International Journal of Language and Literary Studies 114 A Study on the Vocabulary of Filipino- English Bilingual Children Outside the School Setting Jennifer Tan - de Ramos, PhD De La Salle University - Manila jennifer.tan@dlsu.edu.ph DOI: https://doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v5i1.1168 APA Citation: Tan de Ramos, J. (2023). A Study on the Vocabulary of Filipino- English Bilingual Children Outside the School Setting. International Journal of Language and Literary Studies, 5(1), 114–126. https://doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v5i1.1168 1. INTRODUCTION The scope of applied linguistics is multifaceted because it covers areas related to psycholinguistics, language acquisition (Lge.AQ, hereafter) among others. The latter also deals with various issues related to education among children and adults. Within the area of language development, language acquisition is an issue that generates much interest among psycholinguists. Abstract In the field of language learning, language acquisition covers a lot of topics that are interesting to investigate as there are a number of theories (Aljoundi, 2014) that explain how language is acquired at an early age. Among early bilinguals, it is important to study the factors that affect their vocabulary. In this regard, this study seeks to contribute to the body of existing literature regarding vocabulary; particularly, the word list among Filipino- English bilingual children outside the school setting. The goal was to determine which language, be it Filipino or English, was dominantly used among the target population. A second goal was to identify which category the dominant target item(s), i.e. word list belonged to. Two groups of participants, belonging to children whose ages range between three and five, were selected randomly. Sixteen females and fourteen males, all of whom belong to the lower-income families, were asked to identify words that they are familiar with in Filipino and English. The findings revealed that the early bilingual children belonging to the lower-income strata prefer nouns over other English word categories. The findings support the theories of noun bias (Gentner, 1982; Nelson, 1974; Markman, 1987,1989; Lucas & Bernardo, 2008), stereotyping (Halim and Rubleare (2010), and Social Interaction ( Vygotsky, 1978). The results of the study may further improve procedures being done in support of data-driven language learning. Received: 23/01/2023 Accepted: 04/03/2023 Keywords: English, Saudi, reading, phonological awareness, EFL learners. International Journal of Language and Literary Studies Volume 5, Issue 1,2023 Homepage : http://ijlls.org/index.php/ijlls