**Bilingualism and Self-Perception: Self-Efficacy through the Veil of Two Languages the Veil of Two Languages**

**Bilingualism and Self-Perception: Self-Efficacy through** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.72740

Maura A. E. Pilotti and Khadija El Alaoui Maura A. E. Pilotti and Khadija El Alaoui Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72740

#### **Abstract**

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between language, as the vehicle of a person's culture, and self-assessment of one's capabilities (i.e., self-efficacy) via conventional self-report measures. It relies on the assumption that a language "is 'a veil' over the reality of the culture in which it is used, involving an agreement of its users about what there is to be seen and how it should be seen". Thus, the information weighted and integrated into judgments of one's self-efficacy is filtered through, and thus it is shaped by cultural schemas which are elicited by the language used to formulate such judgments. Evidence that supports this viewpoint is reviewed.

**Keywords:** culture, self-efficacy, identity, cognition, bilingualism
