Antonella Sorace
The University of Edinburgh

Antonella Sorace

The University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom

Monolinguals: a species facing extinction?

Linguistics research has traditionally been shaped by the idea of a native monolingual speaker. Research on language learning and bilingualism has also defined attainment levels (e.g. “near-native speakers”) and differences (‘advantages’ or ‘disadvantages’) with respect to native monolingual norms.  Is this still appropriate? I will show how interdisciplinary research that combines the strengths of linguistic, cognitive and social models is deconstructing the notion of the ‘monolingual speaker’ as a default. This, in turn, opens up new research avenues on bilingualism and, more generally, on language.