ABSTRACT

Research has investigated how lexical-semantic and participant factors impact word learning in young children and adults. However, limited information pertaining to expressive vocabulary development exists for school-aged bilinguals—particularly those with developmental language disorder (DLD). Cross-linguistic differences in the semantic characteristics of words may impact the types of cues available for constructing expressive vocabulary knowledge. To address this gap, we evaluated the relationships between intrinsic factors (age, language ability), extrinsic factors (L1 exposure), and word characteristics (e.g. imageability, concreteness) with item difficulty and expressive vocabulary knowledge in school-aged Spanish-English bilinguals with and without DLD. While we found similar patterns of associations between item difficulty and word characteristics across language ability groups, divergent predictive patterns emerged across languages and across ability groups. Educators supporting the development of bilingual students’ expressive vocabulary knowledge must account for not only cultural differences across students, but also characteristics inherent to words.

摘要

研究调查了词汇语义和参与者因素如何影响幼儿和成人的单词学习。然而，对于学龄双语者——尤其是那些患有发展性语言障碍 (DLD) 的人来说，关于表达性词汇发展的信息有限。单词语义特征的跨语言差异可能会影响可用于构建表达性词汇知识的线索类型。为了解决这一差距，我们评估了学龄西班牙语-英语双语者的内在因素（年龄、语言能力）、外在因素（L1 暴露）和单词特征（例如形象性、具体性）与项目难度和表达性词汇知识之间的关系有和没有 DLD。虽然我们发现跨语言能力组的项目难度和单词特征之间存在相似的关联模式，但跨语言和跨能力组出现了不同的预测模式。支持双语学生表达性词汇知识发展的教育者不仅要考虑学生之间的文化差异，还要考虑单词固有的特征。