According to Wei (2000, and to an extent Romaine 1995, p. 28), the term "bilingual" primarily describes someone with the possession of two languages, but it further takes into account the many people in the world who have varying degrees of proficiency in and interchangeably use three, four or more languages (p. 7).

Romaine (1995, p. 6) refers to ideas of bilingualism as having been adversely influenced by terms like, "the ideal bilingual", "full bilingualism", "balanced bilingualism" and the likes, implying various degrees of how bilingual speakers are labeled on their use of bilingualism.

In this connection, Romaine makes us aware that, just as there are various degrees of language knowledge among monolinguals, there are equally varied proficiency and ways of usage among bilinguals.

It looks as if bilingualism/multilingualism has not been widely recognized as "not all countries or world institutions are interested in bi- or multilingualism, even when it affects them directly" (Grosjean 1992, p. 2).

Grosjean presents the rubric that, if there are about as many languages as there are nations, it indicates bilingualism not to be an important phenomenon, "but the more language groups there are, and the more concentrated they are in specific geographical or political areas, the more likely the spread of bilingualism" is (p. 3).

Wei (2000) discusses a popular metaphor in linguistics, that language is a living organism, which is born, grown and dies, that language is a human faculty: it co-evolves with us, homo sapiens; and it is we who give language its life, change it and, if so desired, abandon it (p. 3).

The idea of bilingualism's existence in three types of countries, viz "monolingual," "bilingual", and "multilingual" stated by Grossjean (p. 5), clearly shows not only the varied degree of use in terms of the official status accorded to bilingualism in such countries, but it also confirms "a popular metaphor in linguistics" referred to by Wei above, into reality. That even in so-called monolingual countries, one may find minority groups who speak not only the "official" language of the country, but their own/group languages as well, e.g. France, German and Japan (Grosjean 1992, p. 5).

A country may be seen monolingual officially, because it has adopted the use of one language, for in state business, but people out there would not mind to use their group languages if they so wish.

In other words, even in countries where bilingualism/multilingualism is said to be officially non-existent (in my view this is wishful thinking), bilingualism/multilingualism is usually alive and in use.

Grosjean makes it a point that there is probably a larger proportion of bilinguals in monolingual nations than in bilingual and multilingual countries (p.11).

"It is important to recognize that a multilingual speaker uses different languages for different purposes and does not typically possess the same level or type of proficiency in each language" (Wei 2000, p. 8).

Some countries have opted to adopt two or more official languages for various reasons, be they politically influenced or determined by regional linguistic diversity of the country.

Worth noting also here is the distinction between what Grosjean (1992) terms, the official, de jure bilingualism of a country and the actual de facto bilingualism of its inhabitants.

The first is usually political and governmental grounded, while the second is more natural and language groups‚ dynamics determined (pp.12-13).

The situation mentioned above can be mirrored through countries such as Canada, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus, Israel, Finland and India, just to mention some (see Grosjean 1992, pp. 11 and 22, also Wei 2000, pp. 12 - 15).

Of course each country has been motivated by its own unique situation to adopt two or more official languages, e.g. "when a country has large minority groups, its multilingual aspect may be recognized and the linguistic rights of each group officially respected" (p.24).

In the same vein, the country can help develop the minority languages through language planning by standardizing the language, giving it an orthography if it does not have one, putting together a grammar and a dictionary, and extending its vocabulary by coining or borrowing new words (p25).

Grosjean also describes possible ways of how people become bilinguals; e.g. migration from one country/region to another due to political, economic or any other reasons, by the rise of nationalism and nationhood.

Others become bilinguals by way of attending education in another language other than their mother tongue or through labour contacts such as in urban settings where people from different parts of the country/world congregate.

Types and Use of Bilingualism

For any particular individual community or people, a number of factors shape their type of bilingualism use: political, economic, educational and so forth (Romaine 1995, p. 22 also Wei 2000, p. 25). Wei (2000, p. 22) borrowing from Baker and Prys Jones (1998: 6-8), argues that there are at least eight overlapping and interacting benefits for a bilingual person, encompassing communicative, cognitive and cultural advantages.

Wei (2000, p. 25) tells that people's attitudes towards bilingualism also change as the society progresses and as the understanding of bilingual speakers‚ knowledge and skills grow.

This notion is clearly articulated and represented in Haugen (1989), when analyzing the experience of the Norwegian immigrants in America on how they gradually changed the pattern towards the second language use, through education, intermarriage and other ways of acculturation.

