Understanding multilingualism and its implications

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EDITORIAL
published: 23 December 2014
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01464
Understanding multilingualism and its implications
Mary G. O’Brien1,2*, Suzanne Curtin 2,3 and Rahat Naqvi2,4
1Linguistics, Languages and Cultures, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
2Language Research Centre, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
3Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
4Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
*Correspondence: mgobrien@ucalgary.ca
Edited and reviewed by:
Manuel Carreiras, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Spain
Keywords: bilingualism, language acquisition, psycholinguistic methods, language pedagogy, second langauge literacy development
The world’s demographics are in a state of flux. Approximately
half of the world’s population is bilingual (Grosjean, 2010). Just
over half of all Europeans speak a language other than the official
language in a given country, and 25% of them report that they are
able to hold a conversation in at least two additional languages
(European Commission, 2012, p. 18). Bi- and multilingualism
are also the reality in North America. Grosjean (2012) esti-
mates that 20% of Americans are bilingual. In 2011, over 20% of
Canadians reported speaking a mother tongue other than English
or French, and the number of Canadians who report being bilin-
gual is rising rapidly (Statistics Canada, 2012). While the causes of
increased bi- and multilingualism vary, the repercussions of this
demographic shift are wide reaching.
In August 2013 the Language Research Centre at the University
of Calgary brought together a range of experts working on
issues related to the acquisition of multiple languages to consider
the implications of multilingualism in our society. Discussions
at the conference entitled “Interdisciplinary Approaches to
Multilingualism” were focused around three key areas: language
acquisition, psycholinguistic research methods, and second lan-
guage pedagogy and literacy development. These broad fields are
represented in this issue of Frontiers.
ACQUISITION
Barlow’s contribution investigates the role of age effects in
the production of English and Spanish /l/ by early and late
Spanish-English bilinguals. The results, which indicate that the
sound systems of both early and late bilinguals interact, add
to our understanding of the complexities of acquiring mul-
tiple languages across the lifespan. Shea’s (2014) response to
Barlow (2014) focuses on the complexity of understanding cross-
linguistic allophonic variation and on the importance of exposing
learners to conditioned variability.
The research by Bak et al. (2014) is an investigation of the so-
called “bilingual advantage” on attention tests. Like Barlow, the
authors wish to determine the extent to which early and late bilin-
guals differ. The results indicate that bilinguals—regardless of age
of acquisition—show certain advantages on the Test of Everyday
Attention. In her response to Bak et al. (2014),Macleod (2014)
focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of making use of
experimental results for clinical work with bilinguals. She points
out that we must determine whether experimentally significant
results truly matter in clinical settings. She extends the discussion
to studies of vocabulary acquisition and concludes that rigorous
testing of tools and a clear understanding of the backgrounds of
bilinguals are essential in order to avoid potential misdiagnoses.
Lechner and Siemund’s (2014) contribution investigates the
effects of bilingualism on participants’ attainment in their third
language (L3) English. The participants, all of whom grew up in
Germany speaking another language as a first language (L1), were
from a variety of L1 and socioeconomic backgrounds. An impor-
tant finding in Lechner and Siemund’s (2014) work is that those
participants who performed best did so across their languages: the
heritage language, German, and English. The authors, who view
English literacy as a type of academic achievement, couch their
findings in terms of the Threshold Hypothesis. In their response
to Lechner and Siemund (2014),Rolstad and MacSwan (2014)
offer facilitation theory as an alternative theoretical framework to
the Threshold Hypothesis. They argue that literacy skills trans-
fer across a bilingual’s languages because literacy in one language
facilitates literacy in additional languages.
METHODOLOGY
The paper by Libben et al. (2014) presents a proposal for mak-
ing use of Facial Profiles, a technique based on Chernoff faces,
and high-density experiments in order to understand partici-
pants, perception, and production. Acknowledging the necessity
to account for individual variability in reading, speaking, and lis-
tening ability among participants, Libben et al.’s (2014) contribu-
tion provides methodological tools for researchers to embrace the
complexity inherent in studies of bilinguals, especially research
into the mental lexicon. In their response to Libben et al. (2014),
Perret and Kandel (2014) point to a common problem within
psycholinguistic research generally: the difficulty of accounting
for random errors that arise when researchers rely on small sam-
ples. They echo Libben et al.’s (2014) call to capture within- and
between-participant variability in psycholinguistic studies.
LEARNING AND PEDAGOGY
All of the papers that focus on classroom situations (Cummins,
2014; Manterola, 2014; Naqvi et al., 2014; Ntelioglou et al., 2014)
point to the need to both value and draw on the linguistic
resources of bilingual students. This is in spite of the fact that
students’ languages are traditionally separated in bilingual and
immersion schools. Naqvi et al. (2014) describe the results of
three case studies that investigate translanguaging within Spanish
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O’Brien et al. Understanding multilingualism and its implications
bilingual programs in Alberta. Naqvi et al. (2014) made use of
a variety of tasks including dual language books, videos, and
inquiry-based learning tasks with a range of students as a means
of encouraging them to engage with the schools’ two languages.
In response to Naqvi et al. (2014),Manterola (2014) discusses
possibilities for integrating learners’ languages in Basque-Spanish
and Basque-French bilingual schools in the Basque Country.
Manterola (2014) cites research indicating that improvement in
a minority language undergoing revitalization (Basque) may be
correlated with improvement in both the L1 and the L3 (English).
The paper by Ntelioglou et al. (2014) focuses on the effec-
tiveness of instructional tasks for improving the literacy skills of
culturally and linguistically diverse grade three English Language
Learners (ELLs) in a large Canadian city. The authors report on
the benefits of making use of students’ home languages in the
completion of a writing project.
Cummins’s contribution focuses on the implications of poli-
cies that deny bilingual students access to their store of languages
in a variety of school settings including French immersion edu-
cation in Canada, mainstream English and French education,
heritage language education, and the education of Deaf and
hard-of hearing students with cochlear implants.
In spite of differing foci, Manterola (2014),Naqvi et al.
(2014),Ntelioglou et al. (2014) and Cummins (2014) propose the
implementation of policies, programs, and practices that enable
students to build connections across languages.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada for generously supporting this
endeavor.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was con-
ducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be
construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Received: 21 November 2014; accepted: 29 November 2014; published online: 23
December 2014.
Citation: O’Brien MG, Curtin S and Naqvi R (2014) Understanding multilingualism
and its implications. Front. Psychol. 5:1464. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01464
This article was submitted to Language Sciences, a section of the journal Frontiers in
Psychology.
Copyright © 2014 O’Brien, Curtin and Naqvi. This is an open-access article dis-
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