Bilingualism and Multilingualism from a Socio-Psychological Perspective

Bilingualism and Multilingualism from a Socio-Psycho­

logical Perspective  
Tej K. Bhatia
Subject: Applied Linguistics Online Publication Date: Jun 2017
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.82

Summary and Keywords

Bilingualism/multilingualism is a natural phenomenon worldwide. Unwittingly, however,

monolingualism has been used as a standard to characterize and define bilingualism/mul­
tilingualism in linguistic research. Such a conception led to a “fractional,” “irregular,”
and “distorted” view of bilingualism, which is becoming rapidly outmoded in the light of
multipronged, rapidly growing interdisciplinary research. This article presents a complex
and holistic view of bilinguals and multilinguals on conceptual, theoretical, and pragmat­
ic/applied grounds. In that process, it attempts to explain why bilinguals are not a mere
composite of two monolinguals. If bilinguals were a clone of two monolinguals, the study
of bilingualism would not merit any substantive consideration in order to come to grips
with bilingualism; all one would have to do is focus on the study of a monolingual person.
Interestingly, even the two bilinguals are not clones of each other, let alone bilinguals as a
set of two monolinguals. This paper examines the multiple worlds of bilinguals in terms of
their social life and social interaction. The intricate problem of defining and describing
bilinguals is addressed; their process and end result of becoming bilinguals is explored
alongside their verbal interactions and language organization in the brain. The role of so­
cial and political bilingualism is also explored as it interacts with individual bilingualism
and global bilingualism (e.g., the issue of language endangerment and language death).

Other central concepts such as individuals’ bilingual language attitudes, language choic­
es, and consequences are addressed, which set bilinguals apart from monolinguals. Lan­
guage acquisition is as much an innate, biological, as social phenomenon; these two com­
plementary dimensions receive consideration in this article along with the educational is­
sues of school performance by bilinguals. Is bilingualism a blessing or a curse? The lin­
guistic and cognitive consequences of individual, societal, and political bilingualism are
examined.

Keywords: defining bilinguals, conceptual view of bilingualism, becoming bilingual, social networks, language or­
ganization of bilinguals, the bilingual mind, bilingual language choices, language mixing, code-mixing/switching,
bilingual identities, consequences of bilingualism, bilingual creativity, individual, social, and political bilingualism

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Bilingualism and Multilingualism from a Socio-Psychological Perspective

1. Understanding Multilingualism in Context

In a world in which people are increasingly mobile and ethnically self-aware, living with
not just a single but multiple identities, questions concerning bilingualism and multilin­
gualism take on increasing importance from both scholarly and pragmatic points of view.
Over the last two decades in which linguistic/ethnic communities that had previously
been politically submerged, persecuted, and geographically isolated, have asserted them­
selves and provided scholars with new opportunities to study the phenomena of individ­
ual and societal bilingualism and multilingualism that had previously been practically
closed to them. Advances in social media and technology (e.g., iPhones and Big Data Ca­
pabilities) have rendered new tools to study bilingualism in a more naturalistic setting. At
the same time, these developments have posed new practical challenges in such areas as
language acquisition, language identities, language attitudes, language education, lan­
guage endangerment and loss, and language rights.

The investigation of bi- and multilingualism is a broad and complex field. Unless other­
wise relevant on substantive grounds, the term “bilingualism” in this article is used as an
all-inclusive term to embody both bilingualism and multilingualism.

2. Bilingualism as a Natural Global Phenome­

non: Becoming Bilingual
Bilingualism is not entirely a recent development; for instance, it constituted a grassroots
phenomenon in India and Africa since the pre-Christian era. Contrary to a widespread
perception, particularly in some primarily monolingual countries—for instance, Japan or
China—or native English-speaking countries, such as the United States, bilingualism or
even multilingualism is not a rare or exceptional phenomenon in the modern world; it was
and it is, in fact, more widespread and natural than monolingualism. The Ethnologue in
the 16th edition (2009, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=lb) esti­
mates more than seven thousand languages (7,358) while the U.S. Department of States
recognizes only 194 bilingual countries in the world. There are approximately 239 and
2,269 languages identified in Europe and Asia, respectively. According to Ethnologue,
94% of the world’s population employs approximately 5% of its language resources. Fur­
thermore, many languages such as Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, Bengali, Punjabi, Spanish, and
Portuguese are spoken in many countries around the globe. Such a linguistic situation ne­
cessitates people to live with bilingualism and/or multilingualism. For an in-depth analy­
sis of global bilingualism, see Bhatia and Ritchie (2013).

3. Describing Bilingualism
Unlike monolingualism, childhood bilingualism is not the only source and stage of acquir­
ing two or more languages. Bilingualism is a lifelong process involving a host of factors
(e.g., marriage, immigration, and education), different processes (e.g., input conditions,

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input types, input modalities and age), and yielding differential end results in terms of dif­
ferential stages of fossilization and learning curve (U-shape or nonlinear curve during
their grammar and interactional development). For this reason, it does not come as a sur­
prise that defining, describing, and categorizing a bilingual is not as simplistic as defining
a monolingual person. In addition to individual bilingualism, social and political bilingual­
ism adds yet other dimensions to understanding bilingualism. Naturally then, there is no
universally agreed upon definition of a bilingual person.

