Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Use of Social-Pragmatic Cues in Word-Learning by Monolingual and Bilingual Children

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The project will investigate how pre-school monolingual and bilingual children learn new words. In the United States, the largest bilingual population consists of individuals from Hispanic backgrounds who speak both English and Spanish. The educational outcomes of Hispanic children lag behind those of their non-Hispanic peers. This achievement gap starts as early as the age of 3 years and persists well into the middle-school years. One of the most significant predictors of academic outcomes is vocabulary knowledge, yet we know very little about the process by which children actually learn words. Monolingual and bilingual children tend to come from distinctive learning environments, both socially and linguistically, and it is possible that they rely on different strategies when learning words. Hence, it is crucial to investigate how learning occurs in children who do not share the same learning environment. This research will help develop successful educational strategies and intervention techniques designed for young bilingual children, with the potential of narrowing the achievement gap. Furthermore, the findings will be useful to parents, teachers, and clinicians in suggesting how best to enable learning in all children. Theoretically, the project will enhance the understanding of language learning mechanisms and how they might be shaped by experience. Research suggests that infants and children exploit social-pragmatic cues during language learning. However, prior work has primarily tested English-speaking monolingual children. Yet, because bilingual and monolingual children occupy distinct socio-linguistic environments, they may exploit such cues differently. In two experiments, the investigators will examine the use of verbal and non-verbal social-pragmatic cues in novel word learning in 4-5 year old English-speaking monolingual children and Spanish-English bilingual children. In all experiments, a visual world eye-tracking paradigm will be employed in a laboratory setting to assess learning. In Experiment 1, the investigators will examine the impact of eye-gaze (a social-pragmatic non-verbal cue) and speaker reliability (a social-pragmatic verbal cue) on word learning in bilingual and monolingual children. This will allow researchers to identify whether monolingual and bilingual children are differentially sensitive to verbal and non-verbal social cues during word- learning. The research project will also investigate the impact of multiple cues on word-learning. In natural learning environments, children are typically presented with more than one cue to help them learn words. For instance, along with social-pragmatic cues, children also readily use linguistic cues to support their word learning. While some studies in monolingual children have specifically investigated the interplay between social and linguistic cues, it remains unclear how the presence of multiple cues influences word learning in bilingual children. Thus, in Experiment 2, the researchers will examine the combined impact of mutual exclusivity (a linguistic cue) and eye-gaze on word-learning in monolingual and bilingual children. The findings will shed light on how linguistic and non-linguistic cues are utilized together by children during word-learning, and whether these cues are weighed differently by monolingual and bilingual children.