Prof. SHENG Li, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies

The fine-grained effects of bilingualism on children’s lexical-semantic development. The Asian Pacific Society of Speech, Language, and Hearing Annual Symposium. Asian Pacific Society of Speech, Language, and Hearing; Hong Kong Association of Speech Therapists (HKAST); and Thai Speech-Language and Hearing Association (TSHA) (online), 28-29 October 2022.

Abstract
Language acquisition is a fluid and dynamic process determined by both learner-internal and environmental factors. My research takes an individual differences approach with the aims of specifying the influence of multiple factors and drawing practical implications for language assessment. In this talk I will present a series of studies of lexical-semantic development in bilingual children including those who use Mandarin-English, Spanish-English, and American Sign Language-English. The experimental tasks probe the depth of semantic knowledge, taxonomic awareness, and the awareness of compounding and derivational morphological rules. The results revealed nuanced effects of bilingualism (i.e., divided language input) on lexical-semantic learning outcomes that interact with language dominance, task demand, and scoring methods. Moreover, the findings suggest that the effect of first language typology on second language development depends on the language feature under investigation. The results have clinical implications for the assessment of linguistically diverse learners.