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Jan 19, 2015 | #1
Bilingualism Paper
Introduction
One of the earliest definitions of bilingualism consisted of using the term to define the native-like use of two languages by the same individual, but later academic scholars have broadened the scope of this definition to include other aspects in order to account for the influx of immigration into various areas around the globe and the need for these immigrants to speak two languages without an expert amount of fluency. These scholars used the term 'incipient bilingualism' to describe a person who is at the beginning stages of acquiring a new language and only has a small amount of fluency in both languages. They used the term 'balanced bilingualism' to describe individuals who have an equal amount of competence in two languages, both the new language and their native tongue (Bilingualism and translanguaging). A good majority of second and third generation Americans who have different cultural backgrounds and had parents or grandparents who were immigrants from Mexico or other such countries actually can be classified as being balanced bilinguals because they are proficient in both languages and can use these in any kind of setting when the need arises. This paper intends to explore the benefits of bilingualism, the challenges of bilingualism, and also attempts to analyze research and theories pertaining to bilingualism.
There can be many benefits of having fluency in more than one language, especially if an individual finds himself outside of his normal environment and culture. Presently, in the United States, there is a large Hispanic population as well as a rising population of Chinese and other cultural groups who do not predominantly speak English as a first language. If an individual has the ability to communicate in the language of one of those cultural groups while in the presence of the groups, it makes bridging the cultural gap much easier for each individual concerned (Byram).
There is the ability to perform routine transactions at the supermarket and have daily conversations in public and private settings. There is the ability to communicate information needed that could be of importance, such as asking for directions or requesting the phone number for the nearest physician or hospital. Any individual with the ability to speak fluently in another language automatically has an advantage if ever put into that cultural environment because he is able to survive much easier simply because the communication barrier has been lowered and there is less chance of an issue arising due to problems with different meanings of phrases or different connotations of words being used to describe certain objects or people.
It has been widely reported that the majority of individuals who speak two languages with fluency have the ability to do this because it has become somewhat of a second nature to them as a result of the need to learn the second language due to family needs, employment changes, or educational demands. However, as a whole, the population has been hesitant to embrace bilingualism in the past. Much of this is simply due to fear.
The first type of fear described by the population concerns that of societal pressure. The second is fear felt strictly by the individual, but the two fears are often linked together. There is an apprehension felt by many parents who come from a unilingual background and are put into an environment where there is somewhat of a need to be bilingual. These parents feel pressure to know the language, understand the language, and ensure their children understand and can communicate effectively also. Alternately, the bilingual individuals feel isolated when they are the minority in a population of unilingual individuals because they do not wish to bring attention to themselves or their children because of the fact they know more than one language (Beardsmore). There is also a fear by some parents that the capability to speak multiple languages will cause a problem with the development of the mainly accepted language of that particular time in society. This basically consists of a fear that, if a child understands both English and French and lives in a predominantly French speaking area, the child would be linguistically lacking in his developmental ability to properly speak grammatically correct French at an upper educational level although he may be capable of carrying on a conversation with anyone in the area in the correct dialect (Beardsmore). With that being said, research has indicated that it may be truthful in the assumption that it takes a bit longer for a child who can speak multiple languages to achieve an equal level of skilled competence with both when compared to peers who can only speak one language. It is possible, though.
Another common fear that ties into the issue of bilingualism is the fear of losing one's traditional ethnicity through the course of the years. If a bilingual child is a true bilingual in the aspect that each parent has a different-type language background (i.e. one parent is Mexican and the other is Chinese), the parents may fear the children will choose to abandon one set of ethnic values for the most popular or accepted values dependent on the societal environment in which they presently live. This will cause them to lose a part of themselves over the course of several years. While this is true in a sense, we are all evolving in some way and adapt other cultural practices to some extent throughout our lifetimes. Many times we do not even realize this happens until it is called to our attention (Beardsmore).
Beardsmore believes if a bilingual individual's two ethnic cultures are mutually exclusive, it is almost impossible to join them in harmony. It is also quite difficult to determine if the stress factor of a child recently who recently emigrated from a foreign country is due to the results of immigration from the old land or the attempt at immersion into the new land. It is the strong belief of Beardsmore that, for a successful immigration and immersion process to happen, no matter the country, an individual must choose which ethnic group he or she will most identify with and adopt that set of values, beliefs, and cultures. This will make the process more 'doable' and decrease the amount of time it takes for the child to perform successfully in school.
