A study of bilingual development of a Mandarin and English bilingual preschool child from China to Australia

Abstract

The present research aims to investigate the developmental patterns of a child's Mandarin and English from China to Australia between age 3;04 and 5;05 in China and Australia contexts with a changed environmental language (hereafter, Le). This thesis examines whether fundamental differences could be found between bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) and early second language acquisition (ESLA) children. It also attempts to examine the role of parental input and the Le and their impact on the bilingual developmental pathway of an ESLA child. The rationale for the interconnected approach lies in the intertwining nature of three variables in childhood bilingualism, typically, age of exposure, input and the environmental language. The child in this study started to receive limited quantity of English input in China from age 1;02 before moving to Australia at age 3;06. Also, her input pattern underwent changes before and after migration. Accordingly, she experienced two environmental languages (Le). Connecting the three variables - age of exposure, input and Le, this thesis attempts to explore whether such a child develops L2 English fundamentally differently from BFLA children; whether the child develops Mandarin similarly to her monolingual and BFLA peers. The study reveals that the bilingual child proceeds her two languages similarly to monolinguals and BFLA, suggesting no fundamental developmental differences although there are certain quantitative differences, and offering new insight about the role of age of exposure. Another finding is that limited L2 parental input even in the L1 environment could still facilitate the child’s L2 development, indicating the role of non-native parental input cannot be underestimated, demonstrating the impact of early onset of exposure to L2 on the minimal input threshold for acquisition. Finally, it is found that Le could override parental input to preempt non-target structures in the child’s production, supporting the significant role for the environmental language (Le) in the nature of language transfer. This longitudinal study, to the best of my knowledge, is the first of this kind to investigate the bilingual development of an ESLA Mandarin-English bilingual child with a changed environmental language (Le), adding empirical knowledge to the debate on the connection and interrelationship among age of exposure, input and Le, shedding light on the practice of early childhood language education for migrant children.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English