Bilingual individuals are subjected to a wide variety of labels, scales, and dichotomies,
which constitute a basis of debates over what is bilingualism and who is a bilingual. Be­
fore shedding light on the complexity of “individual” bilingualism, one should bear in
mind that the notion of individual bilingualism is not devoid of social bilingualism, or an
absence of a shared social or group grammar. The term “individual” bilingualism by no
means refers to idiosyncratic aspects of bilinguals, which is outside the scope of this
work.

Relying on a Chomskyan research paradigm, bilingualism is approached from the theoret­

ical distinction of competence vs. performance (actual use). Equal competency and fluen­
cy in both languages—an absolute clone of two monolinguals without a trace of accent
from either language—is one view of a bilingual person. This view can be characterized
as the “maximal” view. Bloomfield’s definition of a bilingual with “a native-like control of
two languages” attempts to embody the “maximal” viewpoint (Bloomfield, 1933). Other
terms used to describe such individuals are “ambilinguals” or “true bilinguals.” Such
bilinguals are rare, or what Valdes terms, “mythical bilingual” (Valdes, 2001). In contrast
to maximal view, a “minimal” view contends that practically every one is a bilingual.
“That is no one in the world (no adult, anyway) which does not know at least a few words
in languages other than the maternal variety” (Edwards, 2004/2006). Diebold’s notion of
“Incipient bilingualism”—that is, exposure to two languages—belongs to the minimal view
of bilingualism (Diebold, 1964). While central to the minimalist viewpoint is the onset
point of the process of becoming a bilingual, the main focus of the maximalist view is the
end result, or termination point, of language acquisition. In other words, the issue of de­
gree and the end state of second language acquisition is at the heart of defining the con­
cept of bilingualism.

Other researchers such as Mackey, Weinreich, and Haugen define bilingualism to capture
language use of bilinguals’ verbal behavior. For Haugen, bilingualism begins when the
speakers of one language produce complete meaningful utterances in the second lan­
guage (Haugen, 1953; Mackey, 2000; Weinrich, 1953). Mackey, on the other hand, defines
bilingualism as an “alternate use of two or more languages” (Mackey, 2000). Observe that
the main objective of the two definitions is to focus on language use rather the degree of
language proficiency or equal competency in two languages.

The other notable types of bilingualism identified are as follows: Primary/Natural bilin­
gualism in which bilingualism is acquired in a natural setting without any formal training;
Balanced bilingualism that develops with minimal interference from both languages; Re­

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ceptive or Passive bilingualism wherein there is understanding of written and/or spoken

proficiency in second language but an inability to speak it; Productive bilingualism then
entails an ability to understand and speak a second language; Semilingualism, or an in­
ability to express in either language; and Bicultural bilingualism vs. Monocultural bilin­
gualism. The other types of bilingualism, such as Simultaneous vs. Successive bilingual­
ism (Wang, 2008), Additive vs. Subtractive bilingualism (Cummins, 2000), and Elite vs.
Folk bilingualism (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981), will be detailed later in this chapter. From
this rich range of scales and dichotomies, it becomes readily self-evident that the com­
plexity of bilingualism and severe limitation of the “fractional” view of bilingualism that
bilinguals are two monolinguals in one brain. Each case of bilingualism is a product of dif­
ferent sets of circumstances and, as a result, no two bilinguals are the same. In other
words, differences in the context of second language acquisition (natural, as in the case
of children) and proficiency in spoken, written, reading, and listening skills in the second
language, together with the consideration of culture, add further complexity to defining
individual bilingualism.

3.1 Individual Bilingualism: A Profile

The profile of this author further highlights the problems and challenges of defining and
describing a bilingual or multilingual person. The author, as an immigrant child growing
up in India, acquired two languages by birth: Saraiki—also called Multani and Lahanda,
spoken primarily in Pakistan—and Punjabi, which is spoken both in India and Pakistan.
Growing up in the Hindi-speaking area, he learned the third language Hindi-Urdu primar­
ily in schools; and his fourth language, English, primarily after puberty during his higher
education in India and the United States. He cannot write or read in Saraiki but can read
Punjabi in Gurmukhi script, and he cannot write with the same proficiency. He has native
proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. A close analysis of his bilingual­
ism reveals that no single label or category accounts for his multifaceted bilingualism/
multilingualism. Interestingly, his self-assessment finds him linguistically least secured in
his two languages, which he acquired at birth. Is he a semilingual without a mother
tongue? No matter how challenging it is to come to grips with bilingualism and, conse­
quently, develop a “holistic” view of bilingualism, it is clear that a bilingual person
demonstrates many complex attributes rarely seen in a monolingual person. See Edwards
(2004/2006) and Wei (2013) for more details. Most important, multiple languages serve
as a vehicle to mark multiple identities (e.g., religious, regional, national, ethnic, etc.).

