Multilingualism and linguistic diversity are the norm in India. Although studies have shown a relation between bilingualism and cognitive gains, linguistic diversity has so far been ignored as a potential factor affecting cognitive skills. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how cognitive skills—as measured by the n-back and Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices tasks—are affected by multilingualism and/or sociolinguistic diversity in a large cohort of socioeconomically disadvantaged primary school children in two urban sites of India: Delhi and Hyderabad. We present a questionnaire estimating sociolinguistic diversity and show that this measure assesses a distinct construct, as compared to a child’s multilingualism. Children were classified as growing up monolingually or bilingually, depending on whether they grew up with one or more languages in the home. Regarding cognitive performance, bilinguals were found to outperform monolinguals on the n-back task, as well as on the Raven’s task. In addition, a socially and linguistically diverse environment seems to enhance cognitive performance for children who are not multilingual themselves. Finally, several contextual factors such as city were found to influence cognitive performance. Overall, this shows that cognitive tasks are subject to contextual effects and that bilingualism and linguistic diversity can enhance cognitive performance of children in disadvantaged contexts.

The aim of the study was to find out to what extent low socio-economic status (SES) children enrolled in government-run primary schools in Hyderabad are ready to receive instruction through the medium of English (English medium instruction [EMI]). To this end we investigated children’s oral vocabulary skills, the lexical complexity of their textbooks, as well as the amount of English input they receive in class. A subsample of 90 children from primary school Grades 4 and 5 who opted to carry out a story retelling task in English rather than in Telugu took part in the study. Results reveal that the children’s oral vocabulary levels are far below the levels required to read the textbook materials. The lexical diversity of the children’s stories as analysed with the Index of Guiraud was also a significant predictor of their reading comprehension scores. We conclude that children from low-SES enrolled in government schools are not ready for EMI, and call for further investigation into the levels of English vocabulary knowledge that are needed for EMI.

The present study investigates narrative microstructure in the English oral retellings of primary school children from disadvantaged backgrounds in India. For these children, the combination of rich linguistic diversity and English as the medium of instruction is a challenge since exposure to English is almost exclusively in the school context. Measures of microstructure include syntactic complexity and finiteness marking as well-known indices of English language ability. Microstructural properties are examined in relation to literacy performance in order to identify possible links between the two modalities. Participants’ language background was included to investigate a possible (dis)advantage associated with minority language speakers exposed to English as the medium of instruction. Our findings suggest that finiteness errors and number of function words are associated with performance on reading comprehension. English input in the classroom selectively predicts performance on complex syntax but not other aspects of microstructure measures. Children speaking minority languages at home are not disadvantaged in their English performance compared to children speaking the majority language (Telugu). Finally, error analysis suggests similarities between types of errors found in other studies of child L2 English. This study sheds light on English L2 narrative skills in a multilingual and underprivileged context with learners exposed to low levels of English language input.

This study investigates cross-linguistic asymmetries in noun and verb production in a Hindi-English bilingual with Broca's aphasia (RZ), focusing on the influence of task demands (narrative vs. noun naming, verb naming, repetition), morphological richness, and code-switching (frequency and type). RZ exhibited features of agrammatism in both languages, with more pronounced deficits in English. RZ showed grammatical class asymmetries in noun-verb production across tasks. He produced more verbs than nouns in Hindi in the narrative task, likely due to its rich morphology, while showing comparable noun-verb production in naming. Verb retrieval remained consistently impaired in English across tasks. RZ frequently but rigidly code-switched, mainly inserting English nouns within Hindi matrix structure and used bilingual compound verbs, suggesting a strategy to compensate for lexical deficits in Hindi and morphosyntactic challenges in English. These findings underscore the importance of language typology and task demands in shaping aphasic symptomatology in bilinguals.

This chapter explores bi-/multilingualism in the Indian context, summarizing findings from the MultiLiLa project which addressed the persistent challenge of low learning outcomes in India. The research covered diverse geographical settings and employed a comprehensive methodology. We present quantitative findings from classroom observations, emphasizing the extent of English input in primary school. Linking learners’ home language profiles, school language exposure, and performance on cognitive and linguistic tasks, the chapter also explores English narrative retellings as a lens for understanding the use of vocabulary and morphosyntax. The findings provide valuable insights into the dynamics of language input and its implications for bilingual education in India. The chapter contributes to the broader discourse on bilingualism and sets the stage for future research.