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Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth: implications for the mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2001

LAURA ANN PETITTO
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University and, The McDonnell-Pew Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute
MARINA KATERELOS
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University
BRONNA G. LEVY
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University
KRISTINE GAUNA
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University
KARINE TÉTREAULT
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University
VITTORIA FERRARO
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University

Abstract

Divergent hypotheses exist concerning the types of knowledge underlying early bilingualism, with some portraying a troubled course marred by language delays and confusion, and others portraying one that is largely unremarkable. We studied the extraordinary case of bilingual acquisition across two modalities to examine these hypotheses. Three children acquiring Langues des Signes Québécoise and French, and three children acquiring French and English (ages at onset approximately 1;0, 2;6 and 3;6 per group) were videotaped regularly over one year while we empirically manipulated novel and familiar speakers of each child's two languages. The results revealed that both groups achieved their early linguistic milestones in each of their languages at the same time (and similarly to monolinguals), produced a substantial number of semantically corresponding words in each of their two languages from their very first words or signs (translation equivalents), and demonstrated sensitivity to the interlocutor's language by altering their language choices. Children did mix their languages to varying degrees, and some persisted in using a language that was not the primary language of the addressee, but the propensity to do both was directly related to their parents' mixing rates, in combination with their own developing language preference. The signing-speaking bilinguals did exploit the modality possibilities, and they did simultaneously mix their signs and speech, but in semantically principled and highly constrained ways. It is concluded that the capacity to differentiate between two languages is well in place prior to first words, and it is hypothesized that this capacity may result from biological mechanisms that permit the discovery of early phonological representations. Reasons why paradoxical views of bilingual acquisition have persisted are also offered.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We are grateful to the deaf and hearing parents and their children who gave us their time, trust, and good humour – all of which enabled us to complete this study. We thank Kevin Dunbar for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript, and Siobhan L. de Belle and Françoise Brosseau-Lapré for their assistance on details of manuscript preparation. This research was funded by the following grants to L. A. Petitto: Social Sciences and Health Research Council of Canada, and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Petitto also thanks The Guggenheim Foundation, and she is grateful to Professor Massimo Piattelli-Palmerini for inviting her to the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, in Milan, Italy where she wrote this manuscript.