Marie-Anne Noyer

Mémoire Soutenu

Martine Mme

Sekali

The development of self-references as a marker of subjectivity in native bilingual and bicultural children

As children grow, they develop several tools to mark their subjectivity. In their linguistic development, children acquire self-assertion through their use and selection of personal pronouns.

Native bilingual children, in particular, present a wide set of self-markers given their choice between two languages or bilingual utterances. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how native bilingual children mark their subjectivity through their acquisition and decisions regarding personal markers.

To answer this question, I analyzed a corpus and compared the socio-linguistic development of six children in their English-French familiar spheres. My results revealed that children manifest their subjectivity through non-standard forms (moi, first-and third-person pronouns, 'name'), opposition markers and uniquely bilingual tools (code-switching, language choice, affective influence). This study demonstrates the singular subjectivity a bilingual and bicultural upbringing shapes as well as the children's ensuing agentivity.

(1)*** File "020800e.cha" Family 2 *MOT: look what about on the rocking chair ? *MOT: she could sit on the rocking chair it'd be better .

First language acquisition is a widely studied topic. Various researchers have contributed to different discoveries and some linguistic processes are still contested today. Within the field of language development, two themes are relevant to the scope of this paper. The first matter concerns the development of self-markers in first language acquisition. Children establish their self through various references (I, you, me, my). The use of non-standard forms, such as pronoun reversal, led some researchers to fear personality duplication (Morgenstern 2010:4). Could children's identity, thus, be split in two due to personal pronouns errors? The second subject of interest relates to native bilingualism, specifically the acquisition of self-references in the simultaneous learning of English and French from birth. "Bilingualism could impair the intelligence of a whole ethnic group and lead to split personalities," wrote linguist Weisgerber in 1966 (Romaine 1995:108). According to him, learning two languages and two cultures could lead to a disease impacting mental development.

Does speaking two languages, therefore, lead to having two personalities?

The study of split identities in bilingual communities perseveres today, as recent surveys show how bilinguals themselves define, and act on, their two languages and two cultures differently (Xun&Wilson 2002;[START_REF] Pavlenko | Bilingual selves[END_REF]Chen Xiaohua&Harris Bond 2010;Qi,Yi&Yexin 2010;Ramirez&Garcia 2014;). Furthermore, bilingualism from birth can be a source of marginalization. The myth of bilingual input as a threat is still common (De Houwer 2009:309). In fact, many professionals and speech therapists today still view bilingual language acquisition as possibly harmful and recommend that parents choose one language only. These recommendations can greatly damage children's development, emotionally, socially and linguistically (Romaine 1995:237-238).

Thus, multilingualism has not always been accepted, and bilingualism from birth can still be poorly viewed by uninformed people. Yet, the context of globalization not only encourages us to learn more than one language but also fosters the assemblage of people from all around the globe. For couples with different native languages, the upbringing of children in a bilingual context is the only way to maintain both parents' identities (De Houwer 2009:308). Thus, how do native bilingual children construct their identity with self-identification markers when two languages are involved?

The "perceived special status of bilingual acquisition" (De Houwver: 2009, p.308) and its outcomes are of particular interest to me. My encounter with various bilinguals and the way some people view my personal situation (French native speaker bilingual in English, Italian and Spanish) triggered my curiosity. Additionally, my experience in European programs helped me further my acknowledgment of languages and cultures. Lastly, an exhibition in the metro corridor of the 'Montparnasse' train station in Paris confirmed my interest. The walls of the famous 'trottoir roulant rapide' (fast rolling pavement) were decorated with the bi-national and bilingual families that had been born thanks to the Erasmus exchange programs.

Mirroring the questions arising from these two themes, the purpose of this paper is to offer an analysis of native bilingual acquisition with a specific emphasis on the development of first-person markers. In addition, my first research paper focused on the construction of native bilingual identities through sociolinguistic contexts. I was interested in understanding the process of cultural and linguistic appropriation in a native bilingual naturalistic setting, and I focused my study on socialization. In a related manner, I would like to further this path and reflect on the construction of a bilingual identity through the use of self-reference markers and, therefore, focus my study on the self. Undoubtedly, language acquisition pertains to self-construction in social settings, and identity is a product of both personality and social interactions. I approach the corpus through the usage-based theory, analyzing language acquisition as a simultaneous product of interaction and cognitive capabilities. Accordingly, I observe the input as well as the creative use of new constructions by the children.

I decided to further my work on the corpus used in my first research paper. Indeed, the corpus was first elaborated to study the use of deictics in a native English and French bilingual environment. My study is based on scripted conversations from CHILDES, collected for a doctoral thesis in English Linguistics involving six native bilingual participants between 1;9 to 7;2 years old (age in year and months respectively). Given my emphasis on self-references, part of my study explores deictics, and therefore, this corpus suits my subject perfectly.

My examination of the state of the art enlightened me regarding first language acquisition and the complexity of self-references in English and French. I encountered studies on supposed split identities in bilingual L2 learners and on self-references in French and English, but none combined the study of a native bilingual acquisition to self-references. I was compelled to consider my study through the spheres of various fields which undoubtedly brings to it an additional benefit. I have decided to look into the conception of a native bilingual identity through the scope of self-reference markers. As a result, this paper reviews the children's acquisition of personal pronouns in English and French from birth, specifically: the development of self-references as a marker of subjectivity in native bilingual and bicultural children. The focus of my research is on the sociolinguistic aspect of first language acquisition. This paper is divided into three different parts. The first part is separated into three chapters. The first chapter focuses on first language acquisition to underline the main steps of linguistic and cognitive skills, from non-verbal competencies to complex sentences. The second chapter explores the specific forms of self-references in English and French to better grasp their semantic and syntactic functions. The third chapter investigates the conceptualization of native bilingualism and biculturalism, emphasizing the link between language, culture and identity. The second part presents the corpus, the methodology and procedures adopted to describe the children's productions and the caretakers' input. Finally, the third and final part is divided into two chapters. I first focus on the quantitative analysis to extract the specific markers used by each child to self-identify and to refer to others, as well as their negative indicators. I also show the influence of the input through the parents' self-markers and their references to others. The first chapter helps evaluate a number of hypotheses to understand the children's dynamics. The second chapter uses a qualitative lens to analyze the quantitative data obtained and highlight the specific developmental path of selfreferences in a native bilingual context, from the use of non-standard forms to mark agentivity to the use of bilingual tools to emphasize subjectivity. The usage-based model of language acquisition affirms that language structures arise from language use (Bavin 2012:98). Children learn by hearing the language spoken around them and use their social and cognitive skills to first reproduce utterances, and second creatively appropriate what they have heard and use it to express their own messages (Tomasello & Bates 2001:169). Children will attempt to reproduce sentences created by adult speakers and, through repetition and usage, will learn to distinguish certain patterns of language use. Their perception of a linguistic utterance evolves and adapts itself with their exposure to it (Tomasello 2001:73). All this knowledge is built to form their 'linguistic inventories' or 'stored linguistic experience'. Moreover, during language acquisition, young toddlers build the bases of their linguistic catalogue. Childhood is a key stage for linguistic development as adults draw on their linguistic inventories created during their early youth (Tomasello 2001:62). Consequently, "usage-based models of language focus on the specific communicative events in which people learn and use language" (Tomasello 2001:61).

Furthermore, according to the psychologist Michael Tomasello "symbols encode particular perspectives on entities and situations, [which relates] to the uniquely human ability to understand that other people view the world from a different perspective" (Diessel 2013:3). In fact, only humans are able to consider other people's points of view. Considering this approach, once children acquire a certain amount of knowledge, they understand the difference between linguistic features and the expectations that accompany those elements (Lanza 1997:244). Children must understand how their language accents different notions and how some of these include grammatical construction (Clark 2001:379). This chapter aims at highlighting the principal stages in first language acquisition as a product of both social influences and cognitive skills.

In fact, "humans are born with capacities that facilitate language acquisition" (Tomasello & Bates 2001:34). Such abilities, developed during their first year of life, allow children to differentiate sound pattern, increase their knowledge of word boundaries and later on mature their pronunciation (Tomasello & Bates 2001:32). De Houwer's work with newborn infants has demonstrated interesting results regarding language acquisition starting in the wound (2009:29). Before uttering their first words, children are actively learning their language (Tomasello & Bates 2001:32).

I.A.2 Major processes of constructing a language

As stated by Tomasello (2003:301), children construct the abstract dimensions of language through four major processes:

1: social learning: the ability to do things the way other people do them 2: schematization/analogy: imitatively learning the recurrent concrete pieces of language for concrete functions as well as forming a relatively abstract slot designating a relatively abstract function (categorization) 3: constraint: when an organism does something in the same way successfully enough times, that way of doing it becomes habitual and it is very difficult for another way of doing that same thing to enter into the picture 4: distributional analysis: categories that are formed through a process of functionally based distributional analysis in which concrete linguistic items that serve the same communicative function in utterances and constructions over time are grouped together into a category In addition, children, at around 9-12 months, establish two main sets of cognitive skills that help them construct these dimensions. The first one is the skill of intention-reading, whose functions are to help the child discern the intentions of the adult speaker and learn the social and cultural conventions linked to that particular language (Bavin 2012:82). Tomasello (2003:3) describes them as follows:

-The ability to share attention with other persons to objects and events of mutual interest -The ability to follow the attention and gesturing of other persons to distal objects and events outside the immediate interaction -The ability to actively direct the attention of others to distal objects by pointing, showing, and using of other nonlinguistic gestures -The ability to culturally (imitatively) learn the intentional actions of others, including their communicative acts underlain by communicative intentions

The second is the skill of pattern-finding, which allows children to go beyond what they hear from mature adults and use the utterances to creatively imagine new constructions (Bavin 2012:82). The usage-based approach allows us to understand that "children learn more language than language itself provides" (Tomasello & Bates 2001:217).

I.A.3 Gradual learning and redundancy

One crucial factor in the usage-based approach is the notion of gradual learning, or in professor Edy Veneziano's words, "the redundancy of use " (2000:24). Children need to hear the multiple variations of one word before they can extract its use and meaning (Clark 2002:197). They construct their linguistic experience little by little, analyzing recurrent patterns of use in a gradual process (Tomasello & Bates 2001:189).

As a matter of fact, by repeating a situation, adults transform one moment into a shared experience (Morgenstern 2014b:38m18s). As they verbalize feelings and emotions, adults play a major role in socializing children who are aware they need the adult's cooperation to recreate a situation.

Repetition allows children to mentally imagine what they have experienced, and by consequence, they can anticipate it and express their desire to experience it again (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:17).

Before reaching two years old, toddlers' linguistic inventories comprise concrete words, such as 'bird', some frozen phrases, such as 'I wanna do it', and a variety of item-based constructions, like 'where is the X?' (Tomasello 2003:99). Children's early constructions are just simpler versions of mature structures, because they are based on less linguistic experience (Tomasello 2003:97). By age three, children can understand the different levels of a term (animal, bird) as having the same referent. As of age four, they "readily answer questions that require talking about the same referent in three different ways -from three perspectives -as when they talk about a rose as a rose, a plant and a flower" (Clark 2002:149). Therefore, children's learning is time-sensitive.

The various degrees of abstraction are built upon repetition as children become more fluent with time (Clark 2002:165). The linguist Eve Clark clarifies that "the greater the semantic complexity of a grammatical morpheme, the later it appears to be acquired " (2002:195). As they enter a language, two-year-old children use repetition to verify the correctness of their utterances (Bavin 2012:356) but also to accept the term that the adult has just offered (Clark 2002:320). Finally, children also repeat to try producing a term that is new to them, as they still lack vocabulary (Clark 2002:321). As Clark states, "repetition serves to express agreement or interest, as a form of verbal play or as the repetition of other's questions" (2002:322). Children's use of specific structures highly depends on their exposure to the language (Tomasello 2003:98). Children iterate specific items, complex structures and multi-word combinations only after a great amount of experience.

I.B/ Language as a dynamic system of communication

I.B.1 Linguistic conventions and cultural awareness

In order to convey a message, children must learn the linguistic conventions linked to their language.

In fact, words are social conventions and involve social comprehension and cognitive abilities (Tomasello & Bates 2001:125). Conventionality is an underlying code assumed by the speakers of the same community (Clark 2002:143). At first, children lack experience and, therefore, do not quite grasp the different social, cultural and linguistic contexts they are in. Tomasello (2001:64) explains that from their first birthdays, infants start to comprehend that some gestures or noises made by mature speakers are directed at them. The essence of language acquisition is actually the mutual comprehension of conventional symbols used to direct the attention of others (Tomasello & Bates 2001:58). Linguistic conventions are referent points to understand intentions and are shared between the adult and the child (Tomasello & Bates 2001:126). It is through experience and exposure that linguistic and cultural features are understood. The psychologist and professor Fred Genesee expounds (1997:265):

It is important to keep in mind that learning language, one or two, entails more than learning a set of linguistic structures and patterns. It also entails learning how to use the linguistic code to communicate and interact appropriately and effectively with others […] Of most relevance to our concerns here, the ways parents and other care givers use language with infants and children are closely related to their cultural beliefs about the status and role of children in society As words are social conventions, language is seen as the product of civilization. Linguistic competence demonstrates social ability, and speaking the right language means being a member of society. As Clark explains, "language cover[s] virtually every aspect of becoming socialized, of learning how to behave. Language is the primary vehicle [to teach] children " (2002:32). Politeness is, for example, a fundamental element for children to achieve their goals (Clark 2002:346). Tomasello and Elizabeth Bates, two specialists in psycholinguistics, affirm that language acquisition is about "acquiring the mapping between word and world" (2001:111). Caregivers are the ones that use language to guide their children into the world of communication.

I.B.2 Input and joint attentional frame

The learning process relies on the joint attentional frame, a commitment between the two interlocutors that takes the form of role reversal imitation, a process in which children assume that what they say is, in most circumstances, a shared symbol in their linguistic circle. Children are, therefore, able to produce sentences on their own, knowing that their interlocutor understands and can reproduce the same communicative intentions (Tomasello 2003:28).

Input is all the communicative interactions that take place in a learning process. As a matter of fact, learning takes another physically present human being as the BFN (Bilingual Family Newsletter) clarifies: "input should come from interaction with people (talking, playing, or reading) and not just from DVDs and television. Children will develop a language if they feel they need it, and human interactants create that need" (V.26, N°4, 2009). Even if it is true that children learn fast, they can also forget as fast if they do not have solicitation (Hagège 1996:144). Thus, the notion of frequency or regularity is essential. Children use language for communicative purposes as language is a dynamic system (Clark 2002:32). As the linguist Annick De Houwer states, "two important parts of socialization are modeling, that is showing by example, and explicit teaching or telling " (2009:19).

In fact, children not only use language to make their point understood by their interlocutors but also to understand what other people are trying to communicate to them (Tomasello & Bates 2001:74).

Furthermore, children try to make themselves understood to obtain something, but most importantly, they attempt to understand what is being requested to act accordingly (Tomasello & Bates 2001:113).

The linguist Elizabeth Lanza identifies context as the "setting, topic and social characteristics (age, social class, ethnicity and education)" (1995:253). Therefore, language learning is determined through all these lenses. The notion of perception is central to learn how to describe language acquisition.

I.B.3 Adult's interpretations and linguistic repair

Another important feature in the development of communicative skills is the interpretation adults make of the child's utterances. In fact, as children enter language, they take advantage of all information available in context. Their earliest meanings occur from fast mapping and are limited due to a lack of experience (Bavin 2012:311). As seen above, language acquisition is a time-sensitive process. Therefore, adult repair or interpretation enlarge the range of meanings for the children and help them understand words faster. In addition, mature speakers tend to expand the communicative meanings of children to fit adult conventions. This process allows for words to have meaning even before children can give them meaning (Veneziano 2000:11).

Furthermore, adult interpretation allows children to broaden their lexicon. Adults interpret children's communicative attitudes with a wide range of linguistic terms. Mothers are also likely to over-explain meaning (Veneziano 2000:9). These mechanisms benefit the development of vocabulary and expand the children's lexicon faster. In fact, Veneziano has shown that children who mimic adult productions often have a larger lexical repertoire (2000:13).

Consequently, adults that interpret children's discourses and attitudes favor language acquisition and benefit the children in the creation of meaning, linguistic conventions and lexical development. The mother plays a specific role as she is usually the one that frequently mimics and interprets her children's communicative intentions. Those interpretations permit children to acquire their language faster (Veneziano 2000:13).

By their first year, infants have developed their two main sets of cognitive skills and experienced linguistic patterns to understand communicative references. Therefore, they begin to act on what they see and perform activities the way adults do (Tomasello & Bates 2001:124).

I.C/ First linguistic skills

I.C.1 First words

The combination of visual modalities and vocal skills marks the children's entry into multimodal constructions (Morgenstern, Caët & Limousin 2016:49). Word learning begins the months following the first birthday (Tomasello 2003:91). Its emergence depends on the development of each child's social and cognitive skills (Clark 2002:84). Typical first words are nouns due to the frequency of use in adult speech (Tomasello 2003:48). Moreover, at the same age, children usually acquire at least one deictic word -"a word invariably used together with a deictic gesture" (Clark 1978:95). Clark exemplifies, "deictic terms, or indexicals, are words that 'pick out' or 'point to' things in relation to the participants in the speech situation " (1978:87). For example, children can use person deixis (I, we, you) or place deixis (here, that).

What is more, toddlers quickly understand that they can use various strategies for their communication purposes. However, due to the children's lack of experience, adults often find it difficult to understand their earliest words. As a result, some utterances can be opaque because of their uncertain meaning (De Houwer 2009:212-213). This issue is recurrent because children need to learn how to differentiate words in sentences.

According to Tomasello (2003:63) Consequently, children start their linguistic journey with the smallest units that express whole communicative intentions: holophrases (Bavin 2012:85).

I.C.2 Holophrases and second pivot schema

At about 14 months of age, children use holophrases, which Tomasello defines as, "a single linguistic symbol (often with a specific intonational contour) to express their communicative intentions about an entire experiential scene" (2003:140). For example, 'That!' meaning 'I want that' or 'Ball?' meaning 'Where's the ball?' (Tomasello 2001:65). These linguistic symbols are void of syntactic marking (Tomasello 2003:140). Holophrases usually refer to speech acts where children have a particular communicative intention linked to a particular situation (Diessel 2013:5).

At around 18 months of age, children demonstrate a vocabulary outbreak which directly impacts their acquisition rate (Tomasello & Bates 2001:49). As a consequence, children start using pivot schemas, which involve multiple word combinations. Once more, no syntactic marking is involved (Tomasello 2003:140). Children divide their communicative intentions into a minimum of two component parts with, at times, a slot, for example, 'more cookie' or 'all gone juice' (Tomasello 2003:116). One word or phrase symbolizes the whole function of the communicative intention (Bavin 2012:89).

At this stage, children's vocabulary is generally composed of common nouns, verbs and adjectives (Clark 2002:169). The development of verb island constructions marks children's entrance into syntactic symbols.

I.C.3 Words combinations

Starting at 18 months of age, children develop item-based combinations such as verb island constructions. They use syntactic markers like "word order or grammatical morphology to indicate explicitly some participant roles in scenes, but they do this differently for different item-based constructions" (Tomasello 2003:140) as it depends on their amount of exposure. For example, children can say 'X broken', 'put X on Y' or 'hit with Z' (Tomasello 2007:6).

As children enter their second year of age, their speech accuracy increases consistently, and they can produce 200 to 500 words (Tomasello & Bates 2001:49). The elaboration of their grammar mainly depends on vocabulary size (Tomasello & Bates 2001:135). At this stage, children develop their linguistic skills to finally reach abstract constructions, where they can communicate their intentions through utterances (Tomasello 2003:139).

However, before reaching these adult-like forms of communication, children use early word combinations to negate some state of affairs (Clark 2002:167) and combine pivot schemas with negative terms such as 'no bed' (Diessel 2013:5). Those three linguistic stages (holophrases, pivot schemas and item-based constructions) are tools used by children that mark their rejection into, for the first time, the verbal sphere.

II -Early childhood linguistic tools and subjective positioning

II.A/ Negation

II.A.1 Rejection in co-verbal gestures

First rejection situations appear at around 15 months of age (Beaupoil 2011:35). As children's communicative skills start before their verbal occurrences, children are already able to show their desires or unwanted wishes prior to their first words. Studies conducted by psychoanalyst Rene Spitz demonstrate physiological refusals such as vomiting, crying or crawling (Beaupoil 2011:35). Through gestures, children can push away unwanted food or resist being dressed (Clark 1978:86) but also shake their heads to signify 'no' or avoid a situation, mobilizing their whole body (Morgenstern 2014a:7). At the same age, children understand that they are forbidden to do something, but are not able to understand why. In fact, children do not yet discern the cause-effect relationship because they do not possess rational categories (Beaupoil 2011:37). Therefore, rejection is the first extralinguistic form of negation that does not require the presence of syntactic negative markers (Dimroth 2010:7).

The first verbal 'no' is carried through the interlocutor. Children identify the one that forbids, integrates their symbols to then reproduce them (Beaupoil 2011:37). Children's first negation expresses their attitude towards a person or a situation (Caët 2013:128) and is situated in what is present and visible (Beaupoil 2011:34). As professor Dimroth explains (2010:5):

Children's first no does not mean 'no, this is not the case' and thus does not constitute a negative judgment, but means 'no it should not be like this', 'no I don't want that', 'no you should not do this', and therefore presents a rejecting statement.

As language acquisition is experience-dependent and time-sensitive, children learn the complexity of negation forms through their usage and the maturation of their semantic skills (Beaupoil 2011:34).

II.A.2 Internalized negation

The use of negation in early childhood participates in the emancipation of the child. In fact, children are, for the first time, able to position themselves as different from their caretakers (Beaupoil 2011:37). This separation also establishes a differentiation between the child and the object and allows the child to become active (Beaupoil 2011:38). Indeed, the use of 'no' appears in children's monologues and is thus "no longer bound to social action" (Dimroth 2010:8).

Furthermore, children have internalized negation as adults hear them say 'no' to themselves (Morgenstern 2014b:46m48s). Children address non-semantic negative statements to themselves, which recall the prohibited or injunctive 'no' of adults (Beaupoil 2011:38). Children also think out loud and communicate a negation, not towards a person, but to express their opinion. The use of 'no' becomes a personal projection, a way to externalize the child's thoughts (Morgenstern 2014b:46m48s).

Verbal negation is the result of abstraction as well as judgment and introduces the children's 'ego' (Beaupoil 2011:37). By expressing their desires and projects with the use of 'no', children construct their self. The use of verbal negation appears to refer to a wider process of self-awareness (Beaupoil 2011:38). The work of Spitz shows how children, from early on, have the capacity to detach themselves from the world around them and from the other. The use of 'no' expresses this differentiation (Caët 2013:36), and marks subjectivity.

II.A.3 Negation of abstract representations

Along with the acquisition of word combinations, children develop their use of negation into more complex linguistic representations. They start by replacing their simple 'no' with 'not' (Clark 1978:86).

By the age of two, children are able to use denial, which requires "two mental models: one representing the true state of the world, and one representing its false counterpart" (Dimroth 2010:8). Children distinguish the different layers of reality and play. Linguistically, this stage marks the use of contrasting verb forms, pronouns and demonstratives, to indicate whether children are part of the imagined scene or outside of it (Clark 2002:355). Thus, new representations emerge with the cognitive development of the child and permit more abstract subjects to be negated (Dimroth 2010:9). By children's third birthday, complex syntactical forms emerge such as 'nothing', 'neither' or 'nor'.

They also use words with restrictive values like 'only' or 'just'. They start to produce complex verbal expressions as in 'he is gone' instead of 'gone' (Beaupoil 2011:34), or 'I don't want to go out' instead of 'no out' (Clark 1978:86).

The development of negation is, therefore, a long process. Starting solely with gestures, children learn rejection, later internalizing their use of negation to express their desires and feelings. Finally, children use negation to deny abstract situations. From 12 to 24 months, children develop their linguistic competences, demonstrated through their cognitive skills and their new negative semantic categories that introduce mature complex productions (Beaupoil 2011:39). Negation is a device used for self-assertion and participates in the children's subjective positioning.

II.B/ Grammatical skills

II.B.1 Abstract structures and expression of modality

Abstract constructions represent the final linguistic stage of communicative intentions, wherein children construct adult-like linguistic structures (Tomasello 2003:140). As children become capable of fusing longer clauses, they can discuss more complex situations. Clark (2002:271) exemplifies:

When children learn how to combine clauses, they can talk about more complex events, and they gain additional tools for managing the flow of information. They can use coordination to link or contrast events, complementation to convey information about dependent event and, in their main verbs, for instance, reflect attitudes towards those subordinate events. It allows them to locate one event in time relative to another, to connect an event to its cause or result, and to identify the contingency between one event and the next -in actual fact or hypothetically As Clark designates, this stage allows children to syntactically make use of different verb forms to express their thoughts, connect events and convey complex information. In some languages, children must observe grammatical gender of nouns (Clark 2002:272) but also position themselves as male or female through language practices (Clark 2002:333). At approximately two years old, children learn to use modal verbs productively. 'Want' and 'know' are two typical verbs expressing modality, used by children to express their perspective (although they are not modal verbs since they are not auxiliaries) (Caët 2013:128).

II.B.2 Verb-argument constructions

Tomasello observed that, in English, children first learn verbs for dynamic events involving only one participant (2003:215). Arguments involving verb constructions tend to be organized around particular verbs in specific structural patterns. Children use deictic terms like 'that' or 'this' to refer to different objects and general-purpose verbs like 'do' to talk about different activities (Clark 2002:93).

The linguist Holger Diessel (2013:13) gives the example of 'want':

The earliest uses of want occur with a nominal complement (e.g. I wanna bag), but shortly thereafter children begin to use want also with simple infinitives (e.g. I wanna swim), which are gradually expanded to complex infinitival constructions (e.g. Want me open it?)

