Linguistics Blog

Khadijah Ahmed

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

9/2/21


For a long time, researchers have been debating how exactly to define multilingualism. Some experts argue that it has a more narrow definition, and should only refer to people who function extremely well when speaking in their non-native language. Others, however, and this definition has been favored more recently, describe it as a person’s ability to proficiently function in another language. While many bilingual and multilingual speakers do have high written and oral competency in other languages, this is not thought to be required to fit the definition. Continuing with this logic, a person who could, say, speak in another language, i.e. Chinese, but couldn’t write in it, would still be considered a bilingual Chinese speaker. This shows the differentiation between complete monolingualism and a small amount of ability to function in another language.

As there are obvious differences in types of bilingual and multilingual people, experts have divided them in their research. People that grew up speaking two or more languages are classified as L1 multilingual and are seen as more natural, circumstantial, and culture-based. People that chose to learn another language after speaking their native language are classified as L2 multilingual and are seen as more academic, elective, and formal. Proper comparisons can be made between these categories if one takes into consideration the age of language acquisition, circumstances in which the language is used, and degrees of proficiency.


https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/multilingualism


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