Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T03:57:51.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A longitudinal investigation of language mixing in Spanish–English dual language learners: the role of language proficiency, variability, and sociolinguistic factors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2019

Simona MONTANARI ,
Wendy OCHOA  and
Kaveri SUBRAHMANYAM
Simona MONTANARI*
Affiliation:
California State University, Los Angeles, USA
Wendy OCHOA
Affiliation:
California State University, Los Angeles, USA University of California, IrvineUSA
Kaveri SUBRAHMANYAM
Affiliation:
California State University, Los Angeles, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Simona Montanari, PhD, Department of Child & Family Studies, E&T A509, Rongxiang Xu College of Health and Human Services, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032, United States of America. E-mail: smontan2@calstatela.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examines language mixing in 26 Spanish–English dual language learners over the course of their first year of preschool. The children's patterns of language choice while interacting in monolingual language contexts were analyzed at age 3;6 and 4;5 to examine: (1) whether the frequency of language mixing changed during the year; (2) whether mixing was related to proficiency as measured by utterance length and lexical diversity; and (3) whether there were different subgroups of children, among the participants, with similar proficiency and language use patterns. The results indicate that language mixing, which was low at both ages, was related to limited lexical resources only at 3;6. However, by age 4;5, language choice was more constrained by sociolinguistic variables – children's awareness of the language prescribed by the majority culture – than by proficiency. An exploratory cluster analysis further reveals different profiles of learners sharing similar proficiency and language mixing characteristics.

Keywords

language mixingDual Language Learnerslongitudinal studylanguage proficiencyvariability
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 46 , Issue 5 , September 2019 , pp. 913 - 937
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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

