Growing Up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven - Paperback

by Xiao-Lei Wang (Author)

A long-term study of one trilingual family and how they negotiated language development.

This book is based on an eleven-year observation of two children who were simultaneously exposed to three languages from birth. It tells the story of two parents from different cultural, linguistic, and ethnic-racial backgrounds who joined to raise their two children with their heritage languages outside their native countries. It also tells the children's story and the way they negotiated three cultures and languages and developed a trilingual identity.

It sheds light on how parental support contributed to the children's simultaneous acquisition of three languages in an environment where the main input of the two heritage languages came respectively from the father and from the mother. It addresses the challenges and the unique language developmental characteristics of the two children during their trilingual acquisition process.

Author Biography

Dr. Xiao-lei Wang is currently a tenured, full professor at Pace University, New York. She was born and grew up in the People's Republic of China and came to the United States on a graduate scholarship awarded by the United Nations. She received her Master's degree from the Erikson Institute in Chicago and her Doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. Dr. Wang has conducted research in different cultural communities and worked with children and parents of immigrant and multilingual families. Dr. Wang has traveled in many parts of the world and studied languages such as English, French, Russian, and Japanese. She also speaks several Chinese dialects in addition to Putonghua ("standard" Chinese).