Multilingual Children’s Motivations to Code-Switch: A Qualitative Analysis of Code-Switching in Dutch-English Bilingual Daycares

Abstract

This paper investigates code-switching in young multilingual children through a qualitative analysis. Our aim was to examine which types of code-switches occur and to categorize these in terms of children’s motivations for code-switching. Data were collected from 70 children aged two to three years who attended Dutch-English daycare in the Netherlands where teachers adopted a one-teacher-one-language approach. We observed seven types of code-switches. Motivations for code-switching related to social, metalinguistic, lexical, or conversational factors. These data indicate that young children can tailor their language choices towards the addressee, suggesting a certain level of meta-linguistic awareness and perspective taking. Implications for computational approaches are discussed.