Genesee F, Nicoladis E, Paradis J
Psychology Department, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
J Child Lang. 1995 Oct;22(3):611-31. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900009971.
It has been claimed that children simultaneously acquiring two languages go through an initial stage when they are unable to differentiate between their two languages. Such claims have been based on the observation that at times virtually all bilingual children mix elements (e.g. lexical, morphological) from their two languages in the same utterance. That most, if not all, children acquiring two languages simultaneously mix linguistic elements in this way is widely documented. Although such code-mixing is not well understood or explained, there are a number of explanations unrelated to lack of language differentiation that may explain it. Moreover, while language differentiation is widely attested among bilingual children once functional categories emerge, usually during the third year, there is still some question as to how early in development differentiation is present. In this study, we examined language differentiation in five bilingual children prior to the emergence of functional categories (they ranged in age from 1;10 to 2;2 and in MLU from 1.23 to 2.08). They were observed with each parent separately and both together, on separate occasions. Our results indicate that while these children did code mix, they were clearly able to differentiate between their two languages. We also examine the possibility that the children's mixing is due to (a) their language dominance, and (b) their parents' rate of mixing. We could find no evidence that their mixing was due to parental input, but there was some evidence that language dominance played a role.
有人声称，同时学习两种语言的儿童会经历一个初始阶段，在此阶段他们无法区分这两种语言。此类说法基于这样的观察结果：有时几乎所有双语儿童在同一句话中会混合使用两种语言的元素（例如词汇、形态）。大多数（如果不是全部的话）同时学习两种语言的儿童以这种方式混合语言元素，这一点有大量记录。尽管这种语码混合现象尚未得到充分理解或解释，但有一些与缺乏语言区分无关的解释可能对此做出说明。此外，虽然一旦功能类别出现，通常在第三年，双语儿童中语言区分现象就广泛得到证实，但对于区分在发育过程中出现得有多早仍存在一些疑问。在本研究中，我们考察了五个双语儿童在功能类别出现之前的语言区分情况（他们的年龄从1岁10个月到2岁2个月不等，平均语句长度从1.23到2.08）。我们分别在不同场合观察了他们与每位家长单独相处以及与父母双方相处的情况。我们的结果表明，虽然这些儿童确实进行了语码混合，但他们显然能够区分两种语言。我们还考察了儿童语码混合是由于（a）他们的语言优势，以及（b）他们父母的混合比例这两种可能性。我们找不到证据表明他们的语码混合是由于父母的语言输入，但有一些证据表明语言优势起到了作用。
