Literacy development in a multilingual context

Reviewed by: Literacy development in a multilingual context: Cross-cultural perspectives ed. by Aydin Yücesan Durgunoglu, Ludo Verhoeven Almeida Jacqueline Toribio Literacy development in a multilingual context: Cross-cultural perspectives. Ed. by Aydin Yücesan Durgunoglu and Ludo Verhoeven. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998. The compilation of this highly informative volume gives witness to the immense interest in literacy development in multilingual individuals and communities. As such, this text is certain to prove of broad appeal and of substantial importance for researchers and practitioners alike: anthropologists and sociologists, whose fieldwork is inspired by insights into the distribution, degree, and depth of literacy activities; psychologists and linguists, who examine the status and potential interaction of the component language systems in the development of literacy competence; educators, who assess how literacy in multilingual settings should be defined and evaluated; and policy-makers, who render decisions about educating pupils who have acquired languages or varieties different from the standardized forms of instruction and who may be called on to determine how best to effect or maintain multilingual literacy. The editors have solicited studies that take account of such cross-disciplinary perspectives while additionally attending to cross-cultural concerns. The volume benefits from their introductory discussion, the organization of the fourteen papers, and the inclusion of an epilogue and analytical index which correlate discussions of related topics. In ‘Introduction: Perspectives on literacy development in multilingual contexts’ (ix–xviii), Ludo Verhoeven and Aydin Yücesan Durgunoglu present an overview of the prevailing research questions in the study of literacy across cultures, noting particular points of controversy in recent developments. In so doing, they converge on the need for diverse yet complementary approaches to the myriad of issues surrounding literacy development in multilingual settings. With this in mind, the themes of the book are explored in three parts. Part 1. ‘Anthropological perspective: The individual and society’, consists of four chapters: Ch. 1, Stephan M. Pugh, ‘Minority L1 literacy in Sweden and Karelia: Challenges and strategies’ (3–20); Ch. 2, Victoria J. Baker, ‘Literacy in developing societies: Native languages versus national language literacy’ (21–35); Ch. 3, Marilyn Martin-Jones and Arvind Bhatt, ‘Literacy in the lives of young Gujarati speakers in Leicester’ (37–50); and Ch. 4, Joel Hardman, ‘Literacy and bilingualism in a Cambodian community in the USA’ (51–81). These studies will engage the reader with thorough-going discussions that contextualize literacy within the specific sociopolitical histories and cultures of the speech communities at issue. Especially noteworthy is the piece by Hardman, an ethnographic inquiry that reflects carefully and deliberately on the affective factors that characterize literacy activities among children and adults in Asian refugee families. Four chapters comprise Part 2. ‘Psychological perspective: The development of the individual’: Ch. 5, Esther Geva and Lesly Wade-Woolley, ‘Component processes in becoming English-Hebrew biliterate’ (85–110); Ch. 6, Ludo Verhoeven and Rian Aarts, ‘Attaining functional biliteracy in the Netherlands’ (111–33); Ch. 7, Ayden Yücesan Durgunoglu, ‘Acquiring literacy in English and Spanish in the United States’ (135–45); and Ch. 8, Anne Hvenekilde, ‘Literacy training for linguistic minorities in Norway’ (147–66). All are, in the main, well-motivated investigations (though not all equally well-executed), seeking to inform psycholinguistic and sociopsychological research with experimental and empirical data on the acquisition and development of literacy competence. The contribution by Geva and Wade-Woolley, which is focused on the cognitive and linguistic precursors to biliteracy as indicated by measures of word recognition, spelling, and reading fluency, distinguishes itself for its depth and completeness of analysis. The final section, Part 3. ‘Educational perspective: The individual and schooling’, includes six chapters: Ch. 9, Daniel A.Wagner, ‘Putting second language first: Language and literacy learning in Morocco’ (169–83); Ch. 10, J. Normann Jørgensen and Bergthóra S. Kristjánsdóttir, ‘Acquisition of literacy in multilingual contexts in Danish schools’ (185–202); Ch. 11, Sally Boyd and Gunnel Arvidsson, ‘The acquisition of literacy by immigrant children in Sweden’ (203–23); Ch. 12, I

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