Intentional bilingualism of a Slovak child regularly exposed to English
Intentional bilingualism of a Slovak child regularly exposed to English

Summary/Abstract: Intentional bilingualism is a popular type of bilingual upbringing in which a child is exposed to a language that is not a native language of either of his/her parents but one or both of them use it in communication with their child because they want to make him/her bilingual. This study reports on the bilingual first language acquisition of a Slovak child regularly exposed to English, implementing intentional bilingualism through an experimental approach of alternating two languages by his mother. The main objective of the study is to give an overview of his language development across the individual language levels – phonological, grammatical, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic with the focus on his developmental vs. interference-like errors as well as production of mixed utterances. The results reveal that intentional bilingualism is practicable even under experimental conditions and that it can be a natural way of raising a bilingual child. The ratio of contact with the two languages, however, leads to a certain developmental disproportion, in which the native language of the parents becomes clearly dominant.

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