Even Simultaneous Bilinguals Do Not Reach Monolingual Levels of Proficiency in Syntax
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Two Monolinguals in One Brain Hypothesis: State of the (Syntactic) Evidence
1.2. Overview of the Present Paper
2. Study 1: Meta-Analysis
2.1. Target Papers
2.2. Data Entry
2.3. Results
2.4. Discussion
3. Study 2: Monte Carlo Simulations
3.1. Bootstrapping from the Data of Hartshorne and Colleagues
3.2. Method
3.3. Results and Discussion
4. Study 3: Comparing Simultaneous Bilinguals Whose Primary Language Is or Is Not English
4.1. Method
4.2. Results and Discussion
5. General Discussion
5.1. Interpreting Effect Size
5.2. Explaining High (But Below-Ceiling) Performance by Simultaneous Bilinguals
6. Limitations and Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
1 | . |
2 | The estimated effect is 0.20 with 95% confidence interval [−0.08, 0.48] using a random effects model, after excluding Hartshorne et al. (2018). The heterogeneity is larger but still insignificant ( = 0.44, p = 0.08). |
3 | Technically, some of these are simultaneous multilinguals. As noted previously, we use the term ‘bilingual’ in the more general sense of more than one language. |
4 | One might expect, given their more variable circumstances, simultaneous bilinguals might show more variability in performance than do monolinguals. We compared the variability (as measured by coefficient of variation) for monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals for ages 12 through 67 in year-sized bins (i.e., 7 yo, 8 yo, 9 yo, … 75 yo), restricted to those who listed English as their primary language. This age range was chosen to ensure at least 20 subjects per bin; less than that, and measurement of coefficient of variation is very unstable. While accuracy was significantly higher for monolinguals relative to simultaneous bilinguals at nearly every age (see HTP), variation was generally similar at each age and did not differ as a group (t(55) = 1.73, p = 0.09). Similar results were obtained when measuring subject performance using expected ability inferred from a 4PL IRT model (cf. Hartshorne and Chen (2021)) instead of using elogit-transformed accuracy (as done here and in HTP). However, we should note that estimating variability is difficult when performance is close to ceiling, which is the case for both monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals. |
5 | These estimates do not necessarily exclude non-significant results. However, since the vast majority of reported results are significant, this is unlikely to bias estimates much (Fanelli 2010; Sterling et al. 1995). |
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Li, W.; Hartshorne, J.K. Even Simultaneous Bilinguals Do Not Reach Monolingual Levels of Proficiency in Syntax. Languages 2022, 7, 293. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040293
Li W, Hartshorne JK. Even Simultaneous Bilinguals Do Not Reach Monolingual Levels of Proficiency in Syntax. Languages. 2022; 7(4):293. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040293
Chicago/Turabian StyleLi, Wei, and Joshua K. Hartshorne. 2022. "Even Simultaneous Bilinguals Do Not Reach Monolingual Levels of Proficiency in Syntax" Languages 7, no. 4: 293. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040293