Gradually, children produce verb-argument constructions including multiple participants and static states of affairs (Tomasello 2003:215). Furthermore, in English, the names of actions are typically verbs (Clark 2002:178). Thus, children use action verbs to signify a result or a change of state and tend to add the morpheme -ed (Clark 2002:193), as in 'I played', 'he moved' or 'they looked'. English verbs are governed by the rule where the past tense of verbs is formed with the -ed form (Tomasello & Bates 2001:203). Verbs for activities are commonly used with the gerund, or the -ing form (she is running), and achievements of states are usually used with the past simple (he was happy) (Clark 2002:193).

II.B.3 Temporal and spatial markers

By the age of 15 months, children talk about events in the here and now only (Tomasello 2003:217) because they are highly accessible. In fact, understanding early children's utterances without context is nearly impossible, as they are produced in a specific time and space (Clark 2002:93). By the end of their third year, children mark their discourse with temporal and spatial symbols (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:18). The different interactions with adults play a major role, as scenarios and stories are structured in sequences and follow a storyline, allowing children to develop concepts about time and space (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:18). At this stage, they begin to talk about past and future scenarios in a time other than now, using adverbs such as 'when' (Tomasello 2003:217). As a rule, in English, names or relations in space are prepositions (Clark 2002:178).

Further on, children's cognitive skills and their ability to express their own perceptions induce the development of verb-argument constructions, as children also start to have stories to tell and scenarios to explain (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:18). The different use of verb forms linked with time and space manifests itself, as Tomasello concludes (2003:218), through:

The difference between he swam (simple past, perfective) in which the activity is complete, and he was swimming (past progressive, imperfective) in which the activity is in process and incomplete at some reference time Finally, the passive construction gives children the possibility to move non-agent elements into subject position (Tomasello & Bates 2001:227). Through their last fundamental grammatical skills acquired, children have reached adult-like linguistic structures and only need to deepen their experience of usage to widen their knowledge.

Conclusion of Chapter One

Through the journey of children's linguistic acquisition, linguistic competences are observably constructed with and in the language, thanks to the usage-based approach. Language is built upon major linguistic and cognitive processes that are developed gradually. The input plays a definite role in the development of communicative intentions, as the joint attentional frame allows children and adults to be in a dynamic system of communication. Since language structures arise from language use, children learn how to behave and adapt their speech according to situations and interlocutors.

Through experience and cognitive skills, children develop their subjectivity. First, with the use of negation, they start verbally demonstrating their desires, opinions and feelings. Second, children develop different verb-forms and express modality. Finally, their acquisitions of temporal and spatial markers increase their speech awareness and allow them to argument, explain and tell stories. These stages are crucial in language acquisition as they allow the children to position themselves as different from the other and develop their self-assertion. The next chapter describes self-markers in English and French as they permit children to express agentivity through various references.

Chapter Two: Acquisition of pronouns in French and English

I. Postulate on pronouns' acquisition I.A/ Emergence of personal pronouns

I.A.1 Pronouns acquisition hypotheses

The emergence of pronouns in young children has been a subject of multiple discussions. Three main theories have been developed: the person-role (Chamey, 1980), speech-role and name hypothesis [START_REF] Clark | From gesture gesture to word: on the natural history of deixis in language acquisition[END_REF]. These models address the order of acquisition of the various pronouns (first, second or third person), the modality (comprehension or production) and the speaker's position (listener or addressee) (Girouard, Ricard & Décarie 1997:3). Recent research on the subject shows that these theories remain unresolved as they do not always consider the subjective aspects of learning a language. Pronoun acquisition depends on linguistic, cultural and developmental features (Budwig 1985:1). Indeed, the usage-based theory reveals how linguistic conventions are learned from others (Morgenstern 2014b:19m55s). From this perspective, the development of personal pronouns depends on interaction and more specifically on the caretakers' input (Morgenstern 2014b:13m05s).

Furthermore, the usage-based approach puts children at the center of their learning and allows different modalities to be analyzed such as pronoun reversal or absence of pronouns (Caët 2013:54).

Many children use non-standard forms. This experimentation is part of the natural process in any phenomenon of acquisition. Children select, try, shape and reconstruct, sometimes simultaneously (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:15). Progressively, they build their linguistic inventories and appropriate certain forms permanently as a tool to assert their agentivity (Caët 2013:54).

Indeed, pronoun acquisition arises with self awareness. According to Bates (1990), the study of personal markers offers "a window into the child's emerging self-concept" (in Caët 2013:52).

Authorship and theory of mind are necessary for the occurrence of personal pronouns. Through the usage-based theory, this chapter aims at understanding the development of different forms of pronouns in both French and English as well as analyzing their use in the construction of agentivity towards others and subjectivity towards the world.

I.A.2 Authorship and agentivity

To interpret pronouns, toddlers need to master spatial markers. Their ability to express their own perceptions is then applied to pronoun comprehension and production (Wechsler 2010:30). As seen above, temporal and spatial markers develop greatly by the end of their third year; children are able to talk about past and future scenarios, interact with spatial distance and can talk about objects that are not spatially present (Meissner 2008:5). As a matter of fact, one of Professor Katherine Loveland's examinations of spatial point of view and standard use of pronouns marked a turn in the study of the latter. She stated that a "breakthrough in pronoun use comes at about the time the child learns that points of view can differ" (Loveland 1984:554 in Wechsler 2010:30). The development of pronouns appears conjointly with the child's consciousness of others and is necessary for the birth of self-consciousness (Caët 2013:35). Through the establishment of their cognitive abilities, young children develop their understanding of pronouns and, more precisely, the "model-building ability also known as theory of mind" (Wechsler 2010:30).

As a matter of fact, interactions with caretakers, particularly role plays and routine games, indicate agentivity. By using agent pronouns, children position themselves as speakers but also as unique authors of a singular instance. This authorship allows children to become accountable for their statements and, as a consequence, for their relationship with others along with their effects on the world. Moreover, this commitment is reliable only if the discourse is understood by other agents, engaged in the verbal transaction, waiting to become agents themselves (Caët 2013:33). References to oneself and to the other are not simple acts of description through discourse but performative actions including both the speaker and the addressee (Caët 2013:34).

Further, agentivity is also verbalized early through opposition markers and negative constructions (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:14). Children resort to authorship to mark their agentivity, "constructed in and thanks to social interaction" (Morgenstern 2012:1).

I.A.3 Self-assertion and subjectivity

Personal pronouns become strong symbols to mark separation and individualization. Through references to oneself and to the other, children learn to contrastingly mark their self within their familiar circle. Surprisingly, the diversity of the forms used by adults helps children to differentiate the various pragmatic functions of personal pronouns (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:7).

Additionally, psychoanalyst Harold Blum (2004:545) introduced the 'separation-individuation process' (in Meissner 2008:5). By resorting to agentivity via second or third person pronouns, children mirror their selves through other points of view and different perspectives (Morgenstern 2012:5). From this angle, language opens new opportunities for self action, in which children can affirm their desires, verbalize their wishes and refute parental expectations. The child understands that, "what I think and say to another differs from what that other says and might think in responding to me" (Meissner 2008:5).

These subjective discourses about oneself and the other are central to communication and interpersonal exchanges. Pronouns are, therefore, profoundly social (Caët 2013:34). Personal pronouns mark agentivity, as self references have a contrastive value and, therefore, denote subjectivity (Morgenstern 2010:5).

I.B/ Particularities of English and specificities of French

I.B.1 Grammar-vocabulary relationship in English

In English, the first and second personal pronoun forms differ. First-person markers are better diversified, with a varied sequence of sounds and structures. Second-person indicators have the same 'you' form morphologically and phonologically (Caët 2013:45). Additionally, their objective and possessive structures do not distinguish number, although the reflexive does (yourself/yourselves) (Wechsler 2010:4). Auxiliaries (be/have/do) do not change form depending on the second singular (you), first (we) and third plural (they) (you/we/they are) (Caët 2013:44). Moreover, first and second personal pronouns are free morphemes, meaning they can be separated from the verb by different components. They are also considered 'strong' pronouns, as they are used to emphasize the referent, such as the 'stressed I'. The infinite form can also appear as a conjugate form such as 'I do it everyday' or 'do it!' (Caët 2013:44).

First person pronoun

In fact, English holds a powerful link between grammar and vocabulary (Tomasello & Bates 2001:147). The language can be inflected and vary the conditions of words. For example, English objective pronouns can occur as 'subjects' in some constructions, as in 'help me find it' or 'let her do it' (Tomasello 2003:135).

I.B.2 Complexities of personal pronouns in French

The acquisition of first-person pronouns in French constitutes a complex category to master. Young children use multiple models, from non-standard markers (moi, tu, il/elle, 'name', 'nicknames', predicate without subjects) to standard forms (je, moi je) (Morgenstern, Caët & Limousin 2016:50).

Notably, the position of the pronoun depends on the modality of the utterance (affirmative or imperative) (Caët 2013:40). First and second person forms can differ depending on the tenses. The verbs être, avoir and aller serve as auxiliaries to construct the present perfect j'ai été (I have been), the future simple j'irai (I will go) and sometimes the past simple elle m'a vu (she saw me) (Caët 2013:44). Regarding morphology, both first and second pronouns have comparable variations. As opposed to English, each French form is unique. Markers are different in all syntactic positions. Yet, from a phonological point of view, second person pronouns contain the same first phoneme [t], as the English [y] (Caët 2013:44). Additionally, 'strong' pronouns are the ones used to accentuate the referent, such as moi je. They are placed after the verb, as in laisse-moi tranquille ('leave me alone'). 'Clitic' pronouns usually have a 'weak form' since they need to be coupled with a 'strong' pronoun for emphasis. 'Clitic' pronouns cannot be separated from the verb except by another clitic and are usually placed in front of the verb, as in tu m'attends (wait for me) or t'entends (you hear?) (Caët 2013:45). The elided forms t' and m' appear in set expressions (Morgenstern 2012:12).

First person pronoun

Possessive pronouns and determiners also differ depending on the gender and number (Caët 2013:40). For example, the masculine plural pronoun ils does not necessarily refer to a group that only includes males but at least one member is always male (Wechsler 2010:9). The complex system of the third person pronoun lui, leur or les also delays comprehension (Girouard, Ricard & Décarie 1997:13). These different rules and structures can generate confusion and lead to a minor delay in the acquisition of first person pronouns in French.

I.B.3 Similarities in both languages

English and French exhibit morphological and syntactic similarities as they are both SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) languages. Further, grammatical subjects are nearly always expressed. The present and the imperative are tenses in which only personal pronouns concede the identification of the grammatical subject (Caët 2013:44). Additionally, the grammatical person can recurrently be recognized on the predicate. For example, in French, the verbs être, avoir and aller take different forms depending on the pronouns (tu es/il est, tu vas/il va). In English, the pronouns also differ with the verb 'be' (you/we/they are) (Caët 2013:44).

The morphology of the first name in both languages does not change according to its position in the sentence or to its syntactic function (Caët 2013:55). As a result, children experiment with expressions like 'name' or 'mine' (à moi). Tomasello asserts that "among children's earliest words are quite often names for parents, siblings, peers, pets or friends […] proper names are used to indicate single individuals" (Tomasello 2003:204). Caretakers also use first names and personal pronouns depending on the point of views. For example, mothers tend to refer to themselves as 'mother' if they take the point of view of the child but also as 'she/he' or 'we' if their point of view is the second person singular 'you'. (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:7). They also tend to end their sentences with expressions such as 'here… give' (tiens… donne) or 'baby's… Mummy's' (à toi… à Maman). When they talk to children, adults orient their discourses towards request or proposition, such as 'want me to read it to you?' (Caët 2013:52).

As a matter of fact, in both French and English (and most Indo-European languages), self markers are subjective references and relate to our selves almost without our knowledge (Maillard 1991:57 in Caët 2013:32). Consequently, as Tomasello expounds, "pronouns are the opposite of names. They are used to refer not to one individual but to a wide array of entities, even unknown ones" (Tomasello 2003:205).

I.C/ Developmental path of pronouns

I.C.1 First language acquisition stages

Due to their semantic essence, first person pronouns force children to self identify. No other apparent linguistic tools have this effect (Wechsler 2010:12). The first self-reference is usually the given name or nicknames. Children use it when "they successfully recognize themselves in photographs, drawings, and mirror images" (Clark 2001:287). Therefore, children can create constructions such as 'proper name+object'. For example, the sentence 'Adam truck' means 'this is Adam's truck' (Clark 2001:288). The construction 'proper name+verb' is produced to mark a distance towards the listener, such as 'Adam go' indicating 'Adam is going away' (present situation) or 'Adam went away' (past self) (Caët 2012:19).

The first and second person pronouns appear early in comprehension and share the same semantic complexity: they refer to the ever-changing roles in interaction between listener and addressee. The first personal pronouns to be acquired are the deictic 'I' and 'You'. The same referent is sometimes 'I' and sometimes 'you', depending on the position of the speaker (Caët 2013:44). The pair appears at about 2;6 or 3;0 and is used as a 'first person' form (Clark 1978:99). A deictic shift becomes possible only after children are able to assume the perspective of other people (Tomasello 2003:204). The semantic nature of the two self-markers further relates to subjective references. In context of opposition, both languages allow the use of 'myself' (moi-même) and 'yourself' (toi-même) (Caët 2013:40).

First language acquisition

Stage

I.C.2 The first-person pronoun

The acquisition of self-reference as a phenomenon is an unsolved dilemma. When studying the process, one must distinguish between (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:3):

-the psychological nature (self-awareness)

-the linguistic problem (different uses of self-references)

-the interaction problem (variety of pronouns used in the input)

In fact, the term 'subject' refers to four different notions [START_REF] Morgenstern | The self as other : selfwords and pronominal reversals in language acquisition[END_REF]:1):

-the grammatical subject (the first argument of a verb)

-the semantic subject (the agent, the one that experiences)

-the topic or theme -the speaker 'I' marks the one that speaks and, simultaneously, a discourse of the actions taking place around that subject (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:8). To master the use of 'I', children need to (Morgenstern 2010:4-5):

-identify themselves other than by name;

-mark themselves both as subject and speaker and unite the two into one form;

-note that they can be the object of the discourse;

-refer to themselves in the subject form.

What is more, when acquiring the first-person pronoun, children work on two fronts (Morgenstern 2012:4;Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:16):

1/ The referential value: regardless of the grammatical subject used, children refer to themselves.

This notion is used in opposition, to contrast the other. The first-person utterances focus on the predicate 'who', using 'name', 'nicknames' or 'I stressed' (moi je).

2/ The enunciative value: children mark their points of view, desires and positions. The first-person utterances focus on the predicate 'what', using 'I' (je) by omitting the pronoun (holophrastic production) or by using a verb without a previous subject (Ø).

The acquisition of the first-person pronoun is, therefore, a long process as the variety of different self-markers and the diversity of the input, joint with the cognitive and linguistic abilities, create particularly interesting productions.

I.C.3 Functions of the different self-references

Five main principles have been proposed to explain children's use of self-references. The next table

depicts their functions and specificities in both English and French. "Tout à l'heure" "Je suis allée… " "J'ai été…"

N°

Table 4 -The five principles of self-references and their specificities in first language acquisition (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:9-10;1996:10) Children use various self-identifications simultaneously, as they learn to refer to themselves through various points of view (Morgenstern 2010:2), and mark distinct perspectives on agency (Budwig 1989:1). Some of those alternative forms (null forms, pronoun reversal) are used between 1;6 and 3;0 (Morgenstern 2006:3). As Clark states, "children make use of alternative word-orders for talking about the entity affected rather than the agent from an early age -around age two to two and a half onwards" (Clark 2002:244).

As two Indo-European languages from the same Roman branch, English and French share similar characteristics, notably in early self-markers. However, in first language acquisition, some selfreferences bear a peculiar pattern. The section below offers a closer analysis of the singular firstperson forms and non-standard forms produced by children.

II. Singularities in the acquisition of first-person forms

II.A/ Early self-references

II.A.1 'My' in the pre-verbal position

The peculiar use of 'my' in the pre-verbal position by young native speakers is a distinction worth noting in the English language, as the frontier between noun and verb can lead to noteworthy constructions. Toddlers learning English show a particular usage of 'my', as though the form jointed together 'I' and 'me' semantically and phonetically (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1994:15). This natural stage in the construction of the language is only found in English where 'my' tends to be used instead of 'I', so children naturally use it in the pre-verbal position. The forms mon and ma do not appear in French in the same contexts (Morgenstern 2006:4).

As seen above, the name is employed to mark a distance towards the listener, while the stabilization of the 'I' form symbolizes desires and intentions where agentivity is not an issue (Caët 2013:65). 'My' also expresses wishes and requests, for example in the construction 'my+object'. In this situation, control is once more not questioned (Clark 2001:288). However, Budwig (1983) noted that 'my' was used by children to assert their position, hence, maintaining or gaining control over an action or an object (Budwig 1989:4). Her findings indicate that the pronominal form emerges in situations of protest or dispute to generate change in the environment, both through physical attempts and at the discursive level (Budwig 1989:14-16).

Further, children do not yet differentiate between the possession of an object and of an action, as in 'my toy' and 'my open' (fourth principle). The form is used indifferently with verbs and nouns to express control and contrast with the other. The findings of [START_REF] Morgenstern | Quand l'enfant se désigne comme sujet[END_REF] in the corpus of Peter, an English native speaker, exhibit a complex acquisition between the -ING and BE+ING forms.

For example, 'my writing', could refer to the accomplishment of a writing project. On the contrary, the construction 'name+is writing' represents a verbal form. The child, therefore, uses the 'my+ING' form to display possession and operate a contrasting effect (Morgenstern 2006:7).

II.A.2 Possessive pronoun 'me' and moi

Unlike names, moi and 'me' express identity between the agent and the speaker. These selfreferences become signs of self-assertion (first principle). They denote opposition and comparison but do not yet precise the identity between the grammatical and the semantic subject (Caët 2013:66). The construction 'me+verb' appear to further the distance between child and adult (Caët 2012:4). In her analysis of Léonard, [START_REF] Morgenstern | Quand l'enfant se désigne comme sujet[END_REF] noted the use of moi in the pre-verbal position to express contrast. For example, when children say, 'me jump' or 'me go home', they establish themselves as agents. 'Me' actually answers the question 'who?' since children use it to distinguish themselves from others (Morgenstern 2006:6). Professor Nancy Budwig (1995) suggests that phrases using 'me' place children as subjects affected by their own action (Caët 2013:65).

As a matter of fact, the structure 'me+verb+object' derives directly from input. Adults speaking to children tend to request or propose ideas such as 'want me to read it to you?' (Caët 2013:52) or 'want me to get it?' (Morgenstern 2006:6). The construction 'me+verb', such as 'me do it', is an explicit influence from the adult's speech as in 'let me do it'. Caretakers produce a great amount of sentences where 'me' is the predicate; therefore, children naturally reproduce them (Caët 2012:5).

Moi is, furthermore, commonly used as a set expression by English and French native speakers. The grammatical process displays two complementary strategies. In her work by Anaé on the acquisition of French possessive markers from 13 months to three years old, Professor Martine Sekali (2012:3) demonstrates that:

The child either over-generalises possessive markers in synthetic, formulaic constructions (donne ma main, c'est l'anniversaire à moi), or, on the contrary, she splits the constructions into over-analytic forms (mon truc de moi) associated to complex relational functions.

To reinforce their agentivity, children then employ the construction moi je or 'stressed I' in order to further subjectivity and emphasize their desires and projects.

II.A.3 'Stressed I' and moi je

While 'me' and moi underline opposition, the 'stressed I' and moi je express 'will and project' (second principle), as in the construction "moi+je+verbe" (Caët 2012:4). Children use these forms to assert their desire to be the agent in situations with several narrators. An English child would say, 'I'm gonna do it' stressing the 'I', (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:9), while a French child would use c'est moi qui y vais (I am the one going) or moi je le connais pas (I don't know him) (Caët 2013:40).

Only when the other is present does the child use the 'stressed I' or moi je in order to increase subjectivity. When children evoke what is not present, they are able to discuss their feelings and actions without having to position themselves against the other; therefore, they identify themselves with the fully-fledged 'I' or je (fourth principle). As a result, the stability of these two pronouns appears with temporal markers in expressions such as tout à l'heure or 'when I be three' (fifth principle) (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:16).

A first major difference between English and French emerges as the 'stressed I' can be difficult to discriminate compared to the clear structure moi je. Audio recordings are fundamental to study this kind of personal pronoun. In fact, native English toddlers tend to adopt 'my' in the subject position, as they phonetically and syntactically combine 'me' with 'I' (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:19).

II.B/ Non-standard forms

II.B.1 Predicate without subject

In both English and French, as Clark expounds, "the subjects must be mentioned with a nominal or a pronoun; young children at first omit them as much as 30 percent of the time" (2002:218). According to Tomasello, subjects tend to appear in utterance positions and are prosodically weak, so children naturally eliminate them during production. Additionally, children tend to express elements that contain only the most information, and subjects are typically given information (2003:217).

As a matter of fact, most predicates without subject produced by the child are expressed in the imperative form. Self references are almost never explicit when children express their projects (second principle) or desires (third principle). In these contexts, the semantic subject and speaker are absent, which matches the hypothesis stating that verbs are enough to express actions (do), desires (get) and wills (want) (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:10). From the usage-based perspective, Tomasello proposed that predicates without subject are produced by children because of the intensive use of the imperative in the input; however, his theory was only tested on his daughter (2003:216).

'Null forms' (Morgenstern, Brigaudiot & Nicolas 1996:10) in the imperative can also be interpreted as holophrastic production. Indeed, the utterance dodo! is not just a word but holds a predicative value, meaning 'I want to sleep' or 'they are sleeping', depending on the context. These structures are, therefore, not stripped of their syntactic marking but instead bared of idiomatic linguistic constructions (Sekali 2012:2).

II.B.2 Pronoun reversal

Some children reference themselves by mistaking the deictic 'I' and 'you' during their third year. The confusion, commonly called pronoun reversal errors, leads caretakers to fear personality duplication (Morgenstern 2010:4). This phenomenon has brought various researchers to draw hypotheses to explain reversals (Morgenstern 2012:6-7):

o The name hypothesis: the idea that pronouns are used as names [START_REF] Clark | From gesture gesture to word: on the natural history of deixis in language acquisition[END_REF] o The person hypothesis (Charney 1980): a given pronoun is taken to refer to a constant person or set of persons, leading to pronoun reversals o The risk-taking hypothesis: precocious children take the risk of using pronouns and fail to perform a deictic shift (Dale & Crain-Thoreson 1993) o Lack of semantic knowledge: not knowing which words are pronouns (Bellugi & Klima 1982) o Simple imitation of the speech heard: "I'll help you" uttered by a child may contain two pronominal reversals and the child may be asking for help which would be a consequence of reliance on imitative, holistic strategies of language learning o Lack of understanding of perspective shifting (Loveland 1984) o The nature of the input could be impoverished (Oshima-Takane 1992), and the child needs to observe speech directed to others containing personal pronouns

The first-person pronouns 'I' and 'me' and the second person pronoun 'you' appear relatively earlier in the child's comprehension (Tomasello 2003:202) in both English and French. An analysis by S. Chiat (1981:12) demonstrated the complexity of the phenomenon through the study of Matthew, a unilingual English native speaker. She declares that the child distinguishes perfectly between the first and second person pronouns in comprehension but confuses the two in production. His use of firstperson pronouns is correct half of the time, but his use of second person pronouns is almost always incorrect. Her conclusions demonstrate that the theories are unable to reliably interpret these pronoun confusions, leaning instead towards a subjective understanding and individual analysis of the phenomenon, specifically through the study of pronoun reversals in autistic children (1981:20).

In fact, all children produce such reversals to different degrees. For example, children with first sign language acquisition produce pronoun reversal errors, even though the visual aspect of the language leads to more transparent self-references (Caët 2013:60). Nevertheless, while a large number of children produce such reversal errors, they do so rarely and during a short period of time. According to researcher Stéphanie Caët (2013:60), only 20% of children produce these mixes in a significant amount, and only 20% of their discourse contains first and second person reversals.

II.B.3 The alter ego

One last peculiar use of pronouns is employed during a time in which children comment on an action (fourth principle) by using the second pronoun 'you' to refer to themselves. This performance is, in fact, a way for children to speak through someone else's perspective. Children start speaking 'for' the adult, verbalizing what 'should' be said or what they would like to hear. Actually, linguist Morgenstern specifies that "we might not consider the use of the pronoun 'you' as a reversal and as being the incorrect form but think of the whole sentence as being uttered by the wrong speaker" (2012:8).

Moreover, children simply adopt the adult's input, as they usually hear those utterances in the same type of situation. The misuse of 'you' could be the children showing their linguistic and cultural knowledge, as they have internalized adult past discourses in similar situations (Morgenstern 2012:15). The language becomes a tool to express someone else's words albeit edited in a way that is no longer imitated (Morgenstern 2006:14).

Nevertheless, the use of 'you' to self-identify creates an alternative persona that children use to talk about themselves as naughty or extraordinary, verbalizing an idiocy or an exploit. It is as though someone else was telling the story. The third person creates a breach between the speaker and the actor (Morgenstern 2010:3). This phenomenon happens concurrently with when children use their name or the third person when they see an image of themselves. This double idea, called the 'alterego', can be considered "a device to mark both identity and otherness" (Morgenstern 2012:15) as it indicates children's ability to differentiate themselves from the adult, using 'you' as a self-reference.

In fact, the 'ego' first appears through verbal negation to refer to the wider process of self-awareness (Beaupoil 2011:38).

What is more, this 'alter-ego' allows children to separate their day, from their past afternoon at daycare and their present evening at home, for example. In her study of Léonard, a French native speaker, Morgenstern (2006:10) describes how the child uses his body to create a cinematographic scene in which he is both the actor of the past event and the narrator of the present, creating a line of connection between the two. Finally, the author notes the mother's behavior, as she continues the dialogue without questioning the 'you'. She even compels him to know more, whereby acknowledging the personal states and subjective experiences of her son.

