AURORA BEL | Pompeu Fabra University (original) (raw)

Papers by AURORA BEL

En este articulo se estudia el desarrollo inicial de determinados componentes del lenguaje. En co... more En este articulo se estudia el desarrollo inicial de determinados componentes del lenguaje. En concreto, se analiza la relación entre tres aspectos estrechamente implicados en la gramática del verbo: la productividad rnorfológica verbal, la complejidad sintáctica y el aprendizaje del vocabulario verbal. En el trabajo se parte de estudios previos acerca de la relación entre el desarrollo léxico y el deshrrollo gramatical,dasí corno de propuestas acerca de que se requiere una d e t e r m i n a d a~a i d de jlé~~i@o para que se desarrolle la gramática. La muestra se compone de seis sujetos rnonolingües y bilingües de habla catalana ylo castellana. Los resultados muestran que se da una explosión de la productividad morfológica que viene precedida por el aprendizaje de cierta cantidad de verbos y tras un periodo determinado de tiempo. Por otra parte, la expresión de la complejidad sintáctica solamente se evidencia unos meses después de esta explosión morfológica. Palabras clave: productividad morfológica, complejidad sintáctica, adquisición del verbo, hipótesis de la musa crítica. This paper studies the initial development of certain language components. More precisely, we analyse the relation between three aspects that are closely involved in the grammar of the verb: morphological productivity, syntactic complexity, and verb vocabulary learning. The study is based on data about the relationship between lexical development and grammatical development, and also on proposals that a critical mass of vocabulary is needed in order to develop a grammatical component. The Esta investigaci6n ha sido posible gracias a las ayudas PB98

Panorama Actual De La Linguistica Aplicada Recurso Electronico Conocimiento Procesamiento Y Uso Del Lenguaje Vol 1 2000 Pags 481 490, 2000

Language Acquisition and Contact in the Iberian Peninsula, 2018

International Journal of Bilingualism

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The primary goal of this study was to investigate... more Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The primary goal of this study was to investigate the knowledge of Russian gender in young heritage speakers through different agreement constructions. Design/methodology/approach: Participants were 30 Russian–Spanish–Catalan multilinguals from Spain aged 7–11 years, divided into two proficiency groups, and a baseline group of 24 age-matched Russian monolinguals residing in Russia. All participants completed four experiments using an oral elicited production task addressing different linguistic conditions. Data and analysis: The accuracy scores were compared between the two proficiency groups and between the heritage and monolingual speakers to document any changes as a function of the type of agreement construction, gender value, noun form transparency, and crosslinguistic congruency. Findings/conclusions: The results demonstrated a hierarchy of gender values; masculine being the easiest gender value, neuter the most difficult, and fe...

In this paper we adopt Hyams' (2001) proposal that RIs in child language fall out of the atte... more In this paper we adopt Hyams' (2001) proposal that RIs in child language fall out of the attempt to establish a realis/irrealis opposition. More specifically, we argue that the Root Infinitive stage or, in other words, the way in which children mark the realis/irrealis opposition, is manifested across languages depending on the (un)availability of the features Person (+/-P) and Infinitive (+/-R). This proposal allows us to incorporate null subject languages into the discussion on RIs, which up to now had been considered not to show a RI stage. Furthermore, we claim that the forms selected by children to express realis and irrealis meaning can be predicted from the presence versus absence of these features in a given language.

En este trabajo estudiamos la resolucion pronominal en el espanol bilingue en contacto con el cat... more En este trabajo estudiamos la resolucion pronominal en el espanol bilingue en contacto con el catalan y la comparamos con el catalan y el espanol monolingue con el objetivo de comprobar si existe influencia translinguistica, ya que las dos lenguas parecen diferir algunos aspectos en la Hipotesis de la Posicion del Antecedente (HPA) (Carminati 2002, Alonso-Ovalle et al 2002, Mayol y Clark 2010). Desarrollamos tres experimentos (dos tareas de juicios de aceptabilidad y una tarea de lectura autoadministrada) para evaluar en que medida la HPA en catalan y en espanol monolingue y bilingue regula la interpretacion de pronombres sujeto ambiguos en oraciones subordinadas temporales. Los resultados de ambas pruebas muestran que los hablantes bilingues, a diferencia de los monolingues, obedecen a la HPA e interpretan los pronombres explicitos como correferentes con antecedentes objeto, lo que sugiere una influencia del patron interpretativo del catalan en el espanol de los bilingues (o un efe...

25 Anos De Linguistica En Espana Recurso Electronico Hitos Y Retos 25 Years Os Applied Linguistics in Spain Milestones and Challenges 2008 Isbn 978 84 8371 714 1 Pags 115 122, 2008

Contribuciones Al Estudio De La Linguistica Aplicada 1999 Isbn 84 605 8800 9 Pags 367 372, 1999

Panorama Actual De La Linguistica Aplicada Recurso Electronico Conocimiento Procesamiento Y Uso Del Lenguaje Vol 1 2000 Pags 481 490, 2000

Language Acquisition and Contact in the Iberian Peninsula, 2018

International Journal of Bilingualism

25 Anos De Linguistica En Espana Recurso Electronico Hitos Y Retos 25 Years Os Applied Linguistics in Spain Milestones and Challenges 2008 Isbn 978 84 8371 714 1 Pags 115 122, 2008

Contribuciones Al Estudio De La Linguistica Aplicada 1999 Isbn 84 605 8800 9 Pags 367 372, 1999

... languages extended to the south: the Castilian language blocked the expansion of Asturian and... more ... languages extended to the south: the Castilian language blocked the expansion of Asturian and Aragonese and became the predominant language in the centre of the peninsula, and Catalan became the language of the Aragonese kingdom, extending to Valencia and the ...

The current work provides results of 27 questionnaires administered to the parents of young Russi... more The current work provides results of 27 questionnaires administered to the parents of young Russian heritage speakers (age range=5-12, n=27) who attend classes in a community-based school in Barcelona. The main goal is to present a social, economic, and linguistic profile of young Russian heritage speakers and their families analyzing such social, economic, and linguistic factors as household income and level of education, language competences of parents and children, language use in families, quantity and quality of children's exposure to different languages and other factors. In addition, such sociocultural aspects as parental attitudes and motivation towards Russian language learning also were evaluated.

This paper evaluates the lexical knowledge of young L1 heritage speakers (HSs) of Russian whose o... more This paper evaluates the lexical knowledge of young L1 heritage speakers (HSs) of Russian whose other dominant languages (L2s) are Spanish and Catalan. Such speakers are often referred to as ‘incomplete learners,’ ‘early bilinguals,’ ‘attriters’ (Polinsky, 2005) and their L1 skills usually rank lower on the proficiency scale than in their L2. The fact that so little is known about heritage speakers (Benmamoun, et al., 2013) and especially about their lexical knowledge makes this area worth investigating.
This study focuses on the productive vocabulary size, lexical richness, and receptive vocabulary size of such HSs in Russian. Benmamoun, et al. (2010) stated that HSs are typically less competent in their L1 than their monolingual peers. In addition, investigating bilingual children Oller, et al. (2007), Yan & Nicoladis (2009), and Bialystok, et al. (2010) discovered a delay in receptive and productive vocabularies of bilinguals in comparison with monolingual speakers. Moreover, Zareva, et al. (2005) and Golkar & Mortaza (2007) argued for a high correlation between the learners' vocabulary knowledge and proficiency level. From these prior findings we hypothesize that (1) in all measures HSs will demonstrate lower results than their monolingual peers, (2) monolingual controls will outperform HSs in receptive and productive vocabulary sizes, (3) a high proficiency HSs group will have higher scores than a low proficiency HSs group but lower scores than a monolingual group.
The participants of our study were two groups of primary school-aged children: the experimental group of 12 Russian-Spanish/Catalan trilingual children at the age of 6;8-10;0 (mean = 9;3), of different proficiency levels in Russian, who were attending weekend classes at ‘Raduga’, a Russian weekend school in Barcelona, and the control group of 12 Russian monolingual children, attending classes in Moscow, of comparable age (6;7-10;1; mean = 9;3). All participants were required not to have any speech, cognitive, or neurological deficits.
To evaluate productive vocabulary size and lexical richness, we collected written fictional narratives based on describing a picture. Six parameters were calculated (Types, Tokens, Type Token Ratio, TTR Content, TTR Functional, and Lexical Density) and analyzed with the help of CLAN programs (MacWhinney, 2000). The receptive vocabulary assessment was based on a Russian-adapted version of the TEVI (Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes, 1996) using a picture identification task: participants were asked to identify the picture which corresponded to the word said by an examiner. The test consisted of 60 subsets of four pictures, each with a total of 60 words. Correct and incorrect responses were calculated and analyzed.
The results are discussed in regards to proficiency levels of HSs. The inferential statistics did not reveal a significant difference between the groups in lexical richness. A difference was, however, found between the two proficiency-level groups in receptive vocabulary, but there was no difference in productive vocabulary. Tentatively, it can be suggested that proficiency level affects receptive vocabulary knowledge but not productive vocabulary knowledge. In conclusion, bearing in mind the novelty of the topic, more detailed testing should be undertaken in order to understand better differences in lexical abilities of HSs.