18 The Linguist APRIL/MAY www.iol.org.uk
“One parent, one language” (OPOL), as ahousehold strategy for
“natural bilingualism”,has a long history and a loyal following. In
thefolk wisdom that has, until recently, dominatedour knowledge of
childhood bilingualism, it isthe near unanimous recommendation.
OPOL is the earliest printed advice to
parents we know of, dating back to theFrench linguist Grammont
at the beginning ofthe 20th century.1 Parents from two
languagebackgrounds speak to their children in theirown language,
giving them someone tospeak each language with on a regular
basis.This is also thought to help them keep thetwo languages
separate in their minds.OPOL is still the major recommendation
in
most parts of Europe and Canada. However,other strategies have
recently been gainingground. The “mixed language policy”, whereboth
parents speak two languages in thesame conversations, and even in
the samesentences, is, perhaps, the most widespread.In Southeast
Asia, for example, parentsgenerally speak two or more languages
andexpect their children to do so too. The mixed system is clearly
quite feasible,
but in situations where languages areendangered, language
revitalisation experts,such as Joshua Fishman,2 recommend that
asecond language have its own separatedomains, where it is used for
differentfunctions, and does not have to competedirectly with the
majority language.Revitalisation projects suggest another
strategy, which I call “time and place”: twolanguages are
separated not by person, butby time or place, or both. In a
bilingualschool, for example, maths may happen inone language, and
science in the other.Going abroad is another way to use a
change of place to bring about a change ofhousehold language. A
specialised form of “time and place” is
“minority language in the home” (mL@H),where the non-community
language is thehome language. Some mL@H families speakthe majority
language outside the home, soeach parent uses two languages with
thechild, depending on where they are. These four are just the
broadest outlines of
the thousands of different constellations oflanguage resources
families have available tothem. But which is best? Until recently,
wehad little more than personal experience to
guide our choices. The literature had mostlysingle-case studies
on childhood bilinguals bypeople who were successful in their
efforts.3
The researchers were very often linguists, whowere also the
parents in the case studies. Wenever heard from people when their
bilingualproject did not work. There were no surveysof large
numbers of unselected samples. We now have three or four new
sources of
evidence that go beyond the case study.Belgian sociolinguist
Annick de Houwerreports the results of her own survey of1,450
mostly Dutch/French families inFlanders,4 and also a re-analysis of
MasayoYamamoto‘s 188 bilingual families in Japan.5
The first surprising statistic is that nearly 80percent of the
Flemish and 75 percent of theJapanese families did not use OPOL.
Manyused the “1 parent/2 languages” strategy(m@Lh). More than 40
percent used a hybridsystem, where one parent spoke onelanguage to
the children, and the other spokethat language and another one with
them. So, what is the outcome? How many
families from each strategy had childrenwho spoke two languages,
as opposed tojust one? According to De Houwer’sfindings, the 1
parent/2 languages methodproduced the most active bilinguals –
79percent, compared to 74 percent usingOPOL, and 59 percent using a
mixture ofthe two methods. Among Yamamoto’ssample, figures for
“successful” activebilinguals were somewhat higher: 1 parent/2
languages 93 percent, OPOL 83 percentand mixed systems 88 percent.
De Houwer probed further to see if
families were more successful if the motherwas the source of the
minority language,rather than the father. There was no
Bringing up baby
FEATURES
Until recently, we hadlittle more thanpersonal experience
toguide us. There wereno large surveys
Recent studies suggest ‘one parent, one language’ is notthe best
strategy. Barbara Zurer Pearson investigates
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Vol/49 No/2 2010 APRIL/MAY The Linguist 19
be about a two-month delay. Then the child’sdouble-language
inventory would follow on.
The wider pictureAcross the world, languages are being lost atan
alarming rate; not just little-knownlanguages in exotic places, but
whenever aparent’s language is not passed down to theirchildren.
Where a parent’s language appearsto be flourishing, they rarely
consider thisthreat. This is one of the reasons
thatintergenerational language loss is such a
problem in places such as Miami, whereSpanish is widely spoken.
No strong stepsare being taken to help parents to pass on
significant difference: 82 percent versus 80percent. The most
revealing table, however,is the one that looks at whether the
parentsspoke to each other in the minority languageor the societal
language (see box). Thosethat spoke the minority language were
muchmore successful.Still, we must be cautious in interpreting
a
survey such as De Hower’s. Although thenumber of families
represented is impressive,we know only what the language
situationwas in their house at the time of the survey. Itdid not
ask, for example, about changes infamily habits and/or
circumstances. We canwager that among 1,450 families, asignificant
portion had changes in theirlanguage resources during the
yearspreceding the survey, and such changescould contribute to the
outcomes. While I was coordinator of the Miami
Bilingualism Study Group, we tracked 18bilingual families to see
how much of eachlanguage the children heard, and how thataffected
the balance of their vocabularies ineach language. In seven of the
families, thischanged – in some cases from one languagedominating
to the other dominating.6 Whenfamilies reported a change, evidence
of it didnot show up straight away. There appeared to
FEATURES
The most revealingresults look at whetherparents spoke to
eachother in the minorityor societal language
the language there, yet Spanish in Miami isfuelled by its
immigrants, not by its children.7
ML@H, the household strategy that cameout ahead in these
surveys, is also closest tothe methods suggested by
revitalisationactivists, who try to prevent languages frombeing
submerged. ML@H parents arecarving out a domain for the
minoritylanguage where it doesn’t have to competefor the child’s
time and attention. OPOLdoes so as well but, in my opinion, the
linesbetween the domains are less clearly drawn.
Notes1 Grammont, M, Observations sur le langagedes enfants
(“Observations on Children’sLanguage”), 1902, MelangesMeillet,
Paris2 Fishman, J (ed), Can Threatened Languagesbe Saved: Reversing
Language Shift, revisited,2001, Multilingual Matters, Clevedon3
Romaine, S, Bilingualism (2nd edition), 1995,Blackwell, Oxford4 De
Houwer, A, Bilingual First LanguageAcquisition, 2009, Multilingual
Matters, Clevedon5 Yamamoto, M, “Language Use in Families
withParents of Different Native Languages: AnInvestigation of
Japanese Non-English andJapanese English Families” in Journal
ofMultilingual and Multicultural Development,2002, 23 (6), 531-5546
Pearson, B Z, Fernandez, S C, Lewedag, V andOller, D K, “Input
Factors in Lexical Learning ofBilingual Infants (Ages 10 to 30
Months)” inApplied Psycholinguistics, 1997, 18, 41-587 Eilers, R,
Pearson, B Z and Cobo-Lewis, A,“Social Factors in Bilingual
Development” inMcCardle, P and Hoff, E (eds),
ChildhoodBilingualism: Research on Infancy ThroughSchool Age, 2006,
Multilingual Matters,Clevedon, pp.68-90
WORD OF MOUTHHow can parents make
informed choices about raisingtheir children bilingually?
PARENTS SPEAK TOGETHER IN: CHILD SPEAKS TWO LANGUAGES Flanders
Survey: Japan Survey:
Societal language 36 percent 59 percentNon-societal language 93
percent 100 percent
De Houwer, 2009
PARENT TO PARENT
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