29.3517, Review: Language Acquisition: Chłopek (2016)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3517. Wed Sep 12 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.3517, Review: Language Acquisition: Chłopek (2016)

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Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2018 16:10:47
From: Leila Ahmadpour [Leila.ahmadpour1 at gmail.com]
Subject: Early Bilingualism and Multilingualism

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-4862.html

AUTHOR: Zofia  Chłopek
TITLE: Early Bilingualism and Multilingualism
SUBTITLE: Parents’ and Caregivers’ Attitudes and Observations
SERIES TITLE: Gdańsk Studies in Language
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Leila Ahmadpour, (personal interest - not currently working at a university)

SUMMARY

Nowadays, it is recognized that families and communities play a critical role
in children’s and adolescents’ language learning journey (Yamamoto & Holloway,
2010). Parent’s involvement with the child’s education can largely influence
the child’s motivation and accomplishment. The parent’s or other caregivers’
expectations, provided help and cooperation can lead to children’s optimism
about life and enhance a sense of self-competence, which would have long-term
effects on an individual’s educational and occupational future. These
specificities make persons ready for adult roles and provide a firm start on
life opportunities. This significant issue is discussed in the book which is
the subject of the present review.

The book by Zofia Chlopek even at first sight makes an impression on the
reader, as it includes 223 pages, comprising  171 pages of text and a
bibliography of some thousand resources. The length of the text alone
testifies to the extent of the material it presents to the readers. The book
consists of three main parts: the first part intends to provide
state-of-the-art information on language learning by young learners and on
early bilingualism and multilingualism. This review is substantially derived
from psycholinguistic and neurolinguistics works. The second part is devoted
to the methodological design of the research and the obtained results. More
specifically, the parents’ and caregivers’ responses to the you children’s
development and their perceptions and opinions towards early language learning
are examined. And the last main part is focused on the comparison and contrast
of the achieved results with other existent studies in the field.

As mentioned previously, the first chapter provides some fundamental and
necessary information about early bi/multilingualism and its results. This
chapter presents a significant result based on its review of the existent
literature: overloading a young mind with a lot of language knowledge is
impossible. There are quite a few studies indicating that a young learner is
able to learn languages and there are other studies demonstrating that the
linguistic progress of learners raised as bilinguals or multilinguals is quite
similar to the linguistic development of monolingual language learners in the
case that they receive adequate language input and that this input originates
from a single linguistic code at one time. This similarity is also dependent
upon the fact that the environment holds a positive perspective and attitude
towards all the languages. The results of the overview in Chapter One also
refers to the fact that even though language mixing is a common phenomenon in
early years, it is not as rigorous as the language mixing that takes place
during foreign language learning in subsequent years. Young children are often
successful in the appropriation of the languages they are exposed to and the
literature links this success to their higher metalinguistic awareness and
metapragmatic consciousness, which are more fine-tuned and well-established in
bilinguals and multilinguals than in monolinguals. This chapter also provides
evidence for the positive role of bi/multilingualism to young learners’
cognitive advances and their cognitive capabilities such as cognitive control
and multiple intelligence. Chlopek calls for more research to investigate the
relationship between bi/multilingualism and cognitive development. Another
important theme emerging from the first chapter is   that  language learning
difficulties, cognitive problems and psychological problems should not be
solely related to bi/multilingualism. Clearly, these  problems might stem from
a variety of different sources such as social, economic, linguistic and the
context in which a child is raised. It is also stated that young monolingual 
learners’ developmental problems would be lessened if they knew additional
languages.

The second chapter revolves around the purpose of the study done by Chlopek
and its design and the results. This study aimed at approving the findings
achieved from prior psycholinguistic and neurolinguistics research showing the
many advantages associated with early bilingualism and multilingualism for a
young learner. In particular the study intended to address these objectives:
1) To see if the language development of a bi/multilingual child proceeds in
the same way as the language development of a monolingual child and if it is
related to the child’s number of learned languages, 2) to see if
cross-linguistic influence is a usual issue in early language learning and if
it is age-dependent, predominantly conscious or unconscious, and  dependent
upon parents’ or caregivers’ language mixing habits, 3) if young
bi/multilingual learners possess a greater amount of metalinguistic awareness,
4) if the cognitive development of bi/multilingual young learners takes place
in a  way similar to that of monolingual learners, 5) if cultural transfer is
probable in early childhood, 6) what bi/multilingual young learners’ attitudes
are towards bi/multilingualism, and 7) what bi/multilingual young learners’
attitudes are towards other cultures. 

