Bilingual Development in Childhood

Description

In the first decade of life, children become bilingual in different language learning environments. Many children start learning two languages from birth (Bilingual First Language Acquisition). In early childhood hitherto monolingual children start hearing a second language through daycare or preschool (Early Second Language Acquisition). Yet other hitherto monolingual children in middle childhood may acquire a second language only after entering school (Second Language Acquisition). This Element explains how these different language learning settings dynamically affect bilingual children's language learning trajectories. All children eventually learn to speak the societal language, but they often do not learn to fluently speak their non-societal language and may even stop speaking it. Children's and families' harmonious bilingualism is threatened if bilingual children do not develop high proficiency in both languages. Educational institutions and parental conversational practices play a pivotal role in supporting harmonious bilingual development. Cover......Page 1 Title page......Page 3 Copyright page......Page 4 Bilingual Development in Childhood......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 1 Introduction......Page 7 2 Becoming Bilingual in Infancy: Focus on Bilingual First Language Acquisition......Page 12 2.1 Born into a Bilingual Family......Page 14 2.2 Phonological Development: Bilingual Infant Speech Perception......Page 16 2.3 Bilingual Infant Language Comprehension......Page 19 2.4.1 Babbling......Page 21 2.4.3 Phonological Development: Learning to Produce Sounds......Page 22 2.4.4 Lexical Repertoire and Vocabulary Size......Page 23 2.4.5 Word Combinations......Page 26 2.5 Uneven Bilingual Development in Infancy......Page 27 2.6 Factors Affecting Bilingual Development in Infancy......Page 28 3 Bilingualism in Early Childhood: Bilingual First and Early Second Language Acquisition......Page 31 3.1.1 Perception and Comprehension......Page 32 3.1.2 Production......Page 33 3.2.1 Comprehension......Page 36 3.2.2 Production......Page 37 3.2.3 Summary......Page 38 3.3 BFLA and ESLA Preschoolers Compared......Page 39 3.4 Language Choice in Early Childhood......Page 40 3.5 Factors Affecting Bilingual Development in Early Childhood......Page 42 3.5.1 Child-Internal Factors Affecting Bilingual Development in EarlyChildhood......Page 43 3.5.2 Child-External Factors Affecting Bilingual Development in EarlyChildhood......Page 45 4 Bilingualism in Middle Childhood: Bilingual First Language Acquisition, Early Second Language Acquisition, and Second Language Acquisition......Page 48 4.1 BFLA and ESLA Schoolchildren’s Language Development......Page 49 4.2 SLA Schoolchildren’s Language Development......Page 50 4.4 Language Choice in Middle Childhood......Page 52 4.5 Factors Affecting Bilingual Development in Middle Childhood......Page 54 5 Socioeconomic Status and Bilingual Development in Childhood......Page 58 6.1 Summary......Page 60 6.2 Harmonious Bilingualism......Page 63 6.3 Parting Words......Page 64 References......Page 66