François Grosjean - Böcker

Whether in family life, social interactions, or business negotiations, half the people in the world speak more than one language every day. Yet many myths persist about bilingualism and bilinguals. In a lively and entertaining book, an international authority on bilingualism explores the many facets of life with two or more languages.

This book explores the life and experiences of one of the world's most renowned and well-respected experts in bilingualism. François Grosjean takes us through his life, from his monolingual childhood in a small village outside Paris to the long periods of time he spent in Switzerland, England, France, and the United States, becoming bilingual and bicultural in the process. During his life, his dominant language has changed many times between English and French, and he has also acquired, and subsequently lost, other languages, including American Sign Language. Throughout the book, he combines his personal accounts and anecdotes with insights from and reflections on his extensive scholarly research in bilingualism and biculturalism, which has, in turn, been heavily influenced by his own experiences. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book will appeal to general readers interested in bilingualism and language contact, educators and parents of bilingual children, researchers working on bilingualism, and to bilinguals themselves.

Even though more than half the world's population is bilingual, the study of bilinguals has lagged behind that of monolinguals. With this book, which draws on twenty-five years of the author's research, François Grosjean contributes significantly to redressing the balance. The volume covers four areas of research: the definition and characterization of the bilingual person, the perception and production of spoken language by bilinguals, the sign-oral bilingualism of the Deaf, and methodological and conceptual issues in research on bilingualism. While the author takes a largely psycholinguistic approach, his acute linguistic and sociolinguistic awareness is evident throughout and especially so in his reflections on what it means to be bilingual and bicultural. The book also defends increased co-operation among researchers in connecting fields such as the language sciences and the neurosciences.

Even though more than half the world's population is bilingual, the study of bilinguals has lagged behind that of monolinguals. With this book, which draws on twenty-five years of the author's research, François Grosjean contributes significantly to redressing the balance. The volume covers four areas of research: the definition and characterization of the bilingual person, the perception and production of spoken language by bilinguals, the sign-oral bilingualism of the Deaf, and methodological and conceptual issues in research on bilingualism. While the author takes a largely psycholinguistic approach, his acute linguistic and sociolinguistic awareness is evident throughout and especially so in his reflections on what it means to be bilingual and bicultural. The book also defends increased co-operation among researchers in connecting fields such as the language sciences and the neurosciences.

Many people consider bilinguals to be exceptional, yet almost half the world’s population speaks more than one language. Bilingualism is found in every country of the world, in every class of society, in all age groups. Life with Two Languages is the first book to provide a complete and authoritative look at the nature of the bilingual experience. François Grosjean, himself a bilingual, covers the topic from each of its many angles in order to provide a balanced introduction to this fascinating phenomenon.Grosjean discusses the political and social situations that arise when languages come into contact and the policies nations have established toward their linguistic minorities in the domains of education and governance. Of particular interest is his detailed account of the psychological and social factors that lead a bilingual to choose one of her languages when speaking to another bilingual or to use both languages in the fascinating phenomenon of code-switching. The author explains how children become bilingual as quickly as they become monolingual, describes the organization of languages in the bilingual brain, and examines the legacy of bilingualism on language, as exemplified in word borrowings.Above all, Life with Two Languages puts the emphasis on the bilingual person. In a series of first-hand reports scattered throughout the book, bilinguals tell what it is like to live with two languages and describe the educational and social experiences they have undergone.Written in a clear and informative style, Life with Two Languages will appeal to professionals and students in linguistics, education, sociology, and psychology, as well as to the more casually curious.

Published in 1989, Recent Perspectives on American Sign Language is a valuable contribution to the field of Cognitive Psychology.

This special issue presents eighteen paradigms used to study spoken word recognition in experimental psycholinguistics. These range from classical paradigms such as phoneme monitoring, phonetic categorization, phoneme restoration, auditory lexical decision and word identification in noise, through well established tasks such as word monitoring, sequence syllable monitoring, gating, mispronunciation detection and various priming tasks, semantic, syntactic, morphological and form, to newer paradigms such as cued shadowing, gender decision, eye-tracking, migrations in speech recognition and word spotting. Descriptions of each paradigm take the form of summary sheets which cover a number of topics organized in a set order. Each summary sheet is followed by an extensive list of studies that have used the paradigm.

