Presumption of recognising heritage speaker bilinguals as natives

Nekrasova Olga Alekseevna, Mazirka Irina Olegovna

In the article, the author challenges the generally accepted position in the linguistic sciences that monolingualism and nativeness are essentially synonymous in an exclusive way. By methods of description and comparison, the author makes arguments for proving that naturalistic bilinguals and multilinguals both exposed to a language in early childhood are also native speakers. The author’s presumtion is based on proving: 1. that bi-/multilinguals have multiple native languages: 2. nativeness can be applicable to a state of linguistic knowledge that is characterized by significant differences to the monolingual baseline.

Keywords:Bilingualism, multilingualism monolingualism, native speaker, nativeness, linguistics.