When a child is simultaneously exposed to two different languages, they will need to parse the incoming
input, and map form to meaning to create mental representations that are consistent with those of the adult speakers of those
languages. How exactly bilingual children do this, the extent to which they develop linguistic systems that are independent of
each other, and the place of crosslinguistic influence, are still the object of much current research. Syntactic priming is a
promising methodology to test different hypotheses about the (relative) interdependence of bilingual children’s linguistic
systems. Starting with a historical perspective on the one vs. two systems hypothesis in bilingual development, I consider the
limits of crosslinguistic influence, then I make a proposal on how co-activation and syntactic priming could explain
crosslinguistic influence.
Alemán Bañón, J. A., & Martin, C. (2021). The
role of crosslinguistic differences in second language anticipatory processing: An event-related potentials
study. Neuropsychologia, 155, 107797.
Ambridge, B., & Brandt, S. (2013). Lisa
filled water into the cup: The roles of entrenchment, pre-emption and verb semantics in German speakers’ L2
acquisition of English locatives. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und
Amerikanistik, 61(3), 245–263.
Argyri, E., & Sorace, A. (2007). Crosslinguistic
influence and language dominance in older bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language
and
Cognition, 10(1), 79–99.
Austin, J. (2020). Cross-language
contact in the developing grammars of bilingual
children. In E. Adamou & Y. Matras (Eds.), The
Routledge handbook of language
contact (pp. 201–220). Routledge.
Bernolet, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2007). Shared
syntactic representations in bilinguals: Evidence for the role of word-order
repetition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 33(5), 931.
Bernolet, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2009). Persistence
of emphasis in language production: A crosslinguistic
approach. Cognition, 112(2), 300–317.
Bernolet, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2012). Effects
of phonological feedback on the selection of syntax: Evidence from between-language syntactic
priming. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 15(3), 503–516.
Bernolet, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2013). From
language-specific to shared syntactic representations: The influence of second language proficiency on syntactic
sharing in
bilinguals. Cognition, 127(3), 287–306.
Bobb, S. & Kroll, J. (2018). Words
on the brain: The bilingual mental lexicon. In D. Miller, F. Bayram, J. Rothman, & L. Serratrice (Eds.), Bilingual
cognition and language: The state of the science across its
subfields (pp. 307–324). John Benjamins.
Bock, J. K. (1986). Syntactic
persistence in language production. Cognitive
Psychology, 18(3), 355–387.
Bosch, L., & Ramon-Casas, M. (2014). First
translation equivalents in bilingual toddlers’ expressive vocabulary: Does form similarity
matter?International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 38(4), 317–322.
Boyd, J. K., & Goldberg, A. E. (2011). Learning
what not to say: The role of statistical preemption and categorization in a-adjective
production. Language, 55–83.
Cai, Z. G., Pickering, M. J., Yan, H., & Branigan, H. P. (2011). Lexical
and syntactic representations in closely related languages: Evidence from Cantonese–Mandarin
bilinguals. Journal of Memory and
Language, 65(4), 431–445.
Chen, B., Jia, Y., Wang, Z., Dunlap, S., & Shin, J. A. (2013). Is
word-order similarity necessary for crosslinguistic structural priming?Second Language
Research, 29(4), 375–389.
Chen, L., Shu, H., Liu, Y., Zhao, J., Li, P. (2007). ERP
signatures of subject-verb agreement in L2 learning. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 10, 161–174.
Chondrogianni, Vicky. (2018). Child
L2 acquisition. In D. Miller, F. Bayram, J. Rothman, & L. Serratrice (Eds.), Bilingual
cognition and language: The state of the science across its
subfields (pp 103–126). John Benjamins.
De Houwer, A. (1990). The
acquisition of two languages from birth: A case study. Cambridge University Press.
De Houwer, A., Bornstein, M. H., & Putnick, D. L. (2014). A
bilingual–monolingual comparison of young children’s vocabulary size: Evidence from comprehension and
production. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 35(06), 1189–1211.
