bilingual (adj./n.)

The general sense of this term – a person who can speak two LANGUAGES – provides a pre-theoretical frame of reference for linguistic study, especially by SOCIOLINGUISTS, and by APPLIED LINGUISTS involved in foreign- or second-language teaching; it contrasts with monolingual. The focus of attention has been on the many kinds and degrees of bilingualism and bilingual situations which exist. Definitions of bilingualism reflect assumptions about the degree of proficiency people must achieve before they qualify as bilingual (whether comparable to a monolingual NATIVE-SPEAKER, or something less than this, even to the extent of minimal knowledge of a second language). Several technical distinctions have been introduced, e.g. between COMPOUND and CO-ORDINATE bilingualism (based on the extent to which the bilingual sees the two languages as SEMANTICALLY equivalent or non-equivalent, and being represented differently in the brain), between the various methods of learning the two languages (e.g. simultaneously or in sequence in childhood, or through formal instruction), and between the various levels of abstraction at which the linguistic systems operate – bilingualism being distinguished from BIDIALECTALISM and DIGLOSSIA. A balanced bilingual is someone whose command of both languages is equivalent. Of particular importance is the way in which studies of bilingualism involve the analysis of social, psychological and national (e.g. in the case of Welsh and Flemish) concerns – such as the social status of the different languages, and their role in identifying speakers with particular ethnic groups. In additive or elite bilingualism, a majority group learns a second language without this being a threat to its first language (e.g. English speaking Canadians learning French); in subtractive or folk bilingualism, the second language comes to replace the first (a common situation with minority languages).