Language acquisition has been the subject of decades of research. Most of the previous research on second language acquisition has centered around adult learners, leaving child learners understudied by comparison. This book focuses on child second language development. The cross-sectional empirical study herein investigates the syntax-semantics interface in English speaking children acquiring German ...

Previous research has shown that the two languages of early bilingual children can influence each other, depending on the linguistic property, while adult bilinguals predominantly show influence from the majority language to the minority (heritage) language. While this observed shift in influence patterns is probably related to a shift in dominance between early childhood and adulthood, there is ...

Herein, we contextualize, problematize and offer some insights for moving beyond the problem of monolingual comparative normativity in (psycho)linguistic research on bilingualism. We argue that, in the vast majority of cases, juxtaposing (functional) monolinguals to bilinguals fails to offer what the comparison is supposedly intended to do: meet the standards of empirical control in line with ...

Language learners typically experience cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from one or several previously acquired languages when acquiring an additional language. Learners of a second language (L2) are influenced by their native languages in all language domains ranging from phonology, lexicon, and morphosyntax, to semantics, discourse, and pragmatics. In third (and subsequent) language (L3/ Ln) ...