Bilingualism

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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 world’s population knows and uses more than one language on a regular basis. Multilingualism is the norm. More than 140 languages are spoken in Manchester. Language planning (social and educational 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 being’s intellectual and

mental growth? When and how should we learn a second language? Does a bilingual’s brain function differently from a monolingual’s 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 Psycholinguistics – studies the psychological basis of

bilingual’s 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 a community and that a number of individuals can use two languages.

Should bilingualism be defined at an individual or a societal level?

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DEFINITIONS

5 dimensions Cognitive organisation of

two languages Age of acquisition Language proficiency Sequence of acquisition

of two languages

Societal factors

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 distinctively separate contexts

Subordinate bilingual: The weaker language is interpreted through the stronger

language

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THE MENTAL LEXICON OF MONOLINGUALS

Semantic system

Has wingsHas feathersCan fly

Language code

Orange Apple Apple Bird

naranja mansana mansana pajaro

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THE MENTAL LEXICON OF BILINGUALS

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

early in childhood (usually received systematic training/learning of a second language before age 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

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 or her languages and uses it significantly more than the 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 bilingual earlier 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 to speaking two languages. Infants who are exposed to two languages from birth will 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 often of 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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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 children’s language

development is normal?

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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 children’s language

development is normal?

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Young bilingual children may know fewer words in one or both of their languages in comparison with monolingual children of the same age.

This is understandable because young children have limited cognitive / memory capacities, and bilingual children must store words from two languages, not just one.

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

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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 begin school.

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 and cannot keep them separate.

Language mixing is taken as evidence that learning two languages confuses children.

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

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

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WILL LEARNING TWO LANGUAGES CONFUSE 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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WILL LEARNING TWO LANGUAGES CONFUSE CHILDREN

Children mix because they are confused by learning two languages? or,

Because they lack the appropriate items in one language but have them in the other language?

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 not both languages. e.g., if the word ` bird ' is acquired one language, it is not acquired in the other language.

This suggests that young bilinguals do not initially differentiate between their two 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-imposed standards 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 most sophisticated ways without violating the rules of either language. It is normal for children growing up in these communities to mix their languages extensively because they are simply learning the patterns of communication that are common in their community. It can be difficult and unnatural, if not impossible, to keep the languages completely separate. If most people in the children's wider community use only one language, the children will eventual learn the monolingual patterns.”

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The language mixing seen in bilingual children 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 the bilingual child's distinct representations of the two languages from an early age.

Bilingualism

Education

Transcript of Bilingualism