Chapter 12
Code-switching and code-mixing in bilingual Spanish–Catalan children with and without Developmental
Language Disorder
This study focuses on a specific bilingual context to study code-switching and code-mixing in
Spanish-Catalan simultaneous bilingual children with and without language difficulties with similar exposure to these
close languages. We aimed to know whether children with DLD showed different code-switching and code-mixing patterns
compared to children without language difficulties and explored the role of some variables that could affect their
use, such as the language spoken by their parents and children’s ages. Fifteen Spanish-Catalan bilingual children with
DLD and their age controls were followed from 8 to 12 years of age. Children were audio-recorded while they produced
an oral narrative task in the language chosen by the child. Results indicated that children whose parents spoke both
languages at home also use more code-mixing at 12 than parents that only spoke one language. Besides bilingual
children with DLD showed more code-switching only at an earlier age (i.e., 8) but not more code-mixing than their
age-matched peers. We discuss these results considering several explanaitions.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Bilingualism
- Bilingualism in the Balearic Islands
- Linguistic characteristics of Catalan and Spanish
- Alternating between languages in bilinguals: Code-switching and code-mixing
- Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
- Objectives, research questions and hypotheses
- Methodology
- Participants
- Procedure
- Transcription and codification
- Analysis
- Results
- Are there differences in the use of code-switching and
code-mixing at 8 and 12 years of age depending on the language spoken by the parents?
- Are there differences in the use of code-switching and code-mixing
at 8 and 12 years old between children
with DLD and their peers
without language difficulties?
- Summary of results
- Discussion
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Acknowledgements
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References