Читать книгу The Mysteries of Bilingualism - Francois Grosjean - Страница 10

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 being able to use two languages equally well”). This is proportionally less than for the meaning of “bilingual.” And five definitions mentioned language use. Two of these mentioned use by itself (e.g., Macmillan: “the use of two languages by a person or a group”); two mentioned ability and use (e.g., Merriam-Webster: “the ability to speak two languages,” as well as, “the frequent use… of two languages”); and one, Google dictionary, indicated the one or the other possibility: “fluency in or use of two languages.” Again, none indicated two or more languages, and none added dialects to languages. In sum, the definitions of “bilingualism” put much less emphasis on language fluency and made more room for language use. But overall, dictionary definitions follow the lay persons’ view of what “bilingual” and “bilingualism” mean. We can now turn to experts who study bilingualism.