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BILINGUALS AND BILINGUALISM

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BILINGUALISM

True or False?

Learning more than one language confuses a child and lowers

his/her IQ?

A child should learn one language properly before learning a

second one. A person cannot be a real bilingual if he learns a second

language late.

Bilinguals have to translate from their weaker to their stronger

language.

Learning two languages may cause cultural identity problems for

a child.

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BILINGUALISM

Why do we study bilingualism?

A large proportion of the worlds population knows and uses more than onelanguage on a regular basis. Multilingualism is the norm. More than 140languages are spoken in Manchester. Language planning (social andeducational policy) is a political issue often based on academic research.

Topics in bilingualism

Who is bilingual? What is a native language?

How does a child acquire two languages?

How does bilingualism influence a human beings intellectual and mentalgrowth?

When and how should we learn a second language?

Does a bilinguals brain function differently from a monolinguals brain?

How and when do bilinguals switch from one language to the other?

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BILINGUALISM

Approaches

Linguistics studies the structure and development of the two

languages

Psycholinguisticsstudies the psychological basis of bilinguals

language competence and performance Sociolinguistics looks at how cultures/social groups affect

language performance and language choice

Neurolinguistics studies the relationship between language and

the brain

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DEFINITIONS

Individual bilingualism vs Societal bilingualism

Bilingualism as an individual attribute: a psychological state of an

individual who has access to two language codes to serve

communication purposes.

Bilingualism as a societal attribute: two languages are used in acommunity and that a number of individuals can use two

languages.

Should bilingualism be defined at an individual or a societallevel?

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DEFINITIONS

5 dimensions

Cognitive organisation of

two languagesAge of acquisition

Language proficiency

Sequence of acquisition of

two languages

Societal factors

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Individual characteristics


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COMPOUND VS. COORDINATE BILINGUALS

Compound bilingual: Has one semantic system but two linguistic codes. Usually refers

to someone whose two languages are learnt at the same time,often in the same context.

Coordinate bilingual: Has two semantic systems and two linguistic codes. Usually

refers to someone whose two languages are learnt in distinctivelyseparate contexts

Subordinate bilingual: The weaker language is interpreted through the stronger

language

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THE MENTAL LEXICON OF

MONOLINGUALSSemantic

system

Has wings

Has feathers

Can fly

Language

code

Orange Apple Apple Bird

naranja mansana mansana pajaro

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THE MENTAL LEXICON OF BILINGUALS

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Semantic system Semantic

System 1

Semantic

System 2

English Spanish English Spanish

Compound bilingual Coordinate bilingual


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Semantic system

English Spanish

Subordinate bilingual


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Semantic

System 1

English Spanish

Semantic

System 2

English Spanish

Semantic

System 2

Semantic

System 1


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Whether there are two or more systems

depends on:

Age of acquisition

Learning/teaching method

Similarities and differences between the two

languages

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EARLY VS. LATE BILINGUALS

Early bilingual:

someone who has acquired two languages earlyin childhood (usually received systematic

training/learning of a second language beforeage 6).

Late bilingual:

someone who has become a bilingual later than

childhood (after age 12).Discussion: Is there a critical period for

second language learning?

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EARLY VS. LATE BILINGUALS

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How do we determine the age of acquisition?


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BALANCED VS. DOMINANT BILINGUALS

Balanced bilingual: someone whose mastery of two languages is

roughly equivalent.

Dominant bilingual: someone with greater proficiency in one of his orher languages and uses it significantly more thanthe other language.

Semilingual: someone with insufficient knowledge of either

language.

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SUCCESSIVE VS. SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUALS

Successive bilingualism: Learning one language after already knowing another. This is the situation for all

those who become bilingual as adults, as well as for many who became bilingualearlier in life. Sometimes also called consecutive bilingualism.

Simultaneous bilingualism: Learning two languages as "first languages". That is, a person who is a

simultaneous bilingual goes from speaking no languages at all directly tospeaking two languages. Infants who are exposed to two languages from birthwill become simultaneous bilinguals.

Receptive bilingualism: Being able to understand two languages but express oneself in only one. This is

generally not considered "true" bilingualism but is a fairly common situation.

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ADDITIVE VS. SUBTRACTIVE BILINGUALS

Additive bilingual:

The learning of a second language does not interfere with the

learning of a first language. Both languages are well developed.

Subtractive bilingual:

The learning a second language interferes with the learning of a

first language. The second language replaces the first language.

Additive or subtractive bilingualism is related to the different

status associated with the two languages in a society.

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ELITE VS. FOLK BILINGUALS

Elite bilingual:

Individuals who choose to have a bilingual home,often in order to enhance social status.

Folk bilingual: Individuals who develop second language

capacity under circumstances that are not oftenof their own choosing, and in conditions where

the society does not value their native language.

