Environment Dominates a Bilingual Speaker's Choice of Language

It is believed that a person's native language is always his prominent language; however, some evidence suggests that environment overrules this belief. Because a person is fluent in two languages, does not necessarily mean that he is bilingual. There is some controversy surrounding the difference between bilingualism and fluency. For a language to be learned as a native language it must be introduced from birth. So, if a person learns two (or more) languages from birth, he is not considered to be truly bilingual unless he is competent in all of his languages. Moreover, a person who acquires a second language and becomes fluent is still only considered to be fluent rather than bilingual. But these are only considerations; the truth is that environment plays the key role in fluency and/or bilingualism.

Finegan's definition of bilingualism is "The state of having competence, both grammatical and communicative, in more than one language", a definition that clearly divides the masses. Plenty of people call themselves bilingual when in fact they merely speak, but do not read or write two languages. Perhaps these are the people that Merriam-Webster describes as fluent; which gives this definition: "ready or facile in speech". Why is it that most people become so adept at listening to and speaking two languages, but not at reading or writing them? It's environment. The fastest, most effective way to communicate is to speak, therefore, many fluent people become better at speaking, than they do at writing never really attaining bilingualism. If I spend a month in Spain, I'm certainly not going to quickly scribble "May I have a train ticket?" on a pad before I'd try to fumble verbally over, "Puedo comprar un billete?"

This is not to say that this is the norm. Many people truly are bilingual and are competent grammatically and communicatively in two languages. Under ordinary circumstances, with no learning or speech disabilities present, the bilingual child hears, speaks, reads and writes his prominent language without much trouble. He learns the phonological, syntactic, and semantic systems in his prominent language that adults take for granted. Furthermore, he learns word order, affixes, and nuances such as joking or insults. Even though a child learns all of the above in the bilingual household, it is the language that he is most exposed to in his environment, (i.e. school) on a daily basis that becomes his primary language.

Children learn 80% of their first and second language by the age of six. Learning a second language after this age profoundly affects the ability for the learner to internalize the language. And, although it would seem that the most frequently heard words would be learned first, this is not true (see list below). Also not true is the fact that not all languages are learned in the same order, which means that the order in which grammatical structure is learned is language-specific.

For example, in English the order of grammatical learning is:

1. Present progressive playing
2. Preposition in
3. Preposition on
4. Regular noun plural toys
5. Irregular past-tense verbs came
6. Possessive noun Daddy's
7. Uncontractible copula Who is it?
8. Articles a, the
9. Regular past-tense verbs played
10. Regular third-person singular present-tense verbs sees
11. Irregular third-person singular present-tense verbs does
12. Uncontractible auxiliary She isn't crying, He was eating
13. Contractible copula That's mine, what's that
14. Contractible auxiliary He's crying (Finegan, 547).

Note in the above list that smaller words, such as the articles a and the are not necessarily learned before larger, present progressive words like playing even though they are used more frequently by adults. This proves that frequency is not as effective as environment. The order in which a language is learned has to do more with the complexity of the grammar rather than the frequency of its use. It seems like frequency and environment are very close in definition, but they are not, because the child can frequently hear Spanish spoken at home and in the neighborhood, but if he goes to an English-speaking school, English will probably be his primary language.

From the behaviorist point of view, learning is connected environment. Using the example above with frequency and environment is a good case in point. The more important words to the young, learning mind have to do with what is in his environment, like verbs or action words: playing, eating, going, etc. while a, an and the do not yet exist while the child is in this stage of learning; they are far too fine-tuned. The child's mind associates that the verb is what moves the sentence, and since he himself is learning to control his movements, association from his environment exists.

Looking at Pavlov's classical conditioning theory, it makes sense that a child's language system may be built around such a theory. Not excluding other factors such as cognition, ability, or mental lexicon, but that conditioning is a tangible way to connect language to the brain. For example, when the child says baba for bottle, he is "rewarded" with the bottle. A few months later, the caregiver shows the stimulus (the bottle) and now, articulately says, "Bottle" repeatedly. When the child makes an improvement in pronunciation, he is rewarded with the bottle. This conditioned response plays a functional role in telling the brain, "Yes, this verbal improvement fits in this language system". Although the classical conditioning theory is limited in its ability to explain novel utterances, it is a huge part of any learning process.

