Dec 16
======

Genesee/Nicoladis:2009
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If a child has a less prominent second language will the child ever be
able to reach native levels in that language? Since most likely they
only have one source of input (like immediate family members) for
their non-prominent language. (ie - can an English/German speaking
child living in America ever reach the same level of fluency in German
as an English/German speaking child living in Germany or vice versa?)

I am not sure if this was already on the paper, or maybe I missed it:
Is there a difference between bilingualism at home (e.g. mother
Russian, father Georgian) and bilingualism based on a monolinguistic
home, but in a country with a different language (e.g. immigrant
families)? Especially if the child goes to pre-k, the difference
should be (if there is one) small, shouldn't it?

What is meant by a stringent cut-off of exposure within one month or
lenient cut-off of exposure before 3 years of age? Is this related to
the mutual exclusivity as in the child would only progress in the
dominant language after this time frame and exposure to the other
language is then 'removed'?

Is there any other influence on the development of a child in the key
of a bilingual environment besides the influence on language
acquisition - once we were told that the bilingual environment
strongly affects brain processes and activation of brain regions
during intellectual activities...Are there any papers considering that
issue?

What is the principle of mutual exclusivity? Does this make more sense
to compare BFLA to monolingual one? why don't we just handle BFLA as
its own phenomenon that distinguishes from monolingual language
acquisition in general?

Is code mixing beneficial for the child's bilingual language
acquisition or can it lead to one language being less proficient than
the other?

1. In this chapter the authors discuss BFLA up to four years. Is there
any particular reason related to (bilingual) linguistic development
that they chose this limit?

2. Until what age does the principle of mutual exclusivity is active?
What triggers its abandonment?

3. Could the existence of translation equivalents in bilingual
children be related to their high awareness of code-switching? That
is, could the violation of mutual exclusivity reflect an effort to
avoid a gap filling code switching in certain contexts?

Do similarities between the two languages (in terms of phonology,
vocabulary and grammar) make BFL learners' language development closer
to monolingual children?

How does language dominance get established?

The paper talks about language dominance in bilingual acquisition. Is
it understood why asynchronous development is common, and what might
cause dominance of one language, or is this rather an individual
difference factor?