University of ReadingEnglish Language and Applied Linguistics
Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM)
Balanced Bilinguals and Language Dominance
Hildesheim UniversityMultilingualism and DiversityJuly 2007
Michael Daller
Content
• A short history of the Turkish migration to Germany
• Theoretical Framework
• Study 1 (Turkish-English bilinguals)
• Study 2 (Turkish-German bilinguals)
Recent immigrant statistics in the UK and Germany
633.000 immigrants in the UK (year ending March 2016; ONS)
1.021.543 immigrants in Germany (January – September 2016; BAMF)
Many of these migrants are children, who will become heritage speakers of their L1
A short history of Turkish migration to Germany• First “Gastarbeiter” (guest worker) came in the early 60ties.
• Initially meant as a temporary measure. They were expected to work in Germany of a short period and then go back to their home country, but many stayed.
• By 1992 the Turkish population in Germany reached its peak (1.8 million), but this does not include Turkish nationals who gained German nationality (almost 800.000 naturalisations between 1982 and 2011).
Demographic development of Turkish nationals in GermanyChange in family structure (1960 – 2010)Percentage of female Turkish nationals in Germany
Demographic development of Turkish nationals in Germany Naturalisation of Turkish nationals in Germany (1982 – 2011)
500.000 Turkish heritage speakers?
There are almost 3 million people in Germany with a Turkish background.
Almost 500.000 children of Turkish parents are born in Germany
500.000 heritage speakers?
Yes, the Turkish language is still widely spoken in Germany.
Almost 1,4 million people in Germany have the right to vote in Turkey.
Turkish voters in Germany
Turkish politics in Germany
Theoretical background
• Common Underlying Proficiency (Cummins)
• Threshold Hypothesis (Cummins)
• BICS and CALP (Cummins)
• Basic language ability vs. higher language ability (Hulstijn)
• The “bilingual vocabulary gap” and the Total Conceptual Vocabulary
(Pearson, Fernández, and Oller)
Common Underlying Proficiency, CUP (Cummins,1980)
• There is a common area beneath the icebergs used for both languages, it is a central operating system in which bilinguals can transfer their existing L1 knowledge and apply it to their L2.
The Developmental Interdependence Hypothesis(Cummins,1979)
• Based on the relationship between the development of L1 and L2.
• Competence in L2 depends in part on the level of competence already acquired in L1.
• High level L1 competence development involves similar development of L2 skills.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Threshold Hypothesis
• Criticism:
• Difficult to operationalize
• “Balanced” bilinguals hardly exist
(Cummins)
• BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills)
• CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency)
• In a migration setting:
• BICS refers to the language required for social situations and usually requires two years to acquire.
• CALP refers to academic language which is necessary for school success and often requires at least five to seven years to acquire.
Jan Hulstijn
• Basic language ability:
Implicit, unconscious knowledge of phonetics, prosody, phonology, morphology and syntax
What every native speaker knows (years of schooling not important)
• Higher language ability• Complex, infrequent structure in written and spoken language• Infrequent vocabulary• Differences between native speakers (years of schooling important)
15
Is there a bilingual cognitive advantage or disadvantage?• Diaz and Klinger (1991: 167) conclude, “children’s bilingualism is positively
related to concept formation, classification, creativity, analogical reasoning, and visual-spatial skills” (Italics added)
• Kroll and Bialystok (2013:504): the influence of bilingualism on non-verbal cognitive processing is “unique to this research and unexpected”.
• Paap and Greenberg (2013): studies in a bilingual advantage are inconclusive
• Bilingualism has negative cognitive effects below a certain threshold of proficiency (Cummins)
Study 1 (Zehra Ongun)
• 100 Turkish-English bilingual children in the UK
• Parents from a high socio-economic background (at least one parent has a university degree)
Research questions
• 1 How is the vocabulary in both languages related?
• 2 How does vocabulary develop with regard to BICS and CALP?
• 3 Is there a bilingual gap?
• 4 How is vocabulary and non verbal intelligence related?
