Is Bilinguality an Illusive Concept?

Abstract

Background and Objective: In an effort to study bilinguality, researchers in this field have often compared bilinguals with monolinguals, generally considering each group to be a homogeneous, monolithic body with no discernable within-group individual differences. This approach overlooks the various levels of proficiency among bilinguals, the age and order of acquisition of each of their languages, as well as their language history, and daily usage. Although monolinguals may not be conversant, some may still at least partially comprehend a second language. By failing to actively consider and collect more details about a variety of participant language attributes, researcher assumptions can lead to conclusions that are not a true reflection of the similarities and differences between monolinguals and bilinguals. A number of studies have found bilingual advantage in health-related outcomes as well as performance on cognitive tasks. All these reported findings are based on the performance of participants who may or may not be true bilinguals consequently impacting the results of this research [9,11]. Recommendations: The impact of considering a wide variable of participant characteristics in bilinguality research, including age and order of acquisition, daily usage, and fluency is examined. In addition, a recently proposed psychometric model that evaluates the above variables is discussed. Finally, recommendations are made on how to further improve the standards of research in bilinguality, including performing objective fluency testing, and asking detailed questions about participants’ complete language history.