Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T07:30:51.602Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - A new study of bilingual first language acquisition: aims and hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2009

Get access

Summary

The conclusion of section 2.2 in Chapter 2 made the point that at the moment we lack sufficiently detailed knowledge about the ‘base-line’ of bilingual development. The empirical investigation to be presented in the remainder of this book hopes to rectify this situation somewhat.

The new data to be investigated comprise a detailed case study of a child exposed to English and Dutch from birth onwards. The fact that one of the child's languages is Dutch contributes to the diversification needed in this field, since Dutch is a language hitherto not studied in the field of BFLA. Although we have not been as ambitious as Taeschner (1983), who reports on her daughters' language development over several years, and have limited ourselves to a relatively short age period as a basis for investigation (viz. the 8 months between the ages of 2;7 and 3;4), it is hoped that the level of detail and the thoroughness of the analyses can make up for this lack of temporal scope.

It should be stressed that the English-Dutch bilingual child who is the subject of the case study to be presented was exposed to her two languages in a separate fashion: she heard Dutch from one set of interlocutors, and English from another. Any hypotheses or other theoretical points made in the following are intended to apply to such a separate input situation only.

In the analyses, the emphasis will be on morphosyntactic development.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×