Exploring aspects of raising multilingual first-born and later-born siblings from parents’ perspective

• Authors: Murrmann Julia M.

Title variants

PL

O aspektach wychowania wielojęzycznych dzieci przez pryzmat kolejności urodzenia (perspektywa rodziców)

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber those that are monolingual in the world’s population, which renders the research into different aspects of multilingualism particularly worthwhile. The present paper wishes to address the topic of raising multilingual children in relation to their order of birth into the family. Parents, being crucial agents of primary socialization, play undoubtedly a decisive role in organizing the early multilingual development of their offspring and the variables of family size (two children or more) and birth order of the children seem to be of great importance. The most important differences, facilitating elements, difficulties and challenges, voiced by parents of multilingual toddlers and teenagers, including changes in parental attitude, implementation of new strategies, factor of experience and accumulated resources, position and function of the first-born, and others, were illustrated and discussed. The findings of the study may be of theoretical interest to linguists, and of practical interest to parents showing curiosity or concern about growing multilingual family.

PL

Uważa się, że liczba osób wielojęzycznych przewyższa liczbę jednojęzycznych w populacji światowej, co czyni badania nad różnymi aspektami wielojęzyczności szczególnie wartościowymi. W niniejszym artykule pragniemy poruszyć temat wychowania wielojęzycznego rodzeństwa w zależności od kolejności urodzenia się dzieci w danej rodzinie. Rodzice, jako podstawowi wychowawcy w ramach socjalizacji pierwotnej, także językowej, odgrywają bez wątpienia decydującą rolę w zaplanowaniu rozwoju wczesnej wielojęzyczności swojego potomstwa i zmienne takie jak wielkość rodziny (dwoje dzieci lub więcej) i kolejność urodzenia wydają się mieć istotne znaczenie. W artykule przedstawiono i omówiono najważniejsze różnice, elementy ułatwiające oraz trudności i wyzwania zgłaszane przez rodziców wielojęzycznych dzieci i młodzieży, w tym zmiany w postawie rodzicielskiej, wdrażanie nowych strategii, czynnik doświadczenia oraz zgromadzonych zasobów, pozycja i funkcja dziecka pierworodnego i inne. Wyniki badań mogą zainteresować zarówno językoznawców jak i rodziców zastanawiających się, jak zbudować wielojęzyczną rodzinę.

Keywords

EN

multilingualism; language competences; family; siblings; birth order

PL

wielojęzyczność; kompetencje lingwistyczne; rodzina; rodzeństwo; kolejność urodzenia

• Publisher: Instytut Języka Polskiego Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Socjolingwistyka
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 32
• Pages: 265–286

Dates

published

2018

Contributors

author

Murrmann Julia M.