Anderson, R. (2012). First language loss in Spanish-speaking children: patterns of loss and implications for clinical practice. In Goldstein, B. (Ed.), Bilingual language development and disorders in Spanish–English speakers (pp. 187–211). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.Google Scholar
Atkins-Burnett, S., Sprachman, S., Lopez, M., Caspe, M., & Fallin, K. (2011). The Language Interaction Snapshot (LISn): a new observational measure for assessing language interactions in linguistically diverse early childhood programs. In Howes, C., Downer, J. T., & Pianta, R. C. (Eds.), Dual language learners in the early childhood classroom (pp 117–46). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.Google Scholar
Bedore, L. M., Peña, E. D., Gillam, R. B., & Ho, T.-H. (2010). Language sample measures and language ability in Spanish English bilingual kindergarteners. Journal of Communication Disorders, 43(6), 498–510.Google Scholar
Bernardini, P., & Schlyter, S. (2004). Growing syntactic structure and code-mixing in the weaker language: the ivy hypothesis. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(1), 49–69.Google Scholar
Cantone, K. (2007). Code-switching in bilingual children. Dordecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Comeau, L., Genesee, F., & Lapaquette, L. (2003). The Modeling Hypothesis and child bilingual codemixing. International Journal of Bilingualism, 7(2), 113–26.Google Scholar
Condouris, K., Meyer, E., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2003). The relationship between standardized measures of language and measures of spontaneous speech in children with autism. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 12(3), 349–58.Google Scholar
Csizér, K., & Dörnyei, Z. (2005). Language learners’ motivational profiles and their motivated learning behavior. Language Learning, 55(4), 613–59.Google Scholar
Garcia, E. E., Maez, L., & Gonzalez, G. (1983). The incidence of language switching in Spanish–English bilingual children in the United States. Tempe, AZ: Bilingual/Bicultural Education Center, Arizona State University (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. BE015018).Google Scholar
Genesee, F., Boivin, I., & Nicoladis, E. (1996). Talking with strangers: a study of bilingual children's communicative competence. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17(4), 427–42.Google Scholar
Genesee, F., & Nicoladis, E. (2007). Bilingual first language acquisition. In Hoff, E. & Shatz, M. (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of language development (pp. 324–42). Chichester Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E., & Paradis, J. (1995). Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 22(3), 611–31.Google Scholar
Goldstein, B. A., Bunta, F., Lange, J., Rodriguez, J., & Burrows, L. (2010). The effects of measures of language experience and language ability on segmental accuracy in bilingual children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 19(3), 238–47.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (2018). Language control and code-switching. Languages, 3(2), 8. doi:10.3390/languages3020008Google Scholar
Green, D. W., & Wei, L. (2014). A control process model of code-switching. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 29(4), 499–511.Google Scholar
Greene, K. J., Peña, E. D., & Bedore, L. M. (2012). Lexical choice and language selection in bilingual preschoolers. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 29(1), 27–39.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J. (1971). Language in social groups. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Clellen, V., Simón-Cereijido, G., & Leone, A. E. (2009). Codeswitching in bilingual children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(1), 91–109.Google Scholar
Hereida, R. R., & Altarriba, J. (2001). Bilingual language mixing: Why do bilinguals code-switch? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(5), 164–8.Google Scholar
Hewitt, L. E., Hammer, C. S., Yont, K. M., & Tomblin, J. B. (2005). Language sampling for kindergarten children with and without SLI: mean length of utterance, IPSYN, and NDW. Journal of Communication Disorders, 38(3), 197–213.Google Scholar
Hoff, E., & Core, C. (2013). Input and language development in bilingually developing children. Seminars in Speech and Language, 34(4), 215–26.Google Scholar
Hoff, E., Quinn, J. M., & Giguere, D. (2018). What explains the correlation between growth in vocabulary and grammar? New evidence from latent change score analyses of simultaneous bilingual development. Developmental Science, 21(2). doi:10.1111/desc.12536Google Scholar
Holm, S. (1979). A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 6(2), 65–70.Google Scholar
Hughes, C. E., Shaunessy, E. S., Brice, A. R., Ratliff, M. A., & McHatton, P. A. (2006). Code switching among bilingual and limited English proficient students: possible indicators of giftedness. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 30, 7–28.Google Scholar
Jisa, H. (2000). Language mixing in the weak language: evidence from two children. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(9), 1363–86.Google Scholar
Kraemer, R., & Fabiano-Smith, L. (2017). Language assessment of Latino English-learning children: a records abstraction study. Journal of Latinos and Education, 16(4), 349–58.Google Scholar
Mackey, W. F. (2013). Bilingualism and multilingualism in North America. In Bhatia, T. K. & Ritchie, W. C. (Eds.), The handbook of bilingualism and multilingualism (pp. 707–24). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
MacSwan, J. (2016). Codeswitching in adulthood. In Nicoladis, E. & Montanari, S. (Eds.), Lifespan perspectives on bilingualism (pp. 183–200). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
McClure, E. (1981). Formal and functional aspects of the codeswitched discourse of bilingual children. In Duran, R. P. (Ed.), Latino language and communicative behavior (pp. 69–94). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (1994). Code-switching in young bilingual children: the acquisition of grammatical constraints. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16(4), 413–39.Google Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (2006). The bilingual child. In Bathia, T.K. & Ritchie, W.C. (Eds.), The handbook of bilingualism (pp. 91–113). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Miller, J., & Iglesias, A. (2008). Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Research Version 2008) [Computer software]. Madison, WI: SALT Software. Online <https://www.saltsoftware.com/>..>Google Scholar
Muysken, P. (2000). Bilingual speech: a typology of code-mixing. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics (2017). Fast facts. Retrieved from <https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=96>..>Google Scholar
Nicoladis, E., & Secco, G. (2000). The role of a child's productive vocabulary in the language choice of a bilingual family. First Language, 20(58), 3–28.Google Scholar
Oller, D. K., & Eilers, R. (Eds.) (2002). Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Paradis, J., Genesee, F., & Crago, M. (2011). Dual language development and disorders (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.Google Scholar
Paradis, J., & Nicoladis, E. (2007). The influence of dominance and sociolinguistic context on bilingual preschoolers’ language choice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10(3), 277–97.Google Scholar
Paradis, J., Nicoladis, E., & Genesee, F. (2000). Early emergence of structural constraints on code-mixing: evidence from French–English bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3(3), 245–61.Google Scholar
Peynircioglu, Z. F., & Durgunoglu, A. Y. (2002). Code-switching in preschool bilingual children. In Hereida, R. R. & Altarriba, J. (Eds.), Bilingual sentence processing (pp. 339–58). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: toward a typology of codeswitching. Linguistics, 18(7/8), 581–618.Google Scholar
Reyes, I. (2004). Functions of code switching in schoolchildren's conversations. Bilingual Research Journal, 28(1), 77–98.Google Scholar
Ribot, K. M., & Hoff, E. (2014). ‘¿Cómo estás?’ ‘I'm good.’ Conversational code-switching is related to profiles of expressive and receptive proficiency in Spanish–English bilingual toddlers. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 38(4), 333–41.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (2013). The bilingual and multilingual community. In Bhatia, T. K. & Ritchie, W. C. (Eds.), The handbook of bilingualism and multilingualism (pp. 445–65). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ruiz-Felter, R., Cooperson, S. J., Bedore, L. M., & Peña, E. D. (2016). Influence of current input–output and age of first exposure on phonological acquisition in early bilingual Spanish–English-speaking kindergarteners. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 51(4), 368–83.Google Scholar
Scheffner-Hammer, C., Lawrence, F. R., & Miccio, A. W. (2008). Exposure to English before and after entry into Head Start: bilingual children's receptive language growth in Spanish and English. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11(1), 30–56.Google Scholar
Valdes-Fallis, G. (1978). Code switching and the classroom teacher. Language in Education: Theory and Practice, 4, 6–26.Google Scholar
Yip, V., & Matthews, S. (2006). Assessing language dominance in bilingual acquisition: a case for mean length utterance differentials. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(2), 97–116.Google Scholar
Yow, W. Q., Patrycia, F., & Flynn, S. (2016). Code-switching in childhood. In Nicoladis, E. & Montanari, S. (Eds.), Lifespan perspectives on bilingualism (pp. 81–100). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar