Introducing Multilingualism

A Social Approach

Kristine Horner, Jean Jacques Weber

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351997720
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Introducing Multilingualism is a comprehensive and user-friendly introduction to the dynamic field of multilingualism. Adopting a compelling social and critical approach and covering important social and educational issues, the authors expertly guide readers through the established theories, leading them to question dominant discourses on subjects such as integration, heritage and language testing. This second edition has been fully revised and updated, featuring new chapters on multilingualism in new media, the workplace and the family. Other key topics include:

• language as a social construct
• language contact and variation
• language and identity
• the differences between individual and societal multilingualism
• translanguaging
• flexible multilingual education.

With a wide range of engaging activities and quizzes and a comprehensive selection of case studies from around the world, this is essential reading for undergraduate students and postgraduate students new to studying multilingualism.

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PART I

Theoretical and methodological considerations

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C H A P T E R 1

Introduction

One may as well begin with Blommaert’s (2010: 102) definition of multilingualism:

Multilingualism … should not be seen as a collection of ‘languages’ that a speaker controls, but rather as a complex of specific semiotic resources, some of which belong to a conventionally defined ‘language’, while others belong to another ‘language’. The resources are concrete accents, language varieties, registers, genres, modalities such as writing – ways of using language in particular communicative settings and spheres of life, including the ideas people have about such ways of using their language ideologies.

The following chapters (especially Chapter 3) will make clear why Blommaert uses scare quotes with the term ‘language’. He suggests that we all have a large number of linguistic resources at our disposal, and it does not really make a difference whether they belong to only one ‘conventionally defined “language”’ or several of them. Hence, multilingualism is a matter of degree, a continuum, and since we all use different linguistic varieties, registers, styles, genres and accents, we are all to a greater or lesser degree multilingual. In this book, we will say that the varieties, etc. that we use constitute our linguistic repertoire. Moreover, these repertoires are not static but dynamic, since the resources in them change over time.

At the end of the above quotation, Blommaert also mentions ‘language ideologies’, i.e. our beliefs about what a language is (and what multilingualism is), how language works and how it is used. This book takes up Blommaert’s point about the centrality of language ideologies and offers a language-ideological approach to the study of multilingualism. The concept of ‘language ideology’ will be fully explained in the following chapter. For instance, we will argue that seeing ‘languages’ as well-defined, bounded entities is the product of an ideological process.

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Thus, this book is situated within a theoretical framework which problematizes even such a basic concept as ‘language’. As we will see in detail throughout the following chapters, it presents an alternative view of multilingualism not in terms of ‘languages’ but in terms of linguistic resources and repertoires, and advocates this as a more successful way of capturing what is often an elusive and intractable linguistic reality. It takes a broad definition of multilingualism as verbal repertoires consisting of more than one variety (whether language or dialect).

Hence, also, terms such as bilingualism, trilingualism, etc. are subsumed under the term ‘multilingualism’; we avoid such terms as far as possible because they are based on the problematic idea that ‘languages’ are easily identifiable and can be counted. In fact, however, the question of which resources in people’s repertoires count as ‘languages’ and which do not is a socio-political rather than linguistic one – as we explain more fully in Chapter 3. Even ‘multilingualism’ itself is a rather problematic term because of this underlying assumption of languages as bounded entities which are countable. However, other terms which have been proposed are not unproblematic either: they, too, could be understood as being based on the same assumption or they are more restricted in their application. The former include ‘plurilingualism’ (Council of Europe 2005), ‘polylingualism’ (Jørgensen 2008), ‘interlingualism’ (Widdowson 2010) and even ‘multiplurilingualism’ (Ehrhart 2010), while the latter include Otsuji and Pennycook’s (2010) ‘metrolingualism’, which mostly refers to urban contexts (this concept is briefly discussed in Chapter 3). While all these terms refer to the same complex linguistic phenomena, we will continue in this book to use the most widely accepted term, namely multilingualism.

FOR DISCUSSION: DESCRIBING AND COMPARING LINGUISTIC REPERTOIRES

A repertoire is the set of linguistic resources (whether ‘languages’ or ‘dialects’) which are at an individual’s disposal. Can you describe as fully as possible your own linguistic repertoire: what varieties does it consist in? When, where and with whom do you use these varieties? How does your range of linguistic resources compare with those of your classmates? Make sure you include all your resources, whether you are highly proficient in them or not.

Note that repertoires are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7.

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A SOCIAL APPROACH TO MULTILINGUALISM

This book can be used for any introductory course in Multilingualism, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics or Linguistic Anthropology. It can also be used for independent study – though you will find it helpful to discuss the activities with other people.

The book provides an introduction to the key social issues in the study of multilingualism. At the same time, we also hope to change the way many people think about these topics. We question deeply held assumptions about language and multilingualism (what sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists refer to as our ‘language ideologies’), and encourage readers to think critically about important social and educational issues such as the following:

• How do languages ‘leak’ into each other (rather than being clearly defined entities), and what implications does this have for our understanding of what a language is and what multilingualism is?

