Multicompetence Approaches to Language Proficiency Development in Multilingual Education

This paper proposes a framework for examining the way in which bilinguals control the use of their two languages. In so doing it seeks to extend current functional descriptions of language production and to provide a single scheme in which both normal and pathological performance can be understood. Within the overall framework a specific model is developed. It is compatible with current findings, makes predictions about the performance of normal as well as brain-damaged bilinguals, and explains some previously puzzling findings.