By comparing the descriptions given here with your own circumstances, you will be able to take advantage of the accumulated experience which these studies contain and to make more informed decisions. None the less, we do believe that these cases do cover, at least in outline, the most common and successful forms of family bilingualism.
Above all, remember — you are not alone! To help clarify the established pattern of language choice in a number of the families described in the case studies, we have drawn diagrams.
These show: — On the left, the language s used by the parents together. Anne Marie was a teacher of German, but has not worked for the last few years, in order to look after their two young children, Carine aged 8 and Lydia aged 3. Both parents are extremely positive in their attitude towards bilingualism, although they never took a conscious decision to bring up the children bilingually. She also likes the English language and is very happy to see her elder child growing up to speak it so well.
The pattern in the family is as follows: The father and mother converse in French, but the father always speaks to the children in English, whilst the mother always speaks to them in French. This seems to bother husband more than wife though. The two children seemed to start talking a little late, although the parents could no longer remember the exact details.
Carine only started speaking English with her father at the age of three years and nine months. Carine, an open and lively child, was delighted to talk about her bilingualism and did so most articulately in English with a clear Yorkshire accent. She reads and writes English well, but needs help with her spelling.
Both studied English in Turkey from the moment they went to secondary school and for Sinan the father English was the only medium of instruction at school. English was also the medium of instruction at the university where they took their degrees. Ten years ago, they came to England to study at postgraduate level, and their son, Kerem, was born in Leeds. They have stayed in England since then and are both nearly balanced bilinguals.
They always spoke Turkish together until their arrival in England. From that time on, they continued speaking Turkish but got used to switching to English frequently for social reasons. She then decided she should prepare Kerem and began to speak English to him just before he started nursery school. From that time on the parents kept speaking Turkish together in the home but addressed Kerem in English, and his ability to express himself in Turkish deteriorated. The presence of a Turkish nanny who spoke only Turkish to Kerem, from the time he was three until he was four-and-a-half, helped maintain his second language.
The situation changed dramatically when Arin took Kerem back to Turkey for a long summer holiday with the family. First of all, Arin had taken the trouble of preparing Kerem by speaking Turkish to him from time to time just before the trip. He continued speaking Turkish at home with his parents after coming back but has now reverted to English, as before, except on certain occasions.
Both Sinan and Arin still normally address Kerem in English. Arin thinks she switches to Turkish only in emotional situations, for instance if she is angry or in a hurry. Sinan probably switches more often. Kerem, on his part, rarely initiates exchanges in Turkish at home, except when there are Turkish visitors. What is noticeable in this case is that although both parents were professional linguists they never tried to impose bilingualism on Kerem.
As for Kerem, although his English is clearly dominant, there is interference from Turkish in his pronunciation and he has an English accent in Turkish. However, since his long holiday in Turkey he has discovered for himself the advantages of being able to function as a full member of two linguistic communities. All of them are being brought up as bilinguals.
When they married and set up home in France, though, they started speaking French, because she obviously needed it and that was clearly the best way of learning. This early switching has, it seems, left its mark on all subsequent arrangements. When they are alone at home the pattern is as in diagram 1.
There are, however, important exceptions to this rule. When she collects them from school, for example, they speak French as they walk along the pavement to their house, which is only metres further along the same street, but as they enter the front door, everyone changes. Even so, should they be out of doors with someone monolingual German such as their grandmother the children will happily speak German with that person.
In fact, Ingrid has tried to institutionalise this by ruling that when the family gathers for their midday meal they should all speak German. It usually works for a few days at a time, though.
In spite of this, they cannot imagine how they would manage if the family was not bilingual since, to take one example, the grandparents on each side are monolingual. She reads bedtime stories in German and sings German songs and nursery rhymes. At school, the two older boys are doing well.
Matthias has been the source of some anxiety and embarrassment. Even when they sang songs and rhymes he already knew he refused — quite literally — to open his mouth. However, that teacher has now won him round and he is beginning to rather enjoy helping her. John was working there after having completed a degree in Great Britain, while Marie taught in a domestic science school. The mother spoke French to the baby, while the father used English, but between themselves the parents always switched freely from English to French.
