Читать книгу The Mysteries of Bilingualism. Unresolved Issues онлайн

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Question 18 of the 2011 Census was, “What is your main language?” and Question 19 (asked only of those who had indicated a language other than English to the previous question), “How well can you speak English?” The four possible answers for the latter were: “Very well,” “Well,” “Not well” and “Not at all.” The results obtained only allow us to get an idea of the degree of bilingualism, based on language knowledge and not language use, for a very small proportion of the population for whom English is not their main language, a mere 7.7%. As Sebba (2017) writes, bilingualism is statistically visible only for those who have a “main language” other than English. We know nothing about the bilingualism status of 92.3% of the population! Once again, only European surveys can help us get at the state of bilingualism in England and, more generally, in the United Kingdom, as we will see below.

Another country that has language questions, but with very specific reasons, is the United States. The three questions that were developed in 1980, and that have been used since 2000 in the yearly American Community Survey (ACS), came about in an effort to respond to the necessity to know more about those with limited English language proficiency (Siegel, Martin, and Bruno 2001). So as to implement the Civil Rights Act, The Bilingual Education Act, and the Voting Rights Act, there was a need to accommodate people who had difficulties communicating in English. The questions are: “Does this person speak a language other than English at home?,” “What is this language?,” “How well does this person speak English? Very well, Well, Not well, and Not at all.” There are definite limits to how far this assessment goes. Thus, children under five are not covered, people who use a second or third language in their everyday lives, but only English at home, are not counted, English proficiency is self assessed and may be influenced by a person’s original culture, and so on. However, as we will see in the next part, the results to these questions do allow us to get a far better picture of the status of bilingualism in the United States than in England.