Bilingualism and Developmental Linguistics research group

Speaker: Erika Hoff (Florida Atlantic University)

Title: Why Bilingual Development Is Not Easy, and How it is Still Possible

Abstract: Children who are exposed to two languages, even from birth, do not necessarily grow up to be bilingual adults. Furthermore, those who do become bilingual almost never have levels of proficiency in both languages that are comparable to the proficiency of monolingual native speakers in their single language. Why not? This talk will address this question—and the flip-side question of what allows bilingual development to be as successful as it is-with data on the Spanish and English language development of children and young adults who grew up in Spanish-speaking homes in the United States.