• 5 What influence does parental support for L1 have?
HYPOTHESES 1 – 3 (Vocabulary)
• 1 Vocabulary scores in both language of a bilingual will be related(CUP).
• 2 CALP/Higher Language Ability will develop slower than BICS/Basic Language Ability.
• 3 There will be a surface gap in vocabulary knowledge when the bilinguals are compared with peer matched monolinguals. This gap will not be there when the TCV is computed.
Hypotheses 4 – 6 (IQ scores and parental support for L1)
• 4 There will be a correlation between vocabulary knowledge and non-verbal IQ scores
• 5 Bilinguals will have higher non-verbal IQ scores than monolinguals
• 6 Parental support for and dominance in L1 will have a positive influence on vocabulary scores and IQ scores
Study 1 - Methodology
•Participants
•100 Turkish-English bilingual children (all born in the UK, age range 7 - 11)
•and their parents (immigrants from Turkey)
•Middle class (at least one parent has a university degree)
•Measures
• Receptive vocabulary tests in both languages (X-lex)
• Productive vocabulary tests in both languages (verbal fluency test)
• A non-verbal intelligence test (Raven’s matrices, 1997)
• The Language Dominance Scale (Dunn and Fox Tree, 2009)
• Language, Social and Background Questionnaire (Luk and Bialystok, 2013)
Study 1: Procedure
•Children measured at home (Receptive vocabulary test + non-verbal intelligence in March – May 2014, productive vocabulary test in December 2014)
•Interviews with parents (language dominance questionnaire in June 2014), Language, social and background questionnaire (November, 2015)
Study 1 - Tests
• Receptive (X-lex in Turkish and English)
• Productive (Category fluency task in both languages)
• Non-verbal intelligence (Raven’s matrices)
• Bilingual dominance questionnaires
• Questionnaire about language use at home
that both cliff sandy lessen darrock
with century stream military oak waygood
before cup normal impress antique kennard
person discuss everywhere staircase chart gazard
feel park deny daily limp fishlock
round path shot essential permission cantileen
early tower refer associate headlong gillen
table weather independent conduct violent pardoe
question wheel feeling relative fade frequid
effect whole bullet upward rake hobrow
market perform juice publish trunk candlin
woman pity nod insult mercy litholect
stand probable gentle cardboard anxious gumm
believe signal slip humble pedestrian alden
fine dish diamond contract arrow treadaway
instead earn press mount feeble sumption
produce sweat provide tube sorrow horozone
group trick drum moreover brighten hyslop
arrive manage reasonable crisis dam manomize
difficult mud boil jug outlet horobin
English receptive task – X-lex
ve yumurta dikkatli mısır kıvılcımsaneli
çocuk kemik utanmak posta üçgenbilik
iç iş bal tatmak yazlıkselul
yine kapalı halı yanık unutmakuveli
işte dikmek misafir heyecanlı nazarültemek
ayak komşu elma kemer kayakmenilmek
deniz bayram uzay saçlı bulmasorkın
dinlemek patlamak patates zayıflamak kekfoluk
dışarı gül üzüntü bahane sıcak olmakfızlamak
yanlış mevsim vapur fena şahsenüsli
kelime gölge sevilmek gergin devretmek ansen
kesmek yangın pilav haşlanmak muhaliftillemek
uyumak kavga pembe uyanık ayıklamakfıta
mektup lezzet yüzük boyamak ilerlemearaka
top yıkanmak kirli katılma şirinküne
otobüs oyuncak olur haberci mağaraserün
yeşil zararlı yavaşça kova nişanvalı
burun dilim çatal yazdırmak uçuşselmek
• Name all words that you know about(2 minutes each):
• Colours, body parts, cloths and food
• Test was carried out separately for Turkish and English
PRODUCTIVE VOCABULARY TEST
RAVEN’S COLOURED PROGRESSIVE MATRICIES
• Non- verbal intelligence test
• Designed for children aged 5 through 11 years-of-age
• It contains A, AB, and B sets and each set consists of 12 questions.
