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This book addresses the issue of language contact in the context of child language acquisition. Elizabeth Lanza examines in detail the simultaneous acquisition of Norwegian and English by two first-born children in families living in Norway in which the mother is American and the father Norwegian. She connects psycholinguistic arguments with sociolinguistic evidence, adding a much-needed dimension of real language-use in context to the psycholinguistic studies which have dominated the field. She draws upon evidence from other studies to support her claims concerning language dominance and the child's differentiation between the two languages in relation to the situation, interlocutor, and the communicative demands of the context. She also addresses the question of whether or not the language mixing of infant bilingualism is conceptually different from the codeswitching of older bilinguals, thus helping to bridge the gap between these two fields of study.
This book offers an introduction to the many facets of multilingualism in a changing world. It begins with an overview of the multiplicity of human languages and their geographic distribution, before moving on to the key question of what multilingualism actually is and what is understood by terms such as 'mother tongue', 'native speaker', and 'speech community'. In the chapters that follow, Florian Coulmas systematically explores multilingualism with respect to the individual, institutions, cities, nations, and cyberspace. In each of these domains, the dynamics of language choice are undergoing changes as a result of economic, political, and cultural forces. Against this background, two chap...
This edited volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to the question of how identities are negotiated and a sense of belonging established in a world of increasing migration and diversity. Transcending field-specific approaches and differences in foci, the authors investigate how identity is constructed and mediated in face-to-face interactions (in real time and fictional writing), how writers use narratives to express their reorientation and their identity negotiation in a new homeland, and how material objects convey layered meaning to identity and belonging. This engagement with spoken, written and material mediation of identity resonates with recent sociolinguistic investigations on how language is connected to and intersects with embodiment, materiality and time. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of globalisation and migration studies, sociolinguistics and narrative analysis, anthropology and cultural studies.
'Brilliantly illustrates how multilingual mothers are disproportionately tasked with preserving linguistic heritage on one hand and preparing children for public society on the other - all while finding a language for their own new maternal identity' Eliane Glaser, author of Motherhood: A Manifesto It is estimated that more than half of the world's population communicates in more than one language and over a third of the population in the United Kingdom is multilingual. And yet life in multiple languages is rarely discussed publicly, myths and misconceptions prevail and the pressure to keep heritage languages alive has become a private conflict for millions. Linguistic diversity is more prev...
This volume is an up-to-date, concise introduction to bilingualism and multilingualism in schools, in the workplace, and in international institutions in a globalized world. The authors use a problem-solving approach and ask broad questions about bilingualism and multilingualism in society, including the question of language acquisition versus maintenance of bilingualism. Key features: provides a state-of-the-art description of different areas in the context of multilingualism and multilingual communication presents a critical appraisal of the relevance of the field, offers solutions of everyday language-related problems international handbook with contributions from renown experts in the field
Past studies of family language socialization often focus on children’s verbal communication skills and are conducted from the parents’ perspective. This book describes a child’s mostly self-directed and near-simultaneous multilingual and multiliterate development from birth to age 8. The present findings thus emphasize the critical role of child agency, and they may redefine and expand on the traditional theoretical framework of family language policy.
In this volume, scholars from the Nordic countries explore transitional processes around literacy in education in our contemporary complex and mobile society. Drawing on sociocultural theory, the chapters provide close, empirical analyses of identity construction, life trajectories, practices, concepts and politics in and around literacy in education.
Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.
In this volume, the results of a number of empirical studies of the development of narrative construction within a multilingual context are presented and discussed. It is explored what operating principles underlie the process of narrative production in L1 and L2. Developmental relations between form and function will be studied across a broad range of functional categories, such as temporality, perspective, connectivity, and narrative coherence. Moreover, a variety of language contact situations is considered with broad variation in the typological distances between the languages in order to enable cross-linguistic comparison. The analysis of learner data in various cross-linguistic settings may thus offer new information on the role of the structural properties of unrelated languages on the process of narrative acquisition. In the present volume, an attempt is also made to find out how transfer from one language to the other is facilitated. Finally, the effects of input on narrative construction in children's first and second language are examined in several studies.
This volume explores the implications of cross-linguistic structures in simultaneous bilingualism. It aims to find cognitive explanations for the presence or absence of cross-linguistic structures that go beyond the debate of ‘one system or two’. The contributors present syntactic, morphological and phonological features that are found in bilingual children, but are untypical of monolingual development, and discuss pertinent methodological issues. The orientation of this volume stands out from competing volumes in the field in that the focus is not limited to similarities between monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition. The volume will be of interest to researchers in the field of bilingualism and primary language acquisition, language theorists, and professionals working with bilingual populations.