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L’anglais et les cultures : carrefour ou frontière ?
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The study endeavored to put forward a holistic perspective on multilinguality, by extending the remit of the disciplines and fields of study pertaining to multilingual acquisition and by drawing on the construct of identity. Looking at the study and use of new languages from the perspective of identity allows for a more complicated view of the speaking individual, and a more detailed insight into what the personality undergoes in the circumstances of global shifts.
Given the ever-growing and ever-expanding research into multilingualism, the need for compiling a thesaurus of multilingualism is apparent.
We propose to single out the notion and the term ‘multilinguality’,
viewed as being coterminous with multilingualism. Multilinguality
constitutes an individual subset of universality, while reflecting the
essential characteristics of multilingualism. We have defined multilinguality as a personal characteristic that can be described as an individual’s store of languages, including partial competence and metalinguistic awareness. Multilinguality may also be called the linguistic identity of the multilingual. For the purposes of refining the theoretical understandingof multilingualism, we propose the biotic model of multilinguality.
Multilinguality as a biotic model possesses inextricability and interdependability. Practical implications for such an understanding include pedagogical ones for learners and teachers, such as syllabus reorientation and design of course materials. The crucial point is that neither learner, nor teacher, nor educator can disregard any language in the linguistic repertoire of a multilingual, because doing so would serve to unset the essential balance of the ecosystem.
Multilinguality exists and can be studied in its cultural context(s). The
term Dominant Language Constellation is proposed here to denote the
typical set of languages used in daily interactions by varying population groups and sub-groups. The practical implications, as well as the need for further research, lie in discovering typical kinds of multilinguality in order to provide consequent positive changes in language use and language learning and teaching for multilinguals, as well as to isolate advantageous conditions for developing pedagogical practice and materials.
In this paper we propose a perspective on multiple language acquisition based on Gibson's theory of affordances. We suggest that the experiential profile of multilingual learners provides them with especially favourable conditions to develop awareness of the social and cognitive possibilities which their particular situation affords them. We review some evidence which is interpretable as indicating that (1) multilinguals differ from monolinguals not only in terms of their internalized knowledge of their languages and their capacity to deploy skills in these languages, but also in terms of an expanded and deepened language awareness, and (2) they tend to exploit the full array of their multilingual resources in language learning and language use. We conclude that further exploration of Gibson's theory of affordances in this connection could contribute usefully towards an enhancement of the organization of language teaching and learning for multilinguals, which optimally ought to make use of multilingual learners' already existing awareness and to develop it further in order to enable them to profit maximally from the resources at their command.
Recent years, most visibly since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, have witnessed a marked increase in scholars’ interest in minority issues, in particular minority rights and linguistic rights. One striking aspect of this interest is the fact that it has emerged, more or less simultaneously, in different quarters, and now finds expression in very different families of discourse. However, these families of discourse have remained, for the most part, quite insulated from one another, and this fragmentation, which is only just beginning to make way for a higher degree of interconnection, can seriously hamper not only analytical accuracy but also the relevance of policy proposals concerning language rights.
The era that ended with the collapse of communism has given way to an era of globalisation, the term of choice to describe the changes observed in the world over the past ten or a dozen years. Broadly speaking, there are two ways of looking at the phenomenon of globalisation: as interconnectedness or as expansion. The first tends to be sympathetic to the USA, the second opposed. According to the former model, the various independent economies across the world, aided by technological advances and resulting improvements in communication, have come together to form economic and financial networks, allowing for greater flow of capital (including human capital) across national boundaries, greater integration of markets and the emergence of extra-governmental transnational structures in the form of global corporations. Such structures, the argument goes, promote dense communication networks and financial interdependencies that not only improve the standard of living in many countries, but also serve to promote peace by creating shared interests. Thomas Friedman, author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999), has pointed out that countries endowed with McDonalds franchises do not go to war with one another. By-products of this new world order and major contributors to the growth of a world polity are non-governmental organisations whose reach goes beyond the parochial interests of individual states (Boli and Thomas 1999), worldwide concern for human rights that is much less inhibited by national boundaries than it once was, ease of international travel as restrictions on the free movement of persons are reduced, and a growing integration of both scientific research and advanced education.
