An Overview of

Trilingual Child Language Acquisition

Aiden Carter
December 17th, 2015

Introduction
In the world of Applied Linguistics, few topics have received as much attention as
bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). The majority of people in the world
speak at least two languages (Cruz-Ferreira, 2011), so this is not very surprising, and many of
these people grew up learning both languages simultaneously. However, far less study has been
dedicated to trilingualism and Third Language Acquisition and, though exact numbers are hard
to come by, trilingualism is much less common than bilingualism. This is especially true with
regard to concurrent, trilingual child acquisition. While many bilinguals go on to learn a third
language in school, far less learn three languages beginning at birth.
In the past ten years several studies have been conducted in the area of trilingual child
language acquisition (TCLA), addressing a small part of the dearth of research in the field.
Despite a variety of approaches and environments presented in these studies, they answer many
of the same key questions: What types of trilingualism are there? What are the benefits to
trilingualism? Wont learning three languages concurrently overwhelm a childs brain? And
while the lack of research and the complexity of the issue prevent us from developing precise
models for TCLA, these case studies do show some of the most common environments where
trilingualism can develop.
Key Questions in TCLA
The central issue at the heart of all child language acquisition research is, how children
learn to talk from what they hear, because, no child learns to talk in isolation or by being
placed in front of a television, yet children worldwide seem somehow to make sense of
routinised situations involving other people and eventually produce portions of what they have
heard in them (Barnes, 2011, p. 42). While this question is central, it is also beyond the scope of

this paper, especially as decades of research still have not led to a general consensus on what the
answer may be. Cruz-Ferreira (2011) lists several different strategies that children employ when
using language: they produce phrases with minimal variation, wait for feedback, use filler when
unsure of what words to use, and play all sorts of games with language that allow them to test its
limits and boundaries. The idea that children use a variety of strategies, some not limited to
language-learning, when acquiring their first language is a good enough foundation on which to
address the further questions surrounding trilingualism.
What types of trilingualism are there? Stavans & Swisher (2006) list three types of trilinguals,
as found in linguistic literature: infant trilinguals who became trilingual in early childhood,
formal second/foreign language learners who have become so as a result of schooling, or
informal second/foreign language learners who immigrate and acquire a third language through
the workplace, school or the new society. These types of trilinguals are not mutually exclusive
(Stavans & Swisher, 2006, p. 193).
This paper will focus primarily on the first grouping, those who acquire three languages
simultaneously from a very early age. This is the least common group, but also the one with the
greatest potential to achieve a high level of fluency in all three languages. Some attention will
also be dedicated to the third group, especially as it often overlaps with the first.
What are the benefits of trilingualism? Much has been written about the benefits of
bilingualism, and most research shows that the majority, if not all, of these benefits extend to
trilingualism (Wang, 2008). Before the 1960s many people had negative ideas about
bilingualism, and flawed testing methods seemed to associate it with negative cognition ability.
However, research since then has consistently shown that these negative ideas were false and

that bilingualism is in fact linked to greater cognitive health and ability (Cenoz & Gorter, 2013).
Wang elaborates:
bilingual children are found to be more flexible in thinking and reasoning and perform
better in problem-solving, including social problem-solving. Moreover, they are likely to
show a greater readiness to recognize language structure and are more advanced in
phonological(sound), lexical (word) and syntactic (sentence) awareness; they also have
better lexical-semantic (word-meaning) association skills, and tend to have a richer
lexicon (vocabulary). Furthermore, bilingual children are found to learn to read more
rapidly than their monolingual peers...They are also more creative in language use...and
are more sensitive to word accuracy. (Wang, 2008, p. 196, 198).
The most commonly cited benefit is the advantage over monolinguals in learning more
languages. Research consistently shows that bilinguals - and by extension, trilinguals outperform monolinguals when learning another language (Cenoz, 2013; Bild & Swain, 1989;
Swain et al., 1990). There are various ways of explaining these advantages, but most researches
list three primary factors.
First, bilingual and trilingual learners, can develop a higher level of metalinguistic
awareness on the basis of their previous experience of the task of learning a language and their
knowledge of two linguistic systems, which means that they can think about language in a
more abstract way and regard it as an object (Cenoz, 2013, p. 77). Second, these learners, have
developed a wider range of learning strategies that help them to learn the third language (Cenoz,
2013, p. 77), and this ability to draw on learning strategies, is shared by early bilinguals, who
acquired two languages as a child (Cenoz, 2013, p. 74). Finally, bilingual and trilingual learners
have a much greater linguistic repertoire available to them, though the distance between the
language being studied and the languages already learned diminishes this advantage. A bilingual
fluent in English and Spanish will have a much easier time learning Portuguese than a
monolingual English speaker, but the linguistic repertoire advantage fades to the background
when learning Mandarin.

