ABSTRACT

We identify language and discourse skills in 54-month-old Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers and their English-speaking monolingual peers, using multiple measures. Forty-one Spanish–English bilingual and 25 English monolingual children, all US born, viewed an eight-minute wordless video. The bilingual children recounted the story once in English and once in Spanish, in counterbalanced order. The story retellings were transcribed and coded for discourse skills (narrative length, narrative components and uses of evaluative language) and language skills (number of words, number of different words, MLUw). No difference was found in the two groups´ overall language or discourse skills, assessed in the narrative production, with the exception of certain uses of evaluative language. Within the bilingual group, all measures, except MLUw, were highly correlated across the two languages. Our multidimensional analysis of narrative structure and use of evaluative language sheds light on certain differences between the ways in which English monolinguals and Spanish–English bilinguals organize their narrative discourse. We discuss the advantages of using this multidimensional approach in assessing bilinguals´ language and discourse abilities in narrative production.

摘要

我们使用多种措施来确定 54 个月大的西班牙语-英语双语学龄前儿童及其英语单语同龄人的语言和话语技能。41 名西班牙语-英语双语儿童和 25 名英语单语儿童（全部出生于美国）观看了一段八分钟的无字视频。双语儿童以平衡的顺序用英语和西班牙语讲述了一次故事。故事重述根据话语技能（叙事长度、叙事成分和评价性语言的使用）和语言技能（单词数、不同单词数、MLUw）进行转录和编码。在叙事制作中评估，除了评价性语言的某些使用之外，两组的整体语言或话语技能没有发现差异。在双语组中，除 MLUw 之外的所有测量值在两种语言之间都高度相关。我们对叙事结构和评价性语言使用的多维分析揭示了英语单语者和西班牙语-英语双语者组织叙事话语的方式之间的某些差异。我们讨论使用这种多维方法来评估双语者在叙事制作中的语言和话语能力的优势。