3.2 Social Bilingualism

While social bilingualism embodies linguistic dimensions of individual bilingualism, a host

of social, attitudinal, educational, and historical aspects of bilingualism primarily deter­
mine the nature of social bilingualism. Social bilingualism refers to the interrelationship
between linguistic and non-linguistic factors such as social evaluation/value judgements
of bilingualism, which determine the nature of language contact, language maintenance
and shift, and bilingual education among others. For instance, in some societies, bilin­
gualism is valued and receives positive evaluation and is, thus, encouraged while in other
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societies bilingualism is seen as a negative and divisive force and is, thus, suppressed or
even banned in public and educational arenas. Compare the pattern of intergenerational
bilingualism in India and the United states, where it is well-known that second or third-
generation immigrants in the United States lose their ethnic languages and turn monolin­
guals in English (Fishman, Nahirny, Hofman, & Hayden, 1966). Conversely, Bengali or
Punjabi immigrants living in Delhi, generation after generation, do not become monolin­
guals in Hindi, the dominant language of Delhi. Similarly, elite bilingualism vs. folk bilin­
gualism has historically prevailed in Europe, Asia, and other continents and has gained a
new dimension in the rapidly evolving globalized society. As aristocratic society patron­
ized bilingualism with French or Latin in Europe, bilingualism served as a source of elit­
ism in South Asia in different ages of Persian and English. Folk bilingualism is often the
byproduct of social dominance and imposition of a dominant group. While elite bilingual­
ism is viewed as an asset, folk bilingualism is seen as problematic both in social and edu­
cational arenas (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). One of the outcomes of a stable elite and folk
bilingualism is diglossia (e.g., Arabic, German, Greek, and Tamil) where both High (elite)
and Low (colloquial) varieties of a language—or two languages with High and Low social
distinctions—coexist (e.g., French and English diglossia after the Norman conquest (Fer­
guson, 1959). Diasporic language varieties have been examined by Clyne and Kipp (1999)
and Bhatia (2016). Works by Baker and Jones (1998) show how bilinguals belong to com­
munities of variable types due to accommodation (Sachdev & Giles, 2004/2006), indexi­
cality (Eckert & Rickford, 2001), social meaning of language attitudes (Giles & Watson,
2013; Sachdev & Bhatia, 2013), community of practice, and even imagined communities.

3.3 Political Bilingualism

Political bilingualism refers to the language policies of a country. Unlike individual bilin­
gualism, categories such as monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual nations do not reflect
the actual linguistic situation in a particular country (Edwards, 1995, 2004/2006; Ro­
maine, 1989/1995). Canada, for instance, is officially recognized as a bilingual country.
This means that Canada promotes bilingualism as a language policy of the country as well
as in Canadian society as a whole. By no means does it imply that most speakers in Cana­
da are bilinguals. In fact, monolingual countries may reflect a high degree of bilingual­
ism. Multilingual countries such as South Africa, Switzerland, Finland and Canada often
use one of the two approaches—“Personality” and “Territorial”—to ensure bilingualism.
The Personality principle aims to preserve individual rights (Extra & Gorter, 2008; Mack­
ey, 1967) while the Territorial principle ensures bilingualism or multilingual within a par­
ticular area to a variable degree, as in the case of Belgium. In India, where 23 languages
are officially recognized, the government’s language policies are very receptive to multi­
lingualism. The “three-language formula” is the official language policy of the country
(Annamalai, 2001). In addition to learning Hindi and English, the co-national languages,
school children can learn a third language spoken within or outside their state.

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4. The Bilingual Mind: Language Organization,

Language Choices, and Verbal Behavior
Unlike monolinguals, a decision to speak multiple languages requires a complex uncon­
scious process on the part of bilinguals. Since a monolingual’s choice is restricted to only
one language, the decision to choose a language is relatively simple involving, at most,
the choice of an informal style over a formal style or vice versa. However, the degree and
the scale of language choice are much more complicated for bilinguals since they need to
choose not only between different styles but also between different languages. It is a
widely held belief, at least in some monolingual speech communities, that the process of
language choice for bilinguals is a random one that can lead to a serious misunderstand­
ing and a communication failure between monolinguals and bi- and multilingual commu­
nities (see pitfalls of a sting operation by a monolingual FBI agent (Ritchie & Bhatia,
2013)). Such a misconception of bilingual verbal behavior is also responsible for commu­
nication misunderstandings about social motivations of bilinguals’ language choices by
monolinguals; for example, the deliberate exclusion or sinister motives on the part of
bilinguals when their language choice is different from a monolingual’s language. A num­
ber of my international students have reported that on several occasions monolingual
English speakers feel compelled to remind them that they are in America and they should
be using English, rather than say Chinese or Arabic, with countrymen/women.

Now let us examine some determinants of language choice by bilinguals. Consider the
case of this author’s verbal behavior and linguistic choices that he normally makes while
interacting with his family during a dinner table conversation in India. He shares two lan­
guages with his sisters-in-law (Punjabi and Hindi) and four languages with his brothers
(Saraiki, Punjabi, Hindi, and English). While talking about family matters or other infor­
mal topics, he uses Punjabi with his sisters-in-law but Saraiki with his brothers. If the top­
ic involves ethnicity, then the entire family switches to Punjabi. Matters of educational
and political importance are expressed in English and Hindi, respectively. These are un­
marked language choices, which the author makes unconsciously and effortlessly with
constant language switching depending on participants, speech events, situations, or oth­
er factors. Such a behavior is largely in agreement with the sociolinguistic Model of
Markedness, which attempts to explain the sociolinguistic motivation of code-switching
by considering language choice as a means of communicating desired group membership,
or perceived group memberships, and interpersonal relationships (Pavlenko, 2005).

Speaking Sariki with brothers and Punjabi with sister-in-laws represent unconscious and
unmarked choices. Any shift to a marked choice is, of course, possible on theoretical
grounds; however, it can take a serious toll in terms of social relationships. The use of
Hindi or English during a general family dinner conversation (i.e., a “marked” choice) will
necessarily signal social distancing and fractured relations.

