The cognitive and psychological dimensions of plurilingualism

This chapter explains why the term ‘plurilingualism’ is not widely used in cognitive literature and why the readers think this should change. By the early twenty-first century, studies of cognitive functions in bilingualism, previously focusing mainly on children, started to extend into later life, to encompass first healthy, then also pathological, ageing. Researchers speak about ‘bilingualism leading to a better performance’ on certain cognitive variables rather than monolingualism leading to deficits; about ‘bilingualism delaying the onset of dementia’ rather than monolingualism accelerating it. The UK national census, the main source of information about languages spoken in the country, allows the respondents to name only one ‘main language’, whereas the very essence of the concept of plurilingualism lies in the recognition that there is no such thing as the ‘main language’ in the life of the plurilingual individuals and the communities.