More recently, the family moved again and settled in London. Normally she uses English with her father and French with her mother. What is remarkable is the fact that the language chosen is not necessarily the dominant language of the parent who starts the exchange. John might very well initiate an exchange in French or Marie in English. Rather, it is the topic that determines the choice of language. Although no systematic investigation has been made, it seems that this constant intra-family switching has made her particularly sensitive to perceptual factors as trigger mechanisms for choosing one or the other language.
Roselyn will address him in either language depending on the topic, although French tends to be dominant because the mother always addresses the baby in French. In this family, both parents were very much aware of language problems and determined to try to bring up their children bilingually.
Perhaps it is relevant here to remember that Marie comes from a linguistically and culturally divided country. Both feel that parents have to be supportive and that correcting errors by means of repetition or expansion is useful.
This is no doubt the key to the success of this code-switching strategy. His wife, Christine, is Austrian and they met through friends in Vienna. At the time they were interviewed, they had been back in France for ten months and Antoine was three years, nine months old and his sister was two years old. They both speak French, German, Portuguese and English, and enjoy doing so. They are looking forward to learning Spanish. When Antoine was born, his parents assumed that he would grow up bilingual in German and French and that he would learn Portuguese a little later at playschool.
Broadly speaking, this is what happened, but there were a number of unforeseen developments. With her second child, there was no such problem; she happily spoke to her in German from the very beginning. A number of bilingual families, and how they did it The next unexpected development was that when Antoine started speaking, it soon became clear that Portuguese was by far his best language.
He spoke Portuguese with the maid at home and then started playschool at the age of two. When the family moved back to France, two things happened. The second was that he began speaking more and more French. Christine was considering dropping German, in case it was in some way the source of this problem. What struck the visitor was how well Antoine spoke French, considering that he had only been in France for ten months.
But he was relaxed, sociable and voluble, sitting chatting with a complete stranger while his parents arranged drinks. His parents, though, took a lot of persuading that his French was well up to scratch for a child of his age.
This judgement is impressionistic; no detailed observation or testing was possible. Einar is Norwegian and he came to the UK to study civil engineering. By that time, he had met Jane, who is English, and they had decided to settle in England after they got married. They always spoke English together and, although Jane started learning Norwegian after they had decided to get married, she says she could follow what was going on but could not carry out a discussion satisfactorily even after a six-month stay in Norway.
In fact, with her parents-in-law, Jane got into the habit of speaking English while they addressed her in Norwegian. Their children, Marianne and Erik, are now respectively fourteen and eleven years old. When Marianne was born, the mother naturally spoke English to the baby.
Einar did not really decide not to speak Norwegian to his daughter, but simply found it perfectly natural to address her in English. Both feel that bilingualism in their home would have been superimposed and would have been a source of problems, partly because the mother could not speak Norwegian very well. Communication within the family would have been altered; for instance, there would have been innumerable occasions when Einar would have had to interpret what he had said to his daughter for his wife.
Another reason for their choice is the place of Norwegian amongst the languages of the world. But he felt that there was little advantage in their learning Norwegian. Indeed, the children never had any problems communicating with Norwegian people during their stays in Norway, since most people there can speak English. The only real problem they had was with their paternal grandfather, when he came to England to visit the family.
There are translated Norwegian books around, records and so on. Each summer, the whole family goes to Norway for the holidays. There is no doubt that the whole family is very much aware of the Norwegian connection and enjoys it all. It is also clear that in the event of one of the children expressing the wish to learn Norwegian, she or he would certainly not meet any opposition. This was possible not only because of the attachment of the parents to the Norwegian culture but also because of the status of English as an international language in that country.
Learning a language when young is much easier than when older. She was brought up in a Finnish-speaking family while he came from a Swedish background. He studied medicine via the medium of both languages and is perfectly at ease in both.
The couple were determined to bring up their children with Finnish and Swedish for a variety of reasons. Swedish would also be a means of access to other linguistic communities as well as to Scandinavian culture. Thus, they saw their choice as a decision based on commonsense and from the start were favourable to the idea of bringing up their children as bilinguals. At the same time, they were very relaxed about it and had no dogmatic views on bilingualism.
In particular, both were agreed that, since Liisa had more contact with the children, Finnish was very likely to be dominant. Apart from special occasions when one of the languages is preferred for social reasons, the parents consistently use their own language when addressing the children.
