Early Bilingualism

Abstract

This entry describes major linguistic developments in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) and early second language acquisition (ESLA) in children under the age of six. It focuses on babbling, phonology, word comprehension and production, and morphosyntax. Although developmental patterns are largely predictable in function of children's ages and bilingual learning settings, there is great interindividual variability. In BFLA there is relatively little influence from one language on the other. There is much more of it in ESLA. Uneven development where children's two languages develop at different rates is typical. The language that children hear most will often be the language in which they are more advanced. Bilingual children use utterances with words from a single language but may also say utterances with words from two languages. They are able to fluently switch between these in function of sociolinguistic context. The entry also discusses some applied implications of the developmental findings. It stresses the importance of maintaining children's home languages for optimal family communication and refutes some commonly held myths that are not of benefit to bilingual children. Educators may become concerned if one of a bilingual child's languages appears to develop too slowly. It is only when bilingual children are showings signs of very slow development in both of their languages that one has to start worrying. Given sufficient time and learning opportunities, and a positive attitude from all involved toward the bilingual language learning experience, children everywhere can become fluent speakers of two languages from early on.