A longitudinal analysis of language choice in bilingual children: The role of parental input and interaction

Abstract

Scholars in the field have agreed that simultaneous bilingual children are capable of using their two languages discriminately according to the interlocutor from the earliest stages of development. However, the driver of the children's language choice patterns has yet to be shown. This study examines the impacts of quantitative and qualitative aspects of parental input on the language choice of bilingual children. Data are drawn from the longitudinal observations of two Japanese/English bilinguals around the age of two and their parents. The effects of language choice patterns and the discourse strategies of the parents on the children's language mixing are analyzed. The results reveal that consistency in a parent's language choice does not guarantee the child's constant use of the parent's language; in other words, similarity in the language choice patterns between parent and child was not always observed. We further find that how parents respond to children's inappropriate language choice contributes significantly to the strict separation of the two languages. It is concluded that input consistency needs to be reinforced by parental discourse strategies regarding language mixing in children.