There will be, in the twenty-first century, a major shake-up of the global language hierarchy. Graddol (1997, p. 39) The idea of dedicating a book to languages in a globalising world, i.e. to their relationships and their competition on the world's checkerboard, is the result of a series of events, such as the reunification of Germany, the break-up of the eastern European bloc of countries, the end of apartheid in South Africa and phenomena that are part of a long-term trend, such as the creation of new economic trading blocs and globalisation. Ignacio Ramonet (1999, pp. 19–20) paints the following portrait of events marking the end of the twentieth century: Events of great import – the unification of Germany: the disappearance of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe; the collapse of the USSR (from inexplicable causes); the United Nations crisis; the abolition of apartheid in South Africa; the end of ‘smouldering wars’ (EI Salvador, Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia); radical change in Ethiopia, Guyana, Chile; the end of the Mobutu regime in Congo-Zaire …; the mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestinians; the renaissance of China and the return of Hong Kong to China; the emergence of India, etc. –totally change the geostrategy of the planet. Still other slower paced but world-shaking events, like the continuation of European construction, also exert a decisive influence on the general flux of the political life of the world and, at the same time, cause a series of multiple upheavals.[…]
This chapter discusses the present situation and future prospects of the German language, with emphasis on the international standing of the language. Measuring (in whatever loose or more rigorous sense) the international standing of languages in comparison to other languages is a hazardous task even for any point of time for which reasonably reliable data are available, since it is easy to question the validity of any data for the ideas that they supposedly represent. Uncertainty increases in the case of prediction, the more so the further into the future that such predictions are made (see Chapter 6 of this volume). There are, however, numerous data available with respect to the international standing of languages, even data that enable some sort of prediction; see, for example, Truchot 1990; Ammon 1991; 1998; Crystal 1997; Graddol 1997). We may mean a host of different things when we use this phrase: we may be referring to countries around the world where we find substantial groups of speakers of the language, native or non-native, to the countries in which the language has some sort of official status or official function, where it is learned as a school subject or serves as a medium of instruction, and so on. The terms in the previous sentence can all be interpreted in various ways, or designate a range of possible meanings.
Assuming that a language has some control over its destinies will help us outline the appropriate actions to be taken by a political decision maker who, typically, makes the same assumption of governability when he or she wishes to guide a minority language towards security and prosperity. Of course, most languages are far from having the control of the functions of goal setting, integration, adaptation and socialisation required by Parsonian theory to distinguish a system from a set. Most languages lack pilots; most of them are like leaves in the wind. But major standardised languages have at least some control over their own evolution, and those that are supported by a government have ways of steering their relations among the other languages with which they are linked by communication, competition, cooperation and conflict. What should the geopolitical survival strategy of such a language be when it is confronted with a more powerful competitor? The social sciences are often said to abound in theories but to be short of laws. That this be so makes it all the more important that we give due attention to one of these laws, a law that governs language contact: the ancient law of Babel (Laponce 1984; 1992; 2001). x2018;Behold, they are one people, they have only one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do: and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible to them. Come, let us go down, and then confuse their languages, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth …’
The globalisation phenomenon that we are currently seeing has lead to major linguistic changes on a worldwide scale. English has become the leading international language, in economic and political spheres, and is becoming the language of high society and of the young. At the same time, however, regional languages are also making considerable headway, thanks to new social interaction and economic backing from their governments. In turn, and as a result of these two trends, there is impetus for feelings of belonging to local communities which see their language as a sign of their own authenticity, one that has to be defended against the phenomena of globalisation and regionalisation. We are thus heading towards a multilingual society, in which each language has its own, distinct social functions, even though it is inevitable that there will be conflict between the languages that come into contact. In this scenario, the author predicts a loss of hegemony for English, in favour of regional languages, and the future extinction of the least spoken minority languages.
The aim of this paper is to discuss different aspects of trilingualism and multilingualism as related to sociolinguistics. The paper highlights the importance of multilingualism in modern society and the inter disciplinarity of its study as related to sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and psycholinguistics. The paper, which adopts a sociolinguistic perspective, goes on to distinguish different chronological stages in the study of language use and behavior and their relationship with different social conditions. It identifies three stages, multilingualism being the most recent stage. The paper also discusses the distinctive features of tri-multilingualism as different from bilingualism and summarizes some recent explanatory models of multilingualism: the language switches model, the factor model and the dynamic model of multilingualism. The last section discusses the multilingualism as related to identity and education and highlights the role of trilingual education in modern society.
This introductory paper serves two main purposes. The first is to review the. epistomological and methodological underpinnings of economic approaches to language issues, and to propose a definition of the economics of language as afield of research in its own right. The second purpose of this paper is to introduce the contributions gathered in this issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language - the first instance ever, to my knowledge, of a scientific journal devoting an entire issue to the work of economists on language matters. Language and economic variables influence one another in a number of ways, a fact which inspires much of the existing research. However, the core paradigm of economics, which focuses on resource allocation, can be applied to the study of a broad range of language problems, even if economic variables play no part in them. This generates a definition of the economics of language emphasizing the use of economic concepts and tools in the study of relationships featuring linguistic variables. The paper advocates the use of such concepts and tools, while also stressing two important points. First, researchers need to exercise caution when applying the principles of economic modeling to language issues - while such circumspection should be advocated in all forms of social research, it is crucial when studying language. Second, the endeavor must necessarily be an interdisciplinary one, precisely because of the exceedingly complex nature of language, both as a strictly linguistic and as a social phenomenon.
In this paper, we offer a succinct overview of the Swiss context and the experience of Switzerland with bilingual education. In Section 1, we briefly characterise the issue at a general level, providing some definitions necessary for the ensuing discussion. In Section 2, we review the main features of 'linguistic governance' in Switzerland, with reference to its demolinguistic, geolinguistic and historical context. Section 3 presents the main traits of language education in Switzerland, while Section 4 is devoted to a descriptive overview of the (very few) cases of bilingual education in this country; in Section 5, we attempt to assess these experiments. In a concluding Section 6, we discuss the parallels and differences between the respective language education challenges of Switzerland and Latvia.
