Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T06:16:37.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Parental Input in the Development of Children’s Multilingualism

from Part Three - Family Language Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2022

By
Andrea C. Schalley  and
Susana A. Eisenchlas
Edited by
Anat Stavans  and
Ulrike Jessner
Anat Stavans
Affiliation:
Beit Berl College, Israel
Ulrike Jessner
Affiliation:
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria
Get access

Summary

The linguistic input parents provide to their children is crucial to the development of multilingualism. This chapter focuses on multilingualism in families where children either receive input in two or more home languages that are different from the environment language(s) or grow up in a bilingual community and have at least one additional home language. The chapter discusses quantity and quality of parental input as well as challenges in measurement. It reviews aspects of parental input, drawing upon Spolsky’s (2009) interrelated components of family language policy (FLP) – language ideologies, language management, and language practices. Parental attitudes, beliefs, and language ideologies impact on motivation and goal-setting in relation to the input they provide to their children. Language management is addressed through an examination of models of multilingual upbringing and parental input strategies. The implementation of FLP is reflected in actual language practices within the family. These are considered not only from the parental perspective but also from the children’s reactions to their parents’ input, as child agency plays a substantial role in the eventual success of parents’ strategies and practices.

Keywords

quality and quantity of inputinput planninginput patterns and strategieslanguage ideologieslanguage practiceschild agency
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Childhood Multilingualism , pp. 278 - 303
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnes, J. (2011). The influence of child-directed speech in early trilingualism. International Journal of Multilingualism, 8(1), 42–62.Google Scholar
Barron-Hauwaert, S. (2000). Issues surrounding trilingual families: Children with simultaneous exposure to three languages. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 5(1), https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c34e/44c75841d9fe3a2eee84744d771278198cde.pdf.Google Scholar
Blom, E. (2010). Effects of input on the early grammatical development of bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism, 14(4), 422–46.Google Scholar
Braun, A. (2006). The Effect of Sociocultural and Linguistic Factors on the Language Use of Parents in Trilingual Families in England and Germany. Doctoral dissertation, University of Bedfordshire.Google Scholar
Braun, A. (2012). Language maintenance in trilingual families: A focus on grandparents. International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(4), 423–43.Google Scholar
Braun, A., & Cline, T. (2010). Trilingual families in mainly monolingual societies: Working towards a typology. International Journal of Multilingualism, 7(2), 110–27.Google Scholar
Carroll, S. E. (2015). Exposure and input in bilingual development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20(1), 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chevalier, S. (2012). Active trilingualism in early childhood: The motivating role of caregivers in interaction. International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(4), 437–54.Google Scholar
Chevalier, S. (2013). Caregiver responses to the language mixing of a young trilingual. Multilingua, 32(1), 1–32.Google Scholar
Chevalier, S. (2015). Trilingual Language Acquisition: Contextual Factors Influencing Active Trilingualism in Early Childhood. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Chrisfield, E. (2012). On raising bilingual children: How much (insert language here) is enough? https://onraisingbilingualchildren.com/2012/09/26/how-much-insert-language-here-is-enough/.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour. Language, 35(1), 26–58.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1988). Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2009). Visible and invisible language planning: Ideological factor in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec. Language Policy, 8(4), 351–75.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2012). Private language management in Singapore: Which language to practice and how? In Alexandre, S., Yeung, E., Brown, L., & Lee, C., eds., Communication and Language: Surmounting Barriers to Cross-Cultural Understanding. Scottsdale: Information Age Publishing, pp. 55–77.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Huang, J. (2020). Factors influencing family language policy. In Schalley, A. C. & Eisenchlas, S. A., eds., Handbook of Home Language Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors. New York/Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 174–93.Google Scholar
Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Wang, W. (2018). Parents as agents of multilingual education: Family language planning in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 31(3), 235–54.Google Scholar
Crago, M. B. (1992). Communicative interaction and second language acquisition: An Inuit example. TESOL Quarterly, 26(3), 487–505.Google Scholar
