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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 8:3 (2018) ► pp.393–409

Constructively combining languages

The use of code-mixing in German-English bilingual child language acquisition

| University of Leipzig
| University of Manchester
| Tilburg University
| Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology | Duke University

Language development in bilingual children is often related to differing levels of proficiency. Objective measurements of bilingual development include for example mean length of utterance (MLU). MLU is almost always calculated for each language context (including both monolingual and code-mixed utterances). In the current study, we analyzed the MLUs of three German-English bilingual children, aged 2;3–3;11 separately for the monolingual and code-mixed utterances. Our results showed that language preference was reflected in MLU values: the more children spoke in one language the higher the MLU was in that language. However, it was the mixed utterances that had the highest MLU for all three children. We support the results with a construction type analysis and suggest a potential usage-based explanation for these results based on individual differences in each child’s developmental inventory of words and constructions.

Keywords: code-mixing, German – English, bilingual child, language proficiency, MLU
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • Language proficiency and code-mixing
    • Code-mixing and entrenchment – a usage-based suggestion
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Analysis
      • Syntactic completeness
  • 3.Results
    • Language proportion for each child
    • MLUs for Silvie, Lily and Fion
    • Syntactic complexity and construction types
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 20 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.17008.qui
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