Nonnative early bilingualism in Brazilian families:

Abstract

This case study presents, assesses, and discusses the phenomenon of nonnative bilingualism in Brazil. Nonnative bilingualism consists of raising a child in a foreign language by parents who are not native speakers of that language, and live in an environment where the given language is not spoken, i.e. Brazilian parents living in Brazil raising their child/ren in English. Twenty-four families, who have adopted this practice, participated in this study by answering an online questionnaire. The results were analyzed against the background of bilingualism theories based on Pearson (2008), Grosjean (2010), Byers-Heinlein & Lew-Williams (2013), Baker (2014), Grosjean & Byers-Heinlein (2018), and Romanowski (2018). The discussion involves the parents’ role in the child’s language acquisition, the communicative strategies used by them,the problems found in the process, and recommendations for those willing to adopt the nonnative bilingualism.