What does it take to be X-lingual?

[mom2bee]

What is considered to be 'X-lingual? What does it mean to be Xlingual anyway? (Reading, writing, speaking, aural comprehension, culture competency, etc...)
(X can be bi-,tri- etc-. So bilingual, trilingual, quadri-lingual. :confused: Quadri...4?)

I don't really think its fair to count literacy in a language towards their status as Xlingual. Don't misunderstand; I think that literacy, reading and writing proficiently in a language, is super-uber-duper important!

But...I know 4yos' who speak English perfectly but can't read, 9yos who are elloquent, above average in the spoken language but can't read/write in their native languages well or at all. I knew a guy for several months, before I found out he couldn't read, yet his spoken English was good, really good.
I don't think their illiteracy deducts from their status as mono or bilingual, does it?

I know people who are excellent readers but poor writers. On and on, but since the ability to read/write basic level materials varies so widely even among highschool educated individuals in their native or community languages, I have a hard time counting 'literacy' as a serious requirement.

I am not sure that the element of cultural competence is a very good one either for Xlingual-ness...

Why? Because I speak English as fluently as the next Jamaican, Australian or English person, but we have such radically different cultures. Heck, sometimes I don't even get city dwellers and people from out west tell me they don't understand me or others from my same city, etc.


I ask all this because I've always wanted to be multi-lingual. I'm working towards fluency in Spanish right now and I'm trying to keep my basic language skills (reading, writing, speaking, understanding) balanced in the long run.

Right now, my reading is way ahead of my speaking. I'm building listening comprehension/understanding currently while trying to speak more also...
Without immersion but with constant work and a native-educated tutors/guidance, I may be able to work my way up to a highschool level of writing in Spanish...one day. But I don't know if thats terribly likely, as I have no real reason to write in Spanish. (For some reason, I still can't spell very well in Spanish.)

I read about and study different cultures throughout the Spanish speaking world but I've never been to a Spanish environment (Every time I've been too Miami, I just went to my Uncles house.) and even if I go to a Spanish speaking environment for an extended stay, which strand of the culture should I be 'learning' anyway? History that many of the natives probably don't know in detail? 'Kid Culture'; cartoons, toys, parental attitudes, popular games, common elements throughout street culture, etc, 'pop culture' etc?

I won't ever have the experience of being a child in South America, nor will I know the intrinsic values of many 'cultural' references since I'll have missed the opportunity to be a part of that part of society during that time, etc...

What do you think should or shouldn't count towards being Xlingual? Please help me understand and decide.

--Mom2Bee

[regentrude]

My definition of truly bilingual is proficiency in speaking, reading and writing. Proficiency meaning:
Speaking and understanding in informal, group, and academic situations (both a party with friends and a lecture), movies.
Correct spelling, grammar and semantics, in both informal (letters, creative writing) and formal writing (academic essays, articles).
Ability to read anything- the newspaper, contemporary fiction, classics, textbooks.

According to these standards, I, DH and DD are bilingual (German/English); DS is fluent in speech and reading comprehension, but his written German needs some work.
I do not consider an illiterate person bilingual, because written language is an intrinsic part of that culture and is essential in the evolution of a language. (So, yes, according to this view, there will be people whom I do not consider to be fully proficient in their native language.)

Cultural competency is difficult to define, because a certain language may be spoken in extremely different cultures. Even though I am a native speaker of German and lived there for thirty years, I do not consider myself competent about Austrian culture, even though it borders on Germany. Likewise, most Americans would not be culturally competent with respect to Great Britain. So, I guess it is necessary to be culturally competent with respect to ONE country where the language is spoken - otherwise its literature does not make any sense.

[Ester Maria]

Ideally, a bilingual person has no preference for either language other than an aesthetic one.

What does it mean? It means that whatever you can do in one language - so you can do in the other one, both in a private and in a professional sphere. My preference to speak X rather than Y has to be aesthetic in nature (for example, I prefer X because it is more elegant, more expressive, more "beautiful", whatever that means to me, NOT because I do not feel equally at ease with Y). To be bilingual, I have to speak X and Y roughly at the same level: my literacy in X has to roughly correspond to my literacy in Y. I am not bilingual if I can read what a person of my education can read in one language, but not in the other one - that's not balanced bilingualism.

Very few people are bilingual without being bi-cultural, because much of those competences are acquired in time and interaction with the culture through education, daily life, reading, etc. In fact, barring cases of extended stays abroad or extensive education in another language, very few people are ever bilingual, even if they may speak another language fairly well. Bilingualism is a whole other level, though: it's using the two approximately the same way, and not many people have been in situations which enabled them to truly develop the other system to the extent it nearly matches their native one. There are in fact native speakers of two languages who are not fully bilingual, or heritage speakers whose knowledge of the language is limited to a home / daily life context and who have never become literate, studied in that language or professionally worked with it.

Cultural competences are tough, because "culture" is hard to define, it's a very generalized concept in the first place. But one should be able to recognize what's a joke in a certain mindset, "catch" the most important allusions specific to that culture, etc. It depends largely on your level of education, the higher it is, the more "refined" you are culturally, the bar for you to pass as bilingual is higher. Preschoolers have it the easiest, but if they don't continue to develop both systems, quite soon they will no longer be true bilinguals.

Being bilingual doesn't even mean being perfect in the language, or even being able to pass for a native speaker at all times. It does mean, however, being able to function on all levels you can function in your native language, with some cultural "accommodations" (e.g. knowing that some languages are more direct and some less and adapt yourself a little to the ways of each language and culture... not to lose your specific way of talking or expression, but adapting it a little to suit the situation).

Now, as for X-lingual... The same. Very few people are more than truly bilingual or trilingual, barring some special life circumstances with multilingual upbringing or having lived actively for extended periods of time in many languages, even if many have learned, to various degrees and even very well, many foreign languages.

[nov05mama]

My definition of truly bilingual is proficiency in speaking, reading and writing. Proficiency meaning:
Speaking and understanding in informal, group, and academic situations (both a party with friends and a lecture), movies.
Correct spelling, grammar and semantics, in both informal (letters, creative writing) and formal writing (academic essays, articles).
Ability to read anything- the newspaper, contemporary fiction, classics, textbooks.
:iagree:
My mother is bilingual (German 1st language/English 2nd language) as is my husband (Arabic 1st language/English 2nd language) and they are proficient in both (have to be really...they've lived in the US for so long, but were educated and proficient in English long before coming to America).

My husband *can* speak and read Spanish as well, but would not be considered trilingual since he's not proficient in the language. Same with my mother when it comes to French and myself with Spanish, German & Arabic.

[skueppers]

What does it mean? It means that whatever you can do in one language - so you can do in the other one, both in a private and in a professional sphere.

I agree. I am a heritage speaker of German. I can read anything. I listen to or watch German news broadcasts several times a week without trouble. My accent is very good, though not perfect.

I was never educated in German. Certain points of my grammar are weak, and my writing in German is barely adequate for personal correspondence. I can converse easily with German speakers and am fairly familiar with the culture, literature, etc., but I would not be comfortable in all of the settings where I am comfortable in English.

I make sure my kids are exposed to true native speakers, and that they receive education in German from native speakers. My own level of competence is inadequate for the task.

[Amirah]

its true i can read, speak and understand spanish fluently but my writing is horrible its mostly because i never use spanish writing in the US when i was little yes but now its horrible i took advanced spanish lit classes in university and bilingual education classes where papers had to be written in spanish and i had to go to the tutors many times to get my grammar checked