In Other Words: The Science And Psychology Of Second-language Acquisition

by Ellen Bialystok, Kenji Hakuta

More than five thousand languages are currently spoken around the globe. Learning to speak one of them is virtually effortless for most of us, so why is it commonly so difficult to learn a second language? Unraveling this mystery, two top researchers in the field explain how language acquisition can be an odyssey of self-discovery.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 1994

Reviews

[Greta Cribbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up hoping it was going to have lots of practical advice about the best methods for learning a second language and how those methods compare to how we learn our first language. This book was much more scientific and academic in nature, and I felt it was written a little above the average reader's level of comprehension. It threw around lots of words that mean very specific things in the field of linguistics but with which the average lay person will not likely be familiar, with very little in the way of explanation. For someone who has taken some college level linguistics classes, this book would be a valuable source of information, but I found it difficult to follow at times.

[Barbara Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Five elements - brain, language, mind, self, and culture make up the complex process of language learning. Very technical and dry for the most part although their use of anecdotal evidence that pops up throughout is most readable. None of this helped me with my Spanish homework, though.

[Ruben · Rating 2 out of 5]

When it takes me over a year to finish a book, there's always an explanation. This is some dry stuff. I can only recommend it to you if you're a linguistics major who is looking for some sort of a summary of the major movements of research concerning second language acquisition. You'll find everything from Chomsky to Vygotsky to Piaget to Jakobson to Wittgenstein, as well as more recent studies, including those done by the two authors, Bialystok and Hakuta. Allow me to summarize: most conclusions drawn from linguistics research is conflicting and/or invalid, there are very few concrete characteristics or abilities that are found in "successful" language learners, therefore there's not much we can say about how to learn a second language "successfully". I put that word in quotes because they also spend a lot of time highlighting the notion that success is only relative to the aims of the speaker. As a polyglot, English teacher and wannabe linguist, this book didn't help me much in any of those areas. Glad to take this guy off my currently-reading shelf.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, the message of the story is that people learn languages according to different cognitive styles in different situations.

The book is very dense and somewhat hard to read since lots of information is just thrown at you. If you really want to read this, then I suggest you keep a pen and paper or a highlight nearby to take notes.

The authors use lots of scientific and linguistic jargon, which makes this book a bit inaccessible to everyday readers. It's not a "pop psych" book. They definitely know what they're talking about since they mention most of the major studies done on second language acquisition. Long story short, the book contains a lot of useful information, but it may be hard for an average, non-scientific and/or non-linguistic, person to read.

For example, beforehand, I read some of the research studies that they quote, so I knew what they were talking about most of the time, but I have no linguistic background. When they delve deeper into the nitty-gritty linguistic terms, it takes a lot of processing to keep things straight.

[Teddee · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first linguistics book, good intro to the literature of first language acquisition along with 2nd language acquisition

[Temuujin Nyamdavaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book suit for anyone who wants to get a rudimentary insight into Second Language Acquisition.