Dimensions of bilingualism

Abstract

People who are brought up in a society where monolingualism and uniculturalism are promoted as the normal way of life often think that bilingualism is only for a few ‘special’ people. Many people believe that, to be described as bilingual, the person has to have equal proficiency in both languages. The discussion of the causes of language contact and types of bilingual or multilingual people presupposes a definition of language. In many countries of the world a lot of the social identification is accomplished through language choice. By choosing one or other of the two or more languages in one’s linguistic repertoire, a speaker reveals and defines his or her social relationships with other people. There is a widespread impression that bilingual speakers code-switch because they cannot express themselves adequately in one language. From the early nineteenth century to about 1960s, there was a widespread belief that bilingualism has a detrimental effect on a human being’s intellectual and spiritual growth.

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