Development and use of English evaluative expressions in narratives of Chinese–English bilinguals

Abstract

This study compares the development and use of evaluative expressions in the English narratives elicited from 80 Chinese–English bilinguals and 80 American monolingual peers at four ages – five, eight, ten, and young adults – using the wordless picture book Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 1969). Results revealed both similarities and differences between monolingual and bilingual groups. On the one hand, regardless of bilingual status, there is a clear age-related growth in the development and use of evaluative expressions. On the other hand, bilingual children in our study differed from monolingual children in the quantity and quality of evaluative clauses used. The results are discussed with respect to linguistic and cultural differences between English and Chinese.