Declerck, M., Wen, Y., Snell, J., Meade, G., & Grainger, J. (2020). Unified
syntax in the bilingual mind. Psychonomic Bulletin &
Review, 27(1), 149–154.
Desmet, T., & Declercq, M. (2006). Crosslinguistic
priming of syntactic hierarchical configuration information. Journal of Memory and
Language, 54(4), 610–632.
Dijkstra, T., & van Heuven, W. J. (2002). The
architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to
decision. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 5(3), 175–197.
Döpke, S. (1998). Competing
language structures: The acquisition of verb placement by bilingual German-English
children. Journal of Child
Language, 25(3), 555–584.
Duncan, T. S., & Paradis, J. (2020). Home
language environment and children’s second language acquisition: The special status of input from older
siblings. Journal of Child
Language, 47(5), 982–1005.
Erdocia, K., & Laka, I. (2018). Negative
transfer effects on L2 word order processing. Frontiers in
Psychology, 9, 337.
Erdocia, K., Zawiszewski, A., & Laka, I. (2014). Word
order processing in a second language: From VO to OV. Journal of Psycholinguistic
Research, 43, 815–837.
Fleischer, Z., Pickering, M. J., & McLean, J. F. (2012). Shared
information structure: Evidence from cross-linguistic priming. Bilingualism: Language
and
Cognition, 15(3), 568–579.
Flett, S., Branigan, H. P., & Pickering, M. J. (2013). Are non-native
structural preferences affected by native language preferences?. Bilingualism: Language
and
Cognition, 16(4), 751–760.
Foroodi-Nejad, F., & Paradis, J. (2009). Crosslinguistic
transfer in the acquisition of compound words in Persian–English
bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 12(4), 411–427.
Fricke, M., & Kootstra, G. J. (2016). Primed
codeswitching in spontaneous bilingual dialogue. Journal of Memory and
Language, 91, 181–201.
Gámez, P. B., & Shimpi, P. M. (2016). Structural
priming in Spanish as evidence of implicit learning. Journal of Child
Language, 43(1), 207–233.
Gámez, P. B., & Vasilyeva, M. (2015). Increasing
second language learners’ production and comprehension of developmentally advanced syntactic
forms. Language Learning and
Development, 11(2), 128–151.
Gámez, P. B., & Vasilyeva, M. (2020). Shared
syntactic representations in balanced bilinguals: Crosslinguistic priming with and without verb
overlap. Language Learning and
Development, 16(1), 89–106.
Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I., & Tracy, R. (1996). Bilingual
bootstrapping. Linguistics, 34(5), 901–926.
Genesee, F. (1989). Early
bilingual development: One language or two?Journal of Child
Language, 16(1), 161–179.
Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E., & Paradis, J. (1995). Language
differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child
Language, 22(3), 611–631.
Hartsuiker, R. J., Beerts, S., Loncke, M., Desmet, T., & Bernolet, S. (2016). Cross-linguistic
structural priming in multilinguals: Further evidence for shared syntax. Journal of
Memory and
Language, 90, 14–30.
Hartsuiker, R. J., & Bernolet, S. (2017). The
development of shared syntax in second language learning. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 20(2), 219–234.
Hartsuiker, R. J., Pickering, M. J., & Veltkamp, E. (2004). Is
syntax separate or shared between languages? Crosslinguistic syntactic priming in Spanish-English
bilinguals. Psychological
Science, 15(6), 409–414.
Haznedar, B. (2010). Transfer
at the syntax-pragmatics interface: Pronominal subjects in bilingual Turkish. Second
Language
Research, 26(3), 355–378.
Hervé, C., Serratrice, L., & Corley, M. (2016). Dislocations
in French–English bilingual children: An elicitation study. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 19(5), 987–1000.
Hoff, E., Core, C., Place, S., Rumiche, R., Señor, M., & Parra, M. (2012). Dual
language exposure and early bilingual development. Journal of Child
Language, 39(1), 1–27.