• University of Warsaw, Warsaw

References

• Aronin L., Singleton D. 2008: Multilingualism as a new linguistic dispensation, International Journal of Multilingualism 5, 1–16.
• Aronin L., Singleton D. 2012: Multilingualism, Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• Atkinson A.L. 2016: Does Bilingualism Delay the Development of Dementia?, Journal of European Psychology Students 7(1), 43–50.
• Baker C. 2014: A parents’ and teachers’ guide to bilingualism, Bristol–Buffalo–Toronto: Multilingual Matters.
• Barron-Hauwaert S. 2011: Bilingual Siblings: Language Use in Families (Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide), Bristol–Buffalo–Toronto: Multilingual Matters.
• Berglund E., Eriksson M., Westerlund M. 2005: Communicative skills in relation to gender, birth order, childcare and socioeconomic status in 18-month-old children, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 46, 485–491.
• Bhatia T.K., Ritchie W.C. 2013: Introduction, [in:] Bhatia T.K., Ritchie W.C. (eds), The handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, New York: Wiley Blackwell Publishing, xxi–xxiii.
• Bialystok E. 2001: Bilingualism in development: Language, Literacy, Cognition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bialystok E., Craik F.I.M., Freedman M. 2010: Delaying the onset of Alzheimer disease: Bilingualism as a form of cognitive reserve, Neurology 75(19), 1726–1729.
• Bialystok E., Craik F.I.M., Ryan J. 2006: Executive control in a modified anti-saccade task: Effects of aging and bilingualism, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 32, 1341–1354.
• Bialystok E., Luk G., Craik F.I.M. 2009: Cognitive Control and Lexical Access in Younger and Older Bilinguals, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 34(4), 859–873.
• Bialystok E., Luk G., Craik F.I.M., Grady C.L. 2011: Lifelong Bilingualism Maintains White Matter Integrity in Older Adults, The Journal of Neuroscience 31(46), 16808–16813.
• Bialystok E., Schweizer T.A., Ware J., Fischer C.E., Craik F.I.M. 2010: Bilingualism as a contributor to cognitive reserve: Evidence from brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s disease, Cortex 48(8), 991–996.
• Bialystok E., Sullivan M.D. (eds) 2017: Growing Old with Two Languages: Effects of Bilingualism on Cognitive Aging (Studies in Bilingualism), Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing House.
• Blackledge A., Creese A. 2010: Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective, London: Continuum International.
• Bornstein M.H., Leach D.B., Haynes O.M. 2004: Vocabulary competence in first- and secondborn siblings of the same chronological age, Journal of Child Language 31, 855–873.
• Bridges K., Hoff E. 2014: Older sibling influences on the language environment and language development of toddlers in bilingual homes, Applied Psycholinguistics 35, 225–241.
• Burck Ch. 2007: Multilingual Living, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ceroz J. 2013: Defining Multilingualism, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 3, 3–18. Franceschini R. 2013: History of multilingualism, [in:] Chapelle C.A. (ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics, New York: Blackwell Publishing, 4–8.
• David A., Wei L. 2008: Individual differences in the lexical development of French-English bilingual children, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 11, 598–618.
• Edwards J. 2013: Bilingualism and Multilingualism: Some central conceptions, [in:] Bhatia T.K., Ritchie W.C. (eds), The handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, New York: Wiley Blackwell Publishing, 5–25.
• Flora C. 2010: Double talk, Psychology Today 11/12, 70–80.
• Grosjean F., Ping L. (eds) 2013: The psycholinguistics of bilingualism, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell Publishing.
• Hoff-Ginsberg E. 1998: The relation of birth order and socioeconomic status to children’s language experience and language development, Applied Psycholinguistics 19, 603–629.
• Iacovou M. 2007: Family size, birth order, and educational attainment, Marriage and Family Review 42, 35–57.
• Jarvis S., Pavlenko A. 2008: Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition, London: Routledge.
• Keller K., Troesch L.M., Grob A. 2015: First-born siblings show better second language skills than later born siblings, Frontiers in Psychology 6, 705–715.
• Leva B. 2011: How language shapes thought, Scientific America 304(2), 62–65.
• Molinelli P. (ed.) 2017: Language and Identity in Multilingual Mediterranean Settings. Challenges for Historical Sociolinguistics, Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
• Odlin T. 2005: Crosslinguistic Influence And Conceptual Transfer: What Are The Concepts?, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 25, 3–25.
• Oshima-Takane Y., Goodz E., Derevensky J.L. 1996: Birth order effects on early language development: do secondborn children learn from overheard speech? Child Development 67, 621–634.
• Pavlenko A. 2014: The Bilingual Mind: And What It Tells Us About Language and Thought, New York: Cambrigde University Press.
• Pine J.M. 1995: Variation in vocabulary development as a function of birth-order, Child Development 66, 272–281.
• Shin S.J. 2002: Birth order and the language experience of bilingual children, Tesol Quarterly 36(1), 103–113.
• Spolsky B. 1998: Sociolinguistics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Stavans A., Hoffmann Ch. 2015: Multilingualism. Key topics in sociolinguistics, Cambridge: Cambrigde University Press.
• Sundet J.M., Eriksen W., Borren I., Tamsb K. 2010: The Flynn effect in sibships: investigating the role of age differences between siblings, Intelligence 38, 38–44.
• Wei L. 2013: Conceptual and methodological issues in bilingualism and multilingualism research, [in:] Bhatia T.K., Ritchie W.C. (ed.), The handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell Publishing, 26–51.
• Yip V., Matthews S. 2007: The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Zambrana I.M., Ystrom E., Pons F. 2012: Impact of gender, maternal education, and birth order on the development of language comprehension: a longitudinal study from 18 to 36 months of age, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 33, 146–155.

Identifiers

DOI

10.17651/SOCJOLING.32.16