Studying Bilinguals

Description:
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, Francois 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.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction; PART I THE BILINGUAL PERSON; 2. A Wholistic View of Bilingualism; 3. The Complementarity Principle and Language Restructuring; PART II LANGUAGE MODE; 4. The Bilingual's Language Modes; 5. Manipulating Language Mode; PART III THE BASE-LANGUAGE EFFECT; 6. The Base-Language Effect in Speech Perception; 7. Base-Language Effect and Categorical Perception; 8. Is There a Base-Language Effect in Speech Production?; PART IV SPOKEN WORD RECOGNITION IN BILINGUALS; 9. The Gender Marking Effect in Bilinguals; 10. The Role of Guest Word Properties; 11. The Lewy and Grosjean BIMOLA Model; PART V BICULTURALISM, BILINGUALISM, AND DEAFNESS; 12. The Bicultural Person: A Short Introduction; 13. The Bilingualism and Biculturalism of the Deaf; PART VI METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN BILINGUALISM RESEARCH; 14. Methodological and Conceptual Issues; 15. Imaging Bilinguals