One theory, the theory of social identity, makes the suggestion that individuals relate to others in two different ways. Those are the interpersonal and intergroup behaviors. An intergroup behavior would be shown if elements in an individual's environment presented themselves to where they were noticeable enough that it caused a specific definition of characteristics by those who were in charge of the group (Byram). Whatever elements the leaders of the group have will reflect on every person in the group and, thus, the intergroup behavior would be subject to noticeability. This is often evident in groups of bilingual speaking individuals.
Conversely, the relation on interpersonal behavior would be the behavior a person innately holds even when he or she is not part of a group or may hold if he or she is part of a different group but finds him or herself in the presence of a different kind of group. During this particular social identity display, the person normally chooses to hide or camouflage the interpersonal behavior known by them and react as he would if he was actually a part of the group in which he was placed at that moment of time (Byram).
Experts have theorized that the acquisition of a new language is innately determined by an individual's biology and the critical time for this acquisition to be implemented is from approximately age 2 through the beginning of puberty. If an individual learns a second language before puberty, he normally has very little accent compared to an adult's acquisition to learning a second language after puberty has been achieved. Upon completion of two studies, it was found that the participants' pronunciation skills after three years of learning a second language were better in those students who were much younger than in the older students and the accents were thicker in the older students (Collier).
There is a significant difference between the term 'balanced bilingual' and 'dominant bilingual'. A balanced bilingual has an equal level of competence and knowledge in both his mother tongue and the second language he has acquired at some point in the course of his life. A dominant bilingual is a person who has a very high level knowledge of the complex aspects of both the mother tongue and the second language he has acquired at some point in the course of his life. It is important to understand that the ability to use both languages effectively and equally is not going to be equal for every person; however, it will be dependent upon the cognitive abilities of an individual's learning capabilities as to how much material he has the capability to successfully master at a complex level (Dimensions and measurement of bilinguality and bilingualism).
The largest difference between early and late bilingualism in the manner in which they are acquired has to do with the age of acquisition. The native language learned by an individual, acquired as a child, will be different from every other language learned because the child will acquire this first language in more of a social context and there will be no other means to compare it with another language. This applies to any sounds, phonetics, enunciations, and other processes by which the child learns to speak. The second and other subsequent languages that are learned will be compared to this first language as far as differences in the words and how they sound as far as language patterns and other aspects (The study of bilingual children).
An individual with a superior knowledge of bilingualism will most likely have an overlap of two or even more languages to a certain degree. It is normal for children to acquire this level of bilingualism quicker than adults due to the fact many of these children are overlapping the languages because they are simultaneously learning two languages in the home or learning one language in the home at the same time as learning the other language in a day care setting or other educational setting whereas adults will have proficiently learned one language at a superior level and attempt to begin the acquisition of a second language after that. The children learning two or more languages at the same time or at a quicker pace have been determined to have a better level of phonetic and auditory abilities than adults who have attempted the acquisition of a second language (The study of bilingual children).
When a second language is concerned, the conversational level of fluency is normally acquired by two years of an individual's beginning the acquisition process. However, it normally takes at least five years in order to communicate at the level of a native speaker or on a superior academic level. It is important to understand bilingual students and support them, especially during the beginning of their academic acquisition process, in order to ensure their transition into mainstream society so they will communicate effectively (Cummins).
In studies conducted to determine how easily language acquisition is for children, it was found that children aged 7 to 9 normally performed the best of all age groups when taught a second language over the course of nine months. This is most likely evident due to the fact that younger children have not quite mastered all of the skills necessary to be superior in their enunciation and oral fluency of their native language, thus causing the acquisition of a second language to prove a bit more challenging than a group of 7 to 9 year olds who have mastered these skills already (Collier).
A study was performed on English language learners attending U.S. public schools and consisted of development workshops and teacher study groups as well as action research projects, coursework that was ESL approved, and an online discussion. The participants took part in all of the projects and then met for a focus group to share their experiences. There were four themes found to be present in the analysis of the data: a view of teaching as a nonlocal activity, the view of teaching as a neutral act, conflicting attitudes about bilingual and ESOL education, and surface level knowledge of various cultural issues.
It was found through this study that multilingual education is the best way to help future generations of students prepare for the various societies and environmental conditions in which they will ultimately take part (Hornberger). When speaking of multilingual education, it is important to understand this education is about much more than one method of teaching and one method of learning. It is about understanding and recognizing various cultural views across the globe and helping students understand how education can be used to bridge the gaps that may linger between societies.
