The Self-motivated State of Bilingualism

Studies that involve bilingual acquisition studies highlight the frequency of perception in which language one is stable while language two is compelling because it experiences changes in development. These studies question the stability of language one concerning a context where there is frequent activation of both languages. Multilingualism is dynamic from a person’s perspective, and multilingual speakers’ lives involve access to language input and interaction in both languages. According to Schmid and Kopke, coactivation is the beginning point of the dynamic nature of bilingualism that may lead to bidirectional cross-linguistic effects. When a person applies a Jackendoffian approach to the study of human languages the interaction between coactivation in lexical studies and crosses linguistic influence at the phonological levels is not surprising.

Heritage speakers and attriters are part of the range of bilingualism which ranges from bilinguals with sustained verbal access and activation in both languages to bilinguals with limited access and activation in one language. The process of activation and inhibition of can be more or less challenging for different people depending on similarity in language features and combinational rules. Due to cross-linguistic similarities, the author of the article proposes ideas to incorporate input, coactivation, and logical representation in a single model. In such a model changes in input and levels of coactivation can have an effect on the integration of features from different language components. This integration leads to a range of interface rules in a language.

This article expounds more on how a person can learn two languages. The process involves borrowing from across the two languages to create an integration that will generate a continuum of rules across the two language being learned.