Conclusion of Chapter Two

The exploration of self-markers in French and English demonstrates the complex but fascinating path towards the development of children's agentivity and language acquisition. Once children have mastered personal pronouns, they have become speakers, subjective enunciators that can declare their thoughts, impose judgment or affirm control. Their agentivity allows them to claim their present desires, enunciate their past actions and inform of their future projects. They now have verbally separated themselves from the other, marking their selves through speech in a continual dialogue (Morgenstern 2012:19). Their developmental path of pronouns exhibits semantic manoeuvres. Children perform non-standard forms (null forms, predicates without subject) but also confuse self-markers (pronouns reversal) and display self-performance (alter-ego). What is more, the French and English languages present similar features. They share semantic complexity, including morphological and syntactic similarities, notably in early self-references. Yet, each language holds peculiarities. On one hand, English possesses inflections that can vary the condition of words (from noun to verb, for instance) but not their meaning, the second person references have the same 'you' form morphologically and phonologically. On the other hand, French pronouns are quite diverse and complex to acquire due to their shifting format deriving from gender, number, modality and tense.

First-person pronouns are undoubtedly not the only means of expression. Subjectivity is created through the association of personal first pronouns and predicates referring to internal states (Caët 2013:34). Thus, the next chapter expounds the relationship between linguistic self-assertion and subjective building in native bilingual learners.

Chapter Three: bilingualism and biculturalism

I. A brief review of the sociolinguistic debate over bilingualism I.A/ Policies that refute or do not encourage bilingualism

I.A.1 One country=One language

The concept of bilingualism is controversial. Early writings on the subject underlined it as a pathological state, associating it with emotional impairment, cognitive alienation and linguistic dissonance (Pavlenko 2005:25-27). In fact, speaking two languages in a country that formalizes only one has historically been a source of marginalization. As Romaine states, "bilingualism is often seen as incidental and has been treated as a special case or as a deviation from the norm" (1995:8). In fact, the link between a country and its official language is not to be undermined. Language ideologies in Western democracies raised debates over bilingualism, as far as claiming linguistic schizophrenia (Pavlenko 2006:28). Countries strive for their supremacy, the unilingual tradition and the illusion that it produces undisputed power remains a persuasive argument (Hagège 1996:14). Romaine (1995:23)

explains:

In Europe, it has generally been the case that language differences have been associated with distinguishable territories, and later, the nation-states occupying those territories. Because of the identification of national identities with linguistic integrity, heterogeneity has tended to be limited to the frontiers and was for that reason local and peripheral. Thus, 25 of 36 of the European countries are officially monolingual. In most of them, however, there are minorities whose languages do not have the same rights as those granted to the official languages.

The objective of unilingual policies is to train peers with equal political and social rank to attain a balanced level of civilization (Ronjat 2013:140). As a result, languages, such as Basque or Breton in France, do not have equal civilization values, as being civilized means speaking the official language of the country. As Romaine notes, language is often the first symbol in a larger fight for the acknowledgment of rights for minorities (1995:322).

As a matter of fact, this concept of separation -'us' against 'them' -is not recent. A striking example was found in the political discourse of the British Home Secretary in 2002, in which " [David Blunkett] remarked that the use of English-rather than the native language of the target community-in Asian British households would help 'overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils generational relationships' in immigrant families" (Salmani Nodoushan & Garcia Laborda 2014:4). Ronjat suggests that the equation 'one language=one nation' (2013:15) is endangered by people who speak more than one language. Therefore, it has been a matter of exclusion and persecution, an imposed view on the world. Furthermore, the association between a country and its culture is also dominant.

I.A.2 One nation=One culture

Hagège introduces the 'national ear' referring to the filter of sounds appertaining to the mother tongue in cerebral recording, in contrast with cognitively perceiving all sounds (1996:34-35). For example, the French language only has 34 phonemes whereas English has 42. Given this fact, other phonemes -and, consequently, other languages -may sound odd, unusual, and marginal. The national ear is connected to languages but also to cultures, as it is linked to one territory, one entity.

Many countries implement policies that exclude different languages and cultures. Romaine clarifies 1995:324-325):

France practices a policy of cultural exclusionism and sees itself as a largely monolingual nation. It was not until 1951 that limited rights were given to some linguistic minorities.

However, the designation of 'language' has been withheld from the varieties spoken by them. The French language is an important symbol of this ideology. The name of the language is the same as the nationality and is an adjectival form of the noun used as the name of the country: France. When the term le Français is used, the only referent can be the language; one does not need to invoke the specific designation la langue Française. The equation between nation and language occurs throughout western societies, and while not a uniquely western mode of viewing the relationship between language and group, it has, nevertheless, been an extremely influential one […] In such contexts the beliefs in the existence of labeled and described languages called 'French', 'English', 'Greek', 'Spanish', etc., allows languages to be seen as possessions, whose integrity and purity must be safeguarded.

According to Romaine, French is, therefore, not only a language, but it also represents the values, customs and traditions of the country. The possibility of modifying the language is a vision of horror for the stability of the society. To forbid such changes from happening, the author (Romaine 1995:325) concludes that: Most of the European nations have established language academies to protect and develop their languages, which are seen as cultural treasures. The Académie française, which was founded in 1637, aimed to fix and preserve the language […]. The organization called Francophonie was created as an international network among francophone nations to ensure the status of French as an international language. Thus, maintaining the language is maintaining a social structure and a cultural order; meanwhile, the disparity of one official language in different countries raises linguistic and cultural challenges.

I.A.3 "Standard" language

The English and French languages are official in many different countries. However, they do not have the same prestige depending on where they are spoken. The BNF declares (2010: V27, N1):

It is imperative that all children are taught that linguistic differences are natural, if not essential markers of cultural identity. Just as we must take time to teach our children that it is wrong to discriminate against people who speak a different language, we must also teach them that it is equally wrong to discriminate against people who speak the same language differently.

Considering the English language, British English or American English could be considered the 'right' language, while Scottish English or Jamaican English may not even be considered. The linguistic differences, often caused by colonialism, are linked to a strong history and are, therefore, difficult to reconcile. Nowadays, some English teachers still emphasize these differences, as if one way of pronouncing or speaking was better than the other. As seen above, linguistic discrimination and marginalization are forms of "internal colonialism" (Romaine 1995:23). This need for opposition creates confusion in one's identity. Languages, cultures and nations play an important part in the building of individuality; separating or minimizing them can be psychologically catastrophic. The BNF demonstrates awareness on the matter (2010: V27, N1):

According to modern research in education and applied linguistics […] it has been found that pupils who are told that their heritage language is 'substandard', 'deviant', 'inappropriate', or 'inadequate' may suffer profound feelings of confusion, isolation, powerlessness, frustration, and shame.

The increasing number of non-native English speakers is another variable. English is now perceived as a threat to France. In fact, the French language strives to possess international prestige, and the significant borrowing of English words in French 'endangers' it. The French nation actively tries to stop Anglicisms, or 'Franglais' as they see English loans as a contamination of the French language (Romaine 1995:325). As a natural phenomenon, languages contribute to one another.

Learning two languages is a communal acquirement. In fact, many families have been bilingual and bicultural for centuries, but the increase in mobility in the Western world has emphasized this phenomenon (Lanza 1997:1).

I.B/ Being bilingual and bicultural from birth

I.B.1 Recognition of bilingualism

The current context of globalization has raised awareness of bilingualism, but most of all, it has permitted the encounter between people from different parts of the world. The creation of the Bilingual Newsletter Family in 1984 is proof that a guide for bilingual relationships and families was needed. The exponential growth of couples with different native languages, and their wish to create a bilingual family is of great interest. As a matter of fact, "there are about thirty times as many languages as there are countries. This entails the presence of bilingualism in practically every country of the world" (Romaine 1995:8). This non-negligible number makes it necessary to extend research on the matter. Furthermore, it was not until 2001 that the European Day of Languages -26 th of September -was established. It promotes multilingualism and awareness of foreign languages (BNF, V.27, N°1, 2010). The recognition and celebration of the acquisition of more than one language is a novelty to encourage. In addition, the benefits of language skills are an aspect of bilingualism that is often undermined or even refuted.

The supposed linguistic schizophrenia of bilinguals comes from the comparison between monolinguals and bilinguals, often trying to show the better skills of one group over the other.

However, it has been proven that both characteristics -bilingual and unilingual -should each be identified as one complete aspect. Bilingualism does not require cognitive aptitudes that do not already exist in the monolingual brain (Hagège 1996:10). Research suggests that comparing one bilingual to two monolinguals is no longer adequate (Romaine 1995:119). Bilingualism is actually a concept in itself and has to be studied as its own empirical subject. Grosjean (2010:78) adds that:

Various writings […] propose that the bilingual is an integrated whole who cannot easily be decomposed into two separate parts. The bilingual is not the sum of two (or more) complete or incomplete monolinguals; rather, he or she has a unique and specific linguistic configuration. The coexistence and constant interaction of the languages in the bilingual have produced a different but complete language system. The only acceptable comparison is to demonstrate how monolingual communities are not homogeneous either; they speak in various ways depending on style, where they are from, and their social background (Romaine 1995:9).

To study native bilingualism, one must keep in mind its complexity. The socialization factor is a primary element to understand it, as the way children learn will construct their identity and impact their values and notions of their surroundings.

I.B.2 How is native bilingualism achieved?

Children learn two languages from birth in various ways. When expecting a child, it is important that linguistically diverse couples prepare themselves for challenging situations related to language and culture (De Houwer 2009:89).

In fact, because children learn actively through socialization, they develop intersubjective learning.

Their socializing agents (caretakers, parents, siblings, community) give them the tools to communicate. As De Houwer states, "learning to understand a language requires that you have had opportunities to hear it. Learning to speak a language implies that you have had opportunities to speak it. These opportunities are vital" (2009:95). Harmonious learning acquisition requires an environment where both hearing and speaking co-exist. Thus, the child needs to be immersed in a communicative and socializing relationship to acquire two languages natively.

According to Lanza (1997:12), bilingual first language acquisition refers to situations in which:

-(a) a child is first exposed to language B no later than a week after he or she was first exposed to language A -(b) a child's exposure to languages A and B is fairly regular, i.e the child is addressed in both languages almost every day Lanza considers that the acquisition of two languages before the age of three can be considered native bilingualism whereas the introduction of a second language after the age of three is considered early language acquisition (1997:11). The debate on this matter is sharp. This paper focuses on native bilingualism as the regular exposure to two languages from birth in the family sphere.

An accurate image to explain bilingualism is used by Hagège, who compares it to ambidexterity.

Handling two languages for a bilingual is as natural as using two hands for an ambidextrous person (1996:224). This ambivalence also prevails in biculturalism.

I.B.3 Bilingual and bicultural

Bilingualism and biculturalism are two different concepts. In the example taken by Hagège, a French native child born to Arabic parents can be bicultural, exposed to the Arabic culture at home and to the French culture in the community, but only speak French (1996:261-262). Romaine takes the example of refugees that often reject their home culture to adapt to the new one (1995:43). The next generation could, therefore, evolve in a monolingual and monocultural environment -the one of the new home -even though the parents are actually both bicultural and bilingual. The extent to which both cultures and languages 'contaminate' each other is case sensitive, as each family evolves in its own linguistic and cultural context.

Ronjat explains that multilingual and pluricultural competences are defined through communicative abilities, both linguistic and cultural. These skills are not distinct but rather compose a complex and versatile being (2013:145). The harmony between these abilities is crucial in identity building, as feeling that they belong to neither of their two cultures is a possibility. In the BNF (V.26,N°4,2009), Grosjean evokes this subject with clarity:

If bilingual children are in contact with two or more cultures (for example, one in the home and the other in the larger community), then parents will want to be mindful of what it means to be bicultural and the process of identifying with one's cultures. Since becoming bicultural is at times more difficult than becoming bilingual, parents will want to spend time with children, and especially adolescents, helping them come to terms with their biculturalism. Some young people choose to belong to just one culture, either culture A or culture B, but by so doing they are turning away from one of their two cultures; in the long run they may well become dissatisfied with their decision. Others may reject both cultures. This is not a satisfactory solution either as they will often feel marginal or ambivalent. The optimal solution is to identify with both cultures, A and B, sometimes to varying degrees, and hence to accept fully one's biculturalism. This identity decision may take some time to reach and it is critical that the young person be accompanied along the way by his or her parents, family members and friends. As I state in my book, biculturals who are allowed to be who they are, and who accept their dual heritage, are invaluable members of society who bridge the gap between the cultures they belong to.

Language and culture are hardly separable. To be able to speak two languages proficiently, people need to know the social environment in which they have to evolve and, therefore, take the other culture in as part of the linguistic process.

To conclude, the acquisition of different languages varies "from culture to culture, from social group to social group, from family to family, indeed from conversation to conversation" (Lanza 1995:6).

Language is a marker of social identity and is culturally based. Learning two languages from birth is a challenging task, but also a multifaceted commitment. Through their unique scope, native bilingual children can build their subjectivity in multiple ways and demonstrate their agentivity using various linguistic tools.

II. Native bilingualism: developmental path II.A/ Learning habitats: Bilingual first language acquisition

II.A.1 Stages in bilingual learning

The overall process of first language acquisition shares the same features from monolingualism to bilingualism. Learning two languages in a bilingual family setting, or, as the case may be, not learning two languages in such a setting, involves a family dynamic in which language may take on a much more emotionally loaded meaning that is usually the case in wholly monolingual families where all members share the same linguistic identity.

First

The primary agent for harmonious bilingual language acquisition is the family. Peer relations play a crucial role in social acceptance and social status (De Houwer 2009:99). As Grosjean posits, "children are extremely receptive to the attitudes of their parents, teachers and peers" (2010:175).

II.A.2 Frequency and diversity of input

Lanza defines the exposure to a language as the combination of the home and the community (1997:250). In fact, the community and the extended family play an important part in the development of harmonious bilinguals. As De Houwer states, "a bilingual family is not an isolated island but part of a larger community" (2009:12).

As a matter of fact, the role of the extended family and the community positively correlates with the frequency and the diversity of the input. De Houwer clarifies that "since small children tend to spend a lot of time with the same few speakers; there is a large potential effect of the specific ways in which these speakers talk on children's attempts to say words" (2009:180). By being exposed to different speakers, children experience other ways of speaking, and the community helps in developing the linguistic experience of bilingual children. As a result, diverse exposures also allow bilingual children to develop subjectivity faster as they need to assert themselves more often.

Moreover, the way older siblings participate in the development of their younger counterparts' linguistic environments shapes their proficiency. Three-way conversations allow the youngest sibling to assume a different role from that of dyadic conversations (Bavin 2012:364) and also become a practical exercise to understand turn-taking (Tomasello 2003:269). Regarding self-markers, older siblings are resources since they enable the youngest to experience discourses from an outsider's perspective but also assert themselves with first personal pronouns such as 'it's mine!', 'give it to me!' or 'I want it' (Clark 2001:288). The desire to share the elder's games and activities constitutes an additional factor of initiation (Hagège 1996:49). Thus, older siblings share their responsibility in bilingual acquisition and even seem to actively participate in its development.

Acquiring a language is not only learning a communicative tool but also learning how that particular language is viewed and used. For example, someone may use one specific language only during arguments or to express anger. As a consequence, that person may create negative feelings or attitudes towards that language (De Houwer 2009:317). As mentioned above, children learn a language to convey and share what they think and feel about the world. In fact, language enables children to "put feelings and thoughts into words" (Blum 2005a in Meissner 2008:3) but does not replace emotional expression (Bloom 1998:6). If an emotional bond between the interlocutor and the learner is not created, then the learner will not feel stimulated to learn. One possible solution to this phenomenon could be to use various learning strategies.

II.A.3 Different discourse strategies

To address the lack of input or engage bilingual children to develop one of their languages, researchers and parents have developed different parental discourse strategies. Lanza (1997:255) defines them as such:

-Adult requests clarification: expressed guess strategy (Ochs 1988) -Adult repetition of the content of the child's utterance, using the other language -A move on strategy: the conversation merely continues -Adult code-switches One last method is to pretend to be monolingual where the adult "feigns a lack of comprehension when the child speaks in the other language. It's referred as an educational strategy to maintain bilingualism" (Lanza 1997:255). These approaches are needed when adults fear a child might not have a harmonious bilingual development.

To establish a bilingual upbringing, different strategies exist. Romaine (1995:183-185) The first strategy known as 'one person=one language' is a pioneer in the field of native bilingualism. [START_REF] Ronjat | Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue[END_REF] thoroughly studied this principle by recording his son's utterances in German and

French. [START_REF] Lanza | Language mixing in infant bilingualism: a sociolinguistic perspective[END_REF] and De Houwer (2009) also refer to the strategies presented by [START_REF] Romaine | Bilingualism. Language in Society[END_REF]. However, none of these authors prioritize one method over the other; as seen above, every family is case-sensitive, and each of them should decide what strategy fits their needs best.

II.B/ Bilingual linguistic tools and subjective learning

II.B.1 Linguistic dominance and minority language

Negative attitudes towards a language and the impact of the dominant culture can interfere with harmonious bilingualism (Grosjean 2010:176). These linguistic characteristics go from linguistic insecurity to language mixing to the complete loss of the language. Norton (2000) introduced the concept of 'language investment' which considers "learners' choices, decisions, and behaviors in the light of their social identities, inequitable power relations, and multiple and often contradictory desires" (Pavlenko 2005:196). As a matter of fact, each linguistic decision constitutes an act of subjectivity (Pavlenko&Blackledge 2004:8). Language can, for example, regularly be considered leverage for acceptance or privilege in society.

Specifically, first bilingual learners are socialized in a particular cultural frame. Their distinct languages, and the way they culturally portray them, has often been taken as evidence to justify their 'double identity' (Pavlenko 2005:131). Pavlenko points out that "the anxieties over an inner split may stem from the lack of social acceptance of bilingualism and may disappear once bi-and multilingualism are accepted as the norm, rather than an exception" (2006:28). Notably, people living in bicultural and bilingual environments do not perceive such a distinct difference between their selves (Pavlenko 2006:27).

Furthermore, dominance and proficiency influence the choice of language. The 'strong' or 'dominant' language is considered the opposite of the 'minority' or 'weaker' one. In his study of bilingual (Turkish and Danish) children's classrooms, Jörgensen (1998) noted how some speakers would switch languages to dominate the interaction with their classmates. Some children would also purposely speak Danish in front of dominant English-speakers in order to silence them (Cromdal 2004:3).

Bilinguals can lack confidence or translation equivalents to properly express themselves in both of their languages equally (Pavlenko 2005:145).

In fact, bilinguals commonly switch or mix one language with the other. These different verbal behaviors demonstrate how these speakers can draw from both of their cultural and linguistic repertoires instead of shifting them 'on' and 'off' (Pavlenko 2006:16).

II.B.2 Borrowing and code-switching

Bilinguals count on various strategies to express their subjectivity. The production of mixed utterances starts as soon as the bilingual child is able to create short sentences that are not formulas (De Houwer 2009:258). Romaine (1995:66) indicates that the strategy of borrowing is commonly used to adapt to different situations:

In his study of Norwegian immigrants to the United States, Haugen (1953) found that in more personal domains such as religion, clothing and body parts, the immigrants used fewer English words, while in areas linked to American ways of life they borrowed generally quite extensively from English. He noted that borrowing always goes beyond the actual 'needs' of a language. Weinreich (1968:59-60) believed that the primary motivation for core borrowing was prestige.

As bilingual children construct their identity, borrowing and code-switching are ways to be recognized as pertaining to a certain group. They are able to use code-switching as early as two years old; however, the subtleties of this linguistic device can appear as late as five years old (Meisel 1994:4). Growing up, they will acquire and accumulate diverse social identities (Lanza 1997:68).

Traditional analysis of code-switching demonstrates how language A is linked to the affect and emotions, and language B to administrative tasks and government responsibilities (Pavlenko 2005:233). In fact, choosing to speak one language over the other is not a trivial choice. Romaine they used a command in Spanish. She observed that if a child got hurt, he or she would be comforted by an older child in Spanish, even though an immediately preceding interaction between the children might have been in English.

Thus, in certain circumstances, a language can convey specific emotions that the other language does not. Therefore, children might decide to switch to express their feelings better, so the other can act accordingly (Pavlenko 2005:119). As bilingual children develop their lexicon in two languages, their knowledge brings invaluable insight on the respective emotion terms and cultural frames (Pavlenko 2005:86). To better grasp the concept of code-switching, Genesee (1997:259) describes it as:

The use of two languages in a single unit of discourse, such as an utterance or a conversation.

Code-mixing includes both intra-utterance mixing, or the use of two languages in a single utterance and inter-utterance mixing, or the use of different utterances in the same conversation.

Code-switching and borrowing have many functions. The main one is often to clarify the discourse, either to emphasize a message or to manifest an emotion (Romaine 1995:162). Phonetic similarity contributes to the mixes (Lanza 1997:224), for example, between Latin-based languages. Codeswitching can also be a common thing in communities. One can learn words that relate to a specific knowledge or domain. For example, a lack of translation equivalent can force bilinguals to switch languages (Genesee 1997:262). In other words, "style shifting accomplished for the monolingual what code-switching does for the bilingual; a choice between different forms of one language can convey the same kinds of social meanings as a choice between languages" (Romaine 1995:170).

These linguistic specificities are common in bilingual discourse and always serve a purpose. Besides code-switching and borrowing, language mixing is another recurrent phenomenon in bilingual environments.

II.B.3 Language mixing

The amount of language mixing highly depends on sociolinguistics influences such as the interlocutor's language choice and expectations, the environment and the subject of conversation (De Houwer 2009:46). In fact, each culture and language needs to be taught separately at times.

Bilingual children, raised in a bilingual environment, need to be aware of their monolingual comrades. The BNF (V.26,N°4,2009) highlights:

Moments should be reserved where the input comes from people who do not know the other language, if at all possible, so that the input is free of elements of that other language in the form of code-switches and borrowings. Bringing in the other language is normal in a bilingual environment, but it is important that bilingual children realize that they will also find themselves in monolingual situations at various times where only one language can be used.

As aforementioned, languages influence each other, and unexpected occurrences can be created by bilingual learners. Grosjean gives a striking example with Anne, an English-French bilingual child, who would say je cherche pour le livre based on 'I'm looking for the book' instead of the grammatically correct je cherche le livre (Grosjean 2010:192). Although language mixing might seem frightening for a balanced development, it is a natural aspect of bilingualism and cannot be considered a sign of confusion. In fact, language mixing does not affect proficiency, and authentic borrowings are intrinsically limited (Ronjat 2013:58).

Furthermore, two-year-old bilingual toddlers have shown that they differentiate their languages (Genesee 1997:258). For example, linguist Marilyn Vihman studied an Estonian-English bilingual child and showed that, as of two years old, the child would "report or request translations in both languages and quote his own speech acts" (1985:18). However, it was not until four years old that he showed awareness of his bilingual situation, questioning, commenting and correcting utterances in both languages for his own and others ' production (1985:19).

Additionally, with time, bilingual children acquire a conscious scope of their surroundings. They know when and with whom they can speak two languages and when a monolingual situation is necessary (Lanza 1997:65). The role they play choosing between one or two languages is often considered a game for them. Grosjean (2010:194) gives a complete depiction of when adapting to the language mode could occur:

-When you know the interlocutor, you speak to him in the appropriate language -When you do not know the interlocutor, the environment is the factor -When the level of fluency is low, you switch to the strong language (children are not prepared to allow a person to practice [their] weaker language with them)

-When you want to get attention -When you need to clarify statements or resolve ambiguities.

Interlocutor, language and environment are the main factors of language mixing. Studies in bilingual communities have shown that this phenomenon is a strong communicative tool that reveals the peculiar sensitivity of speakers towards both formal and functional ways of language use (Lanza 1997:3). Children learn when and how to use a language according to the person, the language spoken and the situation. Their choices are rarely accidental.

Bilinguals develop social abilities along with language and cultural competences. In fact, for Lanza (1997:67) language differentiation:

[…]comprises knowing how to differentiate among situations that allow language mixing or call for language separation. Consequently, bilingual awareness is not just the separation of languages along purely formal grounds. The acquisition of language is concomitant with the acquisition of social and cultural knowledge.

Bilingual and bicultural skills are valuable assets that bring awareness to habits and customs.

Borrowing, code-switching and language mixing are natural forms of linguistic influences between minority / dominant cultures and languages. They represent the multiplicity of one's identity but are also a strong marker of self-assertion.

Conclusion of Chapter Three

The sociolinguistic impact on bilingualism should not be undermined. The perception of others, created by a dominant culture and language, can be quite imposing and hinder harmonious bilingual development. Bilingualism is indeed a special aspect of our society but also a common one. Bilinguals are not people assuming different identities when performing various languages, but their identity is rather influenced depending on their cultural and linguistic inventories at any given point in time (Salmani Nodoushan & Garcia Laborda 2014:1). Bilingual children can, in fact, "make a unique contribution to our understanding of the sensitivity of language acquisition processes to specificlanguage input" (Paradis & Genesee 1997:10). Moreover, the usage-based approach marks the importance of input and socialization factors as an essential facet of bilingual learning acquisition. In fact, caretakers (parents, siblings, extended family) are mediating agents in the development of the bilingual self, and the different personal assertions need to be considered in a culturally biased viewpoint, as language is both a communicative tool and a perception of the world. The scope of this paper is, therefore, sociolinguistics within the study of native bilingualism and biculturalism, as it focuses on the negotiation native bilinguals exhibit to establish their agentivity and express their subjectivity, notably through the use of language mixing, code-switching and borrowing. To better grasp this phenomenon, this paper hereunder aims to investigate specific self-references and markers of subjectivity in both French and English acquisition from birth in the family sphere. The corpus is made up of scripted conversations in a naturalistic setting (often family videos not initially intended for research purposes). The participants are all simultaneously bilingual, being exposed to both French and English from birth. The corpus contains some 1400 child utterances in 72

CHAT files, each file corresponding to an uninterrupted sequence of dialogue1 .

The naturalistic environment helped me distinguish the various markers that were commonly used by each speaker and focus on the families' dynamics and children's specificities.

