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Language differentiation in early bilingual development

F Genesee1, E Nicoladis, J Paradis

  • 1Psychology Department, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. genesee@ego.psych.mcgill.ca

Journal of Child Language
|October 1, 1995
PubMed
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Bilingual children can differentiate languages even when they mix them in early speech. This study shows language dominance, not parental input, may influence code-mixing in young bilinguals.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental psycholinguistics
  • Child language acquisition
  • Bilingualism research

Background:

  • Simultaneous bilingual children often exhibit code-mixing, leading to claims of undifferentiated language systems.
  • Previous research suggests language differentiation emerges with functional categories, typically around age three.
  • The early stages of language differentiation in bilingual children remain an area of inquiry.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate language differentiation in very young simultaneous bilingual children before functional category emergence.
  • To explore potential factors influencing code-mixing, specifically parental input and child's language dominance.

Main Methods:

  • Observational study of five bilingual children aged 1;10 to 2;2 with varying Mean Length of Utterance (MLU).

Related Experiment Videos

  • Children were observed interacting with each parent separately and both parents together.
  • Analysis focused on instances of code-mixing and evidence of language differentiation.

    • Main Results:

    • Despite code-mixing, children demonstrated clear differentiation between their two languages.
    • No significant evidence linked children's code-mixing to their parents' rate of mixing.
    • Child language dominance showed some correlation with the extent of code-mixing.

    Conclusions:

    • Young bilingual children can differentiate languages even when exhibiting code-mixing.
    • Code-mixing in early bilingual development is not solely indicative of undifferentiated language systems.
    • Language dominance appears to be a more significant factor in code-mixing than parental input.