This book describes a particular type of educational provision referred to as 'elite' or 'prestigious' bilingual education. The development of different types of elite bilingual or multilingual educational provision is discussed and an argument is made for the need to study bilingual education in majority as well as in minority contexts.
This book describes a particular type of educational provision referred to as 'elite' or 'prestigious' bilingual education, which caters mainly for upwardly mobile, highly educated, higher socio-economic status learners of two or more internationally useful languages. The development of different types of elite bilingual or multilingual educational provision is discussed and an argument is made for the need to study bilingual education in majority as well as in minority contexts.
This text provides an overview of bi- and multilingualism as a worldwide phenomenon. It features comprehensive discussions of many of the linguistic, social, political, and educational issues found in an increasingly multilingual nation and world. To this end, the book takes the Chicano-Latino community of Southern California, where Spanish-English bilingualism has over a century and a half of history, and presents a detailed case study, thereby situating the community in a much broader social context. Spanish is the second most-widely spoken language in the U.S. after English, yet, for the most part, its speakers form a language minority that essentially lacks the social, political, and educational support necessary to derive the many cognitive, socioeconomic, and educational benefits that proficient bilingualism can provide. The issues facing Spanish-English bilinguals in the Los Angeles area are relevant to nearly every bi- and multilingual community irrespective of nation, language, and/or ethnicity.
Arguing against a common sense view of bilingualism as the co-existence of two linguistic systems, this volume develops a critical perspective which approaches bilingualism as a wide variety of sets of sociolinguistic practices connected to the construction of social difference and of social inequality under specific historical conditions.
Provides insights into the impact that eliminating bilingual education programs has on the lives of families and communities. Persuasively argues that linguistic repression is an unwise language policy for a democratic nation.
This volume presents a multinational perspective on the juxtaposition of language and politics. Bringing together an international group of authors, it offers theoretical and historical constructs on bilingualism and bilingual education. It highlights the sociocultural complexities of bilingualism in societies where indigenous and other languages coexist with colonial dominant and other prestigious immigrant languages. It underlines the linguistic diaspora and expansion of English as the world’s lingua franca and their impact on indigenous and other minority languages. Finally, it features models of language teaching and teacher education. This book challenges the existent global conditions of non-dominant languages and furthers the discourse on language politics and policies. It does so by pointing out the need to change the bilingual/multilingual educational paradigm across nations and all levels of educational systems.
This volume contributes to the debates about the social aspects of bilingualism, focusing on the various opportunities and challenges bilingualism presents to today's society. The contributions in this volume are of a prospective stance, delineating directions for future research on bilingualism and/or identifying important issues which have been under-researched or which are still of a controversial nature. All the contributions are from leading international scholars who have researched and published extensively in the field of bilingualism. To facilitate further discussions of the issues raised in the volume, there are study questions and suggested reading attached to each of the main chapters.
The study of bilingualism - the subject of this important textbook - is no longer exclusively an academic preoccupation but is a practical necessity in today's multilingual world. Over the past decades, researchers from a wide range of disciplines - linguistics, psychology, neurology and sociology - have been fragmented and often inaccessible to students. Bilinguality and Bilingualism (a thoroughly revised and updated version of the authors' textbook published in French) provides a comprehensive, critical review of current research, focusing on the need for genuinely explanatory accounts and the development of satisfactory theoretical models. The book explores the way in which bilingualism develops in childhood or later, on its social, neurological and psychological foundations, and on the social and cultural consequences of bilingualism. It also explores the wider issues of languages in contact; both psycholinguistic research to language teaching, translation and interpreting, and also language planning and policy-making. The multidisciplinary material is deftly and logically organised to provide a refreshingly clear synthesis which will be invaluable to students and also to specialists who want an up-to-date account of research in different disciplines. It will also be an important reference work for language teachers and for professionals involved in language planning and multilingual education.
