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Description:
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Elma Nap-Kolhoff describes and discusses the results of her PhD-research
on the Dutch language development of seven Turkish-Dutch children. All
children in the study are raised in families of first- and second-generation
immigrants to the Netherlands. At home they initially learn Turkish, but they
are also regularly exposed to Dutch. The children receive most of their Dutch
language input in pre-school playgroups (peuterspeelzalen), daycare centres
(kinderdagverblijven) or in play-contact with Dutch speaking friends.The study
described in this book deals with the Dutch language development of these
children between the age of two and four. For each child, spontaneous
speech data were collected at regular intervals during these two years. In the
literature on childhood bilingualism, learning a second language before the
age of three is often considered a form of first language acquisition. This
assumption is questioned in this book. A comparison is made with
monolingual children learning Dutch as their first language. In addition, the
speech data are compared to Turkish adults learning Dutch as a second
language. The results are analysed within the framework of a usage-based
theory of language acquisition.
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