Introduction To Bilingualism

An Introduction to Bilingualism provides a comprehensive review of the most important aspects of individual and societal bilingualism, examining both theoretcial and practical issues. At the level of the individual, it addresses such questios as: What is involved in the study of bilingual children? What are the patterns of bilingual language acquisition? In which ways do the language competence and the speech of bilinguals differ from those of monolinguals? Topics that sometimes arouse controversy are explored - such as the question of whether there is a relationship between bilingualsim and a child's cognitive, psychological and social development. The book is also concerned with multilingualism, that is, bilingualsim as a societal phenomenon. It focuses on such issues as language choice in bilingual and multilingual communities, national identity and the education of bilinguals. The inclusion of several case studies of European linguistic minorities serves to exemplify the topics dealt with at the theoretical level and to illustrate the linguistic complexities found in contemporary Europe.

An Introduction to Bilingualism provides a comprehensive review of the most important aspects of individual and societal bilingualism, examining both theoretcial and practical issues. At the level of the individual, it addresses such questios as: What is involved in the study of bilingual children? What are the patterns of bilingual language acquisition? In which ways do the language competence and the speech of bilinguals differ from those of monolinguals? Topics that sometimes arouse controversy are explored - such as the question of whether there is a relationship between bilingualsim and a child's cognitive, psychological and social development. The book is also concerned with multilingualism, that is, bilingualsim as a societal phenomenon. It focuses on such issues as language choice in bilingual and multilingual communities, national identity and the education of bilinguals. The inclusion of several case studies of European linguistic minorities serves to exemplify the topics dealt with at the theoretical level and to illustrate the linguistic complexities found in contemporary Europe.

This important text provides a general overview of the methods and theories used in the broad domain of bilingualism. The unique interdisciplinary approach, which is reflected in the various topics covered, gives students a global picture of the field. Topics range from early childhood intellectual development to educational and social-cognitive challenges to the maturing bilingual brain. Important developing areas such as cognitive aging, creativity, the social and cultural context perspective, communication disorders and sentence processing are also covered within the volume. This text is aimed towards undergraduate courses and graduate courses in psycholinguistics, especially those with an emphasis on bilingualism or second language learning.

Many people consider bilinguals to be exceptional, yet almost half the world's population speaks more than one language. Bilingualism is found in every country of the world, in every class of society, in all age groups. Life with Two Languages is the first book to provide a complete and authoritative look at the nature of the bilingual experience. Fran ois Grosjean, himself a bilingual, covers the topic from each of its many angles in order to provide a balanced introduction to this fascinating phenomenon. Grosjean discusses the political and social situations that arise when languages come into contact and the policies nations have established toward their linguistic minorities in the domains of education and governance. Of particular interest is his detailed account of the psychological and social factors that lead a bilingual to choose one of her languages when speaking to another bilingual or to use both languages in the fascinating phenomenon of code-switching. The author explains how children become bilingual as quickly as they become monolingual, describes the organization of languages in the bilingual brain, and examines the legacy of bilingualism on language, as exemplified in word borrowings. Above all, Life with Two Languages puts the emphasis on the bilingual person. In a series of first-hand reports scattered throughout the book, bilinguals tell what it is like to live with two languages and describe the educational and social experiences they have undergone. Written in a clear and informative style, Life with Two Languages will appeal to professionals and students in linguistics, education, sociology, and psychology, as well as to the more casually curious.

Drawing together linguists' and psychologists' approaches to the study of bilingualism, this innovative and engaging volume provides students with a firm grounding in bilingual acquisition and development. It begins with a discussion of sequential and simultaneous bilinguals, illustrated by a wealth of case studies and examples, and the key theories surrounding bilingual development. The book subsequently explores topics such as bilingual speech perception, sound, lexical and morpho-syntactic development, cognitive processing and metalinguistic awareness.Introduction to Bilingualism is an essential companion for undergraduate and postgraduate students of applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech and language therapy and language education.>

Increasingly, children grow up hearing two languages from birth. This introductory textbook shows how children learn to understand and speak those languages against the backdrop of their language learning environments. A narrative around the bilingual development of four young children with different language profiles helps to explain the latest research findings in a lively and accessible manner. The narrative describes how bilingually raised children learn to understand and use sounds, words and sentences in two languages, and how they are able to use each of their languages in socially appropriate ways. Positive attitudes towards bilingual development from the people in bilingual children's environments and their recognition that child bilingualism is not monolingualism-times-two are the main ingredients ensuring that children grow up to be happy and expert speakers of two languages.

The unique interdisciplinary approach, which is reflected in the various topics covered, gives students a global picture of the field. Topics range from early childhood intellectual development to educational and social-cognitive challenges to the maturing bilingual brain.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Proseminar: Contact Linguistics, language: English, abstract: There are millions of children around the world who grow up bilingually or even multilingually. They need to know many different languages to be able to communicate with their parents, their teachers, with the people they buy their groceries from, or with officials who might all speak a different language. For those children, for their parents and the society that surrounds those it is more than normal to be multilingual. Over the past decades the topic of bilingualism has become more and more important in the western part of the world too. There are many families who start teaching their children two and more languages but it is also still a subject that is highly debated between scholars from all over the world. People are afraid that teaching two languages to a child might harm his or her development. They do not want to overburden their children or cause any severe damages. Therefore many parents and caretakers still decide for one language which they will teach to their child(ren). This paper is going to analyse some aspects of the question how children become bilinguals and which difficulties might occur along the way while trying to prove that children are very well able to learn two and even more languages from birth. After starting out with a short personal introduction, the terms ‘bilingualism’, ‘early bilingualism’ and ‘late bilingualism’ are going to be defined. Afterwards types of child language acquisition are explained and two different theses on how children become bilingual are shortly looked at. It is going to be looked at some specialities in child language acquisition and different language characteristics of early bilingual speech are highlighted. In conclusion it is going to be looked at some possibilities to support children in their bilingual development.