ACQUISITION OF IMPLICATURES IN FIRST LANGUAGE AMONG BILINGUALS AND MONOLINGUALS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS THE CASE OF CITUMBUKA AMONG BILINGUALS OF KARONGA AND MONOLINGUALS OF RUMPHI DISTRICTS

Abstract

This cross-sectional study set out to examine the impact of bilingualism on language acquisition by comparing trends in mastery of implicatures in Citumbuka between monolingual Tumbuka children and first language Citumbuka/Kyangonde bilingual children. The study engaged four primary schools and eight churches in the bilingual community, and three primary schools and six churches from the monolingual community. A sample population of 100 subjects aged between 0.9 and 11 years was selected for the study, 50 from either linguistic community. Several sampling techniques including purposive sampling, simple random sampling and cluster sampling were employed to arrive at the sample mentioned above. Using a mixed approach, bilingual and monolingual Tumbuka children were examined in terms of the types of implicatures acquired against age; functions of implicatures in their utterances; cooperation and coherence in utterances with implicatures; and milestones in acquisition of implicatures. The two strings to a bow and finite containerised competence principles in bilingualism discussed in Edwards (1994) and Grice‟s Cooperative Principle formed the basis of analysis of the children‟s mastery of implicatures in Citumbuka. In the study, similar trends were observed among monolingual and bilingual children in the acquisition of any type of implicature, and equal proficiencies were demonstrated between the two groups of children in usage of every form of implicature leading to the conclusion that bilingualism does not impact negatively on language acquisition.