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"A leading Yale psycholinguist separates myth from fact in the first comprehensive account of the psychological, linguistic, educational, and social aspects of bilingualism."

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Library Journal Review

Programs of bilingual education in the United States have always been controversial, involving strong political feelings and heated emotions. Psycholinguist Hakuta provides a scientist's view of the problem as he explores the origins of the controversy, contrasts the views of various researchers, and describes the process of learning a second language. Citing his own research, he compares second-language acquisition in children and adults and analyzes the characteristics of a bilingual community. He concludes that well-developed programs can produce students who retain their original language and master the second, an outcome he deems highly desirable in today's world. While scholarly in approach, this work is readable and will be of interest to educators, psycholinguists, and parents. Shirley L. Hopkinson, Library & Information Science Div., San Jose State Univ., Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

As the national debate over bilingual education heats up, fueled at one extreme by people fearing minority power and diminished status for American English, and at the other by people standing to lose power and possibly jobs, along comes a dispassionate contribution, which, widely read, will help clarify the issues. Hakuta possesses an impeccable academic pedigree: National Institute of Education and National Science Foundation funded research; time at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; research in second-language acquisition. More important here, as a Yale psycholinguist, he lacks direct stake in the fate of school bilingualism, although he has a palpable concern for bilinguals. In elegant prose, with occasional drollery, Hakuta filters a large amount of diverse material, some of it written in high academese, through an impressive cognitive apparatus, to produce enlightening discussions of the issues of bilingualism-i.e., intelligence, adult and child second-language acquisition, societal bilingualism-all necessary for grasping the issues. The psychological half of his discipline is especially useful for taking apart much-cited studies, showing that most are flawed and also incommensurate: 1+1\{{2 here. For example, early studies err in equating bilingualism to cognitive deficit (cheers!), and-unfortunately for those who promote bilingualism-later ones to cognitive advantage. Finally, Hakuta's important book indicates US bilingual education's shaky theoretical and experimental basis; lamentable absence of program typology and evaluation; and, for the previously naive, ultimately political nature. Upper-division undergraduates and general readers.-B.L. Dubois, New Mexico State University