded through reduplication, while English uses morphological inflection. The child’s oral production was collected weekly from age 3;4 to 3;10 using natural conversation and elicitation tasks in separate Malay and English sessions. Expressions for singular and plural contexts are analysed based on PT. Results suggest that pluralisation in each language followed PT, they add to the applicability of PT to bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA), and reveal some novel typological sequences. Cross-linguistic influences were found in plural encodings in each language. Also, a prosodic feature was, usefully, found to disambiguate between Malay ‘iteration’ (Lemma) and ‘reduplication’ (Category procedure).

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Plural expressions in English and Malay
  • 3.The acquisition of plurality in First Language Acquisition (FLA) and Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) studies
  • 4.Acquisition of plurality based on Processability Theory
  • 5.PT-based hypothesis for English and Malay plural development
    • 5.1Method
    • 5.2Data collection
    • 5.3Data analysis
  • 6.Results and discussion
    • i.Malay Lemma/word level
    • ii.Malay Category(Lexical) procedure
    • iii.Malay Phrasal procedure
    • i.English Lemma/Word level
    • ii.English Category(Lexical) procedure
    • iii.English Phrasal procedure
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/palart.9.07moh
References
Barner, D., Thalwitz, D., Wood, J., Yang, S. J., & Carey, S.
(2007) On the relation between the acquisition of singular-plural morpho-syntax and the conceptual distinction between one and more than one. Developmental Science, 10(3), 365–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berko-Gleason, J.
(1958) The child’s learning of English morphology. Word, 14, 150–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bloom, P., & Wynn, K.
(1997) Linguistic cues in the acquisition of number words. Journal of Child Language, 24, 511–533. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonilla, C.
(2012) Testing Processability Theory in L2 Spanish: Can readiness or markedness predict development? (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburg.
Brown, R.
(1973) A first language: The early stages. Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carstairs-McCarthy, A.
(2002) An introduction to English morphology: Words and their structure. Edinburg University Press.Google Scholar
Cazden, C. B.
(1968) The acquisition of noun and verb inflections. Child Development, 39(2), 433–448. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charters, H., Dao, L., & Jansen, L.
(2011) Reassessing the applicability of Processability Theory: The case of nominal plural. Second Language Research, 27(4), 509–533. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V.
(2006) Emergent categories in first language acquisition. In M. Bowerman & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V., & Nikitina, T. V.
(2009) One vs. more than one: antecedents to plural marking in early language acquisition. Linguistics, 47(1), 103–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dao, L.
(2007) Foreign language acquisition: Processes and constraints (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Australian National University.
De Houwer, A.
(1990) The acquisition of two languages from birth: A case study. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Villiers, J., & de Villiers, P.
(1973) A cross-sectional study of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in child speech. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2, 267–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Di Biase, B., & Bettoni, C.
(2015) The development of Italian as a second language. In C. Bettoni & B. Di Biase (Eds.), Grammatical development in second languages: Exploring the boundaries of Processability Theory (Eurosla Monograph Series 3) (pp. 117–148). Eurosla.Google Scholar
Di Biase, B., Kawaguchi, S., & Yamaguchi, Y.
(2015) The development of English as a second language Grammatical development in second languages: Exploring the boundaries of processability theory (Eurosla Monograph Series 3) (pp. 85–116). Eurosla.Google Scholar
Dryer, M. S., & Haspelmath, M.
(2013) The world atlas of language structures online. Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Retrieved on 30 November 2016 from [URL]
Dyson, B.
(2009) Processability Theory and the role of morphology in English as a second language development: A longitudinal study. Second Language Research, 25(3), 355–376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ettlinger, Z., & Zapf, J.
(2011) The role of phonology in children’s acquisition of the plural. Language Acquisition, 18, 294–313. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feigenson, L., Dehaene, S., & Spelke, E.
(2004) Core systems of number. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(7), 307–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, D., & Pethick, S.
(1994) Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(5), 1–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferenz, K. S., & Prasada, S.
