Presentation
Speaking two or more languages is becoming the norm rather than the exception. It is therefore imperative to understand the impact of bilingualism on child development. Research to date reports negative effects of bilingualism on linguistic development (when the bilingual child is compared to monolingual peers), but positive effects on cognitive development. We propose that there are aspects of linguistic development, namely pragmatics and conversational skills, where bilingualism should have a positive effect. Moreover, we propose that the contrastive study of bilingualism and bi-dialectalism (children speaking two dialects) has unique potential to reveal the nature of the cognitive advantages of bilingualism.
Promoters
- Mikhail Kissine, Centre de Recherche en Linguistique, ULB
- Napoleon Katsos, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge