Thinking for speaking and cross-linguistic transfer in preschool bilingual children

Bilingual children sometimes produce constructions influenced by their other language (cross-linguistic transfer). Transfer can often be predicted by the existence of overlapping and ambiguous constructions in both languages. In this paper, we investigate whether cross-linguistic transfer occurs when overlapping constructions exist, but there are cross-linguistic differences in conceptualization between languages. In Study 1, French-English bilingual and monolingual preschoolers named moving figures. In French, we expected the names to be in the form noun-qui-verb (e.g. vache qui danse; the relative clause is optional) and in English verb-ing-noun (e.g. dancing cow), although alternative, overlapping constructions exist (e.g. vache dansante; cow that is dancing). The results revealed little evidence of transfer and higher rates of naming the action in English. In Study 2, we found that children were more likely to mention the action in English than in French, but could recall the action when cued. These results are consistent with thinking for speaking, selecting the target language before choosing the specific constructions to use. In order for cross-linguistic transfer to occur, the languages may need to share an underlying linguistic structure, as well as an underlying conceptualization.