Is mommy talking to daddy or to me? Exploring parental estimates of child language exposure using the Multilingual Infant Language Questionnaire

Abstract

Language input is a key factor in bi-/multilingual research. It roots in the definition of bi-/multilingualism and influences infant cognitive development since and even before birth. The methods used to assess language exposure among bi-/multilingual infants vary across studies. This paper discusses the parental report patterns of the amount/degree of exposure to their children and provides an algorithm-based Multilingual Infant Language Questionnaire (MILQ) targeting the amount of hours and degree of exposure an infant is exposed to each language. In the MILQ, parental feedback between general language input (languages spoken in the environment an infant resides in) and direct language exposure (languages spoken directly to an infant) are differentiated. Comparing the results drawn from general and direct perspectives, parental estimates of their children’s exposure match the general but not direct language input condition. Implications of these results are discussed.