Getting started without a system: From phonetics to phonology in bilingual development

Abstract

The common formulation which proposes that bilingual children enter into language production with either a single or a dual phonological system is questioned. Instead, it is suggested that implicit learning allows the child to develop considerable distributional knowledge about each of the languages to which he or she is exposed even before the first words are produced, but that explicit learning and use of particular words and phrases establishes the foundation from which more detailed phonological knowledge will be induced. Once the child has produced some 50-100 different words(initially based on “item learning”), word templates can often be identified, reflecting the individual child's development of readily accessible production patterns that may constitute a rough match to words of one or both languages. The proposed course of development is supported by analysis of early word patterns drawn from three bilingual children. The item learning of early words, which reflects “selection” of word targets with few changes, is distinguished from the templatebased later words, which may depart more radically from the targets. The word templates of the bilingual children are found to assimilate words of both languages, sometimes in contravention of adult language patterns.

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