Cruz-Ferreira, M. (2006). Three Is a Crowd? Acquiring Portuguese in a Trilingual Environment. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dagenais, D., & Day, E. (1999). Home language practices of trilingual children in French immersion. Canadian Modern Language Review, 56(1), 99–123.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (1999). Environmental factors in early bilingual development: The role of parental beliefs and attitudes. In Extra, G. & Verhoeven, L., eds., Bilingualism and Migration. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 75–95.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2004). Trilingual input and children’s language use in trilingual families in Flanders. In Hoffmann, C. & Ytsma, J., eds., Trilingualism in the Individual, Family and Society. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 118–38.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2007). Parental language input patterns and children’s bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 411–24.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2017). Bilingual language input environments, intake, maturity and practice. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20(1), 19–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2018). The role of language input environments for language outcomes and language acquisition in young bilingual children. In Miller, D., Bayram, F., Rothman, J., & Serratrice, L., eds., Bilingual Cognition and Language: The State of the Science across Its Subfields. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 127–53.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A., & Bornstein, M. H. (2016). Bilingual mothers’ language choice in child-directed speech: Continuity and change. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(7), 680–93.Google Scholar
Dixon, L. Q. (2011). The role of home and school factors in predicting English vocabulary among bilingual kindergarten children in Singapore. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32(1), 141–68.Google Scholar
Döpke, S. (1992). One Parent One Language: An Interactional Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Döpke, S., ed. (2001). Cross-Linguistic Structures in Simultaneous Bilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Eisenchlas, S. A., & Schalley, A. C. (2020). Making sense of ‘home language’ and related concepts. In Schalley, A. C. & Eisenchlas, S. A., eds., Handbook of Home Language Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors. New York/Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 17–37.Google Scholar
Faingold, E. D. (1999). The re-emergence of Spanish and Hebrew in a multilingual adolescent. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2(4), 283–95.Google Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. (2007). Miami and North Wales, so far and yet so near: A constructivist account of morphosyntactic development in bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10(3), 224–47.Google Scholar
Gilkerson, J., & Richards, J. A. (2008). The LENA Foundation Natural Language Study. Boulder: LENA Foundation, www.lenafoundation.org/.Google Scholar
Gogonas, N., & Kirsch, C. (2018). ‘In this country my children are learning two of the most important languages in Europe’: Ideologies of language as a commodity among Greek migrant families in Luxembourg. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(4), 426–38.Google Scholar
Goodluck, H. (1991). Language Acquisition: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodz, N. (1989). Parental language mixing in bilingual families. Journal of Infant Mental Health, 10(1), 25–44.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83.Google Scholar
Herdina, P., & Jessner, U. (2002). A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism: Perspectives of Change in Psycholinguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Hiratsuka, A., & Pennycook, A. (2019). Translingual family repertoires: ‘No, Morci is itaiitai panzita, amor’. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 41(9), 749–63.Google Scholar
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74(5), 1368–78.Google Scholar
Hoff, E., & Tian, C. (2005). Socioeconomic status and cultural influences on language. Journal of Communication Disorders, 38(4), 271–78.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, C. (1985). Language acquisition in two trilingual children. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 6(6), 479–95.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, C. (2001). Towards a description of trilingual competence. International Journal of Bilingualism, 5(1), 1–17.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, C., & Ytsma, J. (2004). Introduction. In Hoffmann, C. & Ytsma, J., eds., Trilingualism in the Individual, Family and Society. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
Hurtado, N., Marchman, V. A., & Fernald, A. (2008). Does input influence uptake? Links between maternal talk, processing speed and vocabulary size in Spanish-learning children. Developmental Science, 11(6), F31–F39.Google Scholar
Kheirkhah, M., & Cekaite, A. (2015). Language maintenance in a multilingual family: Informal heritage language lessons in parent-child interactions. Multilingua, 34(3), 319–46.Google Scholar
King, K., Fogle, L., & Logan-Terry, A. (2008). Family language policy. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2(5), 907–22.Google Scholar
Lanza, E. (2004). Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lanza, E. (2007). Multilingualism in the family. In Auer, P. & Li, W., eds., Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 45–67.Google Scholar
