Jennifer Austin | Rutgers at Newark (original) (raw)

Papers by Jennifer Austin

Frontiers in language sciences, May 28, 2024

NABE Journal of Research and Practice

In this paper, we address a lack of assessments of partner language development in dual language ... more In this paper, we address a lack of assessments of partner language development in dual language immersion (DLI) programs. We propose several important considerations that are necessary for the creation of researchbased assessments of partner language development in DLI programs, focusing on Spanish as an example. We first discuss what these assessments need to test, concentrating on different areas of language that have proven to be challenging for heritage speakers and second language learners of Spanish, both of whom are students in these immersion programs. Next, we discuss how to assess these students through the use of implicit and explicit tasks and by measuring production and comprehension separately. We also advocate for embracing students' translanguaging practices. Finally, we discuss why we need to assess partner language development. We propose that designing assessments that are simple to interpret will allow teachers, linguists, and policymakers to benefit from the data that they provide. For example, assessments of partner language development can contribute to assessment literacy and the creation of learning standards for bilingual schools. We argue that these considerations are essential for bringing DLI education to where we ought to be in the 21st century.

Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, Aug 22, 2020

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 7, 2020

This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multil... more This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multilingual learners. While early research compared the development of negation in adult L2 learners with L1 children to assess L2 learners’ access to Universal Grammar), subsequent studies focused instead on how verbal feature specification influences L2 acquisition of the relative position of negation and verbs. More recently, research on L2 negation has examined what the earliest stages of the acquisition of negation reveal about the relationship between the lexicon and syntax and has compared adult and child L2 acquisition. Other recent studies have examined the acquisition of relative scope and the source of difficulties in the L2 acquisition of negation at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Language in Development, 2021

Heritage Language Journal

We investigate whether dominance, language experience, and increased interaction have an effect o... more We investigate whether dominance, language experience, and increased interaction have an effect on the development of heritage bilingual children’s knowledge of the discourse-pragmatic constraints guiding null and overt subjects. A group of child heritage bilinguals (n = 18, mean age = 5;5) and comparison groups of adults: Mexican Spanish monolinguals (n = 15), heritage bilinguals in the United States (n = 16), and English monolinguals in the United States (n = 16) completed a language background questionnaire, a portion of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) in English and Spanish, a forced-choice task (FCT) in Spanish, and two acceptability judgment tasks (AJT s): one in English and one in Spanish. Results showed that heritage children and adults pattern similarly and differently from adult monolinguals. Increased interaction at home has a positive effect on accuracy in the pragmatic conditions that license null subjects in Spanish without affecting overt subject patte...

Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2016

Although monolingual children do not generally calculate the upper-bounded scalar implicature (SI... more Although monolingual children do not generally calculate the upper-bounded scalar implicature (SI) associated with ‘some’ without additional support, monolingual Spanish-speaking children have been reported to do so with algunos (‘some’), and further distinguish algunos from unos. Given documented cross-linguistic influence in interface phenomena in bilinguals, we asked whether young Spanish-English bilinguals calculate SIs with algunos, or if there is an effect of acquiring languages with overlapping but diverging lexical entries. Two experiments reveal that not only do bilinguals inconsistently calculate SIs, Spanish monolinguals do not always either. In Experiment 1, bilinguals did not calculate the SI associated with algunos. However, in Experiment 2, which calls upon their awareness of speaker-hearer dynamics, they did. This research highlights the challenges arising from interpreting linguistic phenomena where lexical, semantic, and pragmatic information intersect, and is a ca...

The Acquisition of Differential Object Marking, 2020

North East Linguistics Society, 1995

Psychology of Language and Communication, 2021

Two-year olds’ comprehension of pronouns in transitive sentences was examined. Previously, childr... more Two-year olds’ comprehension of pronouns in transitive sentences was examined. Previously, children at this age have been shown to comprehend transitive sentences containing full nouns and pronouns in subject position (Gertner et. al. 2006; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff 1996;), but little is known about when children begin to comprehend the nominative and accusative case in pronouns. Using a preferential looking task, we found that 27-month-old children were able to comprehend transitive, grammatical sentences that had subject-verb-object (SVO) word order and nominative pronouns in subject position or accusative pronouns in object position, but 19-month-old children did not demonstrate this comprehension. Furthermore, neither group showed a consistent interpretation for ungrammatical sentences containing pronouns, in contrast to adult participants. Our results suggest that the ability to use pronouns as an aid to understanding transitive sentences develops by 27 months, before children ar...

