From Bilingual to Biliterate: Secondary Discourse Abilities in Bilingual Children’s Story Telling

Name: From Bilingual to Biliterate: Secondary Discourse Abilities in Bilingual Children’s Story Telling
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Author: Eva M. Knopp
ISBN: 978-3-631-79414-2

Knopp, Eva M.

From Bilingual to Biliterate: Secondary Discourse Abilities in Bilingual Children’s Story Telling

Evidence from Greek Heritage Language Speakers in Germany and the United States

by Eva M. Knopp (Author)

Linguistics

Series: Inquiries in Language Learning, Volume 24

Summary

This study investigates the oral and written story productions of 56 10–12-year-old Greek-German and Greek-English bilingual children in order find out to which extent their narrative abilities develop conjointly across their two languages and which factors affect this. Quantitative and qualitative measures of narrative discourse ability are related to a composite score of bilingual language dominance (Bilingual Index Score). Results indicate that the degree to which bilinguals can share abilities across their two languages is highly dependent on the type of ability and the degree of dominance and – to a lesser degree – on crosslinguistic differences and modality of production. As such, this study reveals nontrivial implications for the educational support of bi- and multilingual children.

Excerpt

Cover
Title
Copyright
About the author
About the book
This eBook can be cited
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
1 Introduction
1.1 Why narrative discourse?
1.2 Why bilingualism?
1.3 Why biliteracy?
1.4 Aims of the study
1.5 Organization of the thesis
2 Bilingual narrative discourse ability: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Findings
2.1 Narrative Discourse Ability: From primary to secondary discourse ability
2.1.1 Secondary Discourse Ability as a subcomponent of literacy
2.1.2 Narrative discourse ability: From knowing to telling
2.1.3 Sub-components of narrative discourse ability
2.1.3.1 Content knowledge
2.1.3.2 Contextual knowledge
2.1.3.3 Macrostructural knowledge
2.1.3.4 Linguistic knowledge
2.1.3.5 The integration of sub-components of narrative discourse ability
2.1.4 Task effects in children’s narrative discourse productions
2.1.4.1 General review of task effects in children’s narrative productions
2.1.4.2 Modality effects in children’s oral and written narrative productions
2.2 Narrative development in bilingual children – an overview
2.2.1 Characteristic Features of Bilingual Language development
2.2.1.1 The distributed nature of bilingual experience: a source of bilingual language dominance
2.2.1.2 The distributed nature of bilingual experience: a source of crosslinguistic interaction
2.2.2 Literacy in bilingual development: Thresholds and Interdependencies
2.2.2.1 Oral language thresholds in bilingual literacy development
2.2.2.2 Crosslinguistic interdependence in bilingual literacy development
2.2.3 Profile effects in bilingual narrative discourse ability
2.3 Crosslinguistic analysis of measures of narrative discourse in English, German and Greek
2.3.1 Narrative productivity
2.3.2 Verb diversity
2.3.3 Syntactic complexity
2.3.4 Character reference management
2.3.5 Story grammar
2.4 Interim Summary
2.5 Research Question and Hypotheses
3 Methodology
3.1 Methodological considerations
3.1.1 Across and within group comparisons
3.1.2 Dealing with individual variability in bilingual language dominance
3.1.2.1 Using questionnaires to estimate dominance of exposure
3.1.2.2 Bilingual Index Score as a composite score of dominance in exposure
3.2 Procedure, educational settings and participant profiles
3.2.1 Procedure
3.2.2 Bilingual groups and educational settings
3.2.3 Participants
3.2.3.1 Overview of general background characteristics
3.2.3.2 Age of onset of exposure and type of bilingualism
3.2.3.3 Lexical proficiency profiles
3.2.3.4 Bilingual Index Score
3.2.3.5 Participants: Summary of group profiles
3.3 The narrative tasks
3.3.1 Elicitation
3.3.2 Transcription
3.3.3 Coding
3.3.3.1 Coding narrative productivity
3.3.3.2 Coding verb diversity
3.3.3.3 Coding syntactic complexity
3.3.3.4 Coding character reference management
3.3.3.5 Coding story grammar
3.4 Statistical Analysis
4 Results
4.1 Narrative Productivity
4.1.1 Narrative productivity across languages
4.1.2 Narrative productivity across modes of production
4.1.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.1.4 Narrative productivity: Summary of results
4.2 Verb diversity
4.2.1 Verb diversity across languages
4.2.2 Verb diversity across modes of production
4.2.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.2.4 Regressions with bilingual language dominance (BIS)
4.2.5 Verb diversity: Summary of results
4.3 Syntactic complexity
4.3.1 Use of subordination
4.3.1.1 Use of subordination across languages
4.3.1.2 Use of subordination across mode of production
