Specialist Speech and Language Therapist Seda ESERSİN was invited to the online seminar as a speaker. The event continued with useful information about bilingualism by Seda ESERSİN.
Seda ESERSİN shared the following information to the students:
There are many paths to bilingualism, and the term bilingualism can be defined differently by different authors. As a speech and language therapist, we define bilingualism as individuals or groups of people who acquire communicative skills in more than one language. Bilingual individuals acquire these skills with varying degrees of proficiency, orally and/or in writing, to interact with speakers of one or more languages at home and in the community. A person should be considered bilingual regardless of the relative proficiency of the languages understood or used. Because from the perspective of speech and language therapist; In order to present the most beneficial process to the individual in clinical sense, bilingualism should be considered within the framework of functional foundations. Therefore, our definition includes other terms such as "trilingualism" and "multilingualism". This definition will also apply to monolingual Syrian migrant children who have no or little experience in an additional language but are expected to acquire an additional language such as Turkish. The dynamics that determine the definition and type of bilingualism; language acquisition age, language acquisition order, language proficiency and psychosocial perspective.
‘Mixing or switching languages’ can be negatively treated by monolingual listeners, and even bilingual individuals may perceive code switching as sloppy or incomplete speech. In the past, professionals have argued that code-switching is a confusion, a language disorder, or at least a way to fill in vocabulary gaps. However, this is not the case. Code switching is a common feature in bilingualism and a sign of competent bilingualism. Children's language transitions are often the longest and best sentences they form, allowing bilingual children to showcase their true language potential.
Bilingual children require intervention in both languages. The therapist should be equipped with background knowledge of the manifestation of the bilingual disorder, assessment and intervention processes. We should not forget that; Monolingualism is not the solution to a bilingual disorder. Completely reverse; comes with the advantages of bilingualism.
Specialist Speech and Language Therapist Seda ESERSİN ended her speech after answering the questions of the students who participated in the seminar. Speech and Language Therapy Department Chairman
Assist. Prof. Dr. Emrah TÜNCER,
Lecturer Betül ÖZSOY TANRIKULU and
Res. Assist. Rumeysa Nur AKBAŞ thanked Seda ESERSİN for this seminar.
