BILINGUALISM OVER THE LIFESPAN

Antonella Sorace
University of Edinburgh and Bilingualism Matters

This course focuses on how children and adults learn more than one language and
why bilingualism is important at all stages in life. The first part (April 2014) explores
what it means to grow up with two languages: how children use sounds, words, and
sentences in two languages, what input they need to hear, what is easy and what is
less easy to learn, and the effects of bilingualism on how the childs mind works. The
second part (September 2014) looks at learning a second language as an adult: how
adults learn both in the classroom and outside the classroom, to what extent they
benefit (or not) from instruction and error correction, and how the native language
and the second language influence each other and change over time. The course
combines lectures with group activities based on real child and adult data.

ANTONELLA SORACE SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Antonella Sorace (Laurea, University of Rome; MA, University of Southern
California; PhD, University of Edinburgh) is Professor of Developmental Linguistics
at the University of Edinburgh. She is a world leading authority in the field of
bilingual language development across the lifespan, where she brings together
methods from linguistics, experimental psychology, and cognitive science. She is also
committed to disseminating the findings of research on bilingualism in different
sectors of society. She is the founding director of the information centre Bilingualism
Matters, which will soon have 14 branches all over Europe.
 BILINGUALISM OVER THE LIFESPAN PART 1:
GROWING UP WITH TWO LANGUAGES

MONDAY 28 APRIL

SESSION 1 9.00-10.00
Introduction: why bilingualism is important; contrasting bilingual and monolingual
children; dominance; input and age effects.

SESSION 2 10.00-11.30
Separation of the two languages: learning sounds and words

SESSION 3 16.00-17.00
Learning two grammars: some effects of one language on the other;
bilingual speech production; code-switching and code-mixing

SESSION 4 17.00-18.00
Group activities

CLOSE

TUESDAY 29 APRIL

SESSION 1 9.00-9.45
Effects of early bilingualism: (1): metalinguistic abilities; literacy; Theory of Mind

SESSION 2 9.45-10.45
Effects of early bilingualism (2): attention and executive functions

SESSION 3 13.00-14.00
Bilingualism in context: family, immigration, regional minority languages

SESSION 4 14.00-15.00
Relevance of multilingualism for different sectors of society: changing attitudes

SESSION 5 15.00-16.00
Group activities

CLOSE