4.3.1.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.3.1.4 Regressions with bilingual language dominance (BIS)
4.3.1.5 Use of subordination: Summary of results
4.3.2 Types of subordination
4.3.2.1 Differences across types of subordinations
4.3.2.2 Use of Complement clauses (C-CLs) across languages
4.3.2.3 Use of adverbial clauses (A-CLs) across languages
4.3.2.4 Types of subordinations: Summary of results
4.3.3 Qualitative analysis of syntactic complexity
4.3.3.1 Crosslinguistic differences in subordination
4.3.3.2 Syntactic complexity interacting with dominance
4.3.4 Syntactic complexity: Summary of results
4.4 Character reference management
4.4.1 Referential density of Character 1 (C1) and Character 2 (C2)
4.4.1.1 Comparisons across characters
4.4.1.2 Referential density across languages and modes of production
4.4.1.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.4.1.4 Referential density: Summary of results
4.4.2 Topic promotion – referential shifts from non-subject to subject
4.4.2.1 NS-to-S-shifts across languages
4.4.2.2 Mode effects on NS-to-S-shifts
4.4.2.3 Referential shifts from non-subject to subject: Summary of results
4.4.3 Form-function mappings in character reference management
4.4.3.1 The use of HAMs and LAMs in character maintenance
4.4.3.1.1 HAMs and LAMs in character maintenance across languages
4.4.3.1.2 HAMs and LAMs in character maintenance across modes of production
4.4.3.2 The use of HAMs and LAMs in character reintroduction
4.4.3.2.1 Language effects on HAM-LAM distributions in character reintroduction
4.4.3.2.2 Mode effects on HAM-LAM distributions in character reintroduction
4.4.3.2.3 Correlations between individual conditions
4.4.3.3 HAMs and LAMs in character maintenance and reintroduction: Summary
4.4.4 Referential adequacy in form-function mappings
4.4.4.1 Referential adequacy across languages
4.4.4.2 Referential adequacy across modes of production
4.4.4.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.4.4.4 Qualitative analysis of ambiguous referring expressions
4.4.4.5 Referential adequacy in character reference: Summary of results
4.4.5 Character reference management: Summary of results
4.5 Story Grammar
4.5.1 Story grammar scores (SG-scores)
4.5.1.1 SG-scores across languages
4.5.1.2 SG-Scores across modes of production
4.5.1.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.5.1.4 Regressions with dominance in exposure (BIS)
4.5.1.5 Story grammar scores: Summary of results
4.5.2 Types of SG-units
4.5.2.1 Comparisons across types of SG-unit in oral mode of production
4.5.2.2 Comparisons across types of SG-unit in written mode of production
4.5.2.3 Types of SG-units: Summary of results
4.5.3 Shared Story Grammar units
4.5.3.1 Sharing of SG-units across modes and groups
4.5.3.2 Sharing of SG-units across types
4.5.3.3 Correlations between the different conditions
4.5.3.4 Sharing of SG-units in relation to bilingual language dominance
4.5.3.5 Shared SG-units: Summary of results
4.5.4 Story Grammar: Summary of results
5 Discussion
5.1 Hypotheses 1 and 2: Crosslinguistic sharing and dominance
5.1.1 Narrative productivity
5.1.2 Verb diversity
5.1.3 Syntactic complexity
5.1.4 Character reference management
5.1.4.1 Referential density
5.1.4.2 Topic-promoting referential shifts
5.1.4.3 Form-function mappings in character maintenance and reintroduction
5.1.4.4 Referential adequacy
5.1.4.5 Summary on character reference management
5.1.5 Story Grammar
5.1.5.1 Story grammar scores (SG-scores)
5.1.5.2 Types of SG-units and their sharing
5.1.5.3 Summary on Story Grammar
5.1.6 Crosslinguistic sharing and dominance: Summary
5.2 Hypothesis 3: Modularity effects
5.2.1 Modality effects in all bilinguals
5.2.2 Modality effects in the weaker language
5.2.3 Modality effects: Summary of findings
5.3 Specific contributions of this study
5.3.1 Crosslinguistic interdependence and sharing: Why the measure counts
5.3.2 Crosslinguistic interdependence and sharing: Why dominance counts
5.3.3 Bilingual narrative discourse ability: Why modality counts
5.3.4 Bilingual narrative discourse ability: Why instruction counts
5.4 Implications for educational practice
5.5 Limitations of the study and future directions for research
6 Conclusion
7 References
Series Index

Eva M. Knopp

From Bilingual to Biliterate:
Secondary Discourse Abilities in
Bilingual Children’s Story Telling

Evidence from Greek Heritage Language Speakers in
Germany and the United States

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche
Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in
the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic
data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss., 2017

The research, on which this dissertation is based, was conducted as part of the CoLiBi- and BALED-projects and, through those, was financially supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Greek research council (IKY), the European Social Fund (ESF) and Greek national funds (NSRF).

