Limited input and the acquisition of Finnish: The evolution of a child speaker in a multilingual environment

Abstract

Aims and Objectives/Research Question:

This is a case study of a toddler acquiring Finnish in a trilingual (Finnish–Spanish–English) setting. Despite the apparent ease of the child’s acquisition of Finnish, the pressure of the majority language (English) suppresses the use of the acquired minority language. Is it feasible to expect an early-childhood minority language to be maintained at the level of production?

Design/Methodology:

Video-recordings were collected in domestic settings, mostly with the Finnish-speaking mother in interactions with the child, who was between the ages of 3;6 and 4;6. The approach follows loosely the principles of interactional sociolinguistics.

Data and Analysis:

The data were collected in 2008, when the child was 3 years old, and the follow-up data 8 months later, when the child was four. Samples of this corpus are analyzed in detail for the emerging target-like Finnish case endings and verbal inflections, as well as for deviations from adult Finland Finnish. The mother’s strategies of maximizing the effects of the limited input are also discussed.

Findings/Conclusions:

Even though the input the child receives is limited, his acquisition of Finnish morphosyntax follows monolingual patterns and shows overgeneralizations typical of monolingual Finnish children’s language. Some transfer from the contact with English and Spanish languages is present. The question of ultimate attainment in a heritage-language situation is addressed.

Originality:

The study is rare, as it documents the rapid transition from the child’s well acquired minority language to English, the majority language, in the matter of months.

Significance:

This article confirms the vulnerability of childhood bilingualism: even a few months between the two longitudinal datasets show a sharp decline in the child’s output in the heritage Finnish, but the dichotomy between “maintenance” versus “loss” is challenged because the decline in output does not necessarily extend to the loss of comprehension.