An analysis of interlinguistic influence between Chinese and English in direct object realization in Chinese-English bilingual children

Abstract

While null objects are possible and pervasive in the Chinese language, their occurrence in languages like English and Spanish is rather restricted. In the case of developing grammars, the omission of categories that characterizes the initial stages of acquisition also affects the object category, together with inflection, subjects, etc. The main goal of this dissertation is to investigate the nature and the directionality of interlinguistic influence between the two languages of a set of Chinese-English bilingual (C-E bilingual) children with a focus on bilingual children’s early direct object (DO) realization in English and Chinese and to provide new empirical evidence for the postulation that the development of the two languages is interdependent. In order to do so, two comparative studies have been carried out. In the first study, the English production of C-E bilinguals is analyzed with regards to DOs and, in order to determine whether the possible overproduction of null DOs is due to influence from the other first language (L1) (i.e. Chinese) or is rather part of the developmental process, a double comparison is established with English monolinguals (E monolinguals) and with SpanishEnglish bilinguals (S-E bilinguals). In the second study, the Chinese production of C-E bilinguals is compared to that of Chinese monolinguals (C monolinguals) in the case of DO realization. The results show that, on the one hand, C-E bilinguals’ performance in terms of DO realization in English is significantly different from that of both E monolinguals and S-E bilinguals and that the latter two groups behave similarly; on the other hand, C-E bilinguals’ performance in terms of DO realization in Chinese is not less satisfactory and even more adultlike at a certain point of language development when compared to that of the C monolinguals. These findings support the conclusion that, although null DOs occur in the initial stages of child language acquisition regardless of whether the adult grammar allows them (Chinese) or not ii (English and Spanish), in the case of C-E bilinguals’ English development, interlinguistic influence from Chinese into English has a negative effect as reflected in null DOs being produced at a higher rate and until later. In contrast, in the case of DO realization in Chinese, no negative effect is found from English; instead, a possible positive effect is found on C-E bilinguals’ spontaneous production.