Bilingualism Characteristics in Second Generation Latin American Immigrants

This study examined the linguistic characteristics of a sample of second-generation Latin American immigrants and a control group of English monolinguals. Participants included both males and females from 18-40 years old. For all the bilingual participants L1 was Spanish but they had been schooled mostly in English (L2). The examined language domains included: grammatical and semantic judgment, vocabulary, reading, writing, and fluency of both L1 and L2. It was observed that L2 significantly overwrote L1, becoming the dominant language. Grammatical judgment as well as reading and writing became more accurate, vocabulary was larger, and fluency was greater in English than in Spanish. Interference from English to Spanish in reading, writing and vocabulary was significant, whereas interference in the opposite direction was minimal. Two questions are discussed: the switch of the dominant language from L1 to L2 and the language profile in each one of the two languages.