Living with two languages

Abstract

Bilingualism is often blamed for a whole range of negative phenomena. However, closer analysis shows that it is not the existence of an individual's two languages that causes this negative behaviour but a whole range of other social and psychological factors, especially society's view of the status of the languages, its treatment of the bilingual acquiring them and the self‐image which the bilingual develops during this process. Both the general methodology applied by society in the handling of bilinguals in everyday life and the specific methodology applied in the classroom are crucial in the development of balanced bilinguals. Young developing monolinguals as well as bilinguals show a basic need for medium‐orientated language‐play strategies for strengthening message‐orientated communication in their development towards communicative competence to satisfy immediate non‐linguistic needs. The young bilingual in a normal bilingual environment, however, uses two linguistic strategies in addition to those used by the developing monolingual: he refers to his preferred language to acquire the functional meanings of utterances in his second language; and he compares and contrasts utterances across two languages. These bilingual medium‐orientated activities, so vital in the development of young bilinguals, are taboo in direct‐method and various monolingual second‐language immersion programmes. This rejection causes unnecessary retardation in pupils’ linguistic and communicative behaviour which in turn affects their overall educational development in those cases where the target language is also the medium of instruction.

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