Purpose: Typically developing (TD) bilingual children usually produce narratives with preserved macrostructure (i.e., narrative scheme) but with impaired microstructure (i.e., language complexity). As for monolingual and bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD), they usually produce narratives with both impaired macro- and…

In the present study, we aimed to disentangle the impact of bilingualism and socioeconomic status (SES) on literacy in language-minority bilingual children (LMBC) and monolinguals exposed to French. We also wanted to explore the role of these two factors on cognitive and language skills, i.e., verbal knowledge (VK), morphosyntactic comprehension…

Teachers in France working with (emergent) bilingual pupils often not only feel ill-equipped to provide the specific support these learners require, but also find it difficult to accept that languages other than French have a right and role as learning resources in the classroom. Challenging such monolingual mindsets whilst helping teachers to…

In this study, the authors compare the production of internal codas and branching onsets in four groups of children learning French: monolingual typically-developing children (n = 12), bilingual typically-developing children (n = 61), monolingual children with Specific Language Impairment (n = 17) and bilingual children with Specific Language…

Bilingualism has been the subject of a lot of research in the last century. Bilingualism is having the competence to speak two languages. The reasons for bilingualism of individuals may differ. Some of them may have parents from different languages, some may be children of ethnic minority or immigrants. In daily life it is possible to encounter…

Aim: This study explores how bilingual parents of autistic children made language decisions for their families, how the event of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and subsequent lockdown impacted the communication environment of their households, and whether these experiences affected their language habits. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted…

A large amount of literature exists on how native speakers derive and process pragmatic inferences, yet few studies have examined the issue in second language learners, despite a controversial debate of second language (L2) ultimate attainment of phenomena situated at external interfaces. This study contributes to the debate on the integration of…

This paper explores linguistic landscapes and the enactment of public visibility and presence of non-majority linguistic groups in EU member states. Non-majority linguistic groups gain power, visibility and presence through the introduction of bilingual or multilingual signposts on roads, streets, squares, and public buildings in towns and cities…

This article draws on data generated through a multi-site collaborative inquiry with students across five English and French schools in Canada and France to investigate children's social representations of plurilingualism. Children were asked to draw a sequence of reflexive drawings of a monolingual, a bilingual and a plurilingual individual, as…

Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been shown to be excellent indicators of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). However, there is still no consensus about which core ability they measure: language vs. Verbal Short-Term Memory (VSTM) and Verbal Working Memory (WM). Moreover, very few studies have investigated whether variables predicting SR…

Occitan, or the Oc language, is a Romance language. The focus in this dossier is on the four regions in France where Occitan is spoken: Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Occitanie, and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal…

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are particularly sensitive to phonological complexity in their language. Their performance drops when there are specific phonological structures or when complexity increases. A nonword repetition (NWR) test, which aims to assess the phonology of bilingual speakers with and without SLI, should…

This aim of this article is to contribute to the development of a socio-cultural model of emergent biliteracy that recognizes the dynamic interactions amongst two languages. The present field study took place in a French-German public Kindergarten class in Alsace, France, where students are in the initial process of learning to read in both…

Identifying specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children represents a clinical challenge because of similarities in language behavior between child second language learners and monolinguals with SLI and because of the lack of standardized language tests on bilingual children. This study investigated the relevance of a LITMUS (Language…

Background: The detection of specific language impairment (SLI) in children growing up bilingually presents particular challenges for clinicians. Non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks have proven to be the most accurate diagnostic tools for monolingual populations, raising the question of the extent of their usefulness in…