Korean-English Bilingualism in Early Childhood - (Bilingual Education & Bilingualism) by Sunny K Park-Johnson (Paperback)

About the Book

This overview of the linguistic development of Korean-English bilingual children in the US focuses on morphology and syntax acquisition in early childhood, a time when language dominance is shifting rapidly. It expands our understanding of heritage language acquisition and furthers bilingualism research on typologically distinct language pairings.

Book Synopsis

This overview of the linguistic development of Korean-English bilingual children in the US focuses on morphology and syntax acquisition in early childhood, a time when language dominance is shifting rapidly. It expands our understanding of heritage language acquisition and furthers bilingualism research on typologically distinct language pairings.

Review Quotes

This book advances the field of bilingualism by providing a longitudinal account of Korean and English acquisition in early childhood, where both languages are distinctly different. It is valuable for researchers investigating heritage language development in early childhood, particularly those studying participants who were born and grew up in a minoritised environment. The book provides rich data in comparing both heritage and dominant languages and shows how useful the language development journey was to the children when they entered adulthood.

This book skillfully combines conceptual rigor, a comprehensive research design, innovative perspectives, and a multidisciplinary approach to explore a wide range of topics related to bilingualism [...] It will be of use for researchers and students in fields related to language development, educators working with bilingual children, as well as general readers interested in the complexities of bilingualism and its societal impacts.

Sunny Park-Johnson's highly accessible and illuminating book takes the study of young bilingual children to a new level. She builds a convincing case for the value of bilingualism for immigrant children through her careful empirical study and, in lucid and engaging prose, draws out the implications of her findings for education and social policies. An immense accomplishment and a highly valuable contribution.

This book makes a unique contribution to the field of bilingualism. Using a longitudinal research design, it documents Korean-English early bilingual acquisition of morphological and syntactic structures from a cross-linguistic perspective. Equally impressive is that a follow-up study was conducted with some of the participants ten years after the original.

This book advances the field of bilingualism by providing a longitudinal account of Korean and English acquisition in early childhood, where both languages are distinctly different. It is valuable for researchers investigating heritage language development in early childhood, particularly those studying participants who were born and grew up in a minoritised environment. The book provides rich data in comparing both heritage and dominant languages and shows how useful the language development journey was to the children when they entered adulthood.

-- "Teresa Wai See Ong, University of Social Sciences, Singapore, LINGUIST List 35.2112"

This book skillfully combines conceptual rigor, a comprehensive research design, innovative perspectives, and a multidisciplinary approach to explore a wide range of topics related to bilingualism [...] It will be of use for researchers and students in fields related to language development, educators working with bilingual children, as well as general readers interested in the complexities of bilingualism and its societal impacts.

-- "Tingting Hu and Nan Xu, Hangzhou Dianzi University, China, Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 2024"

Sunny Park-Johnson's highly accessible and illuminating book takes the study of young bilingual children to a new level. She builds a convincing case for the value of bilingualism for immigrant children through her careful empirical study and, in lucid and engaging prose, draws out the implications of her findings for education and social policies. An immense accomplishment and a highly valuable contribution.-- "Sarah J. Shin, University of Maryland, USA"

This book makes a unique contribution to the field of bilingualism. Using a longitudinal research design, it documents Korean-English early bilingual acquisition of morphological and syntactic structures from a cross-linguistic perspective. Equally impressive is that a follow-up study was conducted with some of the participants ten years after the original.-- "Hyun-Sook Kang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA"

About the Author

Sunny K. Park-Johnson is Associate Professor in the College of Education and Director of the Bilingual Language Development Lab at DePaul University, USA. Her research investigates aspects of Korean-English bilingualism and Korean as a heritage language, including morphology, syntax and code-switching.