Languages choice is not as simple as it seems at first from the above example of family
conversation. In some cases, it involves a complex process of negotiation. Talking with a

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Punjabi-Hindi-English trilingual waiter in an Indian restaurant, the choice of ethnic lan­

guage, Punjabi, by a customer such as this author may seem to be a natural choice at
first. Often, it is not the case if the waiter refuses to match the language choice of the
customer and replies in English. The failure to negotiate a language in such cases takes
an interesting turn of language mismatching before a common language of verbal ex­
change is finally agreed upon; often, it turns out to be a neutral and prestige language:
English. See Ritchie and Bhatia (2013) for further details. When the unmarked choice is
not clear, speakers tend to use code-switching in an exploratory way to determine lan­
guage choice and thus restore a social balance.

During a speech event, language choice is not always static either. If the topic of conver­
sation shifts from a casual topic to a formal topic such as education, a more suitable
choice in this domain would be English; subsequently, a naturally switch to English will
take place. In other words, “complementarity” language domains or language-specific do­
main allocation represent the salient characteristics of bilingual language choice. The dif­
ferential domain allocation manifests itself in the use of “public” vs. “private” language by
bilinguals, which is central to bilingual verbal repertoire (Ritchie & Bhatia, 2013). Often
the role of expressing emotions or one’s private world is best played by the bilingual’s
mother tongue rather than by the second or prestige/distant language. Research on bilin­
gualism, emotions, and autobiographical memory accounts of bilinguals shows that an ac­
count of emotional events is qualitatively and quantitatively different when narrated in
one’s mother tongue than in a distant second language (Devaele, 2010; Pavlenko, 2005).
While the content of an event can be narrated equally well in either language, the emo­
tional experience/pain is best described in the first language of the speaker. Particularly,
bilingual parents use their first language for terms of endearment for their children.
Their first language serves as the best vehicle for denoting emotions toward their chil­
dren than any other language in their verbal repertoire. Taboo topics, on the other hand,
favor the second or a distant language.

Any attempt to characterize the bilingual mind must account for the following three nat­
ural aspects of bilingual verbal behavior: (1) Depending upon the communicative circum­
stances, bilinguals swing between the monolingual and bilingual language modes; (2)
Bilinguals have an ability to keep two or more languages separate whenever needed; and
(3) More interestingly, they can also carry out an integration of two or more languages
within a speech event.

4.1 Bilingual Language Modes

Bilinguals are like a sliding switch who can move between one or more language states/
modes as required for the production, comprehension, and processing of verbal messages
in a most cost-effective and efficient way. If bilinguals are placed in a predominantly
monolingual setting, they are likely to activate only one language; while in a bilingual en­
vironment, they can easily shift into a bilingual mode to a differential degree. The activa­
tion or deactivation process is not time consuming. In a bilingual environment, this
process usually does not require bilinguals to take more than a couple of milliseconds to

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swing into a bilingual language mode and revert back to a monolingual mode with the
same time efficiency. However, under unexpected circumstances (e.g., caught off-guard
by a white Canadian speaking an African language in Canada) or under emotional trauma
or cultural shock, the activation takes considerable time. In the longitudinal study of his
daughter, Hildegard, reported that Hildegard, while in Germany, came to tears at one
point when she could not activate her mother tongue, English (Leopard, 1939–1950). The
failure to ensure natural conditions responsible for the activation of bilingual language
mode is a common methodological shortcoming of bilingual language testing, see Gros­
jean (2004/2006, 2010). An in-depth review of processing cost involved in the language
activation-deactivation process can be found in Meuter (2005). Do bilinguals turn on their
bilingual mode, even if only one language is needed to perform a task? Recent research
employing an electrophysiological and experimental approach shows that both languages
compete for selection even if only one language is needed to perform a task (Martin, Der­
ing, Thomas, & Thierry, 2009; Hoshino & Thierry, 2010). For more recent works on paral­
lel language activation and language competition in speech planning and speech produc­
tion, see Blumenfeld and Marian (2013). In other words, the potential of activation and
deactivation of language modes—both monolingual and bilingual mode—hold an impor­
tant key to bilingual’s language use.

4.2 Bilingual Language Separation and Language Integration

In addition to language activation or deactivation control phenomena, the other two

salient characteristics of bilingual verbal behavior are bilinguals’ balanced competence
and capacity to separate the two linguistic systems and to integrate them within a sen­
tence or a speech event. Language mixing is a far more complex cognitive ability than
language separation. Yet, it is also very natural to bilinguals. Therefore, it is not surpris­
ing to observe the emergence of mixed systems such as Hinglish, Spanglish, Germlish,
and so on, around the globe. Consider the following utterances:

1.

2.

3.

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Such a two-faceted phenomenon is termed as code-mixing (as in 1 and 2) and code-

switching (as in 3). Code-mixing (CM) refers to the use of various linguistic units—words,
phrases, clauses, and sentences—primarily from two participating grammatical systems
within a sentence. While CM is intra-sentential, code-switching (CS) is an inter-sentential
phenomenon. CM is constrained by grammatical principles and is motivated by socio-psy­
chological factors. CS, on the other hand, is subject to discourse principles and is also
motivated by socio-psychological factors.

