A TOOLKIT TO PRESERVE
MOTHER TONGUE
Created by:
NPLD2020 Project, part funded by:
NPLD2020 Mother Tongue Toolkit
Section A: Migration and Mother Tongue
A1. Origins of Bilingualism
A2. Migration and Mother Tongue
A3. Integration and Assimilation
A4. Identity
A5. Language Communities
Section B: Bilingualism and Multilingualism in Families and Individuals
B1. Advantages of Bilingualism
B2. Cognitive Advantages
B3. Cognitive Advantages_House Diagram
B4. Bilingualism and Multilingualism in Families
B5. Family Bilingualism Approaches
B6. Disadvantages of Bilingualism
B7. Definitions of Bilingualism and Multilingualism
Section C: Bilingual and Multilingual Education
C1. Types of Bilingual and Multilingual Education
C2. Bilingual and Multilingual Education Examples
C3. Effective Bilingual & Multiligual Schools
C4. Language Learning
C5. Attitudes to Language Learning
C6. Biliteracy and Multiliteracy
Section D: Languages in Society OR The Future of Mother Tongues
D1. Language Shift
D2. Language Maintenance
D3. Language Decline & Death
D4. Language Planning
D5. Language Marketing
Section E: Multilingualism in the Modern World
E1. Bilingualism and the Economy
E2. Bilingualism and Employment
E3. Bilingualism and Technology
E4. Bilingualism & Mass Media
E5. Religion and Bilingualism (or Bilingualism and Religion)
Section A:
Migration and Mother Tongue
NPLD2020
2015
A1. Where does Bilingualism and Multilingualism start?
What is the origin of bilingualism and multilingualism?
What was the first language spoken in the world and when did the speaking of two
languages first occur? These are questions whose answers are lost in time. It has been
suggested that human speech had developed by 30,000 BC. Some kind of
communication would have been necessary to share the skills needed for working with
tools. Bilingualism and multilingualism may have started then. We cannot be sure as
there is also a debate as to whether all languages are descended from a single original
language or that different languages emerged more or less at a similar time in different
early societies.
The start of bilingualism and multilingualism probably derives from the history of
language contact and migration, and relationships between neighbouring peoples of
different languages. When migration has occurred, there is an immediate need for
translation, and for learning a new language(s). Bilinguals who can operate in both
language groups become very valuable. Multilinguals become even more important.
Another example is when neighbouring people are at war, and then bilingual arbitrators
may be needed. Also, and importantly, when one language group has a commodity
another wants (e.g. cattle, corn, tools), there is a need for bilingual and multilingual
commerce. Selling in the language of the buyer has been important throughout history.
Language contact, and hence bilingualism and multilingualism, has historically
developed from exploration and exploitation. Across many centuries, explorers,
invaders, migrants and missionaries have travelled to foreign lands, sometimes for
trade, at other times to plunder, colonize and enslave, or to spread their religion. Such
travellers took their language, sometimes imposing it on the natives. Groups of people
have migrated from their homelands in search of new territories, or to escape war,
invasion or oppression. Migration, economic trade and colonization have all led to
language contact and bilingualism / multilingualism.
What are the reasons for the recent growth of bilingualism and multilingualism?
There are other reasons as well for the modern growth in bilingualism and
multilingualism. During the last one hundred years, the growth of mass communication
has dramatically increased language contact. The development of transport systems
(railways, cars, ocean liners and particularly airlines), has enabled an increasingly
frequent contact between peoples of different language groups. The rise of holidays
and vacations abroad, international business, multinational companies, exchanges and
visits, have each multiplied language contact.
Mass communication systems such television, radio, phones, computers and social
media have increased the language associations between peoples of different
languages and hence the increased existence of bilinguals and multilinguals. The
World Wide Web is a current encouragement for the spread of bilingualism and
multilingualism. However, some will argue that the movement is towards English as a
global language as well as, or instead of bilingualism. The spread of mass
communications has not only promoted bilingualism and multilingualism but also
English. The Internet and global satellite transmissions, for instance, have given people
access to programs in other languages, but have also promoted the spread of a few
majority languages, notably English.
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A major modern source of language contact is migration and the mobility of labour. The
considerable increase in migration since the Second World War (e.g. into the United
States, Canada, Europe), and particularly the recent migration into Europe, has led to
the changing fortunes of bilingualism and multilingualism within receiving societies and
migrant families. While there is an initial increase in bilingualism in the host societies,
this is usually followed by gradual linguistic assimilation to a host country’s dominant
language (e.g. migrants to the UK learning English). While many migrants lose their
mother tongue within three or four generations, other language groups become bilingual
or multilingual (e.g. Chinese in many countries).
There are further factors in the recent spread of bilingualism and multilingualism.
Intercultural marriage has also increased the chances of bilingualism and
multilingualism. Bilingualism in recent decades has also resulted from the success of
bilingual education movements (e.g. the immersion bilingual education programs in
Canada and Europe; the current trends in CLIL in Europe).
Conclusion
Thus, bilingualism has its origins in a variety of needs and motives, cultural changes
(e.g. mass communications) and historical circumstances (e.g. war and trade).
Sometimes the contexts are entrepreneurial, at other times about leisure; sometimes
enforced, at other times desired. Bilingualism may be stable and long-lasting, or shortlived and transitory. Language contact, and hence bilingualism, derive from a mixture of
individual economic need, societal, technological and cultural change, and movements
in political power. Migration features in many of these personal and political changes.
Further Information:
The Origins of Language
http://eurovisionshowcase.com/programmes/the-origins-of-language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuUAPVFFCRQ
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A2. What happens to the Mother Tongue after there is Migration?
Emigration and immigration are present in every country of the world. This is not new.
There are decades and centuries of migration. The United States has welcomed
thousands of migrants from most countries of the world for many decades, and
European countries continue to receive migrants and refugees from many countries
inside and outside Europe. Almost every country in the world has been affected by
either emigration or immigration or both. The current large influx of migrants to different
countries around Europe makes the effects of migration on the mother tongue, learning
the host country’s language and adaptation a key contemporary theme. This topic
focuses on the role and fate of language in such a process.
Take some varied examples: Arabic speakers entering Europe, Turkish migrants in
Germany, the Asian populations in Britain and Germany, as well as the history of
European white settlers in Africa and India, Australasia, Arabic countries and the Far
East. All have a history of one language encountering another, sometimes leading to
bilingualism and multilingualism, at other times to language loss and language death.
Whether migration has been due to religious or ethnic persecution, political oppression
or economic hardship, the mother tongue that is spoken (and sometimes written)
variously becomes replaced or retained, forgotten or forbidden following migration.
Will the mother tongue survive?
Most often, the mother tongue of migrants tends to be lost between the first and the
third or fourth generations through the melting pot processes of employment, schooling,
mass media, the WWW, and many other assimilating influences. Most countries, as
part of the basic philosophy of the melting pot, expect migrants to shed their language
and culture in favour of the majority language and culture soon after settling in the new
country.
When the host country mass media (e.g. television) talks about floods, waves or
influxes of immigrants who may overwhelm the country, the pressure on migrants is to
lose their heritage language. Even when a host country actively calls for more
immigration (e.g. Canada which between 1992 and 1995 wanted 250,000 immigrants
per year not least from Europe to adjust for an aging population and needed extra
labour in its workforce), the pressure was (and is still) for migrants to lose their mother
tongue. Assimilation is a common political demand, with language a visible sign of the
extent of assimilation of an individual or ethnic group. When migration occurs, language
often takes on a symbolic value. Language is a highly visible mark of group identity. In
reaction, some migrants will want to try to maintain their mother tongue (e.g. those of
Chinese origin).
Yet the language of the migrant is not essential to the maintenance of ethnic identity.
Various groups of migrants in different countries have retained their ethnicity despite
losing their language, for example Dutch immigrants in Australia, Greeks and Turks in
London, and various French communities in the United States. Among later immigrant
generations, for a few there can be a revived interest and pride in ancestry, roots and
the maintenance of ethnic identity, although the original native languages have been
lost.
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How fast is Assimilation and Integration?
There are various factors that influence whether a migrant will rapidly or slowly
assimilate or integrate and hence whether the mother tongue will be retained or lost.
Examples of such factors follow, with implications that mostly lead to the loss of the
mother tongue:
1. Whether a migrant has chosen or been forced to move. When emigration is
chosen, assimilation may be more expected and desired. When a person has
been forced to move, then assimilation may be more resisted. For example, for
employment or economic reasons, some people choose to emigrate: other
migrants are refugees with little or no choice. However, even when people
appear to have a choice, this is rarely a ‘free choice’ as the dice is heavily loaded
(e.g. a choice between continued material poverty or emigration and potentially
greater affluence).
2. The amount of preparation and support, both emotionally and financially, will
affect the transition and integration. Refugees, for example, often have made
little preparation, and emotionally and financially may be very vulnerable.
3. The amount of family separation in the nuclear and extended family will have an
effect on integration. Migrant families sometimes arrive in stages, with
reunification difficult and often occurring after a long period of time. At a time of
considerable stress in migration, the support of the family is missing both on a
short-term and often on a longer-term basis. Migrants often feel isolated when
they arrive, helpless and rootless, sometimes destitute and roofless.
4. Many migrants settle in large cities where it is difficult to adjust to a strange and
new environment. For those who come from rural backgrounds where patterns
of interaction with neighbours are very different, adjusting to a new culture, new
living conditions and styles of relationship may be difficult.
5. When newcomers cannot speak the language of the host country, there is often
both linguistic and cultural isolation. Not knowing the host language may make it
difficult to pick up the culture, rules of social interaction, cultural rituals, values
and beliefs of the host country. Social and racial integration can often be difficult,
not only because of language barriers, but often through the hostile attitudes of
some members of the host country.
6. Many migrants experience a loss of status. Often unable to find immediate
employment, or given a minimal salary, discriminated against in applications for
employment, the self-esteem and positive self-identity of migrants may be
affected. If migrant parents have to take jobs well below their standard of
qualification, that are poorly paid and ‘dead-ends’, the children’s view of their
parents may be affected. Unemployment in the shorter and longer term will
typically affect self-esteem. Some children will then be more motivated to
assimilate, to learn the language and culture of the country in order to improve
their material conditions and identity.
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When migrants are placed in conditions of poverty, deprivation and prejudice,
then their children may be less successful in school, dropping out earlier, having
low expectations of themselves and of their families.
7. Migrants may not involve themselves in parent/teacher and school activities, thus
not providing that valuable link between home and school. The home/school
relationship is widely recognized as an important factor in the academic success
of children. Parents who are unable to speak the language of the school, who
work long evening hours, or have no tradition of interaction with children to help
with their school work, may not create relationships with the school, despite the
efforts of the school. Many parents are limited by the absence of proficiency in
the host country language or a lack of fluency in that language.
At other times, there is a cultural ‘mismatch’, even conflict between home and
school. For example, when parents expect particular gender roles appropriate to
their religious beliefs, or expect immediate respect for elders, or patterns of
dating and heterosexual relationships that are all different from the host nation,
and when school teachers have different cultural values, there may be problems
for migrant children in particular. For example, Muslim families often find
Western school culture alien and degenerate. When there are courses on sex
education, drugs, Christianity and Women’s Studies, the home-school
relationship may become one of latent or visible conflict and a culture clash.
Migrant children therefore have to navigate between both cultures and
languages. Somehow, they have to be loyal both to their parents and to their
school, to their heritage culture and mother tongue as well as to the culture and
language of the host nation. If a middle path, however ambiguous and
conflicting, is not steered, then there may be isolation either from the parents or
from the school. Sometimes such isolation becomes a means of survival and
security.
8. Those who are refugees may have experienced traumatic wars and witnessed
brutal killing, including family murders and the death of close friends. The family
therefore flee from the horrors of the home country. The experience of refugee
camps and the waiting for immigration recognition is often a period of stress,
anxiety and depression.
When arriving in a new country, there is often a period of great elation and relief at
having escaped finally from persecution, murder and the refugee camps. Sometimes,
such refugees feel guilty about those who have been left behind, particularly close
family relatives and friends. They may then develop a phase of depression, realizing
that there is little or no chance of returning to the home country. Exile will be
permanent. Withdrawal, or occasionally aggression may result from such a realization
and sense of desperation. The mother tongue will have lower status than before, and
linguistic assimilation is a distinct possibility across time and generations.
How do migrants adapt to a new language and culture?
When migration occurs, there are different reactions from people concerned. Reactions
vary across different people, different age groups, in different countries and across time.
There are those who experience rootlessness or dislocation between two cultures.
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For example, with older migrants, there is sometimes a passive reaction, isolation,
numbness and loss of a rooted identity. In younger migrants, there is occasionally an
aggressive reaction, due to having lost the identity of home, mother tongue and
heritage, and the difficulty of penetrating the new host culture.
For some migrants, there may be a sense of rootlessness, confusion of identity, feeling
neither one ethnic identity nor the other. This can lead to hopelessness, an ambiguity of
cultural existence, or feeling lost in a cultural wilderness. Others adapt eagerly, easily
and enthusiastically. Quickly settling, they overcome hurdles with relative confidence
and ease.
Reactions among migrants include (sometimes in approximately this order):
•
a brief honeymoon period when there is great optimism, a pleasure in the new
surroundings and much hope for the future.
•
a period of frustration, when optimism and hope are dashed and barriers to
integration seem overwhelming.
•
a period of anger, when the wrong decisions seem to have been made
(internalized anger) or other people are preventing access to jobs, integration,
friendships and success (externalized anger). Followed by:
•
a period of isolation, when pessimism and gloom are dominant. The immigrant
may become a marginalized person. Or:
•
rejection of the 'old' language and culture and wanting total assimilation and
identification with a new language and culture. A person may suppress the home
country, concentrating solely on being a true citizen of the new country. Or:
•
integration which means retaining all that is best from the past and adding on all
that is good in the new way of life. Or:
•
conforming without conviction to the call for allegiance to a new language and
culture.
Conclusion
Adjustment among migrants thus takes many different forms: happy integration,
uncomfortable assimilation, isolation, rejection and anomie. Bilingualism and
multilingualism is greatly affected by the outcomes of adjustment.
Further Information:
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/index_en.htm
http://www.ethnologue.com/region/Europe
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A3. Will migrants integrate or assimilate into the host country?
Firstly, it is important to separate out the terms ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’ with
respect to migrants. As the middle of the word assimilation suggests, assimilation is
about becoming similar or the same. In this sense, a language minority speaker (e.g. a
migrant or refugee) who undergoes assimilation will, via socialization practices of
institutions such as education, employment and the mass media, become similar to
language majority speakers.
