ERIC Number: EJ1340501
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Jul
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Code-Switching in Parents' Everyday Speech to Bilingual Infants
Kremin, Lena V.; Alves, Julia; Orena, Adriel John; Polka, Linda; Byers-Heinlein, Krista
Journal of Child Language, v49 n4 p714-740 Jul 2021
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.
Descriptors: Infants, Code Switching (Language), Bilingualism, Parent Child Relationship, Language Acquisition, French, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Audio Equipment, Vocabulary Development, Foreign Countries, Speech Communication
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Identifiers - Location: Canada (Montreal)
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