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SUMMARY: DEFINITIONS

Coordinate vs. Compound bilingualism

Early vs. Late bilingualism

Balanced vs. Dominant bilingualism Simultaneous vs. Successive bilingualism

Additive vs. Subtractive bilingualism

Elite vs. Folk bilingualism

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LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF BILINGUAL

CHILDREN

Bilingual acquisition is a complex phenomenon.

Monolingual children usually learn language from parents.

But bilingual children may learn languages not only from

parents but also from grandparents, playmates, babysitters,

childcare, school teachers and TV.

Their exposure to languages fluctuate over time and

situation/environment.

Childhood bilingualism is poorly understood by many and

regarded with scepticism by others.

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CHILDREN

Compared to monolingual children, bilingual children have

less exposure to each of their languages and, therefore,

they never master either language fully and never become

as proficient as monolingual children.

How do we measure language proficiency?

How do we determine if bilingual childrens language

development is normal?

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CHILDREN

Compared to monolingual children, bilingual children have

less exposure to each of their languages and, therefore,

they never master either language fully and never become

as proficient as monolingual children.

How do we measure language proficiency?

How do we determine if bilingual childrens language

development is normal?

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CHILDREN

Young bilingual children may know fewer words in one orboth of their languages in comparison with monolingualchildren of the same age.

This is understandable because young children have limited

cognitive / memory capacities, and bilingual children muststore words from two languages, not just one.

Also, because bilingual children learn words in eachlanguage from different people, they sometimes knowcertain words in one language but not in the other.

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CHILDREN

When adding the vocabulary that bilingual children know in

both languages, they generally know the same number of or

even more words as their monolingual peers.

Even when differences like these occur, they are short term

and are likely to disappear by the time the children beginschool.

Bilingual children's overall proficiency in each language

reflects the amount of time they spend in each.

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WILL LEARNING TWO LANGUAGES CONFUSE

CHILDREN/

Young bilingual children often mix the two languages andcannot keep them separate.

Language mixing is taken as evidence that learning twolanguages confuses children.

Mixing: a fusion of two languages with the inability todifferentiate one language from the other.

Mixing happens most frequently during early phase oflanguage development, before or around age 2;0 (years;months), whereas later on, bilingual children can easilyseparate the two linguistic systems.

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CHILDREN

Phonological mixing Kats Katt (swedish) & Kass (Estonia)

[both katt and kass mean cat in English]

Lexical mixing I want mansana

[I want apple]

Semantic mixing I lost the bus

[lost = missed in Spanish]

Syntactic mixing A house red

[colour adjectives follow the noun in Spanish]

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CHILDREN

Children mix because they are confused bylearning two languages? or,

Because they lack the appropriate items in

one language but have them in the otherlanguage?

Unitary language system hypothesisVs.

Separate language system hypothesis

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UNITARY LANGUAGE SYSTEM HYPOTHESIS

A 3-stage model for early bilingual development proposed

by Volterra & Taeschner, 1978:

I. the bilingual child has only one lexical system comprising words

from both languages [1.6-2.1]

II. development of two distinct lexical systems although the child

applies the same syntactic rules to both languages [2.5-3.3]

III. differentiation of two linguistic systems, lexical as well as

syntactic [2.9-311]

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Bilingual children first have a single fused linguistic representation. They begin to differentiate their two native languages by age

3;0.

Implication: Young bilinguals have language delay relative to monolinguals.

Support for this hypothesis: Volterra & Taeschner (1978)

Young bilinguals in the one-word stage acquire words mostly in one but notboth languages. e.g., if the word ` bird ' is acquired one language, it is notacquired in the other language.

This suggests that young bilinguals do not initially differentiate between theirtwo native vocabularies.

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Challenges to this hypothesis Bilingual children mix because they lack appropriate lexical items

in one language but have them in the other language. Thus, they

borrow vocabularies from the other language.

Mixing declines as a child comes to recognize adult-imposedstandards of behaviour and shows awareness of his own ability to

meet them.

Slobin (1972, 1973) argues that bilingual children mix because of

acquisitional strategies that are independent of language

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SEPARATE LANGUAGE SYSTEM HYPOTHESIS

Genesee F. (1989, Journal of Child Language) argued that:

...contrary to most extant interpretations, bilingual children

develop differentiated language systems from the beginning

and are able to use their developing languages in

contextually sensitive ways. A call for more serious attention

to the possible role of parental input in the form of mixed

utterances is made.

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According to Genesee:

The most proficient bilinguals mix the most and in the mostsophisticated ways without violating the rules of either language. It isnormal for children growing up in these communities to mix their

languages extensively because they are simply learning the patterns ofcommunication that are common in their community. It can be difficultand unnatural, if not impossible, to keep the languages completelyseparate. If most people in the children's wider community use only onelanguage, the children will eventual learn the monolingual patterns.

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The language mixing seen in bilingualchildren is constrained by grammatical rules.

Influenced by sociolinguistic factors such as

language mixing pattern of parents. Language mixing is not a consequence of

confusion but instead demonstrates thebilingual child's distinct representations of thetwo languages from an early age.

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