25.632, Review: Applied Ling; Language Acquisition; Socioling: Bhatia & Ritchie (eds.) (2012)

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Subject: 25.632, Review: Applied Ling; Language Acquisition; Socioling: Bhatia & Ritchie (eds.) (2012)

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Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 09:18:08
From: Gabriel Guadalupe [gguadalupe at albany.edu]
Subject: The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, 2nd Edition

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-279.html

EDITOR: Tej K. Bhatia
EDITOR: William C. Ritchie
TITLE: The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism, 2nd Edition
SERIES TITLE: Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Wiley-Blackwell
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Gabriel V Guadalupe, State University of New York at Albany

SUMMARY

“The Handbook of Bilingualism and Multilingualism” consists of 36 chapters
with 47 contributors from different fields both within and outside of
linguistics, offering a multidisciplinary perspective on bilingualism and
multilingualism. The Handbook begins with a brief introduction by Tej K.
Bhatia and William C. Ritchie to the new edition, which has added
“multilingualism” to the title to reflect current trends in the field. Rather
than repeat the terms “bilingualism” and “multilingualism”, the editors employ
the term ‘plurilingualism”. While this term is not employed by all
contributors, the editors find that they need a term to encompass all of the
phenomena that both bilingualism and multilingualism entail.

The book is divided into four parts: “Overview and Foundations”, “Neurological
and Psychological Aspects of Bilingualism and Multilingualism”, “Societal
Bilingualism/Multilingualism and its Effects”, and “Global Perspectives and
Challenges: Case Studies”.

Part I consists of two chapters that introduce the different approaches
employed in the subsequent parts. Chapter 1, “Bilingualism and
Multilingualism: Some Central Concepts,” by John Edwards, discusses the terms
‘bilingualism’ and ‘multilingualism’, and reviews theoretical frameworks
pertinent to research in the field. He begins by engaging the terms
‘bilingualism’ and ‘multilingualism’; how, when, and why they occur in
society. The author later explores psychological aspects of bilingual and
multilingual individuals. A particular point of interest to Edwards is that of
language and identity. He argues that, as a “vehicle of tradition and culture”
(p.19), language and its use can help the researcher understand bilingualism
beyond linguistic parameters, observing language in social context.

In Chapter 2, “Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Bilingualism and
Multilingualism Research,” Li Wei lays a theoretical foundation that reflects
the attention bilingualism and multilingualism have garnered from scholars
from a wide range of disciplines. These disciplines reflect the levels at
which bilingualism and multilingualism can be realized: the societal or
individual levels. On the one hand, sociohistorical processes lead to language
contact, which has different consequences on the types of multilingualism.  On
the other hand, at the individual level, researchers are concerned with the
cognitive processes that being bilingual entails and the mental representation
of more than one language in the brain. The author calls for a more consistent
use of terminology across the various disciplines, and an evaluation of
research methods with regard to the “confusion of ‘multi-/interdisciplinarity’
and ‘innovation’’’ and addressing “the tension between ‘basic’ and applied
research” (p. 46).

Part II is divided into five sections that cover a wide array of topics from
neurological issues to emotions and gestures. The first section, “The
Neurology of Bilingualism and Multilingualism”, consists of Chapter 3,
“Bilingual Aphasia: Theoretical and Clinical Considerations” by Elizabeth
Ijalba, Loraine K. Obler, and Shyamala Chengappa, which provides a review of
clinical case studies of bilinguals with aphasia and discusses the various
models that help one understand how aphasia affects the bilingual and polyglot
minds. Using three models (the declarative/procedural memory model, the
inhibitory control model and the hierarchical (translation) models), the
authors discuss language organization and processing, issues of language
interference and reasons for aphasic deficits.

Section 2, “Approaches to Bilingualism, Multilingualism, and Second-Language
Acquisition”, consists of articles, which approach bilingualism and
multilingualism from different fields in linguistics: language and cognition,
second language acquisition, and syntax and heritage language learners. “The
Bilingual Child” by Ludovica Serratrice acknowledges the consensus in the
field of bilingual language acquisition that while simultaneous bilingual
children possess two independent language systems, provided there is
sufficient exposure to both languages, this independence does not exclude
cross-linguistic interaction. With this in mind, Serratrice reviews
phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic development by analyzing speech
perception, speech production, and word learning in bilingual children.

