A Bilingual Child in a Monolingual Society: A Case Study in Selective Language Behavior

It has been noted that bilingual children rarely attain a perfect balance between the two languages. This thesis attempted to demonstrate the impact of peer influence on a bilingual child’s acquisition and subsequent balance of his/her languages. Peer influence was measured by an analysis of the linguistic nature of a two-year-old bilingual child’s interaction with his mother. The analysis of the recorded interactions over a period of five months confirmed the intuitions of past studies: peers have great impact. A large majority of the subject’s interactions with his Chinese-speaking mother involved the use of English.

Thesis Author: James, Mark O.

Year Completed: 1981

Thesis Chair: Ray Graham