The application of bilingual language acquisition strategies: two case studies

Abstract

In studies of language choice patterns in families, most of the study cases are based on reports written by linguists about their own children bilingual development. Therefore, there is a strong possibility that the parents’ scientific and theoretical knowledge as linguists might have influenced in the child’s bilingual acquisition. To overcome this approach limits, two study cases based on empirical data were carried out done in (Brazilian) Portuguese-English bilingual families to determine how language strategies are applied in real-life conversations. The interactions within the members of two families were analyzed to test the effectiveness of the language strategies. The data collected show that none of the families strictly applies the policies. The effectiveness of such practice is therefore to be questioned.