I.B/ Longitudinal data

Unlike some longitudinal studies, the recordings were not carried out by workers outside the family, and the recording sessions were not scheduled at regular intervals; the recordings were made by the children's caretakers on occasions that seemed favorable. It should also be noted that no particular activity pattern was imposed: the children moved in their natural environment under conditions that were as normal as possible. The longitudinal aspect of the research is not equal across the children. For example, recordings for one child go from 1;09 to 7;02, while another goes from 2;05 to 2;09. Therefore, the corpus does not have enough recordings per child to analyze their language evolution extensively. For better comprehension, each file is named after the age of the targeted child. Table 7. Age distribution of recordings per family per child

I.C/ Cross linguistic context

Charles Watkins was kind enough to provide me with the following additional details regarding the metadata I needed for my study:

The children involved in the corpus are born from three different families at very different times: the three families do not know each other. All the subjects were raised in France in a bilingual environment from their birth in simultaneous bilingualism, that is to say, with the two languages, English and French, represented in the restricted family, usually, but not exclusively, each language is spoken by a parent in his mother tongue. However, the linguistic configurations of the three families are very different (by 'linguistic configuration' we mean who speaks which language to whom under which circumstances). The subjects are distributed unevenly among the three families. CH4, CH5 and CH6 are siblings, and therefore a single file can contain statements from the three subjects. The same is true for CH2 and CH3 subjects. Subject CH1, however, was still an only child at the time of the recordings.

Family 1 is composed of CH1, with a native French mother and a native English father. Both parents are bilinguals. I call Family 2 siblings CH2 and CH3. The father is a unilingual native French speaker.

The mother is a native English mother bilingual in French. Finally, Family 3 are siblings CH4, CH5 and CH6. The mother is a native English speaker. The father is a native French speaker who "has a relative command of English, allowing him to understand his children when they speak English. However, he speaks with them almost exclusively in French" (C. Watkins).

At times, the phonetic transcriptions alone did not help me grasp the entire sociolinguistic context of the utterances as the scope of the corpus was theoretical linguistics. As a result, the files are marked codes and thus quite opaque. Because of the natural setting, some utterances were not understood by the researcher (shown as 'XXX'), therefore making them incomplete. Finally, C. Watkins's study focused on English, which means that I was not always able to make a thorough analysis of both languages.

II. Family background: social and linguistic environment

Watkins

II.A.2 Parents

The mother is a native French speaker. She tends to speak French to the child and English with her husband. She specifically mixes French and English when using French interjections. She appears often in the recordings but talks rarely. She is the one using pet names towards Jeremy.

The father is a native English speaker. His name is Charles (n°20517). He only speaks to Jeremy in English. Every time Jeremy speaks in French, his father repeats the sentence in English. He uses many question tags when he addresses his son. He seems to be with Jeremy the most. He sounds quite pedagogical and always tries to ask for Jeremy's opinion and thoughts. Jeremy says no to him regularly and repeatedly. It seems the position of the father as a researcher leads Jeremy to emphasize his subjectivity.

The language strategy used in this family was specified to me by Charles Watkins as follows: "Each parent has a good command of the other language. In the case of this family, the policy adopted at the birth of the child was that each parent would speak to him in his mother tongue, but when CH1

was between eighteen and twenty-four months old, it became clear that French dominated widely;

this was hardly surprising given that from the age of six months a French-speaking caretaker looked after the child four days a week during the school year. The French-speaking mother then decided to speak to the child only in English".

II.B/ Family 2: CH2 and CH3

II.B.1 CH2: Annick

Annick was born in March 1974. Her nicknames are Ninny and Nicky. Her recordings span from 2;3 to 4;10. She mostly refers to herself with nicknames. She also refers to and addresses her immediate family with French terms -namely, Maman and Tata.

II.B.2 CH3: Olivier

Olivier is the middle child. He was born in July 1976. His recordings range from 2;5 to 4;6. In recording n°020800, C. Watkins specifies in a comment that Olivier is Annick's baby brother. Olivier's nickname is Ollie (n°020800). At 2;8, Olivier's vocabulary is very wide. He seems very prompt to answer his mother's inquiries. The questions are related to his imagination and his personal knowledge. Olivier seems eager to learn new words, although his mother never gives him the translations. Recording n°40800 is the only one in the entire corpus that features a French-only dialogue.

II.B.3 The rest of the family

The third child appears for the first time when Annick is 4;6 (n°40600). He is able to make simple sentences. Since he has no recording of his own and cannot express himself properly yet, I was unable to identify specific utterances. Therefore, this child is not studied here.

The mother is a native English speaker, and the father is a native French speaker. He is absent from all the recordings. The mother tends to call herself 'Mummy'. She never corrects her children in More metadata was provided to me by C. Watkins about this family: the family language is French, but since it was mainly the mother who took care of the children, and the father was away from home during the day, the children were able to learn both languages in their infancy. Annick refers to 'Anne-Laure' in recording n°030100 line 127, but I could not determine who she is. I presume the family lives in Paris, as Annick refers to 'rue Condorcet' (n°03100) in one of the dialogues.

II.C/ Family 3: CH4, CH5 and CH6

II.C.1 CH4: Christophe

Christophe is the eldest sibling. His recordings span from 1;9 to 7;2. His first recorded interaction (n°11112) is in July 1990. His language skills are still limited. I advance that his date of birth is August 1988. The family celebrates a birthday the 16 th of August 1992 (n° 40000) which seems to be Christophe's fourth birthday. Finally, Christophe and Stephanie get an early birthday present in July 1993 (n°41022) which leads me to believe they are both born in August. Christophe is sometimes shy or embarrassed and does not want to say anything (n° 030028a and n°050115a). When he is 6 and half years old, he finally shows interest in speaking in front of the camera (n°060612a).

II.C.2 CH5: Stephanie

Stephanie is the middle child. Her recordings extend from 1;5 to 5;2.

II.C.3 CH6: Pauline

Pauline is the youngest sister. Her recordings go from 1;10 to 2;6. I assume her date of birth is in April 1993. The 18th of April 1993, in one recording (n°40802), Christophe talks about his new sister to his grandmother. I assume she had just been born.

II.C.4 Caretakers and acquaintances

The mother seems to be called Clare. She is a native English speaker. The mother sometimes mixes English and French in the same sentence (n°40828 and 020328a). She is recorded doing so only towards her two daughters.

The father is a native French speaker. He seems to be called Robert. He is more present when the family is on holidays in France (n°40000). When one of his children talks to him in French, he tends to answer in French as well, although he is also recorded speaking in English.

The grandmother is their nanny. She usually refers to herself using this nickname. She is the one that spends the most time with the children. She seems to be Clare's mother, as they're often together without the presence of the father. The mother also insists that the children talk to the camera, which shows interest from her part to keep contact with her family. Most of the time, she speaks with the children in English; however, on a few occasions, she repeats French words said by the children (n°050115a and 20205). Thus, I can only suppose she is a native English speaker that is curious and flexible towards the French language. She also shows her ignorance of the French educational system (n°070206b) which means she did not attend school in France but rather in England. Most of the recordings seem to be for the family in England. The grandmother is always asking the children questions. She insists for them to speak in front of the camera, to say what they are doing or what they have been doing. It seems she is the one filming for the great grandparents in England. She often asks the children to repeat, perhaps because she did not understand them well, or because she wants them to talk to the camera or she might want to hear better so she can correct them.

The videos are often seemingly for the great grandmother Nana. The children are quite curious about who is inside the camera and often ask to 'see'. Family 3 is the one with the most caretakers and sessions with a diversity of people. Indeed, the family counts the English native mother and grandmother as first curators, then the French native father, although his presence is rare.

Furthermore, Uncle Richard attends two sessions (n°40409 and n°60216). The two elder siblings are also recorded having a play date with a friend called William. Such varied input is precious to analyze the children's data, as the research is limited with Family 1 and 2 due to a lack of different environments and interlocutors.

III. Method

III.A/ Presentation of the investigation's tools

To analyze the corpus, I first downloaded the files on the CHILDES website in the CHAT format. To process the data and code it, I used the computer program CLAN (Computerized Language ANalysis),

where the headers of the files detail the name and date of birth of the exchange participants, the activities of the participants, and the date of the exchange. @Begin and @End delimit the entire file. - Thanks to C. Watkins' annotations, I was able to find predicates without a subject directly with the code 0subj. I did not include the French pronoun on as it is also an English preposition. The markers 'mom' or 'mommy' were not found in the corpus as the families speak British English.

-All the negative markers in the children's productions in both languages: but, mais, non, no, not, ne, pas, plus, won't, don't and can't

Example: freq +t*CHI +snon *.cha (Jeremy's frequency of use of the negative marker non) The quantitative search is relevant to differentiate and establish the use of markers, by whom and in which language. It allows me to compare the language use of the children with their input and correlate self-markers with negative markers in order to identify situations of self-assertion. -Question and answer: especially in Family 1 and 3, the caretakers seek the children's attention and tend to ask questions or inquire a reaction -Addressee: to whom the phrase is directed. This feature is especially useful in the context of code-switching to perceive the child's language choice -Linguistic form: identify a pattern in which a marker is used with a specific verb. This combination between verbs and markers induce subjectivity. Additionally, those elements serve to point out idiomatic expressions or word chunks -Tense: determine the evolution of the child's language acquisition complexity -Value and child reaction: establish a correlation between a context of agentivity with the use of self-markers and subjectivity with contrastive reactions, notably through the use of negative answers -self-references to oneself in the children's and caretakers' production -references to others in the children's and caretakers' production -negative markers in the children's productions Furthermore, relevant data will be compared to:

I
-study the impact of input (the caretakers' self-markers are compared with the children's use of personal pronouns)

-investigate the role of negation to mark subjectivity (the negative markers are examined alongside each child's self-references)

This data was quantitively collected for both languages in the three families; therefore, at this stage, no distinction is made between the form and usage of each pronoun. 2 1 0% 50% 100% 2;05.08 2;05.09 2;05.11 2;05.12 2;05.13 2;05.17 2;06.27 2;09.10 2;09.17

Total number of I Total number of My Total number of Moi

Total number of Mon Total number of Ø Jeremy uses 'I' for the first time at 2;05.08. In his four-month period, he employs 'I' 38 times, with a total amount of 59 self-identifications and 5 null forms. This chart clearly demonstrates a prevalence of 'I' throughout the corpus as well as an absence of je. At 2;05.12, Jeremy uses a null form for the first time. He uses it again at 2;09.10 and 2;09.17 in recordings that also feature a high level of codeswitching and various self-indicators. Furthermore, every time 'my' or moi appear in a session, 'I' is also used; they do not occur otherwise. Additionally, the child never uses 'me' or 'myself'. He employs mon twice, at 2;05.13 and 2;09.10. Finally, Jeremy never uses his name or nicknames to refer to himself. Since je is absent from the corpus, non-standard forms such as moi je are not present, nor is the marker 'mine'.

I note that the absence of the first-person pronoun in French could be a consequence of the unilingual English input Jeremy received in the preceding five months due to the change in his parents' language strategy after Jeremy's second birthday. The exclusive use of the first-person pronoun in English might be an effect of the dyadic conversations between the son and the native English father, as Jeremy code-switches to a greater extent when his mother is present. However, Jeremy's use of French markers could be part of set expressions or due to the child's confusion between the forms 'my' and moi. I observe that Jeremy does not use the objective pronoun 'me' but the strong French pronoun moi, which could imply self-assertion and an emphasis of agentivity. I acknowledge the absence of name and nicknames to self-identify, which are possibly due to a lack of corresponding input. Jeremy's references to others are few, uniform and solely in English. Interestingly, the last two sessions, when Jeremy is 2;09, do not appear in this chart. These two recordings are where Jeremy's code-switches the most between different forms of self-references.

I.A.2 References to others

CLAN
I recognize that Jeremy's lack of diversity in his references to others could be a consequence of his restricted familiar circle. In addition, the predominance of the English second-person pronoun 'you' is potentially an influence from the input. Jeremy shows an inclination to use a greater number of selfindicators, while excluding references to others, leading to an emphasis of his self. I observe that Jeremy could be using 'Daddy' and 'Mummy' as third-person pronouns, as parents often refer to themselves in this way.

1.A.3 Negation

6 1 1 3 1 1 7 1 5 1 1 2 2 1 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
2;05.08 2;05.09 2;05.11 2;05.12 2;05.13 2;05.17 2;06.27 2;09.10 2;09.17 2;05.05 2;05.09 2;05.11 2;05.12 2;05.17 2;06.27 2;09.10 2;09.17 2;05.08 2;05.09 2;05.11 2;05.12 2;05.13 2;05.17 2;06.27 2;09.10 2;09.17

Total number of I Total number of My Total number of Moi

Total number of Mon Total number of Ø Both caretakers use 'I' extensively throughout the corpus. As with Jeremy, the French personal reference je does not appear in the parents' speech. Furthermore, every time Jeremy uses 'my', the personal marker also occurs in the input, expressed twice by the father and twice by the mother.

When Jeremy is 2;05.17, the mother uses 'I' three times, while the child employs 'I' 15 times and moi once. He also calls his father 'Daddy' and says 'you' twice. When Jeremy is 2;06.27, 'I' is employed 18 times by the father and 11 times by the child. Additionally, Jeremy employs 'no' 28 times, 'don't' once and 'not' eight times. Moreover, the session in which Jeremy is 2;09.10 bears a strong number of distinct self-references by the father ('me', 'my', 'I' and 'Daddy'). In this recording, Jeremy codeswitches and employs different personal indicators ('my', 'I', mon and two predicates without subject). By contrast, the father uses 'me', which does not appear in Jeremy's self-markers.

Furthermore, Jeremy's use of moi and mon do not appear in the parents' discourses. Lastly, the father refers to himself twice as 'Daddy', but the mother does not self-identify with 'Mummy'.

I remark that Jeremy's code-switch from 'my' to moi could be a strategy to assert his subjectivity as a bilingual speaker. His use of predicates without subject is possibly due to a natural step in his language acquisition. Another possibility is that, when using French, Jeremy employs predicates without subject instead of English pronouns. This last chart is particularly impressive, especially when compared with Jeremy's references to others (12 in total). The number of 'you' is massive, primarily considering the size of the corpus.

I.B.2 References to others

CLAN
Additionally, the father employs the child's name quite extensively, without the presence of any nicknames. Once more, the French language is almost absent. Only the French pronoun tu appears in the second recording (02;05.08), when Jeremy uses moi once. The mother also employs the pet name Poussin, at 2;05.17, in which Jeremy says moi as well. Finally, at 2;09.17, the mother uses Poussin twice, while Jeremy employs moi five times. Lastly, the father addresses the mother five times using 'Mummy', and the mother refers to the father twice as 'Daddy'.

Further, Jeremy does not use any third-person pronouns. In fact, the mother does not use them, and the father rarely does. I observe that the parents' input lacks diversity in third-person pronouns, which could directly cause the absence of such forms in Jeremy's markers. As observable in the ensuing section, this absence notably contrasts with Family 2, in which the familial setting is similar (the mother is alone with the child), but the child's use of third-person pronouns is wide and varied.

Moreover, Jeremy might possibly be code-switching only after his mother does as well. 2;05.05 2;05.08 2;05.09 2;05.11 2;05.12 2;05.13 2;05.17 2;06.27 2;09.10 2;09.17 2;05.08 2;05.11 2;05.12 2;05.17 2;09.17 This chart demonstrates the use of pronouns in Jeremy's data classified by language, with both selfmarkers and references to others (without the parents' names). It shows a tendency in which Jeremy employs French pronouns and predicates without subject to the same extent, at 2;05.12 and 2;09.10. At 2;05.17, Jeremy's use of English pronouns peaks. From then on, English monopolizes his speech, albeit gradually decreasing. At 2;09.17, French pronouns are reinstated, while English and predicates without subject diminish.

Jeremy rarely refers to himself in one language only but code-switches often. Olivier's self-markers are infrequent (21 uses in two years) and limited (only three markers and the use of predicates without subject). He is the only child in the corpus to self-identify so little for such an extended period and to perform such an extensive number of predicates without subject.

Moreover, Olivier is the only child in the corpus to perform an entire conversation in French-only at 4;08. This recording is the only time the child uses je. Otherwise, he does not code-switch between his two languages. Olivier already uses the first-person pronoun in English at 2;08, at approximately the same age as Jeremy (2;05.08); whereas Annick uses it for the first time at 3;11. Jeremy performs a considerably larger number of self-references compared to both siblings.

I notice that Olivier uses the first-person pronoun promptly, as well as null forms at the same age as Jeremy. I acknowledge that there might be a correlation between the early use of first-person pronoun and self-assertion. Annick refers to others quite extensively, with a large variety of pronouns. The second-person pronoun 'you' is the marker that appears the most (16 times), although discontinuously, at 2;03 and again after 4;06. The pronoun to appear throughout the whole corpus is 'we', 14 times, from 2;08 to 4;06. The child calls her English native mother solely in French, Maman. Otherwise, her references to others are exclusively in English. Annick refers to herself mostly with nicknames. She refers to her brother with the nickname 'Ollie', although Olivier does not self-identify with it. Additionally, at 4;06, the child employs five different self-references, including 'Ninny'. She also produces a great number of references to others. Regarding third-person pronouns, she solely uses 'he', 'him' and 'his' but only at 4;10. In fact, Annick has two younger brothers, and her father is away during all recordings.

As with Jeremy's mother, Annick could also be using the French language to signal affection and emotion as she refers to her mother exclusively with Maman. Moreover, Annick uses a great number of third-person masculine pronouns, potentially referring to her brothers and father. Comparatively, Annick and Jeremy's references to others are particularly similar at the same age. They both use their parents' names, the second-person pronoun 'you' and the plural first-person pronoun 'we'.

CLAN search example: freq +t*CH3 +selle *.cha (Olivier's frequency of use of the third-person pronoun elle) Yet, Olivier employs those names only once, at 2;08. Furthermore, he does not produce any nicknames. In fact, he does not refer to his sister using her name or her nicknames. At 3;07, he employs third-person pronouns in French (il) and English ('he'), as well as 'we' once. At 4;08, Olivier performs a French-only dialogue. He uses elle six times and self-identifies with je.

I
I notice that Olivier also refers to his mother in French, potentially taking his input from his sister.

When using il and 'he' in the same recording, Olivier is possibly referring to the same male subject and code-switches to augment his expressivity. Furthermore, Olivier does not appear to code-switch in his French-only dialogue; he might, therefore, be inclined to solely code-switch in English-only conversations. Compared to Annick and Jeremy at the same age, Olivier's references to others emerge early and are especially varied and abundant. Both children refer to their native English mother in French, with Maman. French dominates when referring to the parents.

II.A.3 Negation

Compared to Family 1, Family 2 barely employs self-references. Only Olivier and Jeremy code-switch often. They also produce a great number of negative markers. The parents favor the second-person pronoun 'you' and names when referring to others.

The next section analyzes the data of Family 3, with the children Christophe, Stephanie and Pauline.

The English native mother and grandmother take care of the siblings. The corpus demonstrates a variety of input in both languages and the first use of 'mine'. Christophe is the eldest sibling in Family 3. He is also the one with the largest recording span, from 1;9 to 7;2. Christophe expresses his first self-markers at 3;0, more than a year after his first session.

Three periods emerge from this chart. From 3;0 to 4;0, Christophe mixes different forms of selfmarkers, mainly 'I', 'my', and 'me'. He is recorded using the first-person pronoun at 3 years old in English and at 4 years old in French. From 4;04 to 5;04, Christophe uses certain pronouns exclusively in each session. Finally, starting at 5;10, the child starts to mix different self-markers again. At that same age, he employs 'mine' for the first time. He is the only one in the corpus to use it, though he is recorded using it only once. Furthermore, Christophe barely code-switches. At 4;0, he employs je and 'me', and at 5;04 he says je. Otherwise, Christophe's self-markers are exclusively in English. He employs 'I' 27 times, 'my' 14, 'me' nine, je twice and 'mine' once. Christophe is the child that uses the most diversified self-references (five in total).

I remark that Christophe uses a variety of self-markers but suddenly lacks diversity at a certain stage.

This change could be a consequence of his first sister's linguistic development and the birth of his second sister, or the fact that Christophe is no longer the only child to be recorded. Furthermore, the first and only use of 'mine' might have been Cristophe's strategy of self-assertion in front of his two sisters, possibly in an only-child exchange. Finally, the relative absence of the French language is susceptibly due to his native English mother and grandmother's care. Comparatively, Jeremy uses four (mon, moi, I and my), as does Annick (Ninny, Nicky, me, I and ma). Stephanie's general performance on self-markers is similar to her brother's. She expresses the firstperson pronoun in English at 3;01 and in French at 3;10, which is slightly earlier than Christophe, at four years old. She employs 'I' 15 times, 'my' 10, 'me' six, je and ma once. Her use of self-markers is varied and mostly in English. Yet, she employs je at 3;10 and ma at 4;10. Finally, Pauline's quantitative data is not particularly pertinent as her recordings go from 1;10 to 2;07. She uses 'me' three times at 2;03, then 'me' and 'my' once each at 2;07. She does not employ the first-person pronoun.

Pauline could be confusing the forms 'me' and 'my' or use them as set expressions. Curiously, Pauline uses possessive markers notably earlier compared to the other children in the corpus. Jeremy employs 'I' and moi, whereas Olivier uses his name, both at 2;05. I observe that the prompt use of self-markers might be a consequence of her youthful position in the family and her larger variety of input due to her siblings. Christophe's references to others are the most diversified and ample of the corpus. He exclusively uses English. From 2;10 to 4;04, Christophe demonstrates a large preference for the caretakers' names and the second-person pronoun 'you' (visible in the predominant blue color in the graph).

III.A.2 References to others

CLAN
Although Christophe largely refers to his caretakers and sisters by name, he never employs his first name to self-identify. As aforementioned, the sessions are made by the grandmother that records the children on video to send to the great-grandmother in England. As of 4;08, he diversifies his references, using his sisters' names, third-person pronouns and the plural first-person pronoun more frequently in his repertoire. During this same period, Christophe self-identifies employing certain personal markers exclusively in each session.

I note that the children do not refer to themselves with their names; however, Christophe refers to others quite commonly by name, which could be a direct influence from the input or a consequence of the specific context of the recordings. Christophe's position as the eldest sibling could lead him to use a great number of references to others as well.

CLAN search example: freq +t*CH5 +she *.cha (Stephanie's frequency of use of the third-person pronoun 'she')

I searched for: you, your, tu, toi, she, elle, her, he, il, him, his, son, sa, ton, ta, we, nous, us, Mum, Mummy, Mama, Maman, Daddy, Dad, Papa, Nanny, Nana, grandmother, Christophe, Pauline and

Richard 2 2 1 1 7 2 3 1 3 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 2 1 2 1 7 1 0% 50% 100%
1;04 1;11 2;03 2;04 2;07 2;10 3;10 4;05 4;08 4;10 5;01 Stephanie uses 'no', 'but' and 'not' twice; and 'can't three times in a period of two years. She is the child that performs the fewest negative markers in such a long period of time. She expresses negation in English-only. She is the first child in the corpus to use 'can' in the negative form. She also does not use the negative of 'do', unlike all the other children. Stephanie references herself more with a total of 33 markers, whereas only 5 indicators are directed at her. Additionally, both caretakers use only 'me' and 'my' with Pauline, and she is recorded using solely those possessive markers as well. What is more, from 3;0 to 4;0, Christophe mixes different forms of self-references, but from 4;04 to 5;04, he uses certain pronouns exclusively in each session.

The exact same pattern is found in the input and even extended. From 4;04 to 6;06, the mother and grandmother also use certain pronouns exclusively in each session towards Christophe. Further, the grandmother and mother both use their names to self-identify, with 'Nanny', and 'Mummy' and 'Mum' respectively. Interestingly, the children are not recorded using 'Mum'.

I observe a great amount of similarities between the caretakers' input and the children's speech.

Stephanie and Pauline seem to enjoy over-heard speech as well as their brother's input. Moreover, I notice that, since the grandmother is Clare's mother, the mother could be using 'Mum' to call her own mother. The caretaker's references to others towards the two sisters follow the exact same model as with

III.B.2 References to others

Christophe. The caretakers favor first names and the second-person pronoun 'you'. They do not use the plural first-person pronoun. Although Pauline's input is not diverse and minor, she uses the thirdperson pronoun 'he' at 2;07. However, the caretakers do not use any third-person pronoun towards her. Furthermore, when Christophe is 4;0, the mother is recorded using 'Steffie' for her daughter. Stephanie also uses a variety of self-markers (5). She mostly code-switches when referring to others. At 3;10, she employs je and Maman and, at 4;10, il and ma.

Pauline exclusively uses English pronouns. She does not use the first-person pronoun 'I'. She is the child that uses possessive and negative markers the earliest compared to all the other children of the corpus.

The three children mainly employ the forms 'I', 'me' and 'my'. None of the siblings employ moi je, names or nicknames to self-identify, nor do they use predicates without subjects. They also demonstrate a particular preference for first names. Christophe and Stephanie further employ the second-person pronoun 'you' to refer to others, while it does not appear in Pauline's data.

Furthermore, the three siblings use few negative markers. Christophe stops using 'no' after 5;02.

IV. Synthesis of frequency and emergence of use for all children

Chart 29. Timeline of the children's first use of negative markers Jeremy demonstrates the earliest emergence of a verb in a negative form with 'don't' at 2;05. He is also the first to use pas and non. Pauline and Christophe exclusively use 'no', at 1;11 and 3 years old, respectively. Olivier uses 'no', 'not' and 'but' from 2;05 to 2;08. Stephanie is the only child to use the verb 'can' in a negative form at 3;10.

In first language acquisition, rejection situations and the emergence of 'no' normally appear as of 14 months of age. Negative markers, such as 'not', diversify at as early as 17 months old. From three years old, complex negative forms appear at the same period as verbal constructions in the past tense. Jeremy is, once more, the child to produce the most diverse self-markers at the earliest age, and in both languages, with 'my', mon, moi, and 'I' at 2;05. Olivier says his first 'I' at 2;08, while Christophe Watkin's study focused on English, the use of French requires a deeper investigation.

