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Like mother like child: Differential impact of mothers' and fathers' individual language use on bilingual language exposure

Authors: Sander-Montant ABissonnette RByers-Heinlein K


Affiliations

1 Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Description

Language exposure is an important determiner of language outcomes in bilingual children. Family language strategies (FLS, e.g., one-parent-one-language) were contrasted with parents' individual language use to predict language exposure in 4-31-month-old children (50% female) living in Montreal, Quebec. Two-hundred twenty one children (primarily European (48%) and mixed ethnicity (29%)) were learning two community languages (French and English) and 60 (primarily mixed ethnicity (39%) and European (16%)) were learning one community and one heritage language. Parents' individual language use better predicted exposure than FLS (explaining ~50% vs. ~6% of variance). Mothers' language use was twice as influential on children's exposure as fathers', likely due to gendered caregiving roles. In a subset of families followed longitudinally, ~25% showed changes in FLS and individual language use over time. Caregivers, especially mothers, individually shape bilingual children's language exposure.


Links

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39575856/

DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14196