Project description
Bilingual minds under the microscope to explain child language acquisition
The interaction between the two languages in bilingual children's minds during comprehension remains a puzzle. Some argue that bilingualism itself affects language comprehension, while others suggest specific cross-linguistic influences. However, the real-time processing dynamics lack systematic exploration, leaving gaps in our understanding. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the CLEAR project explores the role of cross-linguistic influence in bilingual childrens' sentence processing, focusing on Croatian heritage speakers. It will study eye movements and offline preferences in anaphora resolution. Project findings are expected to advance research on heritage language bilingualism and benefit language educators and speech pathologists, fostering bilingualism and inter-culturality across Europe.
Objective
The project CLEAR (Cross-Linguistic influence during real-time procEssing in child heritAge speakeRs) investigates the role of crosslinguistic influence in real-time sentence processing to fill the gap in the ongoing debate about whether languages interact in the mind of a bilingual child. Some argue that the general bilingualism effect, rather than the cross-linguistic influence, affects language comprehension. What is lacking in this field of research, however, is a systematic understanding of what happens in real-time processing. We focus on cross-linguistic influence in pronoun interpretation by testing severely understudied bilingual population, i.e. child heritage speakers of Croatian. We approach the phenomenon in a new and unique way by examining the crosslinguistic influence in relation to the implicit causality bias, which is assumed to facilitate language comprehension. CLEAR takes a novel methodological approach by comparing children in three European countries – Croatia, Italy and Norway. The two language combinations, Croatian-Italian (null-subject languages) and Croatian-Norwegian (non-null-subject language) allow us to gain insight into the role of structural overlap between languages. To better understand the phenomenon, both children’s eye movements and offline responses will be measured. CLEAR will make a significant contribution to research on heritage language bilingualism by revealing whether the languages a child acquires influence each other or whether difficulties in language comprehension are due to the general bilingualism effect, i.e. limited processing abilities. The project addresses aspects that are of great importance for teachers of second/foreign languages as well as for speech and language pathologists by promoting bilingualism and interculturality across Europe. By carrying out this project, I will gain considerable expertise in the field and become an independent and internationally recognised researcher.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01
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9019 Tromso
Norway
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