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The communicative competence of bilingual children involves a large array of skills---they must not only acquire the full range of communication skills of monolinguals but also learn when, how and with whom to use each language. This dissertation features three studies on the communication skills of bilingual children (French-English bilinguals aged 2.5 and 3 years from the Montreal area). Studies 1 and 2 explored these children's ability to make appropriate language choices by studying their responsiveness to two types of cues: The first study investigated whether children's language choice is influenced by their interlocutor's code-mixing; the second study examined whether children change their language in response to their interlocutor's requests for clarification following the children's use of the inappropriate language. The children demonstrated that they were capable of making on-line adjustments in their language choice in response to both types of cues, thereby showing that sensitivity to cues for language change is part of bilingual children's communicative competence from a young age. Study 3 compared bilingual and monolingual children's responses to requests for clarification following breakdowns in communication due to problematic aspects of their utterances such as speaking too softly or mispronouncing words. The findings revealed no significant differences between the bilingual and monolingual children's responses and suggest that the acquisition of conversational repair skills is not influenced by the simultaneous acquisition of two languages. Together, these three studies contribute to the understanding of the skills underlying children's ability to make appropriate language choices and suggest that the unique demands of bilingual interpersonal communication do not interfere with the acquisition of more general communication skills.

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.

This study examined structural constraints on early child code mixing. Constraints are widely attested in adult bilinguals (Myers-Scotton, 1993; Poplack, 1980). It has been argued that these constraints preserve the structural properties of both languages. It is uncertain whether constraints on early child code mixing are the same as constraints on adult code mixing. The present analysis was based on Poplack's two structural constraints: the free morpheme and the equivalence constraints. Ten French-English bilingual subjects were observed at 4 time periods, between approximately 2;00 and 3;06 years of age. The children's utterances containing elements from both languages were analysed for violations of Poplack's constraints. The violation rate was extremely low, less than 2% of the total mixed utterances. These results corroborate Lanza (1997), Vihman (1998), Allen et al. (2000), and Paradis et al. (2000), who likewise found that structural constraints on code mixing are operational from early in acquisition.

Thesis (PhD) -- Auckland University of Technology, 2005. / Also held in print (xvi, 275 leaves, 30 cm.) in Wellesley Theses Collection. (T 306.4460830993 YU)

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX211789.

Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Northern Arizona University, 2007. / "May 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 266-273) and abstract. Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: David Schwarzer. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.