The Mysteries of Bilingualism. Francois Grosjean
may be due, in large part at least, to the fact that the study of bilingualism is still a rather young science as compared to that of monolingualism.
In the first part of this chapter, we will spend time on how bilinguals and bilingualism have been characterized and how this has changed over time. We will begin by looking at responses from three surveys done with lay people, both monolinguals and bilinguals. Then we will examine the definitions given by dictionaries for the words “bilingual” and “bilingualism.” The entries were written by lexicographers many of whom have linguistics training, so it will be interesting to see if there are any differences with what lay people say. Finally, we will look at the definitions given by language scientists over a span of about one hundred years and examine their evolution.
In the second part, we will present important characteristics of bilingual people (language proficiency, language use, functions of languages, language mode, etc.) and will also examine how they evolve over time. We will end with a quick overview of three well known self-report questionnaires given to bilinguals and see what they have in common and where they differ.
Definitions and Their Evolution
What Lay People Say
When I wrote my first book on bilingualism some 40 years ago (Grosjean 1982), I conducted a short survey in order to uncover the lay person’s understanding of the term “bilingual.” I asked a number of monolingual college students to answer this question: “If someone told you that X was bilingual in English and French, what would you understand by that?” The most frequent response I found (36% of the answers) was that X speaks both languages fluently. This was followed by X speaks English and French (21%), and by X understands and speaks English and French (18%)? Note that the summed percentages of the two latter answers, which basically say the same thing, add up to 39%. The same question asked of a group of bilinguals gave very similar results: X speaks the two languages fluently (31%), and speaks the two languages (46%). Thus, just speaking both languages (which includes both production and perception), gets a bit less than half of the responses in the two groups, and speaking both languages fluently is only just behind, with 36% and 31% respectively. This shows the importance of fluency1 in the participants’ mind, be they monolingual or bilingual.
Both groups were then asked to rate the importance of a number of factors that had been mentioned in definitions of bilingualism, such as being fluent in two languages, having both speaking and writing fluency in them, using two languages regularly, etc. The scale used went from 1 “not important” to 5 “very important.” The monolinguals gave a mean rating of 4.7 for being fluent in two languages, and the bilinguals gave it a rating of 4.4. Speaking and writing fluency in two languages was given a rating of 4.0 by the monolinguals and 3.6 by bilinguals, and equal fluency in two languages was rated 3.7 and 4.1 by the two groups, respectively. Thus, once again both monolinguals and bilinguals felt that fluency in two languages is an important factor in describing the bilingual person.
It is interesting to note that monolinguals differed most from bilinguals on the question of language use, a factor that we will evoke often in this chapter. For monolinguals, the factor labeled “regular use of two languages” received a mean rating of 3 (that is, it was not considered a very important factor), but the bilinguals gave it a mean rating of 4.1, just below “fluency in two languages” (4.4). So here, on language use, monolinguals and bilinguals diverged a bit, probably because bilinguals are more aware of the communicative aspect of being bilingual, that is, using two languages irrespective of your fluency in them.
Where do things stand now? Two surveys were conducted this century, one by Zubrzycki (2019) and one some 13 years before by Sia and Dewaele (2006). Zubrzycki wanted to replicate the Sia and Dewaele study, which asked speakers of at least two languages: “Are you bilingual?” According to the answer they gave, they were placed in the “bilingual” or “non-bilingual” group, and it was shown, among other things, that the self-assessment of second language (L2) proficiency was higher in the “bilingual” group than in the “non-bilingual” group. This was true overall, but also for the four basic skills: Speaking, listening, reading and writing. Zubrzycki conducted the same kind of study but with a slightly different question, “Do you consider yourself bilingual?” He found practically identical percentages to Sia and Dewaele for those who labeled themselves as bilingual or not, and very similar assessment results.
Interestingly, Zubrzycki (2019) added an open-ended question to his study: “How would you define the term bilingual?” It was very similar to Grosjean’s (1982) first question, and it is worth examining the answers more closely. As concerns those who self defined as “non-bilinguals,” nearly 80% formulated a restrictive definition of bilingualism. Zubrzycki does not give percentages but he reports that the main criterion put forward was equal proficiency in two languages, implying thereby a native-like command of the L2 with no traces of one language when using the other and, in particular, no traces of a foreign accent. Other elements which appeared in the definitions were items such as “native level,” “native speaker,” “mother tongue,” and “native language.” And some also said that the bilingual is required to have been raised in a bilingual family or to have had a long-term stay in the L2 environment.
Of those who self defined as “bilinguals,” however, over 70% were less restrictive in their answers. Among the criteria expressed, we find feeling comfortable when using the L2, and reaching a level at which communication becomes natural and effortless. There was also the ability to communicate effectively in all domains of language use and in a wide range of social contexts. Finally, a number of definitions underlined everyday use of two languages.
Thus, over a span of some 40 years, quite similar results have been obtained from lay people, with a slight difference between those who are, or who self define as, bilingual, and the others. Zubrzycki concludes that a monolingual view of bilingualism – the bilingual should be two monolinguals in one person (criticized by Grosjean 1985) – is still deeply entrenched in the lay person’s perception of what it means to be bilingual. Will a similar tendency be found in dictionary definitions? They reflect the meaning of words based on current usage but they are also the work of lexicographers many of whom have some linguistic training. We now turn to this.
What Dictionaries Say
We looked up the words “bilingual” and “bilingualism” in a number of dictionaries that can be found on the internet. Many of them are well established, such as Longman, Oxford Advanced Learner’s, Cambridge English, American Heritage, Collins COBUILD, Chambers, Merriam-Webster, etc. Others are newer, such as Dictionary.com and Wiktionary. For the word “bilingual,” we restricted ourselves to the meaning pertaining to the bilingual person, and did not include those pertaining to a bilingual activity, event, or item, as in bilingual education, bilingual conference, bilingual book, etc. Out of a total of 11 definitions we examined, ten underlined the ability to speak two languages fluently. Of these, seven indicated speaking two languages equally well (e.g., Cambridge English: “able to use two languages equally well”) or with nearly equal fluency (e.g., American Heritage: “using or able to use two languages, especially with equal or nearly equal fluency”), and three stressed speaking two languages fluently or extremely well (e.g., Macmillan: “able to speak two languages extremely well”). Only one definition of the 11 did not have fluency as a criterion. It was that of Wiktionary, a more recent dictionary, which stated: “having the ability to speak two languages.” We should note that no definition indicated using two languages on a regular basis, nor did any include more than two languages. In addition, none mentioned dialects in their definitions. Thus, dictionaries seem to reflect closely what lay people state, at least those who do not consider themselves to be bilingual (see the previous section).
We also looked up “bilingualism” in the same 11 dictionaries. Surprisingly, three of them (Oxford Advanced Learner’s, American Heritage, and Longman) did not have an entry for the word. Three of the eight that did underlined the ability to speak two languages, two of them adding equally well (e.g., Cambridge English: “the fact of