The Effect Of Bilingualism On The Acquisition Of English As A Third Language

Under the influence of globalization of economy, bilingualism has become a natural and common phenomenon in recent years. The status of the English language as a lingua franca all around the world has promoted the existence of bilingual or multilingual education in many countries, which has attracted the interest of many sociolinguists, such as Charlotte Hoffman, Fred Genesee, Joshua A. Fishman, Jasone Cenoz, Terence Odin, Ulrike Jessner , Dai Qingxia, Zhang Gongjin,Xu Shixuan, Deng Youling, Ding Shiqing etc. The question whether bilinguals have advantages over monolinguals has been researched through many case studies.The first part comes to review the bilingualism and multilingualism theories and introduce the latest studies on trilingualism in European contexts. Then the thesis has put the theories into real context of Lijiang, where bilingual phenomenon is common and English is learned as a third language. Based on the conclusions of bilingual studies done by other sociolinguists, this paper focused on the effect of bilingualism on learning of a third language. In Chinese context, the languages of"bilingualism"refer to ethnic minority language and Chinese. Apart from these dual languages, English is learned as a third language in China. Bilingual and trilingual phenomena become more common in China now, especially in some well-developed ethnic minority autonomous regions. According to most of the studies on bilingualism, bilinguals have advantages over monolinguals in terms of linguistic competence, cognitive development and social development. The thesis introduced the latest studies on bilingualism and multilingualism and has put the theories into Lijiang's real context. After questionnaire and interviews, a class's scores in one final exam has been used to give answer to the question whether bilingualism could influence the learning of a third language.After the analysis, the thesis tried to give answer to the question by following results: there was positive effect of bilingual ability of Naxi students on their English study because they could utilize the experience of learning Chinese as well as the similar knowledge among Naxi language, Chinese and English. What's more, there was an obvious correlation between Chinese and English for those bilingual Naxi students, which means the better their Chinese was, the better their English would be. This has proved the theory that bilinguals can enhance their third language learning by utilizing the experience of learning L2, particularly when their L2 proficiency level is high. The dissatisfactory performance in English study for some Naxi students were due to other variables, which were expected to be studied further.The discussion results above may give hints to those who need to choose languages to teach and educate in a multilingual environment. The English teachers in Lijiang may know more about the Naxi students'possible problems and difficulties in learning English as a third language. What's more, the paper has tried to encourage people who are confronting the question of language choice and the awkward situation of minority language maintenance to use both native language and Chinese to teach their children. Knowing the advantages of bilingual ability in learning English and in some other aspects, Naxi students as well as other bilingual students in China may be more determined to speak native language besides Chinese.