|
|
|
|
Bi-cycle, Bi-noculars and Bi-focals all mean two of something; so bilingualism must be about two languages but how? Most people can claim to know some words in a number of languages but can we really say that they are bilingual? Stop for a moment and write down as many words which you know in different languages. They should be the same word in each language - so you have to write food, alimentation, essen and so on. You can use signs from different sign languages. It is often thought that you can count up all the words a person knows in more than one language and then figure out how bilingual that person is. But this is not true. As we will see in the course, it is actually quite hard to measure bilingualism. However, it is worth thinking about the exercise which you have just done. Most people can write words in different languages. Most deaf people know parts of more than one sign language. Most often there are specific categories where you know most words or signs. Which are these? Probably greetings. Hello, Ciao, Bonjour, Hola and so on are all words which people quickly pick up. Some people will learn about the objects which are common or words which they have a special interest in. A category like this could be deaf. What other words do you know for Deaf in different languages?[1] What about signs? [Stop and think] These are all factors in our language knowledge but they are most likely to be features we learn to use in contact with other people. Language is learned by use. This use leads us to specific aspects of language. Baker suggests a number of different aspects. · Language Skills - particular features which we can observe like writing · Language competence - much more broad, but mostly what we have inside, our knowledge · Language Performance - is when we produce the language, when we can see the evidence of the competence · Language Ability or Proficiency are rather general terms meaning being able to show what you can do in a language · Language Achievement - is what you will be concerned with if you are teaching or learning sign language. This is the level reached by the end of the course.
[1] Words like Sourd in French or Taub in German. |
Back to MLEDC
homepage |