Any unified treatment of the bilingual mind has to account for the language separation
(i.e., CS) and language integration (CM) aspects of bilingual verbal competence, capacity,
use, and creativity. In that process, it needs to address the following four key questions,
which are central to an understanding the universal and scientific basis for the linguistic
creativity of bilinguals.

I. Is language mixing a random or a systematic phenomenon?

II. What motivates bilinguals to mix and alternate two languages?
III. What is the social evaluation of this mixing and alternation?
IV. What is the difference between code-mixing or code-switching and other related
phenomena?

I. Language mixing as a systematic phenomenon

Earlier research from the 1950s–1970s concluded that CM is either a random or an un­
systematic phenomenon. It was either without subject to formal syntactic constraints or is
subject only to “irregular mixture” (Labov, 1971). Such a view of CM/CS is obsolete since
late the 20th century. Recent research shows that CM/CS is subject to formal, functional,
and attitudinal factors. Studies of formal factors in the occurrence of CM attempt to tap
the unconscious knowledge of bilinguals about the internal structure of code-mixed sen­
tences. Formal syntactic constraints on the grammar of CM, such as The Free Morpheme
Constraint (Sankoff & Poplack, 1981); The Closed Class Constraint (Joshi, 1985), within
the Generative Grammar framework; and The Government Constraint and the Functional
Head Constraint within the non-lexicalist generative framework, demonstrate the com­
plexity of uncovering universal constraints on CM; for details, see Bhatia and Ritchie
(2009). Recently, the search for explanations of cross-linguistic generalizations about the
phenomenon of CM, specifically in terms of independently justified principles of language
structure and use, has taken two distinct forms. One approach is formulated in terms of
the theory of linguistic competence within the framework of Chomsky’s Minimalist Pro­
gram (MacSwan, 2009). The other approach—as best exemplified by the Matrix Language
Frame (MLF) model (Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2001) is grounded in the theory of sentence
production, particularly that of Levelt (1989). Herring and colleagues test the strengths
and weaknesses of both a Minimalist Program approach and the MLF approach on ex­
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planatory grounds based on switches between determiner and their noun complements
drawn from Spanish-English and Welsh-English data (Herring, Deuchar, Couto, & Quin­
tanilla, 2010). Their work lends partial support to the two approaches.

II. Motivations for language mixing

While research on the universal grammar of CM attempts to unlock the mystery of the
systematic nature of CM on universal grounds, it does not attempt to answer Question
(II), namely, the “why” aspect of CM. The challenge for linguistic research in the new mil­
lennium is to separate grammatical constraints from those motivated by, or triggered by,
socio-pragmatic factors or competence. Socio-pragmatic studies of CM reveal the follow­
ing four factors, which trigger CM/CS: (1) the social roles and relationships of the partici­
pants (e.g., dual/multiple identities; social class); (2) situational factors (discourse topic
and language domain allocation); (3) message-intrinsic consideration; (4) language atti­
tudes, including social dominance and linguistic security. See Ritchie and Bhatia (2013)
and Myers-Scotton (1998) for further details. The most commonly accepted rule is that
language mixing signals either a change or a perceived change by speaker in the socio-
psychological context of a speech event. In essence, CM/CS is motivated by the consider­
ation of “optimization,” and it serves as an indispensable tool for meeting creative and in­
novative needs of bilinguals (Bhatia, 2011). A novel approach provides further insights in­
to a discourse-functional motivation of CM, namely, coding of less predictable, high infor­
mation-content meanings in one language and more predictable, lower information-con­
tent meanings in another language (Myslin & Levy, 2015).

III. Social evaluation of language mixing

Now let us return to Question (III). From the discussion of Questions (I and II), it is self-
evident that complexity and multifaceted creativity underlies CM/CS in bilingual commu­
nication. Surprisingly, though, the social evaluation of a mixed system is largely negative.
Even more interestingly, bilinguals themselves do not have a positive view of language
mixing. It is the widely held belief on the part of the “guardians” of language (including
the media) and puritans that any form of language mixing is a sign of unsystematic or
decadent form of communication. Bilinguals are often mocked for their “bad” and “irregu­
lar” linguistic behavior. They are often characterized as individuals who have difficulty ex­
pressing themselves. Other labels such as “lazy” and “careless” are also often bestowed
upon them. Furthermore, the guardians of language often accused them of destroying
their linguistic heritage. For these reasons, it is not surprising that even bilinguals them­
selves become apologetic about their verbal behavior. They blame mixing on “memory
lapse,” among other things, and promise to correct their verbal behavior, vowing not to
mix languages. In spite of this, they cannot resist language mixing!

Table 1 illustrates the anomaly between the scientific reality of language mixing and its
social perception. Social perception translates into the negative evaluation of mixed
speech.

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Table 1. Language Mixing (CM/CS) Anomaly (Adapted from Bhatia &

Ritchie, 2008, p. 15).

Natural Fact Social Fact/Perception

Systematic behavior Unsystematic behavior

Linguistic augmentation Linguistic deficiency

Natural behavior Bad linguistic behavior

Motivated by creative needs Memory/recall problem, clumsiness

Language change Language death

Optimization strategy Wasteful and inefficient strategy

Backlash to mixing is not just restricted to societies and bilinguals; even governments get
on the bandwagon. Some countries, such as the newly freed countries of the ex-Soviet
Union and France, regulate or even ban mixing either by appointing “language police” or
by passing laws to wipe out the perceived negative effects of “bad language” in the public
domain. Asia is not an exception in this regard. A case in point is a recent article by Tan
(2002) reporting that the Government of Singapore has banned the movie Talk Cock
because it uses a mixed variety of English, called Singlish. Linguistic prescriptivism clear­
ly played a central role in the decision. In spite of the near-universal negative evaluation
associated with CM/CS, the benefits rendered by language mixing by far outweigh its
negative perception, which, in turn, compels the unconscious mind of bilinguals to mix
and switch in order to yield results that cannot be rendered by a single/puritan language
use; for a typology of bilingual linguistic creativity, and socio-psychological motivations,
see Ritchie and Bhatia (2013).

