Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
Summary
In this book, we have examined how the outcomes of bilingualism are shaped by factors at the individual level such as age of acquisition and the amount and type of input, as well as societal support for the minority language in the form of bilingual education and other initiatives. We have also discussed how societal maintenance of bilingualism differs within the three multilingual contexts which are the focus of this book: Peru, Spain, and the United States. By analyzing previous research on the effects of these variables on bilingual speakers' linguistic representations, as well as their minds and brains, we have attempted to provide a better understanding of some emerging conceptual views of the bilingual speaker.
In the first chapter of the book, we examined how the concept of bilingualism has evolved from early definitions, which included the expectation that bilinguals should behave like monolinguals, as in Bloomfield's definition of bilingualism as the “native-like control of two languages” (Bloomfield 1933: 55–56). Increasingly, contemporary theories of bilingualism view differences between bilinguals and monolinguals as expected and normal, rather than deficiencies on the part of the bilingual. In addition, we discussed how heritage speakers challenge some of our previous assumptions, namely that the first language acquired is always the dominant one, as well as the assumption of the critical period hypothesis that critical period effects are chiefly the result of the age of onset of acquisition of the second language, given that in the case of heritage learners it is the first language which undergoes these effects.
In the second chapter, we discussed recent research showing that the two languages of a bilingual are highly interconnected at the lexical, syntactic, and phonological levels. Furthermore, research has found that the continual interaction between the languages of a bilingual has important repercussions for cognitive development in bilingual children beginning early in infancy. These include enhanced executive function skills stemming from bilinguals' need to monitor and inhibit one of their languages, as well as enhanced literacy abilities for bilingual children acquiring same-script languages.
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- Bilingualism in the Spanish-Speaking WorldLinguistic and Cognitive Perspectives, pp. 186 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015