Bilingual competence and the notion of error, norm and system : reflections on the social acceptance of bilingualism

The paper discusses the issue of error in the linguistic production of bilinguals. The bilingual competence of such individuals can be the source of non-standard forms in their linguistic production, i.e. forms that are incompatible with the norm considered to be in force in the specific linguistic community. They are transcodic markers (as a result of transfer from one of the bilingual’s languages to the other), overgeneralization of rules, and false analogy of the rules of the given language. Native speakers regard non-standard forms as a transgression of their unilingual standard, and hence consider them to be errors. Research shows that both Polish experts, e.g. Witold Doroszewski, and native speakers evaluate them as grave errors, and this negative normative evaluation of the bilingual person’s idiolect often translates to a negative axiological perception of the bilingual speaker him- or herself.The linguistic effects of bilingualism mark the bilingual person with ‘otherness’, resulting in a failure on the part of Polish native speakers to accept them as a fully-fledged member of the community. Following Bernard Py, I postulate to abandon the overly normative attitude towards the effects of bilingualism, and to adopt a functional approach based on positive evaluation in terms of efficiency or communicative success, and to acknowledge the existence of variance within the system and the standard as a part of the linguistic experience.