Carolina Barrera-Tobón
The Graduate Center, CUNY
 
 
McCardle and Hoff assembled a series of novel empirical studies by researchers from different disciplines into a well-organized survey on childhood bilingualism titled: Childhood bilingualism: Research on infancy through school age. The research agenda is drawn from the Workshop on Childhood Bilingualism (April, 2004). The book’s goal is to “describe the current state of the science in the field of childhood bilingualism and to propose a research agenda for the future.” (p. vii). It is divided into five sections, each focusing on a specific aspect of bilingualism.
 
Processing two languages
The first section addresses the processes of word recognition, speech perception and speech processing in infants that are exposed to more than one language. The first chapter reviews a series of studies that compare phonetic processing in both adult and infant bilinguals and monolinguals. The authors pinpoint a significant gap in the extant literature by identifying only two published studies that analyze phonetic perception in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) infants. The other studies surveyed focused on diverse aspects on language acquisition and agreed that BFLA affects all aspects of speech processing. They affirm that the developmental trajectory of BFLA is different from that of monolingual language acquisition and that differences in speech processing continue into adulthood.

The second chapter illuminates the lack of research on BFLA infants’ first years of development. Fernald outlines three different approaches in early language learning research for monolinguals and describes the ways in which these approaches could be extended to BFLA research. Her data demonstrate clear differences in speech perception between monolingual and bilingual children. She warns that this data could be interpreted erroneously to mean that bilingual children are “slower” to progress in the early states of language acquisition. However, by appealing to the variability in the quality and quantity of input that the bilingual children receive, Fernald shows that bilingual children do not progress slower than monolingual children but follow a different pattern of development.

The purpose of the third chapter is to determine whether the onset of word form recognition is different in bilingual and monolingual infants. The authors observe that infants exposed to English displayed word form recognition at the age of 11 months in both the Head Turn (HT) and Event Related Potentials (ERP) analyses. The infants exposed to both English and Welsh failed to show word form recognition at 11 months in the HT analysis but showed signs on word form recognition in the ERP analysis. These results support previous studies that indicate that small a “language learning delay” (p. 41) in the bilingual infants may be due to the varied input that they receive compared to monolingual infants.
 
Learning two languages
The second section focuses on children’s development of oral skills. Genesee’s chapter is dedicated to the various types of development (i.e. phonological, lexical, morpho-syntactic) of BFLA children. He claims that the first stages of development in BFLA mirror those in monolingual language acquisition such that children do not know that they are hearing two different languages. One common feature of BFLA is child bilingual code mixing. Genesee offers several explanations that account for this phenomenon including pragmatic reasons, the gap filling hypothesis and language socialization norms. He claims that “contrary to early conceptualizations that code mixing reflects incompetence and even confusion, evidence indicates clearly that it reflects bilingual children’s linguistic resourcefulness and communicative competence” (p. 58).

The fifth chapter aims at testing whether the three-generation rule applies to Spanish speaking immigrants in Miami. The authors survey four different studies, each focusing on a different age group: infants, elementary school children, junior high students and college students in Miami. They conclude that despite the social factors that promote minority language maintenance, the three-generation rule is just as present in Miami as it is anywhere in the US.
 
Literacy in two languages
The third section offers insights about literacy acquisition and biliteracy. August et al’s chapter addresses the debate regarding the choice of instructional language for English Language Learners. The first half of the chapter reviews several previous studies and the variety of their interpretations. Because of the methodology in the present study, the authors were able to avoid the polemic issues that make similar studies difficult to interpret. The data indicate that there are no significant disadvantages for students in bilingual reading programs compared to those in the monolingual programs.

Chapter seven aims to understand how bilingualism affects literacy acquisition in young children. The authors review three separate studies and conclude that factors such as the differences between the writing systems and the children’s degree of bilingualism play important roles in determining the effect of bilingualism on literacy.
 
Perspectives on Childhood bilingualism from related fields
The fourth section highlights contributions by researchers from fields related to childhood bilingualism. The eighth chapter by Krall reviews the extant literature regarding adult bilingualism and compares it to the literature on childhood bilingualism. Krall says that adult models are “as dynamic and developmental as those typically associated with early childhood” (p. 130). She concludes that despite the many differences between adult and childhood bilingualism the parallels could be used to draw implications for childhood bilingualism.

Chapter nine examines early word learning in monolingual infants from a developmental psychology perspective and addresses the similarities and differences between her approach and the other approaches in the book. Furthermore, the author proposes several multidisciplinary directions for the study of childhood bilingualism using her psychological background as a springboard.
 
Closing comments
Finally, the fifth section offers a review of some of the concerns that were presented at the workshop and proposes a research agenda for the future. Chapter ten and eleven briefly review the previous chapters and warn, “limiting research and thinking to one school of thought is unlikely to expose the full dimensions of dual language learning” (p.153). An interesting point the authors make is that many of the approaches, methodologies, measurements, and other tools for the study of bilingualism come from the study of L1 acquisition and monolingualism. Although, the parallels between the fields are numerous, the authors caution against the exclusive use of these tools and call for two things: First, the use of tools from other fields related to bilingualism and second, the development of tools specifically designed for the study of bilingualism. The authors firmly believe that in order to better the understanding of bilingualism, different approaches, theories, disciplines, measurements and methodologies must come together and collaborate in much the same way they have in this volume. They outline the overabundance of avenues for future research and suggest that the best way to approach the study of bilingualism is interdisciplinary.

In conclusion, McCardle and Hoff’s volume brings together a diverse group of researchers to illuminate the various perspectives, disciplines, methodologies and theories that contribute to the study of bilingualism. The book covered a range of basic fundamental studies and combined this foundation with novel research in a variety of fields. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this work, the technical jargon in some of the chapters was not easy to follow and maybe especially difficult for those whose are of expertise is not bilingualism. However, this fact stresses the importance of the multidisciplinary knowledge needed to take the study of bilingualism in the direction outlined by the editors and authors.