Haugen writes that, a "drift" from the main language/mother tongue towards the host language usually precedes the ultimate "shift". Haugen gives an account of the Norwegian-American community experience how their language developed from drift to shift in the second generation, via a more or less extended bilingual phase (p. 73).

Romaine (1995) discusses problems related to how bilingualism sometimes is determined, particularly if information used is census derived of which Romaine regards information as time-bound and budgetary limited.

According to Romaine, this does not allow sufficient investigation to find out many facets of bilingualism, such as the extent of inference, code switching, how many mother tongues individuals have, varieties within certain language communities, the domains of language use in different communities and why, or how diglossia relates to bilingualism (pp. 26-32).

Romaine borrowed the term diglossia from Fergusson (1972, p. 232), and the term refers to a specific relationship between two or more varieties of the same language in use in a speech community in different functions - usually marked in High or Low (p. 33). Diglossia is said to come in different conditions, amongst others; when there is a sizeable body of literature in a language closely related to the natural language of the community or when literacy in the community is limited to a small elite.

Its difference from bilingualism is apparently noted when diglossia represents an enduring societal arrangement (p. 36).

Regarding multilingualism and multilingual education, Tucker (1998) says available data indicate that there are many more bilingual or multilingual individuals in the world than there are monolinguals.

"In addition, many more children throughout of the world have been, and continue to be, educated via a second or later acquired language - at least for some portion of their formal education - than the number of children educated exclusively via first language."

In many parts of the world, bilingualism or multilingualism and innovative approaches to education which involve the use of two or more languages constitute the normal everyday experience (p. 4). Tucker backs these utterances with exemplary cases in countries like the Philippines, Guatemala, Namibia and Luxemburg, stating the use of multiple languages in education as attributed to numerous factors such as the linguistic heterogeneity of a country or region (refer to the introduction of this paper) (ibid).

However, Tucker says that there are myths associated with linguistic complexities and multilingual education by many parents, educators and policy makers, e.g. some say anyone who can speak a language can teach successfully via that language or in multilingual countries, or that it is too expensive to develop materials and to train teachers in a number of different languages (p. 9).

Tucker (p. 10) further contrasts myths with points from research, showing conditions useful for successful multilingual education, by saying that:

Parental and community support and involvement programs are essential.

Development of the child's first language is encouraged to ensure cognitive development and to facilitate the acquisition of second and third languages.

Development of the child's first language, with its related cognitive development, is more important in promoting second and third language development than mere length of exposure to these later acquired languages.

Children learn a second, or later language, in different ways depending upon their cultural background and their individual personality.

Cognitive/academic language skills once developed and content-subject material, once acquired, transfer readily.

Teachers must be able to understand, speak and use the language of instruction proficiently whether it is their first or second language.

Then Zantella (1997) presents an interesting discussion on the bilingual or multilingual repertoire about a spectrum of linguistic codes that range from standard to non-standard dialects in Spanish and English.

Although Zantella's discussion is Spanish and English focused, this can be mirrored through other languages versus English or national languages in any other country in view of what is regarded as standard or non-standard, and who determines standardization.

In essence, Zantella believes that the features of the linguistic codes are within-community products, accepted, shared, and hopefully mastered on when and where to use them (p. 55).

Zantella's discussion brings us then at another related aspect of bilingual and multilingual use many people question - code-switching.

Chana & Romenie (1984) take a general definition of code-switching: that it is the juxtaposition within the same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical systems or subsystems‚ (p.447, also see Zantella 1997, p. 81).

In fact this is Gumperz's definition, who goes further and says that: most frequently, the alternation takes the form of two subsequent sentences, as when a speaker uses a second language either to reiterate his message or to reply to someone else's statement (1982, p.59).

That code-switching signals contextual information equivalent to what in monolingual settings is conveyed through prosody or other syntactic or lexical process. That it generates the presuppositions in terms of which the content of what is said is decoded, but these presuppositions are said to operate at several levels of generality (p. 98).

From the conversation angle, Auer (1995) highlights the importance of the sequential embeddedness of code-alternation in conversation, in that the conversational patterns of code alternation and indeed their local meaning will vary as a function of the status of the codes in the repertoire of the community (p.132).

It is from Auer and Gumperz's perspectives that Shin and Milroy (2000) in their analysis of Korean-English bilingual children, point how participants code-switched to negotiate the language for interaction and accommodate other participants' language competences and preferences. That code-switching is not a sign of linguistic deficit, or communicative problem in bilingual children, but as the sequential analysis suggests, code-switching was used as an additional means to communicate discoursal meanings to other participants in the conversation (p. 381).

