Semantic Development in Cantonese-English Bilingual Children: Vocabulary Retrieval Strategies and Cultural Influences

The purpose of this study is to investigate the semantic development of Cantonese-English bilingual children. Research has shown that bilingual children`s vocabulary development predicts academic performance (Tong & Tong, 2022). But, to achieve a deep understanding of vocabulary, children must encounter words in multiple contexts, a gradual process that involves building a network of related words (Sheng et al., 2006). To examine this, we adapted the category generation task of Peña et al. (2002) where children were asked to generate words within specific categories (food, clothes, animals) under two conditions: taxonomic (broad categories based on common properties, e.g., "Tell me all the foods you know") and slot-filler (based on functional or thematic relationships, e.g., "Tell me all the foods you can eat for lunch"). We aimed to examine the complex factors of age, category, condition, and language that affect children’s responses. Furthermore, we examined the word frequency of responses across languages, conditions, and category. Results showed a significant interaction between age, condition, and language. For L1, age was not significant in the slot-filler condition, but older children tend to produce more words in the taxonomic condition than younger children, suggesting a slot-filler/taxonomic shift. In L2, no such shift was observed. This contradicts previous findings such as Peña et al. (2002) which found the shift in both languages. In addition, results showed cultural influences affected the frequency at which words appear in responses. These results provide insights into addressing the research gap regarding semantic development of under-represented bilingual children and when the taxonomic shift occurs. The findings of this study can inform clinical practice and help clinicians develop intervention strategies for supporting bilingual children`s vocabulary growth in both languages.

References
Peña, E. D., Bedore, L. M., & Zlatic-Giunta, R. (2002). Category-generation performance of bilingual children.
Sheng, L., & Lam, B. P. W. (2015). Slot-filler and taxonomic organization: The role of contextual experience and maternal education. Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, 5(1), p128. https://doi.org/10.5539/jedp.v5n1p128
Tong, X., & Tong, S. X. (2022). How vocabulary breadth and depth influence bilingual reading comprehension: Direct and indirect pathways. Learning and Individual Differences, 100, 102227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2022.102227