Code-mixing in young bilingual children

This thesis examined several possible explanations for young bilingual children's code-mixing: the unitary language system (ULS) hypothesis, parental rates of code-mixing, parental discourse strategies in response to children's code-mixing, and children's language dominance. These explanations were examined in six French-English bilingual children, observed between the ages of 18 and 30 months. They were observed separately in interaction with each of their parents. The results showed that the ULS hypothesis cannot explain children's language use. Similarly, parental input could not explain children's code-mixing. In contrast, children's dominance was shown to be the best explanation of their code-mixing. It was suggested that bilingual children are particularly likely to code-mix when they do not know a translation equivalent. These results suggest that bilingual children's code-mixing is largely due to performance factors rather than underlying competence