A Longitudinal Investigation of Language Mixing in Spanish-English Dual Language Learners: The Role of Language Proficiency, Variability, and Sociolinguistic Factors

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-9-2019

Abstract

This study examines language mixing in 26 Spanish-English dual language learners over the course of their first year of preschool. The children's patterns of language choice while interacting in monolingual language contexts were analyzed at age 3;6 and 4;5 to examine: (1) whether the frequency of language mixing changed during the year; (2) whether mixing was related to proficiency as measured by utterance length and lexical diversity; and (3) whether there were different subgroups of children, among the participants, with similar proficiency and language use patterns. The results indicate that language mixing, which was low at both ages, was related to limited lexical resources only at 3;6. However, by age 4;5, language choice was more constrained by sociolinguistic variables - children's awareness of the language prescribed by the majority culture - than by proficiency. An exploratory cluster analysis further reveals different profiles of learners sharing similar proficiency and language mixing characteristics.

Publication Title

Journal of Child Language

First Page

1

Last Page

25

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1017/S0305000919000278

PubMed ID

31284888

E-ISSN

1469-7602

Language

eng

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Rights Statement

In Copyright