What is assimilation?
However, there is an important distinction between cultural assimilation and structural
assimilation. Migrant groups are typically expected to acquire a close cultural similarity
to longer-term residents, but are often not allowed structural (e.g. economic,
employment, social) integration because of divisive factors such as racism, inequality of
opportunity, and the reproduction of advantages by privileged groups in society.
What is integration?
In contrast to assimilation, integration refers to the situation where an ethnic group is
able to maintain its uniqueness and maintain boundaries between it and the majority
language, while having relatively equal access to jobs, employment, affluence, power
and self-promotion. In integration, an ethnic group is able to maintain its differences
and separate vitality while having equal opportunity in the political, economic, social and
educational systems. Such integration allows a language minority person to become as
empowered, employed and as effective a member of society as majority language
member speakers.
A favourite metaphor for assimilation is the ‘melting pot’. Individuals from different
ethnic groups and language groups are ‘melted down’ by the socialization process to
produce a people who all basically have the same characteristics. One metaphor for
integration is the salad bowl where each ingredient, separate and distinguishable, is no
less valuable than another ingredient. The final taste is more than a simple sum of the
individual parts. A particular metaphor for integration is used in Canada. The Canadian
concept of an ethnic mosaic is the idea of different pieces of society (e.g. Quebecois,
native Indian language communities, English speakers, and the newer in-migrant
languages) being joined together in one overall political and economic arrangement.
Assimilation is a process that aims to shape everyone into the same characteristics.
Integration is the affirmation of the value of diversity in society, with equal opportunity
available in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance and respect. Assimilation is about
absorption of one culture and language by another. Integration entails retaining ethnic,
cultural and linguistic differences and celebrating variety for an overall common good.
Integration tends to be an aim and an ideal, with the reality falling below that ideal.
Integration implies cultural and linguistic pluralism and equality of different cultures and
languages within a society. The ideal is cohesion between different mother tongue
groups. The reality tends to be competition and occasionally conflict. A mutual respect
for ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences is important in a concept of integration, an
aim that is often strived for, but rarely achieved in a stable way in society. Such
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integration is often said to be at least partly achieved in Belgium, Canada and
Switzerland where cultural differences are protected and some equality in distribution of
resources is attempted.
Integration at one level can imply peaceful co-existence. At a higher level it implies an
active participation of different language minority groups with the language majority
group inside a stable framework that fairly allocates power, privileges, rights, goods and
services.
Further Information:
The linguistic and educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant
backgrounds. David Little et al. for the Council of Europe, 2010.
See:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Source2010_ForumGeneva/MigrantChildrenConceptP
aper_EN.pdf
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A4. What happens to Identity in Migration?
The expectation tends to be that migrants into various countries in Europe, for example,
will be pleased to have escaped political oppression or economic disadvantage and be
jubilant to give up their past identity and make a commitment to a new national identity.
Over two to four generations that happens. Migrants tend to lose their heritage identity
and their mother tongue. Yet heritage culture and cultural identity may instead live on
out of choice, or by being relatively isolated in the host country. Assimilation has not
always occurred among migrants.
Assimilation may be sought by migrants. Many wish to assimilate and take on the
cultural and linguistic identity of the host country, yet come to reside in segregated
neighbourhoods and segregated schools. Thus desired assimilation can be prevented
by social and economic factors outside the wishes of the migrants. Some groups of
migrants may wish to be categorized, for example, as German citizens, but are
categorized and treated by mainstream society as different, separate, ‘foreigners’,
immigrants and non-Europeans. The conditions under which migrants live may create
the negative labels and social barriers that enforce non-integration. The result may be
the prevention of assimilation and integration with a consequent need to embrace some
limited form of cultural and linguistic pluralism for survival, security, status and selfenhancement.
Over two to four generations, migrants tend to lose the identity surrounding their mother
tongue. They become assimilated into the host country. If the linguistic assimilation of
immigrants occurs relatively easily, what happens to their identity?
The two-way relationship between language and identity is complex. For someone who
expresses their identity as being Basque or Catalan, speaking in Basque or Catalan
language is typically an important boundary marker or symbol of their identity. Ask a
Celtic person is it essential to speak Gaelic or Irish to feel Scottish or Irish, then the
answer would usually be ‘no’. There are other ways of establishing a Scottish or Irish
identity than through language. Otherwise, for example, almost 99% of Scottish people
would not identify as being Scottish as they do not speak Gaelic.
Yet language is one of the strongest symbols and boundary markers in having a group,
regional, cultural or national identity. Language is a highly influential but not an essential
element in a collective identity such as identifying as being Breton or Danish or Latvian.
Languages change in individuals across time in terms of competence, usage and
attitude. Someone may not retain their Serbian language yet still express identity as a
Serbian or Bosnian.
What is identity?
Our individual identity is not fixed, but changing, flexible across time, person and place.
Identity is socially created and developed via language, through a negotiation of
meanings and understandings. We speak a language or languages and it often
identifies our origins, history, membership and culture. But that identity is daily rewritten, made-up, re-constructed and displayed as we interpret our daily experiences
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and take on different roles and identities Language is a symbol of our identity,
conveying our distinctiveness and allegiance (e.g. being French or Breton). However,
language does not by itself define us. It is one feature or marker amongst many that
makes up our constructed, shifting and hybrid identity.
We do not own an identity so much as many and multiple identities. The sociocultural
constructions of our gender, age, ethnicity, race, dress, nationality, region (e.g. county,
state), locality, group membership (e.g. religion, politics), status, socioeconomic class,
for example, provide us with a host of complementary, diverse, interacting, everchanging, negotiated identities. A girl may speak Greek an English, be a Greek
Orthodox Christian, democrat, see herself as Athenian, Greek, Macedonian and
Thessalonian, with identity as a teenager and trombonist, a school drop-out and
lesbian. As contexts change, so our identities are re-framed, developed, sometimes
challenged, sometimes in conflict. We do not establish our identities by ourselves but
through social comparison, labelling by others, dialogue within ourselves and with
others, and through the experience of ever-varying dramas and arenas, plays and
stages.
No one is purely their labels. To share identity as a woman, white and Greek-speaking
is just a temporary starter and is left behind as further distinctiveness, connections and
complexity become apparent. Labels are sometimes fleeting as situations and contexts
change. This is particularly the case with ethnic labels (or national identities) that are
too general and reductionist. Being a Jew or Arab does not immediately correspond
with other fixed religious, economic or personality attributes. Young people in particular
re-construct their ‘language’ and ‘culture’ with new mixtures that vary across situation.
Ben Rampton talks of the ‘language crossing’ of teenagers in London who shared
expressions in each other’s languages, a multi-ethnic form of talking. Such a friendly
crossing of languages create a new set of multilingual identities. But multiple identities
may involve a challenge to establishing a coherent sense of Self, which is not always
achieved as inherent tensions and conflicts may remain, not least among migrants.
An important context that affects how language and identity interact is migration. A 13year-old Polish immigrant to Canada, Eva Hoffman, expresses it thus: I wait for the
spontaneous flow of inner language which used to be my night-time talk with myself …
Nothing comes. Polish, in a short time, has atrophied, shriveled from sheer
uselessness. Its words don’t apply to my new experiences … In English, words have
not penetrated to those layers of my psyche from which a private conversation could
proceed. When writing a teenage diary, Eva Hoffman finds that her Polish is now
connected with the past, so she writes in impersonal, school English, the language of
the present, but not the language of the Self. In contrast, many migrant children in
classrooms are active participants in constructing their identity, not passive recipients,
and that heritage languages play a part in this, even in English-dominant classrooms.
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Are there differences in changes in migrant identity?
Migrants often produce vibrant, volatile, commodified, new ethnic identities and are not
easily classified into existing cultural, ethnic or linguistic groups. Young people growing
up in multilingual urban settings (e.g. Utrecht, London, Berlin) are simplistically
considered as Turkish-Dutch, Somali-British or Serbian-German. They may be seen by
others as Dutch, British or German, but the self-perception of identity may be of a new,
dynamic, multiple, overlapping and situationally-changing nature. Language and ethnic
dimensions of identity interact with other attributes such that we have simultaneous,
fluid and complex multiple classifications. Stereotyping, prejudice and distance are
reduced when we see others across multiple classifications rather than just by, for
example, ethnicity or language.
Identity is more or less imposed, assumed and negotiated. For some, being called a
member of a language minority (indigenous or migrant) is imposed and negative since
‘minority’ suggests a stigma of being marginal, non-mainstream and unusual. Hence,
labels such as ‘linguistically diverse’ try to create an identity that is more positive. Such
labels can be ascribed rather than chosen. For example, an individual may not describe
themselves as a ‘Bengali speaker’ or ‘Cantonese bilingual’ as these may hint at
negative, unwanted differences in a homogeneous society.
Such group labels are never static. In Europe, ethnic and linguistic identity is dynamic
as mass migration, technology (e.g. air travel, satellite, internet), religion, postcolonialism, mythologizing the past, ongoing enlargement of the European Union,
feminism, intercultural marriage are some of the interacting modern trends that create
ever changing, hybrid language identities.
This is witnessed in the adaptation of English in Europe. In Germany, Germans want to
sound like Germans when they speak English, not like North Americans or the British.
Native speakers of English are decreasingly the norm for English speakers around the
globe. New varieties of English are heard in multilingual communities in England,
especially in the multiple identities found in youth culture. These differ from their family
identities, and allow different strengths of membership of different networks, plus shared
(not divided) loyalties. There is also a process called ‘turfing’ (knowledge, practice and
subjective experiencing) whereby a new identity is adopted by individuals with no ‘grass
roots’ affinity to that identity.
Another debate accenting the negative, sometimes voiced by politicians and members
of the public, is whether multilingualism leads to being caught in-between two (or more)
languages, with a resulting conflict of identity, social disorientation, even isolation and
split personality. An old Irish poem talks of the struggle to express Irish identity in the
language of the English oppressor: ‘Who ever heard / Such a sight unsung / As a
severed head / With a grafted tongue’. In practice, there is much variety in multilingual
identity (e.g. among asylum seekers, refugees, migrants): switching to a majority
language identity, retaining the minority identity, bridging and combining, and
rootlessness.
If there are anxieties and struggles in identity, bilingualism or multilingualism are
unlikely to be the cause. It is not language per se that causes identity crisis. Rather, it is
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typically the social, economic and political conditions surrounding the development of
bilingualism and multilingualism. Such conditions tend to be economic (e.g. material
poverty), political oppression, racism, social exclusion, discrimination, hostility and
powerlessness.
Following migration, there tends to be a process in the reconstruction of identity. After
(1) an initial loss of linguistic identity and first language erosion comes (2) a period of
recovery and transformation that goes through stages of: appropriation of others’
voices, emergence of a new voice (e.g. in writing), reconstructing one’s past, and
continuous growth into new understandings and subjectivities. In terms of language,
there is transformation or reconstruction rather than replacement, with an outcome that
represents an identity in motion that is not exclusively anchored in one language or
another.
How is Mother Tongue Identity Maintained?
Language minorities tend to face difficulty in gaining status and power and thereby
maintaining a separate identity. Discriminatory attitudes and practices often abound,
with boundaries between the dominant and dominated. Many boundaries are imposed,
such as in gaining access to employment. However, boundaries can also be valuable in
a continued language minority identity. Boundaries between the language minority
group and the dominant group may help to preserve minority language identity and the
heritage language. Establishing boundaries and ethnic identity rests on several criteria:
1 Self-categorization as a distinct ethnic group.
2 Common descent and ancestry, be it real or imagined.
3 Exhibiting relatively distinctive cultural patterns, of which the mother tongue may
be the strongest example.
4 Well-established networking patterns for interacting within the group and
separately with ‘outsiders’.
Some of the members of an ethnic group will fulfil all these four criteria; every member
will typically need to fulfil at least one of the four criteria to be a member of that ethnic
group. These criteria highlight the difference between self-categorization and
categorization by others, particularly categorization by the dominant group.
Mother tongue identity can occur by imposed categorization from without, or by invoked
categorization from within. Self-categorization can be achieved through promoting
ethnic social institutions (e.g. law, mass media, religious units, entertainment, sport and
cultural associations working in the heritage language). Language minority schools
(heritage language education) plus the careful planning of the minority language in the
curriculum may be a major component in self categorization.
Further Information:
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1. Professor Michael Byram talking about the relationship between language and identity
for the European Network of Language Teacher Associations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJUqJ-eQ6g
2. An Interview with Eva Hoffmann ‘Lost in Translation’. The Interview was conducted by
Professor François Grosjean and posted on November 2nd 2015. François Grosjean
writes:
In 1989, Eva Hoffman published her first book, Lost in Translation, a memoir about
immigration, language loss, second language acquisition, and discovering a new land
and a different culture. Her autobiography was to have a worldwide success - the Nobel
prize winner Czeslaw Milosz called it "graceful and profound".
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201511/lost-in-translation
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A5. How important are language communities?
At its simplest, a language community is formed by those who use a given language for
part, most or all of their daily existence. The term ‘language community’ could be used
to describe groups of majority language users even if large (e.g. Italian in Italy).
However, the term tends to be used to describe groups of minority language speakers
(e.g. Sámi community in Norway, or the Basque language community in Spain or
Punjabi speakers in parts of London). Other frequently used terms are ‘speech
community’ and ‘language group’. All these terms are most often used to describe a
localized group of people who speak the same (minority) language.
The use of the term ‘language community’ gives no indication of its size and vitality. It
may consist of three or four households in a sparsely populated rural area (e.g. of
Chinese origins), an extended family of nomads in a desert, or many thousands of
minority language speakers in a region.
While traditionally, the term ‘language community’ tends to imply living locally together,
members of a language community may be linked over a wider area by social, religious
or educational institutions (e.g. churches, synagogues, Saturday schools) or by
business interests (e.g. Chinese restaurants) or by social media.
It is the social form or organization of a language community that is more important than
its geographical location. Thus recently a ‘community’ can be formed by internet social
networking (e.g. Occitan speakers who contact each other by the WWW (e.g. Skype,
Facebook, Twitter). Some sociologists argue that communities are no longer found in
modern societies and that they have been destroyed by mass communication, easy
transport and a lessening of the power of institutions like the church. Such sociologists
argue that there is little sense of unity, coherence, sense of shared purposes and
bonding within a locality. A community in the modern sense can mean people living
apart from each other rather than living together.
