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Vivian Cook  Online Writings  SLA Topics

Internal and external uses of a second

language
V.J. Cook 

People who can speak more than one language always have a choice of which language to
use. Approaches to second language learning have looked at this choice in terms of the
circumstances at the time of speaking, in terms of the people who are being addressed, and in
terms of the ways in which code-switching from one language to another takes place within a
conversation. Much research has concentrated on the social aspects of using second
languages, on the external use of language for communication or for social intercourse
between people.

However language is also used for internal purposes: we use language to keep our diaries, to
plan our day, to solve problems - for all the tasks of everyday life. It is important to the study
of L2 learning to know how the two languages are used in roles that aim neither at
communication nor at relationships with other people but serve the internal purposes of the
speaker. A survey of the use of time in 12 countries showed that speakers in the USA for
instance use language for conversation for 0.3 of an hour per day, in Yugoslavia for 0.6 of an
hour (Robinson et al, 1972); the question is what happens to language the rest of the time?
Internal uses may well outweigh external in terms of time. To accommodate both internal
and external uses of language, as well as communicative competence, we need the wider
concept of pragmatic competence 'which places language in the institutional setting of its
use, relating intentions and purposes to the linguistic means at hand' (Chomsky, 1980,
p.225). Language is not just a tool for relating to the world outside the speaker; it is a help in
all sorts of tasks that are not concerned with other people. There are choices available to the
speaker not only for social and public functions of language but also for those functions that
are internal and private; looking only at the overt uses of language for communication and
socialization misses crucial aspects. This will be particularly true of educational issues:
unless we know how and when children from minority language backgrounds resort to the
L1 for their internal processing, we may have a false picture of the actual processes they are
using in the classroom and hence of their language needs in the L2 classroom.

The literature of second language learning research however treats the issue of internal uses
of the L2 comparatively sparsely, perhaps on account of its bias towards sociolinguistics
rather than psycholinguistics. Introductions to L2 learning such as Ellis (1985), McLaughlin
(1978), or Klein (1985) talk of communicative needs and social needs but seldom of those
that are non-communicative and non-social. Only Mackey (1962) provides a general
discussion of 'internal functions', which he lists as counting, reckoning, praying, cursing,
dreaming, diarywriting, and notetaking. Mackey points to the extreme individual variation
between bilinguals over which language is used for such internal functions and says 'It would
be possible to determine these through a well-designed questionnaire.'

The most typical of such internal uses is the language in which the second language user
dreams. While there is a popular belief that the bilingual dreams in the dominant language,
Harding and Riley (1986) find little support for it; Grosjean (1982) found 64% dreamt in
either language; Saunders (1982) feels the language of a dream 'is determined in much the
same way as when awake'. A second internal use that is often mentioned is counting:
Grosjean (1982, p.275) states that 'To the question "Which language do you count in?", 62
per cent said their first language.' Kolers (1978) claimed that bilinguals mostly did arithmetic
in the language in which they had learnt it. A third internal use is the vague idea of 'thinking'
itself; 70% of Grosjean's sample claim to think in both languages. However tiredness or
extra emotion may increase the amount of L1 use (Grosjean, 1982).

Thinking shades over into so-called private speech - language spoken aloud but not
addressed to a real, actually-present, other person, i.e. non-communicative. Saunders (1982)
describes children who code-switch while playing by themselves. A further non-
communicative use is language addressed to people who cannot understand it; Saunders
(1982) found bilingual children who assume that animals speak the language of the
environment but that their dolls are bilingual like themselves.

The aims of the current research were to see what sort of factual basis could be established
for these internal uses of the two languages, to what extent speakers resorted to one language
or another when not using language communicatively, and how much variation there was
both between groups and between individuals. The word 'bilingual' has mostly been avoided
here because of its variety of meanings; the basic sample of people studied were all
proficient users of more than one language.

Overall design

The overall design consisted of a questionnaire asking Subjects to report uses of the two
languages on a scale running from 'always L1' to 'always L2'. Ss were given an example as
follows, with the figures 1-7 added below to show the scoring scheme discussed later:

When you drive a car which language do you talk to yourself in? Not done

always L1  mostly L1   usually L1 both  L1 and L2 usually L2 mostly L2  always L2

 (1)      (2)    (3)          (4)    (5)    (6)        (7)

The questionnaire itself consisted of 33 questions and was the same for all Ss.

