Symposium Proceedings 152 Babbling In Bilingual Infants: Is There Evidence of Code Switching? Nancy Johnstone, Universidad de Buenos Aires - Barker College njohnst@fi.uba.ar / nancy_johnstone27@yahoo.com.ar Abstract Code switching has been studied predominantly in adults and children over the age of three. Research in younger children is scarce. The present study was conducted as a single case study on the babbling of a one-year- old who is being raised bilingually (Spanish/English). The aim of the study was to determine whether the baby babbled differently depending on the language of the interlocutor and the context. The interlocutors involved follow a one person  one language strategy of interaction with the baby. The childs spontaneous speech was recorded during interaction with his mother (English) and with his grandmother (Spanish). So as to make the contexts as clear-cut as possible, the recordings took place while the child was alone with each interlocutor at their respective homes. Samples were recorded at the age of 1;2, 1;3, and 1;4 in order to check whether the phenomenon under investigation varied as the child approached the one- word stage. The utterances were transcribed by a bilingual teacher specialized in phonetics. The data is analysed and the use of Spanish/English is discussed from a sociolinguistic perspective. Key words Bilingualism, language differentiation, babbling, code switching Introduction In the last century many have been the voices for and against bilingualism, and researchers, as well as laypeople, have shown concern about the influence of early/simultaneous bilingualism on children. While parents have been worried about the possibility of a delay in the onset and rate of language development, researchers have concentrated on the issue of language differentiation (Poulin-Dubois, D. & Goodz, N. 2001). The focus on differentiation arises from the fact that bilinguals often mix elements (phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic forms) from their two languages within a conversation. Until the late 1980s, code switching 1 in children was considered a negative effect of bilingualism, and interpreted as the inability of a child to separate