Visualising Multilingual Lives

More Than Words

Paula Kalaja, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer, Paula Kalaja, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781788922593
• eBook ISBN: 9781788922623
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Shortlisted for the 2020 BAAL Book Prize

This book brings together empirical studies from around the world to help readers gain a better understanding of multilinguals, ranging from small children to elderly people, and their lives. The chapters focus on the multilingual subjects' identities and the ways in which they are discursively and/or visually constructed, and are split into sections looking specifically at the multilingual self, the multilingual learner and multilingual teacher education. The studies draw on rich visual data, which is analysed for content and/or form and often complemented with other types of data, to investigate how multilinguals make sense of their use and knowledge of more than one language in their specific context. The topic of multilingualism is addressed as subjectively experienced and the book unites the current multilingual, narrative and visual turns in Applied Language Studies. It will be of interest to students and researchers working in the areas of language learning and teaching, teacher education and bi/multilingualism, as well as to those interested in using visual methods and narratives as a means of academic research.

1Introduction

Paula Kalaja and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

In this chapter, the reader will be introduced to the rationale of the volume, becoming familiar with the turns currently characterising Applied Language Studies. Special attention will be given to the multilingual turn, to the visual turn and to the way subjectivity becomes a necessary approach in the study of multilingualism as lived and as experienced by individuals. The reader will then be acquainted with the tripartite structure of the volume (The Multilingual Self, The Multilingual Learner and Multilingual Teacher Education) and with a detailed description of each chapter.

What is this Volume About – in a Nutshell?

The current volume entitled Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words is indeed a timely response to the recent call in applied language studies to approach multilingualism as lived or as subjectively experienced (e.g. Kramsch, 2009; May, 2014). The volume will focus on multilingual individuals, including learners, teachers and users of more than one language, and/or on their lives or the worlds that they currently find themselves in. These will be addressed by making use of visual methodologies of various kinds. In these two respects, the volume will provide a fresh take on the issues addressed so far in Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching (PLLT). It is one thing for an individual to learn a second language (L2) as a system (e.g. its grammar and vocabulary) or to be able to communicate in it. It is, however, quite another thing for him or her to make sense of becoming or being multilingual as subjectively experienced, involving positive and negative emotions, attitudes, beliefs, visions and identities. It is issues like this that the volume will address.

Multilingualism as Lived? From Monolingualism to Translanguaging

The multilingual turn is one of the most recent turns that applied language studies (earlier Applied Linguistics) has been undergoing during the past few decades. Traditionally, monolinguals were thought to be speakers of a first language (L1) or native speakers, and they were assumed, first, to have acquired the L1 from birth and, secondly, to have full competence in the L1 (Ortega, 2014). In contrast, bi- or multilinguals were not only speakers of an L1 but also users of one or more additional languages (L2, L3, etc.), having learnt these at a later stage in their lives, and they were not expected to attain full competence in any of these. In addition, as non-native speakers they were considered to be ‘less than’ native or L1 speakers, and as learners regarded as deficit, their competence in any additional language would always be lacking in one or more respects. It was typical of them to resort to code-switching and code-mixing, neither viewed in very positive terms and so as something to be avoided.

However, in recent years, some of the traditional assumptions have been challenged (Ortega, 2014), including what has been called the monolingual bias with its two assumptions mentioned above. Besides, bi- or multilinguals are now viewed as ‘rather more than less’ compared with monolinguals or native speakers. In fact, it is argued that they should not be compared with these at all but with other multilinguals in order to ensure fairer comparisons. Multilinguals (including bilinguals and emergent bilinguals) are now viewed as individuals who do translanguaging (Otheguy et al., 2015). They have a repertoire (or idiolect) of linguistic (and other semiotic) resources, and so they can draw on their knowledge in any language they happen to know, depending on the situation. Their aim is in fact to attain multicompetence (originally used by Cook, 1992), or knowledge in more than one language but to different degrees, and to learn to appreciate this constantly evolving and unique competence. In other words, multilinguals are quite different from monolinguals as users of languages. And it is gradually being acknowledged that multilinguals form the majority of people in the world, rather than monolinguals, who have been used as the norm not only by lay people but by scholars in their studies.

