Societal Multilingualism
·
Multilingualism is a more magnified version of
bilingualism
o Individual
Phenomenon: How
one acquires two or more languages in childhood or later, and how these
languages are represented in the mind.
o Societal
Phenomenon: Concerned
with institutional dimensions, with issues such as the status and roles of the
languages in a given society, attitudes towards languages, determinants of
language choice, the symbolic and practical uses of the languages, and the
correlations between language use and social factors such as ethnicity,
religion and class
Territorial principle of
multilingualism:
The nation as a whole is multilingual but not all the individuals are
necessarily multilingual e.g. Canada.
·
Personality principle: Bilingualism is the official
policy and most individuals are multilingual e.g. India, East and West Africa.
Reasons for Multilingualism:
1. Migration:
When speakers of
one language settle in an area where another language is used and over the
years continue to maintain their own language
2. Cultural
Contact: When a
society imports and assimilates the cultural institutions e.g. religion or
literature, of another society e.g. use of Arabic and English in Asia
3. Annexation: The case of French and
Spanish-speaking parts of U.S.
4. Colonialism: English in Latin America
5. Commercial,
scientific and technological dependence of the speakers of certain languages on the speakers
of other languages
·
Speech Community: A conglomeration of individuals
who the share the same norms about communication. It is a community sharing
knowledge of the rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech. Members
are unified by norms about the uses of language
·
Verbal repertoire: The total range of linguistic
resources to an individual or a community.
o Monolingual
speakers: Range
of regional, social, functional and stylistic varieties they command either
productively or receptively.
o Multilingual
speakers: Not
only the varieties of the same language but also entirely different languages
·
Multilingualism
involving balanced native-like command of all the languages in the repertoire
is rather uncommon. The differences in competence might be a few lexical items,
rudimentary conversational styles all the way to the excellent command of the
grammar and vocabulary.
·
Selective functionality: Multi-linguals develop competence
in each of the codes to the extent that they need it and for the contexts in
which each of the languages is used. He might’ve excellent reading, writing
skills in both the languages but may be more comfortable using one language for
academic and professional purposes and the other for intimate or emotional expression.
·
Domains: Who speaks what language to whom
and when in those speech communities.
o Intimate (Family)
o Formal (religious)
o Informal (neighborhood)
o Intergroup (economic and
recreational activities as well as interactions with government-legal
authority)
·
Asymmetric principle of
multilingualism: Some
languages are more valued than others. The languages in a multilingual
community can be viewed as being arranged on a hierarchy. The larger the no. of
desired roles a language enables its speakers to play in a given society, the
higher its place on the hierarchy. The more restricted the range of valued
roles a language provides, the lower its place in the hierarchy.
·
Example of a Tulu speaker:
o Although it is spoken by two
million people, it is still restricted in its functional range. It gives him
ethnic identity. Spoken in the native place network.
o Kannada: Medium of instruction through
the secondary school. Language of education, administration, commerce, media
and literature. It gives him regional identity and state-wide mobility.
o English: Empowers him to gain access to
higher technical education, to communicate on an interstate and international
level, and provides national and international mobility as a job candidate.
o Hindi: Lingua franca, for communication
with north Indian states
o Sanskrit: To access, preserve and
symbolize the classical lore of India in an enormous range of fields from
religion to medicine.
o All
of these complement each other to the serve the complex communicative demands
of a pluralistic society.
·
Sanskrit: Use in ritualistic and
intellectual contexts by the most prestigious group in the Indian social
system, and so given a status of a sacred, intellectual language. But also
perceived as too orthodox, difficult and old-fashioned for every-day purposes.
·
The revival of Hebrew in Israel
and the movement to revitalize Sanskrit are reminders that factors such as tribal, caste,
ethnic and national identities are also powerful forces in the use,
maintenance, revival and regulation of languages.
·
The
dynamics of language in a multilingual society reflect the evolution of power
in that society.
Diglossia:
·
A
relatively stable language situation in which in addition to the primary
dialects of language, there is a very divergent, highly codified variety which
is the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of
an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by
formal education and used for written and formal spoken purposes but not used
for ordinary conversation.
·
Classical
Arabic (H) and Colloquial Arabic (L)
·
The
high variety is used in mosques, news broadcasts, political speeches, poetry
and the low variety is used in conversations with friends and family, in
captions on political cartoons and in folk literature.