In Chapter 5, “Bilingualism/Multilingualism and Second-Language Acquisition”,
Yuko Goto Butler explores issues that can be related to and found at the cross
section between bilingualism, multilingualism, and L2 acquisition by focusing
on three topics: the conceptualization and assessment of language proficiency,
age and L2 acquisition, and cross-linguistic influences.  Goto Butler provides
a classical typology of bilingualism that characterizes its dimensions:
balanced/dominant vs. receptive/productive, etc. The author analyzes language
proficiency and engages three different views toward language acquisition: the
formal linguistic, the individual-cognitive, and the socio-contextual view.
Goto Butler addresses the research on key aspects of age and L2 acquisition
such as the existence of the critical period, the measurements/assessments of
L2s, and the definition of what is an L2. In terms of cross-linguistic
influences, Goto Bulter presents an overview of the research on various
transfer phenomena such as interference and interlanguage.

Chapter 6, “Multilingualism: New Perspectives on Syntactic Development”, by
Éva Berkes and Suzanne Flynn, explores first, second, and multilingual
acquisition. The authors are interested in the interconnectedness of L1, L2,
and L3 acquisition with respect to syntactic development. They propose that L2
acquisition research can provide insight into language development in general.
When discussing L2 acquisition they elaborate on two models, the maturation
model and the strong continuity model, with attention being paid to the role
of Universal Grammar. Also part of the discussion is the issue of transfer
from the L1 to the L2. Berkes and Flynn point out that multilingual
acquisition further complicates the equation by adding multiple elements that
require attention: cross-linguistic influence, language learning strategies
(cultivated during L2 acquisition), and again, the role of Universal Grammar.
For multilingual acquisition, the authors explore the L2 status factor, the
typological primacy model, and the cumulative enhancement model. They review
case studies that analyze the (enhancement) effects of previous knowledge of
different L1s and L2s on the acquisition of the complementizer phrase in L2
and L3 English. Berkes and Flynn make predictions as to the role of knowledge
of these syntactic structures in subsequent language acquisition in the L3 and
L4.

Chapter 7, “Bilingualism and the Heritage Language Speaker” by Silvina
Montrul, examines various definitions of ‘bilingualism’, ‘bilingual
individuals’, ‘heritage language’, ‘the heritage language speaker’ and ‘the
heritage language learner’. She argues that a heritage (language) speaker’s
history and proficiency are influenced by many factors, at both the
neuropsycholinguistic and sociopolitical levels. She notes the importance of
examining two variables, age of acquisition and language use, which affect
linguistic competence in the heritage language. Incomplete acquisition is
related to linguistic competence, not a bilingual’s communicative competence.
Montrul also discusses the “increasing interest in investigating the potential
similarities and differences between second-language learners and heritage
speakers” (p.181). She suggests that the potential similarities and
differences are not only important to answering questions about pedagogy but
could also help researchers analyze the nature of language acquisition as a
whole.

The next section, “Bilingual and Multilingual Language Use: Knowledge,
Comprehension, and Production'', is composed of three chapters. In Chapter 8,
“Two Linguistic Systems in Contact: Grammar, Phonology and Lexicon”, Pieter
Muysken examines the implications of contact on the lexicon, morphosyntax, and
phonology of the languages involved. He proposes a multidisciplinary
methodology to better understand linguistic phenomena that have normally been
treated separately as subfields, such as interference and code-mixing. At the
end of his overview, he discusses the integration of the aforementioned
subfields and possible directions for new research methodologies resulting
from the combination of various fields in linguistics.

