28.4124, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Dewaele, Festman, Poarch (2017)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4124. Mon Oct 09 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4124, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Dewaele, Festman, Poarch (2017)

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Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2017 12:44:54
From: Zehra Palta [zehramelike.palta at mail.utoronto.ca]
Subject: Raising Multilingual Children

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-1655.html

AUTHOR: Julia  Festman
AUTHOR: Gregory J. Poarch
AUTHOR: Jean-Marc Adrien Dewaele
TITLE: Raising Multilingual Children
SERIES TITLE: Parents' and Teachers' Guides
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Zehra Melike Palta, University of Toronto

REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

This book is part of the series ‘ Parents and Teachers Guides: 23 by
‘Multilingual Matters’ that aims to provide strategies to readers who have no
prior knowledge  of multilingualism, who are about to become multilingual
parents or who are wondering ‘’ what kind of linguistic policy to follow to
maintain or develop their child or children’s multilingualism (pp.vii). ‘’ A
short preface by the authors contextualizes the need to focus on
multilingualism by identifying that ‘’ most books on this topic are focused on
typical issues in the US, and limited to bilingualism (p.viii).’’ The authors
adopt an ‘’issue-related approach to keep the book reader-related and not
overly scientific (pp.viii).’’ 

In Chapter 1, the authors list ten advantages of raising children as
multilinguals. Authors indicate that the acquisition of more than one language
will ‘’contribute to the future linguistic capital (pp.2), ’’ ‘’cultural
capital (pp.2), ’’ and to the ‘’economic capital (pp.3)’’ of the child. The
child will be able to become aware of the linguistic rules and how they differ
between the languages and understand the ‘’cultural values linked to them
(pp.2).’’  As a result, they will be able to reflect on the relationship
between culture and language. Concerning its contribution to the economic
capital, authors explain that being a multilingual will facilitate social
mobility as they can ‘’expand their social network (pp.4)’’ and have a greater
chance of finding a job in a business world that favours the knowledge of
multiple languages. Moreover, previous studies (Dewaele & Li Wei, 2013;
Dewaele & Stavans, 2014) have found that multilingualism has social advantages
as multilinguals ‘’ tend to have more cultural empathy and are more
open-minded (pp.2).’’ The study of Bialystok and Poarch (2014) also found that
multilinguals have a cognitive advantage since they are ‘’better at ignoring
irrelevant information (pp.2) ’’ as they can ‘’inhibit the languages not in
use (pp.2).’’ Lastly, authors explain that learning multiple languages at an
early age requires less conscious effort however ‘’ the child’s skillfulness
will depend on the amount of input they receive (pp.2).’’ 

Chapter 2 consists of the three authors sharing their experiences with
teaching multiple languages to their children. Dewaele tells the multilingual
journey of his daughter, Livia, who was raised learning French, Dutch and
English at an early age. The family had an exclusive language policy of ‘one
person-one language’ in order to balance the amount of exposure to input in
each language. Dewaele starts the chapter by providing brief information on
the language milestone development of monolingual children before providing
examples from his daughters’ speech to demonstrate that the language
acquisition process of ‘’children with multiple first language is typically
very similar  (pp.7)’’ and that  ‘’early multilingualism was not linked to any
delay in her acquisition of English, French or Dutch (pp.31). ’’ Although
there were cross-linguistic influences and transfer errors, Deawaele explains
that ‘’ the errors she made were generally comparable to those made by the
monolingual children of the same age (pp.15).’’ Furthermore, as a
multilingual, even at an early age, Livia had language awareness as she was
able to realize that different words were used in different languages to refer
to the same object, and she was able to choose a language according to context
and reproduce family’s language pattern while talking to her toys during
playtime. Dewaele concludes his section by emphasizing that although parents
can be an influence in the language choice of the child, ‘’ the linguistic and
cultural influence of the child’s environment is much more powerful (pp.18).’’
Second experience was on Festman’s children Aya and Noam, who did not have an
equal amount of exposure to their parents’ languages as the father felt
marginalised using his native language, Hebrew, whereas the mother, Festman,
used only German with her children. Aya’s English language journey was also
activated once the parents started to address her in English. This section
outlines the importance of input in language acquisition and the difficulties
that linguistic minorities can face while trying to maintain their language. 
The last section focuses on the experiences of Poarch’s son Loïc who
continuously changed his language choice. Poarch believes that the variation
in his language proficiencies is correlated with the amount of exposure and
the active usage of his three languages.  

