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1.2 The Guide for Bilingual Parents

The conviction that bilingualism is right for his family and even intensifies their relations in a special way is shared by longstanding scientific research on bilingualism in early childhood presented in a most recent Guide for Bilingual Parents by Professor Jürgen M. Meisel. The former Chair of the Research Center on Bilingualism at the University of Hamburg has been counselling parents for more than 35 years in both Germany and Canada (University of Calgary), and expertly confronts the advantages and—in his own words—“mostly mythical drawbacks of raising children with a command of two or more languages” (Meisel 2019: cover). A closer look at risks and benefits will become useful for an integrative bilingual methodology which aims at successive bilingualism in the long run.

Discussing so-called risks of early childhood bilingualism, Meisel’s parental guide draws upon the following “rumors” first, namely

 whether two languages can be kept apart,

 how to avoid a “macaronic language mix” (Meisel: 8; 58),

 that balanced bilingualism is not possible and puts excessive strain on mental capacity,

 that fusion of two languages affects cognitive development and would lead to semi-linguals with children torn between two languages and cultures, thus unable to develop their own personalities (cf. ibid.: 7 ff).

There seems to be sufficient evidence, however, that children can distinguish between different languages at an early stage already and Ava’s reaction to her grandfather is a case in point (see case vignette above). Various, even opposing theories of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) support the view that the mental grammars of bilinguals develop independently, whether one follows a generative SLA with Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (UG), the so-called Human Language Making Capacity (LMC; supported by Meisel: 35), its radical version of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH, Bley-Vroman 2010) or more recent approaches in cognitive theory, constructivism and the findings of neuro-science. The alleged “macaronic language mix” turns out as code-switching and the sign of a conscious choice as “the ability to select languages according to interlocutor, situational context, topic of conversation etc.” (Meisel: 72). All these paradigms do not only refer to childhood simultaneous bilingualism but also pertain high relevance for successive bilingualism in CLIL programs and are therefore discussed in the following juxtaposition between a nativist and a cognitive position (see chapter 2). Code-switching itself becomes part of CLIL-tools and as “translanguaging” works together with other linguistic skills such as mediation, visual representations and digital implements in the context of interactive methods, instructional strategies and scenario techniques (see 8.2-8.5).

On the bilingual credit side are the following aspects:

 accelerated language acquisition is one of the undisputed benefits of bilingual development,

 native-speaker competence seems possible, provided a sufficient input is available,

 reading skills and favorable intelligence tests are counted as further added value, based on neurological advantages,

 bilingual children become part of another social world,

 they are able to express the same ideas in two languages,

 they are immersed in cultures negotiating different meanings and values.

Meisel’s guidebook for “bilingual parents” is listing these and further benefits to encourage these processes and advising adults to persevere in their attempts to create rich, multi-lingual situations (cf. Meisel: 7 ff, 221 ff).

1.3 The Graduate Medical School of Hanover

These perspectives are confirmed in an extended “Bilingual Speech Production Review”, conducted at the Graduate School of Hanover Medical School (MHH–Medizinische Hochschule Hannover; MHH-Review: 2013). Conducted as a systematic review of studies from the last 50 years the review investigated speech acquisition in bilingual infants (under the age of four) and children (up to 12 years of age), amounting to 66 studies, analyzed thematically and summarized in terms of methods, key findings and underlying theories. Main findings suggested that bilingual children, only in a few cases, developed speech at a slower rate than the monolingual comparison group but showed “qualitative differences and increased variation in speech production”. The review also stated that “more recently researchers have moved away from investigating whether there are one or two phonological systems and accept that there are two systems that interact” (ibid.: n.p.). These interactions (details in chapter 2) between the stronger (L1) and weaker (L2) language had positive and negative effects working both ways. The fact that positive transfer becomes “more evident with increased age and length of exposure to a second language” (ibid.) will be an important parameter when studying CLIL programs which often begin with Year 7 students and aim at successive bilingualism.

Apparently, it is hardly possible to quantify sufficient linguistic input in both simultaneous and successive bilingualism:

We do not know what the ‘normal’ amount of exposure to a language is. The number of child-directed utterances or, more specifically, of verbal interactions varies enormously across families, monolinguals as well as bilinguals. Consequently, we have an only approximate idea of what the minimum amount of input is for a child to be able to develop a native competence. It should definitely not drop below 20 per cent of the total amount of verbal interactions a child receives. More reduced amounts of exposure to a language may suffice to trigger linguistic development, but this will happen at a significant slower rate and it is unlikely to result in native competence (Meisel: 177 f).

Among the benefits and advantages of child bilingualism, as could be seen, was the opening up to another culture and the ability to, at least in part, express the same ideas in two languages. In order to facilitate this, although not measurable in definite numbers, a minimum threshold level of language exposure does exist and children would profit enormously from verbally rich environments. The result of such an acquisition process—especially from early on—“will almost certainly be vastly superior to what is normally achieved in foreign language classrooms” (ibid.: 185).

