Language strategies in mixed nationality families

The literature has indicated that the way in which a bilingual child learns his two languages may influence cognitive and language development. Twenty Swedish–English-speaking families (including 18 children) were interviewed with regard to the types of strategies used in raising the child bilingually. The children were also given a short word recognition test in both languages. Four main strategies were observed, differing with regard to whether the languages had been introduced simultaneously or consecutively and whether the sources of the languages had been distinct or mixed. The paper discusses the families' selection and evaluation of strategy as well as the role of strategy in influencing degree of bilingualism as seen from the literature as well as from the present results.