Such language communities tend to have a particular mother tongue as one important
basis of their interaction and have shared values and meanings that are part of that
language and its culture. There is solidarity based on a common tongue, and a
common interest in maintaining and renewing heritage cultural forms. However,
problems with defining a language community have led some to prefer the term
‘language networks’. The concept of a ‘language network’ is that there are a set of
people who all interact with each other and create a network of speakers of a particular
language.
Language is just one symbol in social organization. Relationships between groups of
people are also created along social, ethnic, economic, cultural, political and social
class lines. Language may be one means of setting a boundary with other language
groups and the means of social interaction and communication. Language may be a
way of distancing one group from another with different language patterns. But
language is not by itself the sole determiner of social groupings.
People often do not usually belong to just one community or grouping. Each of us
tends to have multiple membership of different groups and communities, and for
bilinguals and multilinguals, this may be even more so. Bilinguals, especially migrants,
may be members of particular groups through one language, and use a different
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language in other groups. In employment, religious affiliation, leisure activity and other
cultural activities, there are different target communities. The use of language or
languages within and across these groups tends to be varied and is not usually the
principal determinant of any particular group. Also, interactions with others (along
language and other lines) tend never to be static, with networks changing in their
cohesiveness and integration. This is especially so for migrants.
Isolated individuals speaking a minority language, who therefore may rarely use that
language, are unlikely to reproduce it in the family or spread that language. Within the
concept of the community is the idea that language needs to have living and daily
functions. Language communities are often seen as essential to the continued life of a
language. Their vitality is important, even crucial to the preservation of a language.
Community Languages
Community languages has been a term particularly used in the UK and elsewhere to
describe recent migrant languages. For example, in large English cities such as
London, Leeds, Birmingham, Bradford and Cardiff, there are language communities.
Examples of such language communities are formed by, for example, Bengali, Sylleti,
Panjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Spanish, Greek and Turkish speakers. The language
community may centre on the local mosque, temple or a Saturday school system to
teach the heritage language and culture. The community may also focus around local
schools, shopping areas and recreational amenities.
The term ‘language community’ has become particularly important for those who cannot
claim the territorial principle. That is, those established in-migrants, recently arrived
migrants and refugees, cannot claim (as do e.g. Welsh, Irish and Gaelic speakers) that
theirs is an indigenous language with territorial rights. Instead, they argue from the
personality principle, that their language and culture has unique features with a long
and strong tradition that needs preservation. Where the language does not belong to
the land, they can argue that it belongs to a community.
What is meant by a Language Minority Community?
The term ‘minority language’ is ambiguous. Does the term ‘minority’ refer to the
numbers of people who speak the language? Is the comparison implied in ‘minority’ a
comparison at the regional or state level? Is the total number of speakers taken into
account or is the density of speakers within a region of importance?
In Spain, the Catalan language is spoken by a minority within the country. In the
autonomous province of Catalonia, the majority of the people speak the Catalan
language. So is Catalan a minority language? In Wales, Welsh is a minority language
numerically in many areas. Yet in north-west Wales, there are many communities
where the language is spoken by a majority of people. Thus the saturation of language
minority speakers in an area may be different from their numerical representation in a
nation.
Is German a minority language in Belgium? Although relatively few of the population of
Belgium speak German, German is regarded as a majority language. In Ireland, the
Irish language is recognized as a national language and given official status, yet it is
spoken by a minority of people in the country. Is Irish therefore a minority language?
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The term ‘minority’ has recently been used to reflect less (or low) political status and
power (e.g. in France, Breton has less status than French). This tends to be the
preferred academic use of ‘minority’- that is, not referring to numbers of people but to
the relative power and status of a language within a country. Thus German in Belgium
can be perceived as a majority language because of its high status, particularly in
Europe. Catalan can be perceived as a minority language in Spain, despite its many
millions of speakers, because it has less status at a national level than Spanish.
Nevertheless, solely defining a language in terms of status and power runs into
difficulties. For example, in Ireland where Irish is an official language of the state, it
may be perceived as a minority language because in education, business and
government, English tends to have much higher perceived status.
In conclusion, a language minority can be defined along the following dimensions:
1. Demography (e.g. size of language group, density and concentration, urbanrural)
2. Sociology (e.g. gender, age, social stratification)
3. Politics (e.g. group-state relations, institutional status)
4. Culture (e.g. traditions, promotion of a distinctive ethnicity)
5. Psychology (e.g. identity, attitudes)
6. Interaction (e.g. language use in different domains)
7. Linguistics (e.g. language contact with other languages and dialects).
The term ‘language minority’ may be used to describe many groups that differ in size,
geographical distribution, status and origin. One type is composed of those people who
are indigenous to an area. The Sámi in Norway, the Frisians in Germany and the
Netherlands, the Walloons in Belgium, the Galicians in Spain, the Friulans and Ladins
in Italy, and the Bretons and Occitans in France are just a few examples of indigenous
(autochthonous) language minorities. Among such language minorities, there is a
variation in the amount of official recognition and rights afforded them. Official
recognition includes the right to use the language in official contexts e.g. in courts of
law, when dealing with government officials, and also provision of services in the
minority language including healthcare and education. There may be no official
recognition to migrants’ languages.
Another grouping of language minorities are those who are recent or longer-term
migrants into a country. For example, in Germany, the influx of guest workers since the
1960s has led to the creation of Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese and
Yugoslav minority language communities. In Britain, there are large numbers of Asian
language minorities, including Urdu, Panjabi, Hindi and Gujarati.
The tendency is for migrant languages in Europe to receive minimal recognition from
governments. In the European Union, there is official recognition of indigenous minority
languages, such as Basque, Irish, Frisian. However, the same recognition in the
European Union has not generally been given to migrant languages such as Turkish in
Germany, various Asian languages in Britain, and, for example, Sign Languages and
Romani in many countries. Therefore, there is a differentiation between indigenous
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minority European languages and migrant minority languages. The speakers of
indigenous languages are often perceived to have rights because of their historical and
territorial connection with a region. The rights of migrant language minorities are not so
easily recognized.
Further Information:
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages:
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/Default_en.asp and
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/148.htm
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Section B:
Bilingualism and Multilingualism in
Families and Individuals
NPLD2020
2015
B1. What are the advantages of bilingualism and multilingualism?
Bilingualism and multilingualism as a major even crucial influence on the lives of
children and adults. For children, being multilingual, bilingual or monolingual may affect
their identity, social arrangements, schooling, employment, culture, marriage, area of
residence, travel and thinking. Becoming bilingual or multilingual is more than
owning two languages. Bilingualism and multilingualism has educational, social,
economic and cultural consequences for children and adults.
There are many advantages and very few disadvantages in being bilingual or
multilingual. Many of the advantages are listed in the table below.
Communication: For many migrant mothers and fathers, it is important for them to
be able to speak to the child in their mother tongue. This may enable a subtle, finer
texture of relationship with the parent. Many parents can only communicate with full
intimacy, naturally and expressively in their first (or preferred or dominant) language,
enabling a maximally close relationship with the parents. At the same time, both
parents are passing to that child part of their past, part of their heritage.
A bilingual or multilingual child can bridge between generations, and this
particularly occurs among migrants. When grandparents, uncles and aunts and
other relatives in another region speak one language that is different from the child’s
language, the monolingual child may be unable to communicate with such relations.
The bilingual child has the chance of bridging that generation gap, building
relationships in the extended family, and feel a sense of belonging and rootedness.
This is particularly obvious with grandparents. Compare a child who is unable to
speak to their grandparents in their language with the child who does not have that
ability. The intimacy of relationship, generational bonding and emotional attachment,
the initiation into family history and tradition, is strong when there is a common
language, but weak where there is a disjoint in communication due to the child not
speaking the grandparents’ language.
When traveling in a country, in neighbouring countries and in international travel,
bilingual and multilingual children have the distinct advantage that their languages
provide bridges to new relationships. While a monolingual is able to communicate to
a variety of people in one language, that monolingualism sometimes becomes a
barrier to building relationships with people of other nationalities and ethnic groups.
Being a bilingual, and especially a multilingual enables a person to bridge between
cultures, communities and countries.
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The Advantages of Being Bilingual and Multilingual
Some of the potential advantages of bilingualism and multilingualism for a child and
adult are:
Communication Advantages
Wider communication (extended family, community, international links,
and employment).
2. Literacy in two or more languages.
1.
Cultural Advantages
3.
Broader enculturation, a deeper multiculturalism, and two or more ‘language
worlds’ of experience.
4.
Greater tolerance of differences among people and appreciation of their
diversity.
Cognitive Advantages
5. Thinking benefits (e.g. creativity, sensitivity to communication).
Character Advantages
6.
7.
Raised self-esteem.
Security in identity, multiple identities.
Curriculum Advantages
8.
9.
Increased curriculum achievement.
Easier to learn a further language.
Cash Advantages
10. Economic and employment benefits.
Biliteracy: Another communication advantage of bilinguals and multilinguals is
when they are literate in two languages (biliterate or multiliterate). They can then
access two or more literatures, opening up varied traditions, ideas, and ways of
thinking, feeling and acting. When there is biliteracy, reading novels and magazines,
the writing and reading activities of home and education, the pleasures of writing to
friends and the requirements of literacy in employment are all ‘doubled’ for bilinguals.
Even more so for multilinguals. Given that we are the ‘Google generation’, there is a
wealth of information available electronically that is in a variety of languages. Being
able to access information in other languages through the Internet, for example, or
communicating with others in more than one language in chat rooms and by social
networking sites, is a relatively new and major advantage for bilinguals and
multilinguals.
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Cultural: One of the advantages of a bilingual and multilingual child and adult is
having two or more worlds of experience. With each mother tongue goes varied
understandings, wise folk sayings, valued stories, histories, traditions, ways of
meeting and greeting, rituals of birth, marriage and death, ways of conversing
(compare French, Arabic and Canadian people when they are speaking), different
literatures, music, forms of entertainment, religious traditions, ways of
understanding and interpreting the world, ideas and beliefs, ways of thinking and
drinking, crying and loving, eating and caring, ways of joking and mourning. With two
or more languages goes a wider cultural experience, a multiple view of their world and,
possibly, greater tolerance of cultural difference and less racism. As Emperor
Charlemagne (AD 742-814) suggested ‘To have another language is to possess a
second soul’.
Here is a quote from a migrant adult interviewed on their multilingual childhood
from Claire Thomas’ 2012 book entitled ‘Growing Up with Languages’ (Multilingual
Matters). Mohamed, a Bengali / Sylheti, English speaker from the UK, who despite
being reluctant to speak Bengali as a child, became very positive about being
bilingual: “I think that bilingualism is a real blessing, it just gives you a completely
different vantage point, a different perspective on the world.’ (page 154).
The monolingual also experiences a variety of cultures – from different neighbours
and communities, who use the same language but have different ways of life. The
monolingual can also travel to neighbouring countries and experience other
cultures. Yet to participate and become involved in the core of a culture requires
knowing the language of that culture. The bilingual and multilingual has an improved
chance of actively penetrating the two or more language cultures.
Tolerance: Through a mother tongue, a child is cared for, cherished, cultivated and
cultured. One barrier between nations and ethnic groups tends to be language,
and it is sometimes a barrier to communication and to creating friendly relationships.
Bilinguals and multilinguals in the home, in the community and in society can lower
such barriers; they can be bridges within the extended family, within the community
and across societies. Those who speak two or more languages symbolize the
essential humanity of building bridges between peoples of different colour, creed,
culture and language. In the context of much migrancy into Europe, the importance of
bridge building between hosts and migrants is important to adaptation and
accommodation, concord and compassion. Bilinguals and multilinguals among both
hosts and migrants have the language talents to help build bridges.
Thinking / Cognitive: Apart from social, cultural, economic, personal relationship and
communication advantages, research has shown that bilinguals and multilinguals have
the chance of particular advantages in thinking. Bilingual children have two or more
words for each object and idea (e.g. ‘kitchen’ in English and ‘cuisine’ in French). This
means that the link between a word and its concept is usually looser. The sound of the
word and its meaning are separate.
Sometimes corresponding words in different languages have different connotations.
For example, ‘kitchen’ in English has traditionally been a place of hard work (as in the
phrase ‘tied to the kitchen sink’). The French concept of ‘cuisine’ is a place for
creativity, a place where the family congregate, not only to eat, but also to socialize.
When slightly different associations are attached to each word, the bilingual and
multilingual may be able to think more fluently, flexibly and creatively. Being able to
move between two languages may lead to more awareness of language and more
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sensitivity in communication. When meeting those who do not speak their language
particularly well, bilinguals and multilinguals may even be more patient listeners than
monolinguals.
Employment: There are potential economic and employment advantages (indeed
increasing economic advantages) of being bilingual and multilingual. A person with two
or more languages may have a wider portfolio of jobs available in the future. As
economic trade barriers fall, as international relationships become closer, as
partnerships across nations become more widespread, ever more jobs are likely to
require a person to be bilingual or multilingual. Bilinguals and multilinguals are
increasingly needed in the international retail sector, tourism, international transport,
public relations, banking and accountancy, information technology, secretarial work,
customer interface marketing and sales, the law, teaching and overseas aid work.
Where a needs to be bilingual or multilingual, then bilinguals and multilinguals are in
demand. Sometimes a bilingual’s languages bring value-addedness to a job. Other
times, such multiple language proficiency is essential.
Jobs in multinational companies, jobs selling and exporting, and employment prospects
generated by globalism make the future of employment more versatile for bilinguals
than monolinguals. In Catalonia for example, in particular geographical areas
knowledge of the minority language is required to obtain teaching and administrative
posts, and is of prime value in business and commerce.
Bilingualism or multilingualism does not guarantee a meal ticket or future affluence.
However, as the global village rises and trade barriers fall, bilinguals and
multilinguals may be in a relatively strong position in the race for employment and
promotion.
Further Information:
http://leap.tki.org.nz/Advantages-of-bilingualism
http://sgiliaith.llandrillo.ac.uk/files/2013/09/Poster-Manteision-Dwyieithrwydd.pdf
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B2. What are the thinking advantages to bilingualism and
multilingualism?
One totally discredited view from times past is that bilingual and multilingual
children’s thinking abilities will suffer if they are have two or more languages.
Some of the earliest research into bilingualism examined whether bilingual children
were ahead or behind monolingual children on so-called intelligence (IQ) tests. In a
period from about the 1920s to the 1950s the research seemed to find that monolinguals
were ahead, and therefore bilingualism disturbed efficient thinking. It was argued that
having one well-developed language was superior to having two half-developed
languages. In this early research, monolinguals tended to come from middle-class
families and were compared with working-class. So the unfair results were due to
social class differences than language differences.
