TY - JOUR
T1 - Code-switching in the narratives of dual-language Latino preschoolers
AU - Halpin, Emily
AU - Melzi, Gigliana
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was partially supported by a grant from the Administration for Children and Families [grant number 90YR0034]. This study was partially supported by a grant from the Administration for Children and Families (90YR0034). We would like to thank the children and staff at our participating Head Start center for allowing us to conduct this study, as well as Dr. Adina Schick for sharing her data.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The purpose of this study was to explore the use of code-switching in the narratives of dual-language Latino preschoolers, specifically by examining its incidence, types, functions, and grammaticality. Previous work has investigated code-switching in younger children and in older children and adults, but relatively little work has investigated code-switching during the preschool years, an important time for dual-language development. This study tracked the code-switching of 39 Latino DLL preschoolers over three time points: the end of each of their two preschool years, and the beginning of their kindergarten year. At each time point, children shared a wordless picture book narrative. Code-switching in their narratives was coded for incidence, type, function, and grammaticality. Results showed that the number of children who code-switched was relatively small and stable over time, and that most code-switches occurred from Spanish to English. One-word switches, mostly nouns, were the predominant type of code-switching across years. Children used code-switching to serve a variety of functions, and almost all switches adhered to grammatical rules. Results suggest that the preschool age is an important developmental period for code-switching, in which children’s code-switches are simultaneously reflective of those of younger children and associated with more complexity in function and grammaticality.
AB - The purpose of this study was to explore the use of code-switching in the narratives of dual-language Latino preschoolers, specifically by examining its incidence, types, functions, and grammaticality. Previous work has investigated code-switching in younger children and in older children and adults, but relatively little work has investigated code-switching during the preschool years, an important time for dual-language development. This study tracked the code-switching of 39 Latino DLL preschoolers over three time points: the end of each of their two preschool years, and the beginning of their kindergarten year. At each time point, children shared a wordless picture book narrative. Code-switching in their narratives was coded for incidence, type, function, and grammaticality. Results showed that the number of children who code-switched was relatively small and stable over time, and that most code-switches occurred from Spanish to English. One-word switches, mostly nouns, were the predominant type of code-switching across years. Children used code-switching to serve a variety of functions, and almost all switches adhered to grammatical rules. Results suggest that the preschool age is an important developmental period for code-switching, in which children’s code-switches are simultaneously reflective of those of younger children and associated with more complexity in function and grammaticality.
KW - Childhood bilingualism
KW - bilingual students
KW - code-switching
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U2 - 10.1080/13670050.2018.1553928
DO - 10.1080/13670050.2018.1553928
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85058163369
SN - 1367-0050
VL - 24
SP - 1271
EP - 1287
JO - International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
JF - International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
IS - 9
ER -