%0 Journal Article
%T Understanding multilingualism and its implications
%A Mary G. O'Brien
%A Suzanne Curtin
%A Rahat Naqvi
%J Frontiers in Psychology
%D 2014
%I Frontiers Media
%R 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01464
%X The world¡¯s demographics are in a state of flux. Approximately half of the world¡¯s population is bilingual (Grosjean, 2010). Just over half of all Europeans speak a language other than the official language in a given country, and 25% of them report that they are able to hold a conversation in at least two additional languages (European Commission, 2012, p. 18). Bi- and multilingualism are also the reality in North America. Grosjean (2012) estimates that 20% of Americans are bilingual. In 2011, over 20% of Canadians reported speaking a mother tongue other than English or French, and the number of Canadians who report being bilingual is rising rapidly (Statistics Canada, 2011). While the causes of increased bi- and multilingualism vary, the repercussions of this demographic shift are wide reaching. In August 2013 the Language Research Centre at the University of Calgary brought together a range of experts working on issues related to the acquisition of multiple languages to consider the implications of multilingualism in our society. Discussions at the conference entitled ¡°Interdisciplinary Approaches to Multilingualism¡± were focused around three key areas: language acquisition, psycholinguistic research methods, and second language pedagogy and literacy development. These broad fields are represented in this issue of Frontiers. Acquisition Barlow¡¯s contribution investigates the role of age effects in the production of English and Spanish /l/ by early and late Spanish-English bilinguals. The results, which indicate that the sound systems of both early and late bilinguals interact, add to our understanding of the complexities of acquiring multiple languages across the lifespan. Shea¡¯s response to Barlow focuses on the complexity of understanding cross-linguistic allophonic variation and to the importance of exposing learners to conditioned variability. The research by Bak, Vega-Mendoza, and Sorace is an investigation of the so-called ¡°bilingual advantage¡± on attention tests. Like Barlow, the authors wish to determine the extent to which early and late bilinguals differ. The results indicate that bilinguals¡ªregardless of age of acquisition¡ªshow certain advantages on the Test of Everyday Attention. In her response to Bak et al., MacLeod focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of making use of experimental results for clinical work with bilinguals. She points out that we must determine whether experimentally significant results truly matter in clinical settings. She extends the discussion to studies of vocabulary acquisition and concludes that rigorous
%K bilingualism
%K language acquisition
%K psycholinguistic methods
%K language pedagogy
%K second langauge literacy development
%U http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01464/full