This book pioneers the study of bilingualism across the lifespan and in all its diverse forms. In framing the newest research within a lifespan perspective, the editors highlight the importance of considering an individual's age in researching how bilingualism affects language acquisition and cognitive development. A key theme is the variability among bilinguals, which may be due to a host of individual and sociocultural factors, including the degree to which bilingualism is valued within a particular context.Thus, this book is a call for language researchers, psychologists, and educators to pursue a better understanding of bilingualism in our increasingly global society.
Bilingualism Across the Lifespan examines the dynamics of bilingual language processing over time from the perspectives of neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. This multidisciplinary approach is fundamental to an understanding of how the bilingual's two (or more) language systems interact with each other and with other higher cognitive systems, neurological substrates, and social systems - a central theme of this volume. Contributors examine the nature of bilingualism during various phases of the lifecycle - childhood, adulthood, and old age - and in various health/pathology conditions. Topics range from code separation in the young bilingual child, across various types of language pathologies in adult bilinguals, to language choice problems in dementia. The volume thus offers a broad overview of current theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of bilingualism. It will interest and stimulate researchers and graduate students in the fields of linguistics, neuropsychology, and developmental psychology, as well as in foreign language teaching, speech pathology, educational psychology, and special education.
"Bilingualism Across the Lifespan explores the opportunities and challenges that are inherent in conducting cognitive research in an increasingly global and multilingual society. Divided into three parts, the book highlights the multifaceted and complex nature of bilingualism. The first section focuses on what every cognitive psychologist ought to know about bilingualism; the impact of bilingualism on cognition across the lifespan, the idea that bilinguals are not a special case, and the importance of bilingualism in cognitive research beyond language. The second section focuses on challenges inherent in bilingual research; diversity of bilingual experience, the assessment of proficiency, and finding matched comparison groups and materials. Finally, the book considers opportunities that are created when bilingualism is incorporated into the cognitive research enterprise. It illustrates how researchers of bilingualism leverage theory, methodology, and findings from single-language research, incorporate uniquely bilingual processes or representations, and target populations of bilinguals that help to establish universal properties. Bringing together leading international contributors, the book provides the reader with a better understanding of the nature of bilingualism and bilingual research as it relates to human cognition. It will be an essential read for all researchers and upper level students of bilingualism and cognitive psychology more generally"--
This collection brings together leading names in the field of bilingualism research to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Studies in Bilingualism series. Over the last 25 years the study of bilingualism has received a tremendous amount of attention from linguists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists. The breadth of coverage in this volume is a testament to the many different aspects of bilingualism that continue to generate phenomenal interest in the scholarly community. The bilingual experience is captured through a multifaceted prism that includes aspects of language and literacy development in child bilinguals with and without developmental language disorders, language processing and mental representations in adult bilinguals across the lifespan, and the cognitive and neurological basis of bilingualism. Different theoretical approaches – from generative UG-based models to constructivist usage-based models – are brought to bear on the nature of bilingual linguistic knowledge. The end result is a compendium of the state-of-the-art of a field that is in constant evolution and that is on an upward trajectory of discovery.
This collection brings together two areas of research that are currently receiving great attention in both scientific and public spheres: cognitive aging and bilingualism. With ongoing media focus on the aging population and the need for activities to forestall cognitive decline, experiences that appear effective in maintaining functioning are of great interest. One such experience is lifelong bilingualism. Moreover, research into the cognitive effects of bilingualism has increased dramatically in the past decade, making it an exciting area of study. This volume combines these issues and presents the most recent research and thinking into the effects of bilingualism on cognitive decline in aging. The contributors are all leading scholars in their field. The result is a state-of-the art collection on the effect of bilingualism on cognition in older populations for both healthy aging and aging with dementia. The papers will be of interest to researchers, students, and health professionals.
Language Development Over the Lifespan is a reference resource for those conducting research on language development and the aging process, as well as a supplementary textbook for courses in applied linguistics/bilingualism programs that focus on language attrition/aging and adult literacy development in second languages. It offers an integrative approach to language development that examines changes in language over a lifetime, organized by different theoretical perspectives, which are presented by well-known international scholars.
The aim of this volume is to integrate the current literature about the psychological dimensions of bilingualism: that is, to analyze psychological, subjective, and internal perspectives on bilingualism. What is the internal world of bilinguals like? How do they perceive the world and how do they think? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being bilingual? How does bilingualism interact with personality? In what way does being bilingual impact the aging mind? Renowned and emerging scholars alike explore these questions in the collected chapters. The organization of the book features four main component parts: (1) the inner cognitive world of the bilingual mind (2) bilingual language representation, and (3) bilingualism across the lifespan, and 4) bilingual cognitive and personality dimensions. Taken collectively, the included chapters provide a multidimensional and up-to-date perspective on bilingual studies, specifically concentrating on the cognitive and emotional dimensions of the individual. Chapter topics include: Conceptual Metaphor Theory Bilingual Figurative Language Processing Aging in Bilinguals Psychopathology in Bilinguals Personality Traits in Bilinguals Addressing the growing demand for bilingual research, this collection provides a timely and much needed perspective on the bilingual as an individual, exploring his/her internal world and a range of phenomena, including emotional word processing, personality traits, language effects on the mind, and cognitive effects of bilingualism. As such, it will appeal to a wide range of readers across various intellectual and professional arenas, including cognitive psychologists, personality psychologists, psycholinguists, educational psychologists and second language teachers, among others.
Bilingualism Across the Lifespan explores the opportunities and challenges that are inherent in conducting cognitive research in an increasingly global and multilingual society. Divided into three sections, the book highlights the multifaceted and complex nature of bilingualism. The first section focuses on what every cognitive psychologist ought to know about bilingualism: the impact of bilingualism on cognition across the lifespan, the idea that bilinguals are not a special case, and the importance of bilingualism in cognitive research beyond language. The second section focuses on challenges inherent in bilingual research: diversity of bilingual experience, the assessment of proficiency, and finding matched comparison groups and materials. Finally, the book considers opportunities that are created when bilingualism is incorporated into the cognitive research enterprise. It illustrates how researchers of bilingualism leverage theory, methodology, and findings from single-language research, incorporate uniquely bilingual processes or representations, and target populations of bilinguals that help to establish universal properties. Bringing together leading international contributors, the book provides the reader with a better understanding of the nature of bilingualism and bilingual research as it relates to human cognition. It will be an essential read for all researchers and upper-level students of bilingualism and cognitive psychology more generally.
