Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T07:21:31.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can bilingual two-year-olds code-switch?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Elizabeth Lanza
Elizabeth Lanza*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo
*
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, University of Oslo, Post Box 1102 Blindem, 0317 Oslo 3, Norway (e-mail: elanza@hedda.uio.no).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sociolinguists have investigated language mixing as code-switching in the speech of bilingual children three years old and older. Language mixing by bilingual two-year-olds, however, has generally been interpreted in the child language literature as a sign of the child's lack of language differentiation. The present study applies perspectives from sociolinguistics to investigate the language mixing of a bilingual two-year-old acquiring Norwegian and English simultaneously in Norway. Monthly recordings of the child's spontaneous speech in interactions with her parents were made from the age of 2;0 to 2;7. An investigation into the formal aspects of the child's mixing and the context of the mixing reveals that she does differentiate her language use in con-textually sensitive ways, hence that she can code-switch. This investigation stresses the need to examine more carefully the roles of dominance and context in the language mixing of young bilingual children.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1992 , pp. 633 - 658
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The research for this article was financially supported by the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities. An earlier version was presented at the Fifth International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Budapest, July 1990. I especially wish to thank Naomi Goodz, Natela Imedadze, Bard Bredrup Knudsen, Hanne Gram Simonsen, Marilyn Vihman, Arnfinn Muruvik Vonen, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful discussion, comments and suggestions.

References

REFERENCES

Appel, R. & Muysken, P. (1987). Language contact andbilingualism. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Arnberg, L. (1987). Raising children bilingually: the preschool years. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Baetens, Beardsmore H. (1986). Bilingualism: basic principles, (2nd edn). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergman, C. (1976). Interference vs. independent development in infant bilingualism. In Keller, G., Teschner, R. & Viera, S. (eds), Bilingualism in the bicentennial and beyond. New York: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe.Google Scholar
Berman, R. A. (1979). The re-emergence of a bilingual: a case study of a Hebrew-English speaking child. Working Papers on Bilingualism 18, 157–79.Google Scholar
Boeschoten, H. & Verhoeven, L. (1987). Language mixing in children's speech: Dutch language use in Turkish discourse. Language Learning 37, 191–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. (1978). Awareness of language: some evidence from what children say and do. In Sinclair, A., Jarvella, R. J. & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), The child's conception of language. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Cook-Gumperz, J. (1986). Caught in a web of words: some considerations on language socialization and language acquisition. In Cook-Gumperz, J., Corsaro, W. & Streeck, J. (eds), Children's worlds and children's language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook-Gumperz, J. & Gumperz, J. J. (1978). Context in children's speech. In Waterson, N. & Snow, C. (eds), The development of communication. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
DeHouwer, A. (1990). The acquisition of two languages from birth: a case study. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Döpke, S. (1986). Discourse structures in bilingual families. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 7, 493–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fantini, A. (1985). Language acquisition of a bilingual child: a sociolinguistic perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1983). ‘Auf deutsch, duck’: language separation in young bilinguals. Osmania Papers in Linguistics 9, 39–60.Google Scholar
Genesee, F. (1989). Early bilingual development: one language or two? Journal of Child Language 6, 161–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Goodz, N. (1989). Parental language mixing in bilingual families. Infant Mental Health Journal 10, 1, 25–44.3.0.CO;2-R>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two languages: an introduction to bilingualism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: C.U.P.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugen, E. (1969). The Norwegian language in America: a study in bilingual behavior. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (ed.) (1988). Codeswitching: anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lanza, E. (1990). Language mixing in infant bilingualism: a sociolinguistic perspective. Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Leopold, W. (1949). Speech development of a bilingual child: a linguist's record, Vol. 4: Diary from age 2. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Lindholm, K. & Padilla, A. (1978). Child bilingualism: report on language mixing, switching and translations. Linguistics 211, 23–44.Google Scholar
McClure, E. (1981). Formal and functional aspects of the code-switched discourse of bilingual children. In Durán, R. (ed.), Latino language and communicative behavior. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second-language acquisition in childhood. Vol. 1: Preschool children. (2nd edn.) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McTear, M. (1985). Children's conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Meisel, J. (1989). Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In Hyltenstam, K. & Obler, L. (eds), Bilingualism across the lifespan. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Norrick, N. (1988). Repair in a bilingual family: the preference for other correction. Paper presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics: ‘The Acquisition and Assessment of Bilingual Language Ability’, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Ochs, E. (1988). Culture and language development: language acquisition and language socialisation in a Samoan village. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Petersen, J. (1988). Word-internal code-switching constraints in a bilingual child's grammar. Linguistics 26, 479–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S. (1981). Syntactic structure and social function of code-switching. In Duran, R. (ed.), Latino language and communicative behavior. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (1985). Contrasting patterns of code-switching in two communities. In Warkentyne, H. J. (ed.), Methods V: Proceedings of the Vth international conference in dialectology. Victoria: University of Victoria Press.Google Scholar
Poplack, S., Wheeler, S. & Westwood, A. (1989). Distinguishing language contact phenomena: evidence from Finnish-English bilingualism. In Hyltenstam, K. & Obler, L. (eds), Bilingualism across the lifespan. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Redlinger, W. & Park, T. Z. (1980). Language mixing in young bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 7, 337–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romaine, S. (1989). Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Swain, M. & Wesche, M. (1975). Linguistic interaction: case study of a bilingual child. Language Sciences 37, 17–22.Google Scholar
Taeschner, T. (1983). The sun is feminine. A study on language acquisition in bilingual children. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Vihman, M. (1985). Language differentiation by the bilingual infant. Journal of Child Language 12, 297–324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Volterra, V. & Taeschner, T. (1978). The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. Journal of Child Language 5, 311–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar