The influence of language proficiency on language-based processing skills: evidence from Korean–English bilingual children

Abstract

This preliminary study examined the influence of language proficiency on language-based processing tasks with bilingual children whose dominant language was their second language (L2). Nineteen Korean–English bilingual children were assessed on the Nonword Repetition Task (NRT) and the Korean Nonword Repetition Task (KNRT) an adapted form of the Competing Language Processing Task (CLPT-E) and a parallel form of this task in Korean (CLPT-K). The results were examined relative to scores from vocabulary and morphosyntax tests in both languages. Results show that NRT and KNRT scores were related across languages, but not to the vocabulary or mophosyntactic measures in either English or Korean. In contrast, the CLPT-E and the CLPT-K were not related across languages. Scores from CLPT-E were not related to vocabulary or morphosyntactic measures in English. However, scores from the CLPT-K were related to scores on the Korean vocabulary test. The CLPT-K Word Recall subtest scores were related to the KNRT. These results suggest that nonword repetition reflects a more general or cross-linguistic processing capacity and is less dependent upon language knowledge than the CLPTs. Finally, the results indicate that the use of only one language-based processing task in a single language does not adequately describe language-based processing for bilingual children.

Keywords:

• NRT
• CLPT
• Korean–English
• Bilingual
• Children

Acknowledgements

The second author would like to thank the University of Canterbury Erskine Fellowship Program and the College of Education, School of Health Sciences for financial support during the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclaimer statements

Contributors Hyejin Park: conceiving and designing the study, obtaining ethics approval, collecting the data, analysing the data, interpreting the data, writing the article in whole or in part, and revising the article. Ilsa Schwarz: conceiving and designing the study, interpreting the data, writing the article in whole or in part, and revising the article.

Funding None.

Conflict of interest There are none in the field.

Ethics approval The research was approved by the Institutional Research Board, University of Tennessee.