Second Language Writing Systems.

Cook, Vivian; Bassetti, Benedetta

ISBN 10: 1853597937 / ISBN 13: 9781853597930

Published by Multilingual Matters Ltd - Second Language Acquisitions 11., 2005

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 197DAF83660B550

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Second Language Writing Systems.
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters Ltd - Second Language Acquisitions 11.
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853597937
• ISBN 13: 9781853597930
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Second Language Writing Systems looks at how people learn and use a second language writing system, arguing that they are affected by characteristics of the first and second writing systems, to a certain extent independently of the languages involved. This book presents for the first time the effects of writing systems on language reading and writing and on language awareness, and provides a new platform for discussing bilingualism, biliteracy and writing systems.

The approach is interdisciplinary, with contributions not only from applied linguists and psychologists but also corpus linguists, educators and phoneticians. A variety of topics are covered, from handwriting to spelling, word recognition to the mental lexicon, and language textbooks to metalinguistic awareness. Though most of the studies concern adult L2 learners and users, other populations covered include minority children, immersion students and bilingual children. While the emphasis is on English as the L2 writing system, many other writing systems are analysed as L1 or L2: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Gujarati, Indonesian, Irish, Italian and Japanese. Approaches that are represented include contrastive analysis, transfer, poststructuralism, connectionism and corpus analysis. The readership is SLA and bilingualism researchers, students and teachers around the world; language teachers will also find much food for thought.

About the Author

Vivian Cook, who sadly passed away before his chapter in this volume appeared, was a British linguist who was Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University. He was renowned for his work on second language acquisition and second language teaching, and for writing successful textbooks and popular books about linguistics. He worked on a number of topics such as bilingualism, EFL (English as a foreign language), first language acquisition, second language teaching, linguistics, and the English writing system. He published more than 20 books and 100 papers across seven decades. He was founder and first President of the European Second Language Association (EuroSLA), and co-founder of the Oxford University Press journal Writing Systems Research. He died on December 15, 2021, at the age of 81. Vivian will be profoundly missed by his colleagues and students.