ERIC Number: EJ1248748
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Mar
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Language Activities in a Minority-Majority Language Context: Book-Reading at Home is More Important for Frisian than for Dutch
Bosma, Evelyn; Blom, Elma
Journal of Child Language, v47 n2 p289-308 Mar 2020
Previous research has shown that in a minority-majority language context, the quantity of language input at home is more important for the development of the minority language than for the development of the majority language. In the current study, we examined whether the same holds true for the frequency of specific language activities at home. In a group of five- and six-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (n = 120), we investigated to what extent vocabulary and morphology knowledge were predicted by reading activities, watching TV, and story-telling activities in both languages. The results showed that reading in Frisian predicted both Frisian vocabulary and morphology, while reading in Dutch only predicted Dutch vocabulary. This shows that reading at home is most important for the development of the minority language. This especially holds true for the acquisition of Frisian morphology, a domain that is known to be vulnerable in language acquisition.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Language Minorities, Vocabulary Development, Grammar, Bilingual Students, Preschool Children, Emergent Literacy, Books, Family Environment, Reading Aloud to Others, Parent Child Relationship, Morphology (Languages), Television Viewing, Story Telling, Indo European Languages, Predictor Variables, Language Acquisition
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Netherlands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A