Semantic Development in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: Vocabulary Retrieval Strategies and Cultural Influences

Jones, Morgan

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Semantic Development in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: Vocabulary Retrieval Strategies and Cultural Influences Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/bk128c66n

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the semantic development of Cantonese-English bilingual children. In the United States, many children who learn a minority language (L1) at home begin to learn English as a second language (L2) in school. Research has shown that bilingual children's vocabulary development predicts their academic performance (Howard et al., 2014; Tong & Tong, 2022), making it essential to understand the nuances of bilingual children's vocabulary acquisition. To achieve a deep understanding of vocabulary, children need to encounter words in multiple contexts, a gradual process that involves building a network of related words (Sheng et al., 2006). Despite the importance of vocabulary depth, it has been relatively understudied in bilingual children. Of interest in this study is to examine bilingual preschool's ability to retrieve words in three common semantic categories. Children’s language knowledge plays a role in how they generate retrieved words. For example, in a study by Peña et al., (2002), older Spanish-English bilingual children tended to use taxonomic strategies while younger children tend to use slot-filler strategies. Children’s language and culture play a role in their development of semantic categorization. In this study, I examined 47 Cantonese-English bilingual preschool children’s performance in generating words across semantic categories, including Animals, Clothing, and Food, in both Cantonese and English. Results indicated that children produced more words in the taxonomic condition than the slot-filler condition, and a positive relationship between age and number of responses. When we looked at whether a taxonomic shift occurred, we found that in L1, there was a slot-filler/taxonomic shift. In L2, although children produced more words in both slot-filler and taxonomic conditions as they grew older, there was no slot-filler/taxonomic shift. Furthermore, we found variations in the number of words generated by the children in each language that varied based on the three categories we were examining (Food, Animals, or Clothes). We also found signs of cultural effects on word frequency with frequency and word appearance differing between L1 and L2. The findings of this study have implications for clinical practice and could be useful for clinicians to develop intervention strategies for supporting bilingual children's vocabulary growth in both languages.

Keywords: Semantic development, bilingual, Cantonese, English, taxonomic, slot-fillers, category generation task, multilingual

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