·
Three conditions in a speech
community that lead to diglossia:
o Existence of a large body of
literature in a language that is the same as the indigenous language and
embodies some of the fundamental values of the community
o Literacy in the community is only
restricted to a small elite
o A long period of time is involved
in establishing the first and second conditions
·
Educated
Arabic deny the L variety of Arabic and believe that the H variety is more
logical, beautiful and better able to express important thoughts.
·
Code
Switching:
·
When
two or more languages exist in a community, speakers frequently switch from one
language to the other.
·
Situational code switching: The switch is in response to a
change in situation, when a new participant enters the scene or to a change in
the topic of conversation or the setting
·
Metaphorical code switching: The switch has a stylistic or
textual function, to signal a quotation, to mark emphasis, to indicate the
punch-line of a joke.
·
Code-switching
is not random but functionally motivated. It is governed by a grammar of
consequences.
Differences
between Code switching and Diglossia:
Diglossia
|
Code-switching
|
1.
Occurs
across domain boundaries
|
Occurs
within domains
|
2.
People
are aware that they’ve switched from H to L or vice versa
|
Unconscious
|
3.
Little
overlapping of codes
|
Involves
quite a bit of overlap
|
Code
mixing:
·
A
common mode of code switching is the switching of languages within sentences
·
Code
mixing raises several issues involving grammar, what kind of morphemes, words
or phrases can be mixed from one language into another.
Differences
between Code mixing and Borrowing:
Borrowing
|
Code mixing
|
1.
May
occasionally involve a few set phrases but is usually restricted to single
lexical items
|
Involves
every level of lexical and syntactic structure, including words, phrases and
sentences
|
2.
Borrowed
words can occur even in the speech of monolinguals
|
Presupposes
a certain degree of bilingual competence
|
3.
The
set of borrowed expressions typically represent semantic fields outside the experience
of the borrowing language
|
May
duplicate existing expressions and is not used to fill lexical gaps
|
4.
Represents
a restricted set of expressions with some creativity in the margins
|
Draws
creatively upon the whole vocabulary and grammar of another language
|
5.
Represent
mostly nouns and adjectives
|
Draws
on every category of grammar
|
Functions
of code-switching
·
Code-mixing
and code-switching serve the same function of identity marking. English
for modernity, sophistication or authority and Sanskrit for nationalistic and
traditionalistic image, Arabic for Islamic identity, Urdu for macho image in
South India.
·
Strategy of neutrality: When the use of any language in
the repertoire might suggest the wrong message such as talking-down to somebody
·
Stylistic function: Signal a transition to the
sublime or the ridiculous
·
It
is a versatile and appropriate vehicle for the expression of multi-cultural
communities.
·
Many
creative writers use it as a powerful expressive resource to convey
multi-cultural experiences
Linguistic
Convergence:
·
Extensive
structural modification of the languages of a geographic area in the direction
of one another, even though the languages may belong to different language
families
·
Distinguished
from borrowing, in that morphology and syntax is affected in addition to
phonology and lexicon.
·
It
results in the formation of a linguistic area in which languages resemble each
other structurally more than do their siblings from their own genetic stock.
·
It
is the adaptation and assimilation of the structure of one language by another
Language
transfer:
·
Powerful
force in language choice, acquisition, and use in multilingual communities
·
It
is an efficient and economical psycholinguistic process in which the tried and
tested rules of the first language are used as hypotheses in mastering a second
language.
·
It
reduces cognitive dissonance and contributes to processing economy
Implications
for language teaching:
1.
Language
teachers need to revise their attitudes with regard to the status and value of
bilingualism. Bilingualism is independent of intelligence and consistent with
the highest educational and socio-economic achievement
2.
Teachers
need to realize that English, despite its undoubted importance, may only be one
of the languages in a learner’s repertoire
3.
It
may be unnecessary and unrealistic to expect complete and native-like
competence in the entire range of registers, styles and functions of English
4.
Teachers
need to be familiar with the other languages in the learner’s repertoire
5.
Language
teachers trained in a monolingual paradigm are harsh towards minority students
speaking mixed languages. A mixed code is as important for an in-group,
bicultural communication as a monolingual code would be for communicating with
monolingual interlocutors.
6.
Multilingualism
may not only lead to division of labor but also a lot of give and take between
languages. A relaxed, open-minded attitude can foster cultural pluralism.
·
Wide
range of variation of English throughout the world. These varieties are not
deficient or fossilized inter-languages but functionally viable varieties which
follow different but productive formal processes of grammar and usage.
·
The
traditional prototype paradigm of second language teaching, that a non-native
speaker learned English to communicate with a native speaker is no longer
applicable
·
Required
course in sociolinguistics, contrastive linguistics, methods and materials for
English teaching