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Title:
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Interdependence between L1 and L2: the case of Syrian children with refugee backgrounds in Canada and the Netherlands
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Author:
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Blom, Elma; Soto-Corominas, Adriana; Attar, Zahraa; Daskalaki, Evangelia; Paradis, Johanne
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Notes:
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Children who are refugees become bilingual in circumstances that are often challenging and that can vary across national contexts. We investigated the second language (L2) syntactic skills of Syrian children aged 6-12 living in Canada (n = 56) and the Netherlands (n = 47). Our goal was to establish the impact of the first language (L1 = Syrian Arabic) skills on L2 (English, Dutch) outcomes and whether L1–L2 interdependence is influenced by the length of L2 exposure. To measure L1 and L2 syntactic skills, cross-linguistic Litmus Sentence Repetition Tasks (Litmus-SRTs) were used. Results showed evidence of L1–L2 interdependence, but interdependence may only surface after sufficient L2 exposure. Maternal education level and refugee camp experiences differed between the two samples. Both variables impacted L2 outcomes in the Canadian but not in the Dutch sample, demonstrating the importance to examine refugee children’s bilingual language development in different national contexts. |
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Subject(s):
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-Nens refugiats
-Bilingüisme
-Habilitats sintàctiques
-Segona llengua
-Nens sirians
-Niños refugiados
-Bilingüismo
-Habilidades sintácticas
-Segunda lengua
-Niños sirios
-Refugee children
-Bilingualism
-Syntactic skills
-Second language
-Syrian children
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Rights:
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© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re- use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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Document type:
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Article
Article - Published version |
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Published by:
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Cambridge University Press
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