Language Dominance in Bilinguals
Issues of Measurement and Operationalization

With contributions from an international team of leading experts, this volume offers new ways to explore and measure language dominance.

Carmen Silva-Corvalán (Edited by), Jeanine Treffers-Daller (Edited by)

9781108718745, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 May 2019

313 pages, 28 b/w illus.
23 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.5 kg

'This ambitious book fills an important gap in bi- and multilingual research. Providing a well-motivated theoretical basis, it covers a broad variety of different ways of operationalising and measuring dominance.' Heidi Rontu, Aalto University, Finland

With contributions from leading scholars of bilingualism, Language Dominance in Bilinguals is the first publication to survey different approaches to language dominance, along with suggested avenues for further research. It illustrates how a critical approach to the notion of language dominance, as well as its operationalization and measurement, can provide new insights into this burgeoning area of research. Drawing on adult and child data from a variety of language pairs, the chapters discuss how language dominance is to be conceptualized and distinguished from such related constructs as language proficiency and language competence. This volume is the first of its kind to present an overview of different approaches to language dominance from across the theoretical spectrum, as well as suggested avenues for further research. Accessibly written, Language Dominance in Bilinguals is a valuable new addition to the field and essential reading for students and scholars working in bilingualism, speech therapy and education.

1. Digging into dominance: a closer look at language dominance in bilinguals Carmen Silva-Corvalán and Jeanine Treffers-Daller
2. Dominance and proficiency in early and late bilingualism Silvina Montrul
3. Related but different: the two concepts of language dominance and language proficiency Anika Schmeißer, Malin Hager, Laia Arnaus Gil, Veronika Jansen, Jasmin Geveler, Nadine Eichler, Marisa Patuto and Natascha Müller
4. The complementarity principle and its impact on processing, acquisition, and dominance François Grosjean
5. Dominance in bilingualism: foundations of measurement, with insights from the study of handedness David Birdsong
6. Using lexical diversity measures to operationalize language dominance in bilinguals Jeanine Treffers-Daller and Tomasz Korybski
7. Balance patterns in early bilingual acquisition: a longitudinal study of word comprehension and production Annick De Houwer and Marc H. Bornstein
8. Amount of exposure as a proxy for dominance in bilingual language acquisition Sharon Unsworth
9. The role of the childhood environment for language dominance: a study of adult simultaneous bilingual speakers of German and French Tanja Kupisch and Joost van de Weijer
10. Assessing the relationship between input and strength of language development: a study on Italian-English bilingual children Francesca La Morgia
11. Measuring language dominance in bilingual children: implications for cross-linguistic influence Elena Nicoladis
12. Language dominance: the construct, its measurement and operationalization Jeanine Treffers-Daller
13. Conclusion Jeanine Treffers-Daller.

Subject Areas: Bilingualism & multilingualism [CFDM], Psycholinguistics [CFD], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF], Language [C]