• In what sense can a language be said to be endangered, and what are the benefits and pitfalls of attempting to revitalize it?

• What is the best way of organizing a multilingual system of education which is truly open to linguistic diversity?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of mother tongue education and heritage language education?

• How can we critically analyse (verbal and/or visual) texts such as multilingual signs, online texts and media representations of multilingualism, and how can we identify the (sometimes restrictive) assumptions and ideologies underlying them?

By tackling these and many other questions, we ultimately aim at reversing the traditional paradigm by normalizing multilingualism. In other words, we see multilingualism rather than monolingualism as the normal state of affairs. After all, far more people in the world are multilingual rather than monolingual; and if we apply the above definition of multilingualism in terms of resources and repertoires, then it is hard to imagine that there are some people left in the world who are not at least to some extent multilingual!

We add two further points here in relation to the social approach to multilingualism that we are taking. First, we think that there is a need to unpack and move beyond some of the classic and often limited concepts of structuralist sociolinguistics. To give just one example, in this book we move away from the traditional concept of diglossia, which has been used to describe a community where one ‘dialect’ or ‘language’ (e.g. standard German in German-speaking Switzerland) is the formal or ‘high’ variety used in education and government, whereas the other one (Swiss German) is the informal or ‘low’ variety used in everyday talk. Diglossia presupposes a stable language situation where languages can be compartmentalized and, in particular, where a neat separation can be made between a high and a low variety. However, the high vs. low distinction has been criticized, and it has been pointed out that the low variety can enjoy more prestige than the high one (as is the case in Switzerland – see the discussion of the Swiss language situation in Chapter 6). Moreover, such a binary opposition frequently simplifies and hence fails to capture the full complexity of the linguistic reality, especially in our late modern age of globalization, migration and superdiversity (Vertovec 2007; see also section below on ‘Coping with change’).

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Second, this book deals with the social issues in the study of multilingualism, not the cognitive ones. Thus, for instance, readers will find nothing in this book about the question of whether multilingual people have a unified linguistic competence or a compartmentalized one (with knowledge of each of their languages stored separately in the brain). We might just add here that, as with many such debates, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, namely that multilinguals’ linguistic competence is neither wholly unified nor wholly separate. Readers interested in finding out more about the cognitive aspects of multilingualism are referred to the suggestions for further reading listed at the end of this chapter.

A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

Of course, what we have said above about such concepts as ‘language’ and ‘multilingualism’ does not mean that we cannot use these terms any longer. It simply means that, in the case of ‘languages’, we need to be aware that we are dealing with socio-politically rather than linguistically defined units. Apart from ‘language’, we also sometimes use in this book other terms which are less than optimal such as, for instance, migrant children or students. The problem with this term is that it perpetuates an us vs. them distinction, which in fact needs to be overcome. What is particularly worrying is that only certain children or students tend to be perceived and categorized as ‘migrants’. For instance, in a French school, a child with one French and one Belgian parent will probably not be perceived as a ‘migrant’, whereas a child with one French and one Nigerian parent most likely will be. Moreover, the latter child may be perceived as a ‘migrant’ even though she or he holds French citizenship and was born in France (and hence never migrated). As is the case with all forms of social categorization, the label ‘migrant’ is at least to some extent a matter of perception and thus socially constructed.

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Many other terms (e.g. ‘non-standard’) also have negative connotations (non-standard varieties might be looked upon as inferior to standard varieties). However, in all of these cases, it is difficult to think of (widely accepted) alternative terms which avoid the negative connotations. Thus, for instance, ‘vernacular varieties’ does not fare much better than ‘non-standard varieties’ in this respect.

Another problematic distinction is the one between minority and majority groups as well as minority and majority languages. Note, first of all, that oppressed minorities can sometimes be numerically the majority group: e.g. black people in apartheid South Africa. Note also that one and the same language can be the majority language in one social context (e.g. Spanish in Spain) and a minority language in another (e.g. Spanish in the US). Following Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004: 4), the terms ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ are therefore used in this book ‘not to draw attention to numerical size of particular groups, but to refer to situational differences in power, rights, and privileges’.

Finally, the term ‘superdiversity’, introduced in the previous section, refers to a diversification or intensification of (social, cultural, linguistic) diversity, as experienced specifically in Europe ov...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Introducing Multilingualism
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Getting started
• Part I Theoretical and Methodological Considerations
• Part II Multilingualism Within and Across Languages
• Part III Societal and Individual Multilingualism
• Part IV Multilingualism in Education and Other Institutional Sites
• Part V Critical Analysis of Discourses
• Part VI Further Directions in the Study of Multilingualism
• Notes on the Activities
• Notes on the Quizzes
• Author Index
• Subject Index