The measurement of bilingual abilities: central challenges

Treffers-Daller, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6575-6736 (2018) The measurement of bilingual abilities: central challenges. In: De Houwer, A. and Ortega, L. (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingualism:. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 289-306. ISBN 9781316831922 doi: 10.1017/9781316831922.016

Abstract/Summary

In this handbook chapter I analyse the concept of bilingual abilities. Bilinguals vary widely in what they can do with their languages or in the ways in which they use their languages on a daily basis. This means that there is a great deal of variability in what the term covers. While many researchers subscribe to the holistic view of bilingualism, in the academic literature bilinguals are still often described in negative terms as having a "deficit" in one or another subsystem of their languages. The key aim of this chapter is to identify what makes individuals with bilingual abilities unique speaker-hearers in their own right, avoiding the fractional view of bilingualism, and how these abilities can be measured.

Item Type	Book or Report Section
URI	https://reading-pure-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/75364
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/9781316831922.016
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Central Services Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > English Language and Applied Linguistics
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
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