ABSTRACT 1. Background. Young bilingual children who speak an agreement-based null subject langua... more ABSTRACT 1. Background. Young bilingual children who speak an agreement-based null subject language and an overt-subject language frequently produce overt subjects in the null-subject language which are not pragmatically felicitous (e.g. Paradis & Navarro 2003, Serratrice et. al. 2004, Hacohen & Schaeffer 2007). These observations are consistent with proposals claiming that cross-linguistic influence is more likely to occur at the syntax-pragmatics interface than in other areas of grammar (Hulk & Müller 2000). Evidence of cross-linguistic influence at this level has also been found among Spanish-English adult heritage bilinguals (Montrul 2004, 2009), who are typically defined as early Spanish-English bilinguals living in an English-dominant society who become gradually more dominant in English as they enter the school system (Pires & Rothman 2009). The higher frequency of overt pronominal subjects in the Spanish of adult heritage speakers, as seen in (1), has been attributed to their incomplete acquisition of the pragmatic constraints governing the distribution of null and overt subjects in Spanish (Montrul 2004:133): (1) Había una vez una niña chiquita que se llamaba Caperucita. Ella vivía con su mamá y *ella quería mucho a su abuelita. " Once upon a time there was a little girl whose name was Little Riding Hood. She lived with the mother and she loved her grandmother very much. In contrast, children acquiring languages which require overt subjects as an L1 often omit subjects in obligatory contexts until approximately age 3;0 (Bloom, 1970; Hyams & Wexler, 1993). The adoption of a temporary pro-drop option in these languages is linked to the gradual acquisition of the inflectional system (Pierce, 1991), and has been observed to co-occur with root infinitives (Sano & Hyams, 1994) and copula omission. There is debate in the field as to whether these null-subject productions reflect a grammar which is syntactically divergent from adult-like representations (Orfitelli & Hyams 2012) or whether they are attributable to processing problems. These developmental patterns raise the question of how crosslinguistic influence affects the licensing of subjects in the early L2 English of bilingual children who are heritage speakers of Spanish, given that child L1 English allows for null subjects and bare verbs. 2. Study. In this paper we investigate the development of subject production in English and Spanish in 6 heritage bilingual children age 4-6 years who are acquiring non-Caribbean varieties of Spanish and are acquiring English as an L2 in school. We analyze the oral production of overt and null subjects in Spanish and English by these children using a picture-based story telling and a description task. Null and overt subjects were coded according to antecedent as involving: a) new information, b) topic continuation, c) topic recovery, and d) contrast. Spanish is the first language for all the children, and their age of onset in learning English ranges from 1;6-3;0. While the Spanish data show evidence of a robust distribution of pragmatically-appropriate null and overt subjects in Spanish, the English results show evidence of non-target null subjects and of transfer of the pragmatic conditions licensing null subjects in Spanish to the children's English.

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2017

In this paper, we extend investigations of the possible effects of cross-linguistic influence at ... more In this paper, we extend investigations of the possible effects of cross-linguistic influence at the pragmatics-syntax interface (Hulk & Müller 2000; Müller & Hulk 2001; Serratrice, Sorace & Paoli 2004), by presenting two experiments designed to probe how Spanish monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual preschool-age children approach the ‘some, but not all’ scalar implicature (SI) associated with algunos (‘some’). We compare algunos and unos (also a ‘some’ indefinite, but one that is not context-linked and does not induce an SI), and algunos and todos (the universal quantifier ‘every/all’). The performance of the children is compared to fluent adult Spanish heritage speakers. Experiment 1 is a variation of Noveck’s (2001) statement evaluation task, also replicated by Guasti et al. (2005). Experiment 2 is a forced-choice picture selection task. Results demonstrate that adults were the only group to consistently calculate the SI associated with algunos – a finding that was expected ...

Markedness, input frequency, and the acquisition of inflection:

This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multil... more This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multilingual learners. While early research compared the development of negation in adult L2 learners with L1 children to assess L2 learners’ access to Universal Grammar), subsequent studies focused instead on how verbal feature specification influences L2 acquisition of the relative position of negation and verbs. More recently, research on L2 negation has examined what the earliest stages of the acquisition of negation reveal about the relationship between the lexicon and syntax and has compared adult and child L2 acquisition. Other recent studies have examined the acquisition of relative scope and the source of difficulties in the L2 acquisition of negation at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Frontiers in language sciences, May 28, 2024

NABE Journal of Research and Practice

In this paper, we address a lack of assessments of partner language development in dual language ... more In this paper, we address a lack of assessments of partner language development in dual language immersion (DLI) programs. We propose several important considerations that are necessary for the creation of researchbased assessments of partner language development in DLI programs, focusing on Spanish as an example. We first discuss what these assessments need to test, concentrating on different areas of language that have proven to be challenging for heritage speakers and second language learners of Spanish, both of whom are students in these immersion programs. Next, we discuss how to assess these students through the use of implicit and explicit tasks and by measuring production and comprehension separately. We also advocate for embracing students' translanguaging practices. Finally, we discuss why we need to assess partner language development. We propose that designing assessments that are simple to interpret will allow teachers, linguists, and policymakers to benefit from the data that they provide. For example, assessments of partner language development can contribute to assessment literacy and the creation of learning standards for bilingual schools. We argue that these considerations are essential for bringing DLI education to where we ought to be in the 21st century.

Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, Aug 22, 2020

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 7, 2020

This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multil... more This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multilingual learners. While early research compared the development of negation in adult L2 learners with L1 children to assess L2 learners’ access to Universal Grammar), subsequent studies focused instead on how verbal feature specification influences L2 acquisition of the relative position of negation and verbs. More recently, research on L2 negation has examined what the earliest stages of the acquisition of negation reveal about the relationship between the lexicon and syntax and has compared adult and child L2 acquisition. Other recent studies have examined the acquisition of relative scope and the source of difficulties in the L2 acquisition of negation at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Language in Development, 2021

Heritage Language Journal

We investigate whether dominance, language experience, and increased interaction have an effect o... more We investigate whether dominance, language experience, and increased interaction have an effect on the development of heritage bilingual children’s knowledge of the discourse-pragmatic constraints guiding null and overt subjects. A group of child heritage bilinguals (n = 18, mean age = 5;5) and comparison groups of adults: Mexican Spanish monolinguals (n = 15), heritage bilinguals in the United States (n = 16), and English monolinguals in the United States (n = 16) completed a language background questionnaire, a portion of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) in English and Spanish, a forced-choice task (FCT) in Spanish, and two acceptability judgment tasks (AJT s): one in English and one in Spanish. Results showed that heritage children and adults pattern similarly and differently from adult monolinguals. Increased interaction at home has a positive effect on accuracy in the pragmatic conditions that license null subjects in Spanish without affecting overt subject patte...

Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 2016

Although monolingual children do not generally calculate the upper-bounded scalar implicature (SI... more Although monolingual children do not generally calculate the upper-bounded scalar implicature (SI) associated with ‘some’ without additional support, monolingual Spanish-speaking children have been reported to do so with algunos (‘some’), and further distinguish algunos from unos. Given documented cross-linguistic influence in interface phenomena in bilinguals, we asked whether young Spanish-English bilinguals calculate SIs with algunos, or if there is an effect of acquiring languages with overlapping but diverging lexical entries. Two experiments reveal that not only do bilinguals inconsistently calculate SIs, Spanish monolinguals do not always either. In Experiment 1, bilinguals did not calculate the SI associated with algunos. However, in Experiment 2, which calls upon their awareness of speaker-hearer dynamics, they did. This research highlights the challenges arising from interpreting linguistic phenomena where lexical, semantic, and pragmatic information intersect, and is a ca...

The Acquisition of Differential Object Marking, 2020

North East Linguistics Society, 1995

Psychology of Language and Communication, 2021

Two-year olds’ comprehension of pronouns in transitive sentences was examined. Previously, childr... more Two-year olds’ comprehension of pronouns in transitive sentences was examined. Previously, children at this age have been shown to comprehend transitive sentences containing full nouns and pronouns in subject position (Gertner et. al. 2006; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff 1996;), but little is known about when children begin to comprehend the nominative and accusative case in pronouns. Using a preferential looking task, we found that 27-month-old children were able to comprehend transitive, grammatical sentences that had subject-verb-object (SVO) word order and nominative pronouns in subject position or accusative pronouns in object position, but 19-month-old children did not demonstrate this comprehension. Furthermore, neither group showed a consistent interpretation for ungrammatical sentences containing pronouns, in contrast to adult participants. Our results suggest that the ability to use pronouns as an aid to understanding transitive sentences develops by 27 months, before children ar...

