Concept information
Preferred term
semilingualism
Definition
- The term semilingualism, discussed in this entry, was first introduced in 1962 by the Swedish philologist Nils Erik Hansegard (who called it halvsprakighet); the term was picked up by Hákan Ringbom, who conjectured that “a period of ‘double semilingualism’” occurs when an individual abandons his or her native language altogether in favor of an imperfectly acquired second language. For Hansegard, the term denoted a lack of competence in all languages an individual knows in any of six areas: (1) size of the repertoire of words and phrases that are understood or actively available in speech; (2) linguistic correctness; (3) degree of automatism; (4) ability to create or neologize; (5) mastery of the cognitive, emotive, and volitional function of language; and (6) richness or poorness in individual meanings (whether reading or listening to a particular linguistic system “evokes lively and reverberating semantic images or not”). [Source: Encyclopedia of Bilingual Education; Semilingualism]
Broader concept
Belongs to group
URI
https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/semilingualism
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