Resumen de The function of language switching during bilingual mother‐child interactions
Spanish‐English bilingual mother‐child pairs (children's age, 2.5–3.5 years) were observed in a “natural” situation over a 9‐month period. Analysis of recorded transcripts with respect to the use of switched language indicated three forms for mothers:
a. Instruction: Information about second language was given in the first. ("Se dice apple en ingles") b. Translation: The same information was given in both languages. ("This is a boy. Este es muchacho.”) c. Code switching: Switched language use not in the above categories.
For mothers, 60 per cent of all utterances identified as language‐switched were of type (a) and (b) above. Children rarely switched languages, with less than 1 per cent of all utterances of the switched language form. From these data it seems that language switching during mother‐child interaction was relatively rare; although, when it did occur, it served a very meaningful function related to conversational clarification and possibly language learning (teaching).
