The acquisition of rhetorical questions in bilingual children with Italian as a heritage language
(2024) In Bilingualism: Language and Cognition- Abstract
- Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are a complex phenomenon at the interface of pragmatics, prosody and syntax, which requires reasoning on intentions and goals, and which involves a mismatch between literal and intended meaning. In Italian, RhQs can be marked by optional particles and verbal morphology. We investigated when children aged 6-9 acquire the relevant patterns of optional modification and exploit them in the appropriate pragmatic context. In an elicited production study with 84 monolingual and 88 Italian–German bilingual children, we found that development in monolinguals was determined by age with a progression between 6 and 9 years, while bilingual development was influenced by proficiency in the heritage language and dominance more... (More)
- Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are a complex phenomenon at the interface of pragmatics, prosody and syntax, which requires reasoning on intentions and goals, and which involves a mismatch between literal and intended meaning. In Italian, RhQs can be marked by optional particles and verbal morphology. We investigated when children aged 6-9 acquire the relevant patterns of optional modification and exploit them in the appropriate pragmatic context. In an elicited production study with 84 monolingual and 88 Italian–German bilingual children, we found that development in monolinguals was determined by age with a progression between 6 and 9 years, while bilingual development was influenced by proficiency in the heritage language and dominance more generally. These results are in line with Tsimpli's (2014) proposal that “very-late-acquired phenomena”, especially interface domains, depend on their timing in acquisition. Unlike for other pragmatic phenomena, such as irony and conversational competence, there was no evidence for a bilingual advantage. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/151ce630-dc10-45d2-a709-fca90faf2787
- author
- Ferin, Maria ; Marinis, Theodoros and Kupisch, Tanja LU
- publishing date
- 2024
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- heritage language, rhetorical questions, bilingual children, optional pragmatic marking, timing of acquisition
- in
- Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
- pages
- 14 pages
- publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85185285818
- ISSN
- 1366-7289
- DOI
- 10.1017/S1366728923000974
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 151ce630-dc10-45d2-a709-fca90faf2787
- date added to LUP
- 2024-10-25 14:35:18
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:47:33
@article{151ce630-dc10-45d2-a709-fca90faf2787,
abstract = {{Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are a complex phenomenon at the interface of pragmatics, prosody and syntax, which requires reasoning on intentions and goals, and which involves a mismatch between literal and intended meaning. In Italian, RhQs can be marked by optional particles and verbal morphology. We investigated when children aged 6-9 acquire the relevant patterns of optional modification and exploit them in the appropriate pragmatic context. In an elicited production study with 84 monolingual and 88 Italian–German bilingual children, we found that development in monolinguals was determined by age with a progression between 6 and 9 years, while bilingual development was influenced by proficiency in the heritage language and dominance more generally. These results are in line with Tsimpli's (2014) proposal that “very-late-acquired phenomena”, especially interface domains, depend on their timing in acquisition. Unlike for other pragmatic phenomena, such as irony and conversational competence, there was no evidence for a bilingual advantage.}},
author = {{Ferin, Maria and Marinis, Theodoros and Kupisch, Tanja}},
issn = {{1366-7289}},
keywords = {{heritage language; rhetorical questions; bilingual children; optional pragmatic marking; timing of acquisition}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Cambridge University Press}},
series = {{Bilingualism: Language and Cognition}},
title = {{The acquisition of rhetorical questions in bilingual children with Italian as a heritage language}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728923000974}},
doi = {{10.1017/S1366728923000974}},
year = {{2024}},
}