Is Bilingualism A Handicap Or Facilitation?

The term communication, with its variant dimensions, lies in the world’s different nations andcommunities. it is created by people’s universal experiences of meeting and living in communities ofdifferent linguistic codes. being a good communicator involves the realization of the equation of beinga bilingual. bilinguals are persons whose linguistic ability in two languages is similar to that of thenative speaker. however, language alone is not the only arm needed in the field of code switchingsince culture has its great share in the operation. thus, a bilingual must have the linguistic resourcesand social strategies to affiliate with many different cultures and ways of using language. hence, isn’tbilingualism a sign of the acceptance of language diversity and cultural pluralism (in a multiculturalworld)? isn’t it a way to abandon one’s own language loyalty – one’s identity and rejection of theancestral culture? on the one hand, through bilingualism, a bilingual feels socially and cognitivelyenriched by an additional language (the spread of intercultural sense). on the other hand, a bilingualmay fall in the trap of anomia ( the suffering from a feeling of social uncertainty or dissatisfaction ) asit is widely believed that there is a natural connection between the language spoken by members of asocial group and that group’s identity: by their accent, vocabulary, and their discourse patterns.despite of the fact that a bilingual may live in a state of flux of losing or keeping one’s identity (theindividual’s sense of the self), the world’s communities have to bear the slogan of ‘the dialogue ofcultures’.