This paper deals with cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in early trilingualism involving the languages German, English and Farsi. The data come from the case study of the author's two children growing up in a trilingual family within a monolingual German-speaking environment. Specific types of CLI from the non-dominant language Farsi on German and…

The finding that speakers of aspect languages encode event endpoints to a lesser extent than do speakers of non-aspect languages has led to the hypothesis that there is a relationship between grammatical aspect and event conceptualization (e.g., von Stutterheim and Nuse, 2003). The present study concerns L1 event conceptualization in 40 L1…

There has been a continuous debate over a long period over the issue of using the learner's mother tongue in teaching the second language. We have two schools in this regard--monolingual approach and bilingual approach. Those advocating the monolingual approach have claimed that learning is determined by the quantity of exposure to the target…

Utilizing the critical race theory (CRT) construct of majoritarian stories and the already identified story of English-is-"all"-that-matters in the education of multilingual learners and their teachers, this study illustrates the influence of this powerful narrative in classroom practice. By promoting English-only instruction,…

The most outstanding overhaul in educational policies in Spanish monolingual communities has been the widespread implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes. This article delves into the supposedly indissoluble relationship between CLIL and intercultural communicative competence. Using as a basis a case study on…

This article reports on the results of a study which investigated advanced Cantonese English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' use of a monolingual dictionary for determining the meanings of familiar English words used in less familiar contexts. Thirty-two university English majors in Hong Kong participated in a dictionary consultation task,…

The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which bilingual speakers maintain language-specific phonological contrasts for homorganic stops when a cue is shared across both languages. To this end, voice onset time (VOT) was investigated in three groups of participants: early bilinguals speakers of Canadian French and Canadian English (n =…

Morton and Harper (2007 ) argue that research presented in support of a bilingual advantage in the development of executive control has been confounded with social class, the actual mechanism for group differences. As evidence, they report a study in which a small group of monolingual and bilingual 6- and 7-year-olds performed similarly on a Simon…

In their first years, children's understanding of mental states seems to improve dramatically, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are still unclear. Such "theory of mind" (ToM) abilities may arise during development, or have an innate basis, developmental changes reflecting limitations of other abilities involved in ToM tasks (e.g.…

The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to investigate whether bilingualism confers an advantage on children's conversational understanding. A total of 163 children aged 3-6 years were given a Conversational Violations Test to determine their ability to identify responses to questions as violations of Gricean maxims of conversation…

From studies of bilingual education practices, some authors have suggested that bilingualism, in a favourable environment, facilitates development of metaphonological abilities. In a monolingual context, these abilities develop in interaction with literacy. The objective of the present study is to determine if bilingual children have some…

This dissertation is a sociolinguistic study of the ideologies about language, culture and ethnicity among Japanese immigrants and descendants in Brazil (hereafter, Nikkeis) who gather at a local Japanese cultural association, searching for what it means to be "Japanese" in Brazil. This study focuses on how linguistic behaviors are…

This paper is based on action research carried out in a primary school in Scotland where few bilingual learners shared their home language with classmates or staff. It investigated the educational experiences of bilingual children in the early stages of primary school, in which there were often practical difficulties supporting isolated learners…

Studies on monolingual children have shown that home language and literacy support is crucial in children's early literacy acquisition. However, such support has not been examined as thoroughly among bilingual children, including heritage speakers. This study investigated the effect of home language and literacy support on important precursors of…

This dissertation focuses on the apparent linguistic discontinuity reflected in notarial texts from the twelfth to the thirteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula. Particular attention is given to the historical development of Spanish personal a (the direct object animacy marker), which can be used to trace the communicative continuity that must…