Poster #76 - Language Entropy versus Language Exposure as factors supporting multilingual language development

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

Bilingualism and multilingualism in children has historically been quantified as, at its simplest, a binary variable (mono- versus multilingual) or, more recently, a spectrum of language exposure to the non-dominant language. We argue that such methods are insufficient to characterize the richness of child multilingualism. We extend Gullifer and Titone's (2020) exploration of language entropy -- a measure of the diversity of language exposure, not just amount -- to an analysis of child language development and cognition. One hundred and fifty multilingual children from the USA and Canada participated in an online study that measured language entropy and executive function. We found that language entropy was negatively correlated with overall English language exposure, and we further explore the individual factors that most strongly affect entropy, such as number of family interlocutors. However, we did not find that entropy significantly correlated with performance on the executive function task. Although a new construct, we believe that language entropy is useful for characterizing the diversity within bilingual and multilingual environments for children.

Authors

• Andrew Cheng, Simon Fraser University
  Presenting Author

• Farzana Ali

• Henny Yeung