ADIBA HILAL - 2015130080

THE IMPACT OF BEING BILINGUAL TO A PERSON’S LANGUAGE ATTITUDE

1.1 Background of the Problem.

Bi-/multilingualism allow people to grow up with access to two or more languages and
this allows people to show different attitudes towards languages. Attitude in general is a
hypothetical psychological construct which defines or promotes certain behaviours and explains
their direction and persistence. Allport (1935) defines, “attitude is a mental or neural state of
readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the
individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related” (cited in Baker,
1992:11). Attitude is a convenient and efficient way of explaining consistent patterns in
behaviour. It often manages to summarize, explain and predict behaviour (Baker, 1992).
Attitudes, according to Crystal (1997: 215), are the feelings people have about their own
language or the languages of others. Thus, attitude to language is a construct that explains
linguistic behaviour in particular. Other factors such as age, gender, provenance, group
membership or language background of the individual may additionally influence behaviour. In
addition, observation of external behaviour can easily result in mis-categorisation or wrongful
explanation and as such, cannot be viewed as a reliable predictor of attitude (Baker, 1992:15–
16).
Being a Bilingual means you can speak, write, read and listen as well as your first
language. Language attitudes can play an important role in bilingualism and second language
learning (Saneleuterio, E., 2015; 2016). If people feel comfortable talking and expressing
themselves in more than one language they will transmit that confidence to the next speaker and
be more open to learning new languages. Successful (SL) Second language learners have
positive attitudes towards language learning due to doing well, on the other hand, unsuccessful
learners may acquire negative attitudes (Bartrum, 2010 : 41). Being a Bilingual since young age
will make it easier to behave towards the language attitude because you used to practice it
without even realizing it. It is different when you become bilingual or multilingual when you are
in teenager years, the behavior surely become different towards the language attitude because the
brain is not used to comprehend the language it, but it will be different if you stay in the place
where you started to learn the language for a long time.
1.2 Identification of the Problem.

Based on the background above, I identify the main problem which is A bilingual can
have a different perspective of thinking and how it’s affecting the language attitude.
Based on the identification of problem above, I assume that Being a bilingual will lead to
a different way of thinking which will affect a person’s language attitude

1.3 Formulation of the Problem.

Based on the background of the problem, I classifies the problem into questions as
follows:

1.3.1 How a different language can affect the language attitude?

1.3.2 How bilingual can have a different perspective of thinking and why it’s affecting the
language attitude?

1.3.3 What makes the Language can affect someone’s behaviour?

1.5 Objectives of The Research.

In order to be able to reach the purpose of the research, the analysis steps are conducted
in the following ways:

1.5.1 To find out about how Language can affect the Language Attitude.

1.5.2 To find out about how bilingual can have a different way of thinking which will affect
the language attitude.

1.5.3 To find out about the role of language on someone’s behaviour.

THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

The term ‘language attitudes’, however, is an umbrella term, which encompasses a broad range
of possible empirical studies, concerned with a number of specific attitudes. Baker (1992: 29–30)
identifies the following major areas:

(i) attitude towards language variation, dialect and speech style

(ii) attitude towards learning a new language
(iii) attitude towards a specific minority language
(iv) attitude towards language groups, communities and minorities
(v) attitude towards language lessons
(vi) attitude of parents towards language lessons
(vii) attitude towards the uses of a specific language
(viii) attitude towards language preference

Attitudes are considered to be a major determinant of behaviour (Carranza (1982: 63), for
example, believes that language attitudes influence language behaviour in a number of ways,
and maintains that language attitudes can contribute to sound changes, define speech
communities, reflect intergroup communication and help determine teachers’ perceptions of
students’ abilities.
FLOW CHART

The impact of being

bilingual to a person’s
languange attitude

Attitude toward the uses of Attitude towards languange

specific language preference
(Colin Baker, 1992) (Colin Baker, 1992)

Languange affecting the Languange affecting a

languange attitude person’s behavior