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Language biographies as a tool for understanding bilingualism/multilingualism (Bachelor thesis)

Μπαλλσκάσι, Αλίε/ Mpallskasi, Alie

Recognizing that today's societies are multicultural and are constituted by the coexistence of many languages and cultures, bilingualism is now a given and inevitable. It is a phenomenon that has attracted the interest of science and beyond, as around the world more people are bilingual than monolingual. The present study was undertaken to understand bilingualism through the study of biographies of bilinguals. The interest shown by academic disciplines in the migration stream has led to linguistic biographies being the focus of the research. Numerous factors, such as age of first exposure to the language, language inputs, socio-economic background of parents and so on, are noteworthy for the in-depth study of bilingual speakers. In particular, the paper explores each bilingual individual as a particular case focusing on the factors that influenced their bilingual trajectory. The biographies were collected in the course "Bilingualism and Education", in the academic year 2022-2023, from the students. The sample consists of 53 biographies of bilinguals of which 39 are female and 15 are male. It is necessary to point out, that through the study the factors are interrelated and complementary because the speakers' linguistic repertoire, although individual, is influenced and shaped by the social context.