• The highest score for each set is 12 and the total score is 36.
• It takes 15-45 minutes (fast and easy to administer test).
• At what age did you first learn Turkish ________ English ________?
• Which language do you predominately use at home? Turkish ________ English ________ Both ________
• If you had to choose which language to use for the rest of your life, which language would it be? ________
• How many years of schooling (primary school through university) did you have in: Turkish ________ English ________
• + Questionnaire on language use at home
BILINGUAL DOMINANCE SCALE QUESTIONS
• There is a strong positive correlation between the scores in the Turkish and the English X-Lex.
• Children with larger vocabularies in Turkish have also larger vocabularies in English.
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 1
Hypothesis 2: BICS and CALP
Hypothesis 3The bilingual vocabulary gap
Türkisch Englisch
Hypothesis 3Total conceptual vocabulary
The differences are not significant
HYPOTHESIS 4
• Non-verbal intelligence test scores and vocabulary scores will be related.
• There is a strong positive correlation between receptive vocabulary (X-lex) in both languages and non-verbal intelligence (IQ)
• IQ and Turkish X-Lex (r = .47, p < .001)
• IQ and English X-Lex (r = .56, p < .001)
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 4
•The correlation between vocabulary knowledge and IQ scores exists in both languages but it is higher for English.
•This can be explained by the age of the children (older children go to English speaking schools and have higher intelligence scores).
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 4
• We therefore computed partial correlations (controlling for age)
• IQ and Turkish (r = .263, p < .01)
• IQ and English (r = .206, p < .05)
• Receptive vocabulary size in both languages and IQ are related irrespective for age
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 4
• The correlation for productive vocabulary and IQ was lower than for receptive vocabulary.
• A partial correlation for productive vocabulary (controlling for age) yielded only p-values < .1 (Turkish productive/ IQ: r = .180, p = .075; English productive/ IQ: r = .175, p = .083)
• Receptive vocabulary is more important for the development of IQ scores than productive vocabulary.
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 4
HYPOTHESIS 5
• Bilinguals will have a cognitive advantage (higher IQ scores than monolinguals)
• There was no significant difference between the bilingual group and the two monolingual groups in non-verbal IQ scores
• However, if we use only those bilinguals who have parents with a high dominance in Turkish (cut-off point: median for dominance), there are higher scores for IQ for the bilingual group.
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 5
Hypothesis 6
a. The language dominance of the parents will have an influence on the children’s bilingual profile.
•Dominance scores: Turkish scores – English scores (dominance questionnaire):
•Positive scores = more Turkish dominant
•Negative scores = more English dominant
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 6
There is a strong positive correlation between Receptive vocabulary scores (X-Lex) in both languages and parental home language results.
Turkish X-Lex and parental home language (r = .720, p < .01)
English X-Lex and parental home language(r = .592, p < .05)
Parents with more Turkish home language have children with higher vocabulary scores in both languages (Turkish-English).
RESULTS: Hypothesis 6
LANGUAGE DOMINANCE OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN’S SCORES FOR RECEPTIVE VOCABULARY
• The more Turkish dominant the parents are, the higher are the vocabulary scores of the children in both languages.
• There is also a strong significant correlation between parents’ dominance and children’ intelligence scores.
RESULTS: HYPOTHESIS 6
PARENTS’ LANGUAGE DOMINANCE AND CHILDREN’S INTELLIGENCE SCORES
• Bilingual children who’s parents have higher L1 dominance scores have higher IQ scores than those who’s parents are less dominant in L1
• (t = 6.3, df = 98, p < .001; Cohen’s d = 1.26)
There is also a strong positive correlation between parents’ home language and children’s IQ scores.
Parents with more Turkish home language have children with higher intelligence scores.
IQ and parental home language (r = .575, p < .001)
RESULTS: PARENTS’ HOME LANGUAGE AND CHILDREN’S INTELLIGENCE SCORES
RESULTS: PARENTS’ HOME LANGUAGE AND CHILDREN’S INTELLIGENCE SCORES
Study 1: CONCLUSIONS (Vocabulary)
• H1: Vocabulary scores in both languages of a bilingual are related (for productive and receptive vocabulary). This supports the Common Underlying Hypothesis (CUP).