D 38

ISSN 1868-386X

ISBN 978-3-631-79208-7 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-79412-8 (E-PDF)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-79413-5 (EPUB)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-79414-2 (MOBI)

DOI 10.3726/b15819

Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

Berlin 2019

Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙

Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

www.peterlang.com

About the author

Eva M. Knopp is assistant professor in German Linguistics at Radboud University, Nijmegen. She conducted her doctoral research at the English department at the University of Cologne, Germany. Her current research combines psycho- and sociolinguistic perspectives on bi- and multilingual development in educational contexts.

About the book

This study investigates the oral and written story productions of 56 10 to 12 year-old Greek-German and Greek-English bilingual children in order find out to which extent their narrative abilities develop conjointly across their two languages and which factors affect this. Quantitative and qualitative meas-ures of narrative discourse ability are related to a composite score of bilingual language dominance (Bilingual Index Score). Results indicate that the degree to which bilinguals can share abilities across their two languages is highly dependent on the type of ability and the degree of dominance and – to a lesser degree – on crosslinguistic differences and modality of production. As such, this study reveals nontrivial implications for the educational support of bi- and multilingual children.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Acknowledgements

The research presented in is dissertation was conducted as part of the CoLiBi-Project (Cognition, Literacy and Bilingualism in young Greek-Germans, 2011–2013), a collaborative research project between the University of Cologne and Artistotle University, Thessaloniki. This project was jointly funded by the Greek research council (IKY) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). As such, it was the Greek-German sub-component of the international umbrella project BALED (Bilingual Language & Bilingual Education, 2012–2015) coordinated by Artistotle University Thessaloniki and funded within the THALES-program by the ESF and Greek national funds (NSRF). I am indepted to all of these funding bodies for supporting my study. As part of such a large endeavour, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with many people over the past years.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my first supervisor Prof. Dr. Christiane Bongartz for having given me the opportunity to get here, while experiencing academic life in the full. As an open-minded, encouraging, generous and trusting supervisor, team leader and senior colleague, she has guided me along the path to achieving not only this project, but also many other mile-stones in my academic and personal life. Her academic vision and approach to linguistic research have inspired me in many ways. Thanks, Chris! I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Prof. Dr. Jacopo Torregrossa, who has given me tremendous intellectual and personal support in this PhD-project and has spent many hours in active and creative academic interaction over the data documented in this study. I am also indepted to Prof. Dr. Andreas Rohde for acting as a third referee for this study and for giving me the opportunity to present my research and interact with his team over the course of the last few years.

A person without who this project would not have happened is Prof. Dr. Ianthi Tsimpli. As principal investigator and initiator of the CoLiBi- and BALED-projects, she has given me the opportunity to conduct my research on an intellectually inspiring and socio-politically relevant topic in an international and interdisciplinary research environment. By way of intensive collaboration with her and her colleagues in Greece, she has also←5 | 6→ opened up a whole new culture to me making this research endeavour a truly European and international experience.

A very special thanks goes out to the schools, children and teachers that have participated in this study. This concerns Griechische Grundschule Düsseldorf, Griechische Grundschule Wuppertal, Gesamtschule Kaiserplatz, Krefeld, Muttersprachlicher Nachmittagsunterricht, Köln and Socrates Academy, Charlotte, NC. A special thanks to Jochen Adrian, Odysseas Trikkos, Kontantinos Kotsis and Athanasia Smith for being so tremendously supportive in organizing the data-collections at their schools. For similar reasons, I would also like to thank my friends Nicole Prenzel, Christiane Ratsch and Natalja Vogel.