1.4 The Gap Between Knowing and Doing

However, studies in language acquisition also need to look at the gap between knowing and doing, in other words the difference between competence and performance. Whereas the most important components of a speaker’s linguistic knowledge are their lexicon and grammar, the ability to activate their linguistic competence in communicative interaction is equally decisive. As an illustration the well-known “tip-of-the tongue” phenomenon (TOT) is often quoted, a situation where speakers fail to recall a word or term, although they feel retrieval is imminent, “on the tip of their tongue”. It occurs at all ages and happens frequently enough to interfere with learning or in everyday situations:

Speakers experiencing it are momentarily not able to retrieve a word that they have used many times before and that they can use in spontaneous speech shortly afterwards. Thus, they obviously do know it. In fact, when offered a list of words, they reject the wrong ones. Even more interestingly, they may be able to identify certain properties of the word, like its initial sound, its number of syllables, or its meaning; or they can cite words that are similar in sound and meaning. This shows that the irretrievable element is not missing; yet it is only partially, not fully, accessible. It furthermore suggests that items in mental lexica can be retrieved in a number of different ways, not merely by their initial sounds (ibid.: 16).

There is no one explanation for this phenomenon. Either a speaker’s memory strength may not be strong enough to recall an item (direct-access view) or incorrect, but similar responses to a query come to mind; in this explanation these answers are termed blockers because they block the possibility to recall the correct item, once they are overcome retrieval will be possible again (blocking hypothesis; cf.: ibid.). If there are, then, different ways of activation, a successful retrieval depends on appropriate cues and lexical access, at the same time, occurs in stages. “Language learners must therefore develop both a grammatical competence and the proficiency to put it to use in a wide array of communicative contexts” (ibid.: 16). Thus, the question arises: What about bilinguals? Do they experience similar phenomena or is there a double load in their mental lexicon because of their increased linguistic load?

Experiments conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA 2020: n.p.) indicate that bilinguals, compared to their monolingual peers, are involved in a “doubled processing load” which can lead to difficulties in specific situations but otherwise be advantageous. Given the descriptions of visual objects and people’s names, Spanish-English bilinguals showed relatively better results in retrieving proper names, being more difficult to reproduce, than monolinguals:

… for a harder task, bilinguals showed relatively better performance. Bilingual disadvantages may be limited to representing multiple forms for individual meanings; proper names improved naming because they have essentially the same form across languages (ibid.).

1.5 The Dual System Hypothesis

Whether this can also be seen as a confirmation of the Dual System Hypothesis (DSH; cf. Meisel: 48), also called Dual Language System Hypothesis (cf. Genesee 1996) is open to debate, but at least it hints at further differences in linguistic knowledge and performance between monolinguals and bilinguals—that are useful to know when it comes to study CLIL performance in more detail. The DSH proposes the

idea of early differentiation of linguistic systems, characteristic of the developmental pattern through which simultaneous bilinguals typically proceed … a hypothesis widely accepted today on the basis of findings obtained by a steadily increasing number of case studies carried out over the past 30 years (Meisel: 48, 72).

According to the proponents of the DSH, bilingual children acquire two different language systems from the beginning of language acquisition, which as a process results in two distinct mental grammars (cf. Meisel: 52); their rules do not cross over from one language to the other (cf. Bradley: 2020 n.p.) without denying a linguistic interaction between the two systems. Interaction would occur “primarily in settings where one language is dominant and the other one weak, either in the social context or in the mind of speakers” (Meisel: 53). Since bilingual programs like CLIL inevitably have to deal with a stronger (L1) and a weaker language (L2), this would have a number of consequences for teaching strategies and learning processes, which are discussed when looking at CLIL tools and skills (cf. chapter 8). But despite this assumption based on observation and common sense the terms “strong” and “weak” need some qualification:

Empirical justifications for qualifying a language as ‘weak’ or as ‘non-dominant’ commonly refer to one or more of the following observations: a) The language in question is rarely or not at all used actively; b) the other language is strongly preferred; c) the development of the allegedly weak language is less advanced than that of the other language (ibid.: 130).

The strong point pertinent to the DSH is, then, that bilingual children do not move through stages to be eventually able to distinguish between two languages. On the contrary, they are able to have two language systems and are aware which system is related to which language (cf. Bradley: 2020 n.p.). There are recent studies that ascertain bilinguals’ capacity to use the correct system for each language without “mixing” them, and an individual’s capability to differentiate which language is spoken—Ava’s example comes to mind—and a test showing that bilingual children responded with the same language spoken to them (cf. ibid. and Genesee: 1996).

This shows us that bilingual children under the age of two could differentiate the language being heard and respond with the same language, which supports the idea that children have two different language systems (Bradley: 2020 n.p.).