They speak Finnish together and in family situations. The children speak Swedish with their father and with their grandmother with whom they have very frequent contact. They are also exposed to a lot of Swedish through radio and television. However, they do not have Swedish-speaking friends of their age and contact with their peer group is predominantly carried out in Finnish.
Anna went through periods when she mixed the two languages, but from the time she was four, she kept both languages completely separate and started reading in both of them. Jon, on the other hand, still shows signs of confusion and tends to speak Swedish by slotting Swedish words into Finnish constructions.
Both are very much aware of the advantages of their bilingualism and fully enjoy ego-boosting roles like interpreting Swedish television programmes for their Finnish friends. At the time Liisa was interviewed, the family was staying in England for A number of bilingual families, and how they did it a few months.
As the father was away from home for most of the time and both children went to an English nursery school, the quality of their Swedish had seriously declined. They speak English with a marked Teesside accent, as indeed do all three of their children: Ellen, seventeen, John, sixteen, and Jenny, ten-and-a-half. The father is a French government research chemist, at present on secondment to the French brewing industry. The whole family has hung on tenaciously to its English identity.
Their linguistic arrangements are simple: English at home, French outside. Kate admits that when the children were smaller she went to some lengths to stop them speaking to one another in French. Consequently, they sometimes speak French to one another at home, when the parents are not present, although they both continue to speak English with their little sister.
In the interest of historical accuracy, it has to be mentioned that this statement was greeted with hoots of derision by the two teenagers, whose main objection was that their father was at least as guilty as they were, because of his passion for elaborate bilingual puns.
Their decision to establish and maintain a foreign home is not, they insist, a rejection of French. They attribute this to their having a French education.
All three are doing reasonably well at school. John, on the other hand, lets everybody know he is English his parents accuse him of using it as an excuse for getting poor marks with teachers who do not realise he has spent almost his whole life in France.
Jenny is shy about admitting it, but still insists that she likes being bilingual a lot. The two elder children both read and write English. The family spent a year in the USA in and the schooling they received was enough to bring them up to scratch.
Previously, John read very little in English, but since he discovered computers, he has become far more willing to do so. When she got a job as a translator in Sweden and he went back to university in England, they continued to use the same system for their correspondence. When they married and settled down in England, they developed a system whereby they would speak French during the week and English on Sundays.
Although they lived in England, they spent at least four months every year in France, since Paul continued to take every opportunity he could to go to Paris to continue his research. Three years later, they moved to the south of England. The father only started speaking English to Patrick once it was clear that his French was well-grounded. Patrick was about eighteen months old at this time. To his great surprise, the theory collapsed when he travelled to France with his parents and found that neither his grandfather nor his uncle spoke English!
At the age of three, Patrick had to go to an English nursery school while his mother was in hospital. For about three months after their return to England, the children would use English at school, switching to French when they came back home. Then, within the space of a single week, they stopped using French when they played together and started using English instead. They kept French as a private language, to be used only with their mother.
Their father addresses them in English, except when the mother is present, in which case he uses French. The boys always reply in English.
This pattern can be diagrammed as follows: At the time of interviewing, Patrick and Michael were sixteen and thirteen years old respectively. They both understood French perfectly well and spoke it with a good accent. Moreover, apart from French comics like Pif or Tintin, and the occasional specialised interest magazine electronics, etc. However, these weaknesses have proved to be only a passing problem, since work on written French at school has improved their performances considerably.
Since then, they have both got A grades at Olevel French, but being scientists they dropped French at A-level. There is no way of knowing, of course, what the relative importance of these two principles was. However, there was a clear family consensus: their father had chosen to speak French because of his special interest in that language and their mother because it was her preferred means of expression.
In this way, each member of the family, parents and children alike, was able to speak the language which he or she preferred. Their mother feels that she has given them the basis of the language and that, if they need French in their professional lives, they will be able to make use of that knowledge.
She studied English and French at university in Sweden and, although Swedish is her dominant language, she feels more at ease in English when talking about certain topics, or when facing certain delicate social situations. Richard — now a freelance translator — was brought up in an English-speaking home and studied German and French for his degree. He started learning Swedish by going to evening classes and went to Sweden for three months.
However, Eva would not describe him as a balanced bilingual. When their son, Peter, was born, they had settled in England and they decided to bring up the child bilingually.
