Identifying partially schematic units in the code-mixing of an English and German speaking child
Date
07/03/2017Keywords
Metadata
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Abstract
Intra-sentential code-mixing presents a number of puzzles for theories of bilingualism. In this paper, we examine the code-mixed English-German utterances of a young English-German-Spanish trilingual child between 1;10 – 3;1, using both an extensive diary kept by the mother and audio recordings. We address the interplay between lexical and syntactic aspects of language use outlined in the usage-based approach (e.g. Tomasello, 2003). The data suggest that partially schematic constructions play an important role in the code-mixing of this child. In addition, we find, first, that the code-mixing was not mainly the result of lexical gaps. Second, there was more mixing of German function words than content words. Third, code-mixed utterances often consisted of the use of a partially schematic construction with the open slot filled by material from the other language. These results raise a number of important issues for all theoretical approaches to code mixing, which we discuss.
Citation
Endesfelder Quick , A , Lieven , E , Carpenter , M & Tomasello , M 2017 , ' Identifying partially schematic units in the code-mixing of an English and German speaking child ' , Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism , vol. 8 , no. 4 , pp. 477-501 . https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.15049.qui
Publication
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Status
Peer reviewed
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 John Benjamins. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.15049.qui
Description
The support of the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/L008955/1] is gratefully acknowledged.Collections
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