A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Language Preferences of Adolescent Bilinguals: Shifting Allegiances and Developing Identities

Abstract

This study tracks the language preferences of three French/English bilingual children, twin girls aged 13:8 and a boy 15:8 over a 72 month period. Using weekly tape recorded conversations of family dinnertime conversations both in the children's Louisiana home, and a summer residence in French‐speaking Québec, the bilingual authors—who are also the parents—are able to plot drastic language shifts in the home between a predominantly English speaking and French speaking social context. Moreover, the authors are also able to demonstrate that as the children moved into adolescence, English speaking increases markedly in the Louisiana home, but French speaking remains uniformly high in Québec. Ethnographic data are used to link increasing identification with peers outside the home with the children's construction of an identity which, at least during adolescence, tends more toward parallel monolingualism than bilingualism. Additionally, decreased parental linguistic influence is documented within the home as adolescence progresses.

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