Handbook of Literacy in Diglossia and in Dialectal Contexts (eBook)

This volume is the first published collection of papers on the impact of diglossia and dialectal variations on language and literacy acquisition, impairment, and education. The authors are pioneering in this field and are leading researchers with substantial experience in conducting research in this area. A wide range of areas and languages are covered, including the US, South Africa, Israel, and various European countries. The chapters present novel data and insights regarding the role of dialectal variations on language and literacy, from a wide range of countries and perspectives. These insights have significant theoretical and practical implications.

Elinor E. Saiegh-Haddad, PhD, Professor of Linguistics at the English Literature and Linguistics Department, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She completed her graduate studies at Reading University, England (MA) and Bar-Ilan University, Israel (PhD). In her graduate work she focused on assessment of reading in L1 and in L2. She conducted her postdoctoral research at OISE, University of Toronto, Canada, where she investigated reading development in bilingual English-Arabic children. Since then, she has engaged in intensive research on the acquisition of reading in Arabic and specifically on the role of diglossia laying down the theoretical foundations and the methodological grounds of this new field of research. She has published numerous research articles and book chapters on this topic and has co-edited (with Malt Joshi) the first Handbook of Arabic Literacy entitled 'Handbook of Arabic Literacy: Insights and Perspectives' (Springer 2014). Saiegh-Haddad has also been actively involved in curriculum development and educational materials writing for Arabic native speaking children. She is advisor to the Israel Ministry of Education and the National Authority for Testing and Evaluation, as well as the Israel Centre for Educational Technology. She is a member of the editorial boards of leading journals in the field of language and reading development such as Scientific Studies of Reading, Reading & Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Applied Psycholinguistics.