Over the years, our views on multilingualism1 (including bilingualism) have evolved, too. It is claimed that there are two perspectives on the matter (Otheguy et al., 2015). From the perspective of outsiders, the languages of a multilingual are viewed as separate and fixed entities and associated with nation states (e.g. Swedish is thought to be spoken only in Sweden – and not, say, by a minority of L1 speakers of the language in Finland). From the perspective of insiders, in contrast, the languages of a multilingual are assumed to form one single entity in his or her mind, aspects of which he or she can draw on selectively from one situation to another. Research in applied language studies has for the most part been conducted from the perspective of outsiders and only recently has it started to be done from the perspective of insiders.

Furthermore, as pointed out by Kramsch (2009: 1–25), there are two approaches to multilingualism or individuals’ use of more than one language. The objective approach focuses on tracing the development of their knowledge of any language (and possible stages in the process) in terms of a linguistic system, including mastery of grammar and lexicon, or in terms of an ability to communicate or interact with others in the language. In contrast, the subjective approach attempts to figure out how multilinguals themselves feel about becoming or being multilinguals, or what the different languages and their use might mean to them personally. Kramsch (2009: 1–25) talks of languages as symbolic systems, and the subjective approach can be illustrated by a pioneering study of hers (Kramsch, 2003). In it she asked a group of university students of various L2s to complete a sentence ‘Learning Language X is (like) …’ with a metaphor to describe how they had subjectively experienced the learning of the L2s. The metaphors fell into a total of 13 classes, including: engaging in an artistic process; learning as a cognitive or physical skill; being at home; returning to a childhood state; travelling to new places; becoming another person; incurring physical danger; and ingesting food (listed in order of frequency). In other words, the learning of L2s has quite different additional meanings from one student to another. Other pioneering studies include those by Busch (2013), Krumm and Jenkins (2001) and Moore (2006). Instead of metaphors, these studies made use of linguistic biographies or linguistic portraits.

Since then, with the globalization of the world for a number of reasons, including political, religious, social, economic and technological ones, there have been further calls to pursue more research on multilingualism using the subjective approach as outlined above (see also, for example, May, 2014). It remains to be seen how these recent developments in applied language studies will be reflected in the years to come – e.g. in practices in classrooms, teaching materials, assessing students’ skills in additional languages, or in language teacher education.

Why this Volume and Who is it for?

Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words is our contribution to the field of multilingualism as lived, and more specifically to PLLT (for recent state-of-the-art reviews on L2 learner and teacher psychology, see Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015 and Mercer & Kostoulas, 2018, respectively). The volume reports research on the multilingual subject him- or herself with an attempt at innovation in the research methodologies used. It contains a total of 13 empirical studies. Importantly, the participants in the studies could share their experiences of becoming or being multilingual by translanguaging not only verbally in a variety of languages but also visually, by producing drawings by a number of means or taking photographs. The volume provides not only an innovative methodological approach to researching the self but also a fresh perspective on the psychology of the individual.

Visual methodologies have already been used in applied language studies (or in sociolinguistics) to address multilingualism as encountered by people in their immediate surroundings, such as in studies on linguistic landscapes conducted in major cities in different parts of the world (e.g. Backhaus, 2006; Laitinen & Zabrodskaja, 2015; Schmitt, 2018; Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). However, the focus of this volume is different: it focuses on the multilingual subject him- or herself. Very recently, a new methodological turn has been suggested (by Kalaja & Pitkänen-Huhta, 2018) in doing research on multilingualism as lived – a visual turn (for some earlier experimentation, see, for example, Kalaja et al., 2013; Krumm & Jenkins, 2001; Melo-Pfeifer & Simões, 2017; Molinié, 2009). It is now acknowledged that each mode of expression has its possibilities but also its limitat...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Abbreviations
• Contributors
• Foreword
• 1. Introduction
• Part 1: The Multilingual Self
• Part 2: The Multilingual Learner
• Part 3: Multilingual Teacher Education
• Index