Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

Chapter 12Bilingualism: A Very Brief OverviewIntroductionThere is a huge literature on what one might term the ‘technicalities’of bilingualism and bilingual education: definitions (of course), theassessment and measurement of various degrees and dimensions ofbilingualism, the relationship between language acquisition and othervariables (age, gender, intelligence, motivation and attitude, socioeconomicstatus, minority-group membership, the sociocultural and sociopoliticalcontext), the intricacies of borrowing, interference and switchingacross two or more languages, bilingual and multilingual literacy, therelationship between personal and societal bilingualism, types ofbilingual education provisions, the effectiveness of programs of bilingualeducation. Obviously, it would be impossible for me to do more thanprovide the briefest of introductions here, but, in any event, a deeptreatment of the nuts and bolts of bilingualism is not to my purpose. Aswill be seen, I am more concerned with the symbolic and group-identityaspects of bilingualism, particularly where ‘smaller’ languages come intocontact with ‘larger’ ones.Another reason for not providing much detail here is simply that thishas been thoroughly done elsewhere, in topical surveys that are clear,up-to-date and easily accessible. Chief among these are the encyclopediaof Baker and Jones (1998) and Baker’s smaller but still very comprehensivetextbook (2006). The recent handbook by Bhatia and Ritchie (2004) isvery useful, and several publishers (Pergamon, De Gruyter, Springer,Blackwell and Oxford University Press among them) have recentlyissued large reference volumes and encyclopedias on various aspects ofthe ‘social life’ of language; see also and Hamers and Blanc (2000), Li Wei(2000) and Romaine (1995).Defining BilingualismEveryone is bilingual. That is, there is no one in the world (no adult,anyway) who does not know at least a few words in languages other thanthe maternal variety. If, as an English speaker, you can say c’est la vie or234