The Impact of Codemixing on Language Differentiation in Young Bilinguals

The phenomenon by which a lexical item or phrase from one language is inserted into another, known as codemixing, is common in adult bilingual communities around the world (Genesee & Nicoladis, 1997). In many types of immersion programs as well, codemixing is a common strategy for introducing target vocabulary. However, little research has been conducted on the precise impact that vocabulary exposure via codemixing may have on how the target item is encoded by child listeners – namely, how it is assigned to one language or another. Spanish- and English-speaking children (n = 10) between 3 and 6 years old were recruited to participate in this experiment, in which phonetically English- or Spanish-apparent nonwords were presented in the context of a “codemixed” or “non-codemixed” sentence and participants were asked to decide to which language the nonword belonged. Results demonstrated a considerable bias toward categorizing most of the nonwords as Spanish (the non-dominant language for all ten children), although the language in which the nonword was introduced also considerably impacted children’s judgments. While the nonword’s phonology appears somewhat influential in determining its language of origin, this was not as impactful as the overall linguistic context.