ERIC Number: EJ1401261
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1072-4303
A Case Study of a Hungarian-English Bilingual Girl's Code-Switching Practices between the Ages of Three and Eleven
TESL-EJ, v27 n2 2023
The paper investigates a Hungarian-English bilingual child's Sarah's second language acquisition (SLA) with a special focus on how she integrated English (L2) into her speech to convey the intended meaning and negotiate the multiple identities she developed in her bilingualism in various social contexts. An ethnographic single-case study research seemed to be a relevant method of giving an exploratory, interpretive, and in-depth description of my single participant's language development (Creswell & Creswell, 2018, Duff, 2007). The applied qualitative data collection comprised the participant's everyday interactions, semistructured retrospective interviews, and her own spontaneous reflections. The findings indicate that Sarah used L2 as a complementary set of linguistic forms to differentiate meaning and as a social site for negotiating and gauging her own and her interlocutor's conduct and language use. Use of L2 expanded her linguistic repertoire, conveyed communicative intentions, and shed light on her transitory bilingual roles. The various feedback she received from her social environment shaped her self-concept and called for discussing and revisiting her own language competence. What she thought about peer feedback exerted a powerful impact on her self-image. The study might provide incentive for teaching English to young learners in home settings and might underpin the relevance of investigating single-case scenarios.
Descriptors: Case Studies, Hungarian, Ethnography, Bilingualism, English (Second Language), Females, Language Usage, Second Language Learning, Native Language, Code Switching (Language), Preschool Children, Children, Developmental Stages, Speech Communication, Language Acquisition, Feedback (Response), Self Concept, Language Proficiency, Family Relationship, Foreign Countries, Pragmatics, Emotional Response, Parent Child Relationship
TESL-EJ. e-mail: editor@tesl-ej.org; Web site: http://tesl-ej.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Hungary
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A