Then the family went to Holland for two years. Eva looked after the child and continued speaking Swedish to him. He went to a local playgroup where there were English-speaking children and, after a phase during which he tried to impose Swedish on the others, started to learn English. Although Swedish was still dominant, he could easily express himself in English by the time they came back to England.
After a few months, Eva realised that the school teacher did not even know Peter had another language, and was delighted. Eva thinks that by the time he was six, Peter was a balanced bilingual, but always associated each language with particular situations rather than particular individuals, that is, he tended to speak Swedish in Sweden during the holidays and English in England.
At home, the situation developed very quickly. When he did so, they would reply in Swedish but gradually he lost the habit of expressing himself in Swedish and now seems to be embarrassed when doing so — although he addresses the dogs in Swedish. The way language choice operates when the three are together is very revealing in that respect.
By systematically A number of bilingual families, and how they did it switching to English when they want Peter to be included, the parents implicitly state that he is not to be involved when conversation goes on in Swedish. In fact, Eva believes Peter can follow conversations much better than he lets on.
Peter is now twelve and the parents think that the best solution for helping Peter would be to make him spend more time in Sweden in an environment where he would have to communicate in Swedish independently from them. Obviously, now that he is an adolescent, there is a growing tension between his present self — which he can only express in English — and the child he used to be.
This kind of crystallisation of a past mode of speaking which is no longer adapted to his present communicative needs is a cause of embarrassment for Peter, and all the more so because he is particularly good in English and is well above average as regards syntax and vocabulary. It is interesting to compare this case with Case Studies 9 and It is very likely that his personal involvement with a Swedish peer group within the next few years will be the key to his weaker language developing into his second adult language.
When I have met for example Swedish business colleagues I have found it helpful and rather fun to speak to them in their own language. Unfortunately this happens all too infrequently. However, my Swedish is deteriorating. Case Study A cultural heritage — one parent, one language Martine and Ronald met in in one of the vineyards bordering the river Herault where they were both working as grape-pickers.
She Martine is French and he Ronald is American. At the time they met, her English was not very advanced; she did a degree in classics. Ronald studied engineering in Paris for three years and so learnt French for essentially communicative as well as academic purposes.
French has always been their common language and, from the beginning, Martine has got into the habit of correcting Ronald systematically whenever he makes a mistake. At the time of interviewing, they had lived in England for eight years.
Martine works full-time in a bookshop and feels perfectly at ease in English. Ronald has not reached the same level of competence in his second language. Normally, the children speak English together and to their friends at school. They have had far more contact with English-speaking children than with French-speaking ones because they both went to an English nursery school from the age of fourteen months.
The only occasion when they spontaneously choose to use French together is when they sing songs in the evenings. Martine always addresses the children in French and is the one that, as a rule, they identify with the language: if she listens to the radio, it will be a French station. Moreover, she reads a lot, and so French books are left A number of bilingual families, and how they did it lying all around the house.
Ronald is similarly consistent in his use of English with the children. So it is the book that determines the choice of language, not the reader. This is a well-known and frequently reported phenomenon in children brought up with this pattern of use. She has already stayed on her own with her grandparents for periods of up to six weeks at a time, and each time she returns home she speaks only French for a week or so, even with her father.
She is beginning to read in English and showing an interest in written French too. Anne was rather late in her speech development and Martine and Ronald thought it might be associated with the two languages. At school, there were problems at one stage: people did not understand what she was saying in English and meanwhile she developed an English accent when she spoke French. However, as she was clearly one of the best pupils in her class academically, they did not worry unduly and the problems proved to be temporary.
Dominic started speaking at an earlier age than Anne, but in other ways seems to be a later developer. Although Martine and Ronald wanted their children to speak both languages, they adopted a very relaxed attitude about it. They could only try and hope it would work. Martine would like to see their children keep on speaking French and later on reading French literature for pleasure.
There are also practical aspects to consider. By and large, bilingualism is an advantage. The thing which annoys me most is not being able to communicate with my cousins as well as I would like. Case Study Two homes, two languages, two cultures Teresa is Spanish and started learning English at the age of 22, when she came to a language school in England. Now that she has lived in England for over ten years, she feels that she is totally bilingual.
There are even domains where English is her preferred language. When it comes to complex business discussions, though, he feels that his command of the language is inadequate. Highly Influenced. View 7 excerpts, cites methods and background. Multilinguals are…? Is there a need for another book on bilingualism, after so many on the same topic?
