1. What does it mean to be bilingual?

There isn’t really a clear answer, but what is most accepted is to consider bilingual or multilingual people those who use two or more languages in their daily lives. In fact, globally, there are more multilingual than monolingual people.

Now, being bilingual does not mean having the same level of competency in both of the languages spoken: one is not the sum of the competencies that one has in both languages as if one were a monolingual speaker of each of them. A bilingual or multilingual person’s linguistic competence cannot be divided into parts but rather consists of a whole produced by the interaction of the two or more languages, whether they be oral or sign.

2. Does everyone agree about what bilingualism really is?

No. According to François Grosjean we can find two very different perspectives: the fractioned and the holistic. From the fractioned point of view, a bilingual person has two separate linguistic competencies, and each one would be similar to that of a monolingual person of either language. In turn, the holistic perspective proposes that a bilingual person is not the “sum of two monolinguals,” but rather has a complete linguistic competence which is produced by the interaction between the two languages.

3. Why are some children bilingual?

Children may be bilingual for different reasons:

• Because their parents speak more than one language to them, and the children acquire both or all of them.
• Because their parents do not speak the majority language of the country where they live, and therefore children are exposed to a language at home and to another at school.
• Because the children are deaf, and their parents have decided to provide them sign language to ensure language acquisition, which is endangered by the fact that deafness makes spontaneous oral language acquisition more difficult.

4. Are all bilinguals equally bilingual?

No. There are people who are more passive in one language: they understand the language very well but they are not as able to express themselves in it. There are some who acquire both languages during the first years of life, while others learn the second language at school starting at the age of five, for example. The context is also very important: Some bilingual people use both languages every day, while others live in an area where one of the languages is predominant which makes them speak the second language more sporadically.

All of these factors will create very diverse linguistic competencies and language uses and, therefore, very different bilingual people.

5. Is there a way to determine a person’s level of bilingualism?

It is difficult to quantify bilingualism. A bilingual person can be found somewhere on a continuum between monolingualism in one language and monolingualism in the other. Visually speaking: if we represent monolingualism in one language as the color black and monolingualism in the other as the color white, bilingual people will be situated somewhere in the grey spectrum between the two: some will be represented by a darker grey and others by a lighter one, but there are surely many more shades of grey!

Moreover, with respect to the mastery of a language there are at least four differing linguistic abilities: oral comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. When we try to measure bilingualism, it is necessary to take into account an evaluation of these competencies as a whole rather than focusing on only one of them, although oral comprehension and speaking are the ones which guarantee direct and spontaneous communication.

6. How can I know if my child has the optimum level of bilingualism?

The fractioned vision of bilingualism (see the question “Does everyone agree about what bilingualism really is?”), which sees a bilingual person as having two separate and independent linguistic competencies, has sought to describe and find ways to evaluate real bilingualism. According to this perspective, “real bilingualism” would be the most balanced version, where a speaker has equal mastery over the two languages. On this basis assessment tools have been created to test a person’s level of bilingualism, their design having borrowed standards for testing monlingualism.

However, being bilingual does not mean having the same level of competency in both languages, given that these levels will vary depending on many factors: the context, the person one is speaking to, one’s linguistic baggage and history.

In the case of deaf children, it is also necessary to include their access to oral language, which may be more or less restricted, as this will affect their oral language development, while they will acquire sign language completely and without effort if they are provided a signing context during the first years of life.

It is essential to accept this diversity, respect it and value it as a characteristic of human nature.

7. In our household we speak a language that is not the majority language our child will find at school. Is it better for him if we speak in the majority language?

The most important thing is for the communication at home to be fluid, for you as parents to feel comfortable conversing with your child, for you to not feel limited when expressing yourselves.

Your child needs at least one first language. If he acquires it fully and spontaneously during the first years of life this will make the acquisition or learning of any other language possible.

Also, speaking to your child in your native tongue will make the passing on of your community’s cultural patrimony possible.

8. At home, we as parents speak different languages, must we choose only one or the other when speaking to our child?

This is not necessary, no. The most important thing is for the communication at home to be fluid, for you as parents to feel comfortable conversing with your child, for you to not feel limited when expressing yourselves.

As long as your child has natural exposure to both language, feels affection towards those who speak them, etc., he will acquire them.

9. Will it be more difficult for my child to learn to speak if we teach him two languages?

First of all, it is not necessary to teach a child to speak, just like you don’t need to teach him to crawl or walk. What the child needs is rich exposure to languages. It is also essential that he feels the need to use them. This means having people around him who he speaks to in these languages in order to communicate with them. In a context like this, the child will acquire the languages in this environment and will use the same languages used by the people he communicates with.

What may happen is that this exposure to diverse languages may, in some cases, cause the child take a bit longer to being speaking.

