| Funding Scheme : |
General Research Fund |
| Project Number : |
14623425 |
| Project Title(English) : |
Input dilution and supplementation in monolingual and bilingual siblings |
| Project Title(Chinese) : |
|
| Principal Investigator(English) : |
Prof Mai, Ziyin |
| Principal Investigator(Chinese) : |
|
| Department : |
Dept of Linguistics and Modern Languages |
| Institution : |
The Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| Co - Investigator(s) : |
|
Dr Deng, Xiangjun
|
|
Dr Pang, Vanessa
|
|
Prof Yip, Virginia Choy Yin
|
|
| Panel : |
Humanities, Social Sciences |
| Subject Area : |
Psychology and Linguistics |
| Exercise Year : |
2025 / 26 |
| Fund Approved : |
973,000 |
| Project Status : |
On-going
|
| Completion Date : |
|
Abstract as per original application
(English/Chinese): |
With the end of the one-child policy, children in China are beginning to grow up with siblings again, with many of them bilingual in their home language/dialect and in the school/majority language. Previous studies of mostly Western populations show that language development of secondborn toddlers is sometimes slower than firstborns, probably because parents with multiple children have to split their time and attention between children, leading to “dilution” of the language input directed to each child. This dilution can have a larger negative impact on the younger sibling, since parental (especially maternal) input often constitutes the main source of language input for the youngest children. However, new evidence has suggested that some secondborns are able to outperform age-matched firstborns, likely because the older siblings in these cases have provided helpful language input for the younger sibling, potentially compensating for the diluted input from the parents and boosting language development of the secondborns (“input supplementation”). Nevertheless, existing studies have only been able to provide indirect evidence for input dilution and supplementation, and the focus has been on monolingual siblings. Important variables such as language proficiency and relationship of the siblings have not been systematically investigated or controlled for. Sibling input as a major factor in early language development and bilingualism has been overlooked.
The proposed study fills the theoretical and empirical gap and addresses new societal needs by investigating input dilution and supplementation in monolingual (Mandarin) and bilingual (Cantonese-Mandarin, Cantonese-English) siblings in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China. We will recruit 120 mother-firstborn-secondborn triads with closely-spaced siblings between ages 3 and 9, controlling for gender of the firstborn and factoring in the siblings’ language proficiency and relationship. Parental report and direct observation of dyadic and triadic free play will be employed to measure aspects of input dilution and supplementation in the status quo. An innovative “treasure-hunt game” paradigm will be developed to explore the potential of the firstborn as an input provider in conditions optimized for sibling interaction. The elicited language samples will interface smoothly with AI-assisted transcription pipelines and allow analyses of multilingual input at fine-grained linguistic, conceptual and interactional levels. The proposed project is a sequel to the PI’s on-going RGC projects to study the complex and dynamic linguistic environment of young children and its role in language acquisition, and to construct open-access databases to benefit the research community.
N/A
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| Research Outcome |
Layman's Summary of
Completion Report: |
Not yet submitted
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