How code-switching and the concept of interlanguage can be accounted for is part of the challenges still connected with CLIL and dealt with in a final look at desiderata of this approach (chapter 10).

Overall and also according to the MHH-Review, studies provided a mixed and complex picture in terms of the relationship between mother tongue (L1) and the foreign language (L2) acquired. Established was some transfer from L1 to L2 and vice versa and hence the existence of two language systems, not independent but inter-connected. The question of a unitary phonological system was regularly abandoned in favor of the evidence of two separate systems by a majority of the studies reviewed. The observation that phonemes are shared in both languages was substantiated by the experience that they are acquired in one language before another. This interconnectedness does not only account for the fact that researchers found robust evidence for transfer from the dominant language to the language acquired later (L1 to L2), but was also mirrored by the existence of only two older studies (from the 1970s and 1980s) arguing for a unitary language system. This is to say that empirical data help to determine the validity of language acquisition theories of past and present to a degree that is relevant for teaching bilingual programs at schools.

1.6 The Unitary Language System Hypothesis

Its predecessor models go back to scientists like Noam Chomsky and his Universal Grammar proposals that it was commonly thought that children learning two languages simultaneously during infancy go through a stage where they cannot differentiate their two languages. Bilingual children, in other words, mix elements from their languages regularly. The empirical basis of this assumption was re-examined in the 1990s (see above: Genesee study 1996) with the result that from the beginning bilingual children develop differentiated language systems and are able to use their developing languages in contextually sensitive ways. In this context it is important to remember that code-switching is not a sign of a strong language (L1) dominating the weak one (L2) or even leading to the aforementioned “macaronic language mix” (Meisel: 8, 58), but rather signifies the competence of bilinguals to choose their language according to who and why they are talking to, and in which situation.

Equally important is the possible role of parental input in the form of mixed utterances and its opposite, the “one person, one language” (OPOL) method. Since the beginning of research on bilingual development, which the bilingual guide book (Meisel: 86) situates in the middle 1910s, OPOL has played a major role. It has been modified much later, and in a German context, by the well-known “enlightened monolingualism approach” (Butzkamm: 2019 “Aufgeklärte Einsprachigkeit”) and is still an issue in both bilingual theory and CLIL strategies. Without science-based evidence, the OPOL approach is recommended because “this principle or method is based on common-sense considerations rather than reflecting insights into mechanisms underlying bilingual acquisition” (Meisel: 87). Accordingly, Meisel’s guide book does “not recommend mixing languages freely in child-directed speech” (ibid.: 118):

This is to say that adult interlocuters should make it a habit to adhere to one language in addressing the child, in accordance with the OPOL principle, keeping in mind, however, that it is a useful strategy, not a dogma. Language mixing or switching is thus not excluded, since there is no reason to be concerned about potential effects of mixed speech on bilingual acquisition. On the contrary, code-switching, inserting nouns from the other language, etc. can facilitate or even improve communication (ibid.: 118 f).

In how far the OPOL principle should also be applied to teaching CLIL programs, where the instructor needs to choose the appropriate strategy to scaffold the learning process, and ensure comprehensible input as well as maintain effective communication, would have to be considered separately. It is true that the question of mixing languages is not only a phenomenon in early childhood bilingualism but becomes even more relevant when looking at successive bilingualism as in CLIL. As far as the latter is concerned, the use of L1 and L2 in teaching situations is still a matter of contentious debate among researchers and instructors, whether supporting enlightened monolingualism or not, and will be dealt with in looking at the challenges and desiderata of bilingual teaching (see chapter 10).

Review—reflect—research

Compare the risks and benefits of childhood bilingualism.

Discuss the “experiment” of the young couple from Southern Germany. Would you bring up your children bilingually if given the opportunity? Why/why not?

Find out more about the debate of using L1/L2 in bilingual teaching programs. What is your inclination?

1 Some authors prefer the label “multiculturalism” in accordance with the European Commission to accommodate “Europe’s linguistic diversity” (cf. https://ec.europa.eu/education/education-in-the-eu/council-recommendation-improving-teaching-and-learning-languages_en. Last viewed 03/05/2021.).

Chapter 2

Nativist and Cognitive Positions
Vignette “Language is the dress of thought”

Mixing languages on the very same island is, of course, a well-known historical phenomenon and could become a serious political problem as well, like in the case of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where English and Gaelic were spoken in the Northern parts to a great extend. But then English had gradually replaced Scottish Gaelic in the 18th century, because the latter was heavily suppressed during the infamous Highland Clearances following the Jacobite uprisings which ended with their defeat at Culloden in 17461.

