Question on bilingual language acquisition from non-native speaker

[marilyn vihman]

Dear Kristin,

The bottom line is, if this is something you and your partner want to  
do, there is certainly no harm in it! the worst that can happen is  
that your child does NOT end up being a fluent English speaker, while  
the best outcome is that he does! There is no evidence that 'child- 
directed speech' is really necessary, in the sense of using baby talk  
words etc, or songs and rhymes: I never knew much of that in Estonian,  
but successfully raised two children with that language anyway. (I'm  
sure that I must have used other CDS characteristics, i.e., slower  
speech rate, shorter sentences: That is so natural and automatic, and  
no training or even experience with that register is needed to use it,  
as Fernald and others have shown.) My Estonian was accented and not  
perfectly grammatical - and my children, who had few native-speaker  
models, although their dad, who spent a lot of time with them, was  
one, both developed less than perfectly native grammar. What was  
missing was a community of Estonian speakers, other children, etc:  
Estonia was far and not easily accessible in those days, so we visited  
only every 5 years or so, and briefly. In contrast, my own parents  
raised me speaking English, though both were native French speakers  
with very noticeable accents - but I grew up in California and no one  
would say I don't sound American.

So - lots of factors enter in, and the cognitive advantages only  
obtain for long-term knowledge and use of 2 languages, as far as  
anyone knows, but given your passion for English, why not use it and  
see how it goes? My daughter, living with her Estonian husband in  
Estonia now, has turned the tables and is fairly consistently using  
English with my granddaughter - who, however, refuses to use much  
English - at age 2 - and replies to her mother almost always in  
Estonian...the language her father uses and that of the community  
around her. Clearly community is important - trips to places where the  
child can hear the language from everyone around her - and the child's  
personality, linguistic bent etc is another imponderable. But there is  
no conceivable harm in trying!

with my good wishes,

marilyn

On 14 Dec 2008, at 10:28, Isenthia wrote:

