Learning English and Losing Chinese: A Case Study of a Child Adopted from China.

Looked at the acquisition of English and the loss of Chinese by a child adopted from China into an English-speaking Canadian family at the age of 17 months. The child's production and comprehension of Chinese were observed from 4 weeks after her arrival. Both acquisition of Chinese and loss of English were remarkably fast. Data suggest that the child's language acquisition was founded on already established social and communicative processes. (Author/VWL)