Until 3;07, French tends to be used at a higher rate before a burst of English pronouns. However, after that age, French pronouns augment when English markers diminish. As of 4 years old, children enter simultaneous bilingual acquisition mode and the first-person pronoun stabilizes.

Conclusion of Chapter One

The quantitative data helped establish a great number of hypotheses. Jeremy and Olivier seem to use an extensive number of negative markers in dyadic dialogues. Annick and Christophe, as elder siblings, exhibit behaviors associated with a persona and, thus, appear to perform an alter-ego. What is more, the three families demonstrate a preference for proper names. However, I believe their use aims at different functions. Stephanie, Annick and Olivier appear to prefer the French language to name their English native mother. An investigation on the eldest siblings can determine the role of their input and their position as caretakers.

Additionally, the different timelines help to compare the development of personal pronouns between first and bilingual language acquisition as well as differentiate the specific evolution of French and English markers in a bilingual context.

Consequently, a further qualitative analysis supports the discovery of the similarities and peculiarities of each child and family, including code-switching, non-standard forms (pronoun reversal, the alter ego and the name as a third-person pronoun) and the use of negative markers in dyadic conversations.

In this example, the mother is alone with her son. She first uses Olivier as a second-person pronoun (she's like Olivier), to then switch to a third-person pronoun (he is always failing off his chair), and returns to the second-person pronoun (aren't you). This continual change of perspective could lead the children to use their names as self-references, since the name's morphology in both languages does not change according to its position in the sentence or to its syntactic function (Caët 2013:55).

This extract also puts forward a context of mockery, as the mother jokingly says that Olivier always falls off his chair (Caët 2013:213). The name is used to tease the child.

In addition, the mother could also employ the child's name due to the complexity of her utterances.

With both Annick and Olivier, the activities are linked to reading stories or inventing scenarios.

Therefore, the mother uses a large quantity of references to others, and few self-markers. The name seems to have a more direct and simpler function, as it labels the referent explicitly (Caët 2013:219).

In her study of personal pronouns and their use by bilingual children, De with Olivier. In fact, the mother seemingly employs names only when she talks about the absent sibling to the present one, as with Family 3.

their English native mother solely in French and to their French native father in English. There are only three recordings with the two children together, but Olivier could be reproducing his sister's input by exclusively using the French language when referring to his mother.

In this extract, the mother refers to herself with 'Mummy' to emphasize her choice of potatoes. She first asks Olivier if he wants to get another type of potatoes, and as the child agree, she responds by saying that 'Mummy' does not want the new ones. She uses 'Mummy' to contrast with her first request (do you want to get one of the other potatoes) and formulates her new inquiry with 'Mummy' to emphasize her agentivity.

I.B.3 The children: references to each other between siblings

The caretakers in family 2 and 3 use first names and nicknames to designate the children and themselves. As eldest siblings, Christophe and Annick also influence their siblings' speech, which is visible as both children increasingly refer to others as they age, in turn enabling the children to position themselves intersubjectively. Naturally, 'you' is the marker that appears the most and continually in both of their corpora.

In Family 3, Christophe is the eldest sibling, followed by two sisters and taken care of by two female figures (the mother and grandmother). I presumed that the child would use many feminine thirdperson pronouns. Despite my prediction, Christophe does not show a particular burst of feminine pronouns (six 'she' and two 'her'). However, the child employs the second-person pronoun extensively (24 times) as well as his sisters' names (Stephanie three times and Pauline once). These references appear as of three years old.

"Regarde!", as, I believe, he is trying to catch his sister's attention to look at the phenomenon. Given the father's comment, "sit down", the child seems quite excited at the idea of the celebration and is trying to share his enthusiasm with his sister. As previously established, the grandmother positions Christophe as a caretaker by asking him to translate his sister's utterance. In this instance, Christophe does not use his sister's name but adopts a caretaker's position as he repeats the question tag, "aren't you?" immediately after his mother. From 4;04 to 5;04, Christophe self-identifies employing certain personal markers exclusively in each session, whereas his references to others diversify to a greater extent (from a large preference for his caretakers' names and the second-person pronoun 'you' between 2;10 to 4;04 to the plural first-and third-person pronouns afterwards). Therefore, I would posit that the extension of their families leads both Annick and Christophe to refer to others more frequently than to themselves.

To conclude, the families use names to label the referent explicitly and facilitate the exchange. They also use non-standard forms to tease or applaud an action as well as portray someone in a story, past or imaginary. The third-person often asserts a contrast ("gone away Olivier" by Annick or "Mummy wants not the new ones, the brownie ones" by Olivier's mother). In addition, 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' are produced to emphasize the affective relationship. Finally, the second-person pronoun 'you' is often used in question tags ("aren't you" by Christophe and Olivier's mother), but also to seek an opinion or request ("who gave you that idea?" by Jeremy's father or "do you want to get one of the other potatoes?" by Olivier's mother).

II. Subject pronoun uses

II.A/ Non-standard forms

II.A.1 Predicates without subject

Olivier and Jeremy are the two children in the corpus that produce the most predicates without subject.

Jeremy's timeline of use of French and English pronouns shows a tendency to employ French pronouns and predicates without subject to the same extent, at 2;05.12 and 2;09.10. In both of these recordings, the mother is present and Jeremy code-switches intensively. Those past examples show how Olivier omits the grammatical subject three times when addressed with the form "go+ING". Furthermore, Olivier produces predicates without subject with the verbs "put" and "go", which refer to the expression of future projects or immediate intentions. Annick is recorded doing the same (File "020800.cha": "*CH2: 0subj [*] 0aux putting lot blanket on").

The children tend to use null forms when commenting on future prospects, using the linguistic form "verb+ING". The use of null forms could be interpreted as a stage in the linguistic developmental path of the children. Predicates without subject, instead of being replaced by standard forms, are intensified and diversified with age and, thus, bear a specific function. What is more, both children use these forms at approximatively the same age (from 2;05 to 3;07), which coincides with the development of complex constructions. This linguistic diversification could lead to a bilingual reorganization and create a period of experimentation.

Like Jeremy, Olivier produces a higher number of null forms when the recordings feature a high degree of code-switching. Indeed, the timeline of the children's use of French and English pronouns indicates that Jeremy and Olivier tend to use French at a higher rate when there is a burst of English pronouns. When Olivier is 3;07, the researcher noted that the child was "suddenly very excited". In situations where control is an issue, I believe both children find expressivity through various forms, namely code-switching, predicates without subject and negative markers.

II.A.2 The alter-ego or third person self-references

Annick and Christophe exhibit behaviors associated with a persona, thus appearing to perform an alter-ego. I would suggest this behavior is influenced by their condition as eldest siblings and their roles as caretakers.

Annick gradually demonstrates an evolution from 'Ninny' to 'Nicky' in her self-references. However, she stops using both after 3;11, and 'Ninny' reappears at 4;06, when the child self-identifies with it once, while saying, 'me' and 'I' twice each. In the same session, she uses the French negative marker non.

This example features the father and son building a Lego bridge, as Jeremy's father is trying to convince his son to go take a nap. Jeremy refers to the song "Pudding and Pie" with the structure "I+want". In fact, he often asks for this song using the same linguistic structure in similar situations.

Jeremy tends to want this song in contexts of opposition towards his father's will.

At first, Jeremy declares, "no, I want Pudding and Pie", to then continue, "I want Pudding and Pie", but as the father insists, the child directly asserts his desire by repeating "no" three times. Jeremy requests this song quite often throughout the corpus, and the parents show their lassitude, as the father asks him once, "why do you always want Pudding and Pie?", and the mother even answers, "oh no, come on".

Additionally, Jeremy code-switches quite extensively in this session. He uses 'I' 11 times and 'you' four times, but he also employs 'no' 28 times, 'don't' once and 'not' eight times. The father uses 'I' 18 times and 'me' five times, generating the most self-markers in one session. The dyadic dialogue seems to lead each speaker to assert control over the other. Jeremy's use of negation demonstrates an urge to separate himself from the adult and externalize his opinions.

I believe that Jeremy's repetitive requests could be a communicative strategy to avoid his father's solicitations. The song also appears to bring Jeremy comfort, since he always asks for it in contexts of opposition with his father. Moreover, I believe the child's use of 'no' and 'want' is a direct consequence of Jeremy's assertiveness.

I would argue that dyadic conversations prompt the caretaker to emphasize on the child's subjectivity, as the father often use question tags, encouraging Jeremy to express his opinions and perspectives. However, the considerable sum of predicates without subject, negative and selfmarkers, along with the use of both French and English, drives me to believe that Jeremy is combining these various forms to mark his agentivity and find expressivity.

II.B.2 Situation of self-assertion between children

Only the children in Family 3 spend enough time together to allow a longitudinal analysis. The next table demonstrates the contribution of input and confirms the main influence of the grandmother for the three children. Stephanie is addressing with, "give it to me". However, she repeats the same sentence, demonstrating impatience or irritation (shown by the exclamation point) as her addressee does not seem to obey.

Children in Family 3

Christophe

Stephanie's references to others are wide. According to a study by Budwig (1995in Caët 2013:51), children who refer to others the most, and the least to themselves, also make the least mistakes when marking their selves. Stephanie is the child that refers to others the most in such a long period (four years). Her emergence of the first-person pronoun is at 3;01 in English and at 3;10 in French.

Comparatively, the first-person pronoun appears in Christophe's speech at the age of three. Jeremy uses a great number of self-references with few references to others. Olivier's use of the first-person pronoun emerges early (2;08), although his references to others notably reduce with age. Stephanie demonstrates an abundance of references to others, an early emergence of the first-person pronoun and its regular use throughout the corpus; I believe Budwig's theory could apply to her. The child appears to stabilize her self-markers as she concurrently develops references to others.

Moreover, Stephanie negates solely in English and to a limited extent. She uses 'no', 'but' and 'not' twice. At 3;10, she uses 'can't' three times. She is the first child in the corpus to use this verb in the negative form. She also does not use the negative of 'do', unlike all the others. This impressively low number of negative markers, like her brother, leads me to believe that she does not feel the need for self-assertion. In fact, the varied type of activities performed could be the reason why the children do not use negation. I would argue that a dyadic environment fosters the children's need for agentivity and use of negative indicators. In Family 3, for example, the grandmother usually gathers the children together to film, hence, the lack of negative markers.

Contrasting with Jeremy, the children in Family 2 and 3 rarely use the structure "I want". Yet, Christophe, Stephanie and Pauline use 'me' quite extensively, while Jeremy never employs it. The personal marker 'me' is used to contrast (my turn) and oppose (not you, me). The children are expressing their identity and placing themselves as agents of the action.

wants to watch a movie. He uses the indefinite word "some", which does not specify quantity, and says, "please". I would argue that Christophe's request is quite reasonable. He is polite and does not assert himself the same way Jeremy does.

His first 'no' appears as his grandmother asks him to enumerate the people towards whom he has to say messages, and right afterwards, the child asks if he can see a film using the structure 'I+want'. His negation appears to complete his second sentence. I believe Christophe says 'no' not because he does not remember other names but because he wishes to do to something else. His opposition marker helps him assert his self.

As a response, the grandmother tells him that he has to say some messages to the people first, although the child already partially answered his caretaker's solicitation. I believe Christophe ironically repeats his grandmother's utterances, by reproducing "people" and "messages", as he is reluctant to speak. Furthermore, he even seems to know what he has to say by heart, as his next sentences look like a speech he memorized almost mechanically, "Hello, how are you? Are you having a nice time? Yes". Christophe asks the questions and answers them.

Finally, the child also tries to redirect the discussion by asking his grandmother why she has long nails, to then renew his request one last time. I would suggest Christophe's general attitude is quite assertive, as he combines an opposition marker with the structure 'I+want' and mocks his grandmother.

Both children appear to employ negative markers to reject a situation, as they are both interrupted by an adult, although their oppositions do not constitute a negative judgment. Furthermore, they self-identify extensively with the structure 'I+want' to express their agentivity through the firstperson pronoun and the assertive verb "want".

To conclude, the children use various forms of communicative strategies to oppose the other. For example, Jeremy repeats his negative markers extensively, Stephanie uses a more assertive tone and Christophe changes subject. Additionally, the caretakers use names to refer explicitly to the referent, but also to emphasize on the affective relationship with pet names, such as 'Mummy' and 'Daddy'.

The children use two main non-standard forms, the alter-ego and predicates without subject. The eldest siblings act as caretakers and portray a persona, while some children (Jeremy, Annick and Olivier) omit the grammatical subject in different circumstances. On one hand, Olivier and Jeremy produce a higher number of predicates without subject and code-switch. On the other hand, the caretakers favor the second-person pronoun 'you' in question tags and the imperative form to request certain actions from the children. The next chapter analyzes the variety of bilingual tools used by the children to emphasize their subjectivity, notably code-switching and employing French pet names, as well as the caretakers' different linguistic reference points. Since the corpus focuses on the English language, my investigation explores the contexts in which the speakers switch to French.

III. Use of bilingual tools to emphasize subjectivity

III.A/ Language's choice and emotions

III.A.1 Moi in pre-verbal position

Language choice is intrinsic to a bilingual upbringing, serving as an important marker of selfassertion. Parents and children emphasize their subjectivity through various features. Tellingly, the French first-person pronoun je is absent from Jeremy's corpus. The child uses the linguistic form "I+want" quite extensively but also code-switches using "moi+vouloir". However, Jeremy produces this form solely when his mother is present. In the whole corpus, Jeremy employs moi 14 times, mon twice, and "moi+vouloir" four times.

"darling". Both caretakers use these markers to answer a child's request. However, Jeremy's mother appears to code-switch to French pet names in situations of frustration; thus, also linking the French language to particular emotions. As previously mentioned, at 2;05.12, Jeremy switches to French and says, "non veux pas out!", and, "moi veux pas". The mother replies, "bon allez si on veut aller au marché…". In fact, the mother uses the French interjection bon in English sentences six times; however. Jeremy is never recorded doing so. These French interjections are often used to emphasize what has just been said or to establish an intersubjective relationship. The mother seemingly uses them to capture her son's attention but also to differentiate her intervention from the rest of the dialogue. The mother also shows impatience as, I believe, the father's constant requests can hamper the natural development of the conversation. As

Maman me baigne, requesting the mother to give her a bath. The mother code-switches as she references herself in English (Mummy) and continues in French (me bain) without correcting the tense of the verb.

Furthermore, Pauline is the only child in the corpus to use her sister's nickname 'Steffie' at 2;07.

However, when Christophe is four years old, the mother is recorded using 'Steffie' to mention her daughter. The mother uses the nickname in a francophone context (the family is on holidays in the South of France), and Pauline uses her sister's nickname when Christophe refers to his francophone grandparents, as he is about to go on holidays with them. Hence, the nickname seems to be linked to a French environment.

Pauline also pioneers the use of Mama. She first uses Maman at 1;04, then at 1;11 she says, Mama, later, 'Mummy', and finally, Maman. Since Pauline uses the three forms at the same age, I would maintain that Mama is at the intersection of Maman and 'Mummy'. Additionally, she produces the earliest reference to others in the corpus at 1;04 with Maman, and at 1;11 with 'Mummy' and 'Daddy'. Like Annick and Olivier, the native English mothers are mostly referred to in French, while the native French fathers are referred to solely in English.

At 3;0, the grandmother uses Mama with Christophe, but only Pauline is recorded using it at 1;11. I would argue that the three children probably used Mama as a linguistically simplified name to call their mother and that the caretakers naturally reproduced it.

The two following recordings feature Olivier with a year-long gap in between sessions (2;08 and 3;07). In the second file, Olivier opens the dialogue mentioning the discussion he had the previous year. The child is not recorded between these two sessions. variety of references. Olivier uses pairs of connectors in his two languages, with mais, et, 'and', 'but'.

His story is quite dynamic; he calls for his mother's attention by saying regarde! before switching back to English.

At 3;07, he employs third-person pronouns in French il and English 'he'. He reproduces some of the same connectors as in the first recording (mais, et, 'and'), as well as parce que and 'because'. After 3;07, there are only two recordings of Olivier, which explains the decline in his markers. The mother employs a great number of 'you' (64 times) and various third-person pronouns, such as 'he', 'his', 'him', 'her' and 'she'. She does not use any French, although Olivier code-switches often.

The similarities between the two dialogues are quite astonishing. I posit that enthusiasm could occasion Olivier to change languages. Furthermore, code-switching seems to be for Olivier a tool for expressivity.

The mother does not correct her children's linguistic errors, nor does she perform interpretative take-over. Thus, I would posit that Olivier's mother's attitude helps the child experiment with his bilingualism.

Interestingly, both mothers tend to translate their children's French utterances into English.

Consequently, they assist their children's linguistic development by giving them the translation equivalents at any time. This communicative strategy allows the learners to map the messages of their input to the language they are speaking so that both linguistic systems are activated (Mac Whinney 2004:15). This linguistic attitude differs according to the caretakers' input. One parent will consider it cute that the child creates new word combinations and even reuse them, while another will insist on the use of correct language (Morgenstern 2014b:13-14min13sec).

III.B.3 French-only monologue

Olivier is the only child in the corpus to perform an entire conversation in French-only at 4;08. This recording is the only time Olivier uses je.

Despite being alone, Olivier plays two characters. The dialogue is well linked, as Olivier answers himself back and forth with fluidity, albeit with mistakes (que est-ce qui se passe). His narrative is understandable to a monolingual. The child uses elle six times and employs two negative markers with pas and non. Comparatively, Christophe first self-identifies with je, and uses the structure ne… pas at four years old. I posit that this difference is due to Christophe's background, as Family 3's language use seems particularly rigorous.

Olivier does not seem to code-switch when he speaks in a French-only dialogue, although he uses a great amount of French when speaking in English-only conversations with a native English interlocutor. I would argue that these elements confirm Olivier's French dominance.

After 3;07, Annick, Olivier, Stephanie and Christophe show a tendency to use French pronouns to a greater extent while diminishing their use of English markers. I believe the children entered form provides the same function as 'my' in the pre-verbal position. Further, the child employs the linguistic form "moi+verb-ING" ("moi bonking the table") to refer to the accomplishment of his action, also confirming the use of moi to mark possession over an action.

Jeremy shows a tendency in which he employs French pronouns and predicates without subject to the same extent, at 2;05.12 and 2;09.10. At 2;05.17, Jeremy's use of English pronouns peaks. From then on, English monopolizes his speech, albeit gradually decreasing. At 2;09.17, French pronouns are reinstated, while English and predicates without subject diminish. As of 2;09, Jeremy does not use any references to others. Jeremy's use of null forms functions to mark desire.

Annick (recording span of 2 years and 7 months)

Annick self-identifies solely with nicknames from 2;03 to 3;10. She is the only child in the corpus to self-identify with nicknames exclusively for such an extended period. Then, she gradually demonstrates an evolution from 'Ninny' to 'Nicky' in her self-references. Indeed, 'Ninny' seems to be a simplified version of 'Nicky'. However, she stops using both after 3;11.

As a matter of fact, no forms of negation appear between 2;03 and 3;10. Annick employs her first negation at 3;10 using non. I would posit that Annick embodies her French self through her nonstandard use of self-references and the absence of negative markers. Her English self appears after 3;11, with her first 'I' and English opposition markers. In fact, from this age onward, Annick employs exclusively English self-markers with 'I' and 'me'. Her use of English is exponential.

'Ninny' reappears at 4;06, recording in which Annick employs her single French pronoun ma. This behavior resembles the alter-ego as the child uses her nickname to differentiate her past self from her present self.

Olivier (recording span of 2 years and 3 months)

Olivier seems to use his name to express differentiation ("là Olivier"). When his sister asks a question, Olivier employs his name to change the subject ("Olivier go on the bike"). On the contrary, the first-pronoun person expresses possession ("I got a boat") or feelings ("Ah I see" or "I don't remember").

Furthermore, code-switching seems to be for Olivier a tool for expressivity. At 2;08, Olivier uses pairs of connectors in his two languages, with mais, et, 'and', 'but'. At 3;07, he employs third-person pronouns in French il and English 'he'. He reproduces some of the same connectors as in the first recording (mais, et, 'and'), as well as parce que and 'because'. From that age, the child uses French intensively. In fact, Olivier does not code-switch when speaking in a French-only dialogue.

The three families Some linguistics specificities are shared among all the children. Jeremy, Christophe and Stephanie employ the structure 'I+want' to express their agentivity through the first-person pronoun and the assertive verb "want".

Jeremy, Christophe and Pauline employ the structure "my+object" to mark the possession of an object.

Moreover, Christophe, Stephanie and Pauline use 'me' quite extensively. On the contrary, Jeremy and Olivier are never recorded using 'me', and Annick uses it only after 4;06 (recordings in which her brother is present). In family 3, the personal marker 'me' is used to contrast (n°030420 "give me that one") and oppose (n°051029a "give it to me!"). The children are expressing their agentivity and placing themselves as agents of the action almost exclusively when faced with their siblings.

Jeremy, Annick and Olivier use predicates without subject. Olivier produces predicates without subject with the verbs "put" and "go". Annick is recorded doing the same ("0subj [*] 0aux putting lot blanket on"). Annick and Olivier tend to use null forms when commenting on future prospects, using the linguistic form "verb+ING". The use of null forms could be interpreted as a stage in the linguistic developmental path of the children. Predicates without subject, instead of being replaced by standard forms, are intensified and diversified with age and, thus, bear a specific function. What is more, the children use these forms at approximatively the same age (from 2;05 to 3;07), which notably coincides with the development of complex constructions. This linguistic diversification could lead to a bilingual reorganization and create a period of experimentation.

Additionally, Olivier and Stephanie seem to enjoy code-switching with immediate translation equivalents. Both children code-switch exclusively in English-only conversations.

This synthesis helps clarify the longitudinal use of the children's forms and correlates the evolution between the form and the function of different markers.

V. Comparison with the GNP (Genesee-Nicolaidis-Paradis) Bilingual Corpus

Some linguistic patterns found in this investigation were shared with another native bilingual corpus with similar recording conditions. The GNP corpus is described as follows:

The children and their families all lived in Montreal or surrounding communities.

Metropolitan Montreal includes a population of approximately 2.5 million people. It is a bilingual community in which many individuals are bilingual in French and English and use both languages on a daily basis. Moreover, evidence of French and English are evident in the media (there are French and English TV stations, newspapers, magazines, etc), on the street (in the form of signs and announcements), and in stores (most store personnel in medium to large stores can provide service in English and French). It is common to hear English and

French being spoken by people on the street, in buses, stores, etc.

The five children were being raised in homes where both languages were used on a regular basis; usually each language was spoken predominantly by one parent and the other language by the other parent. The children and their parents were recorded in the children's homes -often in the living room, playroom, or kitchen. The recordings were done by an assistant or graduate student who was otherwise uninvolved in the interactions. The parents were asked to interact and talk with their children as they normally would using whichever language(s) they would normally use and to ignore the assistant as much as possible. Twenty to thirty minutes of each session with each child were transcribed using the CHAT transcription system.3

Two children of the GNP corpus use the linguistic form "I+want" or "je+vouloir". Oli and Gen employ the subjective first-person pronoun to assert their position as agents of the situation. Oli employs the structure "I+want" with a possessive marker ('my'), using an assertive tone (shown by the exclamation point). Similarly, Jeremy, from the Watkins bilingual corpus, produces the structure "I+want+my" to take control over an object, and Christophe marks his agentivity through the English first-person pronoun and the assertive verb "want".

Furthermore, some children of the GNP corpus employ non-standard forms, with a particular use of code-switching to self-identify and emphasize their subjectivity. First, Joe and Gen use the strong French pronoun moi with the verbs vouloir and aller, though Gen uses a French-only sentence.

Similarly, Jeremy also expresses his self twice when using je and 'I' one after the other. Furthermore, every time 'my' or moi appear in one of his sessions, 'I' is also used; they do not occur otherwise.

Thus, the children could be using mixed-utterances to accentuate their personal opinions.

Moreover, at 2;10 Oli uses the possessive marker 'my' and the self-reference 'me'. He also repeats his request quite extensively. Comparatively, Stephanie, Christophe and Jeremy display behaviors of self-assertion as they use repetition to stress their desires. Further, Stephanie, like Oli in the above example, expresses her will with insistence when she employs the formula "give it to me!". The children use the personal marker 'me' to contrast (my turn) and oppose (not you, me) so as to mark their position and place themselves as agents of the action.

Finally, some children in the GNP were also recorded using French fillers such as 'ça' and 'là', like As a result, this brief investigation confirms certain patterns. Children use certain bilingual tools to emphasize their subjectivity and even double translate their self-markers to mark further their agentivity. I believe the GNP and the Watkins corpus could be investigated thoroughly to reveal native bilingual linguistic behaviors as the results suggest a universal first bilingual acquisition.

Conclusion of Chapter Two

Each caretaker and child displays various strategies to mark their agentivity, notably using first names and nicknames. Some caretakers vary the perspectives between second-and third-person pronouns, which are then reproduced by the children along with their siblings. The first name is generally preferred to refer to others, while the second-person pronoun is highly used in question tags. The children employ various non-standards forms, such as predicates without subject, third-person self-

Conclusion

Bilingualism and biculturalism are two widespread phenomena worthy of recognition and acceptance. Most societies were built with monolingual policies, refuting the existence of linguistic and cultural diversity. In fact, the dominant status of certain languages perpetuates a social fracture, dividing the population and spreading skepticism on harmonious language learning.

The acquisition of personal pronouns arises with self-awareness and bares a contrastive value.

Through the use of different personal pronouns, children mark their agentivity as they position themselves as agent of their utterances but also emphasize their subjectivity to express their own feelings and perceptions. The path to the acquisition of self-markers in native bilingual children is particularly intriguing as they construct their subjectivity through various cultural spheres and linguistic features. The results of this case-study on the acquisition of the children's subjectivity through self-markers reinforce the connection between children's speech and their caretaker's input. Native bilingualism is a natural aspect of the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural relationships framing modern society.