Before doing the main questionnaire Ss were asked to supply background details. They had
to assign themselves to one of four age groups - under 18, 18-35, 35-60, and over 60; and to
give their occupation. Then they had to state what they regarded as their first language (L1)
and their second language (L2); further questions on L1 concerned the country in which they
had spent their first five years and the language their parents spoke; further questions on the
L2 concerned whether they had learnt it in a classroom or picked it up naturally; if learnt in a
classroom, how long for and at what level; and the age when they had started learning their
L2. They were asked to rate themselves as a speaker of the L2 on a scale:

     5             4              3            2                  1

 like a                                                            like
  native                                                     a beginner

They were also asked if they spoke other languages in addition to the first two.

A general question was given at the end of this section: "This questionnaire will be used with
several different groups of people. If you think your own situation is not covered properly by
these questions or you think any of the questions strange for your situation, could you say
some more about it at the end?"

The uses that were covered represented a range of the internal and personal tasks, each of
which was of interest in its own right. In addition some uses were asked about that were
communicative and social, so that some comparison could be made between internal and
external. The complete set of questions and results is given in the Appendix. The internal
uses tested fell into several broad groups: self-organisational tasks that showed language
used for individual planning, mental tasks that used language for arithmetic, memory tasks in
which the user had to remember everyday information, unconscious uses where the user does
not have conscious control over which language to use, emotional effects of language on
other tasks, non-communicative uses to non-speakers, and praying to oneself. External uses
fell into two groups; one receptive personal uses in which the speakers listened or read
language, the other social uses in which other people were involved.

The Ss numbered 59 in all, consisting of 23 Francophone Africans studying English in

England, 12 Finnish students of English, and 24 'mixed' L2 users. The Africans had a variety
of West African L1s; French was given as the L2 in 17 cases, other African languages in 6
and English in 1. The Finns were all Finnish speaking except for one Swedish speaker; they
all gave Swedish as the L2 except for the sole Swedish speaker, who gave Finnish. The
mixed group spoke as L1 French, Czech, Japanese, German, Finnish, English, Welsh,
Punjabi, Spanish, Urdu, and Persian; their L2s were German, French, Italian, English,
Spanish, Welsh, Punjabi, and Russian. All but a handful of the mixed group were living in
England at the time of answering the questionnaire; as well as their other languages they also
knew English. Though the questionnaire was given out in England, it was not restricted to
the position of L2 learners of English in England, but had a majority of subjects from other
situations such as a multilingual African society, a bilingual European society, and
individuals who happened to function at a high level in two languages. Since the
questionnaire was given out in English there was also a demand that all the Subjects also
spoke English if that was not already the L2 they specified. The Africans reported average
L2 proficiency of 3.9 on the scale from 1 to 5, the Finns 3.9, the mixed group also 3.9. The
overwhelming majority were concerned with education either as teachers or students, 50 out
of 59; most were in the 18-35 age bracket.

Results for each question

We shall start by giving overall results for individual questions within each set of uses. A
convenient way of looking at the results is in terms of the percentage of answers showing
either an L1 bias (scoring 1-3) or an L2 bias (5-7) or being evenly balanced (4). Results are
given as a percentage of all Ss who answered that they practiced this use of language; some
uses such as keeping a diary or praying were utilised by only a few of the speakers, 26 and
35 respectively.

1. Self-organisation

The 4 self-organisational questions asked for the language used for shopping lists, cheque
stubs, appointments, and diary entries.

                                  N     1-3       4       5-7

making appointments  43      35%   26%   39%
shopping lists              55      31%   29%   40%
keeping a diary           26      25%    17%   61%
cheque stubs              41      29%      5%    66%

Shopping lists and making appointments were fairly equally divided between L1 and L2;
cheque stubs and keeping a diary were more at the L2 end.

2. Mental tasks

The 3 questions on mental tasks were concerned with the use of language for counting
things, adding up, and working out sums.
                              N       1-3       4       5-7
counting things        46       54%    26%   20%
adding up                45       54%    16%   30%
working out sums    56        61%     9%   30%

All three seemed more at the L1 end, and a comparatively small number answered both L1
and L2; i.e. mental tasks were more uniformly carried out in either L1 or L2 rather than in
both L1 and L2. Grosjean's 62% who counted chiefly in their L1 is mirrored by the 54% who
did so here.

