LING580/ENGL578 Early Bilingualism: Developmental and Educational Issues
This seminar will introduce students to a range of perspectives on early bilingualism (early defined as infancy through the end of elementary school), focusing on biological development and childhood education. It will consider both psycholinguistic aspects of bilingual development and sociocultural and political dimension of growing up bilingually. The topics that will be discussed in the seminar include: physiological correlates of bilingualism; characteristics related to age of acquisition and proficiency level; similarities and differences between “natural” acquisition and formal learning; the impact of bilingualism on children’s identity; bilingual education for both language majority and minority children, heritage language maintenance, and bilingualism and deaf children.