| Volterra and Taeschner (1978) have suggested that the bilingual child goes through a three stage process of language development in which prior to 24 months of age they mix elements from both languages and are unable to acquire cross-language synonyms. In particular, the lack of cross-language synonyms has been used as evidence that young bilingual children are unable to differentiate between their two languages. This research was conducted to specifically address whether young bilingual children could adopt cross-language synonyms using a word learning paradigm and thereby demonstrate their ability to differentiate between their two languages.;In addition, information on language production was collected using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (MCDI). The results of the MCDI indicated that all but one child demonstrated cross-language synonyms in their vocabulary. On average 29 percent of the children's vocabulary consisted of cross-language synonyms. Taken together, the findings of the present research suggest that children under the age of 24 months can differentiate between their two languages.;Typically, information regarding cross-language synonyms has come by way of parental report and more recently language inventories. The present research takes a novel and more dynamic approach to evaluating cross-language synonyms in bilingual toddlers. Using a mutual exclusivity paradigm, children were presented with a pair of novel objects of which one was labeled using a novel label. They were then asked in their other language to locate a referent, from the same pair, for a second novel label. Another group of children performed the same task using just one language. When this task was performed with two interlocutors speaking different languages, the children more often selected the object that had not been previously labeled. This was similar to the children who also had two interlocutors, but were presented with information in one language. However, when only one interlocutor was used, the children in the two-language condition more often (than the children in the one-language condition) differentiated between their two languages as demonstrated by the adoption of second-labels for one object. |
