GROWING UP CONDITIONS IN BILINGUAL FAMILIES: THE PERSPECTIVE OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN

Abstract

Bilingualism is the ability of an individual to speak two languages. If we put this phenomenon in the context of the family, it can be said that bilingual families do not differ in their functions from monolingual ones. The only difference between bilingual and monolingual families is in their communication because bilingual families use two languages instead of one. The process of native language acquisition differs from the process of second language acquisition. This process is contributed by various factors such as parental actions that encourage the development of bilingualism in children, the influence of older siblings and the influence of extended family in native language transmission. Furthermore, different types of bilingualism and the advantages and disadvantages of growing up children in such families are described in literature. The aim of this research was to determine the conditions of growing up in bilingual families from the perspective of parents and children. For the purpose of collecting material for analysis, the interview method was conducted, and the instrument used was a semi-structured type interview. The research included 10 participants, of which five were parents of bilingual children and five were children from bilingual families. The data confirmed the importance of the role of parents in the bilingual planning process. It has been shown that parents most often use conversation, reading books, playing together, watching cartoons, singing songs and video calls with the whole family as motivation for achieving bilingualism in children. In addition, older siblings have been shown to greatly assist parents in transmitting their mother tongue to a younger child, or younger sibling as well as the extended family. The analysis of the respondents' answers showed that they tend to emphasize the advantages of this way of growing up more than the disadvantages. Thus, the advantages include facilitated language acquisition in childhood in comparison with adult acquisition, openness to learning new languages, belonging to different cultures, transmission of traditions, a broader view of the world and better opportunities in the labour market. As disadvantages respondents point out difficulties in explaining, language mixing and distraction in two languages, delayed speech development and shame of incorrect pronunciation.