Bilingual language acquisition and maintenance

[Barbara Zurer Pearson]

Dear Natasha,

Rebecca Eilers, Alan Cobo-Lewis, and I *just* sent
in a revised manuscript for a collection of papers
entitled _Childhood Bilingualism_ (McCardle and Hoff, Eds.)
that is to appear from Multilingual Matters.  So
I guess this is a prepublication plug!

Our submission has a fairly general title, (Social
Factors in Childhood Bilingualism) but
the gist of it is just what you are asking about--
I think.  In addition to our own work (some of which 
is in Oller & Eilers, 2002), we lean heavily on articles 
by Lambert and Taylor (1996) and Hakuta and 
D'Andrea (1992).  I'll be glad to send it to you if
you want (as a manuscript).

There seems to be a "catch-22" for fostering
childhood bilingualism.  The key factor in most
circumstances is minority language 
maintenance, as you indicate.
Attitudes about maintenance often differ along
social class lines, with higher SES families
typically valuing the minority heritage more than
lower SES. (That's pretty nicely shown in
Lambert and Taylor, and also I think in their
earlier book.)  However, the lower SES families
have more minority language capital than
the higher SES families, who tend to use the
majority language more.  The other irony is
that political attempts to suppress a language
can encourage retention; whereas open
acceptance typically allows people be
too relaxed about it--and they let it slip
away.

That's obviously a simplification, but
we felt it applied to what we observed
in Miami.

I'll be interested to learn from what point
of view you're looking at the question.

Till soon,

Barbara
***********************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Project Manager
Dept. of Communication Disorders
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

413-545-5023
fax: 545-0803

http://www.umass.edu/aae/


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Natasha Ringblom 
  To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org 
  Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2005 2:30 PM
  Subject: Bilingual language acquisition and maintenance


  Dear Colleagues,

  could anyone refer me to some later studies on social class (and even other sociolinguistic factors') influence on child bilingualism/minority language maintenance?

  Many thanks in advance,

  Natasha Ringblom
  Stockholms University
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