Language Strategies for Bilingual Families

The One-Parent-One-Language Approach

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9781853597145
• eBook ISBN: 9781847695758
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Lots of new parents these days have the opportunity to bring up their child with two or more languages because of increasing job mobility and the global community. The benefits of bilingualism and biculturalism such as higher cognitive skills, an awareness of language and sensitivity to other cultures, are being increasingly recognised. However many parents don't know how to start, what methods to use or where to seek help when facing problems.

Now Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert, a mother of three trilingual children, teacher and linguist who has lived and worked all over the world, has written a book which provides an inspiring approach to passing on two or more languages to your children. In Language Strategies for Bilingual Families she considers several methods of bilingualism and focuses on the one-person one-language approach, in which each parent speaks his or her native language and is responsible for passing on his or her culture.

Suzanne questioned over a hundred bilingual families about their experiences and she interviewed thirty families in depth. The results of her study are linked to current academic research, but the book is both readable and relevant to non-academics and provides fascinating insights into being a multilingual family. It will prove an exciting and stimulating read for potential and current mixed-language families.

Chapter 1

The One-Parent-One-Language Approach. What is it?

In the first part of this chapter we look at the origins of the one-parent-one-language (OPOL) approach. Who first coined the phrase? How has it changed over the last century? Who were the early pioneers of child bilingualism? We hear about Jules Ronjat and Werner Leopold, and how their detailed notes on their children helped us see how a child becomes bilingual. Several decades later several linguists such as George Saunders, Traute Taeschner and Charlotte Hoffmann produced more case studies, giving us fascinating insights into a child's life with two or more languages. What do modern parents think OPOL is and how do they apply it within their families? We hear their comments and views on OPOL nowadays.

The second part of the chapter investigates mixing and code-switching in children, which can cause conflict within bilingual families. Should a child mix languages? Is code-switching acceptable or useful? When does language mixing become code-switching? We hear what parents think about their children's code-switching alongside some studies of this linguistic behaviour. Most important is the recent approach of looking at the whole family's interactions and how each parent or sibling can affect a child's choice of using one language or switching.

Part One: The Origins of the OPOL Approach – Maurice Grammont and his Advice to Ronjat

The original term came from a French linguist, Maurice Grammont, who published a book in 1902 titled Observations sur le langage des enfants (Observations on Children's Language), in which he introduced the idea of une personne; une langue. Literally translated from the French as one person; one language, Grammont theorised that by strictly separating the two languages from the beginning the child would subsequently learn both languages easily without too much confusion or mixing of languages. By associating each language with a specific person the chances of mixing languages are significantly reduced. Furthermore, by using his or her own language each parent gives an example of adult language use. They also have the opportunity to form a natural emotional relationship with the child through their language.

Several years later Grammont's friend and fellow linguist Jules Ronjat sought advice from him. Ronjat was married to a German national living in Paris and they had a son, Louis, born in 1908, whom they wished to bring up bilingually. Ronjat reports Grammont's advice (1913: 3):

Nothing has to be taught to the child. You must simply speak to him, when there is something to be said, in one of the two languages that you want him to learn. But there is a key factor, and that is that each language must be represented by a different person, you, for example always speak French to him, his mother German. Never reverse these roles. In this way, when he begins to speak he will speak the two languages without being conscious of doing so and without having made any special effort to learn them. (Translated from French).

Ronjat went on to record and transcribe Louis' language development until he was four years and ten months old. He then published this linguistic biography in Le Developpement du langage: observe chez un enfant bilingue (The Development of Language: Observations of a Bilingual Child). Ronjat recommended what he called the Grammont Formula in his description of Louis' positive child bilingualism. He cited the continual use at home of two languages from birth as a major factor in achieving bilingualism and noted that Louis had acquired and mastered two languages in a similar phonological order to that of the average monolingual child. The child learnt German from both his mother and his German nanny, and French from the father and from the French-speaking community he grew up in. Ronjat also spoke German to his wife thus giving her linguistic support as the minority speaker. Louis rarely mixed languages and after age of three was clearly aware of the difference in his two languages and would change languages to adjust to the person he was talking to. We even have some information on Louis Ronjat as a teenager, aged 15; he apparently remained bilingual throughout preferring to read in German and take his school examinations in French.

In the 1920s and 1930s several laboratory studies showed bilingualism to be negative because it risked overloading a child's mental capacity. These studies have now been disqualified due to dubious research techniques and IQ testing in only one language, which was unsuitable and unfair for young children. The only other well-documented study of this period was by Pavlovitch, a Serbian linguist, living in Paris with his Serbian wife. He compiled a one-year study in 1920 on his own son, Dusan. He recorded data from the age of 13 months onwards on Dusan, who had previously only heard Serbian from his parents. They then employed a close family friend to speak only French to the child for several hours a day. The child subsequently spoke good French, although in this case it was quite a probable outcome as the family was living in Paris. Nonetheless it shows the effect that a close one-to-one relationship can have and how it can facilitate language learning.

Twenty years later the same parental strategy of une personne; une langue was successfully applied by another parent-linguist Werner Leopold, who was familiar with Ronjat's case study. Leopold himself was born in London to German parents, who moved back to Germany when he was three years old. After completing his schooling in German he moved to America and married a third-generation German-American. When their first daughter, Hildegard, was born in 1930 they decided to bring her up bilingually. Leopard spoke only German while his wife spoke English although she understood and could speak German. In fact, in comparison to the Ronjat family, there were several changes in parental language use within the Leopold house with Werner frequently using English and his wife using German when holidaying in Germany. Although Mrs Leopold understood German she preferred not to speak it in America, but nonetheless did use it when visiting family in Germany.

Leopold's diary study from age two months to age seven (with additional observations up to age 14) formed a famous four-volume series of books published from 1939–49 describing Hildegard's progress in the acquisition of two languages. Apart from a three-month visit to Germany when she was a year old, her father was the only source of German for Hildegard. Her father's dedication in supporting Hildegard's language learning paid off and like Louis Ronjat she acquired both English and German at similar levels to a child of her own age. She mixed languages briefly as a young child but soon grew out of it and by the age of about three was able to select the right language according to who she was talking to. When almost five she spent several months in Germany and had no problems to communicate with family and friends there.

We also have some information on Hildegard aged 15 too; by this point she was reluctant to use German and it had become the weaker language as factors such as friends, school and her life in America dominated her life. Her younger sister, Karla, six years younger than Hildegard, unfortunately did not achieve as much success as her sister and Leopold (1949b: 159) described her, aged five: '(Karla's) German is extremely limited. She scatters some German words over her English sentences when she speaks to me, as a sort of concession to my way of speaking.' However, at age 19, Karla went to Germany by herself and was perfectly able to converse with the locals. So all the effort had been worth it in the end and her passive German knowledge became active in the right linguistic environment.

Since Leopold's immense study there was a gap of about 30 years while linguists applied themselves to studying first language acquisition and language learning. Pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Roger Brown who pinpointed the stages of language acquisition in a child and Noam Chomsky who proposed an innate knowledge of grammar eclipsed the bilingual children research for a while. But around 1980 the interest resumed and several new interpretations of une personne; une langue became evident.

From Grammont to OPOL …

The anglicised version of the term became common within linguist circles and was in frequent use in books and articles by the 1980s as a way to describe a child being brought up as a simultaneous bilingual. Typically, this is a child learning both languages at the same time from parents using two different languages right from birth). Here are some examples from well-known researchers working in the fields of linguistics, sociolinguistics and child bilingualism, which show the evolution of the original term:

