I'm doing a study on how Polish-English bilingual people perceive different situations. I have a survey that shouldn't take more than a few minutes to complete. I would really appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes: exp.psy.gla.ac.uk/project?bilingualgenerosity&guest
I can share the results with anyone interested after the completion of the research project :)
Sounds interesting, Lenka. I once participated in a similar study conducted by the German General Consulate in New York for Americans such as myself born in the US with German as quasi-mother tongue.
The researchers subjected me to a light battery of questions regarding how I react to various cross-cultural stimuli in addition to the usual questions as to in which language I dream etc.
Figure it's the same here, although the criteria obviously wouldn't apply in my case:-)
I have noticed that bilingual Polish-Russian speakers have much higher level of emotional stability than bilingual Polish-English speakers. I will not name any names, but you know who you are.
It's certainly not a trap. This project is part of my dissertation and is focused on cognitive processes in bilinguals rather than defining Poles' (or any other nation's ) personality traits. Similar projects are being conducted on various other bilinguals, not only Polish-English ones. It's a research field in psychology exploring the interaction between speaking multiple languages and cognitive processes. I am in dire need of participants, hence my post.
The only uwaga is that the survey assumes that bilinguals learnt English as a foreign language rather than have it as their first language and learnt Polish subsequently. We Brits aren't all monolingual.
You're right, it does assume that English was acquired as a second language as it generally targets Polish native speakers. But exceptions are possible :)
I only "acquired" Polish long after the age of childhood, more like end of my 20's. Furthermore, I'm certainly not a true bilingual, therefore again, I'd scarcely be a qualified participant in your study, unfortunately.
We were having a discussion today somwhere about what the term bilingual means.
I'd say it's someone who can function comfortably in two languages. It isn't about grammatical perfection though since there are people who can produce faultless or near faultless texts or speech about certain topics however are limited in the situations in which they can use their second language.
It seems to have changed meaning in the last few decades, I remember when it was restricted to people with more than one native language and didn't normally include languages learned after the age of 10 or so (or in school).
jon, I'd even qualify further by saying that the natural ability to seamlessly think as well as function within the target language context, that is, of the second language acquired vs. the need to translate from the source language or mother tongue, is what distinguishes an authentic native bilingual speaker from someone who learned the language even in young adulthood!
For instance, I have never claimed and would never claim to be a bilingual in Polish, regardless of reading fluency, as I acquired it comparatively late in my development as opposed to German which was the first language I heard although schooled in English from roughly first grade until college:-)
While I could negotiate my way through daily situations with monolingual Polish speakers during my all too brief sojourn in Poland, the language continued and continues to control me rather I controlling it.
In addition, I'm aware of myriad errors in daily usage which was never the case with German.
It certainly can mean that, though few people who've spoken two languages since childhood have them both equally. A quick look,on Google produced this:
Thanks, jon. I'll go with Bloomfield's definition myself:-) Ck. out too the Canadian linguist Prof. Steven Pinkert, in case you're not entirely familiar with his work. He talks about native speakers of different languages as being, quite literally, "circuited" differently from each other, which he mentions at length in "The Language Instinct".
few people who've spoken two languages since childhood have them both equally
Yeah the 50-50 bilingual seems largely to be a myth most have a clear preference though I'm not sure of the variables that cause one to be stronger... talking with a German Polish bilingual (both native) a few years ago and she said she was at a meeting with other Germans bilingual with other languages... and they all (despite exposure, education etc) claimed German as dominant... just an anecdote... but a weird one.
Amen there, Maf! Don't know how often on this very Forum, I've decried to distraction the number of Europeans encountered over the years claiming to be bilingual, yet speaking often atrocious English, like rapid-fire bubble gum chatter masquerading as culturally correct usage.
The actual "BI-linguals" I've met abroad are rare indeed.
Sapir-Whorf was popular for a bit, same for Chomsky. Pinker though became a sort of "hot young Turk" of linguistics, so to speak, oh, around twenty-five years ago or more.
Eons ago, a well-known French linguist claimed his children, who grew up on the French/German border near Alsace-Lorraine, were literally "speaking" German with German-speaking classmates after school, although the linguist's children had allegedly never studied the language either at home or at in school! Saussure, I believe it was.
Motto of the story is that kids are proverbial sponges and frequently have little need, if any, for institutional aids when picking up a language simultaneously with their mother tongue.
never studied the language either at home or at in school! S
Normal enough. Kids in parts the UK with large Urdu speaking populations pick it up from friends playing in the street. As far as language goes, you're right. Kids are a sponge.
If anything, languages badly taught at school can create barriers and blocks that don't exist when the language is picked up. Naturally.
Tell me about it, jon! Sometimes I feel many language instructors are their own worst enemies. They often whine and moan about the pupils not learning, meanwhile they kill them with mind-numbing grammar rote rot, stifling any curious learning impulse there is.
mind-numbing grammar rote rot, stifling any curious
Absolutely. At school learning French we just copied grammar tables and example sentences and didn't speak it at all. In the exam i think the oral part only counted for 5% of the total. It killed all joy and we were taught it as if it were Latin.
To be bilingual, speaking first. Mistakes in grammar are by the by and never totally vanish.
I read that if a non-native speaker who teaches kids has ingrained errors, they don't necessarily pass those errors to the kids. Language is a powerful thing.
You bet! Maybe one of a number of reasons that a vast number of Europeans, particularly from the Northern countries, appear to know English with such seeming ease and facility is that they are taught the opposite way from the methods we've both come to know and hate.
Oh, I'll be the first to add my well-known laments, complaints about the way certain Europeans communicate in English. However anyone with ears and a working brain knows it's a damned sight better than the average native Anglophone could negotiate their way around French, German, Norwegian, Italian etc. much less Russian or Polish LOL
And it's not simply a matter of the old saw, "Who needs Norwegian since everyone needs English?" either! It's a question of methodology and application; theirs works, ours doesn't!!
For example, I already knew tons more German than I would have before winding up in Prof. Koerner's college freshman German class. The teaching was poor, yet somehow I made out on the Dean's List since I'd had a foundations of basic words and sounds from my German-speaking nanny as a child. No mystery there.
A lot of it is a combination of improved teaching methods and exposure to TV, film and pop music sung in English by non-natives (and therefore less idiomatic). Its a synergy and it starts at an ever earlier age.
the way certain Europeans communicate in English.
There are two distinct dialects of non-native European English now. North East and South West. Plus migrant registers especially among Poles in the UK. Some of it is starting to bleed into standard English. I've recently heard native speakers say NIN for National Insurance number (no Brit ever called it that; the term was coined by post-2004 migrants, mostly Polish) and even heard the awful term "a training" which is unnatural for a massive speaker but violoncello in Poland and Czech.
I can't say I like the terms however it's near impossible to control a language and God knows the French try hard enough with theirs.
The younger generation do feel excluded by those policies and of course no ody really says ordinateur.
The African francophone countries have also realised that French bilingualism means that they understand nobody and nobody understands them. Some are officially switching to English as a lingua franca (Rwanda has already done this) and most will follow.
