International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Advantages and Disadvantages of Bilingual Education
Alina María Signoret Dorcasberro a *
ª Centro de Enseñanza de Lenguas Extranjeras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Abstract
We examine various typologies of bilingualism and propose that, depending on its features, it may have positive
or negative consequences on the psycholinguistic development of students.
In coordinate bilingualism, the user develops two independent language systems, while the two systems are
fused in compound bilingualism. In complete bilingualism, the bilingual masters the two languages, whereas in
incomplete bilingualism, he has reinforced only one of them. In egalitarian bilingualism, the two languages
share the same status, while in unequal bilingualism, the status of a given language is subordinated to that of the
other language. Additive bilingualism occurs when bilingualism is considered as a cultural enrichment, and
subtractive bilingualism, when it is seen as a risk of loss of identity.
The coordinate, complete, additive and egalitarian bilingualism is the one recommended by psychologists and
psycholinguists, since it is the one that allows a complete psycholinguistic development of the bilingual.
Supported by a theoretical and linguistic analysis, this participation allows to understand the development of
bilingual competence, as well as to reflect on the best way to manage it in the education classroom.
Keywords.
INTRODUCTION
Bilingualism—which, according to Jakobson (1963, p. 35), is the fundamental problem of linguistics—is a
topic that has recently gained interest in the fields of psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics,
education, and language planning. It is a topic of utmost importance since bilingualism affects the development
of the whole human being. As proposed by Vygotsky (2000, p. 348), not only his intellectual development, but
also the formation of his character, emotions, and personality as a whole depend directly on speech. Speech
development in connection with bilingualism or monolingualism will thus have to be revealed in one degree or
another.
It is the responsibility of researchers, educators, and language and education planners to reflect on
bilingualism and know the most recent theoretical approaches of it, in order to offer the best possible conditions
for the development of a good bilingualism in the classroom.
DEFINITION OF BILINGUALISM
In order to define the types of bilingualism, we will focus on typologies based on linguistic, neurolinguistic
and psychosocial variables. Each of these propositions is explained in depth below.
COORDINATE vs. COMPOUND BILINGUALISM
In 1953, the linguist U. Weinreich postulated the existence of, among others, two types of bilingualism:
coordinate and compound bilingualism. This typology remains valid in the 21st century (De Groot, 2011). As
shown in the following table, in coordinate bilingualism the person develops two parallel language systems: for
any one word, he or she has two signifiers and two signifieds. This type of bilingualism is that of an individual
who speaks each of the two languages as well as a person for whom it is the sole mother tongue, and this at all
levels of the linguistic structure, without any interference or mixing (Paradis, 1987, p. 433).
L1
Organization of L1 semantic units
Organization of the sentence according to L1 syntax
L2
Organization of L2 semantic units
Organization of the sentence according to L2 syntax
E-mail address: alina@unam.mx
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