We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Can children exposed to more than two languages from birth acquire native competences in these languages? This is indeed possible, for the Language Making Capacity (LMC) is an endowment for multilingualism. The nature of our cognitive system does not impose an upper limit on the number of languages that we can acquire. However, the number is limited for practical reasons. Most impotantly, exposure to each language must attain a quantitative minimum. It is, however, difficult to define precisely the necessary minimum. Most monolingual children receive a much larger quantity of input than what is minimally necessary. It is therefore not necessarily a problem if the amount of speech directed to multilinguals in each of their languages is smaller than that of monolinguals. The threshold for successful grammatical acquisition can tentatively be said to amount to approximately 20 to 30 % of children’s weekly exposure to child-directed speech and interactions with adults and peers. If the relative amount of exposure to a language drops below 20%, acquisition still happens, but it will be delayed and is unlikely to lead to full native competences.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.