Polish-German Child Bilingualism: The Role of Age of Onset for Long-Term Achievement

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bernhard Brehmer
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2015 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277135691

The project investigates the effect of age at first exposure to Polish and German on the grammatical proficiency of Polish-German bilingual children in both of their languages. Three different groups of bilingual children are distinguished: simultaneous bilingual children and early successive bilingual children with differing age of onsets of their exposure to the second language (age 3-4 and 6-7). Data from these bilingual populations will be compared to data from age-matched monolingual German and Polish children. Our first goal is to identify similarities and differences characterizing these acquisitional types at an advanced stage of language development (after 5 years of exposure to the L2) in order to determine the role of age of onset for long-term-achievement of bilinguals in both of their languages. Thus, our project addresses the current theoretical debate about sensitive periods in language acquisition. More specifically, by looking at different grammatical properties in detail (determiners, null arguments, verb placement) the project focuses on the selectivity of age effects with regard to different linguistic domains. A second aim is to determine the role of other linguistic and non-linguistic conditions that impact on the degree of attainment. Since data will be gathered for both languages and in both countries (Germany and Poland), our project combines research on bilingual first, early second and heritage language acquisition. Thus, we will be able to address some social factors influencing bilingual acquisition, e.g. language status (minority/majority language) or prestige, which can shape the non-linguistic conditions for bilingual language acquisition. Third, the project also aims at identifying the conditions under which cross-linguistic influence (CLI) takes place, which direction it takes, whether it is beneficial or contributes to attrition and/or incomplete acquisition of one of the involved languages. Here, questions like whether the investigated groups and languages differ with regard to the frequency of occurrence of CLI in the data and which of the selected linguistic properties are more vulnerable to CLI will play a crucial role. Data include free speech, sentence repetition, forced choice-tasks and grammaticality judgments.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Aldona Sopata