Factors of Bilingualism Development in Today’s Kabardino-Balkaria: Problem Definition

This article considers the issues of bilingualism development in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic as a multidimensional (multi-aspect) problem, the solution of which is focused on such factors as the age of linguistic personality, environment and communication conditions of linguistic personality, social status of linguistic personality, functional status of the used languages, ethnical culture, etc. In this context the authors consider linguistic personality as a type of bilingual linguistic personality in invariant model, formed in mono- and poly-ethnic environment. The listed factors influence linguistic and speech competences of the bilingual personality, which depend on the type of bilingualism. Thus, coordinative bilingual personality has identical linguistic and speech competences when interacting both native (Kabardin or Balkarian) and Russian languages. Subordinative bilingual personality has insufficient knowledge of the second language, typical for mono-ethnic environment, which certainly impacts his/her linguistic, speech and communicative competences. Functional bilingualism is the most wide-spread type of bilingualism in poly-ethnic environment.