I would like to thank all the fellow junior researchers and student assistants in the German and Greek teams that have contributed to the data-collection and -analysis and have, thus, supported me in my research: Maria Andreou, Clara Doebler, Ifigenia Dosi, Elena Ioannidou, Maria Kaltsa, Anja Leist-Villis, Annika Mecking, Stamatia Michalopoulou, Eleni Peristeri, Johanna Schnuch, Mary Soukalopoulou, Julia Teipel, Samantha Thiel, Manuela Vida and Bettina Will. A very special thanks among these goes out to Maria Andreou and Mary Soukalopoulou for supporting me in the analysis of the Greek data in this study.

Over the course of my studies, I have had the chance to discuss my ideas and broaden my horizon in terms of linguistic and educational research with many inspiring researchers. Among those, I would like to say special thanks to Prof. Elena Agathopoulou, Prof. Martin Becker, Prof. Jon Erickson, Prof. Ulrike Gut, Prof. Klaus von Heusinger, Prof. Theo Marinis, Prof. Elvira Masoura, Prof. Despina Papadopoulou and Prof. Phyllis Schneider.

Thanks also to my colleagues and team members at the University of Cologne, who have always supported me in my work and held my back: Penelope Allsobrook, Jakob Egetenmeyer, Chiara Gianollo, Laura Mues, Mareike Plenk, Victoria Przybyl, Jan Springob, Volker Struckmeier and Manuela Vida. Among these very special thanks goes out to Penelope Allsobrook, Mareike Plenk and Victoria Przybyl for reading and commenting on parts of this thesis.

Finally, I would like to thank my family, my partner and my friends for always supporting me and having my back through the ups and downs that such a project entails. Without their encouragement, love and understanding none of this would have been possible.←6 | 7→

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

1 Introduction

1.1 Why narrative discourse?

1.2 Why bilingualism?

1.3 Why biliteracy?

1.4 Aims of the study

1.5 Organization of the thesis

2 Bilingual narrative discourse ability: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Findings

2.1 Narrative Discourse Ability: From primary to secondary discourse ability

2.1.1 Secondary Discourse Ability as a subcomponent of literacy

2.1.2 Narrative discourse ability: From knowing to telling

2.1.3 Sub-components of narrative discourse ability

2.1.3.1 Content knowledge

2.1.3.2 Contextual knowledge

2.1.3.3 Macrostructural knowledge

2.1.3.4 Linguistic knowledge

2.1.3.5 The integration of sub-components of narrative discourse ability

2.1.4 Task effects in children’s narrative discourse productions

2.1.4.1 General review of task effects in children’s narrative productions

2.1.4.2 Modality effects in children’s oral and written narrative productions←7 | 8→

2.2 Narrative development in bilingual children – an overview

2.2.1 Characteristic Features of Bilingual Language development

2.2.1.1 The distributed nature of bilingual experience: a source of bilingual language dominance

2.2.1.2 The distributed nature of bilingual experience: a source of crosslinguistic interaction

2.2.2 Literacy in bilingual development: Thresholds and Interdependencies

2.2.2.1 Oral language thresholds in bilingual literacy development

2.2.2.2 Crosslinguistic interdependence in bilingual literacy development

2.2.3 Profile effects in bilingual narrative discourse ability

2.3 Crosslinguistic analysis of measures of narrative discourse in English, German and Greek

2.3.1 Narrative productivity

2.3.2 Verb diversity

2.3.3 Syntactic complexity

2.3.4 Character reference management

2.3.5 Story grammar

2.4 Interim Summary

2.5 Research Question and Hypotheses

3 Methodology

3.1 Methodological considerations

3.1.1 Across and within group comparisons

3.1.2 Dealing with individual variability in bilingual language dominance

3.1.2.1 Using questionnaires to estimate dominance of exposure

3.1.2.2 Bilingual Index Score as a composite score of dominance in exposure

3.2 Procedure, educational settings and participant profiles

3.2.1 Procedure

3.2.2 Bilingual groups and educational settings

3.2.3 Participants

3.2.3.1 Overview of general background characteristics←8 | 9→

Details

Pages: 390
Year: 2019
ISBN (PDF): 9783631794128
ISBN (ePUB): 9783631794135
ISBN (MOBI): 9783631794142
ISBN (Hardcover): 9783631792087
DOI: 10.3726/b15819
Language: English
Publication date: 2019 (July)
Keywords: literacy bilingualism narrative abilities heritage language Greek-German Greek-English
Published: Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2019. 388 S., 11 s/w Abb., 28 s/w Tab.

Biographical notes

Eva M. Knopp (Author)

From Bilingual to Biliterate: Secondary Discourse Abilities in Bilingual Children’s Story Telling

Summary

Excerpt

Table Of Contents

Details

Biographical notes

Key Subject Areas