What Does It Mean To Be Bilingual?
What goes on in the brain of a bilingual person, and what are the effects of being raised in two languages? In this video and article, we discuss different perceptions of what it means to be bilingual. I – What is bilingualism? As the above video shows, everybody’s got a different opinion. For some, being bilingual means being able to communicate effortlessly in two languages, even if one was learned later in life and communication takes an occasional detour. Others take error-free grammar and perfect pronunciation as the benchmarks. And it’s not just we mere mortals who are divided, scholars are equally split because the criteria and measurements are simply too vague and varied to settle on any one definition. From this, we can at least draw one conclusion: Bilingualism is a relative label, a question of degree rather than dichotomy. It’s also a fundamentally subjective phenomenon, one that is first and foremost felt . Do you feel it? ...