By Way of Introduction: Methods in Studies of Bilingual First Language Acquisition

Abstract

This article considers methodological issues related to the study of children who are raised with two languages from birth. This area of study simultaneously belongs to the fields of child language and bilingualism research. Thus the methodological insights gained from these two fields should inform studies of bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA). In addition, there are a few methodological guidelines that apply specifically to the area of BFLA. Among these are the need to investigate unilingual utterances in the search for possible interlanguage effects in the acquisition process and the need to take into account very carefully the sociolinguistic setting in which data are collected. The need for terminological clarity puts into question the use of terms such as “language mixing,” “dominance” and “proficiency” in the field of BFLA. This methodologically oriented article also functions as the introduction to the other contributions to this volume, which all raise methodological issues as well.