Chapter 9, “The Comprehension of Words and Sentences in Two Languages” by
Judith F. Kroll and Paola E. Dussias, evaluates language processing in
bilinguals. The authors review the current neuro- and psycholinguistic
research on the comprehension of words and sentences in bilinguals. They also
elaborate on the scope and nature of cross-language activation, including
evidence from studies that explore its neural basis. The authors provide
evidence from various studies that propose that although both languages may
not be needed in language tasks, both languages may be activated. Their
overview demonstrates that bilinguals’ two languages, cognitively and
neurologically, are accessible to one another. This accessibility can be seen
at the word- and sentence processing levels. In addition, the
interconnectedness between bilinguals’ two languages in the brain brings into
question the plasticity of the cognitive and neural representations of the L1
and L2.

Chapter 10, “An Appraisal of the Bilingual Language Production System:
Quantitatively or Qualitatively Different from Monolinguals?” by Elin
Runnqvist, Ian FitzPatrick, Kristof Strijkers, and Albert Costa, explores
processing differences between monolinguals and bilinguals. The quantitative
factors investigated include linguistic factors such as lexical entries and a
large phoneme inventory. Qualitative differences can be seen at the level of
conceptual representations; system(s) dedicated to language control. The
authors go into detailed discussion on bilingual production at the
pre-lexical, lexical and post-lexical levels. They particularly expand on
bilingual production at the lexical level by discussing three aspects: a) the
availability and implications of having two words for one concept, b) the
difference in speed and accuracy in lexical retrieval, and c) the effects of
having cognates in two languages. They also touch on post-lexical processing,
namely foreign accent in L2 production. They conclude that most differences in
language production can be attributed to quantitative differences. The authors
note that further research is still needed to determine whether quantitative
differences will translate into qualitative differences.

The following section, “Bilingualism and Multilingualism: Memory, Cognition,
and Emotion”, features two chapters from the field of psychology.  Chapter 11,
“Bilingual Memory” by Roberto R. Heredia and Jeffrey M. Brown, presents a
review of what the authors believe to be the most influential
(psycholinguistic) theories of bilingualism, in particular bilingual memory
(storage and retrieval). In their overview, the authors discuss earlier
theoretical frameworks of bilingual memory representations. Concepts such as
the “signifier” vs. the “signified” gave way to theories such as the
coordinate, compound, and subordinate systems. Later models reformulated,
reexamined, and/or challenged earlier theories. These include: the bilingual
coordinate-compound distinction, the shared (interdependent) vs. the separate
(independent) hypothesis, the bilingual dual coding model, earlier
hierarchical models (the word association model and the conception mediation
model), the revised hierarchical models and the distributed conceptual feature
model. Finally, the authors briefly discuss bilingual lexical access by
reviewing studies that investigate whether bilingual lexical access is
language-selective or language-non selective.

In chapter 12, “Bilingualism and Emotion: Implications for Mental Health”,
Ines Martinovic and Jeanette Altarriba examine the connection(s) between
emotion and language in the bilingual mind. The authors focus on bilingualism
in relation to the representation of emotion and its coding in the bilingual
brain, which, they argue, can vary depending on cultural and social context.
In particular, Martinovic and Altarriba discuss bilingual autobiographic
memory and argue that the memory of the bilingual individual, the language in
which a memory was encoded, and the linguistic phenomenon of code-switching
all have effects on the expression of emotion. The latter half of the chapter
presents issues related to patient therapy such as the use of interpreters and
the role of culture (aptitude) in successful therapy.

The final section of Part II, “The Bilingual’s and Multilingual’s Repertoire:
Code-Mixing, Code-Switching, and Communication Accommodation”, contains 5
chapters which comment on the multiple strategies bilinguals and multilinguals
employ to express meanings. Chapter 13, “Code-Switching and Grammatical
Theory” by Jeff MacSwan, summarizes various developments in syntactic theory
as it concerns code-switching. He reviews the evolution of the term
‘constraints’, which went from a descriptive perspective (well- or ill-formed
code-switches) to a theoretical perspective that adheres to a system of
linguistic rules. While strides have been made in terms of the rigor of
constraint-based theoretical approaches to syntax and code-switching,
counterarguments continue to challenge these approaches.

