A theoretically driven and empirically grounded calculation for language dominance and degree of multilingualism

Abstract

Bilingualism research has long been challenged by a lack of a unified approach to quantifying language dominance and degree of multilingualism. While numerous questionnaires (e.g., LHQ, BLP, LEAP‑Q, and LUQ) provide valuable data on language background variables, they lack a standardized formula to compute key measures from it. We introduce two formulas that synthesize critical linguistic variables to efficiently calculate language dominance and a multilingualism score that ranges from perfect monolingualism to native-like proficiency in multiple languages. Validation across two large datasets shows our dominance measure closely aligns with more complex PCA methods while being simpler and more efficient.