Language Learning and the Mother Tongue
Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Innovative and interdisciplinary in approach, this book explores the role of the mother tongue in second language learning.

Sara Greaves (Edited by), Monique De Mattia-Viviès (Edited by)

9781316516416, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 June 2022

240 pages
23.5 x 16 x 1.6 cm, 0.4 kg

Innovative and interdisciplinary in approach, this book explores the role of the mother tongue in second language learning. It brings together contributions from a diverse team of authors, to showcase a range of Francophone perspectives from the fields of linguistics, psychology, cross-cultural psychiatry, psychoanalysis, translation studies, literature, creative writing, the neurosciences, and more. The book introduces a major new concept: the (M)other tongue, and shows its relevance to language learning and pediatrics in a multicultural society. The first chapter explores this concept from different angles, and the subsequent chapters present a range of theoretical and practical perspectives, including counselling case studies, literary examples and creative plurilingual pedagogies, to highlight how this theory can inform practical approaches to language learning. Engaging and accessible, readers will find new ideas and methods to adopt to their own thinking and practices, whether their background is in language and linguistics, psychiatry, psychology, or neuroscience.

Introduction Sara Greaves and Monique De Mattia-Viviès
Part I. The Mother Tongue and Second Language Learning. 1. Entering into Language and into Languages: from the Mother Tongue to the (M)other Tongue Monique De Mattia-Viviès
2. One Mother Tongue – or Two? Jean-Jacques Lecercle
3. Embracing the Bilingual Overlap in Creative Second Language Learning Sara Greaves
Part II. From the Mother Tongue to the Second Mother Tongue. 4. Language Diversity: Time for a New Paradigm Marie Rose Moro and Rahmeth Radjack
5. Ohé, The Silent Teenager Nathalie Enkelaar
6. Accent – a Ghost in the Language Alain Fleischer
Part III. The Second Mother Tongue as a (M)other Tongue and the Return to the Body. 7. The Sea of Language Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt
8. Samuel Beckett's Change of Literary Language: An Apparent Severing of Links to Continue Writing on the Maternal Side of Language Yoann Loisel
9. Language, the Brain and Relating Boris Cyrulnik
Subject Index
Name Index.

Subject Areas: Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Applied linguistics for ELT [EBAL], Literary theory [DSA], Language acquisition [CFDC]