Recent attitudinal research by Bayard et al. (2001) suggested changes in the comparative evaluations of Australian, New Zealand, US and English Englishes, with US English on its way to becoming the preferred variety. We revisit these attitudes after a period of political change in the US, and using a research methodology in line with folklinguistic approaches to attitudes research (e.g. Preston 1996). Convenience samples of respon- dents in these four countries were asked to identify the countries where they knew English was spoken as a native language, and then quickly to write down their first reactions to those varieties. US English was viewed strikingly negatively in terms of its affective associations, and there were references to 'excess' from all respondent groups (e.g. overassertive, over- enthusiastic). And, against expectations, the affective profile of English English was not overwhelmingly negative for all groups of respondents. We consider the results in relation to the findings and methods of the earlier studies, and also briefly consider the different statuses of these varieties in terms of the current discussion of late modernity and of different standard varieties (e.g. Kristiansen 2001b) serving different aspects of social life.
This second of two installments discusses the dilemmas that confront authors (and other providers of language-dependent cultural products) who must decide whether to address a relatively restricted audience in their native tongue or compete for a much larger public by either learning the more widespread language or relying on translations. The first section is devoted to the issue of free or restricted exchange of texts from the perspective of both the group with a language of low Q-value and the language group with a high Q-value. The next section discusses what happens when more and more authors and readers switch from a small indigenous language to a large, extraneous language: under certain conditions a stampede towards the larger language occurs and collective action may be required to conserve the smaller language and maintain the accessibility of its accumulated cultural capital.
Recent literature reviewed by the author, particularly in German and English, leads him to conclude that there is a growing awareness, primarily in Europe, that the progressive establishment of English in the medium term as an international auxiliary language increasingly endangers the very survival of languages and cultures other than English, with the progressive effect of increasing political domination. On the other hand, it is not at all clear to any of the authors of these studies that the phenomenon is a necessary consequence of the political weight of international domination by the United States and the English-language world, and that accordingly a remedy must be found — above all the creation of a political power with a consistency at least comparable to that of the English-speaking world, and, secondarily, the adoption of a European federal language — and future world language — in the form of a planned language (Esperanto is the only one that is ready to use), which, not being the native language of any single people, nor the official tongue of a great power, would not have the “glottophagic effect of English. Entirely utopian are those alternatives — merely apparent alternatives — currently being proposed in the face of the hegemony of English, such as mass multilingualism, which is neither realizable in practice nor capable of constituting a valid substitute for a single, worldwide language of communication. Such alternatives, almost certainly doomed to failure, will only confirm the conclusive victory of English and the progressive disappearance of other languages.
The increasing domination of English as the world’s leading medium of international professional communication has begun to impact English for Academic Purposes programs. Specifically, questions arise as to whether English is becoming too successful. This paper reviews several of the resulting ideological challenges to EAP. Although not all of these challenges are accepted as well-founded, the paper argues that resistance to the ‘triumphalism’ of English is also a responsibility of EAP teachers. This resistance can be encouraged by further research into the academic registers of languages other than English, by support for local-language scholarly publications, and by using the current controversies as consciousness-raising exercises in EAP classes for international graduate students.
The article explores the role of English in ongoing processes of globalisation, the reasons for its dominance, and the need for conceptual clarification in analysing English worldwide. Examples from the post-colonial and post-communist worlds and the European Union reveal increasing corporate involvement in education, and World Bank policies that favour European languages. Studies of global English range from those that uncritically endorse global English to those which see it as reflecting a post-imperial but essentially capitalist agenda. Many of the contem-porary trends are captured in two competing language policy paradigms that situate English in broader economic, political and cultural facets of globalisation, the Diffusion of English paradigm, and the Ecology of Languages paradigm. A number of studies of various dimensions of linguistic and professional imperialism in the teaching of English to Asians reveal the persistence of western agendas in education. There is also increasing documentation of resistance to this, both at the level of awareness of the need to anchor English more firmly in local cultural systems, and at classroom level. Language pedagogy needs to ensure that English is not learned subtractively. Only in this way can globalisation be made more accountable and locally relevant.
It is often assumed that the implementation and the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) will or should be the same in all situations with little regard to the particular social or cultural context of their use. Drawing on research in different societies (Europe, Latin America, etc.), this book explains the nature of organizational diversity in which ICT innovation takes place, and develops a conceptual approach to account for it. The book draws from institutionalist concepts of organizations, the sociology of technology, current debates on globalization, and critiques of the rationality of modernity. The theoretical perspective is supported empirically by four international case studies. This book shows how the processes of ICT innovation and organizational change reflect local aspirations, concerns, and action, as well as the multiple institutional influences of globalization.
Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues : apprendre, enseigner, évaluer
- Conseil De L'europe
Trilingual education in Europe
English and Cultures: Crossroad or frontier
- Romy-Masliah
English Curriculum for All Grades. Principles and Standards for Learning English as a Foreign Language in Israeli schools, Jerusalem, Pedagogical Secretariat, Ministry of Education
- Ministry
- Education
Ebonics: a language, a sub-cultural dialect or a culture
- Romy-Masliah