TY - JOUR
T1 - Interdependence between L1 and L2: the case of Syrian children with refugee backgrounds in Canada and the Netherlands
AU - Blom, Elma
AU - Soto-Corominas, Adriana
AU - Attar, Zahraa
AU - Daskalaki, Evangelia
AU - Paradis, Johanne
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thank all the participants and their families for taking the time to participate in the study, as well as all the research assistants who collected and processed the data. The Canadian study was made possible by the funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through a Partnership Grant (Paradis) and an Insight Developmental Grant (Paradis). The Dutch study was funded through an Aspasia Grant of the Dutch Research Council (NWO), which was given to Elma Blom.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada (n = 56) and the Netherlands (n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Arabic) skills on L2 (English, Dutch) outcomes and whether L1-L2 interdependence is influenced by the length of L2 exposure. To measure L1 and L2 syntactic skills, cross-linguistic Litmus Sentence Repetition Tasks (Litmus-SRTs) were used. Results showed evidence of L1-L2 interdependence, but interdependence may only surface after sufficient L2 exposure. Maternal education level and refugee camp experiences differed between the two samples. Both variables impacted L2 outcomes in the Canadian but not in the Dutch sample, demonstrating the importance to examine refugee children's bilingual language development in different national contexts.
AB - Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada (n = 56) and the Netherlands (n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Arabic) skills on L2 (English, Dutch) outcomes and whether L1-L2 interdependence is influenced by the length of L2 exposure. To measure L1 and L2 syntactic skills, cross-linguistic Litmus Sentence Repetition Tasks (Litmus-SRTs) were used. Results showed evidence of L1-L2 interdependence, but interdependence may only surface after sufficient L2 exposure. Maternal education level and refugee camp experiences differed between the two samples. Both variables impacted L2 outcomes in the Canadian but not in the Dutch sample, demonstrating the importance to examine refugee children's bilingual language development in different national contexts.
KW - Interdependence Hypothesis
KW - refugee children
KW - L2 exposure
KW - sentence repetition
KW - transfer
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110706159&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0142716421000229
DO - 10.1017/S0142716421000229
M3 - Article
SN - 0142-7164
VL - 42
SP - 1159
EP - 1194
JO - Applied Psycholinguistics
JF - Applied Psycholinguistics
IS - 5
ER -