IQ: The most recent research suggests that when bilinguals and multilinguals have
two well-developed languages, they tend to show a slight superiority in IQ scores
compared with monolinguals. Take for example, a child who can operate in two or
more languages in the curriculum in school. That child is likely to be ahead on IQ tests
compared with similar (same gender, social class and age) monolinguals. Far from
making people mentally confused, bilingualism is now associated with a mild degree
of intellectual superiority.
Creative thinking: The current state of psychological wisdom about bilingual children
is that, when they are relatively competent in two (or more) languages, bilinguals
have thinking advantages over monolinguals. Take an example. A child is asked a
simple question: How many uses can you think of for a brick? Some children give
two or three answers only. They can think of building walls, building a house and
perhaps that is all. Another child scribbles away, pouring out ideas one after the other:
blocking up a rabbit hole, breaking a window, using as a bird bath, as a plumb line,
as an abstract sculpture in an art exhibition.
Research across the world shows that bilinguals tend to be more fluent, flexible,
original and elaborate in their answers to this type of open-ended question. The
person who can think of a few answers tends to be termed a convergent thinker. They
converge onto a few acceptable conventional answers. People who think of lots of
different uses for unusual objects (e.g. a brick, tin can, cardboard box) are called
divergers or in the United Sates, ‘creative thinkers’. Divergers like a variety of
answers to a question and are imaginative and fluent in their thinking.
While many monolinguals are divergers, there is a tendency for bilinguals, on
average, to be ahead of monolinguals on such tests of creativity and divergent
thinking. Having two or more words for each object and idea may mean there is more
elasticity in thinking. For example, a Welsh / English bilingual has the word ‘school’
and its Welsh equivalent ‘ysgol’. ‘Ysgol’ also means ladder. The idea of school is thus
extended to an image of schooling being a ladder. There is a climb through school
learning with the aim of getting to the top rung.
Differing between word sound and meaning: There are other dimensions in
thinking where research suggests that bilinguals with two well-developed
languages have advantages over monolinguals: increased sensitivity to
communication, a slightly speedier movement through the stages of cognitive
1
development, and being less fixed on the sound of words and more centred on the
meaning of words. For example, imagine young children are asked: which is more like
the word ‘cap’, ‘cat’ or ‘hat’? There is a tendency for bilinguals to centre more on
similarity of meaning (i.e. the word ‘hat’) than similarity of sound (i.e. the word ‘cat’).
Such ability to move away from the sound of words and to fix on the meaning of
words tends to be a (temporary) advantage for bilinguals around the ages four to
six. This advantage may mean an initial head start in learning to read and learning
to think about language itself.
More selective attention: Recent research indicates that relatively balanced
bilinguals (see Glossary) show superior skills in tasks that require selective attention
to information in the executive control system of the brain (e.g. when there is
competing or misleading information).
For example, the research of Ellen Bialystok in Canada (see video links in Further
Information below) shows that bilinguals tend to own a cognitive system which is able
to attend to important information and ignore the less important. They are better
placed to think about two different things and switch between them, focusing on what
is relevant and ignoring the rest. That mirrors what happens in the brain when a
bilingual speaks. Both languages are active and available, but the bilingual brain
immediately sorts out what is relevant for that moment. Since both languages remain
active during language processing (rather than a switch mechanism occurring), there
is inhibition of the one language when in conversation so as to avoid intrusions. This,
in itself, seems to lead to thinking advantages.
Multitasking: Another example of this from the research literature is that bilinguals
tend to multitask better than bilinguals. Monolinguals and bilinguals are placed in a
driving simulator. Through headphones, they are given extra tasks while driving at the
same time (e.g. talking on a phone). The result is that bilinguals’ driving performance,
on average, decreases less than monolinguals. While everybody's driving got worse,
bilinguals were more able to use their executive control system in the brain to
concentrate on the driving even though another task is added. This is an example of
the enhanced selective attention that bilinguals own because they process two
languages in the brain. The research evidence in this area (called metalinguistic
awareness) shows that bilinguals have a definite advantage in cognitive processing.
This advantage may be due to bilinguals needing to differentiate between their two
languages.
Dementia: This recent research on bilinguals having cognitive advantages compared
with monolinguals has also led to various well-publicized studies on Alzheimer's
patients who have reduced cognitive functioning from their dementia. It is been
shown that, on average, bilinguals show Alzheimer's symptoms four to six years later
than monolinguals. This doesn't mean that bilinguals avoid Alzheimer's disease, but
that their improved cognitive functioning through selective attention allows them to
cope better and for longer.
Further Information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOniN0PMyJg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW_qpta6zb4&NR=1&feature=fvwp
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201103/thinking-and-dreaming-in-two-ormore-languages
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B3. Which Bilinguals and Multilinguals have Thinking Advantages?
Do all bilingual children and adults have cognitive (thinking) advantages? If
someone is just starting to learn another language, when will they experience the
cognitive advantages of bilingualism and multilingualism? Are such advantages only
shred by those fluent in two or more languages?
Take three different scenarios. The point will be that depending on how well both
languages are developed, either (1) disadvantages, (2) no advantages, and (3)
advantages may occur.
Scenario 1: when a child is functioning in two languages well below age
expectations, and in situations (e.g. the classroom) where more complex language
forms are demanded, thinking disadvantages may be present.
Scenario 2: when one language is well developed and the other language is catching
up, bilinguals and monolinguals may be no different in their cognitive development to
monolinguals.
Scenario 3: where a bilingual has two reasonably well-developed languages,
there can be some temporary and a few permanent thinking advantages for the
bilingual. This is illustrated in the picture of the three-floor house.
1
Up the sides of the house are placed two language ladders, indicating that a bilingual
child will usually be moving upward and is not stationary on a floor. Progress is
likely in an upwards direction. On the bottom floor of the house will be those
whose current competence in both their languages is insufficiently developed,
especially compared with their school age group. When there is a low level of
competence in both languages, there may be detrimental cognitive effects. For
example, a child who is unable to cope in the classroom in either language may
suffer when processing instructional information. There are relatively few children
and adults in this category.
At the middle level, the second floor of the house, will be those with ageappropriate competence in one of their languages but not in both. For example,
children who can operate in the classroom in one of their languages, but not in
their second language, may reside in this second level. At this level, partly bilingual
children will be little different in thinking from monolingual children. They are unlikely
to have any significant positive or negative cognitive differences compared with a
monolingual.
At the top of the house, the third floor, reside children who have two or more
well-developed languages. At this level, children will have age-appropriate
competence in two or more languages. For example, they can cope with curriculum
material in any of their languages. It is at this level that the positive cognitive
advantages of bilingualism appear. When a child has age-appropriate ability in both
their languages, they may have thinking advantages over monolinguals. There are
advantages for those children whose two or more languages are relatively well
developed.
Further Information:
http://www.naldic.org.uk/eal-teaching-and-learning/outline-guidance/bilingualism
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B4. What are the important dimensions to achieving Bilingualism
and Multilingualism in Families?
Almost everybody in Europe will be, or know of a bilingual or a multilingual family. Yet
every bilingual family is different, with its own patterns of language within the family and
between the family and the local community. Bilingual and multilingual families differ in
terms of:
i. the mother tongue(s) of the parent or parents and the language(s) spoken by
parents to one another;
ii. the language(s) spoken by the parent or parents to the children;
iii. the language(s) spoken by the children to the parent or parents;
iv. the language(s) spoken by the children to one another;
v. the language(s) spoken (or understood) by the extended family (e.g.
grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) living in the family home or nearby;
vi. the language(s) spoken (or understood) in the local community and /or by
minority language groups.
vii. the language(s) of the children’s education.
viii. the language of the family’s religious observance.
ix. the official or majority language(s) of the state or country.
x. and whether the family has or is migrating to another country.
This list of dimensions illustrates the number of factors that influence the nature and
level of bilingualism and multilingualism within an individual family. The list also shows
how difficult it is to place individual families into neat categories. However, the list
raises important points about bilingualism and multilingualism within families.
Is bilingualism and multilingualism always acquired within the home?
The members of a bilingual (or multilingual) family may be able to speak more than one
language but may use only one language at home (often a mother tongue) while they
may acquire the dominant language of the community outside the home.
Is every individual in a bilingual or multilingual family necessarily bilingual?
One parent in a family may be bilingual and may decide to speak his or her heritage
language to the children while the other parent may only be able to speak the dominant
language of the local community (e.g. a family living in England with a French-speaking
mother and a monolingual English-speaking father). In many migrant communities in
Western Europe and North America, where local minority speech communities have
formed, parents who stay at home may be monolingual or have limited command of the
dominant language while their partners who work and children who attend school
become bilingual outside the home.
Do some monolingual parents have bilingual or multilingual children, while
bilingual parents sometimes have monolingual children?
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Many first generation migrants develop a limited command of the majority language of
the host country. Their children may learn the majority language at school and on the
streets. To use a different example, parents who speak only the dominant, majority
language of a country may decide to have their children educated in a second majority
language or in a mother tongue language. In Wales, monolingual English parents
sometimes choose Welsh language education for their children, so that their children
may have the advantage of speaking not just English but also the mother tongue of
Wales.
Sometimes, the opposite can happen. Parents may have negative attitudes towards
their mother tongue and may opt to raise their children in the majority language.
Many migrant families, for instance, progress from monolingualism (in the mother
tongue) to bilingualism in their children (minority/majority languages) and again to
monolingualism (in the majority language) in their grandchildren within two or three
generations. Called three generation shift, (sometimes it is across four generations), a
migrant family may move from dominance in the mother tongue, to bilingualism
especially in their children, and then to dominance in the host country language. For
example, a Greek speaking family who migrate may move from relative monolingualism
in the Greek language to bilingualism in Greek and the majority language of the country
into which they move, and by the third or fourth generation into monolingualism in that
majority language.
While this is world-wide phenomena (e.g. immigration into North America, Europe and
Australasia), some migrant families do not follow this trend and hold onto their mother
tongue. For example, many migrants with an Asian origin (e.g. Hong Kong, Thailand)
live in many scattered regions of Europe yet retain their mother tongue through contact
with similar others in local communities (e.g. Cantonese). Other migrants retain their
mother tongue through religion (e.g. Islam, Greek Orthodox) while some third and fourth
generation migrants wish to resurrect their mother tongue even if it has been lost within
the family.
Are there different degrees of bilingualism within families?
Few individuals have equal competence in both languages in all areas of their lives.
The majority of bilinguals and multilinguals are dominant in one language. This may not
necessarily be their mother tongue, but rather the language they use most frequently.
Within bilingual families language dominance and language competence may vary
among members and over time. Where parents speak a mother tongue to their children,
and where the language of the community and education is the dominant, majority
language, the children may have only passive competence in the mother tongue. In
migrant communities, parents may only have limited command of the majority
language, while children may eventually become dominant in the majority language. A
family moving to another region or country, or a change in schooling for the children,
may mean a change in the language balance within a family.
Do attitudes towards bilingualism and multilingualism determine the fate of
languages within the family and in the wider society?
In many parts of Europe, bilingual and multilingual communities exist as a result of
migration. Also, such communities occur where an indigenous language co-exists with
a prestigious international language (e.g. Breton in Brittany, France). However,
2
bilingualism and multilingualism in these communities tends to be less stable. Factors
such as the political and economic dominance of majority language speakers,
education through the majority language, increased population mobility, the mass
media and the Internet, mean that the mother tongue may be decreasingly used in the
community. Speakers of the mother tongue may develop favourable attitudes towards
the dominant majority language, seeing it as culturally fashionable and conducive to
social and economic advancement. The mother tongue may be perceived as inferior,
old-fashioned, worthless, and a hindrance to progress. Over time, the prestigious
language may encroach upon the domains and functions of the minority language
within the home. Eventually the mother tongue ceases to be reproduced within the
family.
Once a language ceases to be reproduced within the family, it is very difficult to reverse
its decline. Thus the dwindling of bilingualism within families mirrors the attitudes of
society to the minority language and the fate of bilingualism in the wider community.
The fate of any language is, to a very large extent, within the hands of families. If
migrant families decide to pass on their mother tongue to their children, then that
language has the chance of living across future generations. However, if such migrant
families decide to move to the dominant language of the region, then the fate of that
language is in danger. Language decline and death is possible.
Further Information:
There are many other WWW sites on bilingual and multilingual children, some of which last,
while others disappear. Across time, WWW addresses can change, but at the time of
compilation, the following are among those worth visiting:
1. Multilingual Living : http://www.multilingualliving.com/
2. Bilingual Families: http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/biling-fam.html/
3. Multilingual Family in the UK: http://www.multilingualfamily.org.uk/
4. Bilingualism Matters : http://www.bilingualism-matters.org.uk/
5. Bilingual Options: www.bilingualoptions.com.au/
6. An up-to-date list of information for parents will be found in the most recent
Multilingual Matters catalog: http://www.multilingual-matters.com/.
3
B5. Are there different approaches to achieving Bilingualism and
Multilingualism in Families?
Bilingualism and multilingualism begins in families; families are the life blood of
languages. Without families passing on languages to children, languages wither and
die. Inside families, bilinguals and multilinguals are created and cherished, nurtured and
nourished. However, families differ quite widely in how they pass on languages to their
children. This variety is now presented as six major types of family strategies, although
there can be other variations.
1. One person - one language
The parents have different native languages, one of which is the dominant language of
the community. The parents each speak their own language to the child from birth.
This has been much exalted in the literature on child bilingualism as an effective path to
bilingualism (often referred to as ‘OPOL’). The advantage is that the child keeps the
two language relatively separate, realizes that there are two different languages, and
that it is desirable to use one or the other and not switch.
Recently, this orthodoxy has been loosened on the basis that complete separation is an
ideal rather than a reality, and that there are case histories of children to show that
when both parents use both languages, the child still communicates effectively using
both languages. By having discrete episodes in one language before using the other
language, and by correction when there is unacceptable mixing of languages,
separation of a child’s languages occurs quite easily.
2. Non-dominant home language
The parents have different native languages, one of which is the dominant language of
the community (e.g. German in Germany; French in France). Both parents speak the
non-dominant language to the child (e.g. Serbian, Turkish), who learns the dominant
language of the community outside the home, particularly through education.
3. Non-dominant home language without community support
The parents share the same mother tongue, which is not the dominant language of the
region. The parents speak their mother tongue to the child. The child learns the
dominant language at school and in the community.
4. Double non-dominant home language without community support
The parents have different mother tongues, neither of which is the dominant language
of the community. The parents each speak their own language to the child from birth.
