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</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB">The point about the importance of spelling out how one
conceives of dominance/balance relative to proficiency is very well made. As you point out, they are often treated as one and the same, i.e. dominance is
established on the basis of the relative proficiency of the relevant languages
to one another. It seems to me that this is a question both of terminology -
"dominance" as "higher proficiency of one language compared to
another" vs. "the most active/accessible language" (cf. the lay
person's "Litmus test" for establishing language dominance by asking
"What language do you dream in?"), and possibly of merging
co-occurring phenomena. Treating dominance as proficiency may be appropriate in
child acquisition studies (which is not my area) if it is the case that the
language in which more input is received ends up being the more dominant (as in
"active" ) AND ALSO the more proficient ("better", more
complete/developed) (be that overall or in a specific domain). This makes sense
theoretically and practically (given relatively fixed linguistic environments during
acquisition).<br>
<br>
However, from my studying first-language attrition in post-maturational
language users (apologies if you feel introducing adults into this debate is
misplaced), it would seem that the distinction between dominance (as level of
activation/speed of access) and proficiency is a real one (</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB">thank you for the Birdsong reference)</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB">, because dominance
patterns in this sense can and do change, while proficiency in a mature L1
seems to be relatively stable. (Of course, this raises the question
of how one defines "proficiency", and whether this concept includes
the requirement for fluency.) The situation you describe in which a
person becomes dominant in L2 (in the sense of being more fluent, having
readier access to the language) but remains more proficient in L1 (in the sense
of having a greater stock of vocabulary and of using the language more
accurately and idiomatically) is fairly common for adults who post-puberty have
gone to live in another country/area with a different language. Adult migrants
who have a lot of contact with the second language find that although their
knowledge of their first language is there somewhere, they may experience
difficulty in accessing it, particularly lexical knowledge, so there is a
mismatch between proficiency (they are relatively ok on accuracy and complexity
of language use) and dominance (speed of access is reduced). <br>
<br>
In preparing a paper for the 2010 EuroSLA Yearbook (ref below), I have grappled with the
proficiency vs. dominance problem, and found that disentangling knowledge of a
language and the ability to use that knowledge (proficiency) on the one hand
from the facility or speed with which the knowledge is accessed (dominance) on
the other made sense for my participants. Although there are few (no?) pure
proficiency tests, different measures focus more on one or the other dimension
and thus make possible the separation of proficiency and dominance in the above
senses. Bilingual profiles for adult bilinguals established on the basis of two
tests completed in German and English - a C-test (which is a global proficiency
test) and several verbal fluency tasks (which tap lexical access and have been
used as dominance tests) - turned out to be different for most participants -
while L1 is stronger for many participants on the C-test (higher L1 proficiency
score), the fluency tasks show a greater incidence of L1-L2 balance or L2
dominance (higher L2 verbal fluency scores). This would seem to indicate that
there really are two different phenomena at play - but in children this may not
be as obvious.<br>
<br>
Children are also affected by L1 attrition - in fact, it proceeds much more
rapidly and completely than in adults, though it is unclear whether they simply
lose access to their L1 (which may stop developing altogether), or whether the knowledge is in fact altered and/or
replaced by the new L2. (This is debated in relation to adults, too, and some
would claim that being able to access the language is all that counts.) Of
course, in these situations, the developing L1, having been acquired to a lower
level and being less fixed in the mind, has a different standing to begin with.
The inverse pattern of ultimate L1 and L2 "dominance" (defined as
relative proficiency) found by Jia and Aaronson referred to previously are a
function of age-related factors (level of L1 acquisition at AOA, and different
linguistic environments/preferences). So younger arrivals tend to achieve a
lower level of L1 proficiency - and that L1 is presumably also not terribly
active. So it is possible that in children - in stable linguistic environments - the two dimensions of proficiency
and dominance (as fluent access) develop in tandem and therefore can be
treated as synonymous for practical purposes, while in adults this would not
seem warranted (unless one deals with people living in their original
linguistic environment) ... Over to the experts!</span></p>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB"></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB">Conny</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;" lang="EN-GB"></span><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CCONNYO%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>
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</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><font size="2"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Opitz, C.
(forthc.). L1 Attrition and L2 Acquisition: Global Language Proficiency and
Language Dominance in Adult Bilinguals. </span><u style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">EUROSLA Yearbook </u><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">L. Roberts. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins. </span><b style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">10</b></font>.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p></p><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><p></p><div class="gmail_quote">On 27 March 2010 01:09, Ekaterina Smyk <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ekaterina.smyk@gmail.com" target="_blank">ekaterina.smyk@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Well, it seems to me that a speaker can be considered as “always” more proficient in the dominant language only if dominance is defined based on a relative proficiency in two languages. However, if language proficiency is considered as a distinct construct (e.g., as a level of linguistic attainment), then the relations between dominance and proficiency can vary. For example, a speaker may be dominant in L2, but be more proficient in L1.<span> </span>There are numerous operational definitions of language dominance and proficiency so I am sure some people may disagree with me. I would be very interested in hearing other opinions as well. </font></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Katya</font></div><div><div></div><div><br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Bruno Estigarribia <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brunilda@gmail.com" target="_blank">brunilda@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">Forgive the silly question. This is not my field but the following struck me as counterintuitive so I want to make sure this is what was intended:
<div><br>"For example, in order to be a highly proficient in a certain language a speaker does have to be dominant in that language."<br></div>Isn't the converse more intuitively sensible? You can, I guess, be highly proficient in two languages but (I want to say, by definition almost), only dominant in one of them. Am I missing something (perhaps in the literature) that contradicts this?<br>
Just curious.<br>Bruno<br>-- <br>Bruno Estigarribia<br>Research Assistant Professor<br>364A Davie Hall, CB #3270<br>Department of Psychology - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill<br>Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270<br>
USA<br>
<br>
<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">
<div>The first question here is how language dominance is defined. Sometimes language dominance is used interchangeably with language proficiency due to a definition of language dominance in terms of the relative proficiency in two languages. However, these two constructs can be distinguished in terms of psycholinguistic properties (See Birdsong (2006) Dominance, proficiency, and second language grammatical processing in /Applied Psycholinguistics/). Often language dominance implies the superior performance on measures of fluency, speed, automaticity, and accuracy in processing. For example, in order to be a highly proficient in a certain language a speaker does have to be dominant in that language. In addition, assessment of language dominance is frequently based on the underlying assumption of uniform superior performance in the dominant language. However, dominance in one aspect of the language does not necessarily imply dominance in others.<br>
Katya<br>
</div></blockquote></blockquote></div><br></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Conny Opitz<br>Russian and Slavonic Studies<br>Trinity College Dublin<br>Dublin 2<br>Ireland<br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:opitzc@tcd.ie" target="_blank">opitzc@tcd.ie</a><br>
Tel: +353-1-8961108/8500906<br>
<p></p>
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