Current issues in bilingualism: A complex approach to a multidimensional phenomenon

The past 20 years have seen an unprecedented upsurge of interest in bilingualism and multilingualism. A major reason for this is no doubt the acknowledgement by a growing number of researchers that the use of two or more languages is far more common than was previously thought, and may perhaps even be the norm. There are no exact data on the number of bilinguals throughout the world.1 However, some researchers claim that over 50% of the world’s population is bilingual (Fabbro, 1999). Bilingualism prevails at the societal level as well. With an estimated 6000 languages at this time being spoken in the world (Grimes, 2000), and with only some 200 countries, simple mathematics demonstrates that many countries must, in one way or another, be bi- or multilingual (Dewaele, Housen, & Wei, 2003). An investigation of the phenomenon of bilingualism and second language acquisition, therefore, has not only great theoretical significance, but will also be of great practical importance.