This is a keynote speech Prof. Annick De Houwer (Erfurt University, Germany) gave at the BAAL (British Applied Linguistics Association - baal.org.uk) - Routledge Research workshop in December 2017, organised by Dr. Fatma Said (www.york.ac.uk...) and Dr. Ursula Lanvers (www.york.ac.uk...) from the University of York.
The workshop focused on Bilingual First Language Acquisition (baalyork2017wo... Current theories and methodologies. This developmental workshop provided a unique opportunity for those new to the field to explore current and established theories about BFLA (bilingual first language acquisition) as well as those already part of the field to further survey new directions and discuss their research with others. It was highly successful due to the keynote speakers, presenters and attendees.
Prof. De Houwer’s keynote was titled: Are all young bilinguals the same? Why differentiate between bilingual first language acquirers and early second language acquirers?
Abstract
When children are starting to learn to use language it is important to track their progress in order to find out whether they are developing as expected or not. This is a difficult undertaking in monolingual children, because there is so much variability amongst children. But when children are learning two languages, that variability is greatly increased, making it even more difficult to assess potential language learning problems. An added source of variability is the age at which children start to hear a second language. In this talk, I will discuss how important it is to take the age of bilingual acquisition into account, not only in order to assess potential language learning problems, but also to better understand the bilingual acquisition process.
21 авг 2024