• H2 Vocabulary in the are of CALP develops at a slower rate than BICS (in line with previous findings).
• H3 There is no bilingual vocabulary gap if we take TCP into account.
• H4: Vocabulary knowledge and IQ scores are related. The correlation is stronger for receptive vocabulary than for productive.
• H5: There is a bilingual advantage for non-verbal IQ scores only for bilingual children with L1-dominant parents.
• H6: The language dominance of the parents has an effect on the children. More Turkish dominance is positive for vocabulary knowledge in both languages and intelligence scores.
• H6: The home language of the parents has an effect on the children. Parents’ more Turkish home language has a positive influence on children’s vocabulary knowledge and their IQ scores.
• Does the “threshold hypothesis” need to be revised? (Parental) support for L1 as the important factor for a bilingual advantage not proficiency as such.
• Limitations: All parents in this study have a high SES (at least one parent has a university degree).
Study 1: CONCLUSIONS (IQ)
Studie 2 (Fatih Bayram)
• 24 Turkish-German bilinguals in Munich
• Main difference with study 1 is the socio-economic status (SES).
Study 2 (Fatih Bayram)
Children in Germany
• age: 11 – 13
• N = 23
• Parents: manual workers
• Description of “frog where are you” in both languages (3 months between the descriptions)
• Control group in Turkey (n=6)
• Preliminary analysis of vocabulary used in selected pictures
• Frosch/ Kurbağa (Frog)
• 21 x Frosch
• 20 x Kurbağa
• Glas/ Kavanoz (Jar)
• 18 x Glas
• 5 x Kavanoz,
• 5 x şişe,
• 2 x bardak, küvez, kova, vazo, tas, vitrin,
Rufen – Çağırmak (call for)
27 x rufen, 17 x schreien (nach)
17 x çağırmak, 23 x bağırmak, seslenmek
Bienenstock/ Bienennest - arı kovanı (beehive)
13 x Bienennest, 6 x Bienenhaus, 4 x Bienenstock, weiss nicht
19 x Arı evi, 2 x Umschreibung
Köstebek/fare - Maulwurf/Maus(mole)
• 15 x Maulwurf
• 6 x Hamster
• 3 x Maus, 3 x Tier, Hase, Eichhörnchen, Stinktier
• 13 x Hayvan, 2 x fare, şey, Hamster
Stechen – sokmak (sting, bite, chase)
• 11 x stechen
• 1 x beissen
• 6 x sokmak
• 8 x ısırmak
• 2 x batmak
• Kakmak, iğne, yapmak
Çıkmak – klettern (climb)
• 5 x klettern
• 5 x gehen (auf)
• 2 x steigt hoch
• 11 x Çıkmak
• 3 x binmek
• 2 x gidiyor
Hirsch/ Reh – geyik (deer)
• 16 x Reh• 5 x Hirsch• 4 x Elch• 1 x Stier (Zebra)
• 19 x hayvan (Tier)• 1 x inek, 1 x at, • 0 x geyik
klettern (über)
(Baum)stamm – kütük (trunk)
Klettern – Çıkmak (climb)
• 19 x (Baum)stamm, 4 x Baum, 2 x Ast
• 20 x ağaç, 1 x şey, 0 x kütük
• 10 x klettern, 5 x gehen, 3 x steigen, 3 schauen, 1 x springen
• 9 x Çıkmak, 3 x gitmek, 1 x binmek, 1 x klettern
Study 2 extended
• Same biliguals
• Matched peers in Turkey (n = 30) and German (n = 15)
• Same age group, school type (socio-economic status)
• Overview of most frequent used words
Frequency of used vocabulary
English Turkish mono Turkish biling German biling German mono
Call Bağırmak (18)
Çağırmak (0)
Bağırmak
(27)
Çağırmak
(17)
Rufen (27) Suchen (look
for)
Deer Geyik (23)
Hayvan
(animal, 3)
Hayvan
(animal) (19)
Reh (deer)
(16)
Reh
Elch (Moose/
Elk) Rentier,
Hirsch
(Tree) trunk Kűtűk (trunk)
(11)
Ağaç (tree)
(20)
Baumstamm
(19)
Baumstamm
(trunk)
climb Çıkmak (21)
tırmanmak (6)
Çıkmak
(climb, 11)
gehen (go, 5),
Klettern
(climb,5)
Klettern
Beehive Arı kovanı
(beehive) (15)
Ari evi (bee