In addition to the examination of learner related factors in
bi/multilingualism, this study also investigated the practice of raising a
bi/multilingual child. Therefore, there were two more purposes : to see 1) if
the parents and caregivers were satisfied with their bi/multilingual
children’s cognitive development, and 2) if they could be provided with advice
about their uncertainties regarding their raising a bi/multilingual child.
Thirty-six questionnaires were completed and the analysis of the data revealed
interesting points. All respondents recommended raising bi/multilingual
children and they were certain about the advantages associated with it. From
among the advantages pointed out by the respondents, Chlopek centered on the
ease, speed, and effectiveness with which young learners learn languages when
compared with adolescents and adults. The parents and caregivers revealed
encouraging opinions. The majority of respondents believed in the power of
bi/multilingualism in helping the children’s cognitive growth,  and  some even
mentioned that such children benefit from a number of positive personality
traits such as openness, lack of prejudice and bias, better communication, and
group work skills. Thus  the findings revealed that raising bi/multilingual
learners could be an inspiring experience for both children and parents and
their caregivers.

In the final part of this book, Chlopek sums up the findings obtained from the
research and discusses the results in light of the findings from other
research studies (for example, Casasola, Bhagwat & Burke, 2009; Paradis, 2001;
Pavlenko, 2005). Chlopek arrives at significant conclusions based on these
comparisons and elaborations. Firstly,  the findings from this research are
mostly in agreement with those of prior research studies.  Both parents and
caregivers see bi/multilingualism as beneficial for young learners. Neither
the linguistic nor the cognitive development of bi/multilingual learners is
negatively affected by learning additional languages at early ages. Even in
contrast, bi/multilingual learners end up being more competent than their
monolingual peers. There are however a few drawbacks such as delays in the
onset of speech production and asymmetrical competence which do not even
constitute problems since these factors equip young learners for life with
capabilities which they will need to work on later arduously. Chlopek
concludes the book by a citation from Meisel (2004, p. 92):

The view of child bilingualism as a potential source of possible disturbances
must be abandoned. Instead, monolingualism can be regarded as resulting from
an impoverished environment where an opportunity to exhaust the potential of
the language faculty is not fully developed.

Thus, regarding the significance of this area of research, Chlopek calls for
more research to shed light on this rather under researched area. More
specifically, there is a need to create more appropriate multilingual research
paradigms and a more holistic and multidisciplinary perspective towards it.
The author also refers to the shortcomings in multilingual research shown by
the inaccurate and varying uses of terminology.

EVALUATION

To sum up, the book by Chlopek looks into the development of children up
brought bilingually or multilingually. Parents and caregivers were asked to
complete a questionnaire, providing information on 36 children growing up with
two or more languages. The answers from the participants revealed that
bilingual and multilingual children usually grow as well as their monolingual
peers, and sometimes even better. This is significant considering the role
that parents have in embracing and encouraging their children’s bilingualism.
It seems essential for researchers and practitioners to better comprehend the
role of parental engagement in learners’ linguistic accomplishment. Some
disadvantages of early bilingualism or multilingualism, however, need to be
noted. These can include a slight delay in the onset of speech production or
asymmetrical language competences, which are compensated for by numerous
benefits of early learning of two or more first languages and early contacts
with two or more cultures. It is obvious that the book by Zofia Chlopek is a
valuable text for those scholars whose research interests are in
multilinguality since the book comprises a detailed and in-depth collection
overviewing both theory and experimental studies in the area, accompanied by a
critical appraisal of their merits. The book also presents the instruments
used for the collection of the data and enjoys great practicality for 
interested readers and researchers in this area of enquiry. The book would
therefore be particularly helpful as a reference book for those researchers
for whom more recent publications on multilinguality are not easily
accessible.

REFERENCES

Casasola, M., Jui Bhagwat, A., & Burke, A. S. (2009). Learning to form a
spatial category of tight fit relations: How experience with label can give a
boost. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 711-723.

Paradis, M. (2007). Early bilingual and multilingual acquisition. In P. Auer
and L. Wei (eds.), Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communication
(pp. 15-44). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Pavlenko, A. (2009). Conceptual representation in the bilingual lexicon and
second language vocabulary learning. In A. Pavlenko (ed.), The bilingual
mental lexicon: Interdisciplinary approaches (pp. 125-160). Bristol, Buffalo,
Toronto: Multilingual Matters.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I am a Ph.D candidate. My research interest fields are FLL, SLA acquisition,
Bilingualism, multilingualism, discourse, and cultural studies.





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