Hopp, H. (2010). Ultimate
attainment in L2 inflection: Performance similarities between non-native and native
speakers. Lingua, 120(4), 901–931.
Hopp, H., & Lemmerth, N. (2018). Lexical
and syntactic congruency in L2 predictive gender processing. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 40(1), 171–199.
Hsin, L., Legendre, G., & Omaki, A. (2013). Priming
crosslinguistic interference in Spanish–English bilingual
children. In S. Baiz, N. Goldman, & R. Hawkes (Eda.), BUCLD37:
Proceedings of the 37th Annual Boston University Conference on Language
Development (pp. 165–177). Cascadilla Press.
Hulk, A. & Müller, N. (2000). Bilingual
first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and
pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 3, 227–244.
Hwang, H., Shin, J. A., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2018). Late
bilinguals share syntax unsparingly between L1 and L2: Evidence from crosslinguistically similar and different
constructions. Language
Learning, 68(1), 177–205.
Jacob, G., Katsika, K., Family, N., & Allen, S. E. (2017). The
role of constituent order and level of embedding in crosslinguistic structural
priming. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 20(2), 269–282.
Kantola, L., & van Gompel, R. P. G. (2011). Between-and
within-language priming is the same: Evidence for shared bilingual syntactic
representations. Memory &
Cognition, 39(2), 276–290.
Kašćelan, D., Prevost, P., Serratrice, L., Tuller, L., Unsworth, S., & De Cat, C. (2021). A
Review of questionnaires quantifying bilingual experience in children: Do we document the same
constructs?Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 25(1), 29–41.
Kidd, E. (2012). Individual
differences in syntactic priming in language acquisition. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 33(2), 393–418.
Kidd, E., Tennant, E., & Nitschke, S. (2015). Shared
abstract representation of linguistic structure in bilingual sentence
comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin &
Review, 22(4), 1062–1067.
Kroll, J. F., Van Hell, J. G., Tokowicz, N., & Green, D. W. (2010). The
Revised Hierarchical Model: A critical review and assessment. Bilingualism: Language
and
Cognition, 13(3), 373–381.
Kupisch, T., & Pierantozzi, C. (2010). Interpreting
definite plural subjects: A comparison of German and Italian monolingual and bilingual
children. In BUCLD34: Proceedings of the 34th annual Boston
University Conference on Language
Development (pp. 245–254). Cascadille Press.
Lemmerth, N., & Hopp, H. (2019). Gender
processing in simultaneous and successive bilingual children: Crosslinguistic lexical and syntactic
influences. Language
Acquisition, 26(1), 21–45.
Lewis, S., & Phillips, C. (2015). Aligning
grammatical theories and language processing models. Journal of Psycholinguistic
Research, 44(1), 27–46.
Loebell, H., & Bock, K. (2003). Structural
priming across
languages. Linguistics, 41(5), 791–824.
Mahowald, K., James, A., Futrell, R., & Gibson, E. (2016). A
meta-analysis of syntactic priming in language production. Journal of Memory and
Language, 91, 5–27.
Meijer, P. J., & Tree, J. E. (2003). Building
syntactic structures in speaking: A bilingual exploration. Experimental
Psychology, 50(3), 184–195.
Meir, N., Parshina, O., & Sekerina, I. A. (2020). The
interaction of morphological cues in bilingual sentence processing: An eye-tracking
study. In BUCLD44: Proceedings of the 44th annual Boston
University Conference on Language
Development (pp. 376–389). Cascadilla Press.
Meisel, J. M. (1989). Early
differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K. Hyltenstam & L. Kenneth, & L. K. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism
across the lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity and
loss (pp. 13–40). Cambridge University Press.
Messenger, K. (2021). The
persistence of priming: Exploring long-lasting syntactic priming effects in children and
adults. Cognitive
Science, 45(6), e13005.
Messenger, K., Branigan, H. P., & McLean, J. F. (2011). Evidence
for (shared) abstract structure underlying children’s short and full
passives. Cognition, 121(2), 268–274.
