Journal Article

Code-switching in parents’ everyday speech to bilingual infants

ORENA, Adriel John, BYERS-HEINLEIN, Krista, ALVES, Julia, KREMIN, Lena V., POLKA, Linda

2022

Overview

Code-switching is a common phenomenon in bilingual communities, but little is known about bilingual parents’ code-switching when speaking to their infants. In a pre-registered study, we identified instances of code-switching in day-long at-home audio recordings of 21 French–English bilingual families in Montreal, Canada, who provided recordings when their infant was 10 and 18 months old. Overall, rates of infant-directed code-switching were low, averaging 7 times per hour (6 times per 1,000 words) at 10 months and increasing to 28 times per hour (18 times per 1,000 words) at 18 months. Parents code-switched more between sentences than within a sentence; this pattern was even more pronounced when infants were 18 months than when they were 10 months. The most common apparent reasons for code-switching were to bolster their infant's understanding and to teach vocabulary words. Combined, these results suggest that bilingual parents code-switch in ways that support successful bilingual language acquisition.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Audio Equipment / Babies / Bilingualism / Caregivers / Child-directed speech / Children & youth / Code switching / Code Switching (Language) / English (Second Language) / Families & family life / Foreign Countries / French / French language / Humans / Infant / Infants / Language / Language Acquisition / Language Development / Multilingualism / Native language acquisition / Parent Child Relationship / Parents / Parents & parenting / Second Language Learning / Sentence structure / Speaking / Speech / Speech Communication / Vocabulary / Vocabulary Development / Words / Young Children