Multilingualism

Becoming Multilingual

Many factors can influence the development of bilingualism, including the age of acquisition, which will be discussed here. Other factors include the manner of acquisition, identity, motivation, and language community. Children who are raised in a bilingual environment from birth, where each parent speaks a different language, for instance, are referred to as simultaneous bilinguals. The cognitive processes of becoming bilingual at this age mirror the processes of a monolingual child acquiring one language and fall under the scope of first language acquisition. For this reason, simultaneous bilinguals are traditionally assumed to be equally proficient in both languages. Sequential bilinguals, on the other hand, learn a second or subsequent language after learning their first language. The cognitive processes involved are different to some extent from first language acquisition, and the process is referred to as second language acquisition. There are also associated age-of-acquisition effects in second language acquisition, such that few sequential bilinguals become as proficient as simultaneous bilinguals or native speakers.

Verbal Giftedness and Multilingualism

Howard Gardner was one of the first researchers to suggest that linguistic intelligence is separate from general intelligence, and he has shown that linguistic intelligence can exist independently of other forms of intelligence. However, all normally developing children acquire their first language(s) as a result of a process innate to humans. In addition, linguistic intelligence and verbal giftedness may facilitate success in learning a second language, but they do not guarantee multilingualism nor do they indicate that all bilinguals, particularly sequential bilinguals, are gifted. Yet the variable degrees of success in second language acquisition indicate that there are many factors involved in becoming bilingual, and verbal giftedness may well play a part in the most successful cases.

Bi- and Multilingual Children and Giftedness

Bilingual children, especially minority language children, are frequently overlooked in assessing giftedness for a number of reasons. First and foremost, children who are still in the process of learning the language of the classroom may not be able to demonstrate their full intellectual potential, especially in monolingual environments. Moreover, many of the assessment instruments used to determine giftedness have been normed on mono lingual children, and research has shown that bilingual children perform differently on standardized measures as compared to monolingual children. In addition, these measures, such as the WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) or the SAT—V (Scholastic Aptitude Test—Verbal), focus on academic skills, which may not reflect the abilities of gifted bilingual children, especially on verbal tasks. Last, the educational policies and attitudes concerning minority language students may affect the identification of gifted bilingual children, especially if monolingualism in the majority language is seen as the norm. In this case, children who do not speak the majority language are seen as deficient, and the rapid acquisition of the majority language is considered normal rather than valued as a talent.

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