It is important to note that for minority individuals, bilingualism acquisition through education is of utmost priority. It is necessary in most cases when these individuals immigrate to a new country and begin working and immersing themselves into the mainstream society. They must acquire some conversational level of bilingualism if they are to carry on intelligent conversations, perform currency transfers, perform daily tasks, and a plethora of other routine duties that we commonly take for granted (Linguistic human rights in education?).
Conclusion
It is important that the educational system recognize the importance of incorporating bilingualism in schools so that more intercultural exchanges are available and there is opportunity for growth inside and outside of the school system. It is also important to not forget about the native speakers of the majority population and remember they need to learn the language that is becoming more accepted during the present day as well. In the United States, the Hispanic population has been growing at an exponential rate. There are masses of individuals who speak little to no Spanish and they must be introduced to this language if there is any hope at a level of communication to help bridge a cultural gap between the Hispanics living in American (who are second and third generation Hispanics, thus are American citizens) and native born Caucasian or African American citizens who have lived in the United States for centuries. While older individuals may resist this change, younger individuals understand to a greater extent the significance of having the ability to communicate with the different groups and how important this factor is for every day operations.
References
Beardsmore, H. B. (n.d.). Who's afraid of bilingualism. In Bilingualism: Beyond Basic Principles (pp. 10-27).
(n.d.). Bilingualism and translanguaging. In Bilingualism and Education (pp. 42-72).
Byram, M. (n.d.). On being 'bicultural' and 'intercultural'. In Intercultural Experience and Education (pp. 50-66).
Collier, V. The effect of age for acquisition of a second language for school. New Focus, 2.
Cummins, J. (n.d.). BICS and CALP: Origins and rationale for the distinction.
Dantas-Whitney, M., & Waldschmidt, E. Moving toward critical culture consciousness in ESOL and bilingual teacher education. Bilingual Research Journal, 32(1), 60-76.
(n.d.). Dimensions and measurement of bilinguality and bilingualism.
Hornberger, N. Multilingual education policy and practice: Ten certainties (grounded in Indigenous experience). Language Teaching, 42(2), 197-211.
(n.d.). Linguistic human rights in education? In Multilingual Education (pp. 567-608).
(n.d.). The study of bilingual children.
Introduction
One of the earliest definitions of bilingualism consisted of using the term to define the native-like use of two languages by the same individual, but later academic scholars have broadened the scope of this definition to include other aspects in order to account for the influx of immigration into various areas around the globe and the need for these immigrants to speak two languages without an expert amount of fluency. These scholars used the term 'incipient bilingualism' to describe a person who is at the beginning stages of acquiring a new language and only has a small amount of fluency in both languages. They used the term 'balanced bilingualism' to describe individuals who have an equal amount of competence in two languages, both the new language and their native tongue (Bilingualism and translanguaging). A good majority of second and third generation Americans who have different cultural backgrounds and had parents or grandparents who were immigrants from Mexico or other such countries actually can be classified as being balanced bilinguals because they are proficient in both languages and can use these in any kind of setting when the need arises. This paper intends to explore the benefits of bilingualism, the challenges of bilingualism, and also attempts to analyze research and theories pertaining to bilingualism.
Benefits of Bilingualism
There can be many benefits of having fluency in more than one language, especially if an individual finds himself outside of his normal environment and culture. Presently, in the United States, there is a large Hispanic population as well as a rising population of Chinese and other cultural groups who do not predominantly speak English as a first language. If an individual has the ability to communicate in the language of one of those cultural groups while in the presence of the groups, it makes bridging the cultural gap much easier for each individual concerned (Byram).There is the ability to perform routine transactions at the supermarket and have daily conversations in public and private settings. There is the ability to communicate information needed that could be of importance, such as asking for directions or requesting the phone number for the nearest physician or hospital. Any individual with the ability to speak fluently in another language automatically has an advantage if ever put into that cultural environment because he is able to survive much easier simply because the communication barrier has been lowered and there is less chance of an issue arising due to problems with different meanings of phrases or different connotations of words being used to describe certain objects or people.
Challenges of Bilingualism
It has been widely reported that the majority of individuals who speak two languages with fluency have the ability to do this because it has become somewhat of a second nature to them as a result of the need to learn the second language due to family needs, employment changes, or educational demands. However, as a whole, the population has been hesitant to embrace bilingualism in the past. Much of this is simply due to fear.
