ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the effect that parents’ language use (English, Spanish-English or Spanish) had on self-perceived proficiency, frequency of use, language anxiety, code-switching and cultural orientation of 206 Spanish-English bilinguals and multilinguals who were students in Texas where there is a strong presence of Spanish, the minority language. Our results showed that languages that parents had used with their children had a privileged status: bilinguals and multilinguals reported higher levels of proficiency, more frequent use, less anxiety (except for English) and a stronger cultural orientation. The effect was strongest for parents with Spanish-speaking parents. The scores of the simultaneous bilinguals were generally situated between the scores of the sequential Spanish-English and English-Spanish bilinguals from monolingual families. We conclude that relatively more or less use of a particular language in a family home will lead to significant differences in the grown-up children’s future language use and cultural orientation.

中文翻译：

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童年语言如何塑造未来的语言使用和文化取向

摘要 在本文中，我们调查了父母的语言使用（英语、西班牙语-英语或西班牙语）对 206 名西-英双语者的自我认知能力、使用频率、语言焦虑、语码转换和文化取向的影响。多语者曾是德克萨斯州的学生，那里有大量的少数民族语言西班牙语。我们的结果表明，父母与孩子一起使用的语言具有特权地位：双语者和多语者报告的熟练程度更高，使用频率更高，焦虑更少（英语除外）和更强的文化取向。对于父母说西班牙语的父母来说，这种影响最为强烈。同时双语者的分数通常介于单语家庭的连续西班牙-英语和英语-西班牙双语者的分数之间。我们得出的结论是，在家庭中相对或多或少地使用特定语言会导致成年儿童未来语言使用和文化取向的显着差异。