UNIT 4

1. BILINGUALISM: INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, the number of speakers knowing or making use of more than one language
as a common means of communication easily surpasses the number of monolingual
speakers. Bilingualism is present in every country of the world. Speakers may have
acquired the second language by constant exposure to the language & the shift from one
code to the other is often made unconsciously.
It is not easy to define the term bilingualism due to degrees of overall proficiency &
sociolinguistic factors that determine the use & knowledge of one language or the other.
Features of bilingualism:
 Means of acquisition: whether it as acquired as mother tongue, second language or
foreign language. Affect to the degree of attainment & overall proficiency.
 Skills in each language: may vary as it is possible to have different commands of
various skills (reading, writing, speaking & listening). The degree of development in such
skills will be determined by the means of acquisition.
 Functions that bilinguals prefer to perform in one language rather than in the other.
This may be because they have not developed a specific skill in that language sufficiently or
it seems more natural for them to do it in a certain language.
 Domain: it influences language choice in bilingual speakers because the acquisition
was domain dependent or one language is preferred in some contexts & subjected to the
effect of 3 main factors (location, role relationship among the interlocutors, topics involved
in conversation)

2. BILINGUALISM: DEFINITION & DIMENSIONS

The study & depiction of bilingualism can give prominence to the social side of this
phenomenon (various languages in contact) or it can pay closer attention to the
individual & psycholinguistic side of the issue.
Social bilingualism: area of research dedicated to the study of its social dimension
as characteristic of bilingual & multilingual societies where more than one language is
spoken by a speech community or social group. It does not mean that all speakers have a
command over both languages, the term just implies that at least some members of the
speech community are capable of using the other language.
Individual bilingualism (bilinguality): One single person has some knowledge of two
or more languages. This entails a psycholinguistic process.
A large amount of research on individual bilingualism has tried to distinguish different
sorts of bilingualism. Classification introduced by Weinreich differentiates between:
 Coordinate bilingualism: assumes that languages are learned in different
conditions & separate contexts which would imply that the languages are kept apart in
the mind.
 Compound bilingualism: arises when acquisition takes place in a situation in which
both languages are learned in the same context, & both meanings show a fused
representation or meaning in the brain.
 Sub-coordinate bilingualism: from the learning of one language first & the
learning of the other later on.
This categorization was neither abandoned nor developed more fully due to the
complexity of the neurolinguistic processes & the few advances attained to the field.
However, it turns out to be too simplistic as it centers mainly in isolated words & the
relationship between language & meaning is much more complicated than that.
The study of bilingualism also distinguishes between:
 Balanced bilingualism: equivalent competence in both languages. It entails a
high communicative competence in both languages but not necessarily monolingual
competence in both languages. It should be understood in relative terms as bilingual
speakers hardly ever show equal speaking & writing abilities in their languages & rarely
equally fluent about all topics in all contexts.
  Dominant bilingualism: competence in the mother tongue surpasses his
competence in the other language. This bilingualism is the norm as it is rather difficult
for a bilingual speaker to reach even competence in 2 codes.
Another dimension to distinguish various types of bilingualism is related to the age of
acquisition. Distintion betw:
 Childhood bilingualism: it takes place at the same time as the child’s cognitive
development. Classified in:
 Simultaneous infant bilingualism: the second language is acquired early in infancy
but after some development of the mother tongue.
 Consecutive childhood bilingualism: a basic linguistic ability in the mother tongue
is acquired in early infancy & a second language is acquired right after.
 Adolescent/adult bilingualism: the cognitive representation of the word has already
been completed & there is mainly a process of re-labeling previous concepts
Depending on the social consideration that the languages have in society, a child can
develop both languages equally or one more than the other:
 Additive bilingualism: both languages are socially valued. The child makes use of
both languages & takes advantage of this situation to gain cognitive flexibility. The
acquisition of the second language does nothave adverse effects on the language(s) already
known.
 Subtractive bilingualism: the mother tongue is detracted & the child's cognitive
development may be hindered because the development of the second language interfers
with the development of the first language.
Hammers & Blanc distinguish bilinguals according to their cultural identity:
 Bicultural: an adolescent or adult bilingual may identify himself with the cultures
associated to each language. This situation may cause balanced bilingualism. But high
proficiency in 2 languages does not necessarily involve a bicultural individual, who can also
be monocultural.
 Monocultural: someone who only identifies with one group.
 Acculturated: Bilingual development in a speech community can also persuade a
person to give up or deny the culture of his mother-tongue group.
Bilinguals own one or two lexicons? The one-lexicon advocates consider that
semantic information is stored in a single semantic system where words in both languages
coexist but are labeled as belonging to one or the other language. The other group proposes
that bilingual mental lexicon is divided into two sets, one for each language. Interrelation
between the two is only possible through translation. A more recent image considers that
bilingual speakers possess three stores: a) a conceptual one for their knowledge of the
world; b) a language store for language A; c) a language store for language B.

