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The future of bilingualism research: Insufferably optimistic and replete with new questions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2014

DEBRA TITONE*
Affiliation:
McGill University
SHARI BAUM*
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Debra Titone or Shari Baum, Centre for Research on Brain, Language & Music, McGill University, 3640 de la Montagne, Montreal, QC H3G 2A8, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Debra Titone or Shari Baum, Centre for Research on Brain, Language & Music, McGill University, 3640 de la Montagne, Montreal, QC H3G 2A8, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]

Extract

The scientific process applied to any domain is a thing of power and beauty. It enables its practitioners to systematically and rigorously pursue questions of importance, in a manner that is, by necessity, adaptive and tenacious. As was his way with most matters of relevance to psychology, the words of William James (The Principles of Psychology, 1890) are illustrative here:

Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely. (p. 7)

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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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