The Modeling Hypothesis and child bilingual codemixingComeau, Liane; Genesee, Fred; Lapaquette, Lindsay
doi: 10.1177/13670069030070020101pmid: N/A
According to one explanation of child bilingual codemixing(the modeling hypothesis), bilingual children's rates of mixing are related to rates of mixing in the input addressed to them. An assumption of this hypothesisis that bilingual children are sensitive to codemixing in the input and that they can adjust their own rates on-line in accordance with the input. Despite its widespread appeal, evidence concerning its validity has been largely inconclusive. The assumption is largely noncontro versial in the case of older bilingual children, as evidenced by their adoption of the patterns of codemixing of the speech communities in which they live. However, it is not clear whether young bilingual children have the cognitive and linguistic capacities implicated by this assumption. The present study sought to examine this assumption directly. Six French-English bilingual children(average age 2;4 years) were recorded during play sessions with an assistant who engaged in relatively low(15%) or relatively high rates(40%) of mixing on three separate occasions. The results indicate that these children were sensitive to the language choices of their interlocutors and that they were able to adjust their rates of mixing accordingly; further, they appeared to do this by matching their language choice with that of their interlocutors on a turn-by-turn basis.
Investigating the sociolinguistic gender paradox in a multilingual community: A case study from the Republic of PalauMatsumoto, Kazuko; Britain, David
doi: 10.1177/13670069030070020201pmid: N/A
The focus of this article is the supposed “Gender Paradox,” proposed by Labov(1990,2001), which suggests that women are both sometimes conservative and sometimes innovative in terms of linguistic variation and change. Here we explore the paradox from two perspectives: we in vestigate both its applicability to multilingual as opposed to multidialectal communities as well as question whether the paradox is methodological or real. Although much sociolinguistic research on the paradox has been on macro studies of men versus women in monolingual multidialectal communities, this paper presents quantitative analyses supplemented by in-depth ethnographic observation and data collection in a multilingual Japanese-Palauan community of the Western Pacific. What is more, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the “conservatism” and “innovation” of women in the community under scrutiny is represented by the use of the very same language—Japanese. For older Japanese-Palauan women, the greater use of Japanese represents adherence to their heritage language. Among younger Japanese-Palauan women(most of whom are bilingual in Palauan and English), however, the use of Japanese represents a change to wards a language highly valued in the economy as essential for the promotion of tourism and trade. Since our results demonstrate that the effects of gender on language behavior may appear in differences within sex groupings, we conclude that the paradox is methodological, rather than real, and is a result of the distillling of gender down to binary male-female categories of analysis, rather than investigating the complexity of gender more qualitatively. Our ethnographic analysis of multilingual data from Palau presented here demonstrates that function as well as form are important in understanding seemingly paradoxical examples of language shift, as well as highlighting the need both for further research on the effects of gender in multilingual communities and the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis in studies of language change.
Multilingualism among the Penans in BruneiSercombe, Peter
doi: 10.1177/13670069030070020301pmid: N/A
This article considers multilingualism among a group of ex-hunter-gatherers, the Penans in Brunei. Settled permanently since 1962, this small community of 55 people in habit the sparsely populated subdistrict of Sukang in southern Brunei, where they are adjacent to two other ethnolinguistic groups. The Penans constitute the smallest ethnic minority in the country. Since settling, they have undergone a number of changes, themain one being (apart from permanent settlement) their transition to rice farming (the main means of subsistence for all those living in Sukang). They have also adapted to their social environment by acquiring new codes, although they continue to lack proficiency in the national lingua franca, Brunei Malay, and remain disadvantaged economically. This article is primarily descriptive; findings suggest the language situation of the Penans is quite different from both that of their neighbors and other coastal-dwelling Bruneians. The paper, however, also tries to explain some of the reasons underlying Penans' language attitudes, as well as knowledge and patterns of language use among the Penans.
French-English bilingual acquisition of phonology: One production system or two?Brulard, Inès; Carr, Philip
doi: 10.1177/13670069030070020401pmid: N/A
We examine the onset, atrophy and possible interaction of a set of patterns in the speech of our child(Tom) acquiring French and English, from first words(1;8.0—1;10.0) until 2;6.0. The patterns are: (a) consonant harmony (CH); (b) reduplication(REDUP), (c) an iambic stress contour(IAMBIC) for all words, whether French or English, up until the age of 2;2.21,(d) the over generalization of word-final[t](WFT), operational until around 2;5.14, (e) avoidance of word-initial voiceless fricatives(AVOIDVF), operational until the age of 2;6.00, (f) the emergence of a preponderance of English monosyllabic words ending in a consonant(MONOC) from 2;5.00 onwards. Our aim is twofold. We ask how our data bear on the question of whether the bilingual child has two distinct production phonologies from the earliest stage(1;8.0—1;10.0). We also use our data to test recent claims, (a) that placelessness plays a role in CH patterns(Harrison,1999) and(b) that CH is driven by foot structure, such that the differing foot structures of English and French give rise to different patterns of CH in children acquiring English and French(Rose,2000). With respect to the first aim, one of our main findings is that two segmental phenomena(CH and reduplication) in Tom's speech showed clear differentiation between English and French, with CH occurring(we claim) exclusively in Tom's English lexis, and reduplication exclusively in Tom's French lexis. We cannot, however, show that this differentiation was present from the earliest stage, since Tom's word productions at that stage are(we claim) exclusively French1. Unlike CH and reduplication, other segmental patterns showed “leakage” of a pattern from one language to another. We consider a nonsegmental pattern(Tom's word stress pattern), showing that this exhibited differentiation only at a later stage. Tom's segmental patterns and processes showed complex patterns of interaction, while there was no interaction between his segmental patterns and his word stress constraints. With respect to our second aim, we argue that appeals to “placelessness”in describing CH lack explanatory value. We also show that our data do not support the claims(a) that CH is driven by foot structure and (b)that the distinct foot structures of English and French lead to distinct patterns of CH in children acquiring those languages, whether monolingually or bilingually.