2018 Friday Session A 1715

Friday, November 2, 2018 | Session A, East Balcony | 5:15pm

Object relative clause comprehension in L2 children with limited L2 exposure
M. Scheidnes, L. Redmond

Research on L2 children has focused on the role of language exposure in explaining developmental trajectories. While its exact role remains unclear, exposure appears to have a greater impact on some language properties than others (e.g., Unsworth, 2014). Understanding which language properties are acquired with only limited L2 exposure can lead to increased insight into the role of input frequency versus that of structural properties in language development. Moreover, early acquired properties can be targeted in clinical assessment, even when exposure to the L2 is limited.

This paper examines the comprehension of object relative clauses (ORCs) in English-speaking first graders who are acquiring L2 French in an immersion program in English-speaking Canada. Comprehension of reversible ORCs (as in (1) – (2) in Table 3) have been shown to be problematic for typically developing (TD) children and for children and adolescents with SLI. These difficulties have been attributed to structural properties (e.g., Friedmann et al., 2009) or relative frequency in the input (Kirjavainen et al., 2017). If the structural properties of ORCs (specifically, the role of the intervener) are critical in ORC delay, once the intervention effect decreases in the L1, it should also in the L2. If input frequency over time is critical, then we would expect to see weak performance for object relative clauses in cases of limited exposure to the L2.

In order to address these questions, ORC comprehension was tested in a group of English- speaking first graders who are acquiring L2 French in an early immersion program in English- speaking Canada. In this context, 90%-100% of instruction is given in French in kindergarten and first grade; however, these children are not exposed to French outside of school. Data collection took place towards the end of first grade, just over 1.5 years after the onset of L2 exposure, but given their limited daily exposure, cumulative exposure (as in Unsworth, 2013) was about 3-4 months (Table 1). Indeed, standardized test scores in French revealed weak receptive vocab and morphosyntactic abilities (Table 2).

ORC comprehension was evaluated in French and English using an adaptation of the BAMBI picture-pointing task (Friedmann & Novogrodsky, 2002). Stimuli in both languages were the same (see Table 3). Children were tested twice at two-week intervals. Half of the children saw the French task first.

Data collection is ongoing, but results from 6 children suggest that performance in one language predicts performance in the other. Three children scored at least 10/12 ORCs correct in both languages. Two children scored below 8/12 correct in both languages, which is not significantly different from chance (z = 1.55). Only one child has shown an uneven profile (EN>FR). Overall, these L2 children have shown similar L1/L2 performance for ORCs, in spite of very limited L2 exposure and overall weak L2 abilities in other receptive domains. A preliminary conclusion is that ORCs are acquired early in TD L2 children acquiring typologically similar languages, suggesting that frequency is not crucial in this case.