title: Semantic facilitation in bilingual first language acquisition.
abstract: Bilingual first language learners face unique challenges that may influence the rate and order of early word learning relative to monolinguals. A comparison of the productive vocabularies of 435 children between the ages of 6 months and 7 years-181 of which were bilingual English learners-found that monolinguals learned both English words and all-language concepts faster than bilinguals. However, bilinguals showed an enhancement of an effect previously found in monolinguals-the preference for learning words with more associative cues. Though both monolinguals and bilinguals were best fit by a similar model of word learning, semantic network structure and growth indicated that the two groups were learning English words in a different order. Further, in comparison with a model of two-monolinguals-in-one-mind, bilinguals overproduced translational equivalents. Our results support an emergent account of bilingual first language acquisition, where learning a word in one language facilitates its acquisition in a second language.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mathematics, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bilson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Houston, United States.
authors.forename: Hanako
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Houston, United States.
authors.forename: Crystal D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Houston, United States.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Electronic address: t.t.hills@warwick.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Thomas T
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Hills
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: Bilingualism; Communicative development inventory; Language acquisition; Mutual exclusivity; Network analysis