ESL Linguistics Discussion Forum

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Cool Breeze — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:18:35 GMT

Pucca
I don't think you can be 100% bilingual.

Hi Pucca

I think it's possible. Actually, I think it's an inevitable result if you live in Finland, have a Finnish-speaking mother, a Swedish-speaking father, go to both Finnish and Swedish schools, listen to radio and TV and read newspapers, magazines and books in both languages.

Cheers

Re: Native-speaker/native language

shaved — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:47:10 GMT

Linguistic anthropologists categorize bilingualism into a number of categories, and 'true bilinguals' are extremely rare.

I remember being in college studying linguistic anthropology and having a roommate who was unable to speak, read, or write beyond an elementary school level in FOUR languages, but could talk fluently in any of them.

Korean

Japanese

English

Italian

The guy's father was in the US Navy, so the guy was born in Korea and then moved all over the world throughout his childhood. Obviously his parents didn't seem to think it was so bad for him, but they were wrong.

By the time he started college, he was basically hopeless in terms of reading comprehension, writing, and even conversation skills. I think he flunked out.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Kooyeen — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:19:50 GMT

Forbes
They simply change language like they change clothes without worrying about the status of their "home" speech. Very civilised.

Yeah, it's weird, lol. Some people (old people in rural areas) have a really hard time speaking Italian, so you'll hear them talk in their dialect even in interviews on TV, and that's so funny. I always turn up the volume whenever I hear someone talking in their dialect on TV, I like it! And if it's a variety of mine, it sounds so funny and odd to hear it on national TV.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Tanit — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:03:57 GMT

Forbes

I remember listening to a radio programme about the varieties of forms of speech in Italy ... They simply change language like they change clothes without worrying about the status of their "home" speech.

There's some truth in that article. My parents, for instance, used to speak in Sardinian (not a dialect, but recognised as an endangered language by the UNESCO) when talking to each other or to their relatives, but they would only speak Italian with my brother and me. I grew up monolingual, and although I can understand Sardinian, I am unable to articulate a sentence that contains more than a few words!

Many people who speak both Italian and their dialect, although able to switch from the first to the second depending on the context, speak a form of Italian that I would classify as regional and sub-standard. I noticed that people from Southern Italy (I have little experience of Northern Italy) who speak also a dialect usually don't speak standard Italian, but a form of language deeply affected by their dialect. Accent is not an issue. I find some grammatical structures odd, as well as the choice of some verb modes, tenses and aspects (ex. past simple versus present perfect, indicative versus subjunctive), and have problems with some vocabulary (let alone idioms, of course). I am usually able to understand the general meaning, though.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Forbes — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:12:21 GMT

Kooyeen
The right one depends on the situation, and using the not-expected one in a certain situation gives a strange feeling, usually humorous or making you feel uncomfortable.

I remember listening to a radio pogramme about the varieties of forms of speech in Italy. (The so-called dialects of Italian are best regarded as dialects of Latin, rather than Italian - some differ more from Italian that Spanish.) One lady said: "When I buy vegetables in the market I speak Neapolitan, but when I buy a hat for a wedding I speak Italian."

The linguistic situation in Italy is very interesting. Although Italian is universal, apparently as many as two-thirds of the population use some form of speech other than Italian and fifty per cent speak a language other than Italian at home. As far as I can tell, this does not seem to be a problem for people. They simply change language like they change clothes without worrying about the status of their "home" speech. Very civilised.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Forbes — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:51:50 GMT

MrPedantic
I would like to know what triggers the switch.

People who code switch don't seem to know why. As they say in Gibraltar: I begin in English y termino en EspaÃ±ol.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Kooyeen — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:16:26 GMT

Interesting, Forbes.

Forbes
I suspect it is only those who come in group D where languages A and B have equal status whose language experience will be the same or nearly the same in both languages.

Yes, you are probably right. If you don't use both you can't be equally proficient in both (although there is probably one that "dominates", as Jim said)

Forbes
Asking bilinguals to describe what it is like to be bilingual is a bit tricky.

I'm sure it varies from person to person. It depends on the speaking environment, since there are several different kinds of bilinguals. Some might connect a language with a certain set of situations and people, so the switch is triggered by that set. For example, if you speak Spanish with your immigrant relatives 95% of the time, and English with your native American friends, you'll switch to Spanish as soon as you start to talk to a relative of yours, because it would be automatically odd otherwise. This happens to me, considering Italian and a dialect. The right one depends on the situation, and using the not-expected one in a certain situation gives a strange feeling, usually humorous or making you feel uncomfortable.

In any case: being bilingual is a weird experience!

Re: Native-speaker/native language

MrPedantic — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:19:16 GMT

Forbes

I have personally witnessed on a number of occasions conversations between an immigrant parent and child were the parent speaks one language and the child another.

Yes; and sometimes the child and parent will both switch between languages; often not simultaneously. I would like to know what triggers the switch.

