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Language Delay and Amount of Exposure to the Language: Two (Un)Related Phenomena in Early Spanish-Basque Bilingualism

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Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-speaking Children

Part of the book series: Literacy Studies ((LITS,volume 14))

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the effect of the amount of exposure to the Basque language on the expressive vocabulary and grammar size of early bilingual children exposed to B(asque) and S(panish) in their closest family environment from a very early age, and with a varying degree of (relative) B/S input. Four groups are distinguished: (a) Basque monolinguals; (b) Basque-dominant bilinguals; (c) Balanced bilinguals and (d) Spanish-dominant bilinguals, and three levels of vocabulary knowledge, based on the Percentiles (P) of expressive vocabulary: (a) large (P> 90); (b) normal (P10–90); and (c) small vocabulary size (P< 10). The chapter focuses specifically on the effect of the amount of exposure to the language, on bilinguals’ linguistic level, paying special attention to children located at the lowest percentiles (P< 10) of expressive vocabulary in Basque, the minority language.

The sample of 975 children, gathered using the Basque version of the MacArthur-Bates Test Communicative Developmental Inventories, the CDI-2 (Barreña et al. 2008), revealed that 16–30-month-old children with a high amount of exposure to the minority language are not an exception among those with the smallest vocabulary size, and also that some children with a low amount of exposure may belong to those of P>90. A more in-depth analysis of a set of sociolinguistic and biogenetic variables, potentially affecting expressive vocabulary, revealed that the weak effect of the amount of exposure appears as the largest from the 12 independent variables tested in 16–30-month-old children. The same analysis with a restricted sample of 26–30-month-olds revealed a higher effect of this and other weak sociolinguistic variables, such as parents’ communicative language and mother’s first language. Finally, the current study highlights the need to take into account children’s relative input in order to properly identify bilinguals at risk of linguistic delay, who may be erroneously considered as such (false positives) in those cases where they are assessed only in the language to which they have a low(er) degree of exposure.

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Acknowledgment

This research has been partially supported by several grants from the following institutions: The Basque Government (IT-676-13 and IT983-16), The University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (UFI11/6), The Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FFI-2015-68589-C2-1-P (MINECO/FEDER)). The authors would like to thank the parents, children and institutions participating in the study, colleagues at the KGNZ research group A. Barreña, M. Almgren, N. Arratibel and J. Barnes, as well as Tania Barberan, the editors and a native English speaker for their helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Letren Fakultatea, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Unibertsitatearen Ibilbidea, 5, Vitoria/Gasteiz, 01006, Spain

    Maria-Jose Ezeizabarrena

  2. University of the Basque Country, San Sebastián, Spain

    Iñaki García Fernández

Authors
  1. Maria-Jose Ezeizabarrena
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  2. Iñaki García Fernández
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Correspondence to Iñaki García Fernández .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hospital General “Dr. Manuel Gea González”, Mexico City, Mexico

    Alejandra Auza Benavides

  2. Program in Speech and Hearing, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, New York, USA

    Richard G. Schwartz

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Ezeizabarrena, MJ., Fernández, I.G. (2017). Language Delay and Amount of Exposure to the Language: Two (Un)Related Phenomena in Early Spanish-Basque Bilingualism. In: Auza Benavides, A., Schwartz, R. (eds) Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-speaking Children. Literacy Studies, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-53645-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-53646-0

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