IV. Language mixing and other related phenomena

Returning to the fourth question, it should be noted that CM/CS is quite distinct from lin­
guistic borrowing. The primary function of linguistic borrowing is to fill a lexical gap in a
borrower’s language (e.g., Internet, satellite). Furthermore, with borrowing, the struc­
ture of the host language remains undisturbed. However, CM requires complex integrity
of two linguistic systems/grammar within a sentence, which may yield a new grammar.
Other mixed systems, such as pidgin and creole languages, often fail to match the com­
plexity and creativity of CM/CS. The distinction between code-mixing and code-switching
is controversial for a number of reasons, particularly the integration of the participating
grammar’s intrasententially details; see Bhatia and Ritchie (2009). Additionally, Deuchar
and Stammers (2016) claim that code-switches and borrowings are distinct on the basis
of frequency and degree of integration. Specifically, only the former are low in both fre­

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quency and integration. For details about contrasting and comparing different positions
on this issue, see Myslin & Levy (2015); Poplack and Meechan (1998); and Lakshmanan,
Balam, and Bhatia (2016). Furthermore, there is a debatable distinction between CM and
Translanguaging (Garcia & Wei, 2014).

5. Bilingual Language Development: Nature vs.

Nurture
Beyond innateness (e.g., nature, Biolinguistic and Neurological basis of language acquisi­
tion), social factors play a critical play in the language development of bilinguals. As
pointed out earlier, describing and defining bilingualism is a formidable task. This is due
to the fact that attaining bilingualism is a lifelong process; a complex array of conditions
gives rise to the development of language among bilinguals. Based on the recommenda­
tion of educators, among others, bilingual families usually adopt a “One-Parent/One-Lan­
guage” strategy with different combinations, such as language allocation based on time
and space; for example, using one language in the morning and other in the evening or
one language in the kitchen and another in the living room. This is done to maintain mi­
nority language. In spite of their obvious potential benefits for language maintenance,
such strategies fall short in raising bilingual and bicultural children for a number of rea­
sons, including imparting pragmatic and communicative competence and providing nega­
tive and positive evidence to children undergoing heritage language development with so­
ciolinguistically real verbal interactional patterns (Bhatia & Ritchie, 1995). Therefore, De
Houwer (2007) rightly points out that it is important for children to be receiving language
input in the minority language from both parents at home. This also represents a common
practice in non-Western societies in Asia (e.g., India) and Africa (e.g., Nigeria) where both
parents, including members of the joint family minority languages, speak in their minority
language.

While raising bilingual children does not pose any serious challenge for majority children
(e.g., English-speaking children learning French in Canada), it is a different story for mi­
nority or heritage children. Sadly, a complex mix of political and social bilingualism leads
heritage/minority parents, who themselves experience adverse discrimination in social
and work settings, simply to prohibit the use of minority languages in family and educa­
tional environments. This practice, no matter how well intended, often results in negative
school performance and emotional problems for minority children.

6. Simultaneous vs. Sequential Childhood Bilin­

gualism
Broadly speaking, childhood bilingualism can manifest itself in two distinct patterns: (1)
Simultaneous bilingualism and (2) Sequential bilingualism. A child being exposed to two
languages to more or less to the same degree from birth onward is described as a simul­

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taneous bilingual; conversely, a child being exposed to one language first followed by a
second language, with the latter coming after the age of five, is referred to as sequential
bilingual. Sequential bilingualism takes place either in schools or in peer groups and/or
family settings. Surely, sequential bilingualism can persist throughout the adulthood. How
is early bilingualism different from late bilingualism? Research on sequential and adult
language acquisition shows that the pattern of sequential/successive language acquisition
falls somewhere in the middle of the continuum between a simultaneous bilingual and an
adult language learner.

7. Adult Bilingualism: UG and Native Language

Dominance
Why is the task of learning a second language by adults more difficult and time consum­
ing than by children? In spite of considerable motivation and effort, why do adults fall
short of achieving native-like competency in their target language? Why do even very
competent and balanced bilinguals speak with an “accent”? The Critical Period Hypothe­
sis by Lenneberg (1967) attempts to answer these questions, and it is sensitive to age
(Lenneberg, 1967). Children are better equipped to acquire languages because their
brains are more “plastic” before they hit maturity. They have access to UG, to which
adults have either no access or only partial access. Afterward, the loss of plasticity results
in the completion of lateralization of language function in the left hemisphere. Even
though adults are more cognitively developed and exhibit a high degree of aptitude, they
have to rely on their native language (L1 transference—including “foreign accent” togeth­
er with morphological features) in the process of learning a second language (Gass,
1996). Then there comes a time when their ultimate attainment of L2 falls short of the na­
tive language target, termed “fossilization” stage. No amount of training allows them to
bypass this stage to free themselves from second language errors. Siegel, for instance, of­
fers an alternative explanation of the language attainment state termed fossilization in
second language acquisition research—a stage of falling short of attaining a native-speak­
er end grammar (Siegel, 2003). He argues that fossilization is not biologically driven but
is the reflection of learners’ decisions not to clone the native speaker’s norm in order to
index their own identity. Some researchers believe that this stage does not have a biologi­
cal basis; instead, it is the result of bilingual, dual, or multiple identities. Adult learners
are not ready to give up their identity and, as a result, this prevents them from having a
perfect native-like competency of L2. For alternative theories of language acquisition,
see, for example, a usage-based approach by Tomasello (2003); and the Dynamic System
Theory by De Bot, Wander, and Verspoor (2007).