3. Memory tasks

3 questions concerned the use of language for everyday memory tasks such as days of the
week, working out routes, remembering phone numbers, and remembering historical dates.

N 1-3  4 5-7
phone numbers  53  41%  15%  44%
working out routes  51 45%   33%  22%
days of the week  57  39%  26%  35%
historical dates 52  58%   24%  18%

With these memory tasks there is an evenness of language choice between L1 and L2 across
questions, about 75% usually being more towards one end than the other, memory for
historical dates being particularly at the L1 end.

4. Unconscious uses

Three questions concerned what can be called unconscious uses of language: dreaming,
singing to oneself, and talking aloud to oneself.

N  1-3  4 5-7
dreaming  54  54%  37%  9%
singing to oneself  45  40%  51%  9%
talking to oneself 48   46%  33%  21%

Results show a definite preference for the L1, and a lack of use of the L2; nevertheless
between 33% and 51% used both L1 and L2 for these. The figure of 54% for dreaming in the
L1 contrasts with Grosjean's figure of 64% using both languages, but the question may have
been put in a slightly different way.

5. Emotional effects

4 questions asked about the effects of emotions - happiness, pain or sadness, things going
wrong, and tiredness.

N  1-3  4  5-7
feeling pain or sad  55  55%  35%  10%
feeling tired  53  53%  32%  15%
things going wrong  51  27%  47%  26%
feeling happy  56  32%  55%  22%

Again a low set of scores for the L2 end, a variable set for L1 with pain and tiredness
invoking the L1 more than happiness or things going wrong. A staple of spy fiction is the
secret agent who is caught out when he swears in his first language when the interrogator
stubs a cigarette out on his hand; this would not apparently be an accurate way of detecting
spies in our sample.

6. Talking to non-communicators

Two questions asked about the use of L1 or L2 in circumstances where the listener would
not be able to understand either language, here small babies and animals.

N  1-3  4  5-7
talking to small babies  51  43%  31%  8%
talking to animals 58   38%  28%  34%

The answers divide fairly equally between L1 and L2 for this group, the only exception
being the low scores for talking to babies in the second language.

7. Praying

A question on its own asked about the use of L1 or L2 for praying by oneself (as opposed to
public rituals). A problem with this was the use of other languages than L1 or L2 for
religious purposes, e.g. the use of Arabic by Muslims regardless of L1.

 N     1-3      4        5-7

Praying          35      60%    20%     20%

Clearly a high proportion of those who pray do so through their first language.

8. Personal receptive uses

Moving away from the purely internal and non-communicative uses, four questions tested
personal receptive use - listening to the radio, reading for pleasure and for work\study, and
reading newspapers.

   N  1-3      4       5-7

listening to radio & TV    52     12%     46%     42%
reading for pleasure       52     35%    29%    36%
reading newspapers       48           12%      38%    50%
reading for work/study     50     18%   36%    46%

These results probably say more about the variation in the situations in which the L2 users
find themselves than about the users themselves. If there is no radio and newspaper in the L1
available, perforce the use has to come in the L2. Similarly the high use of the L2 for reading
for work or study may represent the background of the respondents, many of whom were
teachers or students.

9. Social uses

The final group of 8 questions looked at social uses of language, i.e. situations where there
was a person to communicate with: writing letters, talking at home, talking to friends,
shopping, working and studying, visiting the doctor or dentist, speaking on the phone, and
writing down phone messages. The purpose was to be able to contrast and compare the
internal uses with standard external uses.

N   1-3   4 5-7

phoning                54   26%    52%  22%
 writing letters         48   15% 65%  20%
phone messages    48    25%  25%  50%
talking to friends    54  17%  70%   13%
shopping              46  41%   26% 33%
medical treatment  53  34%    17%  49%
talking at home     56  43%  38%  19%
work\study            46 15%    35%   50%

The replies for these social uses showed a spread between L1 and L2, again presumably
largely dependent on the social situation of the respondents. Particularly low for L1 bias
were talking to friends and work\study; particularly low for L2 bias were talking at home and
talking to friends. Particularly high for L1 were talking at home and shopping; for L2
work\study, medical treatment, and phone messages; for both languages writing letters,
talking to friends, and phoning were particularly high. One point that teachers might note is
the extent to which the everyday social situations were still carried out through the L1.

