Code-switching in parents’ everyday speech to bilingual infants

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena V. Kremin ◽  
Julia Alves ◽  
Adriel John Orena ◽  
Linda Polka ◽  
Krista Byers-Heinlein
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Bilingual Communities ◽  
Apparent Reasons ◽  
At Home

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.

Code-switching in parents’ everyday speech to bilingual infants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Lena V. KREMIN ◽  
Julia ALVES ◽  
Adriel John ORENA ◽  
Linda POLKA ◽  
Krista BYERS-HEINLEIN
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Bilingual Communities ◽  
Apparent Reasons ◽  
At Home

Abstract 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.

Intra-Sentential Code-Switching among Bilingual Saudis on Twitter

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Hussein Ali Habtoor ◽  
Ghzail Faleh Almutlagah
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Common Phenomenon

Code switching (CS) is a common phenomenon in language contact situations wherein bilinguals utilize two languages in the same context. This study investigated the occurrence of intra-sentential code switching by 12 bilingual Saudi females on twitter who differed in age and education. The data were collected by taking screenshot for 1260 tweets. Data were analysed statistically to show the phenomena of Arabic- English code switching. Moreover, a qualitative method was used for data analysis. Findings of the study showed that code-switching was observed clearly on twitter and that intra-sentential code-switching occurs frequently. It was also observed that at the level of particular syntactic categories in Arabic-English CS, nouns were the most often switched elements in the corpus. This study focused on nouns and verbs as examples of these syntactic categories of CS. English as inserted language was mostly used by participant, so the study focused on Arabic sentences in which English is the embedded language. Finally, it is found that the most inserted words in English were related to the internet and other social aspects. 

scholarly journals The Roots of Bilingualism in Newborns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krista Byers-Heinlein ◽  
Tracey C. Burns ◽  
Janet F. Werker
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Chinese And English ◽  
Intermediate Pattern ◽  
English Monolingual

The first steps toward bilingual language acquisition have already begun at birth. When tested on their preference for English versus Tagalog, newborns whose mothers spoke only English during pregnancy showed a robust preference for English. In contrast, newborns whose mothers spoke both English and Tagalog regularly during pregnancy showed equal preference for both languages. A group of newborns whose mothers had spoken both Chinese and English showed an intermediate pattern of preference for Tagalog over English. Preference for two languages does not suggest confusion between them, however. Study 2 showed that both English monolingual newborns and Tagalog-English bilingual newborns could discriminate English from Tagalog. The same perceptual and learning mechanisms that support acquisition in a monolingual environment thus also naturally support bilingual acquisition.

scholarly journals The use of English in Korean TV drama to signal a modern identity

English Today ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 54-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Baratta
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
Korean Music ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Korean Identity ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Modern Identity

While code-switching is quite a common phenomenon, this paper seeks to investigate a common but underreported use of code-switching. In this paper, I focus on the use of code-switching from Korean to English in South Korean TV dramas. The paper first briefly discusses the literature on the connotations of English language in the Korean media and then proceeds to focus on code-switching using data sampled from three Korean TV dramas. The previous literature (e.g. Lee, 2006; Park, 2006, 2009) which discusses the use of the English language in the Korean media, argues that English carries connotations of modernity and power and this subsequently helps to construct a modern identity for Koreans. However, while Korean music, advertisements and comedies have been discussed with regard to their switches to English, there is little, if any research that focuses on switching to English in Korean TV dramas. The argument put forth in this paper is that switching to English in this context is often a means to reflect an identity of power for the characters and this subsequently might be a reflection of the power and dominance that the English language has in Korean society. In turn, this contributes to conclusions that a modern Korean identity of power derives from being proficient in English.

scholarly journals Experience with code-switching modulates the use of grammatical gender during sentence processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge R. Valdés Kroff ◽  
Paola E. Dussias ◽  
Chip Gerfen ◽  
Lauren Perrotti ◽  
M. Teresa Bajo
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Effect ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Asymmetric Effect ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
English Bilingual

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.

Radical bilingualism in Junot Díaz’s texts

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-342
Author(s):  
Roshawnda A. Derrick
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Indirect Influence ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Hispanic Studies ◽  
Switching Strategies

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.

Single Word Insertions as Code-Switching or Established Borrowing?

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Marzieh Hadei
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Method ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Mixed Method Design ◽  
Class 1

<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>

Two types of wh-omission in first language acquisition

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Roberge ◽  
Nelleke Strik
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Functional Elements

Omission of various components of a sentence is a common phenomenon in first language (LI) acquisition across different languages. Omission can affect arguments, such as subjects and objects, as well as functional elements, such as determiners and inflectional morphology (Borer and Rohrbacher 2002, Pérez-Leroux et al. 2008, among others).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document