Publications

Publication details [#63418]

Katsos, Napoleon and Antoniou Kyriakos. 2017. The effect of childhood multilingualism and bilectalism on implicature understanding. Applied Psycholinguistics 38 (4) : 787–833.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Cambridge University Press

Annotation

This inquiry compares the performance of multilingual children speaking Cypriot Greek, Standard Modern Greek, and English (and occasionally an additional language), bilectal children speakers of Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek, and Standard Modern Greek-speaking monolingual children on a task that measures the understanding of diverse types of implicature. Despite lower scores in language skill in the target language, multilingual and bilectal children performed at rates comparable to the monolinguals with implicature. Regression analyses pointed out a positive correlation between implicature, language proficiency, and age (but not executive control), although language skill did not impact implicature within multilinguals. This inquiry proposes an interpretation according to which multilingual, bilectal, and monolingual children preserve a comparable level of implicature comprehension, but they do so by depending on distinct resources. Finally, a principal component analysis on different implicature types disclosed a single factor of implicature performance. This outcome has implications for pragmatic theory.