Multilingualism from Infancy to Adolescence (Hc)

This book studies the acquisition loss and re-acquisition of Spanish English Portuguese and Hebrew the first languages of this writer''s son. It applies the results of current work in the areas of psycholinguistics bilingualism and applied linguistics to the study of language development in one multilingual child Noam from birth to age 17. The acquisition loss and re-acquisition of four languages by Noam also is compared with that of other children studied by the author and others. This book uncovers linguistic cognitive psychological and social mechanisms of language acquisition loss and re-acquisition and documents the child''s increasing decreasing and in turn increasing proficiency in four languages. This book applies Dromi''s guidelines for qualitative case-study research to the study of language development in one multilingual child (Spanish Portuguese Hebrew English) Noam from birth to age seventeen. In addition the results of Noam''s case study are compared with other case studies conducted by this author as well as by other researchers.