Li, G. (2006). Biliteracy and trilingual practices in the home context: Case studies of Chinese-Canadian children. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 6(3), 355–81.Google Scholar
Liu, L., & Kager, R. (2017). Is mommy talking to daddy or to me? Exploring parental estimates of child language exposure using the Multilingual Infant Language Questionnaire. International Journal of Multilingualism, 14(4), 366–77.Google Scholar
Maneva, B. (2004). ‘Maman, je suis polyglotte!’ A case study of multilingual language acquisition from 0 to 5 years. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1(2), 109 –22.Google Scholar
Mishina-Mori, S. (2011). A longitudinal analysis of language choice in bilingual children: The role of parental input and interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(13), 3122–38.Google Scholar
Montanari, S. (2009). Multi-word combinations and the emergence of differentiated ordering patterns in early trilingual development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(4), 503–19.Google Scholar
Morales, G., Vaughan, J., & Ganambarr-Stubbs, M. (2018). From home to school in multilingual Arnhem Land: The development of Yirrkala school’s bilingual curriculum. In Wigglesworth, G., Simpson, J., & Vaughan, J., eds., Language Practices of Indigenous Children and Youth: The Transition from Home to School. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 69–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. (2002). An integrated approach to evaluating effects of bilingualism in Miami school children: The study design. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R., eds., Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 22–40.Google Scholar
Paradis, J., & Genesee, F. (1996). Syntactic acquisition in bilingual children: Autonomous or independent? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 18(1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Paradis, J., Nicoladis, E., Crago, M., & Genesee, F. (2011). Bilingual children’s acquisition of the past tense: A usage-based approach. Journal of Child Language, 38(3), 544–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pérez Báez, G. (2013). Family language policy, transnationalism, and the diaspora community of San Lucas Quiaviní of Oaxaca, Mexico. Language Policy, 12(1), 27–45.Google Scholar
Place, S., & Hoff, E. (2011). Properties of dual language exposure that influence two-year-olds’ bilingual proficiency. Child Development, 82(6), 1834–49.Google Scholar
Quay, S. (2001) Managing linguistic boundaries in early trilingual development. In Cenoz, J. & Genesee, F., eds., Trends in Bilingual Acquisition (Vol. 1). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 149–200.Google Scholar
Quay, S. (2008). Dinner conversations with a trilingual two-year-old: Language socialization in a multilingual context. First Language, 28(1), 5–33.Google Scholar
Ruiz, R. (1984). Orientations in language planning. NABE Journal, 8, 15–34.Google Scholar
Ronjat, J. (1913). Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue. Paris: Champion.Google Scholar
Rowe, M. L. (2012). A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development. Child Development, 83(5), 1762–74.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M. (2020). Strategies and practices of home language maintenance. In Schalley, A. C. & Eisenchlas, S. A., eds., Handbook of Home Language Maintenance and Development: Social and Affective Factors. New York/Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 194–217.Google Scholar
Singh, L. (2019). Raising bilingual children: What does the science say? https://mulberrylearning.com/raising-bilingual-children/.Google Scholar
Slavkov, N. (2017). Family language policy and school language choice: Pathways to bilingualism and multilingualism in a Canadian context. International Journal of Multilingualism, 14(4), 378–400.Google Scholar
Spolsky, B. (2009). Language Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stavans, A. (1992). Sociolinguistic factors affecting codeswitches produced by trilingual children. Language Culture and Curriculum, 5(1), 41–53.Google Scholar
Stoehr, A., Benders, T., Van Hell, J. G., & Fikkert, P. (2019). Bilingual preschoolers’ speech is associated with non-native maternal language input. Language Learning and Development, 15(1), 75–100.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language. London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Unsworth, S. (2013). Current issues in multilingual first language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 33, 21–50.Google Scholar
Venables, E., Eisenchlas, S. A., & Schalley, A. C. (2014). One-parent-one-language (OPOL) families: Is the majority language-speaking parent instrumental in the minority language development? International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 17(4), 429–48.Google Scholar
Wang, X.-L. (2008). Growing Up with Three Language: Birth to Eleven. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Weisleder, A., & Fernald, A. (2013). Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2143–52.Google Scholar
Yang, H., & Zhu, H. (2010). The phonological development of a trilingual child: Facts and factors. International Journal of Bilingualism, 14(1), 105–26.Google Scholar
Zhu, H., & Li, W. (2005). Bi- and multi-lingual acquisition. In Ball, M., ed., Clinical Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 165–79.Google Scholar
Zurer-Pearson, B. (2007). Social factors in childhood bilingualism in the United States. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 399–410.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×