The child acquires the dominant language in education and in the community. This
typically results in family multilingualism.
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5. Non-native parents
The parents share the same native language, which is the dominant language of the
community. However, one of the parents always addresses the child in a language
which is not his/her mother tongue so the child becomes bilingual (e.g. an English
speaking family using French with their child).
6. Mixed language
The parents are bilingual (or multilingual) and they speak two or more languages to the
children, including mixing those languages (or recently termed translanguaging).
To conclude
The above categories are, of necessity, simplistic and by no means exhaustive. One
main limitation is that each category presupposes a stable bilingual environment and a
commitment to bilingualism in spite of changing family and political circumstances.
That is often not the case particularly among migrants, where change in circumstances
across time can mean changes in languages being used as well as attitudes to those
languages. In many migrant families, bilingualism can be in a state of development or
decline, and this often reflects the politics of different languages in the region.
Further information:
http://www.francoisgrosjean.ch/for_parents_en.html
http://www.wfbilingual.org.uk/bilingual-ressources.html
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B6. What are the disadvantages of bilingualism and multilingualism?
Whenever there is a language, educational, social or political problem, bilingualism and
multilingualism, biculturalism and multiculturalism is often thought of as a possible
cause. However, the cause of a problem or issue usually lies elsewhere. For example, if
a child is slow in speaking, has problems at school, or if an adult cannot easily find
employment or seems not to integrate into the local community, then bilingualism and
multilingualism are often too quickly regarded as the culprit.
Language under-development: It would be misleading to suggest that there are
never any disadvantages to bilingualism. First, there will be a disadvantage if a
child’s two languages are both underdeveloped. The most crucial definition of
underdevelopment is that a child is unable to cope in the school curriculum in either
language. This very rarely occurs, but it is important to avoid. The more usual
situation is that bilingualism gives the child some advantages over the monolingual
child in the curriculum.
Some children who have been raised as bilingual from birth will not necessarily
speak both languages as children or teenagers. Professor Annick De Houwer, an
expert on childhood bilingualism at Universität Erfurt found that one in five children
who grew up bilingually from birth do not speak one language. Thus 20% of children
in her 2500 sample understood both languages, but only spoke one. This must still be
considered success and not failure. The ‘passive’ language can easily be activated
into speaking given the right context and language immersion experiences (e.g.
when visiting family on vacations). Multilinguals tend to be very similar, speaking one
or two languages fairly fluently, but not necessarily the third language.
Effort by Parents: A second potential problem parents experience is the amount of
effort often required to raise bilingual and multilingual children, particularly in a migrant
situation. Books on raising bilingual children tend to underestimate or under-emphasise
the effort that parents need to give to raise bilingual and multilingual children,
particularly when migrants. Parental effort is required in a persistent and consistent
manner and this can sometimes be emotionally demanding, pressured and stressful. It
may even result in feeling a failure if bilingualism or multilingualism does not occur.
Parents need to engineer thoughtfully and creatively their child’s bilingual
development, and this takes effort. It is not like scattering a few seeds on the
ground and expecting swift, strong and simple growth. The tender language shoots
need to be nourished, the garden well fertilized in order for later blossoming to occur.
As the seasons of language development change, the parent has constantly to tend
the language garden.
Family tensions: Third, raising children can be demanding. For example, there is
a potential tension between loving and warm communication between parent and
child, and the constant monitoring and even correcting of two languages. At one
point the parent is encouraging and kind; at the same moment there is a need to
instruct (e.g. reminding the child to speak Arabic and not English). Parents may feel
pulled emotionally in different directions, and feel they cannot get it right whatever
they do.
An example is sometimes found among migrants. The first language may be, for
example, Arabic with English as the second language. The parents and child are
1
criticized by some in the community (e.g. English language monolinguals) for the
child having imperfect English, and criticized by others (e.g. Arabic speakers) for
making the child too British. The parents are criticized from two opposing
perspectives: for not being sufficiently loyal to a mother tongue culture, religion or
identity, and for the child’s English language not being sufficiently perfect. The result
can be despairing parents.
For some parents, the route children take to full bilingualism is relatively
straightforward. For others, there are moments of concern, where challenges seem
more like problems. Just as the hard work of digging, manuring and weeding in the
garden eventually produce beautiful blooms, so with the language garden. The
individual, cognitive, social, cultural, intellectual and economic advantages given to
the child via bilingualism make the spadework and effort spent in sowing and
cultivating all worthwhile.
Identity: A fourth problem area tends to be with the identity of the child or adult,
including migrants. If the child speaks English and French fluently, are they French,
English or Anglo-French? If a child speaks Spanish and a minority language such as
Basque, are they Spanish, Basque, Spanish-Basque, European or what?
For many parents and children, identity is not a problem. While speaking two
languages, they are predominantly identified with one ethnic or cultural group. For
example, many German/English bilinguals from Germany may see themselves as
German first, possibly European, but not English. Being able to speak the English
language is important to them. However, to be considered as ‘English’ would be an
insult.
At the other end of the spectrum is the migrant. Sometimes, the first or second
generation migrant desperately wants to identify with majority language people and
culture. They may actively want to lose the identity of their home or heritage
language.
Between the two opposites presented above, there are potential cases of identity
crisis and conflict. There are some bilinguals who feel both English and French,
Spanish and Basque. There are some people who feel quite happy being culturally
hyphenated (e.g. Anglo-German, Turkish-German, Italian-Slovenians). There will be
others who feel uncomfortable moving between two identities. Bilinguals may ask:
Am I Asian or am I British or am I Asian-British? Am I German, am I Turkish or am I
German-Turkish? Am I Chinese from China, like the Chinese scattered throughout
the world, or a European or French or some integrated or uneasy combination of
these?
Such identity conflicts are not inevitably the result of owning two languages. However,
languages are clearly a contributor. Languages provide the potentiality of mingling in
two or more cultures, of thinking and acting in two different ethnic groups, of identifying
with each group or neither group. Language is a vehicle through which an identity
tension may arise. It is important to be honest and not to suggest that everything in the
garden is perfect. Self-identity, cultural identity and ethnic identity (see Glossary) can
be a problem for some bilinguals.
External influences and expectations: Fifth, a migrant family, for example, does
not live separately from the rest of society. There are relatives, social friends, work
2
colleagues, communities, societies and nations that all influence our family lives. We
are not autonomous individuals who make decisions about languages in the family in a
vacuum. Others have a powerful influence on us. Such ‘others’ may be, for example,
the extended family, religion, mass media and dominant language politics in a
region. Even when bilingualism and multilingualism seems valuable, the force of
opinion outside the family (socially, economically, politically) may make that decision
non-conforming.
A danger is having too high expectations of success. There is an idealized scenario
that is sometimes impossible to achieve: both parents being fluently bilingual and
with highly positive attitudes to bilingualism; friends, family, teachers and others are
encouraging and have positive experiences themselves; the children richly experience
both languages in the home, school and community; children becoming proficient in
both languages for life and using each for varying purposes; parents celebrating
bilingualism and their children feeling it to be a wonderful personal advantage.
Realities are rarely this simple. Take the case of migrant parents. More usual is a
scenario that includes some of the following: one parent is not fluent in a language;
both parents having worries about eventual success in producing bilingual children;
one parent has more concerns than the other and sometimes feels marginalized
in conversation; one parent feels the burden of raising bilinguals is placed on
them and it is emotionally draining; those outside the home being critical; language
experience across the two languages being imbalanced and changing across time;
children having one stronger and one weaker language; children changing their
attitudes to, and use of their two languages; periods of refusal by the child to speak
a language; the future of languages across the lifetime not being predictable.
Parents as Models: Sixth, there is a potential disadvantage when migrant parents
decide to lose their mother tongue and only speak the language of the host country
instead. In such cases, the chance of bilingualism will be lost and monolingualism may
result. Another danger in this ‘migrant’ situation is that the parent speaks an incorrect
form of the majority language to the child. If the parent learning the second language
is a poor language model, the child may be placed at a disadvantage. The errors
made by the parent may become part of the child’s normal language (error
fossilization). Children may also come to despise and show dissatisfaction towards a
parent who they later realize speaks a second (majority) language ‘incorrectly’.
Further Information:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/developing-minds/201404/when-does-bilingualism-helpor-hurt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DMlC1pnmUg
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B7. Who is a Bilingual or a Multilingual?
Who is a bilingual? Who can we call a multilingual? Most people would say that a
bilingual is a person who can speak two languages. If that is so, then a multilingual is a
person who can speak three or more languages. Unfortunately, it is not that simple.
Answering the following of questions shows how difficult this is.
1. Is bilingualism measured by how fluent people are in two languages? Do
bilinguals have to be as competent in each of their two languages as monolingual
speakers? Can someone be a multilingual if they speak two languages well and
are learning a third language, for example as a recent migrant?
2. Are bilinguals only those people who have more or less equal competence in both
languages and multilinguals are required to have approximately equal
competence in three or more languages?
3. Is competence in two languages the only standard for assessing bilingualism, or
should the use of two languages also be considered? For instance, a person who
speaks a second language fluently but rarely uses it might be classed as a
bilingual. What about the person who does not speak a second language fluently
but makes regular use of it? If a migrant is not confident in a new language in the
workplace or school, yet they have to use it most of the day, can they be classed
as a bilingual or multilingual? What is more important, fluency in languages or use
of them?
4. Most people define a bilingual as a person who can speak two languages. What
about a person who can understand a second language perfectly but cannot (or
does not) speak it? What about a person who can speak a second language but
is not literate in it? What about an individual who cannot speak or understand
speech in a second language but can read and write it? Should these categories
of people be considered bilingual?
5. Is bilingualism and multilingualism something that changes over time and
according to circumstances? A person can change from being a monolingual to
being a bilingual by acquiring a second language. Can a person progress from
bilingualism to monolingualism by forgetting a second language? Are there
different degrees of bilingualism that can vary over time and with changing
circumstances? With migrants, there is typically a definite change in language
competence and language use that occurs across time. When do they start and
stop becoming bilinguals and multilinguals?
The above questions indicate that there is no simple definition of bilingualism or
multilingualism. Bilingualism and multilingualism involve a number of dimensions. If we
ask an individual about his or her bilingualism or multilingualism, we are really raising
not one issue but many.
Ability and Use: First, there is a distinction between ability in a language and use of
that language. A person may be able to speak two languages, but tends to speak only
one language in practice. Alternatively, an individual may regularly speak two
languages but has a low level of fluency in one language. People’s ability or proficiency
in two or more languages may be separate from their use of those languages. This is
1
sometimes referred to as the difference between degree (proficiency or competence in
a language) and function (actual use of two languages).
Speaking, listening, reading and writing: Second, an individual’s proficiency in a
language may vary across the four language skills of speaking, listening, reading and
writing. An individual may use one language for conversation and be fluent in speaking
that language. However, he or she switches to another language for reading and
writing. Another person may understand a second language very well, in its spoken
and written form, but may not be able to speak or write it well, if at all. Such a person
can be said to have a passive or receptive competence in a second language.
Balance: Third, few bilinguals are equally proficient in both languages, even though this
is often thought to be the case. One language tends to be stronger and better
developed than the other. This is even more the case with multilinguals whose
proficiency across their three languages tends to vary across time and place.
Monolingual comparison: Fourth, few bilinguals or multilinguals possess the same
competence as monolingual speakers in their languages. This is because bilinguals and
multilinguals use their languages for different functions and purposes.
Change: Fifth, a bilingual or multilingual person’s competence in a language may vary
over time and according to changing circumstances. This is particularly the case with
migrants. For instance, a person may learn a mother tongue as a child at home and
then later acquire the host country’s language in the community or at school. Over time,
that new language may become the stronger, dominant language. If that person is a
migrant and loses contact with those who speak the mother tongue, he or she may lose
fluency over time.
These five main issues show how difficult it would be to create any concise and allinclusive definition of a bilingual or multilingual person. They also show that many
types of bilingualism and multilingualism may exist, sometimes varying in the same
person over time, over changing circumstances, not least for the migrant.
Bilingualism and multilingualism exist as a possession of an individual. It is also
possible to talk about bilingualism and multilingualism as a characteristic of a group or
community of people. Bilinguals and multilinguals are most often located in groups,
communities or in a particular region (e.g. Catalans in Spain). Some bilinguals live in
smaller clusters (e.g. some of the Chinese who are scattered in many communities
across Europe).
Thus an important distinction is between bilingualism as an individual possession and
societal bilingualism. The term bilingualism is usually reserved to describe two
languages within an individual. When the focus is on two languages in society, the term
‘diglossia’ is often used.
Further Information:
ttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201010/who-is-bilingual
2
Section C:
Bilingual and Multilingual
Education
NPLD2020
2015
C1. What are the different types of bilingual and multilingual
education?
‘Bilingual education’ is a much used term and would seem to simply mean
education through two languages. The term ‘multilingual education’ is rarely
used. but is growing. It would seem to mean education through three or more
languages. For the purposes of this theme, the term ‘bilingual education’ will be
used with later consideration of multilingual education.
Unfortunately, ‘bilingual education’ means many things to many different people.
It is now recognised as an ambiguous. It can refer to education with very different
aims and outcomes. Therefore, a distinction is needed between (1) education
that uses and promotes two languages and (2) relatively monolingual education
in a second language, typically for language minority children. This is a difference
between (1) a classroom where formal instruction fosters bilingualism and (2) a
classroom where bilingual children are present, but bilingualism is not promoted
in the curriculum. The umbrella term ‘bilingual education’ has been used to refer
to both situations leaving the term ambiguous. Hence, ‘bilingual education’ is best
understood by a typology of its variety.
A Typology of Bilingual Education
A typology of bilingual education (see below) helps illustrate varying and different
aims and outcomes of ‘bilingual education’ and is presented in the following table.
Ten types of language education are portrayed. Even more variety is achieved by
including multilingual education.
Not all real-life examples will fit easily into the classification. For example, elite
‘finishing schools’ in Switzerland, and classrooms in Ireland where mother tongue
Irish speakers are taught alongside ‘immersion’ English first language speakers
make classification simplistic, although necessary for discussion and
understanding. Also, while the typology is about schools, bilingual education can
be cradle to grave, including preschool education, further education, university
and lifelong learning.
