How Do Different Languages Connect in Our Minds?

Vivian Cook

What is a bilingual?

Characteristics of L2 users

What are L2 users like?

L2 users think differently

L2 users have a better feel for language

L2 users speak their first language slightly differently

Two languages in one mind

The underlying issue in second language acquisition (SLA) is how two or more languages connect to each other in the same mind. If we speak both English and Japanese, say, do we effectively keep them in separate English and Japanese compartments or are the languages mixed up together? This question is the raison d'être of SLA research and distinguishes it from first language acquisition research: when you have one language already in your mind, what happens when you acquire another?

What is a bilingual?

A starting point is the concept of bilingualism itself. This term means very contrary things to different people. Your answer to Question 2 in Box 1.1 gives away which of the meanings you subscribe to.

A general definition of bilingualism might be that offered by Uriel Weinreich, a Yiddish-speaking American linguist, in 1953: 'The practice of alternately using two languages will be called bilingualism and the persons involved, bilinguals'. But for most purposes this begs the question as it does not say how much, how often or how well the bilingual speaks the two languages. If I go into a restaurant in Florence and say buona sera does that make me a bilingual? If you can follow an Italian film without reading the subtitles are you a bilingual? In short, how much of a second language do you need to know to count as a bilingual?

If you agreed with answer (A) that a bilingual is 'a person who knows two languages equally well', you are adopting the definition of American linguist Leonard Bloomfield, who said in the 1930s that bilingualism is 'native-like control of two languages'. Probably the most common idea of bilingualism is that it means being able to speak two languages fluently in all circumstances. In this view, bilinguals can use both languages equally effectively and can readily pass for native speakers of either – balanced bilingualism in which neither language is dominant in the mind. This is sometimes called the 'maximal' definition of bilingualism: you couldn't have a higher target than perfection in both languages.

Such balanced bilinguals are hard to find. For one reason, bilinguals tend to use their two languages in different situations or speak them to different people rather than cover all occasions and all people with both languages. If you play tennis with a German-speaking partner and golf with a French-speaking partner, your use is likely to be skewed between the two languages. You may be good at writing essays in English but bad at writing them in your first language, or so Greek students in England have told me. It is hard to think of many people who use both languages equally for all of the possible ways they can use language. Balanced bilinguals in this sense are thin on the ground.

But there may be more maximal bilinguals around than one suspects. After all, if people are truly bilingual in this maximal sense, you won't be able to tell they are not native speakers in either language: they are invisible bilinguals. The film star Audrey Hepburn for example was bilingual from birth but one would never have known from her films; Prince Philip, the Queen's Consort, spoke English, German and French in childhood (and was christened Philippos). Presumably secret agents need this ability to survive undetected; certainly the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett successfully worked with the French Resistance in German-occupied France in World War Two.

If you agreed with answer (B) that a bilingual is 'a person who can use another language effectively', you are on the side of Einar Haugen, a Norwegian American, who claimed that bilingualism starts at 'the point where a speaker can first produce complete meaningful utterances in the other language'. When an English speaker says Bonjour in a shop in France, they are using language bilingually: what they are saying is complete, meaningful and appropriate to the situation, even if totally predictable and banal. Bilingualism is a question of being able to use the second language in a meaningful way for certain things, not of being able to do everything.

Such a bilingual would have no chance at all of passing for a native speaker. They are nonetheless using the second language perfectly adequately for their own needs. I can get by as a visitor in restaurants and shops in Italy using hardly any Italian; if I lived there, I would doubtless need to expand my repertoire considerably. This is then the 'minimal' definition of bilingual; one couldn't imagine a lower target for learning a second language. Such bilinguals are extremely common around the world; indeed, on some counts, there are more people who use second languages in the world than there are pure monolinguals.

While we can all agree with Weinreich's definition of bilingualism as alternating between languages, the two opposing common meanings of the word bilingual are difficult to reconcile. The maximal definition is a virtually impossible counsel of perfection that can at best apply to a handful of people and tends to make people feel inferior who are in fact perfectly adequate second language users; they may be ashamed that their accent gives away that they are not native speakers even if this doesn't interfere with their communication. The maximal definition is thus too exclusive. The minimal definition on the other hand includes all the people in the world who have ever tried to communicate something in another language, which amounts to almost everybody. The minimal definition is then far too inclusive. The problem is you often don't know which of the senses of bilingual a particular person intends.

To avoid this dilemma, SLA researchers tend to employ the alternative term L2 learner, which has no overtones of either maximal or minimal bilingualism. But in my view L2 learner does have the implication that people who speak a second language will never finish learning it; you are condemned to be an L2 learner all your life apparently, never getting to the state of having learnt the language. Can someone who has been using a second language for decades like Swedish-speaking Björn Ulvaeus of Abba really still be called an L2 learner of English?

Hence I prefer the term second language (L2) user for 'somebody who is actively using a language other than their first'. This does not pin down a...