DeLTA Center Roundtable - Dr. Erika Hoff - Roundtable Discussion "Why Bilingual Development is Not Easy, But Possible"

All normal children in normal environments acquire language. However, all normal children in normal bilingual environments do not acquire two languages. Focusing on data from studies of second- generation immigrant children and young adults from Spanish-speaking homes in the U.S., this talk asks why the acquisition of two languages is more difficult than the acquisition of one. The evidence points to multiple ways in which the environmental supports that language acquisition requires are not equally available for both languages in minority-majority language bilingual communities.