Language Mixing In Infant Bilingualism

This book addresses the issue of language contact in the context of child language acquisition. Elizabeth Lanza examines in detail the simultaneous acquisition of Norwegian and English by two first-born children in families living in Norway in which the mother is American and the father Norwegian. She connects psycholinguistic arguments with sociolinguistic evidence, adding a much-needed dimension of real language-use in context to the psycholinguistic studies which have dominated the field. She draws upon evidence from other studies to support her claims concerning language dominance and the child's differentiation between the two languages in relation to the situation, interlocutor, and the communicative demands of the context. She also addresses the question of whether or not the language mixing of infant bilingualism is conceptually different from the codeswitching of older bilinguals, thus helping to bridge the gap between these two fields of study.

This book addresses the issue of language contact in the context of child language acquisition. Elizabeth Lanza examines in detail the simultaneous acquisition of Norwegian and English by two first-born children in families living in Norway in which the mother is American and the father Norwegian. She connects psycholinguistic arguments with sociolinguistic evidence, adding a much-needed dimension of real language-use in context to the psycholinguistic studies which have dominated the field. She draws upon evidence from other studies to support her claims concerning language dominance and the child's differentiation between the two languages in relation to the situation, interlocutor, and the communicative demands of the context. She also addresses the question of whether or not the language mixing of infant bilingualism is conceptually different from the codeswitching of older bilinguals, thus helping to bridge the gap between these two fields of study.

This volume demonstrates that mixed utterances in young bilinguals can be analyzed in the same way as adult code-switching. It provides new insights not only in the field of code-switching and of language mixing in young bilinguals, but also in issues concerning general questions on linguistic theory which are difficult to be answered with monolingual data.

This book contains reports of research on bilingualism in infants and children as well as perspectives from those involved in cross-linguistic research on language development, literacy development in bilingual children, and psycholinguistic research on bilingualism in adults. It offers a fresh multidisciplinary perspective and next steps for research on childhood bilingualism.

How does a child become bilingual? The answer to this intriguing question remains largely a mystery, not least because it has been far less extensively researched than the process of mastering a first language. Drawing on new studies of children exposed to two languages from birth (English and Cantonese), this book demonstrates how childhood bilingualism develops naturally in response to the two languages in the children's environment. While each bilingual child's profile is unique, the children studied are shown to develop quite differently from monolingual children. The authors demonstrate significant interactions between the children's developing grammars, as well as the important role played by language dominance in their bilingual development. Based on original research and using findings from the largest available multimedia bilingual corpus, the book will be welcomed by students and scholars working in child language acquisition, bilingualism and language contact.

The chapters in this volume provide the first comprehensive overview of trends in research on early phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic development in children acquiring two (or more) languages simultaneously. Ongoing as well as emerging issues are examined and discussed by leading researchers in the field. Collectively, these studies extend our knowledge of bilingual acquisition and broaden our understanding of the child's ability to acquire and use language. This volume is of interest to researchers working on language acquisition by monolingual and bilingual children, graduate students of psychology, linguistics and communication sciences, and researchers and professionals concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of bilingual children with language impairment.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Frankfurt (Main) (Institut für England- und Amerikastudien), course: Bilingualismus, language: English, abstract: In today’s globalized world bilingualism, defined as the regular use of two or more languages, is a widespread phenomenon and has become nearly the standard and monolingualism the exception. Consequently linguists have become more and more interested in this topic and in the last decades much has been published regarding bilinguals and their language behavior. Being able to manage two different languages or dialects, bilinguals are capable to code-switch within their languages. Code-Switching (in the following referred to as CS) occurs when a word or a phrase in one language substitutes for a word or phrase in a second language. “Code switching is the alternate use of two (or more) languages within the same utterance, as illustrated in (1) (Belazi, Rubin, and Toribio, 1994). (1a) This morning mi hermano y yo fuimos a comprar some milk. This morning my brother and I went to buy some milk. (1b) The student brought the homework para la profesora. The student brought the homework for the teacher.” CS follows functional and grammatical principles and is a complex, rule-governed phenomenon. Bilingual speakers often code-switch from one language to another, especially when both languages are used in the environment. This is mostly the case in multilingual communities. Although much has already been written on how bilinguals organize their two languages, little is known about why bilinguals mix their two languages during communicative process. It would be easier for them just to stay in one language while communicating, being understood by everyone. Nevertheless they switch codes during conversations. This raises the question: Why do bilinguals code-switch? The aim of this annotated bibliography is to shed some light onto this discussion by presenting both actual and back dating research efforts. Within the vast research area of bilingualism and CS it is not easy to find clear and satisfying answers. The papers selected try to cover a wide range of different approaches, including two leading and often quoted articles by Myers-Scotton, in order to point out the diverse points of view regarding the topic under discussion. In the end this should lead to first answers to the question why bilinguals code-switch, paving therewith the way for further research.

The Handbook of Bilingualism provides state-of-the-art treatments of the central issues that arise in consideration of the phenomena of bilingualism ranging from the representation of the two languages in the bilingual individual's brain to the various forms of bilingual education, including the status of bilingualism in each area of the world. Provides state-of-the-art coverage of a wide variety of topics, ranging from neuro- and psycho-linguistic research to studies of media and psychological counseling. Includes latest assessment of the global linguistic situation with particular emphasis on those geographical areas which are centers of global conflict and commerce. Explores new topics such as global media and mobile and electronic language learning. Includes contributions by internationally renowned researchers from different disciplines, genders, and ethnicities.