A vital resource on speech and language processing in bilingual adults and childrenThe Listening Bilingual brings together in one volume the various components of spoken language processing in bilingual adults, infants and children.The book includes a review of speech perception and word recognition; syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of speech processing; the perception and comprehension of bilingual mixed speech (code-switches, borrowings and interferences); and the assessment of bilingual speech perception and comprehension in adults and children in the clinical context.The two main authors as well as selected guest authors, Mark Antoniou, Theres Grüter, Robert J. Hartsuiker, Elizabeth D. Peña and Lisa M. Bedore, and Lu-Feng Shi, introduce the various approaches used in the study of spoken language perception and comprehension in bilingual individuals. The authors focus on experimentationthat involves both well-established tasks and newer tasks, as well as techniques used in brain imaging.This important resource: Is the first of its kind to concentrate specifically on spoken language processing in bilingual adults and children.Offers a unique text that covers both fundamental and applied research in bilinguals.Covers a range of topics including speech perception, spoken word recognition, higher level processing, code-switching, and assessment.Presents information on the assessment of bilingual children’s language developmentWritten for advanced undergraduate students in linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and speech/language pathology as well as researchers, The Listening Bilingual offers a state-of-the-art review of the recent developments and approaches in speech and language processing in bilingual people of all ages.

A vital resource on speech and language processing in bilingual adults and childrenThe Listening Bilingual brings together in one volume the various components of spoken language processing in bilingual adults, infants and children.The book includes a review of speech perception and word recognition; syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of speech processing; the perception and comprehension of bilingual mixed speech (code-switches, borrowings and interferences); and the assessment of bilingual speech perception and comprehension in adults and children in the clinical context.The two main authors as well as selected guest authors, Mark Antoniou, Theres Grüter, Robert J. Hartsuiker, Elizabeth D. Peña and Lisa M. Bedore, and Lu-Feng Shi, introduce the various approaches used in the study of spoken language perception and comprehension in bilingual individuals. The authors focus on experimentationthat involves both well-established tasks and newer tasks, as well as techniques used in brain imaging.This important resource: Is the first of its kind to concentrate specifically on spoken language processing in bilingual adults and children.Offers a unique text that covers both fundamental and applied research in bilinguals.Covers a range of topics including speech perception, spoken word recognition, higher level processing, code-switching, and assessment.Presents information on the assessment of bilingual children’s language developmentWritten for advanced undergraduate students in linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and speech/language pathology as well as researchers, The Listening Bilingual offers a state-of-the-art review of the recent developments and approaches in speech and language processing in bilingual people of all ages.

Eleven critical issues in the study of bilingualism: Insightful analyses by renowned expert François GrosjeanThe majority of people living around the world today are able to speak more than one language, yet many aspects of the nature and experience of bilingualism raise unresolved questions for researchers. Who exactly is bilingual? What is the extent of bilingualism? How do infant bilinguals who acquire two languages at the same time manage to separate them?  Does language processing work differently when bilinguals are interacting with monolinguals and with bilinguals? When a speaker changes their language, do they also change aspects of their personality?In The Mysteries of Bilingualism, eminent scholar François Grosjean provides a comprehensive examination of individual bilingualism that delves into unanswered questions and challenges many of the myths and misconceptions surrounding bilingualism. Through insightful analyses of eleven key questions, this book offers a unique combination of personal reflection, literature review, personal testimony, and case studies to explore these mysteries. Altogether, this text offers: Comprehensive explorations of the linguistic aspects of bilingualism, including who is bilingual, describing bilinguals, accented speech, and language lossPractical discussions of speech and language processing, including language choice and mixed speech perception and productionIn-depth examinations of personality and culture in relation to bilingualism and biculturalismPerfect for undergraduate and graduate students of bilingualism, multilingualism, second language acquisition, and applied linguistics, The Mysteries of Bilingualism offers an up-to-date view of the leading research questions in the study of bilingualism today.

Published in 1989, Recent Perspectives on American Sign Language is a valuable contribution to the field of Cognitive Psychology.

The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism presents a comprehensive introduction to the foundations of bilingualism, covering language processing, language acquisition, cognition and the bilingual brain. This thorough introduction to the psycholinguistics of bilingualism is accessible to non-specialists with little previous exposure to the fieldIntroduces students to the methodological approaches currently employed in the field, including observation, experimentation, verbal and computational modelling, and brain imagingExamines spoken and written language processing, simultaneous and successive language acquisition, bilingual memory and cognitive effects, and neurolinguistic and neuro-computational models of the bilingual brainWritten in an accessible style by two of the field’s leading researchers, together with contributions from internationally-renowned scholarsFeaturing chapter-by-chapter research questions, this is an essential resource for those seeking insights into the bilingual mind and our current knowledge of the cognitive basis of bilingualism