house) (19)
Bienennest
(13)
Bienennest
Bienenstock
Mole Kőstebek
(mole)
(19)
Hayvan
(animal)
13
Maulwurf
(15)
Hamster
Maulwurf
Tier
(animal)
(Bee) chase
(Bee) sting
Kovalamak
(chase) (20)
Isırmak (bite)
(8)
Stechen
(sting) 13)
Jagen
verfolgen(ch
ase)
Jar Kavanoz (jar,
16)
Şişe (bottle,
5/30)
Kavanoz (5)
Glas 18 Glas
Frog Kurbağa (27) Kurbağa
(20)
Frosch (21) Frosch
Blue: 1k, green: 2k, green: above (Tom Cobb: Lextutor)
Frequency of words in the picture descriptions• Both monolingual groups (Turkish and German) use less frequent/
more sophisticated words than the bilinguals.
• Bilinguals use more general words (e.g. animal) rather than specific ones (deer, mole, jar).
• The vocabulary of the bilinguals in Turkish seems to be more restricted than in German.
• Work in progress (a detailed analysis of the word frequencies used by all groups will be done)
Final Conclusions
• There is no bilingual advantage/ disadvantage per se.
• Bilingualism is a challenge (see: larger standard deviations/ word frequency/ sophistication).
• With parental support for L1 there is a potential bilingual advantage for vocabulary in both languages and even for non-verbal cognition.
• Without sufficient parental support for L1 there is a potential bilingual disadvantage for vocabulary knowledge (and non-verbal cognition?).
• Research on bilingualism has to take into account the specific setting (specific support for L1)
• Educational and political decisions have to take on the important role for support of L1.
• The "threshold hypothesis" is a valid framework but needs to be re-defined.
Thanks to
• The children and parents in both studies
• Zehra Ongun (UoR)
• Dr Fatih Bayram (UoR)
• Prof Elke Montanari (Hildesheim/ Germany) and her students
• Two anonymous reviewers for our article in The International Journal of Bilingualism
• Outlook: Symposium at ISBN 2017 in Limerick
• Barac R. and Bialystok E. (2011). Cognitive Development of Bilingual Children. Language Teaching 44 (1), 36 – 54.
• Cummins,J.(1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research,49,222-51.
• Cummins,J. (1980). The construct of Language proficiency in bilingual education. In: Colin Baker. Foundation of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Daller, M., & Ongun, Z. (2017). The Threshold Hypothesis revisited: Bilingual lexical knowledge and non-verbal IQ development. International Journal of Bilingualism, 1367006917690835.
• Dunn, A.L. and Fox-Tree (2009). A quick, gradient Bilingual Dominance Scale. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(3), 273-289.
• Göz, İ. (2003). Yazılı türkçenin kelime sıklığı sözlüğü (Vol. 823). Türk Dil Kurumu.
• Kroll, J. F., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 497-514.
• Luk, G.& Bialystok, E. (2013). Bilingualism is not a categorical variable: Interaction between language Proficiency and Usage. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 605-621.
• Meara, P. and Milton, J. (2003). X-Lex. The Swansea Levels Test. Newbury: Express Publishing.
• Paap, K. R., & Greenberg, Z. I. (2013). There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive psychology, 66(2), 232-258.
• Pearson, B. Z., Fernández, S. C., & Oller, D. K. (1993). Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms. Language learning, 43(1), 93-120.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
