Sharon Unsworth

My research focuses on the language development of bilingual children. I investigate the role of various factors such as age of onset and input quantity and quality, as well as how a bilingual child’s two languages interact. I’m also interested in methodological questions such as how to quantify bilingual experience using parental report and how to operationalise language dominance. In addition, I am passionate about translating scientific findings about bilingual children into useful tips and tricks for parents and teachers. I regularly give workshops on raising multilingual children and I’m the director and initiator of the Netherlands’ first child language festival, Kletskoppen, which translates as Chatterboxes. 

Publications:

Unsworth, S. (2018, to appear). Quantifying experience in heritage language development. In M. Schmid & B. Köpke (Eds.) (forthcoming), The Oxford handbook of first language attrition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Unsworth, S., Chondrogianni, V., Skarabela, B. (2018, to appear). Experiential measures can be used as a proxy for language dominance in bilingual language acquisition research. Frontiers in Psychology.

Unsworth, S. (2013). Assessing age of onset effects in (early) child L2 acquisition. Language Acquisition, 20, 74-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2013.766739

Rankin, T. & Unsworth, S. (2016). Beyond poverty: Engaging with input in generative SLA. Second Language Research, 34, 563-572. doi:10.1177/0267658316648732 

Unsworth, S. (2016). Early child L2 acquisition: Age or input effects? Neither, or both? Journal of Child Language, 43, 603-634. doi:10.1017/S030500091500080X