ABSTRACT
Childhood bi-/multilingualism had long been considered a special case of language acquisition, “an oddity or abnormality,” even. Variability in bi-/multilingual children’s linguistic experiences has been ascribed to a variety of factors – particularly social ones – and is often claimed to be responsible for the linguistic heterogeneity found within such child populations and for the differences in bi-/multilingual acquisition and attainment. Emerging L1 contexts such as the case of Singapore have so far been largely neglected by the field of L1 research. The linguistic realities of English in Singapore clearly “suggest the need to go beyond the native speaker/non-native speaker dichotomy to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between speakers and the languages they use”. In child language acquisition, cross-linguistic influence has been shown to occur on all major levels of language organization, i.e., phonology, morphology, and syntax.
