EARLY MIXING

Pre s ented by
Fajar Aminullah

C o d e Swi tc hi ng i n B i l i ngual
C h i l dre n by Katj a F. C anto ne
Language
Mixing
When an utterance which contains
elements from languages A and B is
mixed into the language context of
language B.
EARLY MIXING
Deals with language mixing at an early stage
of language acquisition.
 PRAGMATIC

Most studies refer

mixing in young
bilinguals to a lack Lack of
Competence

LEXICAL GRAMMATICAL
Language Mixing AND CODE-
SWITCHING
What is thought to distinguish bilingual children’s mixing from adult mixing is the lack of
systematicity or compliance to linguistic rules in the case of the children’ (Sridhar & Sridhar
1980:164)

Meisel (1989) points out that there is some confusion in the literature when it comes to defining
the terms language mixing and code-switching. He thinks it would be more appropriate to use
the latter when children have already acquired proficiency in both languages.
 1

Language Separation and Language

Differentiation
The capacity to use two languages in
separate interactions, and thus points
The differentiation of the two languages
on the level where the two systems are
out the adequacy of choosing the stored in the brain.
appropriate language in the pertinent
context (hence pragmatic competence). is used when discussing the
development of two language systems.
is used when discussing the socio-
linguistic aspect
 2
Language Separation and Language
Differentiation
Vihman (1985) claimed that language differentiation in young bilinguals comes to the fore
at around the third year of life, today it is a common assumption that children have two
different language systems from early on.

Most studies have shown that children are perfectly capable of differentiating their two
languages (De Houwer 1990, Meisel 1990, Lanza 1992, 1997, Gawlitzek-Maiwald & Tracy
1996, Köppe 1996, 1997, Paradis & Genesee 1996)

If mixing occurs, the children’s awareness of using the inappropriate language with respect
to the language context becomes visible by hesitations, self-corrections, or
metalinguistic comments, as reported in Köppe (1996, 1997).
MIXING AND THE IDEA
OF a SINGLE
LANGUAGE SYSTEM
unitary language system hypothesis

Volterra & Taeschner (1978) claim that bilingual children

start out with one system for both languages, which later
develops into two discrete systems.
 In arguing against the unitary
language system hypothesis
Genesee (1989) makes two basic claims with respect to
language separation.

Methodological fault by Children choose the language with

establishing a bilingual situation respect to the situation, or to the
in the studies. interlocutor.
Equivalent Pairs
1

the existence of equivalents to words in

both languages
Equivalent Pairs
2
Volterra & Taeschner (1978), say that it remains unclear whether the child has two separate
lexical systems or not.

There are two arguments on this:

1. If the language environment does not provide equivalent pairs, it will

subsequently be difficult to find them in child speech.
2. It involves individual strategy, in the sense that some children seek
equivalent words, whereas others reject them.
Equivalent Pairs
3
Quay (2000) believe that the existence of translation equivalents is the ground on which
language choice in bilingual children can be attested.

1. Translation equivalents may reflect the ability of language choice, and reject
the hypothesis of lexical gaps in language use.
2. The existence of translation equivalents should also explain away the
hypothesis that mixing is due to language dominance.
 MIXING AND THE
Development of the Two
Languages
The qualitative aspects of Language
Mixing in Bilingual Children
Vihman (1985) studies an Estonian/English bilingual child from age 1;8 to 2;0 and states that
function words are the most frequently mixed elements.
This category includes for example,
• deictic elements,
• negation,
• affirmation.

Elements which do not belong to this category are called content words, for example, nouns,
verbs. Meisel (1994, 2001)

As child speech develops, mixing is supposed to become more adult like, that is, other elements
(mostly nouns) are mixed.
Grammatical Deficiency Hypothesis
1

Linguistic principles become operative only after grammar has

been developed in children. Before that, no grammar constrains
early children’s utterances. (Meisel 1994:417)
Grammatical Deficiency Hypothesis
2

In a recent study, Köppe (2007) assumes a grammatical development in

child speech: A so-called proto-grammar is operative at the
beginning of language acquisition, whereas functional categories emerge
later.
Grammatical Deficiency Hypothesis
3

grammatical constraints should only be checked when the child

has acquired certain structural properties of the single language.

The mixing becomes structurally more complex when language

also becomes more complex.
MIXING AND LANGUAGE
DOMINANCE OR
IMBALANCE
Dominant Language Hypothesis 1

Language dominance is said to be an indicator of the directionality of

mixing. In this sense, children mix from the dominant to the nondominant
language, but not vice versa. (Petersen, 1988:486)
Dominant Language Hypothesis 2
Genesee, Nicoladis & Paradis (1995) argue that mixing and the issue
of language dominance are related.

The three children with an unbalanced language development tend to

mix more when using their non-dominant language, at least in inter-
utterance mixing.
Bilingual Bootstrapping 1
Gawlitzek-Maiwald & Tracy (1996) propose considering child mixing as a
strategy rather than as negative evidence for the inability to separate the
two languages.

Something that has been acquired in language A fulfills a booster

function for language B.
Bilingual Bootstrapping 2
Here some examples from Gawlitzek-Maiwald & Tracy (1996:911–915):
(1) Ich hab geclimbed up
I have climbed up
(2) Ich habe gemade you much better
I have made you much better
(3) Kannst Du move a bit
Can you move a bit
Ivy Hypothesis 1
Bernardini & Schlyter (2004) claim that mixing in bilingual children who
are unbalanced is unidirectional, namely from the SL to the WL.

They assume that children develop their SL like monolinguals do, but that
the WL develops differently, namely slower and gradually.
grammatical features spellout 1
hypothesis
Liceras, Spradlin & Fuertes (2005) analyze mixes between a determiner and a
noun in bilingual children and make two interesting predictions:
• in mixed DPs, the functional category D(eterminer) will be provided by the
language which has the largest array of uninterpretable features (Chomsky
2000)
• If both languages manifest a similar array, no language will be preferred
(Liceras, Spradlin & Fuertes 2005:228)
grammatical features spellout 2
hypothesis
In the case of mixed Spanish/English DPs, since the Spanish determiner
carries two uninterpretable features (gender and number), whereas the
English noun has only one (number), Spanish will dominate.

The consequence is a Spanish determiner accompanied by an English

noun (e.g. la house), but not vice versa (e.g. the casa).
CONCLUSION

For a few researchers, mixing is evidence for a single language system,

which is only separated later.

Most researchers believe that languages are differentiated in children

from early on.
CONCLUSION
It has been shown that children are quite capable of using the correct
language according to socio-linguistic and pragmatic aspects.

Most studies have shown that only a certain type of words, namely, the so-
called function words, are mixed to a high extent, whereas later mixing
can occur at any boundary.