Variations on the Terms:

une-personne; une langue	Grammont (1902)
The Grammont Formula	Ronjat (1913)
Grammont Formula: one person; one language	Schmidt-Mackay (1971)
Ronjat's one parent, one language principle	Bain and Yu (1980)
one-parent-one-language principle	Döpke (1992a)
one-person-one-language system	Saunders (1982)
one-person/one-language principle	Taeschner (1983)
one-person/one-language procedure	Taeschner (1983)
one-person/one-language strategy	Arnberg (1987)
one-person-one-language method	Romaine (1995)
one-person-one-language approach	Lyon (1996)
one-person-one-language strategy	Lanza (1992)
one-person-one-language policy	Juan-Garau and Perez-Vidal(2001)
Grammont's one-parent-one-language rule	Hamers and Blanc (2000)
Grammont's Principle	Hamers and Blanc (2000)
OPOL	The Bilingual Family Newsletter (1996)
OPOL	Bilingual website (2000)

As we can see, along the way it has been adapted to suit the author. The terms that have been added on along the way are very strong, such as Principle, System, Strategy, Procedure, Rule or Policy and imply strict adherence. The only exception to this is Approach, which I prefer myself as it seems less rule-bound. Grammont is mentioned a few times, particularly by Hamers and Blanc (2000) although it was once attributed to Ronjat by Bain and Yu. The most striking difference is the inclusion of the word 'parent' as opposed to 'person'. Which began around 1980. This minor but significant change could affect the success of the approach since it implies that the parent is the only linguistic role model in the child's world. Grammont chose to label it une personne; une langue with the wider implication that it could be any person – an extended family member or employee such as a nanny who only uses one language too. The final stage is to abbreviate the sometimes wordy 'one person; one language' and make it OPOL, as seen on bilingual family websites and in The Bilingual Family Newsletter. Although we don't always know if the 'P' stands for Parent or Person.

Research Done on Child Bilingualism

In most case studies of children growing up bilingually with simultaneous acquisition of two languages we see the term OPOL being used. So what exactly does the OPOL approach mean for these researchers? How have recent researchers redefined the term in accordance with their own insights and research? We look at some of the most prolific authors on child bilingualism and their comments on the OPOL approach.

Josiane Hamers and Michel Blanc (2000: 51) in Bilinguality and Bilingualism describe it as 'Grammont's Principle. … According to which each adult should use exclusively his or her mother tongue with the child.' They also clarify that the Principle is only an 'assumption' given credence by child biographers such as Ronjat and Leopold, and 'lacking in psycholinguistic proof'. They add that it has been 'adopted as a proven rule rather than as a hypothesis'. Hamers and Blanc cite two studies, which found no differences between families using the OPOL approach and those who did not (Bain & Yu, 1980; Doyle et al., 1977). They propose that the child's social networks and available linguistic role models are more important for developing bilingualism in a child.

Suzanne Romaine (1995: 193) discusses the 'one-person-one-language method' in her book Bilingualism. She labels this kind of family Type 1, saying: 'The parents have different native languages with each having some degree of competence in the other's language. The language of one of the parents is the dominant language of the community. The parents each speak their own language to the child from birth.' Romaine also mentions that the most common outcome of the OPOL method is children who can understand both languages but only speak the language of the community where they live. This is particularly true if the language is a minority and only spoken by one parent for example. She notes that the success stories such as Ronjat and Leopold describe children whose parents are often educated linguists adding 'The majority of detaile...

Table of contents

• CoverPage
• Series Editor
• Titlepage
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 The One-Parent-One-Language Approach. What is it?
• 2 The First Three Years and Establishing the One-Parent-One-Language Approach
• 3 Starting School and Becoming Bicultural – One-Culture-One-Person?
• 4 Interaction Between Family Members and the One-Person-One-Language Approach
• 5 One-Parent-One-Language Families – Expectations and the Reality
• 6 Living With Three or More Languages … One-Parent-Two-Languages (or More)
• 7 Seven Strategies for Language Use Within the Family
• 8 The One-Parent-One-Language Approach in the Twenty-First Century
• Appendixes
• Sources of Information for Bilingual Families
• Glossary
• References
• Index