Language Dominance in the Input and Use Patterns of Cameroon’s Special Bilingual Students

Abstract

This paper examines dominance in the language input and use patterns of students of Cameroon’s Special Bilingual Education Programme (SBEP). The participants were 373 bilingual students from 10 schools set in French-speaking Cameroon, who submitted self-ratings via an adapted version of the Bilingual Language Profile questionnaire by Birdsong, Gertken and Amengual (2012). The data were analysed using the subtraction method to determine dominance. The results showed a consistent pattern of OL1-dominance for all the three domains considered under language input (viz. listening, reading, and watch time), but a more contrasted pattern for language use, as the respondents were found to be French-dominant (or slightly OL1-dominant to balanced) in the outer circle of relationships (circle of friends and school environment) and OL1-dominant in the inner circle (self-talk and family circle). The findings of this study suggest that individual language use is more significantly impacted by societal dominance than language input is, most likely because the latter is less constrained by relationships and offers a greater possibility of choice.  They equally suggest that there is a directionality in the influence of societal dominance, with a decreasing effect from the public to the private sphere. Lastly, the study underscores the powerful negative impact the lack of official recognition can have on the maintenance of local ethnic languages in a multilingual context.