Publication date:
06 November 2008Publisher
Multilingual MattersDimensions:
225x170mm7x9"
ISBN-13: 9781847691071
This book is based on an eleven-year observation of two children who were simultaneously exposed to three languages from birth. It tells the story of two parents from different cultural, linguistic, and ethnic-racial backgrounds who joined to raise their two children with their heritage languages outside their native countries. It also tells the children’s story and the way they negotiated three cultures and languages and developed a trilingual identity. It sheds light on how parental support contributed to the children’s simultaneous acquisition of three languages in an environment where the main input of the two heritage languages came respectively from the father and from the mother. It addresses the challenges and the unique language developmental characteristics of the two children during their trilingual acquisition process.
This book is hugely enjoyable! It is written in a highly accessible style, and yet it is academically rigorous. The author has a profound understanding of the linguistic, social, cultural and psychological aspects of trilingualism and uses her large corpus covering more than 10 years of trilingual interactions in a family setting as an illustration of successful trilingual development. The book reads like a novel: the characters are two determined parents, one Chinese and one Swiss, and two biracial and trilingual boys growing up in New York, proud of their unique identity. The author presents different perspectives: the parents’ view, the children’s opinions about their multilingualism, and the researcher’s perspective. She draws excellent conclusions for prospective parents of multilingual children and has a clear message to those who doubt that multilingualism can work: it is possible, her children developed superior cognitive and communicative skills, but it involves a constant, unrelenting effort from the parents’ part.