About Icebergs.

[Rick Ruhland]

Hi to all

On Wednesday 3 Februari 1999, I submitted the following question to
the Childes list:

Hi,

Has anyone out there heard of the Iceberg Theory in connection with
bilingualism? According to a student of mine, who came up with the
theory, this is a theory of acquiring a second language on top of
another. In other words, this theory describes and makes predictions
on 2 or more languages as a result of piling up the languages that are
acquired (instead of acquiring 2 or more languages *at the same
time*).

I received quite some responses and people asked for more information
(see also below). My thanks go to:

Jan de Jong <j.de.jong at direct.a2000.nl>
Leslie Barratt <ejlesbb at root.indstate.edu>
C. George Hunt <C.G.Hunt at reading.ac.uk>
Tiiu Salasoo <Tiiu.Salasoo at pgrad.arts.usyd.edu.au>
Andrea Stolz <A.Stolz at herts.ac.uk>
HANDA ATSUKO <atsuko at u-gakugei.ac.jp>

Here is a summary of the response:

Jan de Jong refererred to a Dutch Book called "Minderheden: taal en
onderwijs", written by Rene Appel on second language acquisition
(published by Coutinho). He also mentioned the Threshold  hypothese of
Cummins (linguistic skills need to be above some level to become
profitable).

George Hunt referred to a pictorial representation of the "Common
Underlying Proficiency model of bilingualism" by J. Cummins (The
Construct of Language Proficiency in Bilingual Education. In
Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1980.
Georgetown University Press.) As he writes, "The CUP model envisages
the two languages as the twin peaks of a submerged iceberg; the peaks
are separate, but conjoined by, founded upon, and communicating with,
a common set of linguistic and cognitive principles." He further
mentioned Colin Baker who summarises other picture theories of
bilingualism in Key Issues in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education,
Multilingual Matters, 1988.

Atsuko Handa referred to the paper written by Jim Cummins in 1984 with
the title "Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in Assesment and
Pedagogy". He also sent me a reference list of papers written by Jim
Cummins. Thanks, Atsuko. I am, though, curious about this: Atsuko, can
you tell me from which book this list is taken?

Another reference to Jim Cummins (1984) is "Bilingualism and Special
Education: Issues in Assesment and Pedagogy".  Clevedon, Multilingual
Matters.

So, the references I have got so far are (apart from the reference
list with a lot of references to the papers by Jim Cummins):

Appel, R (1986) "Minderheden: taal en onderwijs." Muiderberg,
Coutinho.

Cummins, J. (1980) "The Construct of Language Proficiency in Bilingual
Education." In Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and
Linguistics. Georgetown University Press.

Cummins, J. (1984) "Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in
Assesment and Pedagogy." Clevedon, Multilingual Matters.

Baker, C.  (1988) "Key Issues in Bilingualism and Bilingual
Education." Clevedon, Multilingual Matters.

Again, thanks to all who responded.

Cheers, Rick.