The differential competencies, as evident from the different types of adult bilinguals, can
be accounted for primarily on sociolinguistic grounds. For instance, gender or the period
of residency in a host country yields the qualitative and quantitative differences in bilin­
gual language acquisition. Factors such as access to workplace, education, relationship,
social networks, exogamic marriage, religion, and other factors lead to differential male

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and female bilingualism in qualitative grounds (Piller & Pavlenko, 2004/2006). Additional­
ly, learners’ type, their aptitude, and attitude also contribute to a variable degree of lan­
guage learning curves. Instrumental learners who learn a second language for external
gains tend to lag behind Integrative learners who aim at integration with the target cul­
ture. Similarly, the Social Accommodation Theory (Sachdev & Giles, 2004/2006) attempts
to explain differences in language choices and consequences on one hand and the social
evaluation of speech (good vs. bad accents) on the other, which influence the social-psy­
chological aspects of bilingual verbal interaction in different social settings (Altarriba &
Moirier, 2004/2006; Lippi-Green, 2012).

8. Effects of Bilingualism
Until the middle of the 20th century in the United States, researchers engaged in examin­
ing the relationship between intelligence and bilingualism concluded that bilingualism
has serious adverse effects on early childhood development. Such findings led to the de­
velopment of the “factional” view of bilingualism, which was grounded in a flawed mono­
lingual perspective on the limited linguistic capacity of the brain on one hand and the Lin­
guistic Deficit Hypothesis on the other.

Their line of argument was that crowding the brain with two languages leads to a variety
of impairments in both the linguistic and the cognitive abilities of the child. Naturally,
then, they suggested that bilingual children not only suffer from semilingualism (i.e., lack­
ing proficiency both in their mother tongue and the second language) and stuttering, etc.,
but also from low intelligence, mental retardation, left handedness, and even schizophre­
nia.

It took more than half a century before a more accurate and positive view of bilingualism
emerged. The main credit for this goes to the pioneering work of Peal and Lambert
(1962), which revealed the actual benefits of bilingualism. The view of bilingualism that
subsequently emerged can be characterized as the Linguistic Augmentation Hypothesis
(Peal & Lambert, 1962). Peal and Lambert studied earlier balanced bilingual children and
controlled for factors such as socioeconomic status. Sound on methodological grounds,
their result showed bilinguals to be intellectually superior to their monolingual counter­
parts. Their study, which was conducted in Montreal, changed the face of research on
bilingualism. Many studies conducted around the globe have replicated the findings of
Peal and Lambert. In short, cognitive, cultural, economic, and cross-cultural communica­
tion advantages of childhood and lifelong bilingualism are many, including reversing the
effects of aging (Bialystok, 2005; Hakuta, 1986). Nevertheless, the effects of bilingualism
on children’s cognitive development, particularly on executive function and attention, is
far from conclusive; see Klein (2015) and Bialystok (2015).

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9. Bilingualism: Language Spread, Mainte­

nance, Endangerment, and Death
Language contact and its consequences represent the core of theoretical and descriptive
linguistic studies devoted to bilingualism, and onto which globalization has added a new
dimension. Ironically, in the age of globalization, the spread of English and other Indo-Eu­
ropean languages, namely, Spanish and Portuguese, has led to the rise of bilingualism in­
duced by these languages; they also pose a threat to the linguistic diversity of the world.
Researchers claim that about half the known languages of the world have already van­
ished in the last 500 years, and that at least half, if not more, of the 6,909 living lan­
guages will become extinct in the next century (Hale, 1992; Nettle & Romaine, 2000). Re­
search on language maintenance, language shift, and language death addresses the ques­
tions of why and how some languages spread and others die. Phillipson and Mufwene at­
tempt to account for language endangerment within the framework of language imperial­
ism (2010) and language ecology (2001), respectively. Fishman (2013) examines the ways
to reverse the tide of language endangerment. Skutnabb-Kangas views minority language
maintenance as a human rights issue in public and educational arenas (1953).

Critical Analysis of Scholarship

Advances in our understanding of bilingualism have come a long way since the predomi­
nance of the “factional” and linguistically deficient view of bilingualism. The complexity
and diverse conditions responsible for lifelong bilingualism has led to a better under­
standing of this phenomenon on theoretical, methodological, and analytical grounds. A
paradigm shift from monolingualism and the emergence of a new, interdisciplinary ap­
proach promises new challenges and directions in the future study of bilingualism.

