Mila Schwartz

Dr. Mila Schwartz

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

20Years (2007-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

View All Publications
16 November 2013
Verified
Book Chapter
Closed access
PDF file
MSMila Schwartz
Mila Schwartz
AVAnna Verschik
Anna Verschik

19 August 2014 in International Journal of Bilingualism
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
MSMila Schwartz
Mila Schwartz
MMMiriam Minkov
Miriam Minkov
EDElena Dieser
Elena Dieser
Ekaterina ProtassovaEkaterina Protassova
Ekaterina Protassova
VMVictor Moin
Victor Moin
Maria PolinskyMaria Polinsky
Maria Polinsky
The main goal of this study was to examine noun–adjective gender agreement in Russian by comparing bilingual children with diverse L2 backgrounds (English, Finnish, German, and Hebrew) with age-matched monolingual children and monolinguals one year younger. This comparison was made to investigate the influence of L2 grammar on the acquisition of gender agreement by (L1) Russian-speaking children. The participants included four groups of 4–5-year-old bilingual children with Russian as L1 and English, German, Finnish, or Hebrew as L2, who were compared to monolingual children in Russia in two age groups (3–4 and 4–5 years old). The children were matched by socioeconomic status and parents’ educational background. All children were tested individually during one testing session. Agreement data were elicited using a semi-structured elicitation test, with verbal and visual stimuli. We used qualitative data analysis to identify types and categories of errors, and quantitative data analysis to compare the tendencies of noun–adjective gender agreement in Russian (L1) between the groups. Development of gender agreement in the bilingual children from different L2 backgrounds was qualitatively similar to that of the 3–4-year-old monolingual Russian-speaking children. This result suggests that bilingual development in L1 follows the same developmental path as monolingual development, albeit with a delay. In addition, bilingual children whose L2 has grammatical gender (German, Hebrew) outperformed the other bilinguals on gender agreement, indicating that the presence of a grammatical category in both languages spoken by a bilingual facilitates category acquisition. The study contributes to the discussion on how the transparency and phonological saliency might affect the bilingual children’s acquisition of inflectional morphology and on how influence of L2 on L1 might in some cases help and in other cases impede the acquisition of L1.


24 October 2009 in Reading and Writing
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
PDF file
MLMark Leikin
Mark Leikin
MSMila Schwartz
Mila Schwartz
DSDavid L. Share
David L. Share

19 March 2011 in Reading and Writing
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
PDF file
MSMila Schwartz
Mila Schwartz
TKTami Katzir
Tami Katzir