I think so, because Bilingual: Life and Reality … Expand. Raising children bilingually in Norway. Raising children bilingually in Norway is often perceived as quite a challenge by some parents, despite the social prestige accorded to English as an international language.
A characteristic of the … Expand. Who decides the home language? A look at multilingual families. In this paper, I look at how multilingual parents attempt to transmit and maintain their native languages at home with their children. In terms of its success in providing advice and guidance to families raising children bilingually it was lacking. Frankly, I doubt that most busy parents have time for such a commentary, which provided more information and thought than guidance.
It's certainly quite interesting and, at some point, necessary fo This book was more academic than practical--I found it to be a good deconstruction of the topic of bilingualism itself and the bilingual family dynamic in that sense, it was aptly named.
It's certainly quite interesting and, at some point, necessary for parents raising their children bilingually to see certain issues from this perspective. But, it wasn't really the get-started guide I was looking for.
Sep 11, nks rated it liked it Shelves: books-i-own. I was looking for a practical manual to raising bi-lingual children. Tips and tricks, that sort of thing.
And so I found myself lagging through the first third of the book. There were a few tips, but most of the information was highly academic. Then AT LAST, came a lot of really, really useful information, as well as detailed descriptions of bilingual families and how they handled their situation. A worth while read for anyone considering raising their children bilingually. Sep 05, SenazNasansia Muliawan rated it liked it Recommends it for: anyone who interested in raising children with 2 language.
Shelves: parenting. Everything you want to know about raising children with two or more languages you can read in this book. It's really well written. It's really a schematic book. Just like the old days with a school handbook ;-. Except this one is a lot more interesting. I must say that you can find from the basic about bilingual e. Jan 23, Clara rated it it was amazing Shelves: , own-it , read-it-in-columbia , want-to-read-again.
The Bilingual Family is particularly insightful in its discussion of receptive bilingualism, its elegant combination of academic and anecdotal discourse, and the extensive consideration given to the numerous ways that language use — and dominance — can change throughout the lifespan, depending on myriad factors.
Sep 27, Gregor Erbach rated it it was amazing Shelves: language , kids. Jul 29, Titus Hjelm rated it really liked it.
Not really a bilingual 'cookbook', but does give you important pointers and examples when thinking about raising your kids bilingual. Dec 21, Molly rated it really liked it. I recommend this to anyone raising a bilingual child View 1 comment.
Interesting and helpful, especially to those wanting to raise their children bilingual. I especially liked the explanations on children's language development. We cannot guarantee that every book is in the library. This is the second edition of the best-selling book that has provided practical advice to thousands of parents who want their children to grow up bilingual.
It still gives parents up-to-date information and advice they need to make informed decisions about what language policy to adopt with their children. This new edition also looks at cases of single-parent families with bilingual children, as well as schooling and bi-literacy issues. The authors help parents identify the factors that will influence their decision to bring up their children as bilinguals. The second part consists of case studies of bilingual families, which illustrate a wide range of different solutions.
The third part is an alphabetical reference guide providing answers to the most frequently asked questions about bilingualism. Bringing up bilingual children is a challenge and this book helps parents meet that challenge.
Do you want your child to grow up bilingual? This is a questions which directly affects parents of potentially bilingual children. The Bilingual Family - identifies the factors that will influence the decision of parents to bring their children up as bilinguals.
The lives of many families involve contact with more than one language and culture on a daily basis. Growing Up with Two Languages is aimed at the many parents and professionals who feel uncertain about the best way to go about helping children gain maximum benefit from the multilingual situation.
This best-selling guide is illustrated by glimpses of life from interviews with fifty families from all around the world. Features of this third edition include: a dedicated website with new and updated Internet resources a new chapter giving the perspective of adults who have themselves grown up with more than one language a new chapter presenting research into bilingual language acquisition with information about further reading new and updated first-hand advice and examples throughout.
She and her husband, Staffan Andersson, have raised their four children to speak English and Swedish in Sweden. How do bilingual brothers and sisters talk to each other? Sibling language use is an uncharted area in studies of bilingualism. From a perspective of independent researcher and parent of three bilingual children Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert discusses the issues of a growing bilingual or multilingual family.
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