Like mother like child: Differential impact of mothers' and fathers' individual language use on bilingual language exposure.

ABSTRACT: Language exposure is an important determiner of language outcomes in bilingual children. Family language strategies (FLS, e.g., one-parent-one-language) were contrasted with parents' individual language use to predict language exposure in 4-31-month-old children (50% female) living in Montreal, Quebec. Two-hundred twenty one children (primarily European (48%) and mixed ethnicity (29%)) were learning two community languages (French and English) and 60 (primarily mixed ethnicity (39%) and European (16%)) were learning one community and one heritage language. Parents' individual language use better predicted exposure than FLS (explaining ~50% vs. ~6% of variance). Mothers' language use was twice as influential on children's exposure as fathers', likely due to gendered caregiving roles. In a s

SUBMITTER: Sander-Montant A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11868683 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature