A bilingual child's struggle to comply with the ‘one parent‐one language’ rule

Abstract

The onset of language differentiation in simultaneous bilinguals is currently debated heatedly (Taeschner, 1983; Vihman, 1985, 1986; Pye, 1986; Arnberg & Arnberg, 1985, 1988; deHower, 1987; Genesee, 1989). This paper will attempt a contribution to the debate. The study is based on monthly recordings of one bilingual child, exposed to German and English via the principle of ‘one parent‐one language’, between the ages of 2;0 and 2;5. In contrast to some of the earlier studies, the acquisition of sociolinguistic rules appears to precede the acquisition of structural rules. The difference in results is seen as an outcome of teaching strategies employed to enhance early differentiation between the languages. The author questions the assumption that children need to have developed a certain level of linguistic sophistication in order to ‘work out’ that they are exposed to two different languages.

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