Meulman, N., Stowe, L. A., Sprenger, S. A., Bresser, M., & Schmid, M. S. (2014). An ERP study
on L2 syntax processing: When do learners fail?Frontiers in
Psychology, 5, 1072.
Mickan, A., & Lemhöfer, K. (2020). Tracking
syntactic conflict between languages over the course of L2 acquisition: A cross-sectional event-related potential
study. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 32(5), 822–846.
Muylle, M., Bernolet, S., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2020). The
role of case marking and word order in cross-linguistic structural priming in late L2
acquisition. Language
Learning, 70(S2), 194–220.
Müller, N., & Hulk, A. (2001). Crosslinguistic
influence in bilingual language acquisition: Italian and French as recipient
languages. Bilingualism: Language and
cognition, 4(1), 1–21.
Muylle, M., Bernolet, S., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2021). On
the limits of shared syntactic representations: When word order variation blocks priming between an artificial
language and Dutch. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 47(9), 1471–1493.
Nicoladis, E. (2002). What’s
the difference between ‘toilet paper’and ‘paper toilet’? French-English bilingual children’s crosslinguistic transfer
in compound nouns. Journal of Child
Language, 29(4), 843–863.
Nicoladis, E. (2006). Crosslinguistic
transfer in adjective–noun strings by preschool bilingual children. Bilingualism:
Language and
Cognition, 9(1), 15–32.
Nicoladis, E. (2012). Crosslinguistic
influence in French–English bilingual children’s possessive
constructions. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 15(2), 320–328.
Nicoladis, E. (2018). Simultaneous
child bilingualism. In D. Miller, F. Bayram, J. Rothman, & L. Serratrice (Eds.), Bilingual
cognition and language: The state of the science across its
subfields (pp 81–102). John Benjamins.
Nicoladis, E., & Gavrila, A. (2015). Crosslinguistic
influence in Welsh–English bilingual children’s adjectival constructions. Journal of
Child
Language, 42(4), 903–916.
Papastefanou, T., Marinis, T., & Powell, D. (2021). Development
of reading comprehension in bilingual and monolingual children – Effects of language
exposure. Languages, 6(4), 166–188.
Paradis, J. (2001). Do
bilingual two-year-olds have separate phonological systems?International Journal of
Bilingualism, 5(1), 19–38.
Paradis, J., & Navarro, S. (2003). Subject
realization and crosslinguistic interference in the bilingual acquisition of Spanish and English: What is the role of
the input?Journal of Child
Language, 30(2), 371–393.
Pickering, M. J., & Branigan, H. P. (1998). The
representation of verbs: Evidence from syntactic priming in language
production. Journal of Memory and
Language, 39(4), 633–651.
Pickering, M. J., & Branigan, H. P. (1999). Syntactic
priming in language production. Trends in cognitive
sciences, 3(4), 136–141.
Place, S., & Hoff, E. (2016). Effects
and noneffects of input in bilingual environments on dual language skills in 2
½-year-olds. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 19(5), 1023–1041.
Redlinger, W. E., & Park, T. Z. (1980). Language
mixing in young bilinguals. Journal of Child
Language, 7(2), 337–352.
Rowland, C. F., Chang, F., Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., & Lieven, E. V. (2012). The
development of abstract syntax: Evidence from structural priming and the lexical
boost. Cognition, 125(1), 49–63.
Salamoura, A., & Williams, J. N. (2007). Processing
verb argument structure across languages: Evidence for shared representations in the bilingual
lexicon. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 28(4), 627–660.
Schelletter, C. (2002). The
effect of form similarity on bilingual children’s lexical development. Bilingualism:
Language and
Cognition, 5(2), 93–107.
Schoonbaert, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2007). The
representation of lexical and syntactic information in bilinguals: Evidence from syntactic
priming. Journal of Memory and
Language, 56(2), 153–171.
Sekerina, Irina A., & Mitrofanova, Natalia. (2017). Testing
predictive power of morphosyntactic cues crosslinguistically. A talk presented at
the 42nd annual Boston University Conference on Language
Development, Boston, MA.
