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Sources of variation at the onset of bilingualism: The differential effect of input factors, AOA, and cognitive skills on HL Arabic and L2 English syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2021

Adriana SOTO-COROMINAS Open the ORCID record for Adriana SOTO-COROMINAS [Opens in a new window] ,
Evangelia DASKALAKI ,
Johanne PARADIS ,
Magdalena WINTERS-DIFANI  and
Redab AL JANAIDEH
Adriana SOTO-COROMINAS*
Affiliation:
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Evangelia DASKALAKI
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Canada
Johanne PARADIS
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Canada
Magdalena WINTERS-DIFANI
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Canada
Redab AL JANAIDEH
Affiliation:
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: Adriana Soto-Corominas, Department of Applied Linguistics, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, 08017, Spain. E-mail: asotoc@uic.cat
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Abstract

Despite growing research on individual differences in child bilinguals, few studies have focused on the development of syntax, included both languages, and studied newly arrived school-age migrant children. Accordingly, this study investigated the syntactic development of heritage language (HL) Syrian Arabic and L2 English by Syrian refugee children (N = 119) recently arrived in Canada using a sentence repetition task. Regression analyses showed that a partially overlapping set of child-level (input and cognitive skills) and language-level (syntactic structure) factors accounted for performance in each language. HL performance was particularly sensitive to language, cognitive, and input variables indexing cumulative HL exposure. L2 performance, however, was sensitive to cognitive and environmental variables indexing current and cumulative L2 use. Finally, despite stronger performance in Arabic than in English, results revealed interdependence between the two languages, indicating that participants with stronger syntactic abilities in their HL tended to have stronger syntactic abilities in their emerging L2.

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Article
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Journal of Child Language , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , July 2022 , pp. 741 - 773
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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