Chapter 14, “Sign Language-Spoken Language Bilingualism and the Derivation of
Bimodally Mixed Sentences” by Gerald P. Berent, serves as an introduction to
bimodality (code-switching between sign language and spoken language; bimodal
bilingualism), and describes the properties and types of bimodal code-switches
and how one can approach them. Central to Berent’s approach(es) is MacSwan’s
minimalist approach. The focus of the Minimalist Program is to identify the
most basic operations and components of the human language faculty while still
being able to explain the variability among human languages. When applied to
bilingual mixing and constraints on mixing, MacSwan’s minimalist approach
looks to the requirements of the mixed grammars. The requirements of the two
interacting grammars will be able to account for all unimodal code-switching.
With this assumption about code-switching, Berent goes a step further by
saying that bimodal bilingual code-switching can be accounted for and is
constrained by the requirements of the interacting bimodal grammars. In his
chapter, Berent draws parallels between unimodal and bimodal code-switching to
ultimately lay the foundation for linguistic research on bimodal mixing with
the framework of the minimalist program.

In Chapter 15, “Social and Psychological Factors in Language Mixing”, William
C. Ritchie and  Tej K. Bhatia introduce additional approaches to bilingualism
and multilingualism with attention paid to external motivations for these
linguistic phenomena, the social evaluation of bilingualism and
multilingualism, and bilinguals’ self-perception in terms of language use. The
authors also address questions about whether language-mixing or
language-switching is a random phenomenon.

Chapter 16, “Accommodating Multilinguality” by Itesh Sachdev, Howard Giles,
and Anne Pauwels, utilizes Communication Accommodation Theory to study the
motivations for language choice. In this chapter, the authors only focus on
bilingual and multilingual accommodation while excluding other types of
accommodation such as accent. They summarize Communication Accommodation
Theory and how it explains the social psychological reasons for speakers to
engage in bilingual and multilingual accommodation.

In Chapter 17, “Bilingualism and Gesture” by Marianne Gullberg, bi-modal
bilingualism is further discussed. Gullburg talks about (bilingual) child
language development and the role that gestures play in children’s input and
output. Gullberg reviews studies on adults and gestures in three areas. The
first is that of gesture in relation to an L2’s proficiency level. The second
concerns gestures and the bilingual mind, and the level of cross-linguistic
influence. The last area is face-to-face bilingual interaction with much data
coming from L2 studies. The author points out that studies on bilingualism and
gestures still require a stronger theoretical and empirical foundation to
better understand “the nature of bilingual conceptual, semantic and
morphosyntactic representations” (p. 431) and how those representations are
realized in real time.

Part III is titled “Societal Bilingualism/Multilingualism and its Effects”. It
contains two sections that address bilingualism and its implications for
society:  “Language Contact, Maintenance and Endangerment” and “Bilingualism
and Multilingualism: The Media, Education, Literacy, and the Law”. The first
chapter in section 1, “The Bilingual and Multilingual Community” by Suzanne
Romaine, explores the various levels at which bilingual and multilingual
communities can exist: the nation, indigenous groups, and migrant communities.
Romaine addresses bilingual language use and how domains have a great effect
on the manifestation of bilingualism (different types of bilingualism
including diglossia). The chapter also discusses the ways in which governments
can regulate language use and the implications for global trends in
bilingualism.

In chapter 19, “Language Maintenance, Language Shift, and Reversing Language
Shift”, Joshua Fishman describes different cases of language contact and their
outcomes in the United States. He shows that while there are periods of
language maintenance, the tendency is largely towards language shift. Fishman
also provides examples of other language situations beyond the United States
that can stem from the existence of ethnic (indigenous) minority languages as
he discusses reversing language shift and the different stages along his
language shift spectrum.

In “Linguistic Imperialism and Endangered Languages” (Chapter 20), Robert
Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas pose questions regarding how and why
languages have higher or lower status in terms of the hierarchization of
languages. The authors propose that the answers to these questions can be
found through the study of the components of linguistic imperialism: past,
present, and future. Many of the examples of linguistic imperialism in this
chapter are the result of colonialism and the more recent phenomenon of
globalization. At the end of the chapter, the authors provide examples of
successful revitalization efforts such as the African Academy of Languages and
successful revitalization stories from India as they stress the need for
language policies that are more sensitive to social and linguistic issues.

