Language input environments and language development in bilingual acquisition

A striking feature of young bilingual children’s language use is that there can be so much difference between the ways in which they use either of their languages and the levels of language skill in each. As I will argue, many of the differences between individual bilingual children’s use of their two languages can be attributed to differences in the language input environments for each of the languages. These language input environments concern, amongst others, language use patterns in the parent pair, age of first regular exposure to each language, relative and absolute frequencies of input for each language, and interaction strategies. Evidence for my claims will be based on a survey study of 3,390 bilingual children, a more in-depth study of 31 bilingual families, and findings from the literature. If indeed it is the case that differences in language input environments can explain much of the variation between one particular child’s use of two languages (and, by extension, inter-individual variation between bilingual children), this has important repercussions for the assessment of bilingual children in school and elsewhere.

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