English-Spanish Bilingual Development in Children

Introduction

In the topic of human development, the acquisition of language has been for many researches an area of intense interest. Although it is taken for granted by the general population, a child's ability to so easily acquire and master a language remains largely a mystery. Even more complex, however, is the child who is raised bilingually. These children, who are essentially exposed to two primary languages, present a variety of interesting traits while developing their language abilities.

A further area of interest in recent years has been the influx of Spanish speaking immigrants to the United States. With certain communities around the country, and in some cases, certain cities, becoming predominantly Spanish speaking, the question of language dominance becomes of increased importance. Particularly, does it offer an added benefit to raising children bilingually? Thus, this paper will seek to address the question of raising children to be natural speakers of both Spanish and English in the United States, exploring both the questions of how it is accomplished and what consequences it has.

Spanish Use

Over the past several decades, the number of Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States has risen dramatically. In the ten year period between the 1990 and 2000 censuses, the number of Latinos rose by almost 50%, from 22.4 to 35.3 million, a trend that makes puts them on the path to becoming the largest minority in the country (Stowell, 2002, n.p.) As a result of this, it is not surprising that the use of the Spanish language has also risen considerably. In fact, over 28 million U.S. citizens report themselves as Spanish-speakers, representing a 62% rise in the last decade (Bergman, 2003, n.p.).