Objective. This study compares L1 and L2
receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar and narrative comprehension skills
in Croatian-Italian bilingual children. Moreover, the study aims to find out
to what extent receptive vocabulary and receptive grammar (sentence
comprehension) predict narrative comprehension skills.
Method. Thirty Croatian-Italian bilinguals
5–7 years old were assessed in L1 (Croatian) and L2 (Italian) narrative
comprehension (MAIN), receptive vocabulary (PPVT) and sentence comprehension
(TROG).
Results. Children performed better in their
L1 than in their L2 on all three measures of comprehension. Narrative
comprehension correlated with the two linguistic skills in L1 but weakly in
L2. Each measure correlated only with itself between L1 and L2. Regression
analyses showed that sentence comprehension contributed substantially to
narrative comprehension in L1 and L2, while receptive vocabulary contributed
substantially only in L1.
Conclusions. Narrative comprehension is
differently predicted by language skills in L1 and in L2. The contribution
of language skills is monolingual-like in L1 narrative comprehension (cf.
Florit, Roch, & Levorato,
2011); in L2 narrative comprehension vocabulary provides a weak
contribution. The results are discussed both theoretically, in terms of the
possible mechanism underlying narrative comprehension in bilingual speakers
and practically, in terms of bilingual language development.
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