Bilingual First Language Acquisition

Bilingual First Language Acquisition

By/ Brwa R. Sharif

22/ April/ 2013

1.      Introduction

De Houwer defines Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) as “the development of two languages from birth in young children”, and he also defines as “the development of language in young children who hear two languages spoken to them from birth”, and another interesting definition is that a “passive” bilingual understands two languages but speaks only one. The child’s environment is very important for them as De Houwer states that BFLA is definitely a case where nurture is important, as “the family is the primary socializing agent for the development of BFLA”. (Clark, 2010)
The simultaneous acquisition of two languages from birth is called bilingual first language acquisition. A major question in studies of BFLA, and a focus of this summary, is whether the developmental path and time course of language development in BFL learners is the same as that of children learning only one language. Underlying this question is the theoretical issue of whether children’s ability to learn language is challenged in any way by the acquisition of two languages at the same time.

2.      Some Views and Studies

There are many views and studies about BFLA and to know some of this phenomenon we will focus on some evidence that the rate of language development is slowed down in BFL learners compared with monolingual learners would argue that the ability that all children have to learn language is compromised by the challenge of learning more than one language at the same time. An additional issue is whether exposure to two languages simultaneously influences the pattern of development so that it differs from that observed in monolingual learners. Evidence that the patterns are different could give us insights as to how the processes that underlie language acquisition cope with dual language input.
BFL learners might go through an initial monolingual stage, but one instance of the more general concern that BFLA strains the child’s language learning capacity, leading to delayed and even impaired forms of language development. This concern has been expressed in a number of ways: BFLA might result in impaired cognitive, as well as linguistic, development; bilingual education puts children at risk for academic failure or delay; or BFL learners will be socio-cultural misfits, identifying strongly with neither language group. (Hoff & Shatz, 2007)
Researchers/theoreticians, professionals, and laypersons alike often view the simultaneous acquisition of two languages during the pre-school years with reservation and concern. It is thought to exceed the language learning capacity of the young child and, thus, to incur potential costs, such as delayed or incomplete language development or even deviant development. Such views are often evident in communities and among individuals who themselves are monolingual.
Most linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of language acquisition are silent on the matter of bilingual acquisition, reinforcing the notion that monolingualism is the norm and bilingualism is not. What is normal is usually regarded as risk-free; thus, by default, bilingual acquisition is often viewed as extraordinary, potentially putting the individual at some kind of risk (Genesee, as cited in Genesee, 2008). Demographically speaking, however, there is no reason to believe that bilingualism is in fact unusual; to the contrary, there may well be as many, or more, children who grow up bilingually as monolingually (Sachdev & Bourhis, Tucker, as cited in Genesee, 2008).

3.      The Development of Two Languages Simultaneously

Much of the research on the development of two languages simultaneously has been motivated by the unitary language system hypothesis according to which children exposed to two languages go through an initial stage when the languages are not differentiated (Leopold, Volterra & Taeschner, Genesee, 1989, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007).
Volterra and Taeschner’s hypothesis, in effect, proposed that the initial state of the developing bilingual child is essentially monolingual. A corollary issue is whether the two languages of bilingual children develop autonomously or interdependently (Paradis & Genesee, 1996, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007). Interdependent development would result from systemic influence of one language on the development of the other, resulting in patterns or rates of development that differ from what would be expected in monolingual children.

a.      Morphosyntax

Findings from research on BFLA generally indicate that bilingual children exhibit the same rate of morphosyntactic development as monolingual children, at least in their dominant language. This is evident even in bilingual children who are identified as having a specific language impairment. More specifically, Paradis, Crago, Genesee, and Rice found that French– English bilingual children in Quebec with specific language impairment exhibited the same pattern and degree of impairment in each language as similarly impaired monolingual English and French children of the same age.
At the same time, there is evidence of cross-linguistic transfer of specific morphosyntactic features from one language into the other. Dopke (2000), for example, found that Australian children learning English and German simultaneously used -VO word order much more in all verbal clauses in their German than native, monolingual speakers of German. German uses both -VO and –OV word order: -VO in main clauses and both -VO and -OV word order in subordinate clauses; English, in contrast, uses -VO order in main and subordinate clauses. A mitigating factor in cross-linguistic transfer could be language dominance. Children might be more likely to incorporate structures from their dominant into their weaker language than vice versa. And, Matthews and Yip (2003) have suggested another mitigating factor, namely that asynchronous development of two languages with respect to specific features (e.g., relative clause constructions in Chinese and English) might also result in transfer of a structure that is normally acquired earlier in one language (e.g., Chinese) to the language in which the corresponding structure is normally acquired later (e.g., English) (Hoff & Shatz, 2007).