ABSTRACT 1. Background. Young bilingual children who speak an agreement-based null subject langua... more ABSTRACT 1. Background. Young bilingual children who speak an agreement-based null subject language and an overt-subject language frequently produce overt subjects in the null-subject language which are not pragmatically felicitous (e.g. Paradis & Navarro 2003, Serratrice et. al. 2004, Hacohen & Schaeffer 2007). These observations are consistent with proposals claiming that cross-linguistic influence is more likely to occur at the syntax-pragmatics interface than in other areas of grammar (Hulk & Müller 2000). Evidence of cross-linguistic influence at this level has also been found among Spanish-English adult heritage bilinguals (Montrul 2004, 2009), who are typically defined as early Spanish-English bilinguals living in an English-dominant society who become gradually more dominant in English as they enter the school system (Pires & Rothman 2009). The higher frequency of overt pronominal subjects in the Spanish of adult heritage speakers, as seen in (1), has been attributed to their incomplete acquisition of the pragmatic constraints governing the distribution of null and overt subjects in Spanish (Montrul 2004:133): (1) Había una vez una niña chiquita que se llamaba Caperucita. Ella vivía con su mamá y *ella quería mucho a su abuelita. " Once upon a time there was a little girl whose name was Little Riding Hood. She lived with the mother and she loved her grandmother very much. In contrast, children acquiring languages which require overt subjects as an L1 often omit subjects in obligatory contexts until approximately age 3;0 (Bloom, 1970; Hyams & Wexler, 1993). The adoption of a temporary pro-drop option in these languages is linked to the gradual acquisition of the inflectional system (Pierce, 1991), and has been observed to co-occur with root infinitives (Sano & Hyams, 1994) and copula omission. There is debate in the field as to whether these null-subject productions reflect a grammar which is syntactically divergent from adult-like representations (Orfitelli & Hyams 2012) or whether they are attributable to processing problems. These developmental patterns raise the question of how crosslinguistic influence affects the licensing of subjects in the early L2 English of bilingual children who are heritage speakers of Spanish, given that child L1 English allows for null subjects and bare verbs. 2. Study. In this paper we investigate the development of subject production in English and Spanish in 6 heritage bilingual children age 4-6 years who are acquiring non-Caribbean varieties of Spanish and are acquiring English as an L2 in school. We analyze the oral production of overt and null subjects in Spanish and English by these children using a picture-based story telling and a description task. Null and overt subjects were coded according to antecedent as involving: a) new information, b) topic continuation, c) topic recovery, and d) contrast. Spanish is the first language for all the children, and their age of onset in learning English ranges from 1;6-3;0. While the Spanish data show evidence of a robust distribution of pragmatically-appropriate null and overt subjects in Spanish, the English results show evidence of non-target null subjects and of transfer of the pragmatic conditions licensing null subjects in Spanish to the children's English.

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2017

In this paper, we extend investigations of the possible effects of cross-linguistic influence at ... more In this paper, we extend investigations of the possible effects of cross-linguistic influence at the pragmatics-syntax interface (Hulk & Müller 2000; Müller & Hulk 2001; Serratrice, Sorace & Paoli 2004), by presenting two experiments designed to probe how Spanish monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual preschool-age children approach the ‘some, but not all’ scalar implicature (SI) associated with algunos (‘some’). We compare algunos and unos (also a ‘some’ indefinite, but one that is not context-linked and does not induce an SI), and algunos and todos (the universal quantifier ‘every/all’). The performance of the children is compared to fluent adult Spanish heritage speakers. Experiment 1 is a variation of Noveck’s (2001) statement evaluation task, also replicated by Guasti et al. (2005). Experiment 2 is a forced-choice picture selection task. Results demonstrate that adults were the only group to consistently calculate the SI associated with algunos – a finding that was expected ...

Markedness, input frequency, and the acquisition of inflection:

This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multil... more This chapter provides an overview of generative research on the acquisition of negation by multilingual learners. While early research compared the development of negation in adult L2 learners with L1 children to assess L2 learners’ access to Universal Grammar), subsequent studies focused instead on how verbal feature specification influences L2 acquisition of the relative position of negation and verbs. More recently, research on L2 negation has examined what the earliest stages of the acquisition of negation reveal about the relationship between the lexicon and syntax and has compared adult and child L2 acquisition. Other recent studies have examined the acquisition of relative scope and the source of difficulties in the L2 acquisition of negation at the interface between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Young Basque-speaking children produce Differential Object Marking (DOM) and pre-verbal complemen... more Young Basque-speaking children produce Differential Object Marking (DOM) and pre-verbal complementizers in their speech, variants argued to stem from contact with Spanish (Austin, 2006; Rodríguez-Ordóñez, 2013). In this paper, I claim that despite their contact-induced origin, these forms reflect distinct developmental tendencies on the part of the child acquiring Basque. Children's use of pre-verbal complementizers in Basque seems to be a relief strategy that bilingual children employ until they have acquired the post-verbal complementizers in Basque, which are low-frequency morphemes. In contrast, the use of DOM is present in the adult input, although children use this construction to a greater extent than adults do. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for the part that child learners play in advancing language change.