Forbes

There is the oddity that you may feel you are a (slightly) different person when you change languages. I am by no means fluent in Spanish, but when I speak it I feel the duende coming on!

It would be interesting to examine whether the slight difference in character is less pronounced in those who learned the second language at an early age. (If there are indeed fewer differences in the way the languages are stored, in such cases, you would think so.)

MrP

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Forbes — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:45:22 GMT

The idea of bilingualism seems mostly to fascinate those who are not bilingual. I have seen estimates that about half the world's population is bilingual, so for many it is pretty normal and I do not expect they think about it. In monolingual communities there are many who say they do not have a gift for languages; if they lived in bilingual communities they would have the gift!

The way people become bilingual includes:

A. Being brought up by parents who speak language A in a monolingual community that speaks language B.

B. Being brought up by parents who speak language A in a bilingual community that speaks languages A and B.

C. Being brought up by one parent who speaks language A and one who speaks language B in a monolingual community that speaks language A or B.

D. Being brought up by one parent who speaks language A and one who speaks language B in a bilingual community that speaks languages A and B.

E. Being brought up by parents who speak language A in a community that uses language B for education and official purposes.

F. Moving (especially at a young age) from monolingual community A to monolingual community B.

I suspect it is only those who come in group D where languages A and B have equal status whose language experience will be the same or nearly the same in both languages.

Children who come in group A may start to identify with language B and even speak it to their parents. I have personally witnessed on a number of occasions conversations between an immigrant parent and child were the parent speaks one language and the child another.

Those who come in group B, where although the community is bilingual there may be a preference for language B, may feel a resentment towards language B and avoid speaking it whenever they can.

Asking bilinguals to describe what it is like to be bilingual is a bit tricky. When they start to think about it they are not sure. There is the oddity that you may feel you are a (slightly) different person when you change languages. I am by no means fluent in Spanish, but when I speak it I feel the duende coming on!

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Pucca — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:23:47 GMT

I don't think you can be 100% bilingual.

In my school they started teaching you Spanish and Basque in nursery school. Well, there was more Basque than Spanish and it was like that until the last two years of Secondary School. Only Maths and Spanish language were taught in Spanish, the rest was in Basque and even if Basque was the one we used most, me and my friends used to talk in Spanish between ourselves (mixed with Basque but it was still Spanish) so, I guess there will always be one of them which is more "developed". That doesn't mean that we don't understand Basque or that we don't get Basque jokes but, simply we find it easier to communicate with each other in Spanish.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Kooyeen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:26:03 GMT

Clive
If you throw one of them who can't swim into a lake, would he shout 'Help' or 'Au secours'?

LOL, good question. He'd probably say "Au secours! No wait... I meant, help! No, wait, I meant both!"
I think people who are 100% bilingual, or almost bilingual, don't separate the two languages. They think in a mix of both languages, because every thought can be expressed equally in both languages. It already happens to me sometimes, although not as often as I would like... I dream in a mix of languages, and when I wake up I realize my thoughts are partly in English, and although I remember the dream perfectly, I am not able to remember if the dream was in Italian or in English.

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Grammar Geek — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:57:06 GMT

Well, I wasn't thinking about the 'help' and 'au secours' thing - but I really like Forbes's thing - would he get the jokes, does he know the slang, etc.

It would be interesting to talk to truly fluent people about the languages they dream in and whether it varies by what the dream is about. If they dream of cooking, is it gateaux? But of traveling, airplanes?

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Clive — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:53:28 GMT

Hi,

There are people who are said to be bilingual, although they are by no means everywhere in Canada. I believe they are considered fluent in both English and French. But is that your definition of bilingual? I don't know what language they dream in. If you throw one of them who can't swim into a lake, would he shout 'Help' or 'Au secours'?

New Brunswick is an officially bilingual province, with a high proportion of bilingual people. I once went into a fish and chip shop there. The woman behind the counter served the man ahead of me in French, then turmed to me and said 'Can I help you?' in English. He had the same kind of clothes as me, the same haircut, everything seemed the same. But she knew. I don't know how.

Clive

Re: Native-speaker/native language

Grammar Geek — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:42:30 GMT

Clive, are there not people in Canada who are truly bilingual in English and French?

Re: Native-speaker/native language

MrPedantic — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:16:59 GMT

Anonymous

If people learn a language at home in childhood, but do not have opportunities to use it later in the wider world of adulthood, does the childhood language still "count" as their native language?

Your native language is the first language you learnt as a child. The fact that you do not use it in adulthood does not mean that it is somehow no longer the first language you learnt as a child.

Kooyeen

That supports my thoughts that there must be very few people who are truly 100% bilingual, according to my definition of 100% bilingual. One hundred percent bilinguals have two fist languages, used like they are first languages.

An article in ?Nature a few years ago suggested that among bilingual speakers, the areas of the brain in which the second language is stored depends on the age at which it is acquired. Thus before the age of about 3, the second language is stored in much the same areas as the first language; but after that, there is some separation.

MrP