10. We don’t know sign language and our child is deaf: would it be helpful to him if we learnt it?

It is recommended to parents to communicate with their child in a language that either the father or the mother speaks fluently because it is very important that parent-child communication be fluid and without limits of expression. However, the case of deaf children is a bit different.

When a deaf child is still a baby we do not know if he will be able to completely access oral language because, despite current technological advances such as the cochlear implant and hearing aids, it cannot be assured that the spoken sounds perceived by an infant make language acquisition possible. It is for this reason that it is recommendable to provide the infant, apart from the oral language or languages spoken at home, a sign language.

This does not mean that as parents you necessarily have to speak to your child in sign language. As you are learning it yourselves, you can search for places where your child will be immersed in sign language (associations, recreational centres, summer schools, etc.). Little by little, depending on how you see your child’s language development, how he acquires the languages in the environment, you will be able to decide whether to communicate with him through sign language, through the oral languages spoken at home, or a combination of both depending on the context.

11. If we as parents do not know sign language, how can we create a rich environment in this language for our child?

At the moment, unfortunately, no one context that would cover all of the necessities of deaf babies is offered by the government. However, alternative options may be sought out, such as having a signing babysitter come for a few hours per day, participating in activities with signing families, nurseries or play centres which offer the presence of signing adults and other deaf children. There is an association of parents of deaf children that offers a recreational activity for signing children (deaf and hearing) with signing monitors every Saturday. Meanwhile, you as parents can learn sign language as well!

12. How much exposure to a language does our child need in order to acquire it?

A minimum amount of exposure time to a language in order to acquire it spontaneously has not yet been established. What is known is that direct interaction has a positive influence on learning (a video in signed or oral language is not input comparable to a real person with whom one can have a direct conversation) (King & Fogle, 2006). This means that parents, friends and tablets are not the same thing.

13. What can happen if we do not take into account that a person is bilingual?

If we do not take into account that the child we are dealing with is bilingual, we may fall into the mistake of assessing him as we would assess the linguistic competence of a monolingual person.

Colin Baker (2006) states that any measure of linguistic competence for bilingual people must “keep its distance from the traditional linguistic tests (with emphasis on form and correction) and lean towards the evaluation of communicative competence of bilinguals in general.

14. What is the best linguistic environment for a bilingual child?

There is not one unique linguistic environment that can be recommended to all families. What is important is that communication at home be fluid, that parents speak to their children in their language from birth in natural contexts. If a child is deaf and the parents do not know sign language, they may also seek out contexts both within and outside of the family (a deaf signing babysitter, a recreational centre for deaf children, deaf friends to play with…) This way, while you learn this language your child will also have access to other signing contexts.

15. What is it that makes us bilinguals sometimes communicate in one language and sometimes in the other?

You will notice how your child switches from one language to another, perhaps without an observable explanation. There is a framework of causes the influence the choice of language when communicating.

This is the phenomenon that François Grosjean (2008) named linguistic mode: the state of activation of each of a bilingual person’s languages. In certain situations, a bilingual person speaks only one of his languages, but it is quite possible that in other occasions he may mix them naturally. The mechanisms that activate one language or another depend on many factors.

The person we are speaking to affects the language we choose to use in order to communicate with him: if we notice that he doesn’t speak our language fluently, we will change to the language we think he will understand better, for example. Also, languages are sometimes used for different purposes: some might be used to telling jokes in Spanish, or in certain areas and time periods where Catalan was spoken Spanish was the language of business, for instance. Depending on the social function of the languages we speak, we will use them in some contexts or in others. This is one of the many advantages of bilingualism.

From a young age, children award a different “importance” and “function” to the languages they find in their environment, something that will influence their choice of language for communicating with someone according to the situation.

16. Are there any advantages to being bilingual?

For decades, it was thought that bilingualism was harmful, but today this perspective continues to have no scientific support. Much research has been carried out which has shown the diverse benefits of being bilingual (see the overview of some of the effects of bilingualism by Costa & Sebastián-Gallés, 2015).

It has been seen that bilingual people may have an advantage when thinking about language, when learning other languages, and making decisions when resolving cognitive tasks (Abutalebi et al., 2012); they may benefit from a later onset of Alzheimer’s (Bialystok, Craik, & Freedman, 2010) and from an increased attention span (Hernández, Costa, & Humphreys, 2012), etc. Moreover, being bilingual allows one to more readily appreciate other languages and cultural diversity. And nowadays it is highly valued when looking for work!

17. Are there any disadvantages to being bilingual?

For many years, the idea that being bilingual was harmful was widely extended. Although it has been shown that a person’s speaking more than one language can be beneficial, there have also been some studies whose results are, in theory, negative.

