Just The Wei I Am

Something I posted in IVLE:

What is a language anyway? Language as in, Mandarin, English, Portuguese, etc. While many people will say that they are speakers/users of English, what does that actually mean? And when we say we are bilingual in, say, Mandarin and English, what does that mean?

It seems to me that 'English' (and any other defined language) is something nebulous. None of us 'English speakers' have the same 'English'. There are words I know that you do not, and vice versa. I have styles and variations that you do not, and vice versa. Then 'English' as a notion, as a 'language', is the combined potential of all the 'Englishes' used by everyone. This idea is illustrated by the dictionary - no one knows all the words in it, but we all regard it as containing (nearly) all the words in 'English'.

Now, since everyone possess an unique subset of the total possible potential, why do we say people speak 'the same language', even among monolinguals? Yes, I know about speech communities and the usefulness of using the term as it is used. But has that shaped our thinking to think about 'languages' as distinct entities - English, Malay, Tamil, etc?

Okay, people will say, isn't it obvious that they're different? Well, the plot thickens with 'multi'lingualism. Why am I said to be 'bilingual' in 'English' and 'Mandarin'? Let's face it, the main reason is because I attended classes in these two 'languages' in school. On the other hand, why am I 'bilingual'? Abandoning that questionable term, let me rephrased that question: Why do I possess a lexicon that includes "dog", "cat", "ºÃhao", and "ллxie xie", and why am I capable of producing WH-questions as well as do things like saying "³ÔÁË"(eaten) instead of "ÎÒ³ÔÁË"(I've eaten)?

I think, these are all the linguistic knowledge (note: no ' 's!) that I have acquired. I acquired them because I am surrounded by them. Internally, there are no boundaries except those influenced by external ones (eg. school subjects). True, I speak with certain words in certain ways at different times (read: speaking 'Mandarin' sometimes, and 'English' sometimes), but this is not due to boundaries, but rather constraints. By that, I mean that I might use "·Î¸­Ö®ÑÔ" when I'm speaking to my mother because I assume that she does not understand "heartfelt words". And that the reason is not because I am in 'Mandarin mode'.

This being the case, when we come across utterances like "Let's go makan.", we should not think that they are 'mixes' since this must be between two or more 'languages', or even 'borrowings' since this involves 'languages' too. If they are neither 'mixes' nor 'borrowings', what are they? They are productions of individual linguistic beings - they are simply the output of people assembled with their available resources.

We are all speakers of only one language each - our individual unique languages. Our utterances are constrained not by contexts, but by our assumptions about the contexts, and especially by our assumptions about our interlocutors. (Perhaps, for young children, they might have badly inaccurate assumptions, or none at all. This will shape their utterances, including 'mixed' ones.)

I think it's useful to think about this especially with children acquiring language in 'multilingual' environment. Food for thought. Comments?