Monolingualism

Monoglottism (Greek monos, "alone, solitary", + glotta, "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as compared to multilingualism. In a different context "unilingualism" may refer to language policies which enforces an official or national language over others.

Monolingual or unilingual is also said of a text, dictionary, or conversation written or conducted in only one language, and of an entity in or at which a single language is either used or officially recognized (in particular when being compared with bilingual or multilingual entities or in the presence of individuals speaking different languages). Note that monoglottism can only refer to not having the ability to speak several languages. Monolingual speakers are outnumbered by multilingual speakers in the world's population.

Comparing Monolingualism with Multilingualism

There have been many studies done comparing monolinguals with bilinguals, though none of the studies have found conclusive evidence that being monolingual or bilingual is better than the other.

Vocabulary size & verbal fluency

According to a study, monolinguals often maintain a wider vocabulary in a target language compared to a comparable bilingual, and this increases the efficiency of word retrival in monolinguals. Monolinguals also access words more often than bilinguals in a target language. In letter fluency tasks, monolinguals were also able to respond with more words to the letter cue than bilinguals; though such an effect was not seen in bilinguals with a high vocabulary score.

Also, in the same study, monolinguals perform better than bilinguals on verbal fluency. If the vocabulary abilities were made to be more comparable however, many of the differences disappear, indicating that vocabulary size may be a factor that moderates people's performance in verbal fluency and naming tasks. The same study later also found out that after using a greater number of bilinguals in the study and a version of letter fluency task that placed more demand on executive control, bilinguals perform better compared to monolinguals. Thus once vocabulary abilities are controlled, bilinguals perform better on letter fluency possibly due to enhanced frontal executive processes in the brain.

Creative functioning

In a study testing for creative functioning that involved monolingual and bilingual children in Singapore, researchers found that monolinguals performed better on fluency and flexibility, than bilinguals. The trend is reversed, however, on tests for originality and elaboration.

Mental well-being

In another recent study in Canada, it has been shown that monolinguals are at a disadvantage with the onset of senility compared to bilingual people. Bialystok's most recent work, also shows that lifelong bilingualism can delay symptoms of dementia.

Reasons why Monolingualism persist

Convergence principle

According to the convergence principle, we tend to change our language style to that of people we like and admire. Conversations where one party speaks a language that is different from the other partner are hard to maintain, and intimacy is reduced. Thus, one will usually adapt and accommodate their speech, for reasons such as convenience, freedom of misunderstandings and conflict, and to maintain intimacy. In the case of intermarriages, this results in one partner becoming monolingual, as is also usually the case within families and with their children.

Predominance of the English language

The predominance of the English language in many sectors, like world trade, technology, and science has contributed to English-speaking societies being persistently monolingual, as there is no relevant need to learn a second language when all dealings can be done in their native language.

In several western countries, there is also increasing pressure on bilingual immigrants to renounce their mother tongue and adopt their host country's language. As a result, even though there may be immigrants from a wide variety of nationalities and cultures, the one main language spoken in the country do not reflect them.

Monolingualism within countries

Native-born persons living in many of the Anglosphere nations such as the United Kingdom, Australia, United States, and New Zealand are frequently typecast as monoglots, owing to a worldwide perception that English speakers see little relevance in learning a second language due to the widespread distribution of English and its competent use even in many non-English speaking countries in Europe, Africa, and South Asia. A similar observation can be made in communities that speak other global languages, for example, the Hispanophone world in the case of Spanish and the Francophonie in the case of French.

Case study: United States of America

Despite being a society with many immigrants, stable bilingualism is not a feature of these communities. Rather, monolingualism is more dominant in the US society. Only the elderly, very young children and recent immigrants speak their mother tongue, besides English. There is a prevalent switch to dominance in English in the school children and young adults, rather than their mother tongue. Often, when the second generation parents become more comfortable using English, the third generation will then become monolingual in English. This is seen even within groups where there is a wide availability to bilingual education services. The shift observed in these communities from their mother tongues into English meant that children, who could have learnt their native language from their family, are instead struggling in their mother tongue and often score poorly in high school foreign language classes.

According to the Tongue-tied American by Senator Paul Simon, an average of 200,000 jobs each year are lost out to Americans, due to an inability to speak a foreign language.

Case study: Belgium

In Belgium, monolingualism of the Dutch language is strongly enforced on students. The school staff and environment strongly encourage the exclusive use of Dutch, bilingual students who speak their mother tongue are formally punished by the school, and minority ethnic languages are excluded from the school's cultural education. This is due to the perception of the mother tongues of bilingual students as being a hindrance to learning as well as success. Although there is some opposition to Dutch monolingualism amongst the immigrant-bilingual communities and they converse in their mother tongue among themselves, due to the strong discouragement by the school staff, they are made to believe that the exclusive use of Dutch will lead to favourable outcomes.

Case study: Canada

According to data from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), increasingly fewer universities require their students to learn a second language. The percentage of universities having second language proficiency as a requirement for graduation fell from 35% in 1991 to 9% in 2006. At a Scotiabank-AUCC conference in 2007, participants attributed such a decline to cost issues, as such courses are usually held in small groups, and were thus removed from the curriculum.

Costs of Monolingualism

Educational costs : A part of the education budget has to be allocated for foreign language training; even then, fluency among the foreign language students is lower than those who learnt it at home.

Economic costs: International business may be set back by a lack of the country's people who are competent in other languages.

National security costs: Money have to be spent to train foreign-service personnel in foreign languages.

Time and effort: Compared to the maintenance of a language learnt at home, it incurs more time, effort and hard work to learn it in school.

See also

• Multilingualism
• Languages in the United Kingdom
• Languages in the United States
• List of multilingual countries and regions

External links

• Monolingualism and Judaism by Jose Faur, contrasting the Greek monolingualism with the polyglot culture of the Hebrews