Mixing and pragmatic parental strategies in early bilingual acquisition.
This paper investigates the relationship between a child's degree of bilingualism and features of parental input. It seeks to demonstrate that parental discourse strategies have a direct bearing on the levels of mixing present in the child's utterances in his weaker language, English. It is based on the longitudinal study of a Catalan/English bilingual child from 1;3 to 4;2 years old. The strategies adopted by both parents in response to their child's mixing are examined following Lanza's (1992, 1997) categorization of parental discourse strategies. Whereas the Catalan-speaking mother negotiates a bilingual context of interaction with her son, as of the child's third year, the English-speaking father endeavours to impose a monolingual context. Such a change of strategy clearly favours the child's increasing use of the minority language, which entails a sharp decline in rates of mixing. It appears that parents' pragmatic choices may have an impact on the development of productive family bilingualism.
Department of Spanish, Modern and Latin Philology, University of the Balearic Islands, Cra. Valldemossa Km. 7,5, 07071 Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain. maria.juan@uib.es
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Juan-Garau
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Pérez-Vidal
D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010290:Parents; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014706:Verbal Learning