Semilingualism

The term semilingualism, discussed in this entry, was first introduced in 1962 by the Swedish philologist Nils Erik Hansegard (who called it halvsprakighet); the term was picked up by Hákan Ringbom, who conjectured that “a period of ‘double semilingualism’” occurs when an individual abandons his or her native language altogether in favor of an imperfectly acquired second language. For Hansegard, the term denoted a lack of competence in all languages an individual knows in any of six areas: (1) size of the repertoire of words and phrases that are understood or actively available in speech; (2) linguistic correctness; (3) degree of automatism; (4) ability to create or neologize; (5) mastery of the cognitive, emotive, and volitional function of language; and (6) richness or poorness in individual meanings (whether reading or listening to a particular linguistic system “evokes lively and reverberating semantic images or not”).

In the United States, however, use of the term semilingualism is owed instead to James Cummins, a Canadian scholar whose research has deeply influenced bilingual education theory in the United States and internationally. Cummins invoked the notion of semilingualism as one of three “types of bilingualism” in his idea of a threshold hypothesis. These included additive bilingualism, defined as having “high levels in both languages” dominant bilingualism, having a “nativelike level in one of the languages” and semilingualism, the condition of having a “low level in both languages.” The threshold hypothesis posited that the level of language ability attained by bilingual children in their first and second language may affect cognitive growth in academic subjects. Cummins believed that immigrant children were at risk of semilingualism because they might experience attrition (or decay) of the first language before learning the second, making it difficult for them to function in either language in school. The solution, Cummins argued, was to place children in classroom settings in which they received rich instructional support in the first language, with the intention of preventing the onset of semilingualism.

Cummins's use of the term and concept of semilingualism has been much criticized. Carol Edelsky and colleagues, for example, characterized the idea as “a confused grab-bag of prescriptive and descriptive components,” and Marilyn Martin-Jones and Suzanne Romaine referred to it as “a half-baked theory of communicative competence” in the title of a highly critical article. Perhaps partly because of strong remarks such as these, Cummins soon began using the phrase “limited bilingualism” instead of “semilingualism,” but the definition of the term and the role it played in Cummins's overall account of language minority children's difficulty in school, captured in the threshold hypothesis and related notions, remained unchanged.

It is important to note in the context of the controversy what Cummins meant by “language proficiency.” Cummins conceptualized language proficiency along two continua, called context-embedded—interpersonal communication in a mutually understood context where the need for explicit linguistic elaboration of a message is reduced—and context-reduced—communication that does not occur in a mutually understood context and that therefore requires elaborate and explicit detail.

The value of this system, for Cummins, was that it reflected a “developmental perspective,” that is, a view of language as growing and developing over time. Moving beyond the acquisition of the “species minimum” (a term borrowed from Jerome Bruner to denote the acquisition of the rules of word order, word formation, pronunciation, and meaning), Cummins believed other aspects of language proficiency continue to develop throughout the school years and beyond, principally including literacy-related language skills such as reading comprehension, writing ability, and vocabulary/concept knowledge.

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