Determinants of Language Choice in Bilingual Children: The Role of Input

Abstract

Each bilingual family will have its own particular circumstances which will determine who speaks which language to whom, and when. Some children growing up in such a family from birth will use two languages actively while others will limit themselves to one (Arnberg, 1987; Clyne, 1982; De Houwer, 1995). It is poorly understood how the type of input, and particularly parental discourse strategies, or the amount of input, are related to children's language choice. This study examines what degree of parents' consistency in their language choice promotes their children's active bilingualism and what kinds of discourse strategies Japanese-speaking parents provide when children use English (the societal language). These issues are investigated through longitudinal analyses of four English/Japanese bilingual children's dyadic interactions with their Japanese-speaking parents. The results show that there were huge individual differences between parent-child pairs in terms of amount of talk. However, the Japanese parent's consistency in using Japanese with the child appeared to be related to the child's choice of Japanese. In addition, a discourse strategy whereby parents made their preference for the use of Japanese quite explicit, had the highest success rate in relation to the child's subsequent choice of Japanese.