According to the critical period hypothesis, the earlier the acquisition of a second language starts, the better. Owing to the plasticity of the brain, up until a certain age a second language can be acquired successfully according to this view. Early second language learners are commonly said to have an advantage over later ones especially in…

For heritage speakers, the Spanish classroom is not the first point of contact with their native language. Though such learners would benefit from an educational philosophy that affirms the heritage language as a springboard for learning and increased self-awareness, there has been little support for non-dominant language research in the USA. This…

This study investigates the potential incomplete acquisition of binding interpretations in Korean-English bilinguals by asking whether and how the majority language of these bilinguals (English) influences their family or heritage language (Korean), especially when exposure to and use of English starts very early. The experiment tested the…

Past research demonstrates that first language (L1)-like competence in each language can be attained in simultaneous acquisition of bilingualism by mere exposure to the target languages. The question is whether this is also true for the "weaker" language (WL). The WL hypothesis claims that the WL differs fundamentally from monolingual L1 and…

Background: An important issue in the discourse on language rights is the degree to which they influence the development and implementation of language policies or perpetuate inequalities in many language situations. Skutnabb-Kangas (1996, 2002a, 2002b) and May (2000), for example, have argued that language rights offer a reasonable framework for…

Bilingual speech requires that the language of utterances be selected prior to articulation. Past research has debated whether the language of speaking can be determined in advance of speech planning and, if not, the level at which it is eventually selected. We argue that the reason that it has been difficult to come to an agreement about language…

An experiment is described that is designed to test for the operation of an input switch mechanism in bilinguals. Their ability to selectively avoid processing words presented in one of their languages while they are attending to words presented in their other language is described. The 20 subjects were all French-English bilinguals. The specific…

The point of departure of this study is the well-known hypothesis according to which structures that involve the syntax-pragmatics interface and instantiate a surface overlap between two languages are more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence than purely syntactic domains (e.g. Muller and Hulk, 2001). In exploring the validity of this…

Spanish-English bilingual and monolingual English children aged 3-5 years were recorded in interaction with their mothers. Bilingual children were recorded twice each month, once in Spanish and once in English, and were also observed in a home situation. An analysis of the recorded language was done using selected morphological and syntactic…

Stories were presented in signed English and American Sign Language (ASL) to 36 profoundly deaf subjects. Results showed that both ASL- and English-dominant bilinguals translated English stories to ASL in retelling. Relevant literature is reviewed, and implications for bilingual education of deaf students are noted. (Author/SED)

Criticizes some recently published views on the difficulty of raising children bilingually (e.g., tolerance of children's deviations from adult speech, the influence of friends, and finding an adequate vocabulary for a foreign environment). Also discusses the use of children as subjects in language research. (EKN)

The present paper describes results of a study that investigated 209 bilingual Puerto Rican college students' ability to solve verbal deductive reasoning problems administered in Spanish and English in relation to their reading comprehension skills in either language. A series of confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the data on reasoning and…

Explores how children's performance on picture description tasks in French, their limited-use language, compares to their performance on the same tasks in English. Investigates whether home language environment has an effect on performance. (SR)

The alleged persistence of first-language dominance for arithmetic operations in bilinguals was investigated. Thirty-two Japanese-English bilinguals aged, 19-58, years solved arithmetic problems presented auditorily. Reaction time varied for short-term and long-term U.S. residents. (16 references) (Author/LB)

Explores several models of cognitive and structural perspectives involving minority-language situations, and attempts to integrate them into a framework of predictive propositions that elaborate psychosocial climates of maintenance, majority-minority encounter, and interactive strategies. (65 references) (Author/CB)