Development of Bilingual Awareness in Children Acquiring Two First Languages
Mishina-Mori Satomi
Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan
The present study investigates how bilingual awareness develops over time in young children acquiring two languages simultaneously. Many researchers in the field have reported linguistic behaviors that suggest bilingual awareness, including situational codeswitching, acquisition of translation equivalents, self- and other-initiated repair, the ability to translate and the labeling of languages (using expressions such as “Japanese” or “how Mom says it” to refer to a language). However, the developmental aspect of such awareness has not received close attention. Furthermore, although it is commonly believed that bilingual awareness is an impetus for language separation, the exact nature of the relationship between the two has not been established. To investigate this relationship and how the awareness of different codes develops, two Japanese/English simultaneous bilinguals who were acquiring their languages through the one-person/one-language approach were observed monthly for a period of approximately one year, from the ages of two to three years old. Natural interactions between the mother and child and the father and child in each family were audio- and video-taped every month, and signs of bilingual awareness were coded. It was found that the children began to exhibit bilingual awareness after their second birthday. The different types of linguistic behaviors that reveal such awareness emerged roughly in the following order: other-repair, self-repair, translation, and labeling languages. The data also suggests that, contrary to the conventional assumption, language differentiation may have triggered awareness of having two codes, rather than awareness of the two codes triggering separation of the languages.
