On Bilinguals and Bilingualism

Professor François Grosjean is a recognized world expert on bilingualism. In this fascinating book, he surveys the many contributions he has made to the field, gives follow-up comments, reviews how the field has responded, and stresses how important it is to inform the general public about bilingualism and biculturalism.

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François Grosjean is one of the world's best-known scholars in the study of bilingualism. Over a career spanning two continents, his holistic approach has made groundbreaking contributions to many areas of the field. This book surveys this lifetime of work, from the start of his career, to where it stands today. The first chapter sets the stage with his personal experience as a bilingual, and the chapters that follow then deal with his holistic view of bilingualism, the bilingual's language modes, the Complementarity Principle, spoken language processing, cross-linguistic influence, biculturalism, the bilingualism and biculturalism of the Deaf, the statistics of bilingualism, and special bilinguals. In each chapter, he describes the concept, theory or findings that he proposed, adds follow-up comments, and discusses reactions, replications and extensions. The final chapter underlines the importance of informing the general public about bilingualism and biculturalism, and illustrates how this can be done.