抄録
This study examined conceptual preference modification in Japanese children learning English as a second language (L2). There has been a growing body of second language acquisition (SLA) research particularly in the multi-competence framework which suggests that exposure to an L2 has effects on adult L2 users' concepts as well as their first language (L1). However, there remains an issue of whether the concepts of child L2 users' with limited exposure to an L2 are even modified by the influence of the L2. The concept concerned in this study was categorization (or grouping) of objects. A picture categorizing (matching) task, which is non-linguistic, was given to two groups of Japanese elementary school children of different levels of L2 exposure to see how they categorize objects.It was found that even incipient bilingual children with limited exposure to the L2 modified their conceptual preference as a consequence of learning an L2 and the emerged concept was somehow different from that of monolinguals of either the L1 or the L2. These results provide further evidence for the multi-competence framework proposed by Cook (1991) for SLA and SLA research.
