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Bilingual language acquisition and theories of diachronic change: Bilingualism as cause and effect of grammatical change*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2010

JÜRGEN M. MEISEL
JÜRGEN M. MEISEL*
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg & University of Calgary
*
Address for correspondence: University of Calgary, Department of Linguistics, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canadajmm@uni-hamburg.de
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Abstract

Children acquiring their first languages are frequently regarded as the principal agents of diachronic change. The causes and the precise nature of the processes of change are, however, far from clear. The following discussion focuses on possible changes of core properties of grammars which, in terms of the theory of Universal Grammar, can be characterized as reflecting different settings of parameters. In such cases, learners develop grammatical competences differing from those of speakers of the previous generation who provided the primary data serving as input for the developmental processes. It has been argued that reanalyses of this type must be conceived of as instances of transmission failure. Yet acquisition research has demonstrated that the human Language Making Capacity is extraordinarily robust, thus leading to the question of what might cause unsuccessful acquisition. Changing frequencies in use or exposure to data containing ambiguous or even contradictory evidence are unlikely to suffice as causes for this to happen. Language acquisition in multilingual settings may be a more plausible source of grammatical reanalysis than monolingual first language development. The study of contemporary bilingualism can therefore contribute to an explanation of diachronic change. Yet one such insight is that simultaneous acquisition of two languages (2L1) typically leads to a kind of grammatical knowledge in each language which is qualitatively not different from that of the respective monolinguals, obliging us to look for other sources of transmission failure. 2L1 acquisition in settings where one language is “weaker” than the other has been claimed to qualify as such. But I will argue that even such problematic cases do not provide convincing evidence of reanalysis. If, on the other hand, children receive sustained input from second language learners, or if their onset of acquisition is delayed, this can indeed lead to incomplete acquisition. I conclude that successive acquisition of bilingualism plays a crucial role as a source of grammatical change. In order for such changes to happen, however, grammar-internal and language-external factors may have to concur.

Keywords

diachronic syntaxbilingual first language acquisitionparametric change
Type
Keynote
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 121 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

This study has been carried out as part of the research project Multilingualism as Cause and Effect of Language Change, funded from 1999 through 2011 by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Science Foundation) as part of the Collaborative Research Center on Multilingualism, established at the University of Hamburg. The support by the DFG is gratefully acknowledged. The present paper is a thoroughly revised version of a text which I first presented as a keynote address at the 3rd International Symposium on Bilingualism, at the University of the West of England, Bristol, April 2001. A first revision appeared in 2001 as a working paper in the series Arbeiten zur Mehrsprachigkeit – Working Papers in Multilingualism, University of Hamburg: Collaborative Research Center on Multilingualism. Substantial parts of this further revised and elaborated version were presented in an invited lecture at the conference on Transmission and Diffusion, Nijmegen, January 2008. I want to thank the organizers of both conferences for offering me the opportunity to present these ideas, and the audiences for giving me valuable feedback. I am particularly grateful to Susanne E. Carroll, Martin Elsig, Gisella Ferraresi, Maria Goldbach, François Grosjean, Gisela Håkansson, Georg A. Kaiser, Silvina Montrul, Robert W. Murray, Esther Rinke, Monika Rothweiler and Suzanne Schlyter for reading and commenting on one or more drafts of this paper. Finally, I also want to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms, comments and suggestions.

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