Claim: Some people have understood certain studies as showing that bilingual children have a reduced "conceptual map" because bilingualism overstresses the child's linguistic capacities.
The studies used by the the claim: Vocabulary tests show that bilingual children tend to have a smaller vocabulary than do most children of the same age group.
Linguist's argument:
Premise: tests were given in only one language.
Premise: dual language tests revealed that the children often expressed a given concept with a word from only one of their two languages.
Conclusion: claim/studies are flawed.
Answer choices
A) Incorrect. Linguist does not claim that one or the other is more advantageous.
B) Incorrect. The linguist is concerned with the vocabulary test that was used. We do not know his/her position on how bilingualism overstresses a child's linguistic capabilities.
C) Incorrect. This choice istoo strong when it states, "undermines the use of any vocabulary test". The linguist is only concerned with the test in the stimuli. Not any vocabulary test.
D) Incorrect. "Different explanation"? From my understanding, this choice is saying that the results of the studies (vocabulary tests where bilingual students did not perform as well as other children) were showing an advantage of bilingualism and that the linguist is showing a different explanation of why that is so. This does not happen at all.
E) The linguist does point out a methodological error, "tests were given in only one language", in the technique (the vocabulary test) used to show that there is a problem with bilingualism. So this is the correct answer.
I hope my reasoning is valid. Please give me some input if you see any flaws! Thanks in advance.