The leader of the Jacobites, mockingly called “Bonny Prince Charlie”, had failed in his attempt to restore the Stuart dynasty—rulers for over three centuries—and was chased by a victorious English army throughout the Highlands. Disguised as a servant maid he was finally smuggled on a boat to the Isle of Skye by Flora Macdonald, in whose house he stayed for some time during 1746 and eventually fled to Rome where he died in poverty and as a drunkard.

Almost thirty years later (in 1773), Samuel Johnson overcame his resentment to the Scots and embarked on his famous 3-month Tour to the Hebrides. 20 years before, the English poet, essayist, and literary critic had just about finished a major publication: Johnson’s Dictionary turned out to become a standard lexicon for more than 150 years and formed the basis for all subsequent English dictionaries, namely the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1900s. After the final publication in 1755 he was given a doctorate and hence was often referred to as Dr. Johnson. His interest in languages went much further than presenting the meaning of words and their etymology, but typically included personal remarks and opinions, with even some derogatory comments about his Northern neighbors; a case in point is his definition of “oats”—usually referred to as a cereal used as food—: “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people”2.

In this context, Dr. Johnson had read an account of the Hebrides and had been much interested by learning “that there was so near to him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as in the Middle Ages” (EB 1939: 114). Thus, the wish developed in him to explore the state of a society which was utterly different to all he had ever seen and whose Gaelic language he was not familiar with:

At length, in August 1773, Johnson crossed the Highland line. and plunged courageously into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous wilderness … [he wandered] about two months through the Celtic region … About the beginning of 1775 his Journey to the Hebrides was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. His prejudice against the Scots had at length become little more than a matter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in every part of Scotland (ibid.).

Dr. Johnson’s Scottish venture was even more popularized by the diary of his friend and travel companion James Boswell, in which he, among other Highland encounters, tells the story of how Dr. Johnson met the very same Flora Macdonald, who had helped Bonny Prince Charlie in his escape from the English soldiers, and even slept in the same bed:

Monday, 13th September [1773]. The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr. Johnson’s bed was the very bed in which the grandson of the unfortunate King James the Second lay, on one of the nights after the failure of his rash attempt in 1745-46, while he was eluding the pursuit of the emissaries of government, which had offered thirty thousand pounds as a reward for apprehending him.” (Boswell 1785: 130).

Dr. Johnson’s fame in posteriority was also grounded on a later publication, his Lives of the Poets series (published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781) which contains his most famous surviving quote:

Language is the dress of thought: and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanicks; so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications. (https://cowley.lib.virginia.edu/small/johnsoncowley.htm Last viewed 03/05/2021.)

Dr. Johnson’s metaphor, here applied to the writings of the English poet Abraham Cowley, has been the subject of a variety of essays and comments in either an agreeing or disapproving mode3. It is, basically, a reflection of the connection between thinking and its linguistic expression and, at the surface, hard to contradict. When it comes to the analysis of higher order thinking skills (the so-called HOTS, cf. chapter 6.7), however, a couple of issues arise. If the kind of clothes you wear reflects in some ways what you are, your style of speech would indicate your thinking and, in Dr. Johnson’s own diction, spoil the quality of your most brilliant ideas and “drop their magnificence”.

The Lives of the Poets has been called the best of Dr. Johnson’s works: “The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound” (EB 1939: 115). But clothing seems to be more than “just having something on”, it is subject to fashion, sometimes hides more than it shows and it is also supposed to protect and support his or her bearer. When it comes to language “as the dress of thought” texts and translations have to fit the context and need to express your ideas and intentions. On a lighter note, it could be said that language is not the dress but the costume of thought4, disguising what people mean to say and, in this way, separating thoughts from the language supposed to express them. The famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, for instance, underwrote the possibility that language could deceive people and Noam Chomsky as a linguist underlines the creative and innovative character of language which leads him to his conclusion of language innateness and the nativist quality of his frequently cited Universal Grammar. Other writers have engaged in similar discussions, George Orwell pointed at the corruption of language and thought working in both ways, and Hans Christian Andersen described the admiration of missing garments in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” as a sign of subjugation and the fear of being left out by praising the stuff they do not see.

As much as the exact relation between language and thought might never be known, even the origins of language themselves are somewhat diffuse. Language in the widest sense of the word refers to any means of communication between living beings and in its developed form is decidedly a human characteristic, considered the distinctive mark of humanity:

On the ultimate origin of language speculation has been rife … Greek philosophers were divided into two groups on this question, some thinking that there is from the beginning a natural connection between sound and meaning and that, therefore, language originated from nature, while others denied that connection and held that everything in language was conventional. The same two opposite views are represented among the linguistic thinkers of the 19th century, the former in the nativism of W. v. Humboldt …, the latter in the empiricism of Whitney etc. (EB 1939: 702).

In this light, the assumptions about the origins of language, the connections between thought and its linguistic expression and the relationships between acquired native and learned foreign languages have remained open to discussion and provided a rich field for research and investigation in the language classroom.