The Emergence of Functional Categories in Bilingual Rst Language Acquisition

This paper explores the role played by cognitive and processing limitations in language acquisition and the relevance of bilingual rst language acquisition for the ongoing debate on the ontogeny of functional categories. 1 Deening bilingual rst language acquisition Over the past twenty years the eld of language acquisition studies has beneetted enormously from the shift from an English-centred perspective to a broader crosslinguistic approach. In this trend we can also situate the increasing attention paid to issues in bilingual rst language acquisition (henceforth BFLA). Bilingual children combine the ideal opportunity of crosslinguistic analysis in a controlled environmental situation: two languages , one mind/brain. Intra-subject variability is eliminated, factors such as cognitive and psychological development, socioeconomic status etc. are constant in the bilingual child. It is however important to notice that other variables come into play in BFLA, rst and foremost linguistic input and cultural, emotional and social ties associated with it. The psychological principle that anything learnt has an eeect on subsequent learning (Kagan 1984) is particularly relevant in trying to properly deene BFLA. In the literature on BFLA some authors make the distinction between simultaneous and successive acquisition. McLaughlin (1978) deenes`simultaneous acquisition of two languages' as a situation in which the child is exposed to two languages before her third birthday, and`successive acquisition of two languages' as when the second language is introduced later than 3 years of age. Taeschner (1983) accepts the distinction, while Padilla & Lindholm (1984) reject the third birthday criterion as an arbitrary cut-oo point. They suggest that only when the child is exposed to two languages from birth is it acceptable to speak of`simultaneous acquisition of two languages'; anything else they regard as instances of`consecutive' or`successive' language acquisition. De Houwer (1990) proposes yet another deenition whereby BFLA is a situation in which a child is rst exposed to language B no later than a week after she was exposed to language A, and where exposure to languages A and B takes place on a daily basis. For the purpose of this study I will adopt de Houwer's deenition.