Introducing the concept of (bilingual) reference profiles: A cluster-analysis approach

Empirical studies on bilingual children’s reference production have often focussed on comparisons with monolingual peers. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of “reference profiles”: Speakers may exhibit similar or different behaviours in reference production, independently of whether they belong to a specific group (e.g., monolinguals or bilinguals) or whether their production adheres to some norm.
As an empirical example, I will present data from thirty-seven Greek-Italian bilingual children (Mage = 9;4, range 7;10-11;6) who performed narrative retelling tasks in both of their languages, as well as vocabulary tasks and various cognitive tasks. The data show that the children had a good mastery of reference (i.e. appropriately using null pronouns, full pronouns, or full nouns) in both of their languages. Using cluster analyses, two distinct reference profiles were identified. Further investigation showed that these profiles differed in both their sustained attention and in the use of overspecified REs in contexts where reference to the same referent was maintained. These results are interpreted in light of current cognitive theories of (bilingual) reference processing and emphasise the potential of (reference) profiles for the study of other domains beyond bilingual reference production.