Moreover, bilingual development forges complex identities revealing rich linguistic inventories and cultural awareness. Citizens with a bicultural and bilingual first language acquisition attain dual expressivity through language mixing, code-switching and borrowing but also paired knowledge of cultural beliefs, societal codes and community characteristics.

For further study, certain data would possibly benefit from a deeper examination, such as interactions with the other parent (fathers in Family 1 and Family 3), different settings (outside the home), and French recordings. Additionally, children of different ages, and with regional diversity, should be considered for investigation. Although this study does not focus on gender differences, it would be important to address this topic in future research, as for example, the three mothers codeswitch greatly, while the two fathers almost never do. Moreover, I believe situations of codeswitching from child to child could present interesting results of linguistics dominance and power dynamics. Finally, the phonetic transcriptions alone did not allow me to fully grasp the context in which the children were evolving, nor the gestures or accents linked to their actions.

This investigation could continue to study how bilingual subjectivity defines the speakers' identities and how bilingual children continue to act on their agentivity in a later stage. Furthermore, an analysis of these children as native bilingual adults could demonstrate how they affect current society. As the European Union encourages bilingualism, I believe native bilingual identities are shaping new world views, creating a European sense of belonging and transforming individual attitudes into universal mindfulness.

  II.B.1 Linguistic dominance and minority language ....................................................................... II.B.2 Borrowing and code-switching ............................................................................................. II.B.3 Language mixing ................................................................................................................... Conclusion of Chapter Three ................................................................................................................. Part II -Corpus and method .................................................................................................................. I. Description of the corpus and the study ........................................................................................ I.A/ Naturalistic environment ............................................................................................................ I.B/ Longitudinal data ........................................................................................................................ I.C/ Cross linguistic context ............................................................................................................... II. Family background: social and linguistic environment ................................................................. II.A/ Family 1: CH1 ............................................................................................................................. II.A.1 CH1: Jeremy ......................................................................................................................... II.A.2 Parents ................................................................................................................................. II.B/ Family 2: CH2 and CH3 ............................................................................................................... II.B.1 CH2: Annick .......................................................................................................................... II.B.2 CH3: Olivier ........................................................................................................................... II.B.3 The rest of the family ........................................................................................................... II.C/ Family 3: CH4, CH5 and CH6 ...................................................................................................... II.C.1 CH4: Christophe .................................................................................................................... II.C.2 CH5: Stephanie ..................................................................................................................... II.C.3 CH6: Pauline ......................................................................................................................... II.C.4 Caretakers and acquaintances ............................................................................................. III. Method ......................................................................................................................................... III.A/ Presentation of the investigation's tools .................................................................................. III.B/ Coding tables: quantitative search ........................................................................................... III.C/ Coding table: qualitative search ............................................................................................... Conclusion of Part II .............................................................................................................................. Part III -The simultaneous acquisition of self-references in French and English: linguistic data analysis ............................................................................................................................................................... Chapter One: Quantitative analysis of the bilingual corpus ............................................................. I. Family 1: Jeremy and his parents ................................................................................................... I.A/ Jeremy ........................................................................................................................................ I.A.1 Self-references ...................................................................................................................... I.A.2 References to others ............................................................................................................. 1.A.3 Negation ............................................................................................................................... I.B/ Jeremy's parents ......................................................................................................................... I.B.1 Self-references ...................................................................................................................... I.B.2 References to others ............................................................................................................. I.B.3 Synthesis ................................................................................................................................ II. Family 2: Annick, Olivier and their mother .................................................................................... II.A/ Annick and Olivier ...................................................................................................................... II.A.1 Self-references ..................................................................................................................... II.A.2 References to others ............................................................................................................ II.A.3 Negation ............................................................................................................................... II.B/ The mother ................................................................................................................................ II.B.1 Self-references ..................................................................................................................... II.B.2 References to others ............................................................................................................ II.B.3 Synthesis ............................................................................................................................... III. Family 3: Christophe, Stephanie, Pauline, and their caretakers .................................................. III.A/ Christophe, Stephanie and Pauline .......................................................................................... III.A.1 Self-references .................................................................................................................... III.A.2 References to others ........................................................................................................... III.A.3 Negation .............................................................................................................................. III.B/ The caretakers .......................................................................................................................... III.B.1 Self-references .................................................................................................................... III.B.2 References to others ........................................................................................................... III.B.3 Synthesis .............................................................................................................................. IV. Synthesis of frequency and emergence of use for all children .................................................... Conclusion of Chapter One.................................................................................................................... Chapter Two: Qualitative analysis of the data ...................................................................................... I. Names and nicknames .................................................................................................................... I.A/ Non-standard forms ................................................................................................................... I.A.1 The caretakers: first name to designate the child ................................................................ I.A.2 The children: references to each other between siblings ..................................................... I.A.3 The children: first name to designate the caretakers ........................................................... I.B/ Standard forms ........................................................................................................................... I.B.1 The caretakers: first name to designate the child ................................................................. I.B.2 The caretakers: name to designate themselves or each other ............................................. I.B.3 The children: references to each other between siblings ................................................... II. Subject pronoun uses .................................................................................................................. II.A/ Non-standard forms ................................................................................................................ II.A.1 Predicates without subject................................................................................................. II.A.2 The alter-ego or third person self-references .................................................................... II.A.3 Pronominal reversals.......................................................................................................... II.B/ Opposition markers to mark subjectivity ................................................................................ II.B.1 Negative indicators in dyadic conversations ...................................................................... II.B.2 Situation of self-assertion between children ..................................................................... II.B.3 'I+want' to express will and desire ..................................................................................... III. Use of bilingual tools to emphasize subjectivity ........................................................................ III.A/ Language's choice and emotions ............................................................................................ III.A.1 Moi in pre-verbal position ................................................................................................. III.A.2 The French referent Maman to express affect ................................................................. III.A.3 Pet names in code-switching situations ............................................................................ III.B/ Linguistic influence ................................................................................................................. III.B.1 Language mixing and linguistic dominance ....................................................................... III.B.2 Linguistic attitude .............................................................................................................. III.B.3 French-only monologue ........................................................................................................ IV. Synthesis of the evolution between form and function for all children .................................... V. Comparison with the GNP (Genesee-Nicolaidis-Paradis) Bilingual Corpus................................. Conclusion of Chapter Two ................................................................................................................. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... Introduction Do children perceive themselves as different people when confusing personal pronouns? Do bilinguals consider themselves two individuals when speaking separate languages?

  , the ability to segment utterances into words is accomplished by three basic mechanisms: o a typical stress pattern associated with words o a predictable sequence of sounds that often occur together and others than never do o infants use distributional evidence to segment fluent speech (3 different sentences with the word cat show consistency across the utterances on the use of cat

  gives a clear idea of six learning habitats and settings:

  93) noted in her study of Spanish/English bilingual children that switching often served to mark a change of identity. When children assumed a position of authority,

  further my work on the corpus used in my first research paper in 2020. My study is based on the observation of the Watkins bilingual corpus available in the CHILDES database, involving six French-English bilinguals from birth over a range of ages between 1;9 to 7;2. The video and audio recordings were not available, but I had access to all the transcripts of the naturalistic interactions. I was able to collect precious information about the corpus directly from the author Charles Watkins after discovering that I lacked major sociolinguistic data from the subjects when I began my research last year. I first contacted C. Watkins personally and, with the help of Mrs Sekali, received a swift reply. I appreciate his willingness to share his work with me, and I thank him for his help.The Watkins bilingual corpus was collated and scripted for a doctoral thesis in English Linguistics at the University of Paris XIII entitled 'The acquisition of deixis in English by children brought up in a bilingual environment', carried out by the researcher Charles Watkins. Given my emphasis on selfreferences, I explore the deictic pair I/you in a native English and French bilingual context, and therefore, this corpus suits my subject perfectly. According to the researcher himself, the focus of the research is theoretical linguistics rather than psycholinguistics.

  English. She asks Olivier a lot of questions related to what they are doing. The environment feels serene. Both of the siblings are quite talkative. The family uses a significant amount of what seems to be demonstratives. They frequently use the French words ça, là, hein and bien, either in pre-verbal position or at the end of their sentences.

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Recording extract n°060906 (Family 3)

  sought negative markers as they are indicators of self-assertion and subjectivity. Consequently, their use can appear instead of pronouns to mark an opinion, establish subjectivity towards another speaker or in response to a situation, and they play a part in the development of self-references.Additionally, I created an Excel file to visualize the distribution of input per family, as a single file in Family 2 and 3 can contain statements from different siblings. Consequently, the eldest siblings can have an influence on the youngest's input. Moreover, I created a final Excel file to analyze the timeline of French and English pronoun use per child to have a longitudinal approach and compare English and French production. These spread sheets provide the data basis for the quantitative analysis, demonstrated via various graphs and tables (Part III).

  The qualitative search allowed me to discern possible pronominal errors and observe possessive markers in pre-verbal positions. It gave me the chance to improve my perception of what required more attention and what was more case-sensitive.Conclusion of Part IIThe learning environment is a crucial factor for a harmonious bilingual development. The overall observations of family background and their specific bilingual linguistic features are necessary to better understand the context in which the children were raised. This chapter addresses the children's linguistic characteristics and the specificities of the different households. These elements allow to situate the development of self-references in relation to other general development features. Notably, the CLAN tools provided general information, but the automatic search did not always allow for thorough results; thus, the data required a permanent fine investigation to verify their veracity. Therefore, in a third and final part, I first explore the quantitative data and offer different hypotheses. Second, I demonstrate the context of use of such markers used by the children to verify or contrast the hypotheses of the first chapter, and investigate how the acquisition of selfreferences in two languages can impact the children's linguistic and personal development. Part III -The simultaneous acquisition of self-references in French and English: linguistic data analysis Chapter One: Quantitative analysis of the bilingual corpus This first chapter investigates the frequency of all the:

  CLAN search example: freq +t*CHI +sI *.cha (Jeremy's frequency of use of the first-person pronoun 'I') I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine, myself, moi je, Jeremy, Wally, Poussin and 0subj Chart 1. Jeremy's use of self-

  Total number of Daddy Total number of I Total number of My Total number of

  second person pronouns Total number of third person pronouns Total number of parents names Total number of first plural person pronoun Total number of the child name or nicknames I.B.3 Synthesis Chart 6. Timeline of Jeremy's use of French and English pronouns

  CLAN search example: freq +t*CH4 +smy *.cha (Christophe's frequency of use of the personal marker 'my') I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine, myself, moi je, Christophe and 0subj Chart 17. Christophe's self-markers

  Olivier uses three (Olivier, je and I). Additionally, Christophe accumulates 53 self-references in four years, while Jeremy counts 59 in four months. CLAN search example: freq +t*CH5 +sje *.cha (Stephanie's frequency of use of the first-person pronoun je) I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine, myself, moi je, Stephanie, Steffie and 0subj Chart 18. Stephanie's self-markers

  My Total number of Me In comparison, Stephanie uses five different self-indicators, just like Christophe. Along with Olivier and Christophe, she uses the French personal pronoun je. She and Annick also use the French marker ma once each, while Jeremy employs mon twice. CLAN search example: freq +t*CH6 +sme *.cha (Pauline's frequency of use of the personal marker 'me') I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine, myself, moi je, Pauline and 0subj

  Caretakers' references to others towards ChristopheThe caretaker's references to others towards Christophe are the most diverse and ample of the corpus. For better visibility, I separated the data between Christophe and his two sisters. Curiously,

  Yet, Pauline was not born yet.Comparatively, Family 1 echoes Family 3, with a large use of names and the second-person pronoun 'you', few third-person pronouns and almost no plural first-person pronouns. Family 2 follows the same pattern, although the mother employs a larger number of plural first-person pronouns and uses diverse forms of third-person pronouns.III.B.3 SynthesisChart 27. Timeline of Christophe's use of French and English pronouns Christophe is the only child to be recorded saying 'mine'. He employs five different self-references throughout his whole corpus, including the only French indicator, je at 4;0 and 5;04. Christophe only code-switches when referring to himself. Otherwise, he uses English exclusively. Christophe's data has peculiarities not shared with other children in the corpus. In fact, from four years old, the child uses certain pronouns exclusively in each session. Notably, the exact same pattern is found in his input. Finally, Christophe negates some state of affairs at 4;0, saying je and ne..pas.Chart 28. Timeline of Stephanie's use of French and English pronouns

  Timeline of the children's first use of self-references

  at 3;0, Stephanie at 3;01 and Annick at 3;11. The French first-person pronoun first appears at 3;10 with Stephanie, 4;0 with Christophe and at 4;08 with Olivier. In first language acquisition, person deictics are used at around 24 months old, but as of 1;6, children can use non-standard forms until the stabilization of the first-person pronoun at around four years old. In Bilingual First Language Acquisition, code-switching and language mixing appear as early as 17 months of age. Chart 31. Timeline of the children's use of French and English pronouns The children produce a total of 323 English markers and 47 French markers. This chart includes references to others (except first names), self-indicators and negative markers. Given that C.

  Additionally, Olivier and Annick are the only children employing their names or nicknames to selfidentify. This use could also function as an external representation of their selves. Finally, due to their apparent confusion between self-markers, Jeremy and Annick could present a situation of personal pronoun errors.Jeremy, Stephanie, Christophe, Olivier and Annick are the five children that code-switch in the corpus. An analysis of context is required to identify the code-switching situations, notably the relation between caretakers and children, and their implications. A research of the dialogues between children-only in Family 2 and 3 can uncover the use of pronouns between the children and a possible context of self-assertion, hence, an emphasis of their agentivity.

  afterwards 0subj [*] 0v going to do a domino . *** File "030700a.cha" *CH3: [-fra] [^ suddenly very excited] xxx filet et regarde ! *CH3: 0subj lots_of water and 0subj [*] put it on the board .

  Annick and Olivier. One child uses the form "ché pas" (Oli, file "030614f.cha": line 1265) which could confirm Christophe's linguistic maturity as a result of his meticulous input. The children use a total amount of 186 French names to refer to their parents (Maman 49 times and Papa 137) and 125 English forms (Mommy 56 times, Mom two, Dad three and Daddy 64), which could confirm the tendency towards the French language to convey affection and emotions.

  The children's exposition to both the French and English languages reflects a peculiar development of agentivity in their use of self-references and opposition markers. Specifically, their use of nonstandard forms allows a certain expressivity. Names and nicknames are used to label the referent explicitly and facilitate the exchange. Caretakers use them to tease or applaud an action and highlight their affective relationship, whereas the second-person pronoun 'you' is produced in imperative forms (Family 1 and 3) or in question tags (Family 1 and 2). Annick and Olivier use their names to portray themselves and others in stories. Significantly, Christophe and Annick, as the two eldest siblings, perform an alter-ego. Their position causes them to act as caretakers and often include themselves in the collective. In opposition situations, Jeremy repeats his negative markers extensively while Stephanie and Christophe use an assertive tone or change the course of the conversation. Additionally, "I+want" seemingly expresses will and desire, while moi, my or mon express possession and differentiation. Finally, Annick, Olivier and Jeremy sometimes omit the grammatical subject in dyadic conversations. These null forms often coexist with opposition markers and code-switching exchanges. The children mark their agentivity through specific combinations of these various forms.Furthermore, the children emphasize their subjectivity as they establish their selves through various bilingual tools. Code-switching expands the children's expressivity significantly (Jeremy and Olivier), especially when one language is dominant. Children either code-switch to French in situations where one native French parent is present (Stephanie and Jeremy) or when that caretaker tends to codeswitch as well (mothers in the three families). Moreover, francophone contexts appear to facilitate pronominal errors (Jeremy and Christophe), and extensive periods of input exclusively in one language seem to influence linguistic dominance, shown with Christophe and Stephanie, but only

Table 1 -

 1 Different forms of first and second personal pronouns in English(Caët 2013:39)

	Second person pronoun

Table 2 -

 2 Different forms of first and second personal pronouns in French(Caët 2013:40)

Table 3 -

 3 Stages of first language acquisition

Language Acquisition Bilingual First Language Acquisition

	Stage	Typical age	Description	Description BFLA
	Birth	Before one year old		Distinction between their two languages
				Insensitivity to languages other than
	Early	As of one	'Name'	their own
	production	year old	'Mummy', 'Daddy'	Distinction before words and
				phrases in both of their languages
			Holophrases	Use of the right words from the right
		As of 14	Item-based constructions	language to a bilingual adult
		months of	First rejection situations
	Speech	age	Children talk about events in
	emergence		the here and now
		At around 17	Word combinations	Emergence of language mixing and
		months of	Emergence of various	code-switching
		age	negative markers (not)
			Production of 200 to 500
	Use of	As of two	words
	non-	years old	Emergence of denial and
	standard		modal verbs
	forms from	At around 24	Use of person deictic such as
	1;6 to 3	months old	'I', 'You', 'We'
	years old		Production of complex verbal
	onwards	As of three	constructions (-ED and -ING)
		years old	Emergence of complex
			negative forms (nothing, nor)
			Narrative development with	Simultaneous acquisition mode
	Near	As of four	temporal and spatial symbols
	fluency	years old	Stabilization of the first
			person pronoun

Table 5 -

 5 Stages of first monolingual and bilingual language acquisitionDe Houwer notes that "bilingual input is only present if children regularly hear unilingual utterances in Language A and unilingual utterances in Language Alpha" (2009:106). Input, frequency and experience are important in bilingual language acquisition but are, overall, case sensitive. Depending on the situation, one bilingual can develop harmoniously while the other does not, with the same apparent learning habitat. DeHouwer (2009:326-327) states:

Table 6 -

 6 Types of bilingual acquisition in childhood

  The first family comprises research video recordings made by ProfessorCharles Watkins himself to study his son's utterances. The third family (three subjects) includes 'family' video recordings made by parents or grandparents for purely recreational purposes. A 'recording session' can vary in length and corresponds to a continuous recording of sounds. Each 'recording session' corresponds to a computer file. 76 files in the main corpus correspond to 76 separate 'recording sessions', all subjects combined. 2

  Jeremy's language evolution correctly. Most of the recordings happen during mealtime.Thanks to Charles Watkins's information, I know that Jeremy was born in 1990 and that C. Watkins is his father. Jeremy's nicknames are Wally (n°020517), Potkins (n°020917) and Poussin (n°020917). He seems quite impatient and in need of self-assertion. Jeremy speaks mostly in English, although he sometimes refers to himself in French with moi.

			Watkins' Corpus
	Number of recordings	10		20		41
		Father
		(Charles
	Main	Watkins) -			Mother (Clare) and grandmother -
	speakers and	native English	Mother -native English	both native English speakers
	their native	speaker	speaker	Father (Robert) -native French
	tongues	Mother -				speaker
		native French
		speaker
	Family language	English	French	English and French
	Community language			French
	Recorded situations	Meals and games	Games		Varied
	Transcriptions	Format CHAT with a phonetic main line and three dependent tiers
	Brothers and sisters	Only child	Two younger brothers including Olivier (-2;4)	One younger brother and one older sister, Annick (+2;4)	Two younger sisters, Stephanie (-2) and Pauline (-4;8)	One older brother, Christophe (+2) and one younger sister, Pauline (-2;8)	One older brother, Christophe (+4;8) and one older sister, Stephanie (+2;8)
		French
	Childcare	speaking	Mother		Grand-mother
		care-taker
	Families Child Date of the first and last transcriptions Linguistic environment: One person-one language strategy used families in the three	Family 1 Jeremy CH1 From the 17 th of August to the 22 th of December 1992 Bilingual parents. The father speaks exclusively in switches. mother code-English. The	' Corpus Family 2 Annick CH2 Olivier CH3 Table 8. Family patterns 1981 1976 to the 11 th of March From the 16 th of June Bilingual mother and unilingual French father. The mother speaks in English with a large amount of code-French. speaks exclusively in switching. The father	Family 3 Stephanie CH5 of October 1995 Christophe CH4 From the 28 th of July 1990 to the 22 th Pauline CH6 Bilingual mother with some code-switching in French. The father comprehends English but speaks exclusively in French. Unilingual English grandmother.
	Recording span II.A/ Family 1: CH1 2;05 to 2;09	2;03 to 4;10	2;05 to 4;08	1;09 to 7;02	1;05 to 5;02	1;10 to 2;07
		II.A.1 CH1: Jeremy

10 recordings are of Jeremy. The first eight are from the 17/08/1992 (2;5) to the 29/08/1992 (2;6). It seems the researcher, then, added two other recordings in which Jeremy is older in December 1992 (2;9). This time span (first 12 days in a row and then two recordings 3 months later) is insufficient to analyze

  All the self-references to oneself in the children's and caretakers' production in both languages: I, je, my, mon, ma, moi, me, mine, moi je, names, nicknames and pet names

Example: freq +t*CH4 +sI *.cha (Christophe's frequency of use of the first-person pronoun 'I') -All the references to others in the children's and caretakers' production in both languages: you, tu, your, she, elle, he, il, toi, we, nous, us, him, lui, his, son, her, sa, hers, ton, ta, names, nicknames and pet names Example: freq +t*MOT +shim *.cha (Mother's frequency of use of the third-person pronoun 'him')

Table 9

 9

	Example for negation: Combo +t*CH2 +W4 -W4 +snon+pas+ne+no+but *.cha (Annick's use of the
	negative markers non, ne, pas, 'no' and 'but' in context)
	I classified the markers by age to allow a longitudinal study and added different criteria to better
	grasp the context of use:

. Excel document -example of the quantitative coding table of self-markers for CH1 III.C/ Coding table: qualitative search I used COMBO to understand the context in which each marker was used, towards whom and in what situation. I searched for the markers that appeared with FREQ, and added +w4 -w4 (4 lines of context before and after the marker). Example for self-markers: Combo +t*CH6 +w4 -w4 +smoi+me+my *.cha (Pauline's use of the firstperson markers moi, 'me' and 'my' in context)

Example for references to others: Combo +t*GRA +w4 -w4 +snanny+I+me+my *.cha (Grandmother's use of the personal markers 'nanny',

'I', 'me' and 'my' in context)

Table 10

 10

. Excel document -example of the qualitative coding table for context of personal pronoun use for CH1

  Jeremy says 'no' 56 times in the corpus, while saying 'not' 16 and 'don't' five. No other children perform such considerable numbers, as the second highest number of 'no' is from Olivier, who employs it 15 times. When Jeremy is 2;05.12, he uses diverse forms to refer to others ('Daddy', 'Mummy' and 'we') and equally different rejection markers ('no', pas, non and 'not'). It is the only recording in which Jeremy uses French negative markers, with pas and non. He also performs the highest number of the self-indicator moi (7 times).I acknowledge that there might be a correlation between the high number of self-markers and negative indicators. Jeremy could be using negation to emphasize his subjectivity.

	100%				2		5	2
	0% 50%	1	1	1	4	3	18	1 2 2	1	1	1
		FAT	FAT	MOT	FAT	MOT	FAT	FAT	MOT	FAT	MOT
				Chart 4. Parents' self-markers in Family 1
			Total number of I	Total number of My	Total number of Moi
			Total number of Mon Total number of Ø
				Chart 1. Jeremy's use of self-markers

I.B/ Jeremy's parents I.B.1 Self-references CLAN search example 1: freq +t*MOT +sMaman *.cha (Jeremy's mother's frequency of use of the personal marker Maman) CLAN search example 2: freq +t*FAT +sDaddy *.cha (Jeremy's father's frequency of use of the personal marker 'Daddy') I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine and myself. For the mother only: Mummy, Mum and Maman. For the father only: Daddy, Dad and Papa.

  The next section analyzes the data of Family 2, with children Annick and Olivier, in a familiar setting that is similar to Jeremy's. The English native mother takes care of the siblings, but the children use a variety of pronouns and their names to mark themselves. Annick solely uses nicknames to refer to herself. Annick is the only child in the corpus to self-identify with nicknames exclusively for such an extended period. The child, in a period of 2 years and 07 months, uses 'I' 3 times, with a total of 26 self-references and 4 null forms. Her self-markers

	0% 50% 100%	2	2 7 1	2 2 1	2	1	2 1 2 2 1	2
		2;03	2;08	3;01	3;10	3;11	4;06	4;10
					CH2
		Total number of I	Total number of Nicky Total number of Ninny
		Total number of Me	Total number of Ø	Total number of Ma
			Chart 7. Annick's use of self-markers
	Annick is the oldest sibling in Family 2. She expresses her first self-marker at 2;03 with 'Ninny'. From
	II. Family 2: Annick, Olivier and their mother II.A/ Annick and Olivier II.A.1 Self-references 1 1 0% 50% 100% 2;03 to 3;10, Chart 8. Olivier's use of self-markers 2 4 8 2 1 2;05 2;06 2;08 3;07	1 4;06	1 4;08

The child uses 'my', 'I', moi and mon. He does not use je, 'me', names or nicknames. In terms of references to others, Jeremy uses English exclusively. His markers are infrequent and limited. Jeremy only employs second-person pronouns. The child uses 'Daddy' and 'Mummy' to refer to his parents. His use of negation is extensive and varied. Ultimately, the parents' input is undoubtedly a direct influence on the child's speech.

CLAN search example: freq +t*CH2 +sme *.cha (Annick's frequency of use of the personal marker 'me') I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine, myself, moi je, Annick, Ninny, Nicky and 0subj are only in English, expect once when she uses ma at 4;06. Furthermore, from 3;11 to 4;10, she starts employing 'I' and 'me'. In four sessions, Annick uses few self-references, whereas in the three others she employs a diversity of self-indicators. At 2;08 and 3;01, Annick uses 'Ninny', 'Nicky' and predicates without subject. Additionally, at 4;06, the child employs five different self-references: 'Ninny' and ma once each, while using 'me', 'I' and null forms twice each. I note that Annick uses two nicknames (Ninny and Nicky) but never her full proper name (Annick).

The child could be creating nominal errors, or 'Ninny' could be a simplified version of 'Nicky'.

