5 - Language Acquisition in Emergent Bilingual Triplets

Summary

This chapter considers language development in emergent bilingual triplets with delays in dual-language acquisition. The chapter focuses on word learning across languages, by examining whether the siblings would use English or Spanish in identifying less frequently used cognate words. Their responses are presented separately for each language (showing reduced vocabulary scores), conceptually (showing higher crosslinguistic performance), and combined (showing inflated numbers). Language samples in both languages indicated that even though the siblings had monolingual English instruction, their home language was used in processing words, syntax, and narrative discourse. The children communicated across languages with their mother, who was only proficient in Spanish. Their translanguaging examples revealed the children communicated in English, while their mother communicated in Spanish, and vice versa. The children also negotiated the meaning of words from one language to the other and they accessed words across languages in their narratives. The authors also describe family dynamics derived from observations. This chapter provides an account of parental engagement and deep commitment of working-class immigrant parents to their children’s education.