Bilingualism

Biligualism

Bloomfeild - “native-like control of two languages”

Hagen - “begins when the speaker can produce complete meaningful utterances” in L2

• Mackey Ch 4.4 Mayor&Pugh 1987

Li 2008 - multilingual is anyone who can communicate in more than one language through active participation or passive action

Multilingualism

There are many definitions coming from:

• Li 2008

• The Europe commission 2007

• The council of Europe, n.d.

Types of bilingual

Balanced - equally proficient in 2+ languages

Unbalanced - has different levels of proficiency in different languages

• Skutnabb-Kansas 1981 - cannot decide whether complete bilingualism is possible monolingualism and bilingualism demonstrate great variation

Reception/production

Receptive bilinguals - use mother tongue while interacting with each other (e.g. Ukrainian-Polish interactions)

Productive bilinguals - ability to use the additional language in spoken and written production (not just receptive skills)

Additive/Subtractive biligualism

Additive - language added to linguistic repertoire while first is maintained/developed

Subtractive bilingualism - new langauge learnt and replaces the first

• e.g. only speaking English when immigrants come over as this is what is taught in schools and would be used with friends

Bilingualism is a continum

Goes from L1 home use and proficiency to L2 proficiency

Langauge and social background questionnaire - Anderson 2017

We should avoid using and labelling people as balanced and unbalanced

Types: Elite Bilinguals

E.g. Jean-Claude Juncker President of commission of the EU Speaks French, German, Luxembourg is and English

Bilingual by choice - little pressure to learn

Elite migration

L1 is “stable”/predominantly used

Both languages enjoy prestige and support

Children from Linguistic majorities

Learn L2 at school or on special courses, and English is the most common to be be acquired this way due to influence

• seen as advantageous for education/work prospects

• Tend to be a lot of resources depending on the language

• Little pressure to learn

Children from bilingual families

Parents have different mother tongues and child will learn these at home in a natural setting, extremely common in bilingual societies

• differences of power between national and regional languages or national and home languages in exposure and use

• Bilingualism is culturally important and benefits family relations so there is pressure to keep learn while learning national languages

Children from linguistic minorities

Parents belong to linguistic minorities (e.g. second language immigrants) parent’s L1 (heritage language) used at home and majority language used at school/socialising

• enormous pressure to acquire majority language, heritage considered useless

• Learning of heritage is on the parents

Schools tend to perceive these bilinguals as a problem as majority may not be fully developed and require extra recourses.

Holding on to heritage could be seen as failure to assimilate/accept

Bilingualism good or Bad?

Typically elite bilingualism and linguistic majorities bilingualism are valued, but minority languages can be seen as a problem especially in monolingual countries

Monolingual Western European and North Americans

• monolinualism is the norm

• Bilingual speakers admired and envied

• OR viewed as inferior children of immigrants, visitors, mixed marriages etc depending on the prestige of the language

Scientifically

The brain benefits from any kind of bilingualism, teaches us how to think and communicate differently

Different tenses can help us perceive time differently

• Monika Schimid (2022) – long lasting and beneficial  

Discrediting Bilingualism

Attempts to discredit bilingualism arguing its detrimental to children’s development

• stuttering

• Incomplete acquisition of either language (semi-lingualism)

• Personality and identity difficulties - evidence that we have different personalities in different languages (language relativity)

Idea that it could lead to a mental disorder

Against discrediting bilingualism

No valid evidence to show any of these deficits result from bilingualism

E.g. can’t measure bilingualism against a monolingual standard, so a bilingual appears inadequate (semilingual) if they don’t know a word with the same meaning in each language

If they have identity problems more likely due to social/peer group pressures than bilingualism - ideas are based on monolingual prejudices

Advantages

There are some societies where as a monolingual you’d not be able to to easily function in everyday life and bilingualism offers economic advancements and social mobility

Advantages (2)

Cognitive evidence

• Notice how language works (Sorace) - two different languages makes language systems clearer

• Separate name from the object

• They find it easier to acquire more languages - Antonella Sorace

• More aware of different cultures and people

• Better multitaskers

• More precocious readers

Advantages (3)

All the languages we learn are constantly active in the back of our mind and switch based on the context (mental set shift).

Good for keeping the brain healthy and active, cultivating a better working memory, accentuates age related cognitive decline and contributes to cognitive reserve in aging including the onset of dementia by 5 years

Code switching

The negative idea of poor usage based on incomplete knowledge of two language

• lanaguage development wasn’t complete

OR translanguaging the subtle manipulation of language as resources for making meaning

Code Switching: Atomistic view

• focuses on specific elements of language

• Languages analysed separately and independently

• Code-mixing between languages seen as low proficiency

Code Switching: Holistic view

• Language as a resource

• Boundaries between languages are soft

• Multilingual speech is creative

Trying to communicate and code switching makes this easier and more creative. Some languages are better at explaining ideas such as themes that aren’t present in in another language and we also switch to suit the interlocutor taking a more holistic view

Translanguaging

Creece and Blackledge 2010, Garcia 2009, Li 2010

• translation of the welsh term Trawsieithu

• Origional meaning: educational practice of using welsh and English in the classroom

• Garcia 2009 - multiple discursive practices

Code switching

German - English: Roehampton couple immigrated from Austria 1960, all German English bilinguals

Reshaping the mind the beliefs of bilingualism

Bilinguals constantly outperform their monolingual counterparts parts on tasks involving executive control

Evidence for the protective effect of bilingualism against Alzheimer’s disease

Both lanagues are constantly active to some degree - therefore a problem of attention and the decision to choose the right languages on top of the choices like register etc for monolinguals

Reshaping the mind the beliefs of bilingualism (2)

The general purpose executive control system - not found in monolinguals and involved in selection/conflict resolution is required - Miyake 2000

Common idea that it’s a domain-general system with three core components: inhibition, updating and shifting - Miyake 2000 - difficult to confirm

Executive control is not completely explained by the componential approach

Luk, Green, Abutalebi and Grady - meta analysis of fMRI studies

Reshaping the mind the beliefs of bilingualism (3)

“Global precedence effect” - Bialystok 2010