1
MONOLINGUAL FORMS OF EDUCATION FOR BILINGUALS
Type of Program
Typical Type
of Child
Language of the Societal and
Classroom
Educational
Aim
Aim in
Language
Outcome
MAINSTREAMING/
SUBMERSION
(Structured Immersion)
MAINSTREAMING with
Withdrawal Classes/
Sheltered English/Content
based ESL
Language
Minority
Majority
Language
Assimilation/
Subtractive
Monolingualism
Language
Minority
Majority
Language with
‘Pull-out’ L2
lessons
Assimilation/
Subtractive
Monolingualism
SEGREGATIONIST
Language
Minority
Minority
Language
Apartheid
(forced, no
choice)
Monolingualism
WEAK FORMS OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION FOR BILINGUALS
Type of Program
Typical
Type of
Child
Language of
the Classroom
Societal and
Educational
Aim
Aim in
Language
Outcome
TRANSITIONAL
Language
Minority
Moves from
minority to
majority
language
Assimilation/
Subtractive
Relative
Monolingualism
MAINSTREAM with Foreign Language
Language Teaching
Majority
Majority
Language with
L2/FL lessons
Limited
Enrichment
Limited
Bilingualism
SEPARATIST
Minority
Detachment /
Language (out of Autonomy
choice)
Language
Minority
Limited
Bilingualism
STRONG FORMS OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION FOR BILINGUALISM AND
BILITERACY
Type of Program
Typical
Type of
Child
Language of
the Classroom
Societal and
Educational
Aim
Aim in
Language
Outcome
IMMERSION
Language
Majority
Bilingual with
initial emphasis
on L2
Pluralism and
Enrichment.
Additive
Bilingualism &
Biliteracy
MAINTENANCE/HERITAGE Language
LANGUAGE
Minority
Bilingual with
emphasis on L1
Maintenance,
Pluralism and
Enrichment.
Additive
Bilingualism &
Biliteracy
2
TWO WAY/DUAL
LANGUAGE
MAINSTREAM BILINGUAL
Mixed
Language
Minority &
Majority
Minority and
Majority
Maintenance,
Pluralism and
Enrichment.
Additive
Bilingualism &
Biliteracy
Language
Majority
Two Majority
Languages
Pluralism
Maintenance, & Bilingualism
Biliteracy and
Enrichment.
Additive
Notes:
1 L2 = Second Language; L1 = First Language; FL = Foreign Language.
Further Information:
From linguistic diversity to plurilingual education: A Guide for the Development of Language
Education Policies in Europe.
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Guide_niveau3_EN.asp#TopOfPage
http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781847693556
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C2. What examples are there of successful bilingual and multilingual
education in Europe?
The European Commissions’ Education and Training Report Brief entitled ‘Language
Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Classrooms’ (2015, page 4) sets the context:
Multilingual schools are a feature of Europe's diverse and complex linguistic
landscape. They operate in many different contexts: international schools for expat
communities; schools providing instruction in regional, minority or indigenous
languages; or schools having opted for a degree of bilingual education, where
another language is partly used for instruction, common for example in border
regions and more recently often with the objective of teaching English.
In Europe, there are many schools in most countries that use two or more languages in
the curriculum. For example, in the Basque Country, bilingual schools (Basque /
Spanish) have effectively provided content teaching in Basque and Spanish for several
decades. A recent interest (e.g. by parents) in English language learning means that
about 95% of Basque children now learn English starting at kindergarten or in Grade 3
for about three hours per week. Evaluations reveal that learning English from such an
early age does not negatively affect the students’ acquisition of Basque or Spanish or
their overall cognitive development. Trilingual education thus appears to have positive
outcomes in terms of multilingualism and educational achievement).
In Luxembourg, children who speak Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch) after birth
become trilingual (Luxembourgish, French and German) through schooling. Children
start their formal education at age five through the medium of Luxembourgish (a variety
of German). German is initially a subject in the curriculum, then introduced as the main
teaching medium. By the end of Grade 6, children function in much of the curriculum in
German. French is introduced as a subject in Grade 2, and is increasingly used as a
teaching medium in secondary education. Most students have a working knowledge of
three languages by the conclusion of schooling. Through emphasis on the home tongue
in the early years, emphasis on German in the primary school and emphasis on French
in the secondary school, children become trilingual and biliterate (French and German
literacy).
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
Bilingual and multilingual education in majority languages means that some curriculum
content is learnt through a student’s second or third language. In Europe, this has
increasingly been called Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). CLIL has
blossomed as an idea in many European countries, building partly on the evidencebased success of Canadian immersion and US Dual Language bilingual education.
Launched in 1995/1996, CLIL is a generic term that is approximately equivalent to
‘bilingual education’ with explicit attention given to the integration of curriculum content
and two or three (or more) languages. Often, one language is English.
CLIL involves the learning of a number of content areas (such as physics or geography)
through the medium of another language while (at the same time) developing that
additional language. Some 10% to 50% of the curriculum may be taught through
another language. While there are many variations in CLIL, the additional language is
1
typically taught as a subject in itself and not just as a vehicle for transmitting content.
Yet the emphasis is on education and not just on language:
CLIL is present in over 30 European countries with considerable variations in terms of,
for example, intensity, starting age, duration and amount of explicit language teaching.
As yet, CLIL practice has advanced without the same research evidence as is present
with Canadian immersion and US Dual Language schools.
CLIL cannot be understood from a purely linguistic or educational perspective. As with
all forms of bilingual and multilingual education, there is a political ideology underneath.
CLIL has a strong political basis in the European Union’s vision of a multilingual Europe
in which people can function in two or three or more languages. With growing
communication and trade between European countries, there is an increased demand
for multilingual employees (e.g. speaking English and other European national
languages). CLIL is about helping to create Europeanisation, a multilingual and global
economy, and transnational workers. It often emphasises English.
The basis for teaching and learning content through a second language is as follows.
First, learning a language is quicker when it is via an integration of language and
content, and much slower if just learnt as a language. Second, CLIL ensures a student
gains language competence in academic domains and not just in social communication.
Third, such an integration of language and content is efficient. Two outcomes can be
achieved at the same time: learning a language and subject matter learning. Fourth, a
communicative approach to second language teaching emphasizes meaningful and
authentic communication where the purpose of using language is to interpret, express
and negotiate meaning. Thus integrating second language and content provides a
purpose for using that second language reflecting real curriculum needs and purposeful
learning for success in the curriculum.
Constructivist theory also stresses that learning best takes place in a holistic sense with
the parts making a unified whole in a meaningful way. Traditional learning tends to rely
on teachers transmitting small chunks of information which students are expected
eventually to integrate into an understanding of the whole. Given that the brain stores
information in networks, and the greater the number of connections and the stronger
the connections among chunks of information the deeper and more powerful the
learning, the more valuable it is to tie language and content together. Thus vocabulary
and grammar should not be taught in isolation but in a context of authentic holistic
learning. In content-based second language instruction, meaning and understanding is
the focus, and second language learning a valuable by-product.
European Schools
Another European example of bilingual and multilingual education in majority languages
is the European Schools movement. Mostly for the relatively elite workers of the
European Community (EC), such schools are multilingual and cater for some 20,000
children from the different EC nations. The first school was opened in Luxembourg in
1953, with schools now sited in seven countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy,
United Kingdom, Spain and Luxembourg). European Schools have up to 11 different
language sections reflecting the first language of the students (and this may increase as
other countries join the European Community). Younger children use their native
2
language as the medium of learning but also receive second language instruction
(English, French, or German) in the primary school years.
Older children take part of their schooling in their native language and part through the
medium of a ‘vehicular’ or ‘working’ language. The ‘vehicular’ language will usually be a
‘majority’ second language for the child selected from English, French or German. This
language will be taught by native speakers. Native student speakers of that language
will also be present in the school as language models. The vehicular language is used
to teach mixed language groups of students subjects such as history, geography and
economics from the third year of secondary education. In addition, students are taught a
third language for a minimum of 360 hours.
The outcome of such schooling tends to be functionally bilingual and often multilingual
students with a sense of European multiculturalism and European identity. Integration
and harmonization of students from different nationalities is formally achieved in the
‘European Hours’ lessons using the vehicular language. ‘European Hours’ are an
important curriculum component from Grade 3 in primary education. In classes of 20 to
25 students for three lessons a week, children from different language backgrounds
work cooperatively together. A small group project with a realistic, attainable goal (e.g.
making puppets) provides the focus for a context embedded and cognitively
undemanding ‘European Hour’. Deliberately and explicitly, students are encouraged to
respect each person’s native language. Games and physical education are also
occasions for a cooperative mixing of students from the different language sections.
Students are linguistically mixed to avoid stereotypes and prejudices, and to build a
supranational European identity.
Bilingualism, biliteracy and multiculturalism are not only due to the effects of such
schooling. The parents may also be bilingual or multilingual, and the children are more
likely to come from literacy-oriented, middle class bureaucrat homes, with a positive
view of bilingualism. Playgrounds are multilingual, satellite TV in Europe is multilingual
and the growing notion of Europeanisation creates privileged European schoolchildren
who are educated bilinguals and multilinguals, at ease with two or more languages, with
their own national culture as well as a European identity.
Research suggests positive outcomes from the European schools model with second
language proficiency close to native speaker levels by the end of secondary schooling
at no cost to either first language proficiency or academic achievement. Pupils also gain
good levels of proficiency in a third, and sometimes fourth language, becoming
multilinguals.
International Schools
Numbering over 5300 schools, International Schools are found in over 236 countries of
the world, mostly in large cities. Mainly for the affluent, parents pay fees for mostly
private, selective, independent education but there are also scholarships and bursaries.
Children in these schools often have parents in the diplomatic service, multinational
organizations, or in international businesses and who are geographically and
vocationally mobile. Other children in an International School come from the locality,
with parents who want their children to have an internationally flavoured education.
3
One language of the school is typically English. International Schools that have English
as the sole medium of transmitting the curriculum cannot be included under the heading
of Bilingual / Multilingual Education. Such schools become bilingual when a national or
international language is incorporated in the curriculum. This appears to be increasing.
Sometimes, second language instruction (for up to 12 years) is only as a language and
not to transmit curriculum content. In other schools, the second language is used as a
medium to teach part of the curriculum. Some schools enable their students to acquire
third and fourth languages. Generally, the languages of International Schools are
majority languages with international prestige.
Further Information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAatN4PMBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P2cJa92vg8
European Commissions’ Education and Training Report entitled ‘Language Teaching and
Learning in Multilingual Classrooms’ (2015):
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/library/studies/multilingual-classroom_en.pdf
4
C3. How can an effective bilingual and multilingual school be
developed?
The European Commissions’ Education and Training Report Brief entitled ‘Language
Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Classrooms’ (2015, page 4) portrays the
contemporary circumstances for the importance of developing maximally effective
bilingual and multilingual schools in Europe for recent migrants and for all their children:
Increasingly, the focus has been shifting towards schools welcoming large numbers
of newcomers who arrive as immigrants or refugees. This category of multilingual
schools and classrooms are places where learners have different linguistic and
cultural backgrounds, where they speak one language at home and another
language at school, where teachers and pupils do not share a common language or
cultural background, where some or all of the pupils are learning the language of
instruction as a second language.
Bilingual and multilingual schools must deliver highly effective education for its students,
not just on language dimensions but also on other areas where varied stakeholders
want success. There is no justification for bilingual or multilingual education only from a
language perspective. Even if the school is excellent at language learning and at
learning through a second or third language, its justification for students, parents, public
and politicians ultimately derives from it being a form of holistically effective education.
Their success in developing each child academically as well as linguistically, cognitively
and as citizens, as contributors to the economy as well as to a community, requires a
bilingual or multilingual school to deliver the multiple and complex agenda of education
and schooling. While this theme concentrates on language issues, all the attributes of
effective schooling beyond language are relevant to bilingual schools.
There are elements that make all types and models of bilingual and multilingual
education more or less effective. For a bilingual or multilingual school to become a
shining success, the following themes may need addressing, not in separation but as
an entity, and as part of a process of continuous enhancement and school
development. This list can be usefully supplemented by reference to The European
Commissions’ Education and Training Report entitled ‘Language Teaching and
Learning in Multilingual Classrooms’ (2015) which can be viewed at:
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/library/studies/multilingual-classroom_en.pdf
Intake of Students and Language Balance
The ingredients of bilingual schooling commence with the students. Their life history
(e.g. as migrants or refugees), identity, community background (e.g. isolation or
saturation in their community of their mother tongue), proficiency in languages on entry
to the school, cultural knowledge, language aptitude, motivation and self-esteem all
affect the process of classroom interaction and learning outcomes. A key issue has
been the balance of majority and minority language (indigenous and migrant) students
in a school so that the majority language does not increasingly dominate. Where the
balance is weighted too much to majority language speakers, informal classroom
1
language may turn to the majority language. What is officially about minority language
development can become unofficial immersion in the majority language.
Particularly in rural language minority areas, bilingual classrooms may have a mixture
of majority language speakers who are learning through the minority language (e.g.
Irish) and native speakers of that minority language. This can mean two different
language agendas: minority language children speedily acquiring the majority
language; majority language children being applauded for acquiring the minority
language.
In Ireland, it has been found by Tina Hickey that in pre-school mixed language classes,
Irish first language speakers may not be achieving sufficient enrichment in their
language development as the emphasis is on second language learners of Irish.
Teachers tended to tailor their language to accommodate second language (Irish)
learners, asking fewer questions, giving less feedback and more repetition for
understanding by second language learners of Irish. Even at the pre-school level,
children appear aware of the different status, power and intergroup relationship
between the two languages. Their language preference can thus be affected by the
saturation of majority language (English) speakers in a mixed language classroom.
The language of teachers is likely to be affected by the balance of native speakers and
learners in such mixed language classrooms. Teachers tend to ask fewer questions in
mixed language groups compared with more homogeneous language groups. Teachers
may also use more simplified language to accommodate the second language learners.
Native speakers may thus not be receiving the native language enrichment they need.
What is a language opportunity is also a language challenge for the teacher.
While native speakers of a minority language provide a language role model for second
language speakers in speaking that minority language, the danger is that second
language speakers overly influence minority language speakers. Who is immersing
whom? In mixed first language classrooms, children from minority language homes
tended to switch to the dominant language.
This suggests that the numerical balance of native speakers and learners of a minority
language is important, possibly tilted to a predominance of minority language speakers.
Also, supporting and enriching the first language competences of native speakers of a
minority language is crucial in such schools. This implies the possible separation of
children of different language abilities for ‘language lesson’ sessions while avoiding
language group separation and discrimination.
The small-group composition of students needs care and consideration by teachers.
Such teachers need training to become aware of cross-language influence, and of the
need to raise the status and increase the use of the minority language in the classroom
by well-designed activities and reward systems. It is important that language minority
students are empowered by having positions of responsibility in the class and school,
and are actively involved in school activities (e.g. sports teams, societies).