Moreover, the use of 'Ninny' after a 17-month absence could indicate a usage of 'baby talk' or the performance of an alter ego. The marked near absence of the French language is possibly due to a lack of corresponding input in her native English mother's speech. CLAN search example: freq +t*CH3 +sOlivier *.cha (Olivier's frequency of use of his proper name) I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine, myself, moi je, Olivier, Ollie and 0subj CH3 Total number of I Total number of Ø Total number of Olivier Total number of Je

  The early emergence of pronouns could also be a consequence of Olivier's youthful position in the family and his larger variety of input due to his sister. Additionally, the great use of nicknames with Annick could have pressed the caretakers to use Olivier's first name exclusively. Similarly to his sister, Olivier omits the French language.

	0% 50% 100%	1 1	3	3 1 1	3 3	14 4 7 2	1 32 1
		2;03	2;08	3;01	3;11	4;06	4;10
					CH2
		Total number of second person pronouns	Total number of third person pronouns
		Total number of the brother name		Total number of first plural person pronoun
		Total number of the parents names
		Second-person pronouns		You (16)
		Third-person pronouns		He (28), Him (3), His (1)
		Brother's name		Ollie (2), Olivier (6)
		Parents' nicknames		Maman (6), Daddy (1)
		Plural first-person pronoun		We (14)
			Chart 9. Annick's references to others

II.A.2 References to others

CLAN search example: freq +t*CH2 +she *.cha (Annick's frequency of use of the third-person pronoun 'she') I searched for: you, your, tu, toi, she, elle, her, he, il, him, his, son, sa, ton, ta, we, nous, us, Mum, Mummy, Maman, Daddy, Dad, Papa, Olivier and Ollie

  Total number of third person pronouns in English Total number of third person pronouns in French Total number of the parents names Olivier's references to others contain a great amount of code-switching. He employs different forms without favoring any. Unexpectedly, his indicators to others reduce in variety with age. For better visibility, I categorized the third-person pronouns by the language employed. At 2;08, Olivier uses all forms of references, including 'we' six times, 'you' twice and various third-person pronouns in both languages. At the same age, he uses a variety of self-markers. Similarly to his sister, Olivier calls his English native mother solely in French, Maman, and his native French father in English with 'Daddy'.

	0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%	6 2 4 3 2	1 4 4	6
		2;08	3;07	4;08
			CH3
	Total number of first person plural pronoun	Total number of second person pronouns
	Second-person pronouns	You (2)
	Third-person pronouns in English	She (2), He (5), Him (1)
	Third-person pronouns in French	Elle (6), Il (7)
	Parents' names	Maman (1), Daddy (1)
	We		We (7)
		Chart 10. Olivier's references to others

searched for: you, your, tu, toi, she, elle, her, he, il, him, his, son, sa, ton, ta, we, nous, us, Mum, Mummy, Maman, Daddy, Dad, Papa, Annick, Ninny and Nicky

  Even though Annick's negative markers are mostly in English, her first negation is in French at 3;10. Annick uses non twice, at 3;10 and 4;06, recording in which she also uses ma. No forms of negation appear between 2;03 and 3;10. Annick performs her first 'I' at 3;11. She also uses her first English 'no' at the same time. Before that age, Annick refers to herself using only nicknames. The session where Annick is 4;06 involves various forms of negation. Annick also uses different self-markers and references to others in this recording.I observe that Annick uses non-standard forms to refer to herself in recordings in which she employs French negative markers as well. She could be emphasizing her subjectivity when using the various ma, non and Maman, or performing a character when she associates the French marker non and 'Ninny'.Chart 12. Olivier's use of negation Chart 8. Olivier's use of self-markers Olivier's negation markers are varied in both languages. As with his references to others, Olivier's opposition indicators increase in French with age. The session in which Olivier is 2;08 is particularly versatile. He employs a French marker for the first time with mais. The child uses all forms of references to others and a variety of self-markers. Furthermore, the child employs French markers in observe that, for the second time, Olivier uses both English and French equivalents in a single session, with mais and 'but'. Code-switching could be helping Olivier emphasize his subjectivity.Between 2;05 and 2;09, Jeremy also uses an extensive number of negative markers. After Jeremy, Olivier employs the highest use of 'no' (15 times). Annick employs 'doesn't' at 4;10; while Jeremy

	uses 'don't' at 2;09.10, and Olivier produces it at 3;07.
		II.B/ The mother
		II.B.1 Self-references
	CLAN search example: freq +t*MOT +sMummy *.cha (The siblings' mother's frequency of use of the
	name 'Mummy')
			0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%		1	1	2 1	2	5 4	2
	80% 100%		5 1	2 2;03	1 Annick 2;08 3;01	4;06 100% 80%	2;08 Olivier 3;07 1	2
	0% 20% 40% 60%	2	1 12	1 3 Total number of I 1 Total number of Mummy Total number of Maman 1 1 60% MOT 0% 40% Total number of Me 20%	2 8	4	1	1
		2;05	2;08		3;07	4;08		2;05 2;06 2;08 3;07 4;06 4;08
				CH3	Chart 13. The mother's self-markers in Family 2	CH3
	1 2 3;11 Total number of but 1 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 3;10 Total number of not Total number of mais Total number of non 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 4;06 4;10 CH2 Total number of no Total number of don't Total number of pas 1 2 2 2 2 2 7 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 100% 90% 80% 2 0% 20% 50% 60% 70% 40% 30% 10%		0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%	1 2;03 2;08 3;01 3;10 3;11 4;06 4;10 2 2 2 2 2 7 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 CH2 Total number of I Total number of I Total number of Ø Total number of Olivier Total number of Je 1 2 1 8 1 1 1 4 2 2;05 2;06 2;08 3;07 4;06 4;08
		Total number of but 2;03 2;08 3;01 3;10 3;11 4;06 4;10		Total number of Nicky CH3
		Total number of non CH2				Total number of Ninny Total number of I
	Total number of no Total number of I Total number of Nicky		Total number of Me Total number of Ø
	Total number of not Total number of Ninny Total number of Me			Total number of Ø Total number of Olivier
	Total number of doesn't Total number of Ø Total number of Ma			Total number of Ma Total number of Je
		Chart 11. Annick's use of negation Chart 7. Annick's use of self-markers			Chart 7. Annick's use of self-markers Chart 8. Olivier's use of self-markers

CLAN search example: freq +t*CH2 +sbut *.cha (Annick's frequency of use of the negative marker 'but') I searched for: mais, but, non, no, not, ne, pas, plus, don't, can't, won't, doesn't CLAN search example: freq +t*CH3 +smais *.cha (Olivier's frequency of use of the negative marker mais) I searched for: mais, but, non, no, not, ne, pas, plus, don't, can't, won't, doesn't his French-only recording, at 4;08, with pas and non. Contrasting with his sister, Olivier marks his first opposition at 2;05, using 'no' twice. I I searched for: I, je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine and myself, Mummy, Mum and Maman

  The mother's self-markers are few and limited. She refers to herself mainly with 'I' towards both of her children throughout the corpus. She uses 'me', 'I' and Maman towards Annick but 'I' and 'Mummy' towards Olivier. Nevertheless, both children use French markers. At 4;06, Annick says ma, and at 4;08, Olivier says je. Additionally, the mother says Maman to Annick at 2;03 and 'Mummy' to Olivier four times at 2;08. I acknowledge that the mother's self-references are few, which could elicit the children to use predicates without subject. Additionally, Annick could be reproducing her caretaker's input when saying Maman at 2;03. The absence of the French language in the mother's input raises the possibility that the French input in the children's speech is a consequence of the francophone context or the French native father.

	60% 70% 80% 90% 100%	1	3 1 5	2	1 3		25 10 4 2
	50%	1				2		1
	40%			8
	10% 20% 30%	1	13		7		42
	0%
		2;03	2;08	3;01	2;05	2;06	2;08	3;07
			Annick			Olivier
					MOT
		Total number of second person pronouns	Total number of third person pronouns
		Total number of first plural person pronouns Total number of the siblings names
		Total number of the parents names

II.B.2 References to others

CLAN search example: freq +t*MOT +swe *.cha (The siblings' mother's frequency of use of the plural first-person pronoun 'we') I searched for: you, your, tu, toi, she, elle, her, he, il, him, his, son, sa, ton, ta, we, nous, us, Daddy, dad, Papa, Annick, Ninny, Nicky, Olivier and Ollie

  Stephanie's references to others are wide, with limited code-switching. Like her brother, she largely favors her caretakers' names and the second-person pronoun 'you'. Stephanie and Christophe both use the plural first-person pronoun at approximately the same age, 4;08 and 4;10, respectively. She is the child with the earliest reference to others in the corpus at 1;04 with Maman, and at 1;11 with 'Mummy' and 'Daddy'. Furthermore, Stephanie code-switches twice when referring to others. At 1;04 and 3;10, she says Maman. At 4;10, she uses il. Interestingly, she also uses French to selfidentify, at 3;10, using je and employs the possessive marker ma at 4;10. Pauline's references to others are quite limited. She shows the same inclinations as her siblings. She almost only refers to her caretakers by their names. For the first time in the corpus, Pauline employs the nickname 'Steffie' twice to refer to her sister, Stephanie. Unlike her siblings at the same age, Pauline does not use the second-person pronoun 'you'. Christophe uses it for the first time at 3;0 and Stephanie at 2;03. However, Pauline uses possessive markers early. At last, Pauline is also pioneer in her use of Mama. She first uses it at 1;11, then 'Mummy' and finally Maman. She uses the three forms at the same age.I observe that Pauline uses various forms that could be interpreted as 'baby talk', such as 'Steffie' or Mama. The latter is possibly a form at the intersection of Maman and 'Mummy'.Two clear periods emerge from this chart. From 3;0 to 5;01, Christophe favors 'no'. He uses it nine times in two years. However, from 5;02 to 7.02, he is not recorded using 'no' again. His negative forms diversify, favoring 'but', 'don't' and 'not' exclusively. Yet, at 4;0, he self-identifies with je, and uses the structure ne… pas.I notice that Christophe gradually diminishes his use of 'no' as well as his self-references, while his references to others augment, which could be due to his position as the eldest sibling. Christophe might act as a caretaker, and consequently, decrease his use of 'no'. Like Stephanie, Christophe possibly code-switches with French-only sentences in English dialogues when he employs both je and the structure ne…pas. Comparatively, Christophe is the third child that uses negation the most, after

	Second-person pronoun Third-person pronouns in English Caretakers' names Siblings' names Plural first-person pronoun Jeremy and Olivier. The child employs 'don't' quite late, at 4;05, while Jeremy first uses it at 2;09.10 You (15) He (1), Her (4), Il (1) Mummy (5), Daddy (2), Nanny (2), Nana (2), Richard (1), Maman (2) Christophe (1), Pauline (3) We (8) Chart 20. Stephanie's references to others Finally, III.A.3 Negation CLAN search example: freq +t*CH4 +snot *.cha (Christophe's frequency of use of the negative marker and Olivier at 3;07. Annick only employs 'doesn't' at 4;10.
	'not') CLAN search example: freq +t*CH5 +snon *.cha (Stephanie's frequency of use of the negative marker
	I searched for: mais, but, non, no, not, ne, pas, plus, don't, can't, won't, doesn't non)
	I searched for: mais, but, non, no, not, ne, pas, plus, don't, can't, won't, doesn't
		100%
		0% 20% 40% 60% 80%	4	1	1	1 1	1	1	1	1 2	2	1 1	1 4	1 1 1
			3;00 3;04 3;11 4;00 4;04 4;05 4;08 5;01 5;10 6;02 6;06 7;02
								CH4
			Total number of but		Total number of no	Total number of not
			Total number of pas		Total number of don't Total number of ne
						Chart 22. Christophe's use of negation
	0% 50% 100%	Third-person pronoun He (1) Sister's nickname Steffie (2) Mama (1), Daddy (1), 7 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 7 1 3;0 3;04 3;11 4;0 4;04 4;05 4;08 4;10 5;01 5;04 5;10 6;06 7;02 1 2 4 1 1 2;02 2;03 2;07 CH6 1 1 5 1 2 2 1 7 2 1 2 1 Chart 23. Stephanie's use of negation 3 1;11 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Chart 18. Stephanie's self-markers
	Caretakers' names CH4 CH5 Total number of second person pronouns Total number of the siblings names Mummy (3), Total number of He Maman (1), Nanny (3) Total number of Steffie Total number of I Total number of Me Total number of My
	Total number of third person pronouns Total number of the caretakers names Total number of Je Total number of Ø Total number of the caretakers names Total number of Mine
		Total number of we	Chart 21. Pauline's references to others
							Chart 17. Christophe's self-markers

Stephanie refers to others mostly by name, which might confirm the fact that the children reproduce the adult's speech. Moreover, Stephanie possibly code-switches with French-only sentences in English dialogues. Equally to Annick and Olivier, the native English mothers are regularly referred to in French, while the native French fathers are referred to solely in English. The child could be using French to signal affect and emotion.

CLAN search example: freq +t*CH6 +syou *.cha (Pauline's frequency of use of the second-person pronoun 'you') I searched for:

you, your, tu, toi, she, elle, her, he, il, him, his, son, sa, ton, ta, we, nous, us, Mum, Mummy, Mama, Maman, Daddy, Dad, Papa, Nanny, Nana, grandmother, Christophe, Stephanie, Steffie and Richard.

  Stephanie seems inclined to construct her agentivity through self-markers in both languages, although she favors negative markers in English. Her prompt use of 'can' in the negative form could be caused by her large variety of input.Lastly, Pauline uses 'no' four times, at 1;11 and at 2;07, twice each. She is the first child to use 'no' at such an early age. Additionally, she is the first child to use possessive markers as early as 2;03.Pauline's young position in the family could drive her to mark her agentivity to a greater extent. je, my, mon, ma, me, moi, mine and myself. For the mother only Mummy, Mum, Mama and Maman; for the father only Daddy, Dad, and Papa; for the grandmother only Nanny, Mum, Mummy, Maman, Mama and Grandmother.The caretakers' chart is highly similar to the children's. The self-markers are solely in English. The grandmother employs 27 self-indicators, 'I' and 'me' eight times and 'Nanny' eleven. The mother uses 10 self-references, 'I' four times, 'me' and 'Mummy' twice, 'my' and 'Mum' once. In fact,

	CLAN search example: freq +t*CH6 +sno *.cha (Pauline's frequency of use of the negative marker
	'no')
	I searched for: mais, but, non, no, not, ne, pas, plus don't, can't, won't, doesn't
	III.B/ The caretakers Chart 17. Christophe's self-markers		Chart 18. Stephanie's self-markers
		III.B.1 Self-references
	CLAN search example 1: freq +t*MOT +sMum *.cha (The siblings' mother's frequency of use of the
	name 'Mum')
	100% CLAN search example 2: freq +t*FAT +sPapa *.cha (The siblings' father's frequency of use of the 100%
	1 name Papa) 80%	1	80% 90%	3	1	2
	3 CLAN search example 3: freq +t*GRA +sNanny *.cha (The siblings' grandmother's frequency of use of 60% 1 1 4 1 60% 70% 1 40% 2 1 1 50% the name 'Nanny')
	1 3;01 3;10 4;08 5;01 1 1 CH5 Total number of but Total number of no Total number of not Total number of can't 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 0% 20% MOT GRA GRA MOT GRA GRA GRA MOT MOT GRA GRA GRA GRA GRA MOT GRA GRA 6 2 40% 3 0% 10% 20% 30% 3;01 3;04 3;10 4;05 4;08 4;10 5;01 5 CH5 Total number of I Total number of Je Total number of Ma Total number of My Total number of Me 1 4 3 2 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3;0 3;04 3;11 4;0 4;04 4;08 5;01 5;10 6;02 6;06 6;09 7;02 1;11 2;02 2;03 1;04 4;08 Christophe Pauline Stephanie Total number of Nanny Total number of I Total number of Me I searched for: I, Chart 24. Caretakers' self-markers Total number of My Total number of Mummy Total number of Mum

  GRA +swe *.cha (The siblings' grandmother's frequency of use of the plural first-person pronoun 'we') I searched for: you, your, tu, toi, she, elle, her, he, il, him, his, son, sa, ton, ta, we, nous, us, Christophe, Stephanie, Steffie, Pauline, Nana and Richard. For the mother only Mum, Mummy, Mama, Clare, Maman, Daddy, Dad, Papa, Nanny and Grandmother. For the father only Mum, Mummy, Mama, Clare and Maman. For the grandmother only Mum, Mummy, Mama, Clare, Maman, Daddy, Dad and Papa.

	1 1 2 2 7 2 3;0 3;04 Total number of I 5 1 1 1 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 3;11 4;0 Total number of My 1 2 4;04 4;05 CH4 1 4;08 Total number of Me 7 2 7 1 2 1 1 1 1 4;10 5;01 5;04 5;10 6;06 7;02 1 2 1 Total number of Je Total number of Ø Total number of Mine CLAN search example 3: freq +t*Grandmother	2 3;01 3;04 3;10 4;05 4;08 4;10 5;01 6 2 5 1 1 1 1 3 4 1 3 1 2 CH5 Total number of I 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Total number of Je Total number of Ma Total number of My Total number of Me Mother Father
	Second-person	You (76), Your
	pronouns
	CLAN search example 1: freq +t*MOT +sher *.cha (The siblings' mother's frequency of use of the
	third-person pronoun 'her')
	CLAN search example 2: freq +t*FAT +stu *.cha (The siblings' father's frequency of use of the second-
	person pronoun tu)

  father is recorded speaking solely in English and in Christophe's data only. The caretakers demonstrate a large preference for first names and the second-person pronoun 'you'. They also rarely use the plural first-person pronoun. The grandmother employs a great number of names and few third-person pronouns to refer to others. At 3;0, the grandmother uses Mama with Christophe, but Pauline is the only child to be recorded using it at 1;11. I recognize that the amplitude of this chart could be a consequence of the diverse familiar circle, as well as the length of Christophe's recording span. Moreover, I acknowledge that the caretakers' input contains mainly first names and second-person pronouns, which could directly cause such forms in the children's markers. The almost exclusive use of first names might originate from a perceived discourtesy attributed to third-person pronouns. Furthermore, the use of Mama in the input could be perceived as a form invented by the children repeated by the caretakers, or as a form used by the caretakers and influenced in the children's discourse.

	90% 100%																					1 1
	80%
	70%
	60%
	50%																					2
	40%
	30%
	0% 10% 20%	80% 100%	2		1 1				3 1	2			1		1					8	1
		1;11 0% FAT 4;04 20% 40% 60%	5;10 7 2;10	3;0	3;04 12	3;11	4;0	4;04 6 3	4;05 GRA 4;08 6	4;10	5;01	5;04 CH4 5;10 1 2	6;06 2 2	6;09	7;02	2;10 3	3;0	3;04 10 4;0	4;04 MOT 4;05 5;04 1	5;10 1 6;02	6;06	6;09
		Total number of We 1;04 2;07	3;10	4;08	2;07	Total number of second person pronouns 3;10 4;08 1;11 2;03 2;03
		Total number of the caretakers names GRA		Total number of third person pronouns MOT GRA MOT
		Total number of the children names CH5										CH6
		Total number of second person pronouns Total number of third person pronouns
		Total number of the children names			Total number of the caretakers names
											Stephanie							Pauline
									Grandmother		Mother			Grandmother	Mother
	Second-person pronouns You (16),			You (3)			You (7),
								Your (10)								Your (2)
	Third-person pronouns			She (2),			She (2),
								Her (2)			Her (3)
	Children's names					Stephanie (5),	Stephanie (3) Christophe (1),	Pauline (1)
								Pauline (2)							Stephanie (1),
																		Pauline (8)
	Caretakers' names				Clare (1),			Nanny (1)
								Nana (1)
			Chart 26. Caretakers' references to others towards Stephanie and Pauline

the

Table 11 .

 11 Linguistic developmental path of the children between French and English

2 The children: references to each other between siblings

  Houwer uses the example of her own daughter, bilingual in Dutch and English. In Dutch, Susan refers to herself with her name, like Olivier, and to her mother with Mama. On the other hand, in English, she uses first-and second-person singular personal pronouns. Only when she overheard Dutch speakers, other than her own mother, did she instantly start to use personal pronouns in Dutch. Because she was exposed to different Dutch speakers and listened to them converse, Susan simply integrated the rules of personal pronoun usage. She no longer needed proper names as substitutes (2009:103). The mother's input with Annick and Olivier is quite limited in terms of diversity, and the siblings are never recorded with other people. Thus, the children could lack variety and overheard speech and, as a result, favor their names. Olivier seems to use his name to express differentiation. When he is asked a question, Olivier employs his name to change the subject (CH2: what have you got là? CH3: Olivier go on the bike).

	Olivier is not recorded using 'Ninny' nor 'Nicky'. The mother employs 'Ninny' once with Annick at
	2;03, and 'Nicky' three times with Olivier at 2;08. She refers to Olivier/'Ollie' five times with Annick. I
	would argue that Annick created the nickname 'Ollie' for her brother, as the mother uses it only with
	her and calls her son solely with his first name. Annick is not present when the mother uses 'Nicky'

I.A.

Annick has two younger brothers, and her father is away during all recordings. I presumed that the child would probably use many masculine third-person pronouns. Indeed, Annick solely uses 'he', In this recording, Annick is 4;06 and Olivier 2;02. The mother is present, though she rarely intervenes.

Annick is pretending to go on a journey with her brother. She uses different markers when speaking to her brother, 'we', 'you' and 'Olivier'. She seems to use the name to identify a change in the environment (gone away Olivier, Olivier oh here we come, know Nana's house Olivier?), as he himself does when he says, "Olivier go on the bike". Like her mother, Annick refers to Olivier using second-and third-person pronouns and continually changes perspectives.

Annick also seemingly uses her brother's name to emphasize their affective relationship, such as "Papi go to come soon Olivier" meaning "Don't worry, Papi is coming soon". Moreover, Annick employs 'we' when she includes herself in the discourse. Finally, when the child demands an opinion or makes a request, she uses the second-person pronoun (if you like, what have you got là?). Just like her mother, she uses 'you' to make Olivier the referent.

Table 12 -

 12 Distribution of input per child in Family 3Concerning Christophe, his mother (23%), grandmother (35%) and sister (24%) are his three main interactors. As for Stephanie, the grandmother, mother and Christophe share most of her time, with 76%, 52% and 62% respectively. Pauline is solely filmed with her mother (45%), grandmother (73%) and siblings (58%). Neither the father nor other interlocutors appear in her input. First, this table confirms the theory of her early development resulting from her siblings' contribution. Second, it also shows the natural linguistic similarities between Christophe and Stephanie.

	(16) *** File "051029a.cha" Family 3
	*CH4: I want to see .
	*GRA: there you are, here's Stephanie .
	*GRA: Christophe, oh Clare don't <take her so
	close> [>] .
	*CH5: <give it to me> [<] .
	*GRA: look at Mummy, here's Mummy .
	*CH5: give it to (1)me !
	@End
	In this first recording, Stephanie is 3;10, and her mother and grandmother are trying to remove a
	baby's dummy off her. The entire session is displayed here, and it is difficult to understand who

  French personal markers are almost absent in the mother's input. Only the French pronoun tu appears in the second recording when Jeremy is 02;05.08. I would suggest the mother still tends to speak French and is not yet accustomed to the English-only strategy. Poussin is also employed three times by the mother and once in this recording. The family is at the dinner table, and Jeremy is undecided about what he would like for dessert.

https://childes.talkbank.org/browser/index.php?url=Biling/Watkins/

Metadata retrieved from the researcher C.Watkins.

https://childes.talkbank.org/access/Biling/GNP.html

here we come <here we come> [/

Annick

Olivier Second-person pronouns You (20), Your (2) You ( 44), Your (6) Third-person pronouns She (1), He (1), Him (1) She (9), Her (2), He (12), Him (1), His (2) Siblings' names Olivier (2), Ollie (3), Ninny (1) Olivier (4), Nicky (3) Parents' names Daddy (1), Papa (1) Plural first-person pronouns

We (4) We (11), Us (1)

Both siblings Second-person pronouns You (64), Your (8) Third-person pronouns She (10), He (13), Him (2), His (2), Her (2) Siblings' names Olivier (6), Ollie (3), Ninny (1) Parents' names Daddy (1), Papa (1), Nicky (3) Plural first-person pronouns We (15), Us (1)

Chart 14. The mother's references to others

The mother employs a great number of 'you' (64 times) and various third-person pronouns such as 'he', 'his', 'him', 'her' and 'she'. Her references to others are exclusively in English, expect for one, Papa. Curiously, Annick uses 'we' quite extensively, while her mother uses it twice as much with

Olivier. Furthermore, the mother only uses three different forms of third-person pronouns with Annick and once each ('she', 'he' and 'him'). The mother greatly diversifies her use of references to others when the children are 2;08. She employs first-, second-and third-person pronouns.

Additionally, the mother refers to herself as Maman with Annick and speaks about 'Daddy' and Papa with Olivier. She also employs 'Ninny' and refers to her son five times with Annick. Moreover, she uses 'Nicky' three times and 'Olivier' four times with her son.

I notice that Olivier's total number of pronouns is vastly superior to his sister's, which leads to a possible correlation between the abundance of pronouns and the recording size for each child. As the mother also refers to her daughter with nicknames, Annick could be reproducing her mother's input. Finally, the mother refers to the father as 'Daddy' and Papa, which could be a consequence of the siblings' use of those same forms.

II.B.3 Synthesis

Chart 15. Timeline of Annick's use of French and English pronouns

This chart demonstrates the use of pronouns in Annick's data categorized by language (both selfmarkers and references to others). In fact, Annick uses a single French pronoun, at 4;06, when she says ma. The child self-identifies solely with nicknames from 2;03 to 3;10. Then, Annick employs exclusively English self-markers with 'I' and 'me'. Her use of English is exponential.

Chart 16. Timeline of Olivier's use of French and English pronouns

Olivier's use of French and English pronouns, in both self-markers and references to others, is altogether different from his sister's. Olivier code-switches with both self-markers and references to others. He self-identifies with his name, and the first-person pronoun in both French and English. The child uses negative markers extensively in both languages as well. Although English monopolizes his speech, Olivier also uses French pronouns and predicates without subject to a great extent. From 3;07, the child uses French intensively. In fact, Olivier does not code-switch when speaking in a

French-only dialogue.

