Morphological and syntactic code-switching in the speech of an Arabic-English bilingual child

Multilingua ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
YOUSEF BADER ◽  
DENISE D. MINNIS
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena V. Kremin ◽  
Julia Alves ◽  
Adriel John Orena ◽  
Linda Polka ◽  
Krista Byers-Heinlein

Code-switching is a common phenomenon in bilingual communities, but little is known about bilingual parents’ code-switching when speaking to their infants. In a pre-registered study, we identified instances of code-switching in day-long at-home audio recordings of 21 French–English bilingual families in Montreal, Canada, who provided recordings when their infant was 10 and 18 months old. Overall, rates of infant-directed code-switching were low, averaging 7 times per hour (6 times per 1,000 words) at 10 months and increasing to 28 times per hour (18 times per 1,000 words) at 18 months. Parents code-switched more between sentences than within a sentence; this pattern was even more pronounced when infants were 18 months than when they were 10 months. The most common apparent reasons for code-switching were to bolster their infant’s understanding and to teach vocabulary words. Combined, these results suggest that bilingual parents code-switch in ways that support successful bilingual language acquisition.


2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
ESTHER ÁLVAREZ

It is a matter of debate whether the two differentiated grammatical systems in a bilingual child develop autonomously, or whether there is interdependence and in what areas (Genesee, 2001; Meisel, 2001). Extensive research is being carried out in the emergence of the two grammars, but not much attention has been given to the development of discourse in simultaneous bilinguals. This study examines longitudinal narrative data from a Spanish-English school-age simultaneous bilingual child, and, in particular, the development of character introductions in the story. The child's stories in both languages show similar degrees of appropriate use of grammatical means for discourse purposes during the period under study and inadequacies are related not to the specific language used by the child, but to semantic and syntactic factors that promote or hinder appropriateness and affect both languages equally. The child follows the characteristic style identified for each of the two languages in studies of monolingual Spanish- and English-speaking children and adults. This indicates an autonomous development. However, there is also evidence that the two styles are not as differentiated as might be expected in comparison with monolinguals. These results support the view that, although the two languages of a bilingual child develop autonomously to a great extent, there are certain aspects which develop interdependently (Genesee, 2001).


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge R. Valdés Kroff ◽  
Paola E. Dussias ◽  
Chip Gerfen ◽  
Lauren Perrotti ◽  
M. Teresa Bajo

Abstract Using code-switching as a tool to illustrate how language experience modulates comprehension, the visual world paradigm was employed to examine the extent to which gender-marked Spanish determiners facilitate upcoming target nouns in a group of Spanish-English bilingual code-switchers. The first experiment tested target Spanish nouns embedded in a carrier phrase (Experiment 1b) and included a control Spanish monolingual group (Experiment 1a). The second set of experiments included critical trials in which participants heard code-switches from Spanish determiners into English nouns (e.g., la house) either in a fixed carrier phrase (Experiment 2a) or in variable and complex sentences (Experiment 2b). Across the experiments, bilinguals revealed an asymmetric gender effect in processing, showing facilitation only for feminine target items. These results reflect the asymmetric use of gender in the production of code-switched speech. The extension of the asymmetric effect into Spanish (Experiment 1b) underscores the permeability between language modes in bilingual code-switchers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-342
Author(s):  
Roshawnda A. Derrick

Abstract This paper analyzes Junot Díaz’s most recent works The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007. The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead) and This is How You Lose Her (2012. This is how you lose her. New York: Riverhead) by using Muysken’s (2000. Bilingual speech. A typology of code-mixing. Cambridge: CUP) typology of code-switching to illustrate the types of language mixing devices present in these two texts. I point out that Díaz’s innovative use of radical bilingualism is not due to the quantity of sentences including Spanish, rather to the quality of mixing and switching in his works. Further, I elaborate on Casielles-Suárez, Eugenia. (2013. Radical code-switching in the Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90. 475–487) study using Torres’ (2007. In the contact zone: Code-switching strategies by Latino/a writers. MELUS 32(1). 75–96) categorization of code-switching strategies utilized by U.S. Hispanic authors. I find that instead of Díaz’s texts gratifying the bilingual reader (Torres. 2007. In the contact zone: Code-switching strategies by Latino/a writers. MELUS 32(1). 75–96) or creating radical hybridism (Casielles-Suárez. 2013. Radical code-switching in the Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90. 475–487), that these two works illustrate radical bilingualism. In contrast to the majority of U.S. Spanish-English bilingual texts, which incorporate Spanish by using simple insertions, translations, bold font and italics, Díaz creates radically bilingual works by using a variety of Spanish and English varieties, the indirect influence of Spanish in monolingual English sentences, intra-word insertions, a diversity of insertion types and hybrid noun-phrases.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Marzieh Hadei

<p class="1"><span lang="X-NONE">The present study aims to show whether or not English single word insertions in Persian can be considered as code-switching or established borrowing. A mixed method design is chosen for the study. Data for the present study were collected from 12 Persian-English bilingual speakers in different tape-recorded spontaneous conversations. The findings of the study revealed that English single word insertions cannot be considered as established borrowing for several reasons:  a) They are not integrated phonologically into the Persian frame b) They behave similarly to phrasal insertions with different Persian markers c) They are not fixed in the mental lexicon of the bilingual Persian-English speakers and are used without any awareness and d) English verbs cannot integrate into the Persian frame- neither morphologically nor syntactically. <span>Overall, the present study agrees with Myers-Scotton’s (2002) </span>that borrowing arises originally as code-switching, and borrowed forms and code-switched forms tend to fall across a continuum.</span></p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARMEN SILVA-CORVALÁN ◽  
SIMONA MONTANARI

This article studies the acquisition of copulas by a Spanish–English bilingual between the ages of 1;6 and 3;0, examines the possibility of interlanguage influence, and considers the distributional frequencies of copular constructions in the speech of the child and in the language input from adults. The study is of interest because the bilingual child needs to acquire semantic and syntactic contrasts in Spanish that are not explicitly marked in English. This difference raises questions about the timing of acquisition of the Spanish copulas under pressure from a stronger language, in addition to the language-internal questions concerning the acquisition of the semantics and syntax of these verbs. The results show that copular constructions develop autonomously, but with a slight delay in the acquisition of estar interpreted as a possible type of influence from English. The distributional analysis reveals parallels between the child's and the adults' uses of copulas, thus supporting a process of acquisition guided by the nature of the interactions that the child enters into with the adults who surround him.


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