Bilingual proficiency / proficient bilingualism: Insights from narrative texts

In a large-scale study of narrative abilities in crosslinguistic and developmental perspective (Berman and Slobin, 1994), we concluded that children need to become both proficient speakers and native speakers in developing narrative skills in a given target language. The present study addresses the question of what prevents people who are proficient speakers and narrators in one language from producing native-like texts in another. To this end, I examined narrative texts produced by three groups of Israeli adults: monolingual speakers of Hebrew, bilingual speakers of Hebrew and English (native-born Israelis), and bilingual speakers of English and Hebrew (immigrants to Israel from the United States).