BILINGUAL AND TRILINGUAL COMPETENCE: PROBLEMS OF DESCRIPTION AND DIFFERENTIATION

CHARLOTTE HOFFMANN
University of Salford (England)

Research into child bilingualism over the last twenty years or so has yielded a considerable amount of data and opened possible new avenues for description as well as theoretical approaches. Most studies have been concerned with bilingualism. Trilingualism has received much less specific attention. This is true for studies in individual bilingualism only, for we have seen a growing preference for the term "multilingualism" in discussions dealing with issues relating to language contact at the macrolinguistic level. Sometimes authors acknowledge the existence of trilingualism with additions such as "two languages (or more)", but only rarely have attempts been made to contrast the phenomena of bilingualism and trilingualism.

The aim of this paper is to investigate linguistic competence in trilingual children in terms of how it manifests itself and how it can be explained. It is generally accepted that certain qualitative and quantitative differences exist between the linguistic competence of monolingual and bilingual children. It is suggested here that one may find relatively few differences in kind when comparing bilingual and trilingual competence. However, certain social, cultural and above all psychological and personality-related factors may assume disproportionately high significance in determining the establishment and, more importantly, the maintenance of childhood trilingualism.

Much of what we know about a child's early bilingual competence (and it is not very much) can be inferred from the answers to a few basic questions:
(1) How does the child acquire two (or more) languages?
(2) How do these systems function within the individual?
(3) What relationship exists between the different codes?
(4) Is it possible to account for the way in which the child uses his/her codes in a systematic way, and would it be possible to predict certain strategies of linguistic behaviour?

There now exists a substantial body of data which goes some way towards answering the first question. Case studies of children acquiring two languages have become methodologically more consistent and reliable, and they have yielded a good deal of insights into the acquisition of the phonological, lexical, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic systems under consideration. The answers to the other three questions, which all concern bilingual competence, have so far remained more tentative. There exist reliable methods for the collection of acquisition data for monolinguals and bilinguals, and for their description and analysis, whereas it is much more difficult to describe accurately, let alone measure, bilingual competence. Also, there seems to be a less direct relationship between input and output, and it appears that there are only limited insights to be gained from comparisons with monolingual children's language development.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for the 1inguist trying to account for bilingual competence lies in the realisation that one is working with factors which are not easily accessible and verifiable, and which are constantly changing.

For monolingual just as for bilingual children, learning to speak means acquiring communicative competence. The codes involved will determine whether the processes are more or less similar, depending for instance on the type of differences in sociolinguistic and pragmatic competence required by the relevant languages. Bilingual competence, however, goes beyond communicative competence. It can be seen as a composite ability which manifests itself in the use of both languages and, in addition, in a system that uses elements from both and enables the speaker to use speech strategies that are not at the disposal of the monolingual.

The paper will examine certain aspects of this issue which are related to the establishment and manifestation of bilingual and trilingual competence, such as language awareness, language choice and language mixing. It will also consider some strategies of language use such as code-switching and translation on one hand, and certain learning strategies on the other. A brief analysis of examples of language production of trilingual children will be used to highlight some of the questions involved, and also to show up some of the theoretical problems involved in the description of early trilingual competence.

A number of factors may impinge upon simultaneous acquisition of communicative competence in two or more languages, and all of them must be seen to be of an irregular and changeable nature, both at specific times in an individual's life and over a longer period. The linguistic environment will determine the kind and amount of language input, as well as the child's own need to use the different codes, whereas the relationship between the young bilingual or trilingual and the speakers of the different languages will regulate the sort of social interaction and communicative situations the subject will experience. Affective variables may be quite powerful in establishing whether or not a child acquires active, as well as passive, bilingualism or trilingualism. In older bilingual or trilingual children such variables often assume more importance than all the other factors: attitudes towards the languages and their speakers, cultural values, and also perspectives on their own bi- or trilingualism, have been shown to carry considerable import -just as, I would argue, personality factors do, although this goes somewhat beyond the hitherto explored areas of research.

Most studies that address these issues concern young bilingual children, and therefore we know little about the ways in which such factors contribute towards the relationship of the individual's languages in his or her later childhood and adulthood, or how they affect the emergence of dominance in one, or two, languages; nor do we have a clear picture of the interrelationship between existing bi- or trilingual competence on the one hand, and subsequent learning (as opposed to acquisition) of the languages involved.