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Exposure to more than one language influences children's language development (Kehoe & Kannathasan, 2021). It has been shown that particularly the relative amount of language input bilingual children receive influences their language development. Bilingual children can never dedicate the same amount of time to either one of their languages as their monolingual peers because their everyday linguistic environment is divided between two languages. This may ultimately lead to typically developing bilingual children with linguistic profiles similar to monolingual children with a language developmental disorder (DLD) if they have reduced contact to one of their languages (Paradis, 2010). For this reason, it is particularly difficult for clinicians (i.e., Speech-Language Pathologists, SLPs) to distinguish between actual language impairment and typical deviations from the (monolingual) norm due to limited language exposure. In Germany, almost half of all children in speech therapy have a bilingual or multilingual language background (Lüke & Ritterfeld, 2011). Despite the high proportion of bilingual children in speech therapy, the assessment and treatment of DLD in this population is still predominantly monoculturally and monolingually oriented (Scharff Rethfeldt, 2016). Previous studies have identified nonword repetition tasks (NWRTs) as promising tools for the clinical differentiation between bilingual typically developing children and children with DLD because they are arguably relatively free from the influence of children's prior language experience (Schwob et al., 2021). However, some researchers have raised the question of whether bilingual children might still be disadvantaged by language-specific characteristics of nonwords (e.g., Chiat, 2015).
In three separate studies, this dissertation will (1) demonstrate the influence of bilingual language exposure on speech sound processing, an essential building block of language development, (2) evaluate how DLD is diagnosed in bilingual children in Germany and which factors contribute to positive attitudes towards bilingualism in SLPs, and (3) investigate whether bilingual children's nonword repetition performance of language-specific versus unspecific (i.e., more language-neutral) nonwords is subject to the influence of their individual language exposure.
In the first study (see chapter 2), the perception and production of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in bilingual Italian-German, monolingual German, and monolingual Italian children was investigated using a combination of neurophysiological and behavioral methods. Forty five-year-old children (16 monolingual German, 24 bilingual Italian-German) participated in the electroencephalographic (EEG) study, in which automatic speech sound processing of Italian- and German-specific VOT contrasts was investigated. To compare the participants language-specific VOT production, in addition to the 16 monolingual German and 24 bilingual Italian-German children, a control group of five monolingual Italian-speaking children were tested with a picture naming task in which the production of language-specific word-initial VOT was recorded based on ten words per target sound. Acoustic measurements were taken in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). Children's language background was assessed using a parental language background questionnaire. In the second study (see Chapter 3), 66 SLPs from Germany participated in an online survey investigating their attitudes towards bilingualism and their approaches in their daily clinical practice. Finally, in the third study (see Chapter 4), a new NWRT was developed that included Italian- and German-specific as well as language-unspecific nonwords. The NWRT was implemented in an online platform and administered to a group of 26 bilingual Italian-German TD children. Children's repetition performance in the different nonword subcategories was analyzed in the context of their linguistic background (recorded using the same questionnaire as in Study 1).
Study 1 showed that Italian-German bilingual five-year-old children and the monolingual German control group behaved similarly in processing language-specific VOT stimuli. However, differences between the two groups likely related to language exposure were evident in the processing of a German "long lag" stimulus. Surprisingly, the bilingual group had no advantage in processing the Italian "voicing lead" stimuli. This suggests that the bilingual five-year-olds do not (yet) process the Italian contrasts automatically (Yu et al. 2019). Acoustic measures of productive VOT for Italian and German words were consistent with this interpretation. Specifically, bilingual children showed mastery of the German but variability with respect to the Italian VOT contrast. Evidence for crosslinguistic influence (cf. Paradis & Genesee, 1996) was observed. Study 2 showed that there seems to be an imbalance between SLPs' knowledge of the specific requirements for providing their services to bilingual children and their actual application in clinical practice, indicating sufficient awareness but still a relatively high presence of monolingual approaches in the context of speech therapy. Presumably, this is due to a lack of available materials and/or resources. Finally, Study 3 showed that Italian-German bilingual children performed equally well on Italian-specific, German-specific, and language-unspecific nonwords, regardless of their individual language exposure and language dominance patterns, supporting the view that even language-specific NWRTs can be used to clinically assess the language performance of bilingual children with relatively little exposure to either of their languages. However, this result has yet to be replicated and thus confirmed with a group of children with DLD.
In summary, these three studies highlight the gap between scientific research and clinical practice and demonstrate the relevance of clinicians' participation in research projects to (1) improve knowledge transfer between the two fields and (2) promote evidence-based practices in the context of Speech-Language Pathology.
La presente tesis doctoral analiza el discurso de una selección de letras procedentes de álbumes de pop-rock en español editados entre 1968 y 2015. Partiendo de una concepción amplia de pop-rock como práctica social comunicativa, este trabajo de investigación aborda la construcción lingüística de las letras en cuanto textos escritos para ser cantados y escuchados, así como la elección de recursos léxico-gramaticales fruto de conjugar el discurso del pop-rock anglosajón con elementos autóctonos para sugerir autenticidad local. A lo largo del estudio se evidencia el papel determinante del campo de producción cultural (local, semiglobal) y de variables sociológicas como el género de los/las intérpretes y la escena musical, características que impactan de manera directa en las opciones lingüísticas que se realizan en las letras y, por ende, en la construcción discursiva del «yo» y del «tú» desde la música popular española de los años 70 del siglo pasado hasta el denominado pop-rock latino del siglo XXI. Con el objetivo de iluminar y evaluar dichas opciones lingüísticas se lleva a cabo un análisis contrastivo de corpus y sistémico-funcional de 1.000 letras y 85 álbumes de pop-rock en español.