Common in the behaviorists' theories are that one learns through his environment, which is true with many other endeavors in life; language is no different. If a person wants to learn how to swim, he can not learn on land first, and then go in to the body of water. He must first get in the water without knowing how to swim in order to learn. This same concept applies with language; no matter how much of a language is learned outside of its environment, the speaker does not truly become bilingual until he is in the water so to speak. (Of course there are exceptions to every rule; but for this short study, we'll assume that those exceptions do not exist.) As was stated earlier, to be truly bilingual, one must listen, speak, read and write two or more languages. The student who spends hours, or even years in the English-speaking school trying to learn Spanish may speak, read, and write Spanish well enough to pass the tests, but if his listening is not in place a crucial element of his bilingualism is missing. A Spanish-speaking environment would solve such an issue.

When a child learns a language, environment is one of many factors in the process; but, when an adult learns a (second) language, environment is critical since the age of building a language system within the brain has passed. Although the brain is past the age to learn the system of a second language, it is still possible to acquire the second language through exposure to the language and its environment. Countless high school students graduate every year unable to converse in the Spanish that they had been learning in the classroom for the past five years because they had not been immersed in the Spanish-speaking environment. On a lighter note, the good thing about learning (as an adult) through one's environment is that it can take place at any stage during the learning process and still be effective in the overall outcome of L2 acquisition. In fact, a person can become so adept in his second language that he begins to forget small words in his primary language. This phenomenon is known as attrition.

"From a young age, everyone learns to control several language varieties for use in different speech situation. No one is limited to a single variety in a single language,"(Finegan, 333).

Attrition occurs when the bilingual person is in a monolingual environment where one of his languages becomes dominant. Because he hears and speaks the newly prominent language, the other language, whether it was his L1 or his L2 begins to wane. In this case, environment clearly supersedes learned information. An interesting fact is that children have been observed to lose language much more rapidly and completely than adults (Kaufman), so there is something then, to be said for second language acquisition as an adult. It seems that more concrete or acquired information stays with the adult learner. Furthermore, attrition occurs in different degrees.

Losing the use of one's language does not mean that it is lost forever. Perhaps the less dominant language lies dormant in a "storage" state within the bilingual brain. It would seem that a language could be stored until needed, but studies suggest that recollection requires more than just the need to speak. One example is of a Chinese woman studying at Berkeley in the United States. In a conversation with her parents she recalled, "…when they asked me what my major at Berkeley was I did not know the phrase for "Biology," much less, "Molecular and Cellular Biology." The rest I could manage was "science" in Chinese and explained the rest in English," (Hinton). Though this seems like an extreme case, it is an excellent example of the power of environment.

Bilinguals experience attrition in different degrees depending of course, upon the person, or the language, but particularly on the environment. Three subjects studied were found to have the same profound results from their environment. All three subjects acquired their languages at different stages, and under different circumstances, yet have equivalent environmental results.

Francisco: L1 Spanish L2 English - Country: USA - School - English
Christina: L1 English L2 Spanish - Country: Puerto Rico - School - English
Handan: L1 Turkish L2 English - Country: Turkey - School - English

Francisco acquired his L1 and his L2 simultaneously; Christina began her L2 at age 9, but didn't become bilingual until the age of 16. And although Handan learned her L2 in school in Turkey, it was an English speaking school; she was also encouraged to speak English at home with her brother. (An interesting note: all three subjects obtained graduate degrees in their L2) When asked if given the choice, which language they would speak in, each of the subjects replied the same: "It depends on the country I'm in". So, in other words, the environment affects bilinguals even when a choice presents itself.
Very interesting to discover was that learning environment had a similar profound affect on all three subjects. Listening and speaking are entirely different than reading and writing. Keeping in mind that all three subjects went to English speaking schools, it is not difficult to imagine that when asked, "When approaching a sign in your two languages, which do you read first?" all three replied, "English". The Language Learning journal of linguistics agrees that "grammatical awareness may be associated with different learning environments in a rather complex fashion," (219). Although two of the three subjects were not L1 English speakers, they still preferred to read English first when faced with a choice between their two environments. This evidence suggests that an English-speaking school environment has precedence over the language spoken at home, making the language of one's environment his dominant language.

Once a language dominates the bilingual speech and gives way to L1 attrition, it is interesting to note that loss of language knowledge occurs in the same manner in which it was learned. For example, it is very unlikely that the English-speaking person would ever forget the function words a, an, and the concerning attrition. Why then does it come as a surprise that those frequently used function words are learned much later than the content words play and ball? Content words (in English) are learned first because they are easier to acquire; it seems logical that content words would be the first to be forgotten in L1 attrition. It is unknown at this time (by the current researcher) whether attrition occurs in the same manner for the L2. Also a factor in variation is in what order each specific language acquires its words. Whatever the case, many bilinguals maintain that watching television and reading in their less dominant language prevents total attrition.

