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The Answering System to Yes–No Truth-Functional Questions in Korean–English Bilingual Children

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Abstract

This study presents an experiment that explores the patterns of answers to yes–no truth-functional questions in English and Korean. The answering patterns are examined from 12 Korean–English bilingual children and 10 Korean-monolingual children. Four types of sentences in relation to given situations (Wason in Br J Psychol 52:133–142, 1961) were provided as questions such as true affirmative (TA), true negative (TN), false affirmative (FA), and false negative (FN). The bilingual children’s answers were observed in separate language settings, English and Korean. The results by the bilingual in the Korean setting were compared with those by the monolinguals. The results show that bilingual children can process two systems rather successfully by providing correct responses to the given questions. But difficulty patterns, measured from error rates in each setting, are found different in two languages. The bilinguals’ difficulty patterns in English and Korean, however, show deviation from monolinguals’ difficulty patterns suggested in previous studies (Wason in Br J Psychol 52:133–142, 1961, Akiyama in Dev Psychol 20:219–228, 1984, Kim in Dev Psychol 21(3):462–472, 1985, Choi in Dev Psychol 29(3):407–420, 1991). The present work also shows that negatives are not uniformly reported with more errors than affirmatives when the truth condition and the answering system are further involved. All in all, the current study suggests that bilingual children have two separate processing systems for yes–no truth-functional questions. However, the two systems cannot be understood as a simple coexistence of two monolingual systems. Interaction of the two competing linguistic systems is discussed further.

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Notes

  1. Truth-functional is a term used in the title of Pea (1977), which is combined with question types. Truth-functional negation assumes a logic that ‘p is true then not p is false, p is false then not p is true’. Pea (1980) says that children as young as 2/3 years can produce “he not little, he big.”

  2. Wason (1959) reported the same order of difficulties measured through mean response time.

  3. Most of the participating children had passed the highest stages in MLU measurements and thus, separate reports on their MLU values are not provided here. They are considered to be in the simultaneous learning situation, in the sense that they are exposed to both languages from birth though there is one possible dominant language in their home setting.

  4. The notation here is based on the IPA symbols for Korean by Lee (1999).

  5. The value is from a paired \(T\) test by transferring the answers in to numeric values (0 = correct; 1 = incorrect). The results from a 3-way ANOVA analysis (Language by Question type by Individual) also shows a significant language effects on error patterns (F = 6.59, sig. \(<0.01\)). Tukey and Scheffe (alpha = 0.05) post-hoc tests consistently report on a significant difficulty in Korean answers. For example, Tukey provides the subset of Korean FN, TN and FA with greater errors, and Scheffe identify a subset of Korean TN and FA with greater errors.

  6. Univariate ANOVA analysis using numeric values for the answers by bilinguals (correct = 0, incorrect = 1) reported a significant interaction between Language and the type of questions (F = 3.257; sig. \(<0.05\)).

  7. Significant effects by the factor of question types are observed in all context as follows: Korean Y/N answers by the bilinguals: F(3,428) = 40.152, \(p<0.0001\)), English YN: F(3,450) = 49.131 \(p<0.0001\)), Korean Y/N by the monolinguals: F(3,356) = 17.757, \(p<0.0001\)), Korean answers including correct phrasal answers by the bilinguals: F(3,428) = 7.420, \(p<0.0001\)), English answers including correct phrasal answers: F(3,450) = 15.390, \(p<0.0001\)), Korean answers including correct phrasal answers by the monolinguals F(3,356) = 10.640, \(p<0.0001\)).

  8. A Scheffe (alpha = 0.05) post-hoc test identifies the Korean TN and FA as another subset with greater errors.

  9. Choi (1991) also reports on the relative difficulty in using Korean yes–no answering system compared to English and French systems in her longitudinal studies on monolingual infants of each language.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Crystal Meyers for her extensive help in data collection and her valuable support for the current study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Haskins Laboratories, 300 George St., Suite 900, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Hansook Choi

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  1. Hansook Choi
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Correspondence to Hansook Choi.

Appendices

Appendix 1: English Questions Used in the Experiment

  1. 1.

    Did Mom Pig and the three little pigs all eat breakfast?

  2. 2.

    Didn’t Mom Pig tell the three little pigs to build their own houses?

  3. 3.

    Was there enough room for the three little pigs to live with Mom Pig?

  4. 4.

    Didn’t the three little pigs eat breakfast in their own rooms?

  5. 5.

    Weren’t there four little pigs?

  6. 6.

    Were the three little pigs going back home to Mom Pig when they met the salesman?

  7. 7.

    Did the three little pigs buy straw, sticks, and bricks?

  8. 8.

    Didn’t the three little pigs promise to be careful of the big bad wolf?

  9. 9.

    Didn’t the first little pig build his house out of straw?

  10. 10.

    Didn’t the second little pig build his house out of mud?

  11. 11.

    Did the third little pig build his house out of bricks?

  12. 12.

    After they built their houses, were the three little pigs afraid that the big bad wolf would get them?

  13. 13.

    Did the big bad wolf come to the house of bricks first?

  14. 14.

    Did the big bad wolf knock on the door?

  15. 15.

    Weren’t all three little pigs in the house of straw?

  16. 16.

    Didn’t the big bad wolf want the first little pig to let him in?

  17. 17.

    Did the little pig want to le the wolf in?

  18. 18.

    Didn’t the little pig say, “Not by the hair on my tummy”?

  19. 19.

    Didn’t the little pig let the wolf come inside of the house?

  20. 20.

    Did the big bad wolf blow the house of straw down?

  21. 21.

    Did the first little pig run to his brother’s house?

  22. 22.

    Didn’t the big bad wolf go home after he blew down the house of straw?

  23. 23.

    Wasn’t the second little pig’s house made out of sticks?

  24. 24.

    Did the house made of sticks stay up?

  25. 25.

    Weren’t the little pigs scared then they rant to their brother’s house?

  26. 26.

    Did the big bad wolf follow the little pigs again?

  27. 27.

    Did the little pigs let the big bad wolf inside the house of bricks?

  28. 28.

    Didn’t the house of bricks fall down?

  29. 29.

    Weren’t all three little pigs in the house of bricks now?

  30. 30.

    Did the big bad wolf give up, after he huffed and puffed?

  31. 31.

    Wasn’t the big bad wolf going through the window?

  32. 32.

    Did the wolf have an idea to go down the chimney?

  33. 33.

    Didn’t the wolf come in through the door?

  34. 34.

    Did the pigs shout up to the wolf, “come and get us”?

  35. 35.

    Did the wolf come down the chimney and eat the three little pigs up?

  36. 36.

    Didn’t the big bad wolf fall into the pot of water?

  37. 37.

    Didn’t the big bad wolf stay in the pot and take a bath?

  38. 38.

    Did the big bad wolf get to eat the three little pigs again?

  39. 39.

    Didn’t the big bad wolf run away?

  40. 40.

    Were the three little pigs happy?

Appendix 2: Korean Questions Used in the Experiment (Translation is Provided to Help Understanding)

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Choi, H. The Answering System to Yes–No Truth-Functional Questions in Korean–English Bilingual Children. J Psycholinguist Res 43, 267–287 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-013-9250-x

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