Chapter 21, “Multilingualism, Indigenization, and Creolization” by Jeff
Siegel, explores two closely related phenomena in the field of contact
linguistics, indigenization, which refers to a language brought to a new
location where it is then spoken by the local population, and creolization,
which refers to the creation of a new language as a result of linguistic and
cultural contact. Siegel highlights the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic
processes, such as transfer, simplification, and reduction, which occur in
both indigenization and creolization.

Chapter 22, “Multilingualism and Family Welfare” by Xiao-Lei Wang, offers
insight into issues that families encounter when attempting to raise a
multilingual family; that is, a family where there is more than one heritage
language. The author points out possible obstacles that may arise such as
differences in parental childrearing beliefs and practices, and the quality of
family communication (when does communication occur and who participates in
said communication?). Wang offers suggestions and strategies for a more
successful outcome. Her focus is on communication, with much of the
responsibility of effective communication falling on the parents to achieve a
multilingual family.

The second section of Part III contains five chapters, which explore
additional facets of bilingualism in modern society. It begins with Chapter
23, “Bilingualism and Multilingualism in the Global Media and Advertising”, by
Tej K. Bhatia and William C. Ritchie. Through a detailed analysis of global
advertising discourse, the authors demonstrate the role of English(es) in
various cultures. They engage the topic of globalization and the use of
English in non-English speaking nations as a marketing tool.  Despite the
strong trends of globalization through English, the authors point out that
there are some areas of Hindi advertising that are still inaccessible to
English. For example, English is used for fashion while Sanskrit is used for
the advertising of fabrics.

Chapter 24, “Bilingual Education” by Wayne E. Wright, focuses on bilingual
education, which, in this context, means education in the dominant societal
language and the student’s native language. The author provides a brief
history of bilingual education research and describes various models common in
the United States such as transitional bilingual education programs,
developmental bilingual education programs, dual language programs, and
bilingual immersion programs. The author points out methodological and
theoretical issues for each model, and addresses problems facing all bilingual
programs in the United States, including the availability and training of
qualified bilingual teachers, and the political aspects of bilingual
education. Wright calls for the establishment of standards, both national and
international, for the training of bilingual teachers. He suggests that more
research should be conducted inside and outside the United States in order to
document the effectiveness of various models of bilingual education and to
address the needs of students. At the end of the chapter, Wright calls for the
recognition of bilingual education as the “only way to educate children in the
twenty-first century” (p. 619).

In Chapter 25, “The Impact of Bilingualism on Language and Literacy
Development”, Ellen Bialystok discusses how bilingualism can affect language
development in terms of metalinguistic awareness (lexicon, syntax, phonology).
Bialystok presents an overview of the literature and explores the effect of
language development(s) on literacy. Factors such as proficiency level,
differences in past experiences, and varied language task demands can lead to
various outcomes in terms of (successful) language and literacy development.
The author points out differences in achievement between bilinguals and
monolinguals in certain language tasks. While there is little evidence to
suggest that there are significant differences in overall achievement
concerning metalinguistic skills, Bialystok notes the advantages of bilinguals
in terms of their ability to ignore misleading information and, instead, focus
on relevant features/structures.

Chapter 26, “Bilingualism and Writing Systems” by Benedetta Bassetti, explores
biliteracy and its cognitive consequences. The author explains what
constitutes a writing system and addresses differences found across writing
systems: phonological transparency, morphological transparency, etc. Bassetti
shows how literacy in more than one language affects many other aspects of a
bilingual’s language abilities (acquisition, metalinguistic awareness,
production).

Chapter 27, “Multilingualism and Forensic Linguistics” by Tej K. Bhatia and
William C. Ritchie, serves as an introduction to the field of forensic
linguistics. While there is still no consensus on a definition of forensic
linguistics, Bhatia and Ritchie explain that it “is an off-shoot of
linguistics which stands at the interface of the theory and application of
linguistics in the legal context” (p. 673). In order to demonstrate this
intersection, the authors provide examples from cases such as speaker identity
detection, group identity detection, and Medicaid fraud. The authors note the
usefulness of linguists in the investigation of such cases due to their
knowledge and training in both formal linguistics and the socio-psychological
aspects of language use. They also discuss aspects of plurilingualism in the
courtroom, including cross-linguistic pragmatics, language naming, and
language mixing.  The authors note the new demands that will be placed on the
profession of forensic linguistics prompted by an ever-changing multilingual
world influenced by globalization and social media.

