Semilingualism

"Semilingualism" is a word I've learnt recently thanks to my research into library support for language learning.

"How's that going?" you may ask, to which I would have to reply:
"Eh. I'm learning lots of things, but I don't know if they'll actually help with my thesis."

At the moment, I have a research project in search of a thesis to prove. I know what my field is, and I'm learning more about that all the time, but I don't know what I want to say.

Attempted thesis statement no. 85:

There are a number of different methods language learners use to acquire a second language, and academic and public libraries need to consider not only the support that each learner nominally needs, but also the support they are getting from other sources and the inherent challenges that come with each method.

I'm not sure if that actually said anything. I could probably argue it for 14,000 words, but I think that says more about my ability to produce drivel than it does about the actual merits of that statement.

I'm trying to capture the concept that a student in a language course will be getting support and guidance from his/her/ta teacher that a student trying to teach themselves French using the books in the local library won't be getting. The librarians can't be expected to fill up that gap, but could we give some help and guidance to make their efforts a bit more effective? Are there generic "this is what you need if you're going to learn a language" considerations that could be applied to our collection policies and library guides? Can we be proactive in suggesting to language teachers what they can recommend their students do in a library? Things like that.

Anyway, in following a tangent which is quite possibly a complete waste of time, I've been looking a little bit at bilingualism - which is how I've come across the term "semilingualism".

"Semilingualism" is a term that can be seen as somewhat insulting and many teachers advise avoiding it. Basically, it means you can kind of speak the language, but not well. Your speech is halting, you take some time trying to work out how to say what you want to say (and even then you probably pick the wrong words), you read slowly and without full comprehension, your grasp of the spelling and grammar of the language is limited and flawed and - above all - you have a limited vocabulary.

"Double-semilingualism" is the term used for people who speak two languages poorly. That is, neither their home language nor their second language is fluent.

Now, this concept has always intrigued me. I have no problems at all with accepting the fact that a person may not be fluent in a second language. That makes perfect sense. I can understand how people might lose a grip on their home language when they move to another country where it isn't spoken and therefore struggle with both languages. What I've never been able to work out is why people aren't fluent in their home language if their home language is the lingua franca of the place where they live. This is your mother tongue, you speak it every day (and twice on Sundays) why are you struggling so much to say what you want to say?

I've particularly noticed it with certain socio-economic groups. English is their only language - they have no other language to struggle with - and yet they still have great difficulty thinking of the word they want to use. When they finally choose what they want to say, the words are either incredibly basic, used incorrectly, or largely supplemented by expletives.

I can't get over the number of people who seem to think that every adjective can be replaced by f--ing and every noun can be replaced by s--t. What amazes me even more is how the people they talk to actually understand what they're saying. Personally, if someone came up to me and said "I got the f--ing s--t from that place, yeah, but I seen there was some other s--t there and now I dunno what to do with this f--ing s--t, eh?", I would struggle with understanding what they wanted from me. Yet their peers not only understand, but respond in kind.

I think their entire mode of communication must depend on the fact that the person they are talking to is aware of the context. Once they have to speak to someone who has never seen them before, they really struggle to say what they want to say.

Okay, let's say reading was never a big part of their upbringing and they've therefore missed out on a lot of opportunities to learn vocabulary. They still watch TV, right? Days of Our Lives uses a wider vocabulary than they seem to have at their disposal. Heck, Funniest Home Videos uses a wider vocabulary than they seem to have at their disposal. And it's not like they never read - yet even New Weekly and Boar it Up Ya also use wider vocabularies than their readers use to communicate. So why can't they say what they want to say using real words? Words that might actually mean something and have a standard dictionary definition that makes sense in the context?

What I want to know (and there's probably research papers on this out there if I ever get serious about finding out) is how someone can be semilingual when they only have one language?

I also want to know if it's possible to get a list of everyone who buys Boar it Up Ya so I can avoid being in the same room as them.