An investigation of an early bilingual child: Phonological development at its finest?

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to explore and examine an early bilingual child whose use of English might be different on the account of the context the child uses English. Specifically, it was sought to find out if the child resorted to different phonological varieties as well as different interaction patterns while communicating. The relevant data were collected through spontaneous speech samples while the bilingual child was playing games with one of his care-takers and through a questionnaire filled out by two English-speaking native-speakers, where they intuitively judged the child on a phonological basis. The scrutiny of the data revealed that there were times where the child sounded more like his monolingual English-speaking peers, however, there was also evidence claiming the opposite, meaning the child used the language in different ways and accommodated to his Philippine nanny. Also, the questionnaire completed by the native-speakers indicated that there were some cases where they thought the bilingual child was closer to the near-native end of the spectrum and vice-versa. © 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.