COMPARISON OF GROUPS OF USES

A second way of looking at the scores is to combine the questions for each group of uses,
displayed in Table 1. As might be expected the average score tends to fall firmly in the
middle of the range between 1 and 7, the average for all nine uses being indeed 3.5.

ranked L1 both L1 L2
arith closest bias and L2 bias
ave to L1 1-3 4 5-7
1. self-organisation 3.9 7 31% 20% 49%
2. mental tasks 3.3 4= 55% 17% 28%
3. memory tasks 3.6 6 48% 23% 29%
4. unconscious uses 3.2 3 49% 38% 13%
5. emotional effects 3.3 4= 44% 39% 17%
6. noncommunicative uses 3.1 2 44% 45% 10%
7. praying 2.8 1 60% 20% 20%
8. receptive uses 4.6 9 20% 38% 42%
9. social uses 4.0 8 27% 41% 32%

Table 1 Combined scores for all groups

Ranked in order between L1 and L2, the two external uses overall are most towards the L2
end; praying and noncommunicative uses are most at the L1 end. But at best such figures
prevent gross generalisations such as claims that praying and dreaming are only done in the
L1.

The groups of uses can also be looked at as showing an L1 bias or an L2 bias or being evenly
balanced, using the same method as above. Table 1 shows that over 50% of the answers had
an L1 advantage for mental tasks and for praying, over 40% show an L1 advantage for
unconscious uses, memory, emotional effects and noncommunicative uses. On the other
hand over 40% of answers have an L2 advantage for receptive and self-organisational. And
over 40% gave both L1 and L2 (i.e. 4) for noncommunicative and social. Thus in terms of
individual answers the preferences are more marked than the arithmetical average suggests; a
high proportion of L2 users prefer L1 for mental uses and praying; L2 for unconscious uses,
memory tasks, and noncommunicative uses; and are equally torn between L1 and L2 for
receptive and social uses.
Let us now look at the differences between the groups of Subjects. These are displayed in
table 2. In terms of the relative position of the three groups on a dimension between L1 and
L2, the Africans come at the L2 end on 6 uses, at the L1 end on 1 (noncommunicative);
Finns come at the L2 end on none and the L1 end on 8; the Mixed group at the L2 end on 3
and the L1 on none. Thus there are some differences between the groups, the Africans
tending to L2, the Finns to L1. For self-organisation for example, only 7% of African
responses were L1 biassed (1-3); only 3.7% of Finns were L2 biassed (5-7).

arith
average Africans Finns Mixed
1. self-organisation 3.9 5.6 2.2 3.9
2. mental tasks 3.3 4.6 2.0 2.8
3. memory tasks 3.6 4.8 1.9 3.5
4. unconscious uses 3.2 3.2 2.8 3.4
5. emotional effects 3.3 3.2 2.5 4.0
6. noncommunicative uses 3.1 2.4 2.6 4.0
7. praying 2.8 3.1 1.5 3.1
8. receptive uses 4.6 5.1 3.8 4.2
9. social uses 4.0 4.6 2.6 4.4

Table 2 Differences between groups

Discussion

The results are interesting in two ways. One is that they show a continuum between public
and private use. The same person who is using the L2 in public is likely to be using the L2 in
private in their heads. A question that follows from this is the extent to which proficiency in
the language correlates with either or both of these; do we, as might be expected, learn
public L2 uses before private uses, or are the two inseparable throughout? Since the subjects
involved here had a narrow range of reported proficiency in the L2, further research is
needed into the development of internal uses.