b.      Lexicon

Studies that have examined age of first word production report that bilingual children produce their first words at about the same age as monolingual children – 12 to 13 months (Genesee; Patterson & Pearson). Other milestones of lexical acquisition in bilingual and monolingual children are also similar – bilingual children’s rates of vocabulary acquisition generally fall within the range reported for same-age monolinguals, as long as both languages are considered for bilinguals (Pearson, Fernandez, & Oller), and the distribution of lexical categories (e.g., noun, verb, etc.) in the early lexicons of bilingual children is similar to that observed in monolingual children (Nicoladis). The relative amount of time spent in each language can affect the relative vocabulary size in each language of a bilingual (Pearson, Fernandez, Lewedag, & Oller). (Hoff & Shatz, 2007)
A number of researchers have reported that bilingual children produce translation equivalents (words in each language that have the same referential meaning) from the time they first begin to speak. Lanvers and Nicoladis and Secco found further that bilingual children used relatively few translation equivalents before the age of 1;5, but the percentage of translation equivalents in their two languages jumped subsequently to around 20–25% of their total vocabulary words thereafter.

c.       Phonology

Researchers have been interested in whether children with simultaneous dual language exposure exhibit the same patterns of phonological development and progress at the same rate as children with monolingual exposure, in terms of both perception and production.
A corollary issue in the production studies has been when children with dual language exposure give evidence of having two phonological systems. Most of the research on phonological development has been carried out in the last 10 years and must be interpreted with caution because it is diverse in linguistic focus and in the ages of the children who have been studied. Nevertheless, the picture that is emerging indicates that bilingual children show a tendency for different patterns of development in both prosodic (at the level of the syllable, such as rhythm) and segmental (at the level of the phoneme, such as phonemic discrimination) phonology compared with monolingual children (Vihman, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007).
Research on speech perception during the preverbal stage of development has shown that monolingual infants can differentiate between their native (input) language and a “foreign language” (Mehler, Dupoux, Nazzi, & Dehaene-Lambertz, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007) if the languages belong to different rhythmic groups (e.g., French and Russian), and they can differentiate between languages within the same rhythmic group (e.g., Spanish and Catalan) by 4.5 months of age (Bosch & Sebastian-Galles, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007). Bosch and Sebastian-Galles (1997, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007) have found that 4-month-old infants exposed to both Spanish and Catalan have similar language differentiation abilities, indicating that reduced exposure to each language does not delay the emergence of this ability in bilinguals. The ability to distinguish between two languages early in development provides an important part of the foundation for building separate linguistic systems.
Research that has examined the early perception of segmental features of speech has found that children with dual language exposure from birth exhibit the same abilities as monolingual children but at a somewhat later age. Monolingual infants are initially able to discriminate phonetic contrasts that are not necessarily phonemic in their native language.
However, their discrimination abilities become language-specific during the second half of the first year of life so that they continue to discriminate contrasts that are phonemic in their native language, but cannot discriminate contrasts that are not phonemic. Vowel contrasts are perceived phonemically earlier (by 6–8 months of age; Bosch & Sebastian- Galles; Kuhl, Williams, Lacerda, Stevens, & Lindblom, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007) than consonant contrasts (by 8–10 months of age; Werker & Tees, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007). Bilingual first language children go through a similar reorganization in speech perception but exhibit language specific effects somewhat later than has been reported for monolinguals – by 12 months of age for vowel contrasts (Bosch & Sebastian-Galles, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007) and by 14 to 21 months of age for consonant contrasts (Burns, Werker, & McVie, as cited in Hoff & Shatz, 2007).
Children with dual language exposure have similarly shown a delay in the ability to use phonetic contrasts in word learning. More specifically, Fennel, Polka, and Werker found that while monolingual children were able to associate new words that differed by a minimal consonant contrast (i.e., /bih–dih/) with novel shapes at 17 months of age, bilingual children were able to do so only by 20 months of age. By contrast, research on word segmentation by Polka and Sundara found that French–English bilingual children were able to segment words from continuous speech in both their native languages by 7 months of age, like monolingual children. At the same time, early recognition of word forms in bilingual (and even monolingual) children may be sensitive to amount of exposure. (Hoff & Shatz, 2007)
Turning to production, Oller, Eilers, Urbano, and Cobo-Lewis (1997) found that the age of onset of canonical babbling was the same (i.e., around 27 weeks of age) for a group of bilingual English–Spanish children and English monolinguals, and Maneva and Genesee (2002) report evidence of differentiated babbling by a 10- to 15-month-old French–English bilingual child that corresponded to patterns attested in monolingual French and English babbling.

