Medizinische Universität Graz Austria/Österreich - Forschungsportal - Medical University of Graz
Gewählte Publikation:
Bernhart, M.
Sentence structure of immigrant pre-schoolers in narrative situations.
[ Diplomarbeit/Master Thesis ] Graz University; 2012.
- Autor*innen der Med Uni Graz:
- Betreuer*innen:
- Marschik Peter
- Altmetrics:
- Abstract:
- Language acquisition represents a challenge in every respect, also the acquisition of second-language syntax of immigrant children in a multilingual context, which process is affected by social and language-political factors. In order to examine the sentence structure of immigrant pre-schoolers in narrative situations, bilingual children with Turkish, Kurdish, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Albanian and Romanian mother tongues were recorded in their second language German. The participating children were aged between 5;07 and 6;08. The study included series of four pictures and a short film without words as a procedure for narrative text production. Background information about the childrens language development and non-linguistic development was registered as well. The aim of my thesis was to provide a general overview of theories and conducted studies of first and second language syntactic development, and, furthermore, to show in an empirical study the syntactic constructions encountered in the speech of immigrant children. The data were compared with a previous study of monolingual children, and the realized structures of German clauses in narrative discourse were described. The results of the empirical study have shown that these pre-schoolers make correct use of German syntax, while they have not yet mastered a number of complex structures, such as the use of subordination. The limitation on the available number of children involved for this study did not allow for extensive quantitative analyses. As such, this study may be viewed as a pilot study that identifies possible syntactic constructions of immigrant children in their second language.