Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-frp75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-11-03T04:32:29.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Parental language input patterns and children's bilingual use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2007

ANNICK DE HOUWER
ANNICK DE HOUWER
Affiliation:
University of Antwerp, Belgium
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reports on a study that addresses the following question: why do some children exposed to two languages from early on fail to speak those two languages? Questionnaire data were collected in 1,899 families in which at least one of the parents spoke a language other than the majority language. Each questionnaire asked about the home language use of a family consisting of at least one parent and one child between the ages of 6 and 10 years old. The results show that the children in these families all spoke the majority language, but that minority language use was not universal. Differences in parental language input patterns used at home correlated with differences in child minority language use. Home input patterns where both parents used the minority language and where at most one parent spoke the majority language had a high chance of success. The “one parent–one language” strategy did not provide a necessary nor sufficient input condition. Implications for bilingual families are discussed.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 2007 , pp. 411 - 424
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alba R. D. 2002 Only English by the third generation? Loss and preservation of the mother tongue among the grandchildren of contemporary immigrants. Demography, 39, 467– 484.Google Scholar
Bayley R., Schecter S. R., & Torres-Ayala B. 1996 Strategies for bilingual maintenance: Case studies of Mexican-origin families in Texas. Linguistics and Education, 8, 389– 408.Google Scholar
De Houwer A. 1995 Bilingual language acquisition. In P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (Eds.), The handbook of child language (pp. 219– 250). Oxford: Blackwell.
De Houwer A. 1997 The role of input in the acquisition of past verb forms in English and Dutch: Evidence from a bilingual child. In E. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 28th Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 153– 162). Stanford, CA: CSLI.
De Houwer A. 1999 Environmental factors in early bilingual development: The role of parental beliefs and attitudes. In G. Extra & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Bilingualism and migration (pp. 75– 95). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
De Houwer A. 2003 Home languages spoken in officially monolingual Flanders: A survey. Plurilingua, 24, 79– 96.Google Scholar
De Houwer A. 2004 Trilingual input and children's language use in trilingual families in Flanders. In C. Hoffmann & J. Ytsma (Eds.), Trilingualism in the individual, family and society (pp. 118– 138). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
De Houwer A. 2006 Bilingual development in the early years. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier.
Finocchiaro C. 2004 Language maintenance/shift of a three-generation Italian family in three migration countries: An international comparative study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Melbourne.
Guardadao M. 2002 Loss and maintenance of first language skills: Case studies of Hispanic families in Vancouver. Canadian Modern Language Review, 58, 341– 364.Google Scholar
Hakuta K., & d'Andrea D. 1992 Some properties of bilingual maintenance and loss in Mexican background high-school students. Applied Linguistics, 13, 72– 99.Google Scholar
Hammer C. S., Miccio A. W., & Rodriguez B. L. 2004 Bilingual language acquisition and the child socialization process. In B. A. Goldstein (Ed.), Bilingual language development and disorders in Spanish–English speakers (pp. 21– 50). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Hart B., & Risley T. 1995 Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Hurtado A., & Vega L. 2004 Shift happens: Spanish and English transmission between parents and their children. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 137– 155.Google Scholar
Jisa H. 2000 Language mixing in the weak language: Evidence from two children. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1363– 1386.Google Scholar
King K., & Fogle L. 2006 Raising bilingual children: Common parental concerns and current research. In CALdigest Series. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Krashen S. 2000 Bilingual education, the acquisition of English, and the retention and loss of Spanish. In A. Roca (Ed.), Research on Spanish in the U.S.: Linguistic issues and challenges (pp. 432– 444). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Landry R., & Allard R. 1996 French in South Louisiana: Towards language loss. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 17, 442– 468.Google Scholar
Lanza E. 1997 Language mixing in infant bilingualism: A sociolinguistic perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Leopold W. 1970 Speech development of a bilingual child. A linguist's record. New York: AMS Press.
Lyon J. 1996 Becoming bilingual. Language acquisition in a bilingual community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Meisel J. M. 2007 The weaker language in early child bilingualism: Acquiring a first language as a second language? Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 495–514.Google Scholar
Mishina S. 1999 The role of parental input and discourse strategies in the early language mixing of a bilingual child. Multilingua, 18, 1– 30.Google Scholar
Nicoladis E., & Genesee F. 1997 The role of parental input and language dominance in bilingual children's code-mixing. In E. Hughes, M. Hughes. & A. Greenhill (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 422– 432). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Okita T. 2002 Invisible work. Bilingualism, language choice and childrearing in intermarried families. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pan B. A. 1995 Code negotiation in bilingual families: “My body starts speaking English.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 16, 315– 327.Google Scholar
Pan B. A., & Gleason J. B. 1986 The study of language loss: Models and hypotheses for an emerging discipline. Applied Psycholinguistics, 7, 193– 206.Google Scholar
Paradis J., & Navarro S. 2003 Subject realization and crosslinguistic interference in the bilingual acquisition of Spanish and English: What is the role of the input? Journal of Child Language, 30, 371– 393.Google Scholar
Patterson J. L. 2000 Relationships of expressive vocabulary to frequency of reading and television experience among bilingual toddlers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 493– 508.Google Scholar
Portes A., & Hao L. 1998 E Pluribus Unum: Bilingualism and language loss in the second generation. Sociology of Education, 71, 269– 294.Google Scholar
Portes A., & Rumbaut R. 2001 Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Sánchez S. 2005 Is it wrong to speak to my babies in their home language? Washington, DC: Head Start Information & Publication Center. Retrieved from http://www.headstartinfo.org/English_lang/learners_tkit/home.htm
Sirèn U. 1991 Minority language transmission in early childhood. parental intention and language use. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stockholm University, Institute of International Education.
Tseng V., & Fuligni A. J. 2000 Parent–adolescent language use and relationships among immigrant families with East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American backgrounds. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 465– 476.Google Scholar
Veltman C. J. 1981 Anglicization in the United States: The importance of parental nativity and language practice. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 32, 65– 84.Google Scholar
Wastie S. 1994 Supporting families at risk for language loss. Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Child Care Federation. Retrieved from http://cccf-fcsge.ca/docs/cccf/00000128.htm
Wong Fillmore L. 2000 Loss of family languages: Should educators be concerned? Theory into Practice, 39, 203– 210.Google Scholar
Yamamoto M. 2001 Language use in interlingual families: A Japanese–English sociolinguistic study. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.