The listening bilingual : speech perception, comprehension, and bilingualism / François Grosjean

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. -- Part 1 : Bilingual adults and children: a short introduction. -- Part 2 : Speech perception and comprehension. -- Part 3 : Speech perception. -- Part 4 : Spoken word recognition. -- Part 5 : Processing at higher levels. -- Part 6 : Processing bilingual speech. -- Part 7 : Assessing perception and comprehension in bilingual adults. -- Part 8 : Speech perception. -- Part 9 : Spoken word recognition. -- Part 10 : Processing at higher levels. -- Part 11 : Assessing perception and comprehension in bilingual children, without and with speech and language impairment. -- Bibliographical references. -- Index.

"A book such as this one on a specialized topic - the perception and comprehension of speech by bilinguals - needs to begin with a brief description of bilingual adults and children. Those who are interested in the topic may be familiar with speech perception and comprehension issues but might not know as much about bilingualism. They might also have a few misconceptions about what it means to be bilingual, both for the adult and the child. Many preconceived ideas surround bilingualism, such as that bilinguals have equal and perfect knowledge of their two or more languages, that they all acquired their languages as children, that they are competent translators, or that they do not have an accent in any of their languages. As concerns children, it was long believed that bilingualism would delay their language acquisition and create confusion, or that they would invariably mix their languages, or even that being bilingual would have negative effects on their development. The first aim of this chapter is to give a brief overview of bilingual adults and children and to lay the foundations for a better understanding of issues that relate to their perception and comprehension of speech" -- Provided by publisher.