(2002) Singular or plural? Children’s knowledge of the factors that determine the appropriate form of count nouns. Journal of Child Language, 29(1). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frank, M. C., Braginsky, M., Yurovsky, D., & Marchman, V. A.
(2017) Wordbank: An open repository for developmental vocabulary data. Journal of Child Language, 44(3), 677–694. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fuson, K. C.
(1988) Children’s counting and concepts of number. Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hardini, I.
(2021) Lexical and grammatical development in English in Indonesian kindergarten children: Processability Theory and developmentally moderated focus on form (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Western Sydney University.
Hashim, A., & Tan, R.
(2012) Malaysian English. In Ee Ling Low, Azirah Hashim (eds.). English in Southeast Asia: Features, Policy and Language in Use (pp. 55–73). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hassan, A.
(2006) Morfologi: Siri pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa Melayu. PTS.Google Scholar
Hollander, M. A., Gelman, S. A., & star, J.
(2002) Children’s interpretation of generic noun phrases. Dev Psychol, 38(6), 883–894. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hu, Q.
(1993) The acquisition of Chinese classifiers by young Mandarin-speaking children (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Boston University.
Itani-Adams, Y.
(2011) Bilingual first language acquisition. In M. Pienemann & J. U. Keβler (Eds.), Studying Processability Theory (pp. 121–130). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) One child and two languages: Acquisition of Japanese and English as bilingual first languages. Lincom.Google Scholar
Johnston, M.
(2000) Stages of development for English as a second language. Language acquisition research centre, University of Western Sydney.Google Scholar
Kawaguchi, S.
(2015) The development of Japanese as a second language. In C. Bettoni & B. D. Biase (Eds.), Grammatical development in second languages: Exploring the boundaries of processability theory (Eurosla Monograph Series 3) (pp. 149–172). Eurosla.Google Scholar
Keshavarz, M. H.
(2007) Morphological development in the speech of a Persian–English bilingual child. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 36, 255–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroeger, P. R.
(2005) Analyzing grammar: An introduction. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Larsen-Freeman, D., & Long, M. H.
(1991) An introduction to second language acquisition research. Longman.Google Scholar
Lieven, E. V. M., Pine, J. M., & Baldwin, G.
(1997) Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language, 24, 187–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mansouri, F.
(2005) Agreement morphology in Arabic as a second language: Typological features and their processing implications. In M. Pienemann (Ed.), Cross-linguistic aspects of Processability Theory (pp. 117–153). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Medojevic, L.
(2014) The effect of the first year of schooling on bilingual language development: A study of second and third generation Serbian-Australian 5-year-old bilingual children from a processability perspective (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Western Sydney University.
Meisel, J. M.
(1989) Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K. Hyltenstam & L. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism across the lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity and loss (pp. 13–40). Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007) On autonomous syntactic development in multiple first language acquisition. Presented at 31st Boston University Conference in Language Development, Boston University.
Meisel, J. M., Clahsen, H., & Pienemann, M.
(1981) Determining developmental stages in natural second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 3(2), 109–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mervis, C. B., & Johnson, K. E.
(1991) Acquisition of the plural morpheme: A case study. Developmental Psychology, 27(2), 222–235. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mohamed Salleh, R. T. A., Kawaguchi, S., Jones, C., & Di Biase, B.
(2016) The development of plural expressions in a Malay-English bilingual child. Asiatic, 10(2), 111–131. [URL]
Mohamed Salleh, R. T. A.
(2017) Bilingual first language acquisition in Malay and English: A morphological and suprasegmental study in the development of plural expressions in a bilingual child. Western Sydney University, Australia. [URL]
Mohamed Salleh, R. T. A., Kawaguchi, S., & Di Biase, B.
(2019) A case study on the acquisition of plurality in bilingual Maly-English context-bound child. GEMA-Online journal of Language Studies, 19(3), 22–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mohamed Salleh, R. T. A., Di Biase, B., & Kawaguchi, S.
(2021) Lexical and morphological development: A case study of Malay English bilingual first language acquisition. Psychology of Language and Communication, 25(1), 29–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mohamed Salleh, R. T. A., Di Biase, B., & Ramlan, W. N. M.
(2020) The acquisition of English grammar among Malay-English bilingual primary school children. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 20(4), 166–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padilla, A. M., & Liebman, E.
(1975) Language acquisition in the bilingual child. Bilingual Review, 2(1–2), 34–55. [URL]
Pallotti, G.
(2007) An operational definition of the emergence criterion. Applied Linguistics 28(361–382). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paradis, J., & Genesee, F.
(1996) Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: Autonomous or interdependent? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18, 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pienemann, M., & Hakansson, G.
(1999) A unified approach towards the development of Swedish as L2: Processability account. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 383–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pienemann, M., Di Biase, B., Kawaguchi, S., & Hakansson, G.
(2005) Processing constraint on L1 transfer. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. de Groot (Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psychological approaches (pp. 128–153). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pienemann, M., Keβler, J. U., & Itani-Adams, Y.
(2011) Comparing levels of processability across languages. International Journal of Bilingualism, 15(2), 128–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pienemann, M., & Mackey, A.
(1993) An empirical study of children’s ESL development. In P. McKay (Ed.), Language and literacy in schools (pp. 115–259). Commonwealth of Australian and National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia.Google Scholar
Qi, R., & Di Biase, B.
(2020) The influence of the environmental language (Lε) in Mandarin-English bilingual development: The case of transfer in wh- questions. International Journal of Bilingualism, 24(4), 691–714. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Razak, R. A., Jin, L., Lim, H. W., & Aziz, M. A.
(2016) Profiling Malay children’s syntactic development: A Malay-LARSP. In D. Crystal, J. M. Ball, & P. Fletcher (Eds.), Profiling grammar: More languages of LARSP (pp. 135–169). Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salehuddin, K., & Winskel, H.
(2009) An investigation into Malay numeral classifier acquisition through an elicited production task. First Language, 29(3), 289–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sew, J. W.
(2007) Reduplicating nouns and verbs in Malay: A conceptual analysis. University of Malaya press.Google Scholar
Slobin, D.
(1973) Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C. A. Ferguson & D. Slobin (Eds.), Studies of child language development (pp. 175–208). Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I.
(1997) The origins of grammaticizable notions: Beyond the individual mind. In D. I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition: Vol. 5. Expanding the contexts (pp. 265–323). Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sloetjes, H., & Wittenburg, P.
(2008) ELAN (Version 4.9.3). Retrieved on 7 July 2022 from [URL]
Soh, O.-K., Azman, H., & Ho, S. M.
(2020) A systematic review on bilingualism and language processing from 2015–2019. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 26(1), 18–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tadmor, U.
(2009) Malay-Indonesian. In B. Comrie (Ed.), The world’s major languages (2nd ed., pp. 791–819). Routledge.Google Scholar
Volterra, V., & Taeschner, T.
(1978) The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language, 5, 311–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yamaguchi, Y.
(2009) The development of plural marking and plural agreement in child English L2 acquisition. In J.-U. Kessler & D. Keating (Eds.), Research in second language acquisition: Empirical evidence across languages. Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
(2010) The acquisition of English as a second language by a Japanese primary school child: a longitudinal study from a Processability viewpoint (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Western Sydney University.
(2013) Child second language learning: A study of English as a second language acquisition. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.Google Scholar
Yamaguchi, Y., & Usami, H.
(2016) Testing Processability Theory with a large-scale learner corpus: Plural marking in oral and written production by learners of English as a foreign language. Paper presented at the 16th International Symposium of Processability Approaches to Language Acquisition Chuo University, Japan.
Zhang, Y.
(2005) Processing and formal instruction in the L2 acquisition of five Chinese grammatical morphemes. In M. Pienemann (Ed.), Cross-linguistic aspects of Processability Theory. (pp. 155–177). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Y., & Widyashtuti, I.
(2010) Acquisition of L2 English morphology: A family case study. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 33(3), 29.1–29.17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar