POSTER FA.pptx

FROM CODE-­‐SWITCHING TO TRANSLATING: A CORPUS-­‐BASED APPROACH OF BILINGUAL REPETITIONS Angermeyer, P., 2002, “Lexical cohesion in mul5lingual conversa5on”, Interna5onal Journal of Bilingualism, 6, 361-­‐393. Auer, P., 1995, “The Pragma5cs of Code-­‐switching: A Sequen5al Approach”, In Lesley Milroy and Pieter Muysken (eds.), One Speaker, Two Languages: Cross-­‐disciplinary Perspec5ves on Code-­‐ switching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 115-­‐135. Auer, P., et al., 1998, Code-­‐switching in Conversa5on: Language, Interac5on and Iden5ty, ed. Peter Auer, London: Routledge. Bloom, L., Lightbown, P. & Hood, L., 1974, “Imita5on in Language development: If, when, and why?”, Cogni5ve Psychology, 6, 380-­‐420. Clark, E. V., 2007, “Young children’s uptake of new words in conversa5on”, Language in Society 36, 157-­‐182. Clark, R., 1974, “Performing without competence”, Journal of Child Language, 1, 1-­‐10. Finch, B. S., 2009, “Repe55on as Linguis5c and Social Strategy in Hindi-­‐English Bilingual Discourse”, Disserta5on presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas, Aus5n. Gumperz, J., 1982, Discourse Strategies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lanza, E., 1997, Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism – A sociolinguis5c perspec5ve, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harris, B., 1975, “The importance of natural transla5ons”, Working Papers in Bilingualism (OISE, Toronto), 12, 96-­‐114. MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES Project: Tools for analyzing talk, transcrip5on format and programs (Vol. 1). Routledge. Malakoff, M. E., 1992, “Transla5on Ability: A natural Bilingual and Metalinguis5c Skill”, Cogni5ve Processing in Bilinguals, 515-­‐529. Myers-­‐Sco7on, C., 1993, Social Mo5va5ons for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paradis, J. & Genesee, F., 1996, “Syntac5c acquisi5on in bilingual children: Autonomous or interdependent?”, Studies in Second Language Acquisi5on, 18,1-­‐25. Frédérique Atangana Language alterna+ons (i.e. code-­‐switching) in bilingual interac5on has been viewed as a sign of linguis5c unawareness for a long 5me (Leopold Werner, 1949). This line of thinking proposed that bilingual children’s language development was gradual, and progressively evolved towards differen5a5on (Volterra & Taeschner, 1978). It also presupposed that bilingual children are guided by the same specific word learning strategies as monolinguals in early acquisi5on (i.e. the Principle of contrast), therefore rejec5ng cross-­‐language synonyms or transla+on equivalents (Clark, 1990). Later research has challenged this line of thinking, providing evidence for the existence of equivalent terms as early as the first few months, and for lexical, morphosyntac5c and pragma5c differen5a5on (Genesee & Nicoladis, 2005; Pearson et al., 1995; Quay, 1995). RESULTS This graph represents, for each child, the distribu5on of bilingual repe55ons among the total u7erances produced. Although the distribu5on considerably varied from one child to the other, it can be noted that all children produced bilingual repe55ons. These transla5on equivalents are perceivable in several verbal ac5vi5es, including repe++ons. In a code-­‐switched conversa5on, children may indeed translate and repeat word for word, what was said in the other language (Gardner-­‐Chloros et al., 2000). These reitera5ons, also known as bilingual repe++ons (Gumperz, 1982), are said to func5on as structuring mechanisms (cohesion, contrast, foreground) and focusing or turn-­‐taking devices (Finch, 2009). Graph 2: Rate of bilingual repe++ons This graph compiles the average distribu5on of bilingual repe55ons by par5cipants among the total of u7erances produced. Ma7eo has the highest rate (21%) while Lucy the lowest (2%). It is worth men5oning here that Ma7eo and Lucy had the same age at the 5me of the recordings (6;00). It can therefore be argued that the rate of bilingual repe55ons is not exclusively related to age factors. Example 1: Bilingual Repe++ons *MOT:
[-­‐ eng] what else did you do ? *CHI:
champi(gn)on . *FAT:
+< les champignons . *MOT:
0 . %act:
frowns . *CHI:
[-­‐ eng] mushroom . *MOT:
[-­‐ eng] mushroom ah@i yes [/] yes The literature on bilingual acquisi5on, however, gives very par5al accounts of the phenomenon (De Houwer, 2009). It is therefore the aim of the present research to determine what role these bilingual repe55ons might play in children’s bilingual acquisi5on. It is based on the premise that a bilingual input reinforces children’s ability to par5cipate in the expression of meanings across languages using two linguis5c systems. Such competence is strongly related to bilinguals’ competence in each language. When interac5ng with their parents, bilingual children may rely on their stronger competence in language A to: (1) be7er apprehend the seman5c and syntac5c apparatus of their weaker language and (2) effec5vely communicate. This can be achieved through the medium of transla5ons. Graph 1: Distribu+on of bilingual repe++ons This graph compiles, for each child, the propor5on of the various discourse strategies used by parents. Most parents favoured the Move On strategy (i.e. c o n 5 n u i n g i n l a n g u a g e A w h i l s t s h o w i n g comprehension of the child’s use of B (Lanza, 1997)). This strategy could explain the presence of bilingual repe55ons in all children since it provides the child with a bilingual context. Bilingual repe55ons are therefore natural speech acts, produced by bilinguals in everyday circumstances (Harris, 1975), which may impact bilingual children’s acquisi5on of transla5on abili5es and metalinguis+c skills. CORPUS Graph 3: parental discourse strategies The focus of enquiry of the present study was on French-­‐English bilingual children’s spontaneous language prac5ses at home. Audio-­‐video recorded conversa5ons in the context of dinners, in which both parents (each representa5ve of one language) were present, were iden5fied as relevant sources of data. The study is based on seven dinners, las5ng approximately one hour, in six different French-­‐English bilingual families who were recorded between 2010 and 2014. The recorded bilingual children are aged from 2;3 to 7;03. *FAT:
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RESEARCH QUESTIONS METHOD The corpus was first transcribed using the CHAT transcrip5on system (McWhinney & Snow, 1990). Detailed turn-­‐by-­‐turn analyses enabled us to iden5fy bilingual repe55ons, which were then exported into EXCEL for systema5c coding. For each bilingual repe55on, coding categories were: Interlocutor, language, discourse strategy (Minimal Grasp, Expressed Guess, Repe55on, Move On, Language switch; Lanza 1997), direcEonality (from English to French or French to English), type (expansion, contrac5on or equivalence). Interlocutor Type Discourse Strategy Language Direc5onality Graph 4: Direc+onality of bilingual repe++ons Discourse strategies may also have an impact on the direc5onality of bilingual repe55ons. Children whose parents used monolingual strategies (i.e. the Minimal Grasp) in addi5on to more bilingual ones (i.e. Language Switch or Move On) such as Madeleine and Paul, produced more bidirec5onal bilingual repe55ons than children whose parents exclusively used bilingual strategies, such as Talia, Lucy and Ma7eo. Monolingual strategies may therefore coerce children into choosing the appropriate language. The only excep5on is Molly which can be explained by the fact that a base language cannot be iden5fied when she is interac5ng with her English-­‐speaking mother. ANALYSES OF EXAMPLES *CHI:
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Do bilingual children naturally develop transla5on skills? What factors may influence the presence or absence of bilingual repe55ons? *MOT:
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pourquoi elle éternue papa ? (why does she sneeze daddy?) [-­‐ eng] <you tell me> [=! rit] papa (.) elle éternue parce que elle je crois qu’elle est fa5guée . (she sneezes because I think she is 5red) [-­‐ eng] no I think it’s because she has a cold . ben oui je crois qu’elle she’s@s got@ a@s corn@s . (yes I think it’s think she’s got a corn*) [-­‐ eng] cold . [-­‐ eng] cold . [-­‐ eng] yeah (.) what ? [-­‐eng] a cold . [-­‐ eng] a cold ? [-­‐ eng] that’s right . [-­‐ eng] tu crois qu’elle a aHrapé froid ? (you think she has a cold?) [-­‐ eng] that’s right . maman tu peux m’aider ? (mummy can you help me?) [-­‐ eng] you want me to help you finish? [-­‐ eng] yeah . [-­‐ eng] can you ask me nicely ? [-­‐ eng] yeah . [-­‐ eng] please mummy do you peux@s m’aider@s ? [-­‐ eng] pardon ? tu peux m’aider ! (can you help me !) [-­‐ eng] ask me nicely . [-­‐ eng] please mummy you p(eux) you can m’aider ? [-­‐ eng] that’s not French nor English Madeleine . [-­‐ eng] please mummy can you help me . [-­‐ eng] +< mommy +/… [-­‐ eng] can you try ? the mother sits netxt to Madeleine. tu peux pas t’asseoir sur ce banc . [-­‐ eng] I’ll manage it’s alright . [-­‐ eng] big and tall up here . [-­‐ eng] now you say please mommy can you help me ? [-­‐ eng] please mommy you gonna help me ? *MOT:
[-­‐ eng] do you want to tell papa how you fell j’ai tombé dans +… (I fell in) *TAL:
+, cette chaise au milieu . (this chair in the middle) *FAT:
t’es tombée . (you fell) *TAL:
mmh@i . *TAL:
et après I I take@s my@s books@s . (and after I take my books) *TAL:
et après [/] après I [/] I [/] I [/] I j’ai monté et après boum@i j’ai tombé . (and after after I I I I went up and after boum I fell) *MOT: and you have a bump on your head don’t you ? *TAL:
oui et j’ai une dosse (yes I have a bump*) %xpnt: shows her bump %act: mother nods *FAT:
t’as une bosse ? (you have a bump?) *TAL:
oui . (yes) *TAL:
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*MOT: CHI: oh@i what are those ? écureuils . (squirrels) and in English ? squirrels . and what was the best part about going on the train ? to see the fire . why ? because comment on dit brûler en anglais? (how do we say burn in English?) burning. because it was burning some branches? CONCLUSION From early on, bilingual children in this study are all capable of understanding: (1) that words can be encoded in two different languages, (2) that a combina5on of words may not carry the same meaning across languages and (3) that they are evolving in a bilingual sehng. Bilingual repe55ons enabled the children: (1) to overtly ra5fy the meaning of new words, (2) to reflect upon and manipulate the formal aspect of their two languages, evidencing metalinguis5c skills in the lexical and structural domains and (3) to reach communica5ve goals and create a coherent discourse in two languages, especially when using their less proficient language. Contact : [email protected]