The first type of fear described by the population concerns that of societal pressure. The second is fear felt strictly by the individual, but the two fears are often linked together. There is an apprehension felt by many parents who come from a unilingual background and are put into an environment where there is somewhat of a need to be bilingual. These parents feel pressure to know the language, understand the language, and ensure their children understand and can communicate effectively also. Alternately, the bilingual individuals feel isolated when they are the minority in a population of unilingual individuals because they do not wish to bring attention to themselves or their children because of the fact they know more than one language (Beardsmore). There is also a fear by some parents that the capability to speak multiple languages will cause a problem with the development of the mainly accepted language of that particular time in society. This basically consists of a fear that, if a child understands both English and French and lives in a predominantly French speaking area, the child would be linguistically lacking in his developmental ability to properly speak grammatically correct French at an upper educational level although he may be capable of carrying on a conversation with anyone in the area in the correct dialect (Beardsmore). With that being said, research has indicated that it may be truthful in the assumption that it takes a bit longer for a child who can speak multiple languages to achieve an equal level of skilled competence with both when compared to peers who can only speak one language. It is possible, though.
Another common fear that ties into the issue of bilingualism is the fear of losing one's traditional ethnicity through the course of the years. If a bilingual child is a true bilingual in the aspect that each parent has a different-type language background (i.e. one parent is Mexican and the other is Chinese), the parents may fear the children will choose to abandon one set of ethnic values for the most popular or accepted values dependent on the societal environment in which they presently live. This will cause them to lose a part of themselves over the course of several years. While this is true in a sense, we are all evolving in some way and adapt other cultural practices to some extent throughout our lifetimes. Many times we do not even realize this happens until it is called to our attention (Beardsmore).
Beardsmore believes if a bilingual individual's two ethnic cultures are mutually exclusive, it is almost impossible to join them in harmony. It is also quite difficult to determine if the stress factor of a child recently who recently emigrated from a foreign country is due to the results of immigration from the old land or the attempt at immersion into the new land. It is the strong belief of Beardsmore that, for a successful immigration and immersion process to happen, no matter the country, an individual must choose which ethnic group he or she will most identify with and adopt that set of values, beliefs, and cultures. This will make the process more 'doable' and decrease the amount of time it takes for the child to perform successfully in school.
Discussion and Analysis of Linguistic Research and Theories
One theory, the theory of social identity, makes the suggestion that individuals relate to others in two different ways. Those are the interpersonal and intergroup behaviors. An intergroup behavior would be shown if elements in an individual's environment presented themselves to where they were noticeable enough that it caused a specific definition of characteristics by those who were in charge of the group (Byram). Whatever elements the leaders of the group have will reflect on every person in the group and, thus, the intergroup behavior would be subject to noticeability. This is often evident in groups of bilingual speaking individuals.
Conversely, the relation on interpersonal behavior would be the behavior a person innately holds even when he or she is not part of a group or may hold if he or she is part of a different group but finds him or herself in the presence of a different kind of group. During this particular social identity display, the person normally chooses to hide or camouflage the interpersonal behavior known by them and react as he would if he was actually a part of the group in which he was placed at that moment of time (Byram).
Experts have theorized that the acquisition of a new language is innately determined by an individual's biology and the critical time for this acquisition to be implemented is from approximately age 2 through the beginning of puberty. If an individual learns a second language before puberty, he normally has very little accent compared to an adult's acquisition to learning a second language after puberty has been achieved. Upon completion of two studies, it was found that the participants' pronunciation skills after three years of learning a second language were better in those students who were much younger than in the older students and the accents were thicker in the older students (Collier).
There is a significant difference between the term 'balanced bilingual' and 'dominant bilingual'. A balanced bilingual has an equal level of competence and knowledge in both his mother tongue and the second language he has acquired at some point in the course of his life. A dominant bilingual is a person who has a very high level knowledge of the complex aspects of both the mother tongue and the second language he has acquired at some point in the course of his life. It is important to understand that the ability to use both languages effectively and equally is not going to be equal for every person; however, it will be dependent upon the cognitive abilities of an individual's learning capabilities as to how much material he has the capability to successfully master at a complex level (Dimensions and measurement of bilinguality and bilingualism).
The largest difference between early and late bilingualism in the manner in which they are acquired has to do with the age of acquisition. The native language learned by an individual, acquired as a child, will be different from every other language learned because the child will acquire this first language in more of a social context and there will be no other means to compare it with another language. This applies to any sounds, phonetics, enunciations, and other processes by which the child learns to speak. The second and other subsequent languages that are learned will be compared to this first language as far as differences in the words and how they sound as far as language patterns and other aspects (The study of bilingual children).