2
Shared Vision, Mission and goals among Staff
A consensus in the goals of the school is needed among staff, with consistency across
staff in the treatment of language minority students, and effective collaboration across
staff. Value and status should be given to the language minority students’ language and
culture. Mother tongue language skills need to be celebrated and encouraged inside
and outside the formal curriculum and flagged as an advantage rather than a liability.
While clear and agreed aims, goals and mission are important, an effective bilingual
school will have a system for constant improvement and development, and will be
always seeking to increase its effectiveness – a continuous upward spiral of
enhancement.
Staffing
Without staff, no bilingual school can commence, continue or succeed. With untrained
or poor quality staff, the best bilingual program will fail, whatever the model. Highly
skilled teachers, excellent teacher training and constantly developing teacher
effectiveness are a foundation of the sustainability and success of any bilingual
program. Thus a foundational ingredient into a bilingual school is the characteristics and
language proficiency of the teachers and other support staff, their own biculturalism or
multiculturalism, attitudes to minority languages and minority students, and their
professional and personal identity.
It is important that teachers are positive towards students’ language and cultural
backgrounds, are sensitive to their home and community contexts, respond to children’s
language and cultural needs, celebrate diversity and recognize the talents of such
children. This is particularly important with migrant children. Teachers in bilingual
classrooms may sometimes find barriers to success in: large and overcrowded classes
of undernourished students, inadequate teacher training, a lack of teaching resources,
poor pay and promotion prospects, the stigma of working with lowly regarded bilinguals,
and limited funding.
Bilingual teaching is often more challenging than monolingual teaching, frequently
occurring in contexts with migrants and refugees, inequality between urban and rural
areas, between elite and subordinate power and status divisions, between language /
ethnic groups, and between genders. Teachers are expected to address such
inequalities, provide cultural and linguistic capital, meet high standards of student
achievement in literacy and numeracy, bridge the home and school gap, become
respected members of the community, and campaign for educational reform and
innovation. The roles include: educationalist, linguist, innovator, intercultural
communicator, and promoter of bilingual programmes.
Teaching in such bilingual contexts therefore requires much professionalism,
enthusiasm, commitment and support. School staff need to be committed to the
empowerment of language minority students through education. Such commitment is
not just realized in the classroom but also in staff involvement in extra-curricular
activities, participation in community events, interest in developing their pedagogic
skills, and even cooperation in the political process of improving the lot of language
minority students.
3
Staff Professional Development and Training
Teacher training and continued professional development is also a key factor
particularly since classrooms are highly complex sites. In schools and classrooms,
there are myriad decisions to make daily, hourly, second by second. Bilingual
classrooms and schools add a language dimension to such decision-making. The
allocation of languages and support for growing languages mixes with decisions about
grouping, curriculum materials, styles of learning and use of support assistants and
parents. The relationship between language, culture and literacies interacts with overall
curriculum decisions about intake, ethos and expectations. Another recent ‘training’
dimension has been adapting to the influx of migrants into Europe. For many teachers,
this is a relatively new or different experience, where professional development
becomes urgent and important.
In such multidimensional complexity, teacher training and continuous professional
development of the staff is crucial. Without teachers there can be no bilingual school or
classroom provision. With effective leadership and well-trained staff, the effectiveness
of any bilingual school is greatly enhanced.
Staff professional development can be designed to help all staff effectively serve
mother tongue students. For example, staff development programs can sensitize
teachers to students’ language and cultural backgrounds, increase their knowledge of
second language acquisition and help develop effective curriculum approaches in
teaching language minority students. All teachers can be trained to recognize
themselves as teachers of language irrespective of their subject area. The mentoring of
new teachers by more expert and experienced teachers can be valuable.
Leadership
The leadership of the school is a crucial factor, and ideally the appointee has an
excellent knowledge of curriculum approaches to mother tongue children and
communicates this to all the staff. Strong leadership, the willingness to hire bilingual
teachers and high expectations of bilingual students tend to be part of the repertoire of
effective leaders.
Effectiveness research tends to suggest that such leaders should demonstrate a
strength of purpose and proactive management while engaging the professionalism of
teachers and empowering all staff in decision-making processes. Not only do they
inspire, motivate, support and communicate well with staff, they also identify, secure
and mobilize human, financial and material resources. Open to change and innovation,
they are not only politically informed but also developing themselves as educationalists
and leaders.
Excellent leaders also project their leadership beyond the school into the
neighbourhood, and liaise with homes and families. Such leaders are likely to be well
known, highly respected and easily accessible in their communities. They are likely to
work in partnership with community leaders, including those looking after recent arrivals
(e.g. refugees, migrants).
4
Design of the Curriculum
A subject curriculum needs to provide intellectually challenging, active and meaningful
lessons that have coherence, balance, breadth, relevance, progression and continuity.
This entails a focus on basic skills but crucially also on developing higher-order thinking
skills. Effective curriculum planning also tends to include: language and literacy
development across the curriculum; smooth language transitions between grades;
systematic, equitable and authentic assessment integrated with learning goals; a
bilingual and bi/multicultural hidden curriculum and ethos throughout the school; a safe
and orderly school environment and a supportive, constructive classroom atmosphere.
Supportive Ethos and Environment
A student (e.g. migrant) may experience prejudice and discrimination, the subordinate
status of their language minority group and assimilation influences. Such external
influences may affect internal psychological workings such as self-esteem, anxiety,
integration with peers and achievement in school. A socio-culturally supportive
environment for mother tongue students is therefore important. What is also vital is a
safe and orderly school and classroom environment where students feel they belong,
are cared for as well as educated, and that values cultural, ethnic and racial diversity.
Students also have their own perspectives and insights on what is effective, successful
and supportive, and these need including in feedback and monitoring.
High Expectations
High expectations among teachers and peers are important for all students, but no
more so than for ‘at risk’ mother tongue students. When bilingual students come from
materially impoverished homes, with low aspirations present in the family and
community, then low expectations may too easily and implicitly be embedded in a
school’s ethos. Instead, a positive ‘can do’ atmosphere for the ‘have nots’ will attempt to
reverse a self-perpetuating pattern of low expectation and consequent failure.
High expectations need to be clearly communicated to such students, with the school
responsive to a student’s individual needs and to varying community profiles (e.g.
culture, newcomers, migrants). High expectations are conveyed, for example, by
providing opportunities for student-directed activities, involving students in decisions
and building their competences, trust and self-esteem, with positive and regular
feedback based on careful monitoring.
Individualization
Apart from strategies to motivate students and recognize their achievement, the
provision of individualized support for mother tongue students is often needed. The
provision of counselling, cooperation with parents and the hiring of language minority
staff in leadership positions to act as role models are some of the ploys used to raise
expectations of success at school.
5
Parents
Plenty of parental involvement, with home–school collaboration that is reciprocal is
typically a major dimension of school effectiveness. Parents of language minority
children can be encouraged to become involved in their children’s education, including
in governance. This includes participation in parents’ meetings, contact with teachers
and counsellors, telephone contact and neighbourhood meetings. Parents and their
children can be perceived as stakeholders, customers and partners whose satisfaction
levels are valued and with whom there is regular two-way communication.
Further Information
European Commissions’ Education and Training Report entitled ‘Language Teaching and
Learning in Multilingual Classrooms’ (2015):
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/library/studies/multilingual-classroom_en.pdf
http:// www.cal.org/twi/guidingprinciples.htm
http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781847693556
6
C4. Why do people learn another language?
Informal Language Learning: Learning a first, second or third language often occurs
informally. When young children learn a first language at home, they receive many
thousands of hours’ exposure to the language. They acquire language within real
contexts and for real purposes (e.g. eating, playing, shopping, and visiting the extended
family). Many visual and contextual clues help them understand language. A tiny child,
for instance, may soon learn to associate the appearance of pyjamas, a bottle and a
storybook with 'it’s time for bed'. Older children or adults learning a second language in
a ‘natural’ situation (e.g. a migrant picking up the language of the host country at work
or in the neighbourhood) have the advantage that they are hearing and practicing the
language in real situations and for real purposes.
Formal Language Learning: Learning a second or third language may occur formally
e.g. in school. Formal second and third language learning is when students learn a
language as a separate subject in the classroom. This differs from acquiring a
language in an informal environment (e.g. in the street or playground).
Classroom-based second and third language learning has a potential disadvantage that
it takes place within a formal, ‘context-reduced’ environment. It is harder to create
opportunities for the language to be used for real purposes, and the learners have few
contextual clues to help them with understanding a new language. In addition, teaching
time is often limited (e.g. 30 minute lessons).
However, the classroom can have advantages as a learning environment particularly for
older children and adults. Adult learners can find it hard to cope with the bewildering
complexity and variety of the language as used in the community. Native speakers of
the target language do not often know how to adjust or simplify their language when
addressing language learners. Older children and adults learning a second language
may feel ill at ease and disadvantaged in such social situations. Hence, formal
classroom language learning is found in most countries and many classrooms,
particularly (but far from exclusively) at the secondary school level. It can be pitched at
the level of understanding of the child or adult.
Classroom language learning also differs from a situation where children at school are
taught through the medium of a second language (e.g. immersion education, CLIL). In
immersion education, for instance, children have many more contact hours with the
second language than those learning the language as a subject in school. Some or all
of the school curriculum is taught in immersion education through the medium of the
second language. School activities such as games, sports, concerts, plays, craft work,
trips and fund raising activities may take place wholly or partly in the new language.
The teachers interact naturally with the children outside the classroom in the second
language. The child learns and uses the new language in authentic contexts and for
authentic purposes.
However, there are often no clear lines of demarcation between classroom language
learning and other ways of acquiring a new language. A person may experience both
formal and informal language learning situations. In formal classes there are typically
informal exchanges and opportunities. A child learning a new language at school that is
also a language widely used in the community will have opportunities to hear or speak
that language outside the classroom. A migrant to a country may hear the new
1
language at work, in shops and in social situations, but may also have the opportunity
to attend formal classes. Learning will occur outside and inside the classroom. In
some International Schools, a new language may be introduced as a subject and then
other subjects in the curriculum may also be taught through the medium of that
language.
In recent years, there have been attempts to make language learning more meaningful
and purposeful by centring the teaching on activities based on the learners’
communicative needs. This has also involved taking learners out of the classroom
environment, through trips to the target region or country, visits to language centres
where students take part in tasks and role-play in a simulated foreign language
environment, correspondence with pen pals and exchange visits.
Reasons for Language Learning
The way new languages are taught will be determined by different views of the value of
languages in the local and wider society, as well as varying ideas about learning and
teaching in classrooms. What languages are taught, the provision of time and finances
allotted, and the approaches and methods used, are not usually decided by individual
learners or even course organizers and teachers, but at governmental level. Many
underlying reasons influence decisions about what languages are taught, to whom,
what approach is used and how resources are allocated. These may be clustered
under three headings: ideological, international and individual.
Ideological Reasons
For language minority children, the aim of second/third language learning may be
assimilationist. For example, the teaching of German as a second language in the
Germany often aims at integrating migrant language groups into mainstream society. In
contrast, when children learn a minority language as their second language,
maintenance and preservation of that minority language may be the societal aim (e.g.
English-speaking children learning Irish in school in Ireland or Italian-speaking children
learning Friulian in Italy). This provides an additive situation: a second language is
added at no cost to the first language. Such maintenance may not only exist in
indigenous language ‘territory’.
Second and third language learning is also promoted in countries to increase harmony
between language groups. In Slovenia, Slovene-speaking children may learn Italian
close to the Italian border, and Hungarian close to the border with Hungary. German
and English are also widely learnt at school with Europeanisation as part of the agenda.
International Reasons
Language learning is often encouraged or enforced for economic and trade reasons.
With the growth of the free market economy, and world-wide trade competition, facility
with languages may promote success in business.
The learning of a second language can be a valuable asset in travel across continents.
For many mainland Europeans, for example, to speak two or three or four languages is
not uncommon. Such language facility enables holidays to be spent in neighbouring
European countries, for trade and travel, and for Europeanisation. In the unification of
2
Europe, traveling, working and doing business across frontiers has become more
common, encouraging a person to acquire a repertoire of languages.
Third, languages provide access to international information. In the Information
Society, access to information via satellite, computer, internet or social media, is often
access to power. Texting and tweeting, emailing and many other forms of electronic
communication occur across geographical frontiers and local boundaries, making the
learning of languages beneficial and broadening. A larger repertoire of languages gives
wider access to social, cultural, political, economic and educational information.
Individual Reasons
Language learning is often encouraged for the personal benefits that accrue to the
individual. One benefit has traditionally been training of the mind. The study of
languages has been viewed as a way of sharpening the mind and developing the
intellect. A second benefit is cultural sensitivity and awareness, which is seen as
increasingly important as the world becomes more of a global village. A third benefit
might be the social, moral and emotional development of the individual, increased selfawareness, self-confidence and the ability to create effective relationships with
speakers of the new language.
A fourth reason for learning a language is for careers and employment. For language
minority and language majority children, being able to speak a second or third or fourth
language may mean escaping unemployment, opening up possibilities of a wider
variety of careers or gaining promotion in a career.
A checklist of effective and less effective second language learning follows.
3
Modern Language Learning
Effective language learning in formal education contexts (pre-school playgroup to
University, kindergarten to adult classes) has been related to the following. Different
combinations are promoted by different teaching methodologies, and combinations will
vary with age, educational traditions, and teacher preferences.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Student-centred.
Meets the expectations and needs of students.
Features much communicative activity.
Aims for language comprehension before language production.
Uses a variety of activities, and is well paced throughout.
Provides for a grouping of students that maximizes interaction.
Includes physical movement during communication interaction.
Presents the new language through content in authentic contexts.
Uses the target language as a medium of teaching.
Uses a variety of materials, including the use of computers and other
technologies.
Students experience and enjoy fine examples of literature in the target
language.
Class activities encourage creative thinking and negotiation.
Use of the language is enjoyable, non-threatening and supportive.
Encourages the students to use the language outside the classroom.
Increases students’ awareness of inter-cultural and international dimensions.
In contrast, less effective learning may occur when it is:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18:
Teacher-centred.
Follows a set curriculum without regard to student needs and expectations.
Focuses on drill and grammar.
Students are expected to speak the language before they can understand it
well enough.
Few activities in a classroom lesson.
Focuses on whole class activities.
Students are expected to be quiet and passive and not permitted to move
around.
Emphasizes features of the language itself in non-authentic situations.