Serratrice, L. (2007). Crosslinguistic
influence in the interpretation of anaphoric and cataphoric pronouns in English–Italian bilingual
children. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 10(3), 225–238.
Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., & Paoli, S. (2004). Crosslinguistic
influence at the syntax–pragmatics interface: Subjects and objects in English–Italian bilingual and monolingual
acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 7(3), 183–205.
Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., Filiaci, F., & Baldo, M. (2012). Pronominal
objects in English–Italian and Spanish–Italian bilingual children. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 33(4), 725–751.
Shin, J. A., & Christianson, K. (2009). Syntactic
processing in Korean–English bilingual production: Evidence from crosslinguistic structural
priming. Cognition, 112(1), 175–180.
Singh, L. (2014). One
world, two languages: Cross-language semantic priming in bilingual toddlers. Child
Development, 85(2), 755–766.
Snell, J., & Grainger, J. (2017). The
sentence superiority effect
revisited. Cognition, 168, 217–221.
Sorace, A., & Serratrice, L. (2009). Internal
and external interfaces in bilingual language development: Beyond structural
overlap. International Journal of
Bilingualism, 13(2), 195–210.
Sorace, A., Serratrice, L., Filiaci, F., & Baldo, M. (2009). Discourse
conditions on subject pronoun realization: Testing the linguistic intuitions of older bilingual
children. Lingua, 119(3), 460–477.
Tachihara, K., & Goldberg, A. E. (2020). Reduced
competition effects and noisier representations in a second language. Language
Learning, 70(1), 219–265.
Thordardottir, E. (2011). The
relationship between bilingual exposure and vocabulary development. International
Journal of
Bilingualism, 15(4), 426–445.
Tsinivits, D., & Unsworth, S. (2021). The
impact of older siblings on the language environment and language development of bilingual
toddlers. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 42(2), 325–344.
Unsworth, S., Argyri, F., Cornips, L., Hulk, A., Sorace, A., & Tsimpli, I. (2014). The
role of age of onset and input in early child bilingualism in Greek and Dutch. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 35(4), 765–805.
van Dijk, C., Van Wonderen, E., Koutamanis, E., Kootstra, G. J., Dijkstra, T., & Unsworth, S. (2021). Cross-linguistic
influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a
meta-analysis. Journal of Child
Language, 1–33.
van Gompel, R. P. G., & Arai, M. (2018). Structural
priming in bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 21(3), 448–455.
Vasilyeva, M., Waterfall, H., Gámez, P. B., Gómez, L. E., Bowers, E., & Shimpi, P. (2010). Crosslinguistic
syntactic priming in bilingual children. Journal of Child
Language, 37(5), 1047–1064.
Vihman, M. M. (1985). Language
differentiation by the bilingual infant. Journal of Child
Language, 12(2), 297–324.
Volterra, V., & Taeschner, T. (1978). The
acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child
Language, 5(2), 311–326.
Von Holzen, K., & Mani, N. (2012). Language
nonselective lexical access in bilingual toddlers. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology, 113(4), 569–586.
Weber, K., & Indefrey, P. (2009). Syntactic
priming in German–English bilinguals during sentence
comprehension. NeuroImage, 46(4), 1164–1172.
Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (2000). Syntactic
transfer in a Cantonese–English bilingual child. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 3(3), 193–208.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Hopp, Holger & Carrie N. Jackson
2023. Asymmetrical effects of cross-linguistic structural priming on cross-linguistic influence in L2 learners. Applied Psycholinguistics 44:2 ► pp. 205 ff.
Tusun, Alimujiang
2023. Uyghur–Chinese early successive bilingual children's acquisition of voluntary motion expressions. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition► pp. 1 ff.
Tusun, Alimujiang
2023. Uyghur–Chinese early successive adult bilinguals’ construal of caused motion events. Language and Cognition 15:3 ► pp. 427 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 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.