Multilingualism Matters
Most research on child language development has focused on ~1.5 percent of the world’s languages and only considered monolingual children. Even less research has included bilingual children with language delays or deaf children acquiring signed languages.
The Multilingualism Matters team will work to increase understanding of linguistic diversity and language development by focusing on bilingual children, including those with language delays, deaf children acquiring signed languages, and Indigenous children acquiring their traditional languages.
Conveners
Carlos Irizarry-Pérez, Speech & Hearing Sciences
Naomi Shin, Linguistics and Spanish & Portuguese
Members
Melvatha Chee, Linguistics
Jill Morford, Linguistics
Research Questions
- How does child language development proceed in the face of extensive variation in the language(s) that children are exposed to, as is commonly the case in multilingual settings?
- How can child language development be facilitated in multilingual settings?
