Anusha EPQ

 This is my first plan for my dissertation, it has my overall ideas for the sections I would like to include in this dissertation.  Opening What brain parts contribute to language  How the brain develops in children ( in general and related to language ) How brain development is different between bilingual and monolingual children How speech is different between bi and monolingual children (code switching ) How lockdown had an effect on this and what this shows Conclusion

From the researches I have read in the past year, I could see how all the reliable methods had specific control variables. One control variable that almost every reliable research had was the child's education institute. Another one which was quite common is the child's parents level of education. This is because the researchers deemed important to understand how the environment around the child has an impact on their learning of languages. For example if the child is bilingual in Spanish and English however they spend more time in an English school then their English proficiency will be higher than the Spanish one. In the past years, lockdown gave bilingual and multilingual children the unique experience of potentially spending more time in an environment with their less proficient language.  I decided to do a survey targeting parents with young bi/multilingual children to find out what was the impact of lockdown on their children's use of languages. This idea was inspired...

  As I mentioned in my previous update blog, I predicted that this month I wouldn't progress much with my EPQ due to school mocks and my university interviews, especially during the 2 weeks period of my mocks I was unable to do any work for my EPQ. However in this month I managed to finish secondary readings and overall plan my primary research. I plan to do more work for my EPQ in the next months and this month I plan to finish this primary research and plan my dissertation. I have already done some readings on how to plan and write a professional dissertation and I am aware of the overall details I need to include in my writing.  

  Code-switching is a common phenomenon that bilingual speakers regularly engage in. When bilinguals code-switch, words from two languages are used within a single discourse.   Code-switching has been well studied in bilingual adults, particularly with regard to the grammatical and communicative functions of the behaviour.  The complexity of bilingual adults’ code-switching generally reveals a sophisticated knowledge of the grammars of both languages and reflects the adults’ competency in using them appropriately. However, there has been much debate with respect to what children's code-switching behaviour suggests about their linguistic competency. Early studies on children's language alternation behaviours postulated that bilingual children mix or switch languages because they are confused or they are linguistically incompetent.  According to proponents of the position that bilingual children mix languages because they are confused and cannot differentiate between t...

  I managed to complete two of the three tasks I have assigned myself. I did not have time to research and plan about any primary research I can do for my project. However I managed to complete my readings and research more about the code switching in children.  For January, I am aware that I have multiple university interviews and my mocks also start this month. Therefore my tasks this month will be researching about primary research and overall finish any readings I have so that I can start planning my dissertation.

  This study explores the influence of bilingualism on the cognitive processing of language and music. Specifically, they investigate how infants learning a non-tone language (a language which does not use tones such as English) perceive linguistic and musical pitch and how bilingualism affects cross-domain pitch perception. Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants of 8–9 months participated in the study. All infants had Dutch as one of the first languages. The other first languages, varying among bilingual families, were not tone or pitch accent languages. To do this, they carried out 2 experiments. The perception of human speech and music is shaped by initial sensitivities at birth and later learning from the environment. Language-wise, infants are born with the ability to discriminate a wide range of native and non-native sound contrasts at birth. In the first year of life, infant sensitivity shifts towards the native language.  Just as language, infants show initial se...

  I managed to complete the tasks I set out for this month however I have started to read the last research paper towards the end of the month so I have to finish reading it this month. I researched a bit more about how lockdown affect bilingual and multilingual children and how this really challenging time for many actually helped these children improve their native language and build a stronger relationship with their native parents. For December I plan to finish any further readings I can find on this topic and I perhaps will try to organise a primary research in which I could ask the parents of bi/multilingual children about their children's ability to interact in all their known languages. I am aware that this month will be a a very busy time for me as I am starting to revise my mocks now and I am prepping for some medical interview I will have in January. However I plan to do these tasks for my EPQ.