>
> Dear All,
>
> thanks a lot for all your answers! Sorry I didn't react any earlier,
> but I've only had the opportunity to access the internet again today.
>
> Since you all showed so much interest, I'd like to give some more
> specific information so that maybe you'll find it easier to give your
> opinion on my particular situation.
>
> So here goes:
>
> I and my boyfriend are native speakers of German. We live in Leipzig,
> Germany. My boyfriend only has rudimentary knowledge of English;
> enough to follow basic conversations in holiday situations, since we
> spent our holidays the last three years in Scotland and England. I'm a
> very big fan of the English language, literature, culture and history.
> That's why my boyfriend also very often has to watch British films in
> the original only with subtitles, although we could in principle watch
> them dubbed ;) I asked him what he thought about the idea to bring up
> our child bilingually and generally he is ok with that.
>
> The two problems I see are the following: first, I'm not a native
> speaker of English, I do speak with an accent, although it's
> comparably slight. ALso, being able to talk to my child in English as
> I would do in German is going to require some effort on my part, as
> I'm aware that I'm lacking vocabulary typical in `child-directed'
> speech. But I'd be happy and eager to remedy that ;)
>
> Second problem: So far, I'd be the only person in the child's
> immediate environment that'd be using English to him. However, since
> my partner shares my liking for the UK & Ireland, it's likely that a
> lot of our holidays will continue to be spend there. Also, a very good
> friend of mine is English and lives in Glasgow. Then, I'd try to build
> up contact to native speakers of English living in Leipzig and I'd try
> to see to it that, when the time comes, our son'll go to a
> Kindergarten that offers some sort of English-German bilingual
> interaction. I'd also be looking forward to provide my child with
> English children's stories, music, rhymes etc. I'm aware that it's
> totally unclear whether this `enterprise' is going to be successful in
> the sense that my son will see anything useful or worthwhile in
> speaking/learning a language and about a culture that seems so
> unconnected to him and the parent speaking it to him. But I personally
> also think that, if my not being able to provide `native-speaking'
> input is not considered problematic, it might be worth a try!
>
> Again, thanks a lot for your comments and `reading' suggestions. I'll
> definitely have a look at those.
>
> Best Wishes
> Kristin
>
> On 11 Dez., 13:35, "Barbara Zurer Pearson"
> <bpear... at research.umass.edu> wrote:
>> Dear InfoChilds,
>>
>> This was frustrating for me yesterday to be on the road, aware of  
>> this
>> thread, but not able to join in--till now.
>> Here are my two-cents (and of course, a recommendation of my own  
>> book for
>> Kristin's friend).
>>
>> Raising a Bilingual Child (by Zurer Pearson :) came out this year  
>> from
>> Random House, and I think I can say, has been well-received both by  
>> parents
>> and the research community.  In addition to what I tried to make a  
>> balanced
>> review of the research, there's a section where I talk about why we  
>> don't
>> have the studies one might want to design to answer a question  
>> similar to
>> Kristin's. There are also several extended testimonials from non- 
>> native
>> parents with multilingual families. (Check out some background and  
>> reviews
>> about it atwww.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild(--and at Amazon).
>>
>> People seem to have strong opinions about whether non-native  
>> parents will do
>> children a disservice by speaking non-natively to them. The issue  
>> rarely
>> comes up, of course, if the language the parents are speaking non- 
>> natively
>> to children is the community language.  No one has thought to  
>> research it,
>> since children so clearly surpass their parents in the community  
>> language.
>> (The question is framed somewhat differently for immigrant and  
>> guest worker
>> communities, but I don't get the impression that this literature  
>> would be
>> relevant for Kristin's friend.)
>>
>> My own opinion is that a parent who *wants* to speak a non-native  
>> language
>> to a child should be encouraged to do so.  The child will lose much  
>> less
>> from the parent's disfluencies than she or he will gain from the  
>> extra
>> practice.   Practically speaking, it's not optimal to have *any*  
>> single
>> individual be the only source of input for a child.  Among the many  
>> parents
>> I spoke with for my book, non-native parents seemed to understand  
>> that
>> principle more readily than many international couples, and they  
>> took active
>> steps to involve native speakers somewhere in the child's routine-- 
>> through
>> schools, sitters, travel, media, etc.  I especially enjoyed one  
>> parent's
>> comment that he hesitated to speak only Yiddish with his child  
>> since he
>> didn't know if he knew it well enough to carry it off.  Ten years  
>> later, he
>> feels funny speaking a language other than Yiddish to any child,  
>> not just
>> his own.
>>
>> These days, parents can find a virtual community to help them out.  
>> Kristin's
>> friend might like one of the internet sites with discussion groups  
>> etc.www.biculturalfamily.org (with an on-line magazine one can  
>> subscribe to)www.multilingualchildren.org
>> humanities.byu.edu/bilingua  (especially for non-native parents,  
>> but it
>> doesn't look like it has changed much since I first looked at it)
>> (among others).
>>
>> Good luck to the friend--and others contemplating the same move.
>>
>> Barbara
>> *************************************************************
>> Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
>> Research Associate,
>> Depts of Linguistics and Communication Disorders
>> 226 South College
>> University of Massachusetts
>> Amherst MA 01003
>>
>> Tel: 413-545-5023
>> Fax: 413-545-2792
>>
>> bpear... at research.umass.eduwww.umass.edu/aae/ 
>> bp_indexold.htmwww.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Isenthia" <kristinborjes... at yahoo.de>
>> To: "Info-CHILDES" <info-childes at googlegroups.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 6:04 AM
>> Subject: Question on bilingual language acquisition from non-native  
>> speaker
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>
>>> I'm not entirely sure whether this is the right place to pose my
>>> question. However, a friend of mine suggested I'd try here to get  
>>> some
>>> information on the following issue.
>>
>>> I'd like to know whether there are any studies investigating the
>>> question of whether or not a non-native speaker of a language (with
>>> fairly high competency) should try and raise his child bilingually
>>> nevertheless. I'm simply interested in views on that question.
>>
>>> I'd be very happy if you could help me with suggestions or  
>>> references
>>> on this.
>>
>>> Thanks a lot.
>>
>>> Best,
>>> Kristin
> >


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