Abstract
The Impact of Bilingualism on L1 Vocabulary Size Levels: A Comparison of Turkish Vocabulary Knowledge of Turkish-German Bilinguals with Turkish Monolinguals
A strong vocabulary is required for educational success but research shows that lexical performance is lower for bilingual children compared to monolinguals when their performance in each language is assessed separately. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether bilingualism affects vocabulary size levels by comparing the performance of five Turkish-German bilinguals with five Turkish monolinguals on Turkish Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) and Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (PVLT) in L1. For this purpose, a quasi experimental design is planned. It was found that there were large differences between the two groups in terms of both receptive vocabulary (as measured by VLT) and productive vocabulary (as measured by PVLT) scores. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in both tests. The results of the data analyses also showed that there is a statistically significant positive correlation between VLT and PVLT scores of the bilinguals. The results were interpreted to have implications for language instructors and syllabus designers.
Keywords
Turkish-German bilinguals; vocabulary development; vocabulary size; monolinguals; lexical performanc