Beyond this lies the question of efficiency. Given that there are both internal and external
uses of language, is it more efficient if people use their L1 or L2 for internal purposes?
Research reviewed in Cook (1997) across a variety of cognitive processing tasks shows that
L2 users have some deficit in their capacity to process information in the L2; for instance
they are less able to do mental arithmetic (Marsh & Maki, 1978) or to judge relative
numerosity (Dornic, 1977). Given an educational system where the child has to use language
for internal processing in many kinds of classroom task, it is a delicate question whether the
teachers should endeavour to maintain the internal use of the L1, which may have certain
disadvantages. It should be clear however what this argument is not saying. Much recent
research with bilingual children has attempted to show the relationship of bilingualism with
cognitive development, typically arguing that the bilingual scores over the monolingual in
the development of metalinguistic skills (Bialystok, 1987); often this leads to a threshold
hypothesis claiming that bilingualism is good for you provided you have enough of it
(Cummins, 1983; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). But these levels of metacognition or of cognitive
development in a Piagetan sense have little or nothing to do with the processes seen in
language use, internal or external. It is the working memory used in speech processing or in
mental arithmetic that affects efficiency of processing, not the level of cognitive operation.
To say there is a cognitive deficit in processing information is not to say that the levels of
conceptual development attained by second language learners are in any way inferior to
those of monolinguals.

Having refrained from using the word "bilingual" for most of this paper, what does the
argument imply for the concept of bilingualism? Let us take the three forms of definition of
 bilingualism analysed in Skutnabb-Kangas (1981); definitions by competence ('native
competence in more than one language', Haugen, 1969); definitions by function ('the
alternate use of two or more languages by the same individual', Mackey, 1970); and
definitions by attitude ('The speaker ... must be accepted as a native speaker', Malmberg,
1977). As normally interpreted, these all apply to external use of language - competence to
communicate to others, use of more than one language as seen by others, ability to use the
language as seen by others: use of a second language for internal uses is not considered
bilingualism. Skutnabb-Kangas (1981) develops a thoughtful extended definition:

'A bilingual speaker is someone who is able to function in two (or more) languages, either in monolingual or
bilingual communities, in accordance with the sociocultural demands made of an individual's
communicative and cognitive competence by these communities or by the individual herself, at the same
level as native speakers, and who is able positively to identify with both (or all) language groups (and
cultures), or parts of them.' (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981, p.90)

Again the definition concentrates explicitly on the external uses of language rather than on
the internal uses, on the use of language in the community rather than in the mind. Useful as
such definitions may be, they need rephrasing to take account of the ability of some
individuals to use a second language for such everyday human activities as making
shopping-lists, talking to pets, and adding up numbers. Definition by function as in Mackey
(1970) or based on contemporary usage,as in the COBUILD dictionary 'involving or using
two languages', is only adequate if such use covers internal as well as external function.

REFERENCES

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Cleveland
Appendix 1 THE QUESTIONS
1. Self-Organisational
Do you write a shopping list in L1 or L2?
If you write on your cheque stubs, do you use L1 or L2?
When you put appointments in your diary, do you use L1 or L2?
Do you keep a diary of what you have done in L1 or L2?
2. Mental tasks
When you count things, do you use your L1 or your L2?
When you add up columns of numbers, do you use L1 or L2?
Do you work out sums in L1 or L2?
3. Memory tasks
Do you think about days of the week in L1 or L2?
If you work out a route to go somewhere do you use L1 or L2?
When you try to remember a phone number, do you use L1 or L2?
If you try to remember a historical date do you use L1 or L2?
4. Unconscious uses
Do you usually dream in L1 or L2?
Do you sing to yourself in L1 or L2?
If you talk aloud to yourself, is it in L1 or L2?
5. Emotional effects
When you are feeling happy, do you find you use L1 or L2?
When you are in pain or feeling ill, do you use L1 or L2?
When something goes wrong, do you swear or exclaim in L1 or L2?
When you are feeling tired, do you find you use L1 or L2?
6. Noncommunicative uses
Do you talk to small babies in L1 or L2?
When you talk to animals, do you use L1 or L2?
7. Praying
Do you pray by yourself in L1 or L2?
8. Personal Receptive
Do you listen to the radio or watch TV in L1 or L2?
Do you read books for pleasure in the L1 or the L2?
Do you read books for work or study in L1 or L2?
Do you read newspapers in L1 or L2?
9. Social
Do you write letters to people in L1 or L2?
Do you talk at home in your flat/house in L1 or L2?
Do you talk to friends in L1 or L2?
Do you use L1 or L2 when you go shopping?
Do you work or study in L1 or L2?
Do you use L1 or L2 when you visit the doctor/dentist?
When you speak on the phone, do you use your L1 or L2?
If you write down phone messages, do you use L1 or L2?