Lexical Growth Patterns in a Bilingual Infant: The Occurrence and Significance of Equivalents in the Bilingual Lexicon

• Autores: Ursula Lanvers
• Localización: International journal of bilingual education and bilingualism, ISSN 1367-0050, Vol. 2, Nº. 1, 1999, págs. 30-52
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article gives a detailed account of the lexical growth in a bilingual child (German and English) and discusses its theoretical implications. Evaluating the 'Principle of Contrast' (Clark, 1987, 1988) in bilingual acquisition, it is concluded that evidence of lexical equivalent learning and usage of equivalents can contribute to the debate on language separation in bilingual infants. The child in this study generally showed acquisition patterns of language-specific words to be related to the (varying) amount of input, changes in the language environment having a delayed effect on the dominance shift in the lexicon. New equivalents were learned very regularly from age 1.7 onwards, making up, on average, 30% of monthly new words. The time gap examination in the emergence of these equivalents showed patterns relating to the input: changes of input greatly increased equivalent learning. The patterns of equivalent learning, together with evidence of appropriate usage of these from the age of 1.7 onwards, were interpreted as evidence of emerging lexical separation around the age of 1.6. Furthermore, lexical acquisition in one language was not proportionate to the amount of exposure to that language, an observation of interest for the general theoretical discussion of the relation between input and acquisition.