Abstract
This edited volume seeks to provide the reader with a comprehensive, in-depth understanding of the multifaceted nature of crosslinguistic learning. The collection of essays comprising this volume illuminates crosslinguistic learning from a great variety of perspectives, using various methodological approaches as well extensive participant diversity. One of the most exciting elements of this volume, however, is the great range of languages the studies attend to. The latter is of particular interest to me as I do not come to this review as a linguist, but rather as a rhetorician with a multi-language learner’s background. Languages have always fascinated me. This book answers many questions I have pondered about my abilities to learn languages and to use those already learned to communicate with people who speak related but unknown languages (e.g., Spanish to Portuguese). The book also raised new questions I never knew I even had.
After an introduction, the volume begins by highlighting three impressive longitudinal studies (chapter 2-4), each of which focuses on a different aspect of crosslinguistic influence. While chapters 2 and 4 concentrate on the development and acquisition of syntax learning in young children, chapter 3 explores metacognitive strategies deployed by school-age children. Already the diversity in languages explored is surprising: They range from English and Italian, to French and English with Dutch, Finnish, and Italian, to a combination of Romance and Germanic languages. Representing a stark departure from the result-driven longitudinal studies, chapter 5 reexamines data sets in an effort to show the importance of increased methodological diversity in this field. Chapters 6 to 10 can be viewed as another cluster of studies as each of them investigates an aspect of “processing an unknown language.” The authors’ hypotheses and studies range from suggesting that previous language training provides adult language learners with a significant benefit, to the role of different writing systems in language literacy development, to trying to understand the processes used when making sense of a yet unknown language. The book finishes with a closing chapter by De Angelis et al.
In their introductory chapter, De Angelis et al. provide an overview of the field of “crosslinguistic influence in multilingual learning” (p. 1) and establish the need for more varied empirical research and, consequently, for this volume. Both the growing need for research and the growing interest in crosslinguistic influence are partially due to the recognition that an increasing number of people are learning an increasing number of languages. This, coupled with the rising number of children who grow up in at least bilingual homes, has necessitated a deeper look into how multi-language users transfer existing language knowledge to unknown or new languages (crosslinguistic influence). De Angelis et al. establish that this transfer of knowledge is far more complex than had originally been thought.
The challenge I had with this chapter was that, as a nonlinguist academic, I found my way into the material rather cumbersomely. I would have liked to have seen a few more clearly laid-out definitions of linguistic theories and terminology. For example, early on the editors mention “typological proximity” (p. 2) and provide alternative descriptors of the same concept, but they do not include even the briefest definition of it. This treatment of basic terminology suggests an assumption that only linguists would read this volume. As an outsider to the field, I can only argue that this assumption does the book a great disservice, as the included studies provide valuable information of a very practical nature to language learners and users as well as linguists.
As the mother of a bilingual toddler, for example, I was particularly intrigued by both chapters 4 and 7. Chapter 4, authored by Sánchez, explores whether a second language (L2) can influence how children acquire verb usages in a third language (L3). From a pragmatic point of view, this chapter led me to many questions about my own child’s acquisition of verb usage. While the order of languages learned is different, the concepts still apply as the languages in question in this chapter are German as L2 and English as L3 (in our case they are the two native languages). One remarkable aspect of Sánchez’ study is its longitudinal nature. The author tested the children on the language acquisition progress over the course of 4 years providing her with insight into how verb usage changes over time and with increased language proficiency.
Chapter 7, by Stavans, added an interesting twist to language acquisition: literacy and writing systems. While I have learned a relatively large number of languages, all of them use the same writing system with the exception of the odd special character or accent. Stavans was interested in understanding if the exposure to different writing systems influences multilingual children’s perception of writings as readable or nonreadable even before they learn how to read and write. More important, the author wanted to find out if multilingual kindergarteners would provide a different explanation for their judgment than monolingual kindergarteners. Intriguingly enough, this was the case. Despite having wanted to learn languages with different writing system, I had never truly thought about children who grow up in bilingual contexts that use two very different writing systems. As mentioned above, this book answers questions I did not even know I had.
As previously mentioned, one of the most remarkable aspects of this book is the diversity of languages the studies explore. I have always thought that English takes precedence over other languages in both real-life language acquisitions as well as in studies of it. And much like so many other European pupils, the first “foreign language” I officially learned, beginning at 10 years old, was English. The fact that the authors of the included studies investigate a broad range of languages was heartening and encouraging. It was also entertaining to me to apply my own abilities to some of the tests study participants were exposed to. In chapter 3, Dahm seeks to understand the strategies deployed by language learners when faced with the challenge of trying to translate a text in a language they do not know. Supporting the validity of Dahm’s findings, I discovered I use very similar strategies in trying to make sense of the texts as the study participants, many of which are based on the linguistic proximity of the text’s language relative to the languages the “translator” is familiar with.
Despite the great diversity of languages included in the studies, however, I did notice a preference for European languages. With the exception of Stavans’ already mentioned study, the remainder of the book focuses primarily on Romance and Germanic languages. Stavans study, utilizing Hebrew, Amharic, and English, led me to wonder about the crosslinguistic influence on and between non-European languages. For example, do languages that use different writing system also influence the learning of languages differently? Would a native of Arabic whose L2 is English rely on this L2 in his learning of a L3 that uses the same characters or would his L1 be more influential?
Overall, despite the above-mentioned questions and despite my challenges with the introductory chapter, De Angelis et al.’s volume on crosslinguistic influence is a fascinating read. It provides both linguists and nonlinguists with intriguing insights into the strategies used by multilingual learners.