4.      Bilingual code-mixing

One aspect of bilingual acquisition is code-mixing. Bilingual code-mixing is the use of elements (phonological, lexical, and morpho-syntactic) from two languages in the same utterance or stretch of conversation or in different situations. Bilingual code-mixing is ubiquitous among bilinguals, both child and adult. It can take different forms.
Intra-utterance code-mixing refers to cases when two languages are used in the same utterance (e.g., “give me le cheval ”/“give me the horse”) whereas inter-utterance mixing refers to cases where there is a switch from one language to another across utterances, with each utterance being monolingual (e.g., Mother: “What’s this?”; child: “cheval”). Some researchers have also referred to situational mixing where bilinguals change language depending on the formal or informal nature of the situation. In addition, child bilingual code-mixing has been interpreted by researchers and laypersons as an indication of linguistic confusion and incompetence.
Many researchers and most laypersons have noted that young children in the process of learning two languages often use elements from both languages in the same utterance or stretch of conversation when they start speaking. As noted earlier, the mixed elements can include different aspects of language, including sounds, words, or grammatical structures (Genesee, as cited in Genesee, 2008). Using a word from one language while using the other language is the most common form of mixing among children. For example, a young Spanish-German bilingual boy speaking with his Spanish-speaking mother said, “Das no juegan”; “das” is the German word for “that” and “no juegan” is Spanish for “do not play” (Redlinger & Park, as cited in Genesee, 2008). Using the syntactic (grammatical) patterns from one language while speaking another language is another form of mixing, but is less common in children. Saunders reported that his five-year old German/English-speaking son said to his English-speaking mother, “Mum, I had my school jumper all day on” (cited in Genesee, 2008)While German requires this word order, this construction is not grammatical in English.

5.      Communicative competence

An important component of the communicative competence of proficient bilinguals is the ability to use each of their languages differentially and appropriately according to relevant characteristics of the interlocutors and communicative situations.
It was examined the communicative competence of four young children (average age of 2; 2, average MLU of 1·56) who were acquiring English and French simultaneously in the home. And it was observed the ways these children used their languages with monolingual strangers and with their bilingual parents. Specifically, the children's use of English-only, French-only, and mixed (English and French) utterances with the strangers during naturalistic play situations was compared with patterns of use with their parents, also during play sessions. It was found that all of the children made some accommodations that could be linked to the monolingualism of the stranger; some of the children were more accommodating than others. (Genesee, Boivin, & Nicoladis, Talking with strangers: A study of bilingual children's communicative competence, 1996)
What comes first in the acquisition of communicative competence? The various components of communicative competence, such as the phonological, pragmatic, semantic and lexical level, are said to start in the pre-linguistic period of the child, while the morphological and syntactic aspect, though unobserved in this period, emerge noticeably in the production data. If we want to see how communicative competence grows in a foreign language learner, in Foster’s terminology, there are two aspects of human development that should be considered: “nature (i.e., innate predispositions of the human organism) and nurture (i.e., experience)”.
In a foreign language, some aspects of communicative competence are developed simultaneously, but the order is remarkably altered: the phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects seem to be prioritized over the lexical, semantic and, last and least, pragmatic level in traditionally structured classes. (Renart, 2005)
The psycho and sociolinguistic studies show, that the alternative language use is determined by many markers such as place and topic of conversation, participants of communication and so on. If the child recurrently listens to an individual speaking the given language, the situation actualizing, the speech set will tend to be more deeply rooted in the child. Psychological speech sets are later differentiated as ability of speaking the respective language. The more differentiated the speech sets are, the more probable a successful switch from one language to the other will be and the less frequently interlinguistic confusions will occur. Bilingual competence is a dynamic phenomenon determined by a number of factors such as, for example, the child’s language biography, birth order, the types, frequency and intensity of the child’s social interactions in appropriate language within and outside the family, the parents’ communicative strategies (one person one language, language-mixed input), and so on. (Jarovinskij, 2000)


6.      Conclusion

Acquiring two languages simultaneously from birth is known as bilingual first language acquisition. And it is very common in those countries where two or more languages are spoken, and it occurs among immigrants. But this phenomenon has become an important issue among scholars and researchers since they may not be able to find whether it is good or bad to be a bilingual from birth. Having come to a conclusion, becoming bilingual from birth is magnificent. And I think the only problem with bilinguals is code-mixing, although they probably overcome to that aspect at some point, but children still need effort to overcome that issue.

 References

• Clark, T. (2010, July 25). Introducing Bilingual First Language Acquisition, or BLFA. Retrieved 10 April, 2013, from taraclark.ca: http://taraclark.ca/introducing-bilingual-first-language-acquisition-or-blfa/
• Genesee, F. (2008). Bilingual First Language Acquisition: Evidence from Montreal. Érudit, 9-26. doi:10.7202/019559ar
• Genesee, F., Boivin, I., & Nicoladis, E. (1996). Talking with strangers: A study of bilingual children's communicative competence. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17(4), 427-442. doi:10.1017/S0142716400008183
• Hoff, E., & Shatz, M. (Eds.). (2007). Blackwell handbook of language develepment. Malden, USA: Blackwell.
• Jarovinskij, A. (2000). Acquiring bilingual communicative competence. Hungarian Academy Sciences, 561-564.
• Renart, L. (2005). Communicative competence in children: Spanish-English bilinguality. In J. Cohen, K. T. McAlister, K. Rolstad, & J. MacSwan (Ed.), Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1934-1944). Somerville: Cascadilla Press. Retrieved from http://www.cascadilla.com/isb4.html