This list of cognitive and linguistic advantages does not even take into account the
multitude of economic, social, and cultural advantages associated with trilingualism, nor the
obvious implications for communicating with extended family. Research has also shown a link
between multilingualism and self-confidence, and many attest to the rich layers of identity that
arise with the usage of multiple languages (Baker, 2007).
Wont learning three languages concurrently overwhelm a childs brain? This is perhaps the
most common question in TCLA, and one of the most important. After all, no one would
advocate an approach to language learning that fundamentally limits a childs development. This
question is especially persistent because it makes a degree of intuitive sense: surely our brains
can only take so much input, and a child learning three languages simultaneously could not
possibly learn three languages in the same time frame as a monolingual child learns one.
Intuitive sense or no, the idea is simply untrue. In her book titled Three is a Crowd?
Cruz-Ferreira ends by stating that the answer to the title, is an emphatic negative...Three
languages, or four, or as many as necessary, are no more a crowd than one single language is
(Cruz-Ferreira, 2011, p. 309). She elaborates further on this idea of brain crowding:
questions that address crowding of linguistic or cognitive space, in actual human
communication or in human brains, stand out as meaningless, if not downright
detrimental. Far too many parents let themselves be persuaded of the myth that a
language takes up space in the brain, that either encroaches on the space dedicated to
other languages or, worse, that engages neural activity that can thereby no longer be used
for other purposes and may therefore ultimately impair overall child development
reasoning along these lines makes as much sense as claiming that a pianist should refrain
from learning to play the saxophone, or else risk losing the ability to do math. (CruzFerreira, 2011, p. 310)
People often point to codeswitching as evidence of the linguistic confusion that arises
from multilingualism. Codeswitching refers to, the mixing of various linguistic units (words,
phrases, clauses and sentences) primarily from two participating grammatical systems across

sentence boundaries within a speech event (Stavans & Swisher, 2006, p. 195). Stereotypically
this is what people are referencing when they talk about trilingual sentences or Spanglish.
But the assumption that this reflects some sort of linguistic confusion is inaccurate. Stavans &
Swisher write:
Young trilinguals make linguistic and nonlinguistic choices based on their audience,
yielding codeswitches to occur only when the interlocutor is bi- or trilingual, and not in a
monolingual interaction. In other words, the trilinguals in this study produced switches
(between two or three of their languages) depending on the interlocutor and their gauging
of his/her -lingualism... For example, during a visit to Mexico the children were left
with a Mexican monolingual caregiver and in the recording of the interactions that day
there were no switches into any of the other two languages. Yet when the children were
left with their Spanish English bilingual grandparents, the contact between English and
Spanish was greater. (Stavans & Swisher, 2006, p. 195, 205)
People often assume that children are confusing their languages, but in most cases the children
are simply aware of the multilingual nature of their audience and adapt accordingly.
Barnes also found that her test subjects proficiency and development in the minority
language, was like that of monolingual and bilingual children at comparable ages, and, clearly
demarked into monolingual contexts depending on whom she was speaking to (Barnes, 2006, p.
208). The language learning process for a third language was found to follow, by and large, a
monolingual route (Barnes, 2006, p. 220).
While it seems that learning three languages at the same time does not hamper the
development of language in children, and although the strategies and the process overlap in
many ways, there are several caveats that must be made. Stavans and Hoffmann point out that,
the overall process of becoming a fully competent trilingual is made more complex, and even
when only two languages are acquired simultaneously from birth, truly balanced bilingualism is
considered to be rare (Baker, 2006; Li, 2000). This is even truer of trilingualism, and typically
studies will point out which language a child prefers and which one is weaker. In part this is

