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This book explores the life and experiences of one of the world's most renowned and well-respected experts in bilingualism. François Grosjean takes us through his life, from his monolingual childhood in a small village outside Paris to the long periods of time he spent in Switzerland, England, France, and the United States, becoming bilingual and bicultural in the process. During his life, his dominant language has changed many times between English and French, and he has also acquired, and subsequently lost, other languages, including American Sign Language. Throughout the book, he combines his personal accounts and anecdotes with insights from and reflections on his extensive scholarly research in bilingualism and biculturalism, which has, in turn, been heavily influenced by his own experiences. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book will appeal to general readers interested in bilingualism and language contact, educators and parents of bilingual children, researchers working on bilingualism, and to bilinguals themselves.
About the author
François Grosjean is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Language and Speech Processing Laboratory at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He has worked at Northeastern University, Boston, was a Research Affiliate at MIT, and has lectured at the universities of Basel, Zurich, and Oxford. His research interests include bilingualism and biculturalism, the perception, comprehension, and production of speech, sign language and the bilingualism of the Deaf, the evaluation of speech comprehension in aphasic patients, and the modelling of language processing. He is the author of several books on bilingualism, including Studying Bilinguals (OUP, 2008), Bilingual: Life and Reality (Harvard University Press, 2010), The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism (with Ping Li; Wiley Blackwell, 2013), and The Listening Bilingual (with Krista Byers-Heinlein; Wiley Blackwell, 2018).
Summary
This book explores the life and experiences of one of the world's most renowned experts in bilingualism. François Grosjean takes the author on an engaging trip through his life as a bicultural bilingual, combining personal accounts and anecdotes with insights from his extensive research, which will appeal to all those interested in bilingualism.
Additional text
The fluid and dynamic view so clearly expressed in his research literally comes to life in this coming-of-age story by one of the greatest figures in the field of bilingualism and psycholinguistics. At the forefront of a new university, a new department, a new journal, and a new field, François Grosjean builds a bridge across the channels and oceans that seemingly divide us. This book is a must read for those old and young who would like to rekindle their view of language science as a largely human enterprise. He reveals a world not as a monolithic place filled with singular or opposing uniformity but rather as one filled with a dynamic linguistic and cultural multiplicity that traverses regions, nations, and continents.
Report
[Grosjean's] account shows a caring teacher and respected scholar leading a rich linguistic life. Highly recommended C. B. Thurston, CHOICE