Chapter 3 suggests family language policies and strategies to ensure that
children have a successful multilingual acquisition. Authors indicate that
repetition is one of the key strategies in language learning as it allows for
the establishment of connections in the brain consequently forming a memory
trace. Another strategy to introduce new words to children is by using
techniques such as ‘fast mapping’ that establishes a connection between the
object and the name for the child. Last strategy is to use ‘play’ in which
children can use ‘’words they know in different contexts and situations
(pp.49).’’ Authors explain that emotional environment encourages language
acquisition hence children should ‘’ receive attention and affection through
all the spoken language (pp.51).’’ 

The first family language policy is what is seen in the case of Livia, ‘one
parent-one language’ (OPOL). Authors claim that this policy is an ideal
situation for successful multilingual acquisition ‘’ if the child has the
opportunity to be exposed, and is actively involved in the multilingual
environment (pp.54).’’  The second family language policy is ‘one other
person-one language’ (OOPOL) in which another family member or someone outside
the family speaks the third language. In this situation, if the child develops
a personal relation with the third language speaker and has a constant
exposure to the third language, he or she might be able to progress well in
the language acquisition process. The last language policy is the ‘occasional
language use’’ (OLU) in which the language is used in certain situations such
as during weekends, or dinners. In this case, since the child has reduced
exposure to the language, the language competencies would also be reduced. 

In Chapter 4, authors emphasize the importance of a family to agree on a
language policy beforehand in order to establish a pattern that can be
followed. The authors indicate that parents should not expect multilingual
children to be like monolingual children as ‘’multilinguals will display
either a narrow or broad vocabulary knowledge (pp.63)’’ depending on the
quality and the quantity of input and their active usage. Hence, ‘’
multilinguals will have very diverse language repertoires (pp.63).’’ 

Chapter 5 consist of answers to questions that authors came across when
reading blogs about multilingual acquisition. Authors indicate that although
educational materials such as DVDs can expose children to a language, it will
‘’ never displace the necessary personal interaction with a real-life speaker
to whom the child is emotionally attached (pp.68).’’ It is also important to
expose children to other native speakers as ‘’ cultural knowledge and
pragmatic cues are passed on (pp.71).’’ Authors also touch on ‘ language
shift’ and explain that children might decide to abandon or refuse to speak a
certain language in order to be accepted by their peers who do not speak the
same language. Lastly, the authors provide a short list of strategies that can
be applied in the classrooms to promote multilingualism. 

EVALUATION

The book is successful in clearly communicating the processes involved in
multilingual acquisition to readers who might not have a prior knowledge. It
is effectively organized in a way that leads readers to understand why it is
important to acquire multiple languages, what to expect during this process,
and how to assist children to successful acquisition. The cases of the
children provide real-life examples to illustrate and simplify concepts such
as code switching, cross-linguistic interference, transfer errors and language
awareness, which might be foreign concepts to individuals without a background
in the field of linguistics.  

Although the authors indicate that this book is reader-related and not
excessively scientific, I believe that providing more scientific evidence to
support their claims will help the reader comprehend their conclusions. As
this book is also intended for teachers to use as a guide in the classroom,
language acquisition theories could have been used to explain linguistic
phenomena such as cross-linguistic transfers or transfer errors. This way,
teachers would be able to become more aware of the complex process of multiple
language acquisition and understand the reason behind the mistakes that are
made by multilingual students. Nevertheless, the strategies recommended to
teachers are very applicable and will allow teachers to create a classroom
environment in which the linguistic repertoire of the students are valued and
promoted.   

It would also be interesting to further observe and elaborate on the
perception of children regarding the languages they speak and the development
of their linguistic identity. For example, in the case of Livia, the lack of
societal dialect in Dutch triggered her to have an identity crisis as she
declared that she was not Belgian: she indicated that she was British with
Belgian roots as she could relate better to British ways of communicating.
Furthermore, at one point in her life, to not stand out and be accepted by her
peers, she decided to inform her parents to speak English with her as her
peers spoke this language. As can be seen, linguistic identity is prone to
change and is influenced by various factors such as societal value attached to
a language and acceptance, as seen in Livia’s case. 

REFERENCES:

Bialystok, E. and Poarch, G.J. (2014) Language experience changes language and
cognitive ability. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 17, 433-446. 

Dewaele, J.-M. and Li Wei (2013) Is multilingualism linked to a higher
tolerance of ambiguity/ Bilingualism: Language & Cognition 16 (1), 231-240. 

Dewaele, J.-M. and Stavans, A. (2014) The effect of immigration,
acculturation, and multicompetence on personality profiles of Israeli
multilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism 18 (3), 203-221.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Zehra Melike Palta is a PhD student in the Language and Literacies Education
Program and Comparative, International and Development Education Program at
the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.
Her research interests include plurilingualism, language education, language
politics, and the construction and development of linguistic identity.





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