It is hard to imagine a world without language. For social animals like human beings, language can almost be considered a necessity to survive. Regardless of location or context, some form of language constantly surrounds an individual. However, like we do not consciously think about breathing or about air to be able to breathe, we do not consciously think about producing words or sentences to be able to use a language. The mystery of language development is fascinating in and of itself. Children acquire language without formal instruction, and may even develop language without exposure to an existing form. How does the average human effortlessly master one language by early childhood? An even more fascinating question is one of bilingualism—humans seem to master two languages just as easily if they are exposed to both languages early in life. Various researchers have continuously investigated this extremely intriguing issue. Though there have been countless studies based on numerous theories, the mystery remains only partially solved. One issue that has been the focus of these heated debates is about the process and structure of bilingual language development.
. . .
How would this word be represented in the hierarchical model? Would there be no lexical links between L1 and L2? Would the conceptual link only exist for one language? These are questions that seriously call into question the validity of this model. In this system, the two languages are represented separately, and are linked to each other lexically. These results are difficult to analyze and compare since they occur under different situations with different languages for children with different language backgrounds. The current belief holds that bilingualism is advantageous over monolingualism in several aspects of development. The other way would be for a computer to link words from one language to another under a program.
Bilingual children seem to use whatever language device is available to them at each particular point in development. has a negative effect on children’s language development.
I imagine the true model of bilingual representation to have numerous parts; the two languages will be represented separately, but not completely. There may be countless links between the two languages, and these links may be direct, or may go through several different categories of concepts. Sukaato (skirt) wo (to) haku (put on) means to put on a skirt. Does this finding indicate that the two languages are represented in two separate systems? Again, the answer is not crystal clear.
Early in acquisition, direct connections between translation equivalents across two languages are salient until the ability to directly conceptually mediate the second language (L2) develops (Kroll and Tokowicz 2001). Even early in development, children do engage in cognitive processes and thus would not be using two languages without having any control over them.
What about cases in which there is a direct translation equivalent for a certain word in two languages, but in which the concept differs? For example, the word pumpkin in Japanese is kabocha. A prime example of this unitary system interpretation would be the “common storage model” of bilingual development; this model assumed that “all rules of both languages are initially stored in a common system” (Genesee 1989).
Approximate Word count =
2405
Approximate Pages =
10 (250 words per page double spaced)
Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.
| CREDIT CARD |
ONLINE CHECK |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
JOIN BY PHONE
|
|
|
