Bilinguality: Socio-Linguistic Perspective

Introduction

This chapter discusses different aspects of the relationship between bilinguals’ use of languages in societies. As Zuengler and Miller (2006) point out that “the SLA process was considered, almost unanimously, to be an internalized, cognitive process” (p. 36). However, they argue that more recent concepts in the field of SLA view language learning from sociocultural perspectives that consider “language use in real-world situations as fundamental, not ancillary, to learning” (p. 37). As described by Kharchenko (2022), bilingual/multilingual children “use the right language with the right people at the right place, at the same time developing her insatiable desire to experiment with new words, sentences, and narratives” (p. 85). Johnson (2006) also claims that language teaching and learning is in a sociocultural turn, which is defined as “human learning as a dynamic social activity that is situated in physical and social contexts, and distributed across persons, tools, and activities” (p. 237). She considers that learning is “the progressive movement from external, socially mediated activity to internal mediational control by individual learners” (p. 238). According to Mesthrie (2010), the subfield studies of sociolinguistics are concerned with the use of language. That is, these subfield studies pay “attention to the social background and intentions of speakers, issues pertaining to their social characteristics and identities, as well as to the social context of speaking” (p. 66). According to him, people who use the same language but are from different cultural backgrounds “may have different cultural assumptions and norms” (p. 66). It may include “linguistic identity of social groups, social attitudes to language, standard and nonstandard forms of language, the patterns and needs of national language use, social varieties and levels of language, the social basis of bilingualism and multilingualism, and so on” (Barjesteh, et al., 2022, p. 34). “The bilingual’s development and behaviour cannot be envisaged independently from society, its structure and its cultural dimension….language is an important part of culture” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 115). That is, sociolinguistics never views language as somewhat static and idealized patterns; rather, it is dynamic, bottom-up, and non-prescriptive (Mesthrie, 2010). However, Hamers and Blanc also point out that cultural identity is not synonymous with social identity. For Hamers and Blanc, a specific society may include different cultural groups, and each cultural group may share to a great extent many cultural characteristics apparent to this cultural group, including language, religion, ethnicity, and core cultural values. That is to say, “cultural identity is part of…social identity” (p. 116). Hamers and Blanc describe that children develop their social identities by comparing their cultural groups with others in the same society. They recognize some cultural characteristics that belong to their groups but not other groups, and vice versa.

Reiterer (2010) discusses how socio-cultural factors may influence bilingual brain organization. For her, socio-cultural factors are the ‘nurture’ side of factors that may play roles in determining and shaping the outcome or proficiency level of a language learner. These factors may include “manner of acquisition/teaching method, amount and quality of input/training, exposure time, purpose of language use and linguistic environment, language attitudes of social group and individuals, exposure to or experience of bidialectalism and polyglottism” (p. 310). She points to Evans et al.’s investigations in 2002 that showed “lateralization in bilinguals is strongly affected by the specific language environment during development” (p. 313). The researchers found that more right hemisphere involvement for the later learned language in bilinguals.