The Bilingual Acquisition of English and Mandarin: Chinese Childr ...

because there is apparently no way of determining whether the child’s mixing results from a lack of bilingual awareness or from sensitivity to the fact that the interlocutor is also bilingual (Arnberg & Arnberg, 1988). The problem is that one important notion deserves more attention in language studies of child bilingualism in general and in language mixing in particular—that is, the conversation context of the child’s language (although work by Lanza, 1997, Deucher & Quay, 2000, and De Houwer, 1990, has taken it into account with regard to language choice).

The notion of context is hard to define because although various branches of linguistics have emphasised the influence of context on language, the notions of context overlap, as Schiffrin noted:

The boundaries between each of these various branches of linguistics overlap. In the bilingual literature, the impact of social context on the bilingual acquisition process has been reported as highly significant. Zhu and Li (2005) noted that the languages a bilingual child has to learn may represent very different values and may have different social statuses in the community in question, as Romaine’s typology suggests. Consequently, attitudes towards children’s learning languages different from the mainstream language may differ for the extended family, the school, and society. According to Saunders, “if children’s bilingualism … were viewed favorably both by their families and by the population in general, few problems would exist” (1982, p. 22). Similarly, Romaine wrote that “attitudes of extended family and friends can … affect the development of children’s bilingualism” (1989, p. 213). Parents’ own attitudes towards the ethnic-community language would affect children’s attitudes in choosing that language. Whether a parent chooses to use his or her native language may affect how parents come to regard whichever