Societal multilingualism part 2

Traditional representations of multilingual societies

Multilingual societies are commonly defined in terms of:

• Official languages and/or languages with some kind of recognition
• Highly visible languages
• Lingua franca(official or not)
• Eg. New York=town where American English is spoken with pockets of other languages; English-dominant
• When we talk about official multilingualism, we make an obstraction of reality ; tend to oversimplify complex multilingual dynamics the moment we start to talk about in on official levels

linguistic landscaping research

people try and take pictures of the linguistic science you find in the public sphere; they try to say sth about the relationship between those languages and dominance

The concept of Invisibilization

= traditional representation of bi/multilingualism tend to oversimplify complex language ecologies(=interaction of speakers within surroundings)
Eg. London-english-speaking town

Invisibilization

=refers to the instances where in particular discourses (in the way people speak about languages) languages are simply not acknowledged; are not even afforded the label ‘languages’, or are claimed to be but a small fragment of the majority culture

Concept of Erasure (wiping away sth)

=is the process in which certain people/systems for ideological reasons(wanting power, discrimination etc) ignore speakers of specific languages or even specific varieties and specific languages(/often portrayed in extreme circumstances)

Erasure policies need not be explicit,

but can be

Erasure

o Forbidding languages in dictatorial contexts(cf. Franco’s Spain)
o Ignoring linguistic diversity in colonization contexts(cf. Belgian Congo)
o Nation-state building in 19th century Europe
o Does that occur nowadays? Yesssss
o Quid language planning in the public sphere

o Nation-state building in 19th century Europe

- (typical structure= a language is being foregrounded as symbol of new nation )
- eg France=French is seen as embodiment of French nationality

o Quid language planning in the public sphere

- Quebeck(Canada)
- Governed by set of laws that say French is the dominant, official language of the province
- One of the chapters of the official language policy is that a public sphere should also look French(should be Frenchified)
- Hence, all other languages become less visible

‘Good’ versus ‘Bad’ multilingualism

We are proud to embrace multilingualism, but at certain circumstances , depending on languages that you speak, multilingualism can be seen as very positive or, in contrary, negative-it becomes a problem

‘Good’ versus ‘Bad’ multilingualism example

For instance: Belgium, school 1st year
1 boy-dutch, French, ein bisschen english=multilingual(has a talest for languages)
2 boy-french, dutch=multilingual
3 girl- albanian, persian=has language deficiency( because of the fact that those languages are less frequent/useful, less marketable in the concept of Belgium, these children are looked as a problem, who are lacking behind , etc)

Problematic multilingualism

=is being translated as language deficiency/problem; discource that can be found in Belgium up to the highest levels of government

Blommaert & van Avermaet

=the way you look at multilingualism is informed by your underlying ideologies(they are not based on linguistic analysis)
=the illusion of monolingualism is an illusion
= even ‘bad’ multilingualism is important for those who use it

Language contact and identity

• Language and inclusion versus ‘belonging’
• Language and identity
• Language and citizenship

Each of the languages people speak, carry a part of their personality;

your identity can be but needn’t be carried by varieties of languages

Language policy

is very often directly told inclusion(towards taking somebody in)

Governments want people to learn a language of a specific region to be included in a society and function in a society

What is forgotten, not everything is about inclusion; belonging is much more important to a language user

Inclusion-

- signifies that you are taken into a community because of the fact that you master one specific language(entrance ticket into society)

Belonging-

refers to a fact that as an individual a person wants to be part of the society, welcomed in the societies not just for the fact that he/she masters the entrance ticket but also for all the other languages that make up a person that he/she is

Focus on Inclusion leaves out

the crucial notion of belonging

Citizenship is being made conditional

upon mastering languages of the region
(eg in Canada: either French or English)
(eg in Belgium: Dutch/French/German an A2 level)

Language contact and language conflict

=can get very muddy

• Nelde’s Law

-“There is no language contact without conflict”
- The main task as social linguist is to try and avoid it

Multilingualism as a necessity

• Societal cohesion and intercultural dialogue
• Economic prosperity(‘the cost of monolingualism’)
• Facilitating healthcare
• Key role of intercultural mediators
• Key role of translators and interpreters