book notice: The Bilingual Child

[Harold Schiffman]

The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact
Series: ambridge Approaches to Language Contact
Published: 2007
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
               http://us.cambridge.org

Author: Virginia Yip
Author: Stephen Matthews

Abstract:

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 child's profile is unique, the children
studied are shown to develop quite differently from monolingual children.
The authors demonstrate significant interactions between the children's
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.

http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-2841.html



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