EMPIRICAL STUDY
The Cognate and False Cognate Knowledge of Young Emergent Bilinguals
This research was supported in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation.
Abstract
This study examined young emergent bilinguals’ cognate and false cognate knowledge and vocabulary outcomes on four early‐language assessments in English and Spanish. Findings revealed that children were able to use shared phonology of words—before they had developed extensive knowledge about their orthography—to recognize and produce cognates. In addition, children were not confused by the similar phonology in semantically different words when recognizing and producing false cognates. This indicates that children who are just beginning to acquire literacy may also possess a “bilingual advantage” when identifying cognate items as do their older peers.
Citing Literature
Number of times cited: 3
- Giang Pham, Danaee Donovan, Quynh Dam and Amy Contant, Learning Words and Definitions in Two Languages: What Promotes Cross‐Language Transfer?, Language Learning, 68, 1, (206-233), (2017).
- Patricia Velasco and Valérie Fialais, Moments of metalinguistic awareness in a Kindergarten class: translanguaging for simultaneous biliterate development, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10.1080/13670050.2016.1214104, (1-15), (2016).
- Jasone Cenoz, Translanguaging pedagogies and English as a lingua franca, Language Teaching, 10.1017/S0261444817000246, (1-15), (2017).