Comparing bilingual and monolingual people, bilinguals may have less vocabulary in each of the languages than a monolingual would have of either language. Nevertheless, this “disadvantage” is small if we compare it with the advantage of having naturally acquired two or more grammars. Learning and consciously cultivating new vocabulary is less difficult than learning a new grammar system.

Another effect of bilingualism is that it may take a bit longer to say a word: that “I have the word on the tip of my tongue” feeling happens more often (Gollan & Acenas, 2004).

However, these are very concrete studies and as of yet there is no clear disadvantage.

18. Is it the same to be bilingual with two oral languages versus bilingual with one oral and one sign language?

Some people who are bilingual with oral and sign languages are deaf while others are hearing. In this response, we will focus on the case of deaf people.

It is a field that is still being explored, but some differences have been identified. François Grosjean (2010) describes the following differences:

• Deafness maintains bilingualism throughout life.
• It is possible that the majority language (the spoken language) is never fully acquired. The level of acquisition of the oral language or languages spoken in the environment will depend on many factors. Actually, whether a child will acquire oral language or not cannot be assured at the moment he is diagnosed; the results are unpredictable.
• There are less situations in which it is possible to use only sign language.
• As they are languages conveyed through different means (audio-oral and visual-gestural) mixing the languages can be done simultaneously, rather than only sequentially (as in in the case of code switching in oral languages). This means that one can advantageously sign and speak at the same time.
• Politicians in many countries argue against providing children with the language most accessible to them and prefer, rather, to give them access only to the majority language (the oral language).
• Bilingualism with sign and oral languages is not highly regarded, while bilingualism between two or more oral languages tends to be so.

19. How might being bilingual with an oral and a sign language be beneficial to my deaf child?

When a deaf child is very young and doesn’t speak yet, we cannot know if the cochlear implant or hearing aid is working nor if the audial stimuli that he is receiving are optimal for the child’s language acquisition through oral language. For this reason, allowing him to learn a sign language from the very moment we receive the diagnosis is a way to ensure that he will acquire language, at least through a visual channel.

Moreover, sign language will allow you to communicate in some situations where communication could be difficult by other means, such as when the child is not wearing the hearing apparatus (when bathing, when he prefers to be in silence, when the apparatus breaks or runs out of battery, when he has just woken up, in group conversations with other signing mates, etc.).

20. Is it better to wait for deaf children to acquire an oral language before introducing sign language?

The problem with this option is that, when we learn that a baby is deaf, we cannot be certain whether he will completely acquire oral language or not. Despite the fact that we are aware of many of the factors that affect this (family involvement, date of diagnosis of deafness, etc.), there are others which we are still unaware of, and we cannot fully control everything. This means that we cannot predict the results of an exclusively oral intervention.

The problem is that if we wait to see if the child develops oral language satisfactorily or not to decide whether to provide him with sign language we may lose time that could have been dedicated to full linguistic interaction with our child and therefore limit the possibility that the child acquires his first language naturally and spontaneously.

There exists a critical or sensitive period of language development. This means that during the first years of life, a child is at the optimal age to naturally acquire language. As he grows, after the age of 3-5, this ease of language acquisition is reduced. Acquiring a first language in the first years of life is extremely important: in order to have access to the information around us and because it becomes more likely that we end up speaking/signing like a native person.

For this reason, there are researchers and professionals that propose to expose deaf children to sign language as well. For instance, Sara Trovato (2013) explains that deaf children have the right to be provided a sign language from the very moment they are diagnosed because this will ensure their psychophysical development (linguistic development is strongly connected to cognitive, socioaffective, and emotional development).

A group of researchers have also claimed similar ideas. (Humphries, Kushalnagar, Mathur, Napoli, Padden, & Rathmann, 2014; Humphries, Kushalnagar, Mathur, Napoli, Padden, Rathmann, et al., 2014) argue for the necessity of providing sign language to deaf children in order to ensure the maximum linguistic development possible, given the wide variability of the results of an exclusively oral intervention in children with cochlear implants.

21. Does acquiring sign language as a first language ensure the acquisition of oral language?

We must accept the diversity of deaf children. What we have said about bilingualism in general (“being bilingual does not mean having the same level of competence in the two languages spoken”) must also be taken into account with deaf children.

In the case of deaf children, we must be conscious of the fact that technology will never make them feel as if they were hearing, and in some children, it is possible that it does not provide them enough access to oral language for oral communication to be fluid. We must aslo accept that there are different bilingual profiles: there are some children whose dominant language will be oral language and will use sign language less and others whose dominant language will be sign language.

Sign language’s becoming the dominant language is sometimes perceived as worrisome, because the majority of people do not sign. However, it must be taken into account that if you had not provided sign language, the situation may have been very serious; your child might not have completely developed any language, with the consequences that this would have on cognitive and socioemotional development.