Issues and Conceptualization

Although bilingualism is undoubtedly a widespread global phenomenon, it is rather ironic

that, for a number of reasons, including the primary objective of linguistics, multidimen­
sional aspects of bilingualism, and misperception of bilingualism as a rare phenomenon,
the study of bilingualism has posed—and continues to pose—a serious of challenges to lin­
guistics for quite some time. This is evident from eminent linguist Roman Jacobson’s ob­
servation from more than half a century ago: “bilingualism is for me a fundamental prob­
lem of linguistics” (Chomsky, 1986). Similarly, Chomsky remarked that the pure idealized
form of language knowledge should be the first object of study rather than the muddy wa­
ter of bilingualism (Grosjean, 1989). Consequently, research on bilingualism has taken a
backseat to monolingualism, and monolinguals have served as a benchmark to character­
ize and theorize bilinguals, which, in turn, led to the ill conceptualization of the bilingual
person as “two monolinguals in one brain” (Dehaene, 1999).

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Are bilinguals just a composite or sum of two monolinguals crowded in one brain? A large
body of research devoted to the bilingualism and intelligence debate either implicitly or
explicitly subscribed to the “two monolinguals in one brain” conception. This set the
stage for the “linguistic deficiency hypothesis” about bilingual children and adults on one
hand and the limited linguistic capacity of the brain on the other. When looking from the
lens of monolingualism, a “factional view” (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2016; Nicol, 2001), or even
distorted view, of bilingualism emerged that portrayed bilinguals as semilinguals with a
lack of proficiency not just in one but two languages. Although still in its infant stage,
from recent research on bilingualism, a more accurate or holistic view of a bilingual and
multilingual person has begun to emerge in 1990s, namely, just as an individual bilingual
does not constitute two monolinguals in one brain, a multilingual is not merely a byprod­
uct of bilingualism alone or vice versa. Similarly, the notion that brain capacity is ideally
suited for one language is a myth. Additionally and interestingly, no two bilinguals behave
the same way all the time since they are not a clone of each other.

Bilingualism, unlike monolingualism, exhibits complex individual, social, political, psycho­

logical, and educational dimensions in addition to involving a complex interaction of two
or more languages in terms of coexistence, competition, and cooperation of two linguistic
systems. Additionally, although bilingualism is a lifelong process, the language develop­
ment among bilinguals is not merely a linear process; there are turns and twists on the
way to becoming bilingual, trilingual, and multilingual. The path to trilingualism is even
more complex than growing up with two languages (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2016).

The role of sociolinguistic factors in language learning; language use (creativity); lan­
guage maintenance; and language shift, particularly in trilingual language acquisition
and use, opens new challenging areas of future research. The main challenge for theoreti­
cians and practitioners is how to come to grips with various facets of the bilingual brain
ranging from language contact, bilingual language interaction, to language modes of the
bilingual mind/brain on one hand and methodological issues on the other.

Despite a number of studies on the Critical Period Hypothesis, and other competing hy­
potheses of bilingual language acquisition, future research in cognitive aptitude, age, and
multiple language effects with the lens of interdisciplinary debatable findings and
methodologies continues to pose new challenges and promises to the field of bilingualism
(Long, 2016).

Further Reading

Handbooks

Auer, P., & Wei, L. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communi­
cation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bhatia, T., & Ritchie, W. (2004/2006). The handbook of bilingualism. Oxford: Wiley-Black­
well.

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and Legal Notice).

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Bilingualism and Multilingualism from a Socio-Psychological Perspective

Bhatia, T., & Ritchie, W. (2013). The handbook of bilingualism and multilingualism. Ox­
ford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Ferreira, A., & Schwieter, J. W. (Eds.). (2015). Psycholinguistic and cognitive inquiries into
translation and interpreting. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Heredia, R., & Cieślicka, A. (Eds.). (2015). Bilingual figurative language processing. New
York: Cambridge University Press.

Schwieter, J. W. (Ed.). (2015). The Cambridge handbook of bilingual processing. Cam­

bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Foundational Works

Bialystok, E., & Hakuta, K. (1994). In other words: The science and psychology of second
language acquisition. New York: Basic Books.

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the cross-fire.
Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters.

Edwards, J. R. (1994). Multilingualism. London: Routledge.

Grosjean, F. (2008). Studying bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Haugen, E. (1953). The Norwegian language in America: A study in bilingual behavior.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Mackey, W. F. (1967). Bilingualism as a world problem/Le bilinguïsme: Phenomène mondi­

al. Montreal, QC: Harvest House.

Romaine, S. (1995). Bilingualism (2d ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in contact: Findings and problems. The Hague, The
Netherlands: Mouton.

Encyclopedias

Baker, C., & Jones, S. (Eds.). (1998). Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education.
Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters.

Byram, M. (2000). Routledge encyclopedia of language teaching and learning. London:

Routledge.

Hogen, P. (2011). The Cambridge encyclopedia of languages and linguistics. Cambridge,

U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Journals

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.

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and Legal Notice).

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Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Multilingual Matters, Clevendon,

U.K.

International Journal of Bilingualism: Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Linguistic Studies of

Language Behavior. Kingston Press, London.

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Multilingual Matters,

Clevendon, U.K.

Multilingualism and Second Language Acquisition. Brill Research Perspectives, Boston.

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ford: Blackwell.

Annamalai, E. (2001). Managing multilingualism in India: Political and linguistic manifes­

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Baker, C., & Jones, S. (1998). Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education. Cleve­
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Bhatia, T. (2016). South Asian languages in Diaspora. In H. Hock, E. Bashir, & K. V. Sub­
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