Part IV, “Global Perspectives and Challenges: Case Studies”, offers the reader
a glimpse into how plurilingualism plays out across the globe. Each region
provides a different context in which plurilingualism can occur, including
colonization, borderlands, and the existence of ethnic minorities. Each
chapter centers on a major region of the world.

Chapter 28, “Bilingualism and Multilingualism in North America” by William F.
Mackey, argues that despite North America’s reputation as a monolingual
English-speaking region, a different picture emerges. From Canada with French
and Native American languages to the United States with large bilingual
communities, North America offers linguists examples of borderlands, both
physical and linguistic, in language communities throughout the region. Mackey
ends the chapter with a description of the current reality and future of North
American plurilingualism.

Chapter 29, “Bilingualism in Latin America” by Anna María Escobar, presents an
overview of the various bilingual situations in Latin America. She discusses
societal bilingualism, which in this case refers to bilingualism between an
indigenous language and Spanish with some exceptions (Portuguese-Spanish in
regions of Paraguay and Uruguay, and English-Spanish in the U.S. Southwest and
Puerto Rico).  Bilingualism in Latin America can trace its roots to colonial
times. Despite the elimination of many Amerindian languages in Latin America,
recent efforts to revitalize indigenous languages have been achieved with
varying degrees of success.

Chapter 30, “Bilingualism in Europe” by Andrée Tabouret-Keller, addresses the
various bilingual situations within Europe. While regional languages have been
present in many European countries, the case of bilingualism/multilingualism
in Europe is being shaped by the presence of regional languages along with
waves of migration and immigration. Tabouret-Keller goes into detail with
three case studies; French, Breton, and Sorb. They were chosen for their
representation of different linguistic situations impacted by historical and
political factors. The author ends the chapter by discussing current trends in
bilingual education in Europe and the role of English as a means of
transnational communication.

In Chapter 31, “Turkish as an Immigrant Language in Europe”, Ad Backus
presents the history of the Turkish immigrant community throughout the region.
The chapter describes situations of Turkish as an immigrant language and how
it is being maintained past the first generation. Backus gives various
accounts of language contact phenomena such as borrowing, code-switching,
language change, etc. He invites the reader to draw parallels between Turkish
as an immigrant language and other well-studied immigrant languages throughout
the world, such as South Asian languages in the U.K. and Spanish in the United
States.

Chapter 32, “Multilingualism in Southern Africa” by Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu,
presents an overview of the history of the region from colonialism to present
times. Southern Africa consists of ten countries that were all subject to
three colonial European powers, England, Germany, and Portugal. With the
independence of many countries in Southern Africa came questions of language
policy/planning at a national and international level. The second half of the
chapter goes into more detail about multilingualism in Southern Africa by
exploring language policy, language planning, and language ideology. A major
theme in the chapter is the role of colonialism in the past, and how
colonialism continues its legacy by informing many decisions at the
governmental level. This legacy is manifested in the supplantation of
indigenous languages by European languages (English, Portuguese, and
Afrikaans).

Chapter 33, “Multilingualism in Greater China and the Chinese Language
Diaspora”, by Sherman Lee and David C. S. Li, comments on multilingualism in
the area that consists of Mainland China, Taiwan, and the Special
Administrative Regions -- Hong Kong and Macao.  The languages (also considered
dialects) in question here are those that fall under the Han Chinese Language
(Mandarin, Wu, Yue, etc.) and minority languages such as Zhuang, Manchu and
Mongol. The authors specify the linguistic situations throughout Greater China
by exploring contact phenomena that have occurred in the region: cases of
diglossia and/or bilingualism, language shift, and language death. With such
contact also come issues of bilingual education and revitalization. The
diasporic situation also presents unique issues. With the largest diaspora in
the world, the subject of language maintenance is manifold. The authors
describe different waves of migration of ethnic Chinese both within and
outside of Greater China, and provide detailed sociolinguistic profiles of the
current Chinese language diaspora around the world.