3. CODE CHOICE
The term “code” is very useful to refer to any system that two or more people use for
communication. In the case of bilingual or bidialectal speakers, it would be interesting to
know the factors that rule code choice on every single situation & why certain speakers
sometimes shift from one code to another. When a speaker engages in a communicative
situation, s/he has already decided the code s/he is going to use. A speaker may
deliberately choose to use a specific language in some situations to express solidarity with
his interlocutor.
Language choice can also be considered a way to assert some kind of right or even
to resist some kind of power in places where two or more languages coexist & have
equal sociopolitical status. In this case, language can be considered a way of “political or
rights expression”.
The fact of being proficient in more than one language allows for the possibility of
switching codes at some points. Wardhaugh distinguishes 2 types of code-switching:
 Situational: language change depending on contextual factors which have nothing
to do with the topic but with the given situation.
 Metaphorical: it points to the topic & the contents of the communicative process
as the main reason for language choice.
 3.1 CODE-SWITCHING According to Romaine, we can distinguish 3 types of code-
switching:
 Tag-switching: use of exclamations or tags from one language into an utterance
in the other language. It might occur because the speaker lacks the necessary vocabulary
of the other language or because it comes more easily & spontaneously since tags are
subjected to few syntactic restrictions & can be inserted without interfering with the
syntactic organization of the utterance.
 Intersentential switch: found between sentences & often arises in sentences
boundaries, marked with a short pause & between speaker turns.
 Intrasentential switch: both codes are mixed within a sentence. It contains the
highest syntactic risk → referred as code mixing.
3.2 CODE MIXING It occurs when the interlocutors change from one language to
another one in the course of a single conversation. It can be switching back & forth
within the clause. The speakers do not need to be aware of it & the breaks between codes
are somewhat blurred as they can occur within clauses. Code mixing highlights
hybridization. It typically presumes a mastery of the codes being mixed & is very typical of
bilinguals. Code-mixing is also relatively common in the speech of immigrants, the reason
of this may lie in the fact that they are referring to some object or concept npt known to
them before coming into the new culture. This process occasionally results in lexical
borrowing.

4. CODE SWITCHING IN BILINGUAL CHILDREN

In the case of bilingual/multilingual speakers, code choice is not always at will.
When two languages are at the disposal of the bilingual speakers, there are unintentional
interferences between the two codes (Children receiving a bilingual education are good
examples).
Code-switching & the use of more than one language is the normal of expressing
oneself in a bilingual context & it is as natural as any other spontaneous speech coming
from monolingual speakers.

5. DIGLOSSIA
It entails the co-existence of two or more codes, which are used in the same setting
under different circumstances. One of them is considered more prestigious &
cultivated, which leads to the differentiation between High variety (H) vs Low variety (L)
The specialization of functions for H & L varieties determines the appropriateness of
either variety for a set of situations with few occasions for overlapping. This entails the use
of one language to express a set of behaviors, attitudes & values, & another language to
put into words a contrasting set of behaviors, attitudes & values.
In most instances of languages in diglossic situation, speakers regard the H variety as
being more prestigious, appealing & appropriate than the L variety. The literary
tradition probably makes use of H. Nevertheless, more recently the L varieties have been
employed in Poetry or other literary works.
Children more commonly learn the L variety as their first language at home, &
later, at school, they have access to the H variety. This situation gives the L variety a
status of mother tongue & H variety is learnt formally at school. The differences between H
& L are notorious in terms of grammatical structure. The lexicon is shared to a large
extend. In phonology, the degree of closeness between H & L depends on the languages
involved.

6. DIGLOSSIA & BILINGUALISM

Diglossia does not only exist in multilingual societies but also in the so called
“monolingual societies” where various dialects, registers or styles are employed. The
distinction between diglossia & bilingualism is not simple. There are numerous social,
personal & situational factors that bear upon language use & language choice.
Relationship between these two terms (Fishman):
 DIGLOSSIA
+ -
+
BOTH DIGLOSSIA & BILINGUALISM BILINGUALISM without diglossia
+
BILINGUALISM
-
DIGLOSSIA without bilingualism Neither diglossia nor bilingualism
-

1. Both codes are used alternatively from school age & used for different functions
in different contexts.
2. Transitory situations. Rapid social changes affect a speech community. The
languages involved lack well defined separated functions. It probably describes an
individual behavior rather than a social one. This situation takes place in the course of
industralization/urbanization of some societies where one speech community provides the
means & a different speech community provides the manpower for production.
3. Societies where two or more languages share a geographic area but they are not
inexorably used by the speakers living in the area. There are at least two speech
communities that do not share a contact language & communication is attained by means
of interpreters. These societies tend to be formed by two or more speech communities that
are united for functional purposes because of religious/political/economic reasons but
social/cultural dissimilarities separate them.
4. Case of speech communities where no differentiation in registers or varieties is
found. Rather improbable given the social dimension of language. Only very small & set
apart societies could show neither bilingualism nor diglossia.

7. MULTILINGUALISM
It refers to the co-existence of more than two languages or distant dialects within a
speech community. A monolingual community is rare these days as most countries are
multilingual. Language has proven to be the most important factor that determines other
aspects of political & social organization in the world. Nowadays there are 200 countries &
around 5,000 languages. This can provide us with an idea of the complexity of the issue.
Migration is one of the factors that characterizes the current language situation
in many parts of the world → Creation of many pidgins & creoles.
Voluntary migration has also determined the linguistic shape of modern countries
like the USA. Most immigrants acquired English & abandoned their languages but kept
their social identities. This monolingual trend changed with the disruption of South
American & Asian immigrants, giving way to the development of new ethnic identities.

8. LANGUAGE CONTACT
In places where two or more languages share a common geographic context or
where one language stops being used by speakers & a different language is used, a
situation of language in contact is found. In areas close to international borders, the
speakers of each of the different languages develop a continuum, they speak, dialects of
their own languages which are close enough to permit successful communication. From a
diachronic perspective, a contact situation may result in the loss of one of the
languages if they are in a power relationship or in the merging of both if both
languages have the same status. Language contact is the main source of language
evolution & language change over time.
Language contact can cause political conflict. Language conflicts can be viewed as:
 Natural language conflicts: caused by political decisions regarding majority or
minority social groups. Assimilation or opposition represents the key factor in language
conflict (Basque Country), Another aspect that intensifies these problems can be religious
(Belfast & Connemara)
 Artificial language conflicts: arise when a compromise is attained & a language
is disfavored (EU).