Bilingualism

BILINGUALISM

The economic development around the world is responsible for the intercultural competence in most countries. In this moment, most of deals or contracts are among two countries withdifferent cultures and languages. Being a bilingual speaker means either the possibility to complete or lose a contract. Bilingualism can mean intercultural competence but can also mean difficulties inspeaking one language at the level of a native speaker.
Bilingualism refers to the state of a linguistic community in which two languages are in contact. It implies the coexistence of two languages​​within a speech community (Alarcon, 1998). It means the use of more than code or languages in interpersonal and intergroup relations as well as the psychological state of a bilingual speaker. But, howgood have to be the speaker using this second language to consider him/her bilingual? Answering this, Bloomfield (1935), defines bilingualism as "the native-like control of two languages". Which means,that the individual have to be an expert in each skill of the second language such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. Accomplishing this task means a very difficult activity when the speakerlives in a society in which monolinguals don't speak any other than their mothers tongue, and they can barely create this linguistic community.
Once the task of being a bilingual speaker isaccomplished; how these mew skill is used in real life? Paraphrasing Blásquez (2010), speakers may have the talking capacity in their first language (L1) without even thought about their second language(L2), but there can be interference from the L2 depending on how imperfect the bilingualism is. This is called independence of the two codes. Blásquez also named alternation which is when the speaker goesfrom one language to another in a quickly way and apparently without effort, no matter in which language contexts s/he is. Finally, translation is either when the speaker goes from L1 to L2...