Two prosodies, two languages: infant bilingual strategies in Portuguese and Swedish

Abstract

The assessment of early bilingual proficiency often involves analysis of the child’s productive lexicon at different stages in acquisition. This approach implies two assumptions: that bilingual awareness is measured by lexical production, and that the child has attained a level in development compatible with the production of equivalent lexical items in each language, before any so-called language ‘differentiation’ becomes apparent. This paper discusses these assumptions, in the light of the linguistic production of three Portuguese-Swedish bilingual siblings between the ages of 0;7 and 1;9, and argues that the children’s ability to produce distinctive prosodic and phonetic patterns associated with each language at this early stage in linguistic development provides clear evidence of bilingual awareness before and at the very outset of the one-word stage.