Lecture 2: Multilingualism in Society and Education

Lecture 2: Multilingualism in Society and Education

Lecture 2 Outcomes: Aims

  • This lecture examines how societal changes influence our understanding of language and multilingualism.
  • We will explore developments that challenge previous definitions of multilingualism and the characteristics of a multilingual person.

Language and Globalization

  • Globalization processes like immigration and internationalization lead to contact situations resulting in super-diversity.
  • These contact situations impact languages, cultures, individuals, and societal structures.
  • Question: How does language contact influence the boundaries between languages?

Implications of Language Contact

  • Language contact has consequences for how language and multilingualism are described at individual and other levels.
  • Traditional definitions of multilingualism:
    • "Active, completely equal mastery of two or more languages" (Braun 1937:115, cited in Aronin & Singleton 2012: 2).
    • "Having or using two languages especially as spoken with the fluency characteristic of native -speaker; a person using two languages especially habitually and with control like that of a native speaker" (Webster Dictionary, 1961, cited in Aronin & Singleton 2012: 2)
  • Recent developments challenge these definitions.

Recent Developments Affecting the Definition of Multilingualism

1. Changing Conceptions of Language
  • Traditional/essentialist definitions of ‘language’:
    • Language as an object existing independently of speakers.
    • Language as a discrete and bounded entity with clear borders.
  • Contemporary/late-modern definitions of ‘language’:
    • Language as a process or practice.
    • Language as dynamic (fluid) and situated (attached to specific events or spaces).
    • Language as a resource people draw upon for communication.
    • Languaging: Using a mixture of features from various languages for communication (Lytra & Jørgensen 2008).
    • Individuals who engage in languaging are referred to as languagers (Lytra & Jørgensen 2008).
    • Example: Awe, my bru, how are you today? (Afrikaans, English, or a mixture?)
    • Is the speaker a monolingual or a multilingual?
2. Language as a Situated, Event-Linked Practice
  • Traditional/essentialist view:
    • Knowing a language requires knowing the whole language and being able to discuss any topic.
    • A multilingual individual can use each of their languages to discuss any topic.
  • View of language as practice:
    • No one knows all of a language.
    • Competence in a language can be limited to specific domains (Blommaert et al 2005) e.g. marketplace/shopping; home; sports or other.
3. Naming and Counting Languages
  • Traditional/essentialist view:
    • Naming and counting languages to describe multilingualism.
    • Example: "Country-X has 11 languages," "I speak three languages,” etc.
    • Assumption that languages are bounded entities with clear borders.
  • BUT more recent linguistic scholarship has revealed the problematic nature of such practice - Invention/Disinvention paradigm (Makoni et al, 2007). * According to this paradigm, some of the speech forms/codes we consider to be different languages are (colonial/missionary) inventions.
    • Example: the emergence of Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, and Setswana as distinct languages owes much to the three different missionary societies whose activities were centred in different areas where the Sotho language was spoken: the London Missionary Society was active in the west and the Sotho language there became Setswana; the Catholic missionaries were active in the south, and the Sotho language there became Sesotho, while the Lutheran missionaries were located in the north and the Sotho language there became Sesotho sa Leboa. Banda (2002) further argues that these missionaries worked independently, which resulted not only in the creation of three varieties of the same language, but in some words which were pronounced the same but spelt differently” (Da Costa, Dyers & Mheta 2019: 354-5).
    • Question:
      • Would a person today who speaks Sesotho sa Leboa, Sesotho, and Setswana be described as a monolingual or multilingual?
      • In the past would such a person who was familiar with the way people spoke in the west, south and north have been considered multilingual?

Reflection on Definitions of a Multilingual Person

  • Traditional definitions:
    1. Multilingualism involves “active, completely equal mastery of two or more languages” (Braun 1937:115, cited in Aronin & Singleton 2012: 2).
    2. Multilingualism has to do with “having or using two languages especially as spoken with the fluency characteristic of native-speaker; a person using two languages especially habitually and with control like that of a native speaker” (Webster Dictionary, 1961, cited in Aronin & Singleton 2012: 2)
  • More recent/late-modern definition:
    1. A multilingual person is one with “the ability to use three or more languages, either separately or in various degrees of code-mixing. Different languages are used for different purposes, competence in each varying according to such factors as register, occupation, and education (McArthur 1992:673, cited in Kemp 2009:15).
  • Questions:
    • Which of the above definitions do you agree with?
    • In what respect do you disagree with the other definition(s)?

Announcements

  • Tutorials will begin next week i.e. 24 February
  • 311 tutorials are every second week.
  • Essay instructions will be announced next week Monday 24 Feb and is due in tutorial 3.