Linguistic Output During Preschooler-adult Shared Book Readings with Culturally Familiar and Less Familiar English Speaking Adult Readers: A Pilot Investigation

Abstract

This pilot investigation compared the linguistic output of typically developing bilingual preschoolers during shared bookreadings with a culturally familiar adult (CF, who spoke in English as a second language) and US English-speaking adult reader (i.e., culturally less-familiar adult, LF). Two books, matched for sentence length and content, were shared with the children; book presentations were randomized and counter-balanced.Scripted questions were included during reading interactions. The language output during the shared book readings was transcribed and analyzed for linguistic features including mean length of utterance(MLU), and type-token ratio (TTR). Data analyses demonstrated that there was nosignificant difference in the linguistic output of preschoolers in response to CF & LF adult during shared bookreading. However, on MLU & TTR, differences in children's responses were observed when they wereread different books. The findings are discussed with its implications for cross-cultural research.