Modern approaches to the evaluation of the multidimensional concept of bilingualism and linguodidactic classifications of children's bilingualism

At the moment, there are already a large number of scientific papers on bilingualism, so there are different points of view regarding this phenomenon. Scientists ambiguously interpret the concept of bilingualism. The most common definition of bilingualism is that a bilingual is a person who speaks two languages equally. In the Pedagogical terminological dictionary bilingualism is "equally perfect possession of two languages". Multilingualism is defined more broadly as "the use of several languages within a certain social community (primarily the state); the use by an individual (group of people) of several languages, each of which is chosen in accordance with a specific communicative situation." These definitions do not fully disclose such a complex and multifaceted phenomenon as bilingualism. The dictionary definitions do not take into account the methods of language acquisition, the levels of individual proficiency in each of the languages, the age characteristics of children's ontogenesis, or the cultural aspects of the phenomenon of bilingualism. The article considers the current state of researching of bilingualism, provides a detailed analysis and gives a complete classification of children's bilingualism in the aspect of linguodidactic and psycholinguistics knowledge. © 2018 American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.