Uyghur–Chinese early successive bilingual children's acquisition of voluntary motion expressions
-
Alimujiang Tusun [1]
-
[1] University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
Cambridge District, Reino Unido
-
- Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 27, Nº 4, 2024, págs. 642-654
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
-
Resumen
This study explores the implications of Talmy's (2000) motion event typology and its subsequent articulations in relation to Slobin's (1996, 2006) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis for the early successive bilingual acquisition of Uyghur (verb-framed) and Mandarin Chinese (equipollently-framed). Specifically, it examines how 4-, 6-, 8- and 10-year-old bilingual children acquire motion expressions in their L1 and L2 respectively, and how cross-linguistic influence shapes their L2 acquisition process. Results show that, in their L1 Uyghur, bilinguals follow general developmental trajectories observed for children acquiring verb-framed languages. While sensitive to the equipollent Chinese system from early on, due to L1 and other factors, bilinguals fully converge on the Chinese pattern only at age 10, a feat in place in monolinguals from age 3. Our findings highlight that bilingual children do eventually come to develop language-specific thinking-for-speaking patterns in their L2, but they traverse a distinct developmental path.
