| Chapter 2: | Research on Bilingual First Language Acquisition |
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Type 6: Mixed languages
Parents: The parents are bilingual.
Community: Sectors of community may also be bilingual.
Strategy: Parents code switch and mix languages.
As Zhu and Li (2005) explained, there are clearly overlapping features across the six types of childhood bilingualism. For example, in both types 1 and 2, the parents have different languages and the language of one is the dominant language of the community. What distinguishes them is the strategy used by the parents to address the child. In type 1 the child is exposed systematically to both languages at home, whereas in type 2 exposure to the community language generally takes place later and outside the home. In type 4 the parents also have different native languages, but neither one is the same as the dominant language of the community. Here the child is exposed to the parents’ two languages in the home and introduced to the community language later, outside the home. The outcome in this case is a trilingual child. In types 3 and 5 the parents share the same language, but in type 3 the language of the parents is not the dominant language of the community, and in type 5 one of the parents addresses the child in a language which is not his or her native language.
Romaine (1989, pp. 166–168) emphasised the importance of three dimensions of the bilingual learning situation: (a) the language or languages the parents speak with their child or children; (b) the language or languages native to the parents, and (c) the extent to which the parents’ language or languages reflect that (or those) dominant in the community at large. De Houwer (1995, p. 223) argued that the importance of the first factor is obvious. However, it is less clear whether the other factors play a major role in the process of acquisition as it evolves in the bilingual child. Zhu and Li (2005) pointed out that the three headings Romaine used to classify the six types of childhood bilingualism—the language(s) of the parents, the sociolinguistic situation of the community, and the discourse strategies of the parents and other immediate caretakers—are critical factors not only in the process of bilingual acquisition but also in