Book posting -- Yip/Matthews

[Brian MacWhinney]

The Bilingual Child:
Early Development and Language Contact
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Virginia Yip (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and Stephen Matthews
(University of
Hong Kong)
 
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521544764
 
Paperback

(ISBN-13: 9780521544764)

Hardback

(ISBN-13: 9780521836173)

 
ŒThis extraordinary book sets a new standard for the study of bilingualism.
Full of major insights and supplemented with web-based multimedia files, it
is essential reading for the entire field.¹ William O¹Grady, University of
HawaiŒi at Manoa
 
ŒProvides a veritable analytic feastŠthis book sets a new standard of
excellence for the study of childhood bilingualism.¹ Brian MacWhinney,
Carnegie Mellon University
 
Synopsis:
How does a child become bilingual? The answer to this intriguing question
remains largely a mystery, not least because it has been far less
extensively researched than the process of mastering a first language.
Drawing on new studies of children exposed to two languages from birth
(English and Cantonese), this book demonstrates how childhood bilingualism
develops naturally in response to the two languages in the children's
environment. While each bilingual child¹s profile is unique, the children
studied are shown to develop quite differently from monolingual children.
The authors demonstrate significant interactions between the children¹s
developing grammars, as well as the important role played by language
dominance in their bilingual development. Based on original research and
using findings from the largest available multimedia bilingual corpus, the
book will be welcomed by students and scholars working in child language
acquisition, bilingualism and language contact.

€ Strikingly original, it presents new findings that show how children
acquire two languages from birth

€ Puts forward new data from a pair of hitherto under-researched languages

€ The book is supplemented by multimedia materials on the web:

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/book/bilingualchild/

 

 

Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Theoretical framework; 3. Methodology; 4.
Wh-interrogatives: to move or not to move?; 5. Null objects: dual input and
learnability; 6. Relative clauses: transfer and universals; 7. Vulnerable
domains and the directionality of transfer; 8. Bilingual development and
contact-induced grammaticalization; 9. Conclusions.