An individual with a superior knowledge of bilingualism will most likely have an overlap of two or even more languages to a certain degree. It is normal for children to acquire this level of bilingualism quicker than adults due to the fact many of these children are overlapping the languages because they are simultaneously learning two languages in the home or learning one language in the home at the same time as learning the other language in a day care setting or other educational setting whereas adults will have proficiently learned one language at a superior level and attempt to begin the acquisition of a second language after that. The children learning two or more languages at the same time or at a quicker pace have been determined to have a better level of phonetic and auditory abilities than adults who have attempted the acquisition of a second language (The study of bilingual children).
When a second language is concerned, the conversational level of fluency is normally acquired by two years of an individual's beginning the acquisition process. However, it normally takes at least five years in order to communicate at the level of a native speaker or on a superior academic level. It is important to understand bilingual students and support them, especially during the beginning of their academic acquisition process, in order to ensure their transition into mainstream society so they will communicate effectively (Cummins).
In studies conducted to determine how easily language acquisition is for children, it was found that children aged 7 to 9 normally performed the best of all age groups when taught a second language over the course of nine months. This is most likely evident due to the fact that younger children have not quite mastered all of the skills necessary to be superior in their enunciation and oral fluency of their native language, thus causing the acquisition of a second language to prove a bit more challenging than a group of 7 to 9 year olds who have mastered these skills already (Collier).
A study was performed on English language learners attending U.S. public schools and consisted of development workshops and teacher study groups as well as action research projects, coursework that was ESL approved, and an online discussion. The participants took part in all of the projects and then met for a focus group to share their experiences. There were four themes found to be present in the analysis of the data: a view of teaching as a nonlocal activity, the view of teaching as a neutral act, conflicting attitudes about bilingual and ESOL education, and surface level knowledge of various cultural issues.
It was found through this study that multilingual education is the best way to help future generations of students prepare for the various societies and environmental conditions in which they will ultimately take part (Hornberger). When speaking of multilingual education, it is important to understand this education is about much more than one method of teaching and one method of learning. It is about understanding and recognizing various cultural views across the globe and helping students understand how education can be used to bridge the gaps that may linger between societies.
It is important to note that for minority individuals, bilingualism acquisition through education is of utmost priority. It is necessary in most cases when these individuals immigrate to a new country and begin working and immersing themselves into the mainstream society. They must acquire some conversational level of bilingualism if they are to carry on intelligent conversations, perform currency transfers, perform daily tasks, and a plethora of other routine duties that we commonly take for granted (Linguistic human rights in education?).
Conclusion
It is important that the educational system recognize the importance of incorporating bilingualism in schools so that more intercultural exchanges are available and there is opportunity for growth inside and outside of the school system. It is also important to not forget about the native speakers of the majority population and remember they need to learn the language that is becoming more accepted during the present day as well. In the United States, the Hispanic population has been growing at an exponential rate. There are masses of individuals who speak little to no Spanish and they must be introduced to this language if there is any hope at a level of communication to help bridge a cultural gap between the Hispanics living in American (who are second and third generation Hispanics, thus are American citizens) and native born Caucasian or African American citizens who have lived in the United States for centuries. While older individuals may resist this change, younger individuals understand to a greater extent the significance of having the ability to communicate with the different groups and how important this factor is for every day operations.
References
Beardsmore, H. B. (n.d.). Who's afraid of bilingualism. In Bilingualism: Beyond Basic Principles (pp. 10-27).
(n.d.). Bilingualism and translanguaging. In Bilingualism and Education (pp. 42-72).
Byram, M. (n.d.). On being 'bicultural' and 'intercultural'. In Intercultural Experience and Education (pp. 50-66).
Collier, V. The effect of age for acquisition of a second language for school. New Focus, 2.
Cummins, J. (n.d.). BICS and CALP: Origins and rationale for the distinction.
Dantas-Whitney, M., & Waldschmidt, E. Moving toward critical culture consciousness in ESOL and bilingual teacher education. Bilingual Research Journal, 32(1), 60-76.
(n.d.). Dimensions and measurement of bilinguality and bilingualism.
Hornberger, N. Multilingual education policy and practice: Ten certainties (grounded in Indigenous experience). Language Teaching, 42(2), 197-211.
(n.d.). Linguistic human rights in education? In Multilingual Education (pp. 567-608).
(n.d.). The study of bilingual children.