Apart from its linguistic significance mentioned earlier, Gumperz says code-switching provides evidence for the existence of underlying, unverbalized assumptions about social categories, which differ systematically from overtly expressed values or attitudes (p. 99).

Quoting Gal (1988, p. 247), Zantella underscores Gumperz's notion of unverbalized assumptions, that code-switching practices are not only conversational tools that maintain or change ethnic group boundaries and personal relationships, but they are also symbolic creations concerned with the construction of self‚ and other‚ within a broader and political economy and historical context (p. 114).

It is in this connection that Milroy and Wei (1995, p. 155) argue that network analysis can illuminate our understanding of patterns of code-switching and language choice for the three reasons, viz:

- that, while network interacts with a number of other social variables such as generation, gender and occupation, it is capable of accounting more generally than any other single variable for patterns of code-switching language choice;

- that it can also deal in a principled way with the bilingual behaviour of individuals whose language patterns are unlike those of their peers, in that they can be shown to have contracted different types of personal network structure;

- that network analysis can, as they suggested, form an important component in an integrated social theory of language choice.

In a similar tone, Heller (1995, p.171), argues that it is difficult to understand the significance of any given language practice, such as code-switching, without grasping its relationship to other language practices in individual repertoires and in collective speech economies.

Heller suggests that those practices be linked to the ideologies, which legitimate the unequal distribution of resources, the value accorded to them, and to the real world consequences, they have for people's lives. That to understand important processes through an analysis of code-switching, one should call into question the distinctions between micro-levels of social interaction and macro-levels of social presence (ibid).

Hornberger (1998) looks at the role of language policy and education in language rights and revitalization efforts around the world, with focus on indigenous, immigrants' and international language rights.

Hormberger is critical about the suppression of indigenous, immigrants' and minority languages around the world. That in a language ideology built on the promotion of trans-ethnification, instrumentalism and nationism, making reference to the US and other multinational states with ideology-based language programs, it is difficult to find room for state-supported programs of language education that would promote the full use and development of two or more languages in school, and that would lead to the kind of bilingual/biliterate/bicultural versatility encapsulated in the immigrants' twin plea to learn the new and keep the old (p. 447).

To address the above stated problem, Hornberger suggests a serious commitment to provision of the rights for children to be educated in their own language requires a systemic and systematic effort, which cannot necessarily be handled by an add-on program or policy.

That it is crucial that language minorities be empowered to make choices about which languages and literacies to promote for which purposes; and that, in making those choices, the guiding principles must be to balance the counterpoised dimensions of language rights for the mutual protection of all (p. 454).

In a more similar tone, Davis states three important points with regard to language rights:

1. That grassroots efforts are clearly needed in indigenous language maintenance and revitalization efforts. That both economic and educational development at the roots, or community level, are more likely to be successful than externally imposed and controlled models. Davis here cautions about the noticed often counter-efforts at the grassroots level, or the upper echelons of government and school administration, to control communities for economic or political gains (p. 90).

2. The view by Labov (992), that indigenous people are the only ones who should have kuleama over their language and culture, that is, the right to decide whether or not and how to maintain or renew their native language as well as the responsibility for those decisions. And that language planners have the responsibility to provide political and professional support needed to realize the potential of indigenous communities' decisions (p. 91).

That to effect a sound language policy and planning, an ethnographic research is essential, i.e. to research into language content and language related elements; to make analyses of the interrelationships among language, education, economic practices and goals; and to make appropriate reflection on programs and products in view of community experiences and needs, while identifying policies which reflect community and program practices and needs (ibid).

4. It is against this background that Macedo (2000) criticizes and characterizes the US English Only Movement in the form of colonialism ideology, which imposes "distinction" as an ideological yardstick against which all other cultural values are measured, including language.

That this ideological yardstick serves to overcelebrate the dominant group's language to a level of mystification, i.e. viewing English as education itself and measuring the success of bilingual programs only in terms of success in English acquisition.

On the other hand, it devalues other languages spoken by an ever-increasing number of who now populate most urban public schools (p. 16).

Macedo likens the position of US English only proponents to the Portuguese colonialism that tried to eradicate the use of African languages in institutional life by inculcating Africans through the education system in Portuguese only with myths and beliefs concerning the savage nature of their cultures (ibid).

Macedo is of the opinion that cultural production, not reproduction by imposing English, is the only means through which we can achieve a true cultural democracy.

In this sense, Macedo continued, bilingual education offers us not only a great opportunity to democratize our schools but "is itself a utopian pedagogy" (p. 23).