Bilingualism in Childhood ­

What are the reasons for parents to raise

their child bilingual?

Author: Andrea Sander

Course: 5th Semester Project

Syddansk Universitet Sønderborg

January 2009

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Table of content

Introduction

3

1.

What is bilingualism

4

1.1.

Definition of bilingualism

4

1.2.

Types of bilingualism

5

1.2.1. Simultaneous bilingualism

5

1.2.2. Successive bilingualism

5

2.

Raising a bilingual child

6

2.1.

Methods

6

2.1.1. One Person One Language (OPOL)

6

2.1.2. Minority Language at Home (ML@H)

7

2.1.3. Artificial bilingualism

7

2.2.

Advantages and Disadvantages

8

2.2.1. Mixing and code-switching

8

2.2.2. Language delay

9

2.2.3. Interference

9

2.2.4. Semilingualism

10

3.

Explanation of research

11

3.1.

Data collection

11

3.2.

The questionnaire

12

4.

Analysis

12

4.1.

Analysis of questionnaires

12

4.2.

Reasons for parents

13

Conclusion

14

Literature List

15

Appendix A

Graphs of Evaluation

18

Appendix B

Questionnaire

21

2

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Introduction

A lot of people in the world are bilingual. People in Africa and Asia often speak their

community language and additionally an official language like English or French. It is

not a big surprise when calling in mind that according to Prof. Dr. Martin Haspelmath

of the Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Leipzig there are about

6500-7000 languages in the world and according to www.welt-in-zahlen.de 193

countries. That makes an average of 35 languages per country.

Despite the fact that bilingualism is widespread, there are a lot of negative

opinions in the mind of people. People say for example "Your kid is going to get all

these languages mixed up.", "when will she

(or he)

use that

(language)

" (both cf.

Bosemark, 2006b, my italics) or that bilingual children are overstrained and that they

start later to talk than their monolingual peers (cf. Leist-Villis, 2008).

Within this research-paper I will deal with bilingualism in childhood. More

precisely I will answer the research question "What are the reasons for parents to

raise their child bilingually". First I will define the term bilingualism. For that I quote a

few definitions of bilingualism from experts and afterwards I will define the one I will

work with. Afterwards I will introduce some successful methods applied by parents

and I will point out the advantages and disadvantages of the methods I found in

literature. I will continue explaining the research I have done on the topic followed by

the analysis of my data. Concluding I will answer the research question and give a

prospective view on possible future research.

Bilingualism is a huge topic and to look on it more deeply I decided to consider

families who raised their children English-German or German-English. To get in

contact with families bringing up their children in that way, I wrote articles in internet

communities and designed a questionnaire that I sent to several families raising their

child/ren bilingually who answered my requests. In addition to the internet and my

questionnaire I considered books that deal with the topic.

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1. Bilingualism

Almost everybody knows the term bilingualism, but what exactly is bilingualism? In

this chapter I will quote some definitions from researchers and conclude with the

definition I will work with in my project. It is here to mention that there are two terms

of bilingualism to consider. First term is the bilingual society which normally refers to

countries like Switzerland and Canada where a whole community is bilingual. The

second term to consider is bilingual individuals. Those are persons that are

bilingually, normally living in a monolingual society. In my paper I will only consider

the "phenomenon" of bilingual individuals.

1.1. Definitions of bilingualism

Almost everybody in Germany learns a second language in his or her life. But is that

bilingualism? When I asked a friend of mine what bilingualism is,

she answered "Being able to speak two languages on a native-like level". This is

almost the definition that Leonard Bloomfield gave in 1933; he said: "Bilingualism [is]

native-like control of two languages ... Of course, one cannot define a degree of

perfection at which a good foreign speaker becomes bilingual: the distinction is

relative." (in Harding-Esch, Riley, 2003: 23). Or consider F. Grosjean′s (1992)

definition: "The bilingual is not the sum of two complete or incomplete monolinguals;

rather, he or she has a unique and specific linguistic configuration." (in Harding-Esch,

Riley, 2003: 23). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003: 136)

defines bilingualism as being "able to speak two languages equally well (...)". But is it

possible to talk two languages equally well? Some bilinguals have a very good

general terminology in English whereas their institutional German is much better as

they study or work in Germany but speaking English at home. It is obvious that the

term bilingualism is extensive. Anja Leist-Villis wrote that bilingualism means to live,

think, feel and talk in and with both languages... The languages of bilinguals are

rarely developed equally. Mostly one language is stronger than the other. That

depends on: the age, the language arrangement in the family, the country where the

person lives, his or her social environment and so forth. It is possible that one

language is stronger developed in emotions and at the same time is the other

language more developed in rationality (cf. Leist-Villis, 2008: 40) Bilingualism is a

hard to define term and everybody has to define his or her own meaning of

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bilingualism. For this paper I will refer to bilinguals a people who grew up with two

languages either from birth or a little later (around age three).

1.2. Types of bilingualism

In literature there are four types of bilingualism mentioned: infancy bilingualism,

childhood bilingualism, adolescence bilingualism and adulthood bilingualism. For

simplification I will remain with the first two terms. Adolescence bilingualism is

referred to people who learn a second language after puberty and will not fit in the

contxt of childhood bilingualism.

1.2.1. Simultaneous bilingualism

Simultaneous means "at the same time". Parents who decide to speak to their child in

both languages from birth onwards raise their child simultaneous bilingual. Infant

bilingualism is the state when babies go "directly from not speaking at all to speaking

two languages. That is, cases of infant bilingualism necessarily involve the

simultaneous acquisition of both languages." (Harding-Esch, 2003: 42). To be

successful in this method, the parents have to be fluent in both languages and they

have to use the two languages when speaking to the child without compromise. This

can be specially challenging when talking as a mother a minority language with the

children. I will illustrate this later in chapter 2.1.1 when talking about the One-Person-

One-Language approach.

1.2.2. Successive bilingualism

In this type of bilingualism parents decide to establish first a basis of knowledge in

the first language (L1) in their child. The child is then able to communicate in one

language before they start educating their child in the second language. The second

language (L2) is usually introduced when the child is three years old. At this time the

child shows a good linguistic development. It is able to build up four-word-utterances,

and can produce isolated consonants. "The most common cause of successive

acquisition is the family′s moving to another country (...) this includes learning the

language. (...) experience has shown time and time again that children in this

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