Language has a major impact in everyone’s lives, considering that it represents the means of expressing, delivering ideas, opinions, and connecting with every human being. What about people who master, not only a fluent language, but also another one, experiencing throughout their lives the phenomen called “bilingualism”?
Researchers in the field proposed various definitions of bilingualism. The main definition of it reffers to “fluency in two languages” (Life with Two Languages, François Grosjean). However, the concept of bilingualism is primarly related to the opportunity to explore the facets of life in terms of two languages. At first blush, bilingualism assumes experiencing living in two different worlds, but the problem is when it comes to adjusting to them. Many bilingualists claim the fact that they change their
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Bilingualists are more aware of language differences and are better at learning new languages regarding the connections they make. Furthermore, bilingualists have more flexibility in thought and, in the same time, divergent thought. In addition, bilingualists are more opened to other cultures, are more gentle concerning their attitudes towards minorities. (Life with Two Languages: An introduction to Bilingualism, Francois Grosjean)
On the other side, the bilingual experience, even though, at first sight, it may seam to give only advantages, involves several drawbacks, which need to be disscused and taken into consideration when we analyse the concept of bilingualism. On the level of language development, researchers found a variety of problems. Actually, until 1960, the majority of studies done resulted in bilingualism having negative effects on linguistic, cognitive and educational development and a few part of the studies showed positive effects (Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism, François