In Chapter 34, “Bilingualism and Multilingualism in South Asia”, Tej K. Bhatia
and William C. Ritchie describe how multilingualism in this part of the world,
and particularly in India, consists of situations that differ from those
discussed in previous chapters. With a multitude of languages from four
different language families, the authors situate South Asian bilingualism in
its social context. The focus here is not so much on colonialism or
displacement of other indigenous languages, as is the case for multilingualism
in other regions of the world, but rather that South Asia and India’s
multilingualism can be attributed to demographic factors which can range from
expressing one’s identity to linguistic accommodation and assimilation.

Chapter 35, “Multilingualism and Language Renewal in Ex-Soviet Central Asia”
by Birgit N. Schlyter, demonstrates how multilingualism in the former Soviet
Central Asia has undergone a different history than other regions of the
world. This area shares a common political history and also shares an ethnic
connection, mainly between Turkic and Iranian populations. The promotion of
Russian and the suppression of ethnic languages during the Soviet era still
have implications for language policies in the region today. The situation now
is that of revitalization of ethnic languages, which are becoming national
symbols in the region. The author elaborates on the language policies being
employed in each country, which in turn affects the script used (Cyrillic vs.
Persian vs. Latin), the borrowed vocabulary, and new patterns of language
behavior.

In Chapter 36, “Bilingualism/Multilingualism in the Middle East and North
Africa: A Focus on Cross-National and Diglossic Bilingualism/Multilingualism”,
Judith Rosenhouse clarifies the bilingual/multilingual situation of the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA). Rosenhouse discusses contact between Arabic and
other Semitic languages and contact with Iranian languages. The author
explores the details of the formal (legal) state of the MENA languages and the
sociolinguistic situation in the region. She briefly reviews long-established
research on code-switching and diglossia with Arabic and other languages. The
author points out that MENA languages have only recently become the topic of
research in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics with further research still
needed.

EVALUATION

Together, the contributing authors provide a comprehensive overview of the
field. What makes this a difficult task is the multidimensionality of
bilingualism and multilingualism. There is a multitude of approaches that
complement one another by offering the reader new perspectives on a field that
is multidisciplinary in nature.

The chapters provide a literature review of previous studies, current trends,
and directions for the future. Many of them would be beneficial as
supplemental material to a multitude of classes in linguistics. It is
especially invaluable for graduate students in search of ideas for research.
The bibliographies at the end of each chapter offer the reader ample
opportunities to further explore the material. The works in the Handbook
stress the need for more solid theories that are substantiated by rigorous
empirical data with the goal of strengthening and broadening our understanding
of plurilingualism.

For a volume of this magnitude and scope, the editors were successful in
organizing the chapters thematically so that each section is coherent in its
focus. The transition between chapters flows smoothly, enhancing the
information presented in previous chapters while inviting the reader to
explore new aspects of plurilingualism. While the approaches throughout the
book may be from different fields, the goal remains the same: to look at
plurilingualism through a critical lens to better understand how it affects
society and the individual.

This goal, however, may be hindered by theoretical divergence within the
field. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the multidimensional aspect of bilingualism
and multilingualism has led to difficulties in communication in the field in
terms of approaches and methodologies. Of particular relevance to the reader
is that of terminology. Difficulties may arise from the employment of
different terminologies across the various disciplines covered in the
Handbook. Even if similar terms are used, the connotations and implications of
the terms may lead to misunderstandings given different theoretical
backgrounds and research objectives.

Even though certain chapters may be better suited for specialists in a
particular discipline, the Handbook allows the reader to break out of one’s
comfort zone to better understand a fluid and rapidly changing field. Despite
these changes and the wide scope of the field, this volume will challenge
researchers to figure out what steps should be taken and what methodologies
should be employed to come to a clearer understanding of bilingualism and
multilingualism.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Gabriel Guadalupe is currently ABD. He is interested in sociolinguistics,
language contact, bilingualism, and language and identity.








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