Interestingly, maintaining language may be easier in languages whose word orders (or other constituents) are compatible. For example, the English speaker may have an easier time learning about declarative statements in Spanish with the subject-verb-object (SVO) sentence structure. Word order is one of the systems learned in that 'before-the-age-of-six' learning gap. So because the subject and verb (usually) come first in a sentence in English and Spanish, it is plausible to think that since these content words are learned first, that they may also be forgotten first in attrition. But, what if the speaker is an L1 Turkish and an L2 English speaker?

He gave the book to me……………………..English
(sub) (verb) (obj)

O bana kitabi verdi
(sub) (obj) (verb) ……………………….Turkish
He to me the book he gave.

El me dió el libro
(sub) (verb) (obj)…………………………..Spanish
He to me he gave the book.

The basic sentence structure in Turkish is SOV. Since the content words are separated by the object in the sentence, it would be interesting to know if attrition occurs more frequently with objects in Turkish than it does with English or Spanish. Without knowing the acquisition order of morphemes in Turkish, it is difficult to know which of the constituents are learned first or forgotten first. This subject is under further investigation. Languages do differ, but the environmental impact surpasses any differences that may be present in acquisition or attrition of languages.

However, sentence structure does not consist only of declarative statements. There are of course, questions. I movement and WH movement are factors in this cause. I movement is the movement of the subject I in the sentence such as I am expected to do that? Or Are you expecting that I do that? And WH movement is the movement of questions beginning with those letters (i.e., who, what, where, why, and when). "For speakers of English, asking polar questions (yes or no questions) may employ I-movement, inverting the auxiliary verb with the subject. But, asking content questions may employ both I-movement and WH-movement to front the question phrase," (Handout Syntax: 2). Considering this quote, it may be easier for the Spanish speaker to retain Turkish (and vice versa) due to the fact that neither one use the auxiliary do as English does. Moreover, Spanish and Turkish can also change word order in statements as well as questions and still make intelligible sentences that would not make sense in English.

There is no one law that governs all learning or lack of learning between any two languages because too many constituents are in place. For instance the similarities in subject-verb-object sentence structure are similar between Spanish and English, but the ability to move constituents are similar between Spanish and Turkish. There is no "easy" way to learn any one language. Perhaps languages coming from the same root family such as the romance languages like Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc., may have some commonalities, but even all of those languages do have their nuances and their differences that make their language their own. Another factor distinguishing language learning can be as simple as the age at which a language is learned or acquired, word order such as modifiers before a noun, or the use of other basic syntactical structures that just cannot be present in many of the same languages.

Second language acquisition is contingent on not just one or two, but many different factors. The primary factor is the age at which a language is learned or even acquired. Secondly, the root from which a language derives, the word order that a language uses, and of course its syntax should be considered when studying second language acquisition.

What cannot be ignored is the environment in which the bilingual or fluent person lives, because no matter how much language is learned, the environment dominates language usage to the point where the bilingual person's first language actually wanes. The brain, like a muscle frequents information that is used most. That is not to say that first language or even second language in the brain is ever completely lost, but may lie dormant until the speaker enters the environment in which the language is to be used. In order to maintain a bilingual status in life, the bilingual person must make a conscious effort to nurture both languages, not only in listening and speaking, but in reading and writing as well in order to be truly bilingual.

WORKS CITED

Escobar, Anna Maria, Antxon Olarrea y José Ignacio Hualde, Introducción a la lingüística hispánica, 2001, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom.

Finegan, Edward. Language Its Structure and Use, Fourth Edition: Thomson Wadsworth, 2004.

Handout 10: Theoretical approaches to language acquisition, Behaviorism.

Handout: Beyond Basic Syntax. Part two: Forming Questions.

Hinton, Leanne. Involuntary Language Loss Among Immigrants: Asian-American Linguistic Autobiographies. University of California, Berkeley December: 1999, EDO-FL-99-10, http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/involuntary.html

Kaufman, Dorit. Organizer:, State University of New York at Stony Brook:
http://mendota.english.wisc.edu/~SLRF/kaufman.html

Kasper, Gabriele and Kenneth R. Rose. "Pragmatic Development in a Second Language." Language Learning, A Journal of Research in Language Studies, Vol. 55, Number 3, (Sept. 2005): 491-531.