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

我们使用多种方法来确定54个月大的西班牙语-英语双语学龄前儿童及其英语母语的同龄人的语言和话语技能。在美国出生的41个西班牙语-英语双语儿童和25个英语单语儿童观看了8分钟的无声视频。双语儿童以平衡的顺序用英语和西班牙语讲了一次这个故事。故事复述被转录并编码为话语技能（叙事长度，叙事成分和评估语言的使用）和语言技能（单词数量，不同单词的数量，MLUw）。在叙事产生中评估的两组总体语言或话语技能没有发现差异，除了评估语言的某些用法外。在双语组中，除了MLUw，在两种语言之间具有高度相关性。我们对叙事结构和评估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。我们讨论了使用这种多维方法评估叙事作品中双语者的语言和话语能力的优势。