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“Light and Lamp Are Synonyms!”: Distributed Characteristic of Taiwanese Mandarin-English Bilingual Preschoolers’ Semantic Knowledge |
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Lu-Chun Lin - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Cynthia J. Johnson - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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| SRCLD Year: |
2005 |
| Presentation Type: |
Poster Presentation |
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(na) |
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| - Assessment |
| - Cross Linguistic Comparison |
| - Language Acquisition |
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This study described the distributed characteristic of semantic knowledge in Mandarin-Chinese and English of 25 Taiwanese bilingual kindergarteners. Recent surveys conducted in Taiwan indicate that more than 60% of preschoolers study English before entering elementary school. An aggravating concern voiced by the government and researchers is that exposing young children to English too early might hamper children’s native language development. A Mandarin expressive vocabulary test was developed and the Chinese PPVT-R was modified to assess Mandarin vocabulary knowledge. The English Expressive Vocabulary Test and PPVT-III were administered to report semantic knowledge in English. Twenty-four monolingual Mandarin-speaking children were included as a control group. The bilinguals produced relatively lower scores on Mandarin receptive and expressive vocabulary tests than their monolingual peers. Their English receptive vocabulary scores were approximately 1.5 SD below the mean, while their expressive vocabulary scores were slightly below the mean. A descriptive analysis of the item responses is presented to illustrate the distributed characteristic of bilingual semantic knowledge. The findings have implications for testing practices for bilingual children. |
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