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A case study of a quadrilingual child : The influence of exposure and cognates when developing multiple languages

Hakansson, Gisela LU and Waters, Birgitta (2021) In Trends in Language Acquisition Research 29. p.78-97
Abstract

This paper reports on a case study of a quadrilingual child, Stefan, born and raised in Sweden and exposed to four languages before his first birthday: English, French, Russian and Swedish. We examine his vocabularies in these languages by the Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (Haman, Łuniewska, & Pomiechowska, 2015), designed to measure vocabulary in monolingual and multilingual children. Stefan’s scores on comprehension and production reveal proficiency in all his languages, to varying degrees, and with comprehension exceeding production. While highlighting direct and indirect exposure as explanation for the variation in proficiency, we also discuss cognate vocabulary as an important factor for multilingual language development. In... (More)

This paper reports on a case study of a quadrilingual child, Stefan, born and raised in Sweden and exposed to four languages before his first birthday: English, French, Russian and Swedish. We examine his vocabularies in these languages by the Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (Haman, Łuniewska, & Pomiechowska, 2015), designed to measure vocabulary in monolingual and multilingual children. Stefan’s scores on comprehension and production reveal proficiency in all his languages, to varying degrees, and with comprehension exceeding production. While highlighting direct and indirect exposure as explanation for the variation in proficiency, we also discuss cognate vocabulary as an important factor for multilingual language development. In the production tasks, Stefan demonstrates not only vocabulary knowledge but also language-specific use of morphosyntax.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Cognates, Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks, Distributed vocabulary, Exposure, Quadrilingual, Simultaneous multilingualism, Vocabulary
host publication
Language Impairment in Multilingual Settings. LITMUS in action across Europe
series title
Trends in Language Acquisition Research
editor
Armon-Lotem, Sharon and Grohmann, Kleanthes K.
volume
29
pages
21 pages
publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
external identifiers
  • scopus:85120687559
ISSN
1569-0644
ISBN
9789027258915
DOI
10.1075/tilar.29.03hak
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e51fea49-73ac-4538-8395-1caa0e9108fd
date added to LUP
2022-01-18 14:25:32
date last changed
2022-04-27 07:11:53
@inbook{e51fea49-73ac-4538-8395-1caa0e9108fd,
  abstract     = {{<p>This paper reports on a case study of a quadrilingual child, Stefan, born and raised in Sweden and exposed to four languages before his first birthday: English, French, Russian and Swedish. We examine his vocabularies in these languages by the Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks (Haman, Łuniewska, &amp; Pomiechowska, 2015), designed to measure vocabulary in monolingual and multilingual children. Stefan’s scores on comprehension and production reveal proficiency in all his languages, to varying degrees, and with comprehension exceeding production. While highlighting direct and indirect exposure as explanation for the variation in proficiency, we also discuss cognate vocabulary as an important factor for multilingual language development. In the production tasks, Stefan demonstrates not only vocabulary knowledge but also language-specific use of morphosyntax.</p>}},
  author       = {{Hakansson, Gisela and Waters, Birgitta}},
  booktitle    = {{Language Impairment in Multilingual Settings. LITMUS in action across Europe}},
  editor       = {{Armon-Lotem, Sharon and Grohmann, Kleanthes K.}},
  isbn         = {{9789027258915}},
  issn         = {{1569-0644}},
  keywords     = {{Cognates; Cross-Linguistic Lexical Tasks; Distributed vocabulary; Exposure; Quadrilingual; Simultaneous multilingualism; Vocabulary}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{78--97}},
  publisher    = {{John Benjamins Publishing Company}},
  series       = {{Trends in Language Acquisition Research}},
  title        = {{A case study of a quadrilingual child : The influence of exposure and cognates when developing multiple languages}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/tilar.29.03hak}},
  doi          = {{10.1075/tilar.29.03hak}},
  volume       = {{29}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}