Bilingual Mind

Rafael Art. Javier, Ph.D., ABPPSt. John's University, Supervisor and Clinical Professor of Psychology, Center for Psychological Services and Clinical Studies.

From the reviews: "Provides a fresh perspective on crosscultural literature by placing a renewed importance on the role that bilingual experience plays in perception, memory, intelligence, learning and emotional formation. This book is mainly directed at therapists and education professionals. ... SLA researchers can benefit from an innovative perspective to the bilingual mind that interweaves psycholinguistic issues with questions of identity and culture. ... information about the languages spoken in the United States and an excellent overview of tests to assess less proficient and less acculturated bilinguals." (Nuria Sagarra, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Vol. 31 (3), September, 2009)

• I. Bilingualism and Social Context. Linguistic communities. Fear of bilingualism? Traditional solution to the bilingual problem. Current state of affairs and the bilingual phenomenon.- II. Is There A Bilingual Mind? The bilingual process in context of the cognitive development. Evidence of the bilingual mind?.- III. Bilingual Linguistic Organization. The Coordinate-Compound Linguistic Organization Controversy. Compound linguistic system. Coordinate linguistic system. The Language Independence Phenomenon. Psychological/psychoanalytic observation. Psycholinguistic studies. Neurological evidence.- IV. Language Switching As A Communication. Factors Affecting Switching. Structural linguistic factors. Extra-linguistic and affective factors.- Role of stress in code-switching.- V. Bilingual Memory And Language of Affect. Bilingual memory models. Bilingual memory for meaningful information.- VI. Communication Through Interpreters. Communication process. Components of communication. Interpretation process. Challenges to accurate interpretation. Methods of interpretation. Common errors: Omission, Addition, Condensation, Substitution, Role exchange.- VII. Issues In Assessing The Bilingual Individual. Personal motivation/specific needs of the referring person. Linguistic challenges in the assessment process. Validity of the assessment instruments. Factors to be considered in assessing a bilingual individual. Selection of basic assessment instruments.- VIII. Treatment of the Bilingual Individual. Memory organization in bilingual patients. Nature of memory inaccessibility in a bilingual context. Technical consideration. Conclusion.- X. Future of Bilingualism: What Should Be Our Response? Traditional response. There is no easy solution to the bilingual dilemma. There are signs of hope.Only a flexible model makes sense.- General Recommendations.