because it is incredibly difficult to get equal input in three languages, a necessity when aiming
for balanced trilingualism.
These complexities and gradations of ability only become a problem when studies of
monolinguals serve as benchmarks for studies of bilinguals, or when the comparison is made
between bilinguals and trilinguals (Stavans & Swisher, 2006). Cruz-Ferreira argues that this is
fundamentally unfair and that comparative studies of this kind usually have a judgmental
purpose, often that of showing that bilingual children are in some way lacking in linguistic
competence, or are at least different (Cruz-Ferreira, 2011, p. 5). Whether or not bilinguals, and
trilinguals, are found lacking when compared to monolinguals depends on what the standard is.
Cruz-Ferreira argues that a more legitimate, though still unfair, study would take bilingualism as
the norm and compare monolingualism to it. Given that the majority of the worlds population
is multilingual, questions phrased in this way could at least claim some statistical legitimacy
(Cruz-Ferreira, 2011, p. 5).
Environments Where TCLA Commonly Occurs
The environments in these studies where TCLA commonly occurs are relatively limited,
usually arising from intentionality. Most of the studies done in the past ten years have been of
families who intentionally chose to try and raise trilingual children. Whether out of a desire to
maintain a heritage language or to equip their children to succeed in the future, these cases did
not usually have an element of extreme necessity. The parents usually spoke all three of the
languages themselves, and the wider social context usually only required control of just one or
two languages, so the trilingualism did not arise due to exposure to the languages in a natural
environment. In this context a great deal of intentionality and consistency is necessary, with
parents typically using the One Parent One Language approach (OPOL).

OPOL requires each parent to use only one language, usually their mother tongue, when
addressing their children. They may use a different language to address their spouse, friends,
neighbors, but they should be consistent in only using one language when directly addressing
their children. In this way the children are exposed to two languages at home - one from each
parent - and then a third in the larger community. This may also be the language of education.
Barnes provides a somewhat typical example of this sort of situation:
[The child] lives in a part of the Basque Country where the minority language, Basque, is
widely spoken and used by her father and his family, who are all native speakers. She
also attends a Basque-medium kindergarten. Spanish, the dominant language in the
community, has always been used with the child by a monolingual caregiver. Her mother,
who is a native speaker of English, always speaks English with her and her brothers. The
children address each other in both English and Basque. The parents also use English to
each other so it is the language of the home. (Barnes, 2011, p. 46)
It is apparent that there is often some overlap between one of the parents languages and the
language of the wider community, as with the father speaking Basque. But this is definitely not
always the case, especially with immigrant families who may be the only speakers of their
respective languages in their new communities (Stavans & Swisher, 2006; Wang, 2008).
While it is ideal for children to have multiple sources of input for each language, one
parent can be enough if the quality and amount of input is sufficient. Input through exposure to
a language may be limited (most often to one parent who speaks their language to the child
whilst other languages are used for schooling or in the community), yet input need not be inferior
in terms of quality and contact hours (Barnes, 2011, p. 45), and many parents go to great
lengths to expose their children to literature, media, cultural values, and devote time to
intentional language learning. However, it is possible that children learning languages with a
main provider of input may lack some of the skills learned through observation and participation
in multi-speaker contexts in the language concerned, such as joining a conversation, complex
turn-taking or maintaining a topic (Barnes, 2011, p. 45). Children will tend to achieve

dominance in the language they are exposed to the most, meaning that children who have one or
even two home languages plus another outside the home will be dominant in the latter, although
they may be competent in all three (Barnes, 2011, p. 46).
The research focus on these intentional environments is largely due to the fact that these
studies have been conducted primarily in the western world. There is very little data from
countries such as India, where trilingualism is incredibly common. In multilingual societies such
as those found in India, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa, trilingualism arises out of necessity
and constant language exposure, not out of intentionality on the part of parents. Parents may
freely switch between two or three languages when addressing their children with no issues
because there are multiple sources of input for each language (Surakat, 2003).
Conclusion
This paper has examined some of the key questions in Trilingual Child Language
Acquisition. The types of trilingualism were described and the focus was narrowed to infant
trilinguals who become trilingual in early childhood or acquire a third language through the
workplace, school or a new society. The claims that trilingualism could be harmful to
development or overwhelm a childs brain were shown to contradict the vast majority of the
evidence, which points to enormous benefits on multiple fronts for trilingual children. Finally,
the most commonly cited environments where TCLA occurs were briefly described and
examined, as were some of the difficulties and implications of the OPOL approach.
There is much more research to be done in this field. Non-Western nations are especially
rich in research possibilities, despite the difficulties involved in acquiring reliable data. As the
world becomes increasingly globalized, trilingualism may very well replace bilingualism as the
new norm. It is time for the world to recognize this and give it the attention it has long deserved.

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