ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the factors that influence it will be spelled out, and the impact it has on language behavior. It describes existing evidence for the bilingual’s language modes in language production, language perception, language acquisition and language pathology. Language mode is the state of activation of the bilingual’s languages and language processing mechanisms at a given point in time. The bilingual’s languages are depicted on the vertical axis by a square located in the top and bottom parts of the figure, their level of activation is represented by the degree of darkness of the square and the ensuing language mode is depicted by the position of the two squares on the horizontal axis which ranges from a monolingual mode to a bilingual mode. Any number of factors can help position a bilingual speaker or listener at a particular point on the language mode continuum set the activation level of the bilingual’s languages and language processing mechanisms.
