For the 4 case studies, I also agreed that every single member in your family (including you) are bilinguals, even the controversial ones!
When I first learned about the different types of bilinguals, I realized that maybe I was a passive/receptive bilingual in my heritage language. I grew up hearing it spoken in my family and could understand what my parents said to each other or to family memebrs. However, because I was never communicated with in my heritage language, I never developed the expressive language skills to be considered a "productive bilingual". It's still strange now to call myself a receptive bilingual even though I can still understand conversations my mother has over the phone. Meanwhile my brother says he doesn't understand a single word even though he's only 2 years younger than me (It shows that not all siblings have the same experiences even if they are close in age). Clearly if I can understand yet he can't understand a thing, that must mean I at least have some ability? I think it's interestesting that I'm trying to find justification for my abilities/bilingualism.
Similarly, I've been learning multiple languages over the years with Mandarin being my strongest. Unlike my heritage language, I can actually speak Mandarin and I understand more than I speak. I've been at this stage for a few years yet I've never used the bilingulism label to refer to myself. Yesterday I had an conversation with a teacher in Mandarin and I understood everything she was saying. I also spoke butmy speaking ability is not as strong as my listening.
All of this to say is that it seems there's an idea that bilingualism has to do with knowing 2 (or more) languages and being able to speak and understand in those languages. Even though I recognize my passive bilingualism in my heritage language and emerging bilingulism in my other TLs, I can't seem to use those labels to describe myself. I feel I'm not "legit" enough to be considered bilingual. If there was someone else in the same psoition as me, I would have no issue acknowledging their bilingulism.
This was a great essay! I remember reading some of Garcia's work last year.
I absolutely relate to your struggle about claiming bilingualism in your heritage language! I used to really question if I could be considered bilingual in Mandarin due to the fact that my reading skills are super limited. I used to say things like, "I think I'm bilingual but I'm definitely not biliterate" (when in reality, I can send text messages & emails with little to no problems -- I just have really high expectations for the language skills of an "actually bilingual person"). Viewing bilingualism on a spectrum has been surprisingly freeing for me!
This was such an awesome read! I have taken 1 100 level linguistics class in college and so am a teeny bit familiar with the studies around it, but not a lot. I love the inclusiveness of bilingualism here and the many different varieties of it. thanks for sharing! the illustrations are really cute too
Thank you Lydia!!! It was my first try doing illustrations for the newsletter so I was a little nervous lol but I’m happy with how they turned out. & glad you enjoyed the read!!
I love this essay, Rebecca! The nuances in bilingualism are so interesting and I agree - the nuances themselves are representative of how language lives and evolves in the world. Thank you for writing this :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it, Reed!! I love looking at language from more of a social/language use perspective because it addresses details that often go unnoticed or taken for granted. The spectrum of bilingualism is just one of those many things!
For the 4 case studies, I also agreed that every single member in your family (including you) are bilinguals, even the controversial ones!
When I first learned about the different types of bilinguals, I realized that maybe I was a passive/receptive bilingual in my heritage language. I grew up hearing it spoken in my family and could understand what my parents said to each other or to family memebrs. However, because I was never communicated with in my heritage language, I never developed the expressive language skills to be considered a "productive bilingual". It's still strange now to call myself a receptive bilingual even though I can still understand conversations my mother has over the phone. Meanwhile my brother says he doesn't understand a single word even though he's only 2 years younger than me (It shows that not all siblings have the same experiences even if they are close in age). Clearly if I can understand yet he can't understand a thing, that must mean I at least have some ability? I think it's interestesting that I'm trying to find justification for my abilities/bilingualism.
Similarly, I've been learning multiple languages over the years with Mandarin being my strongest. Unlike my heritage language, I can actually speak Mandarin and I understand more than I speak. I've been at this stage for a few years yet I've never used the bilingulism label to refer to myself. Yesterday I had an conversation with a teacher in Mandarin and I understood everything she was saying. I also spoke butmy speaking ability is not as strong as my listening.
All of this to say is that it seems there's an idea that bilingualism has to do with knowing 2 (or more) languages and being able to speak and understand in those languages. Even though I recognize my passive bilingualism in my heritage language and emerging bilingulism in my other TLs, I can't seem to use those labels to describe myself. I feel I'm not "legit" enough to be considered bilingual. If there was someone else in the same psoition as me, I would have no issue acknowledging their bilingulism.
This was a great essay! I remember reading some of Garcia's work last year.
I absolutely relate to your struggle about claiming bilingualism in your heritage language! I used to really question if I could be considered bilingual in Mandarin due to the fact that my reading skills are super limited. I used to say things like, "I think I'm bilingual but I'm definitely not biliterate" (when in reality, I can send text messages & emails with little to no problems -- I just have really high expectations for the language skills of an "actually bilingual person"). Viewing bilingualism on a spectrum has been surprisingly freeing for me!
This was such an awesome read! I have taken 1 100 level linguistics class in college and so am a teeny bit familiar with the studies around it, but not a lot. I love the inclusiveness of bilingualism here and the many different varieties of it. thanks for sharing! the illustrations are really cute too
Thank you Lydia!!! It was my first try doing illustrations for the newsletter so I was a little nervous lol but I’m happy with how they turned out. & glad you enjoyed the read!!
How wonderful to see so many examples of bilingualism from your family! Thanks for this post, Rebecca.
Thank you, Jillian! It was a fun piece to write!! :)
I love this essay, Rebecca! The nuances in bilingualism are so interesting and I agree - the nuances themselves are representative of how language lives and evolves in the world. Thank you for writing this :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it, Reed!! I love looking at language from more of a social/language use perspective because it addresses details that often go unnoticed or taken for granted. The spectrum of bilingualism is just one of those many things!