Effects of language mixing on bilingual children's word learning

Krista Byers-Heinlein, Amel Jardak, Eva Fourakis, Casey Lew-Williams

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Language mixing is common in bilingual children's learning environments. Here, we investigated effects of language mixing on children's learning of new words. We tested two groups of 3-year-old bilinguals: French-English (Experiment 1) and Spanish-English (Experiment 2). Children were taught two novel words, one in single-language sentences (Look! Do you see the dog on the teelo?) and one in mixed-language sentences with a mid-sentence language switch (Look! Do you see the chien/perro on the walem?). During the learning phase, children correctly identified novel targets when hearing both single-language and mixed-language sentences. However, at test, French-English bilinguals did not successfully recognize the word encountered in mixed-language sentences. Spanish-English bilinguals failed to recognize either word, which underscores the importance of examining multiple bilingual populations. This research suggests that language mixing may sometimes hinder children's encoding of novel words that occur downstream, but leaves open several possible underlying mechanisms.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)55-69
Number of pages15
JournalBilingualism
Volume25
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 26 2022

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Education
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

Keywords

  • bilingualism
  • children
  • code switching
  • language mixing
  • word learning

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