Bilingual First Language Acquisition (MM Textbooks): 2 - Softcover

Annick De Houwer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184769148X ISBN 13: 9781847691484

Publisher: Multilingual Matters, 2009

Synopsis

Increasingly, children grow up hearing two languages from birth. This comprehensive textbook explains how children learn to understand and speak those languages. It brings together both established knowledge and the latest findings about different areas of bilingual language development. It also includes new analyses of previously published materials. The book describes how bilingually raised children learn to understand and use sounds, words and sentences in two languages. A recurrent theme is the large degree of variation between bilingual children. This variation in how children develop bilingually reflects the variation in their language learning environments. Positive attitudes from the people in bilingual children's language learning environments and their recognition that child bilingualism is not monolingualism-times-two are the main ingredients ensuring that children grow up to be happy and expert speakers of two languages.

About this title

Review:

This is a masterful introduction to one of the fastest growing areas in language studies. --Brian MacWhinney

About the Author:

Annick De Houwer is Research Professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and Collaborative Investigator to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.A.). Her PhD in Linguistics from the Free University of Brussels (1988) was based on a dissertation on bilingual acquisition, a topic she has since continued to work on steadily. Her first book, The Acquisition of Two Languages from Birth (CUP, 1990), is widely cited in the bilingual acquisition literature. Dr. De Houwer has also published on Dutch child language, attitudes towards child language, teen language, and intralingual subtitling. She has extensive editorial experience.

About this edition

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 184769148X
• ISBN 13: 9781847691484
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 405