ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how, as children and young people, develop a repertoire of linguistic behaviour. It widens to include children learning to speak English alongside other languages, as well as children learning to distinguish between several varieties of English – in other words any child with two or more distinct means of expression. In everyday conversation one may (like the authors of the article) use the terms language/culture/nationality in an interchangeable or interconnected way implying, for example, a direct link between bilingualism and biculturalism. In other bilingual families and communities, there is greater evidence of interactional codeswitching within and between speaker turns. The author look at how even very young children who are learning English alongside another language acquire the communicative competence to use their two languages appropriately. The chapter also considers evidence for similar social and stylistic variation among children with only varieties of English at their disposal.