Chapter Two: Qualitative analysis of the data

This second chapter analyzes:

-non-standard forms in the children's and caretakers' production -non-standard usage and function in the children's production -opposition markers in the children's speech and subjective positioning Furthermore, data will be compared to:

- As a matter of fact, the mother in Family 2 refers to herself mainly with 'I' towards both of her children throughout the corpus. Still, from 2;03 to 3;01, she uses various self-references with Annick that could lead to an almost insignificant input of the first-person pronoun. In that period, she uses Maman, 'me' and 'Ninny' once, and 'I' three times. The mother's self-markers to Olivier are, for the most part, 'I', appearing for the first time in both the child and the mother at 2;08. She also employs 'Olivier' four times with him.

Comparatively, Olivier exclusively employs his name, 'I' or null forms as self-markers from 2;05 to 4;06. Contrastingly, his sister, Annick, self-identifies with the nicknames 'Ninny' and 'Nicky' from 2;03 to 3;10. Annick is the only child in the corpus to self-identify with nicknames exclusively for such an extended period. Furthermore, the children's indicators are few and not diverse.

I.A.3 The children: first name to designate the caretakers

In the third family, the children demonstrate a significant preference for their caretakers' names. In this example, Pauline is 2;07, and she calls for her mother. However, her grandmother answers, taking the position of the mother. The grandmother answers affectively, using 'darling' as a pet name. As a result, the mother is not listed as a participant during this recording. Since the grandmother is filming, Pauline could be calling her mother to reach for comfort. Furthermore, as the children tend to answer questions from the grandmother, they also refer quite extensively to their Then, the mother uses Christophe's name to catch his attention. Finally, the mother seems to answer her mother (the grandmother), as she talks about Stephanie in the third person.

As aforementioned, the children are recorded on video by the grandmother to send to the greatgrandmother in England. Thus, the recording context naturally leads the family members to refer to each other quite often, either by calling one another or catching someone's attention. Since the names are mostly directed at the children, I would argue that they are primarily produced to facilitate exchange. The family is composed of three children, usually with the presence of at least two adults. The use of personal pronouns could complicate access to the referent; therefore, the family uses names to label people explicitly.

Furthermore, I would suggest that the grandmother's position on language is quite traditional. In fact, I noted an extensive use of names and few third-person pronouns. I believe the family members tend to call each other exclusively by first names. The socio-cultural background of the family is high, and I would presume the grandmother holds traditional cultural practices. In her perspective, calling others with third-person pronouns could be viewed as impolite or incorrect. Additionally, the recordings are from the 90's; thus, the customs of the time also influence the caretakers' values.

I.B.2 The caretakers: name to designate themselves or each other

The caretakers in the three families use their names/nicknames to designate themselves or each other. In the first family, the father refers to himself twice as 'Daddy' (n°020505b "Daddy isn't going

In this recording, the father has been trying to convince Jeremy to go take a nap and suggests building a Lego bridge before going to bed. Jeremy shows interest in making steps for people to go upstairs. The father then questions the child on this decision by suggesting the mother is the one responsible for this upgrade. 'Mummy' is used to applaud the mother's contribution to the building's improvement. Furthermore, the father asks, "Isn't Mummy clever?" in the form of a question tag as he jokingly states the obvious. Then, Jeremy says "I don't want a nappie". I believe the father also referred to the mother to emphasize on the affective relationship between the child and the mother, which led Jeremy to remind his father that, "no, I still don't want to go take a nap".

In the second family, the mother refers to herself as Maman once with Annick (n°020308 "Ninny Maman to have tea"). In fact, the child probably copies it as Annick says it right after. Annick says In this recording, Jeremy omits the grammatical subject with the structure "have+my". At 2;09.10, Jeremy reiterates the same model when he says "(...) 0subj [*] have mon@s xxx". The absence of the grammatical subject in both situations is observed when the subject has been previously stated and the child uses the linguistic form "have+my" or "have+mon". The context allows the participants to understand who the referent is without naming him or her explicitly. Jeremy does not self-identify as he expresses a desire; therefore, the linguistic structure that follows sufficiently expresses his wish.

Jeremy uses a higher number of null forms when his mother is present. In the same recordings, he also code-switches extensively. Especially in contexts of self-assertion, Jeremy employs a great number of opposition markers and null forms. As a matter of fact, null forms function to mark desire and Jeremy almost denotes an injunction.

Olivier's timeline of use of French and English pronouns is particularly regular. As the child's expressivity augments, his use of pronouns and predicates without subjects intensifies as well. The more the child uses pronouns, the more his null forms amplify. At 2;08 (seven recordings), he uses 14 English pronouns, eight French pronouns and three null forms. At 3;07 (two recordings), he produces eight English pronouns, four French pronouns and two predicates without subject. Stephanie, Christophe adopts his mother's position when he repeats her question tag, "aren't you?".

I believe both these situations offer evidence for the alter-ego theory, as Christophe positions himself as a caretaker and adopts an adult point of view.

II.A.3 Pronominal reversals

Jeremy and Christophe are the only children who perform pronominal errors in the corpus; they are recorded mixing pronouns once each.

The recording referred to hereunder is the one in which Jeremy also omits the grammatical subject with the structure "have+my". This session further features a high number of "I+want" and some "I+like". Thus, the child seems to assert himself quite extensively.

In this recording, Christophe is celebrating his fourth birthday. His father is speaking exclusively in French, and the mother code-switches. She asks Christophe to tell his father to set the table ;   however, the child mixes pronouns and uses the third-person pronoun 'he' instead of the secondperson pronoun 'you'. Notably, this recording is when the mother changes perspectives when speaking to Stephanie (doesn't she, aren't you). I would suggest that the multiplicity of interlocutors and consequent diversity of pronouns, coupled with the francophone context, lead Christophe to produce a pronominal error.

In conclusion, the children use non-standard forms to a limited degree. Predicates without subject are sometimes found in situations in which the subject has just been produced by another speaker or when the linguistic form suffices to understand the grammatical subject. Nevertheless, null forms seem to mark a specific developmental stage in native bilingual acquisition, as the children employ them exponentially and assign them specific functions. Furthermore, the eldest siblings perform an alter-ego, as this behavior seems to be influenced by their roles as caretakers. At last, a francophone context or the presence of a native French speaker appear to facilitate pronominal errors. In order to complete the analysis of personal pronouns, stressing the role of negative indicators is important to mark self-assertion and opposition that characterizes subjective positioning.

II.B/ Opposition markers to mark subjectivity

II.B.1 Negative indicators in dyadic conversations

Jeremy frequently opposes his father through different forms of negation. Additionally, the grandmother uses the imperative "show me" as she requests Christophe to present his toys to the camera. In fact, caretakers widely employ the construction "verb+me" to request or propose ideas. Thus, the children naturally reproduce these structures. Finally, I would suggest that the recording context leads the caretakers to use the imperative form quite often to demand certain actions from the children in order to film them.

II.B.3 'I+want' to express will and desire

Jeremy uses the linguistic form "I+want" almost exclusively to express his will. He produces it 29 times throughout the corpus. Christophe, by contrast, employs it in one conversation. Furthermore, the structure is found only once in Stephanie's corpus (n°050115a "I want beefburger and chips"), while the rest of the children (Annick, Olivier and Pauline) are not recorded using it.

The next session is one of the two in which Jeremy stops using references to others and selfidentifies intensively with 'my', 'I' and mon. The father uses many self-markers as well, and in great diversity, with 'me', 'my' 'I' and 'Daddy'.

The child is playing with a train, and the father enquires about what he is doing. Soon after, the father suggests the child is tired and should look at his spot book. Jeremy refuses and says, 'no', repeatedly. As the father playfully tries to hearten the atmosphere, he breaks something and asks Jeremy to stop moving as there is glass on the floor.

It seems the child was playing alone before his father disturbed him, thus, Jeremy naturally wishes to return to his activities. However, the father broke something, and Jeremy can no longer move freely.

The child, then, repeatedly demonstrates his frustration, using 'no', 'I+want+my' and "I don't like it".

The child constructs his argument through the first-person pronoun 'I' and the verb 'want' to express modality.

Jeremy's father encourages his son to grow by empowering him through questions and letting him gives his opinions and think for himself. However, some recordings between them display tension, as the father is constantly requesting his son's point of view, and Jeremy's reaction is sometimes quite adversarial. Jeremy's development is revealed through his opposition. He is establishing his identity and questioning his boundaries.

Christophe uses 'no' nine times, 'don't' eight, 'but' five, and 'not' two times in five years. Christophe is the third child that uses negation the most, though his performance is particularly low considering his recording span. In the session below, the child uses the structure "I+want" three times, with 'I' monopolizing his references to himself as he uses it four times. This recording features the child and his father discussing which of the picked stones Jeremy can bring into the house. The father is requiring Jeremy to sort the stones, but Jeremy addressees his mother when he asks "moi leave the big ones? Mummy?". At first, the child seemingly directs his request at his mother as a strategy to obtain what he wants -to avoid taking the big stones outside.

The mother answers him in English. However, when the father reinforces his will, Jeremy reacts with a negative marker and an assertive tone (shown by the exclamation point). He then switches to

French and says, "non veux pas out!", in which he uses a verb that expresses a desire (vouloir) with a preposition that denotes a predicate (out), though the subject pronoun is absent. He then marks a distinction using the strong objective pronoun "moi veux pas".

In response, the mother switches to French as well, and the use of "bon allez" seems to demonstrate impatience. However, the conversation continues, Jeremy maintains his opposition markers and the linguistic form "moi+vouloir" until the end of the recording. The father also asserts his position as an authority when he uses the child's name three times, not to call him and address him, but to demand that his request be followed. In fact, the father employs 'Daddy' and 'Mummy' in playful contexts or when commenting on an action. When he positions himself as an authority, the father uses the firstperson pronoun and refers to his son with his first name.

Conclusively, every time 'my' and moi appear in a session, 'I' is also used; they do not occur otherwise. I would assume this feature is due to the presence of the mother and the fact that the child is never recorded alone with her. 'My' and mon are used indifferently to mark possession of an object. By contrast, the father uses 'me', which does not appear in Jeremy's self-markers. The use of moi and mon by Jeremy could come from his French input, as it does not appear in the parents' discourses. I would also posit that Jeremy's use of moi, as a direct translation of 'me' used by his father, could be a way for Jeremy to assert himself using a French personal pronoun instead of the language his father requires.

Further, moi is a strong pronoun, used for emphasis as a direct object, and the first-person pronoun 'I' is a strong subjective pronoun to mark the referent. Jeremy does not use the English equivalent 'me' nor the French equivalent je. Moreover, the child uses the same verb to express modality in both French and English with 'want' and vouloir.

In the next recording, Jeremy omits the grammatical subject and produces the linguistic structure "have+my". The family is at the dinner table and the father requests his son's opinion repeatedly.

Jeremy uses the set expression "moi+vouloir" specifically to contrast, sometimes employing negation to oppose his interlocutor, or to contradict a situation, albeit in a positive manner.

As aforementioned, Jeremy code-switches when his mother is present. Additionally, Jeremy tends to do so when his mother participates in the discussion. For instance, in this recording, the mother marks herself with 'I' three times, contrasting with Jeremy's 15. The presence of his mother also leads the child to use a greater number of predicates without subject. I would assert that Jeremy's linguistic dominance in French is highlighted with his mother, especially when she speaks French in an English-only discussion. In fact, the timeline of the children's use of French and English pronouns indicates that Jeremy tends to use French when there is a burst of English pronouns, at 2;05 and 2;09. The French language is absent in the session in which Jeremy is 2;06, and so is his mother.

Consequently, I believe Jeremy uses the French pronoun moi alone to mark his subjectivity, opposing his native English father. The child code-switches to dissociate himself from his caretaker. In fact, Jeremy uses the construction "moi+vouloir" to generate change in his environment. The form provides the same function as 'my' in the pre-verbal position. He employs this linguistic structure to mark the possession of an action and express control. Thus, Jeremy seems to produce the nonstandard form "moi+vouloir" to position himself as different from his interlocutor, whereas "I+want" expresses will and desire.

III.A.2 The French referent Maman to express affect

Stephanie, Annick and Olivier appear to prefer the French language to name their English native mother, and the English language to refer to their native French father. This inclination seems to have the same meaning as 'Daddy' and 'Mummy' employed by the parents to emphasize an affective relationship, while other references mark authority.

This recording is one of the two featuring the siblings with their mother in Family 2. Annick is 4;06 and Olivier is 2;02. Annick is going on a pretend journey with her brother. She uses her nickname 'Ninny' to refer to herself. She also asks her mother a question using the possessive marker ma with Maman, thus accentuating the affective relationship with her mother in front of her brother. The mother responds with the pet name, "love", whereas she most commonly refers to her children with their names or nicknames.

By contrast, Annick refers to her father once in English. At 2;08, Olivier also calls his mother with

Maman, but his sister is not present. Both children could simply be reproducing the father's input, since parents often refer to themselves and their partners this way. Additionally, Olivier could be mimicking his sister's input. Indeed, Annick and Olivier are raised in France, but their English mother is their caretaker. Thus, I would argue that Olivier has not yet been introduced to other French-only speaking children and, therefore, does not replicate their way of referring to their parents.

Moreover, a study by Qi (2005) targeted his son, a native bilingual in English and Mandarin. He analyzed the use of his son's first name and nickname. The child appeared to use his first name in contexts of requests and possession, while his nickname was produced in contexts of needs and desires. Thus, the child used two different reference forms to express different demands (Caët 2013:57). Annick uses her nicknames to express actions (Nicky do house, Ninny ça box, Nicky did it, Ninny cover up bien big blanket). I believe this phenomenon further confirms the alter-ego theory, as Annick uses her nicknames to portray herself in a story, past or imaginary.

Further, I would posit that Annick embodies an example of native bilingualism. No forms of negation appear between 2;03 and 3;10. During the same period, Annick refers to herself only using nicknames. Annick employs her first negation at 3;10 using non. Her French self is seen through her non-standard use of self-references and French negation; whereas her English self appears after 3;11, with her first 'I' and English opposition markers. In fact, from this age onward, she solely employs English.

In Family 3, I had noted that Stephanie tends to code-switch, which could explain her use of je at 3;10 and ma at 4;10. She uses Maman twice, at 1;04 and 3;10, and employs 'Mummy' seven times, between the age of 1;11 to 4;08. In the next recording, Stephanie is 3;10, and the family is organizing a garage sale.

Conflictingly, however, at 1;04, Stephanie is alone with her native English grandmother when she employs Maman. As previously mentioned, Pauline also calls her mother when she is 2;07, but the grandmother answers, taking the mother's position. The same situation happens with Stephanie. The child seems to switch from one language to another when her native French father is present (similarly to Jeremy) but also tends to favor the French language to reach for comfort or demonstrate affection (similarly to Annick).

At 1;11, Pauline also uses a variety of forms to refer to her mother, with Mama, Maman and 'Mummy'. These markers are generally used when an emotional dimension is at stake (Caët 2013:213). Both Annick and Stephanie show a tendency towards the French language to express affection and emotions when referring to their mothers.

III.A.3 Pet names in code-switching situations

Jeremy's mother is the parent that code-switches the most, just like her son. Annick's mother uses the pet name "love" towards Annick, while the grandmother in Family 3 favors the nickname

The child is distinctly seeking his parents' attention by commenting on his action. Jeremy starts his sentence with the English personal pronoun 'I', but seeing that his attitude does not provoke any reaction, he switches to the French personal pronoun moi. His father intervenes by reformulating his son's utterance, and Jeremy immediately reproduces the linguistic form, saying "moi bonking". The child employs the linguistic form "moi+verb-ING" to refer to the accomplishment of his action, confirming the use of moi to mark the possession of an action (Morgenstern 2006:7).

The mother uses Poussin the first time in an English sentence, asking Jeremy to stop bonking the table. She continues the dialogue in English and employs a second pet name with "Potkins". She then code-switches to French and says, "Ben oui, ça fait ça", before switching back to English adding "Poussin" one last time. She employs a second French interjection with ben, seemingly to emphasize that his action provoked a certain negative effect. I would contend that the mother code-switches to

French in situations of frustration, when Jeremy lacks attention or is particularly tenacious.

In addition, when his mother asks him to stop, Jeremy switches back to the first-person pronoun 'I'.

In the precedent section, I emphasized the fact that Jeremy code-switches to French when his mother is present. Jeremy rarely code-switches when he is alone with his father, and when he does, it usually occurs from a lack of translation equivalent. In this example, Jeremy seems to code-switch from one language to another depending on his interlocutor's native language. In fact, the French moi is constructed with English opposition markers to deny his parents' language expectations and affirm his bilingualism and biculturalism.

In conclusion, the adoption of mixed forms by the children is directly influenced by the adults' speech. Jeremy's mother code-switches to express her frustration and discontent. The child might naturally link the French language to these emotions and adopt moi in an imitation of his mother's manner of expression (Romaine 1995:204). Furthermore, Jeremy uses the construction "moi+vouloir" to express constrast and differentiate himself from his interlocutor. Like Jeremy,

Stephanie mainly code-switches when her French parent is present. Both Annick and Stephanie associate the French language with comfort when referring to their mother as Maman.

III.B/ Linguistic influence

III.B.1 Language mixing and linguistic dominance

Due to their young age, bilingual children sometimes mix languages as they do not yet grasp the complexity of the situations they are in. In fact, monolingual input is important for bilingual children to create a habit of grasping when a situation allows for bilingualism or not.

As aforementioned, at two years old, Jeremy was dominant in French. The child's prevalence of French led me to believe Jeremy would favor the first-person pronoun je. However, the English firstperson pronoun 'I' prevails. Yet, the quantitative analysis did not detect one use of je at 2;05 years old.

( In this session, Jeremy accumulates non-standard forms. He makes a pronominal error, uses predicates without subject and produces the linguistic structure "moi+vouloir". The father corrects Jeremy's linguistic errors, while the mother shows impatience in her use of pet names and codeswitching. At the end of the recording, the mother takes care of Jeremy's needs, and the father does not intervene. She asks the child if she can help him stir his yogurt in English, and Jeremy 'mistakenly' answers using the first-person pronoun in French, to then correct himself and employ English. This example validates the theory stating that Jeremy code-switches in the presence of his mother.

Furthermore, the mother patiently repeats words for Jeremy to retain.

The almost exclusive use of the English first-person pronoun could be explained from two different perspectives. First, the parents changed their language strategy after Jeremy's second birthday and only spoke to him in English thereafter. As the recordings start when Jeremy is 2;05.05, the extensive use of the English first-person pronoun could be simply due to the reinforced unilingual English input Jeremy received in the preceding five months. Second, most recordings feature the father and the child speaking together. The father only speaks English with the child, and he always reformulates Jeremy's sentences in English when Jeremy discloses French utterances. Therefore, Jeremy tends to follow the rule 'one language=one person' and naturally speaks in English with his father.

Stephanie also tends to code-switch greatly compared to her siblings, although no information was given of her dominance towards one language.

In this recording, Stephanie is 3;04 years old. She, Christophe and their grandmother are talking about the evening's party that corresponds to New Year's Eve in 1993. Christophe explains that they are celebrating "the party of Christmas" but also "Stephanie's party". In fact, Stephanie insists, saying that it's her party, as she apparently cooked lunch. She then says, "and my fête, it's my party", employing the correct possessive marker but using the French word "fête". She immediately corrects herself and repeats her sentence in English. Since ma and 'my' are phonetically similar, Stephanie could have confused the two languages as she was speaking.

In fact, Stephanie references herself extensively with a total of 33 markers, whereas only 5 indicators are directed at her. I believe Stephanie enjoys heard conversations as she is often present when Christophe is the targeted child. Thus, she hears a variety of markers directed at other people and actively internalizes them. I would assume Stephanie has the most probable dominance in French in Family 3 since she code-switches greatly. Furthermore, the grandmother corrects her linguistic mistakes in English more than once which could indicate that English is her minority language.

Additionally, I had noted that Stephanie could code-switch in the presence of her French father. In the previous chapter, Table 12 shows that he is present only 14% of the time, but since Stephanie uses French pronouns only twice, the hypothesis persists.

III.B.2 Linguistic attitude

Pauline's expressivity is also vast. She uses both negative and possessive markers very early. I would forward that her diverse input, from her caretakers and siblings, led her to be precocious.

simultaneous bilingual acquisition and know when to favor monolingual speech. At 5;01, Stephanie explains to her native grandmother what CP (first year of primary school) is. At 5;04, Christophe translates his own French utterances into English for his great-grandmother to understand and, at 7;2, says, "I don't know how it's called in English". As the children develop their awareness towards their bilingualism and biculturalism, they gain linguistic and cultural abilities that elicit them to be able to use one language exclusively, control language mixing and be aware of code-switching situations.

Therefore, the mothers in the three families simultaneously translate their children's French utterances into English or fill linguistic gaps to help expressivity. The diversity of methods widens the children's repertoire but also helps to synchronically activate their languages. Code-switching acts as a tool to express subjectivity.

IV. Synthesis of the evolution between form and function for all children

To visualize the developmental path of the children's use of the different personal pronouns, recalling the different forms that the children employ is essential along with analyzing the evolution between the form and function of the various markers.

Jeremy (recording span of 4 months) At 2;05, Jeremy produces the most diverse self-markers at the earliest age, and in both languages, with 'my', mon, moi, and 'I'. He demonstrates the earliest emergence of a verb in a negative form with 'don't'. He is also the first to use pas and non.

Jeremy uses the linguistic form "have+my" or "have+mon" to mark desire. The structure is used without subject and almost denotes an injunction. 'My' and mon are used interchangeably by Jeremy to mark possession of an object.

He also self-identifies extensively with the structure 'I+want' to express his agentivity through the strong subjective first-person pronoun and the assertive verb 'want'. Jeremy employs this form to express his will and desire. The child uses the same verb to express modality in both French and English with 'want' and vouloir.

However, vouloir is used in the set expression "moi+vouloir". Jeremy does not use the English equivalent 'me' nor the French equivalent je. Moi functions as a strong pronoun, used for emphasis as a direct object. The structure is used to generate change in his environment, contrast his interlocutor, sometimes employing negation, or in a positive way but that opposes the situation. The Although English monopolizes his speech, Olivier also uses French pronouns and predicates without subject to a great extent, from 2;06 to 3;07. The more the child uses pronouns, the more his null forms amplify. Predicates without subject function as omissions -as Olivier disregards the grammatical subject as well as the auxiliary, he avoids positioning himself as subject.

Christophe (recording span of 5 years and 5 months)

Christophe employs five different self-references throughout his whole corpus, including the only

French indicator je at 4;0 and 5;04. He is the only child in the corpus to use the structure ne..pas at 4;0. At the same age, he also produces a pronominal error ("daddy can he set the table for lunch?").

An extended period with his French grandparents seems to affect his proficiency but only temporarily.

Between 2;10 and 4;04, Christophe favors his caretakers' names and the second-person pronoun 'you'. From 4;04 to 5;04, Christophe prefers the plural first-and third-person pronouns when referring to others. He also self-identifies employing certain personal markers exclusively in each session. The same pattern is found in his input. As a matter of fact, Christophe positions himself as a caretaker and adopts an adult point of view more than once ("good boy"). His position as the eldest sibling leads him to act as a caretaker, and he naturally refers to others more than to himself.

Christophe uses the construction "my+object" to mark the possession of an object, and the structure "give+me" to demonstrate a desire of gaining control over the object.

Stephanie (recording span of 3 years and 9 months)

Stephanie's emergence of the first-person pronoun is at 3;01 in English. At 3;04, she says, "and my fête, it's my party", employing the correct possessive marker but using the French word "fête". She immediately corrects herself and repeats her sentence in English. At 3;10, she employs je for the first time as well as the verb 'can' in a negative form. At 4;10, she employs il and ma. She is the child that refers to others the most for such a long period (four years). Stephanie uses the structure "I+want" almost exclusively to ask 'who' is on the camera ("I want to see").

Pauline (recording span of 9 months) Pauline exclusively uses English pronouns. She does not use the first-person pronoun 'I'. She is the child that uses possessive and negative markers the earliest in the corpus. She uses the structure "my+object" once to demand possession of an object.

references and pronominal reversals. Additionally, negative references and opposition situations are important markers of self-assertion from both the caretaker's and children's perspectives.

Moreover, subjectivity is emphasized through a variety of tools. The French language is used in context of affection, with nicknames and Maman, but also in situations of frustration or excitement, with pet names and interjections. The children also tend to speak French when a francophone native speaker is present. The non-standard use of moi helps Jeremy differentiate himself from his interlocutor, thus, expressing self-assertion. Code-switching is an immense device, helping the children to assert their bilingual and bicultural identities.

Finally, the cross-linguistic influences between French and English are often perpetuated because of the parental input but also due to the reciprocal vocabulary of the two languages. The caretakers'

behavior is key to understanding the children's language dynamics, as it highly influences the children's expressivity, in turn, adding to their subjective perception of the world.

temporarily. The French language bears peculiar emotions, as Annick, Olivier, Stephanie and Pauline seem to favor French when referring to their native English mother. On the contrary, Jeremy uses French to oppose his parents' language expectations and affirm his bilingual subjectivity. Compared to monolingual first language acquisition, the native bilingual children reference themselves using non-standard forms from 2;03 to at least 3;11, which marks an important delay.

However, the first-person pronoun in both French and English appear to stabilize at a usual stage.

With Stephanie and Christophe, the French je is pronounced for the first time a year after the first apparition of the English 'I' (3;10 and 4;0 respectively); Olivier's happens two years later (4;08), whereas Annick pronounces it solely in English at 3;11. Code-switching and language mixing occur as early as 17 months of age which is confirmed with the two earliest occurrences by Stephanie at 1;04 (Maman) and Pauline at 1;11 (Mama). In the long-term, children produce less code-switching, simultaneously translate their occurrences, demonstrate awareness of cultural differences and distinguish monolingual situations and speakers. Unfortunately, a longitudinal study of the development of opposition markers was impossible due to the lack of data before 1;09 and inconsistent recording sessions.