Uses the students’ native language as a medium of teaching.
Depends on set text books.
Presents second language literature as a translation exercise.
Emphasizes one single, acceptable correct answer.
Emphasizes constant correction of mistakes.
Leads students to see the foreign language as another academic subject in
school.
Focuses on language structure rather than its international value.
Is given minimal time within the curriculum or is only allocated as a short
course.
Evaluates short-term command of discrete elements of the language, such as
vocabulary and grammar.
Uses little technology or electronic communication possibilities.
4
Further Information:
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment
(CEFR): http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/cadre1_en.asp
5
C5. Will my attitudes affect me learning another language?
A person’s attitudes to languages plays an important role in their language life. Learning
a second or third language or losing the mother tongue, language restoration within a
geographical area, or the death of that language may be considerably influenced by
language attitudes. Attitudes to bilingual and multilingual education will, in part,
determine a parent’s preference for schooling and support such education systems, or
not.
An attitude may be both a predisposing factor and also an outcome. As a predisposing
factor, attitudes influence behaviour. For example, if someone has a positive attitude to
learning a second or third language, they may well succeed in becoming proficient in
that language. Also, at the end of language learning, a desired outcome may be that
students have a positive attitude towards speakers of that new language. Thus,
attitudes are both an ingredient in language learning and also an important result.
There are a variety of focuses of attitude to language, for example, attitude to a specific
minority or majority language (e.g. attitudes to Spanish, Arabic, Gaelic in Scotland,
Irish, Frisian, Norwegian, and attitudes to English). The focus of attitude research is
usually on favourability or otherwise towards that specific language. Often the focus is
on the attitudes of mother tongue speakers to their language. Such attitude surveys
seek to portray the status and prestige of a language among its speakers. They
provide an indication of the health of a language- a barometer of its present state and
future prospects. Sometimes the focus is on second language speakers, or those
learning a language (e.g. migrants learning the dominant language of the host country).
The aim of a ‘learner’ survey is often to understand children and adult learners’ attitudes
to the experience of learning a new language.
There has also been a long research tradition on ‘attitudes to learning a new language’
Considerable international research has examined the motivations and reasons why
students learn a new language. That some people learn a second language quicker and
better than others may be partly due to their attitudes before and during the language
learning process. In England, attitudes to learning a second language tend to be less
favourable than in many parts of mainland Europe where bilingualism and
multilingualism are regarded as more typical, desirable and valuable. Research has
found that only a third of students in England think learning French is of any use to
them. Two-thirds of students regard English as all they need for employment, travel,
friendships and acquiring knowledge in the future.
What are integrative attitudes?
Two groups of attitudes have been located in second and third language learning. One
group concerns a wish to identify with, or join another language group. Learners may
want to identify with a different language community, or join in with a second language
group's cultural activities, or form new friendships. Other students with negative
attitudes to language learning may reject the second language culture and its people.
The more a student admires the second language people and its culture, wants to read
its literature, visit a particular area on vacation or find employment that requires a
second language, the more successful the student is likely to be in learning that
language. This is termed an integrative language attitude.
1
What are instrumental attitudes?
The second type of language attitude is called an instrumental attitude. This refers to
learning a second language for useful, utilitarian purposes. Learners may want to
acquire a second language to find a job, further their career prospects, pass exams,
help fulfil the demands of a job, or assist their children in a bilingual or multilingual
education program.
Research on instrumental and integrative attitudes tends to find that integrative
attitudes have a greater likelihood of proficiency in the second language. That
integrative motivation may be a more powerful stimulus to persevere in learning a
language is partly due to personal relationships being more long-lasting. On the other
hand, instrumental motivation may be more short-term and not sustained. When
employment has been found, or money has been made, instrumental motivation may
wane.
However, there will be occasions when instrumental motivation is more powerful than
integrative motivation in fostering language learning. In India, it has been found that
school students tend to give instrumental rather than integrative reasons for learning
English. English has important value in education, employment and entrepreneurship.
Hence, instrumental attitudes are seemingly dominant in the desire to learn English.
For many students, there is a subtle mix of instrumental and integrative attitudes behind
second or third language learning. It is too simplistic to think of some students owning
instrumental attitudes and others integrative attitudes. A more real equation is a
mixture in different proportions between instrumental and integrative attitudes. While
such attitudes may be stable, they are more likely to develop and change over time.
Further Information:
http://www.sil.org/language-assessment/language-attitudes
2
C6. How can biliteracy and multiliteracy be developed?
What are the advantages of biliteracy?
Literacy in two or more languages is advantageous at the individual and societal levels.
For individuals, biliteracy reinforces and develops both oral languages in terms of, for
example, vocabulary, automatic decoding, fluency and positive attitudes. Literacy skills
in one language benefit by applying them to the other. Knowing more has never been a
disadvantage compared to knowing less, and literacy in more than one language
achieves this.
There are also reasons why biliteracy is societally important, especially in language
revitalization. At both the individual and the group level, mother tongue literacy gives
that language increased functions, usage and status. It also helps standardize a
minority language. A minority language has a greater chance of survival when
bureaucracy and books, newspapers and magazines, adverts and signposts are in that
language. This may help to avoid the colonial situation where the majority language is
used for all literacy purposes and the vernacular language is used for oral
communication. Where oral communication is in the minority language and literacy is in
the majority language, that minority language will have lower prestige and may have
less chance of survival.
More positively, literacy in the minority language enables the attendant traditions and
the culture to be accessed, reproduced and renewed. Reading in the minority language
may be both for education and recreation, for instruction and for enjoyment. Whether
minority language literature is regarded as aiding moral or religious teaching, of value
as an art form, or as a form of vicarious experience, literacy is both an emancipator and
an educator. Literature brings the child into an encounter with language in its most
complex and varied forms. Through these complexities are presented the thoughts,
experiences, and feelings of people who exist outside and beyond the reader’s
awareness.
Literacy in a mother tongue recreates the past in the present. It may both reinforce and
extend the oral transmission of a heritage culture. Literacy facilitates the development
of oral language proficiency. Minority language oracy without literacy can disempower
the student. Literacy in the minority language not only provides a greater chance of
survival at an individual and group level for that language. It also may encourage
rootedness, self-esteem, the vision and world-view of one’s heritage culture, selfidentity and intellectual empathy.
Literacy enables access to mother tongue practices that help make sense of the world
and hence affect the structure of human cognition. Biliteracy gives access to different
and varied social and cultural worlds. Does this in turn lead to more diversified cognitive
abilities, an increased ability to process and manipulate ideas and symbols? This is an
area for future research.
1
How can biliteracy effectively develop?
Given that literacy empowers, emancipates, enculturates, educates and can be an
inherently enjoyable activity, there seems to be a strong argument for biliteracy.
Pragmatically, most students from a minority language need to function in the minority
and majority language society. This requires biliteracy rather than literacy only in the
minority language.
In different minority language situations, the same question is often asked by parents
and teachers. Is it better to be thoroughly literate in one language rather than attempt to
be literate (or semi-literate) in two languages? Does literacy in one language interfere
with becoming literate in a second language? Questions typically tend to be phrased in
this negative way. The positive questions should also be asked. Does literacy in one
language aid rather than impede literacy in a second language? Do the skills learnt in
reading and writing one language transfer to reading and writing in a second language?
The evidence tends to support the positive rather than the negative positions. Children
who learn to read in two languages early on have an initial advantage over their
monolingual peers. Children who are familiar with print and story books in two
languages (e.g. French and English, or German and Slovenian), more quickly develop
an understanding that words are symbols that correspond to specific meanings. When
bilingual children are shown a picture accompanied by a word, they understand early on
that the word contains the meaning as well as the picture.
The importance of Transfer
Research has also suggested that many academic and linguistic skills in a mother
tongue transfer relatively easily to the second language. Simply stated, a child who
learns to read in Slovenian at home or in school does not have to start from the
beginning when learning to read in German.
When biliteracy is encouraged in mother tongue children, literacy skills and strategies
from the first language appear to transfer to the second language (especially if using a
similar writing system). While the vocabulary, grammar and orthography may be
different, generalizable skills in decoding and reading strategies may transfer from first
language literacy to second language literacy. Concepts and strategies easily transfer
from first to second language literacy (e.g. scanning, skimming, contextual guessing of
words, skipping unknown words, tolerating ambiguity, reading for meaning, making
inferences, monitoring, recognizing the structure of text, using previous learning, using
background knowledge about the text).
A simple example is that, once a student has learnt that there is an exact
correspondence between letters and sounds in the first language, they use this
understanding immediately when learning to read in the second language. While some
of the sounds and letters may be different in the second language, they do not have to
be re-taught that such a relationship exists.
Such metalinguistic awareness of the relationship between sound and meaning is
important in learning to read, and bilinguals gain advantages in understanding such
2
insights. While the decoding of words has a separation in learning to read in each
language, the higher cognitive abilities and strategies required in making meaning from
text are common to both languages. Overall, reading competence in two languages
does not operate separately.
When two languages have different writing systems (e.g. English, Chinese), general
strategies, habits and attitudes, knowledge of text structure, sensorimotor skills, visualperceptual training, cognitive functions, and many reading readiness skills transfer from
L1 to L2 reading. However, progress in biliteracy is more affected by the close or distant
relationship of the two languages (orally, graphemically and orthographically, e.g.
comparing English–French, English–Hebrew and English–Chinese) than by
bilingualism.
Transfer from first language to second language literacy is not unconditional and is
likely to be contingent on the context of learning and the characteristics of the learner.
The following factors may play an intervening role: (1) differences in the facilitating
nature of the school, home and community environment; (2) individual differences in
language ability, language aptitude and language learning strategies; (3) individual
differences in the analysis of their language (metalinguistic abilities) and (4) the interrelationship between pairs of languages (e.g. Portuguese and Spanish compared with
English and Chinese). Reading ability in a second language is also strongly related to
the degree of proficiency in that second language. Children literate in their first
language still need to acquire the differences found in the second language (e.g.
different sounds, vocabulary, grammatical structures), and these may need explicit
instruction.
In London, Charmain Kenner found that some bilingual children acquire literacy in two
languages (biliteracy) simultaneously and not as the separate entities that a ‘transfer’
idea may suggest. Her 6-year-olds in London were learning to write in Chinese, Arabic
or Spanish as well as English, and sought connections between different writing
systems. In drawing on experiences from different social and linguistic worlds, these
children combined, integrated creatively and synthesized imaginatively. Such children
may learn to understand the diverse perspectives of people from different cultures and
languages, including beyond their own, in a harmonised manner.
This ‘transfer’ rather than ‘separation’ viewpoint has implications for the teaching of
reading. A ‘separation’ view is that reading in the second language depends on the
level of proficiency in the second language and not on first language reading ability.
Therefore, students should be swiftly moved to education through the second language;
maximal exposure to literacy is needed in the second (majority) language. Time spent
reading in the minority language is time lost in learning to read in the majority language.
In contrast, a ‘transfer’ view argues for an initial mastery of literacy in the minority
language so that the cognitive skills and strategies needed for reading can be fully
developed. Once well developed, these literacy skills and strategies transfer easily and
readily to the second language. It is this latter view that receives research support.
One implication for teachers of the ‘transfer’ viewpoint is that repetition is to be avoided.
For example, there is little point introducing the concept of metaphors in German
lessons and then repeating exactly the same subject matter in a French lessons.
3
Coordination, integration and synchronization are needed to ensure learning is
cumulative and not repetitive.
When should second language literacy be introduced?
For teachers, this leaves the question of when to encourage biliteracy, given that there
is some degree of literacy in one language. (1) One model will be the simultaneous
acquisition of biliteracy as well as bilingualism. Two literacies are introduced and
developed together. Where a child has two already well developed languages, this is
an approach used by many teachers, and seems to work well. (2) Other children will
learn to read in their second language before they learn to read in their first (majority)
language. An example is immersion education in Canada, where children learn to read
in French before learning to read in English. This approach tends to result in successful
biliteracy, but note that it takes place in an additive language context. The first
language, a majority language, is not threatened, and literacy in both languages will
follow. (3) The third approach is where children acquire literacy in their first language, a
minority language, and then later develop literacy skills in the majority language. This
tends to be a successful model. There is good reason to believe that learning to read in
the primary language is a shortcut to reading in the second language. The argument in
favour of this consists of three stages:
1. We learn to read by reading, by understanding what is on the page.
2. It is easier to understand text in a language you already know.
3. Once you can read, you can read; reading ability transfers across languages.
Simple answers about when to promote literacy in the second language are made
difficult by other factors such as the educational and societal context (e.g. migrancy),
but also the age and ability of the child. Contrast the six-year-old just beginning to
acquire pre-reading and pre-writing skills in the first language with an 18-year-old
student, fluent in a first language. In the first case, biliteracy may be delayed. In the
latter case, oracy and literacy in the second language may be mutually reinforcing.
Contexts will vary.
When a language minority child is constantly bombarded with majority language written
material, from adverts to comics, computers to supermarkets, basic biliteracy may occur
relatively easily. The accent in school can be on minority language literacy, but not
exclusively. The preference with younger children may be to ensure first language
literacy is relatively well established before introducing literacy in a second language.
Such second language literacy may develop in the middle years of elementary
schooling (e.g. from seven years of age to 12 years of age depending on the level of
literacy achieved in the first language).
Further Information:
http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=gse_pubs
http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOCOMMJ/TOCOMMJ-9-56.pdf
4
Section D:
Languages in Society OR
The Future of Mother
Tongues
NPLD2020
2015
D1. How does language shift occur?
The process of language shift (usually meaning downward shift) can begin when two
language communities come into contact. This can occur among indigenous language
minorities and when there is migration. Gradually more speakers of one language ‘shift’
to using the other language for an increasing number of functions. Language shift
represents an unstable situation. One language is in decline, both in its functions and
also frequently in the number of its speakers and their fluency. If the decline is not
arrested, the eventual result will be language death.
Here is one typical scenario. Speakers of language A (e.g. indigenous minority,
migrants) come into contact with language B. Language B is spoken by a socially,
economically and/or politically dominant group. Over time, speakers of language A
become bilingual in language B. Language B becomes the preferred means of
communication for an increasing number of language functions. Gradually, younger
speakers of language A lose fluency in their mother tongue. Language B becomes the
preferred language of the younger, childbearing generation and most of them speak it
to their children, although they may still speak language A to their parents. Eventually,
no children are raised to speak language A. By this time, only a few adult native
speakers of language A are left. As these grow older and die, so language A dies in the
area.
Language shift and language decline do not happen because one language is
inherently weaker than another. Language is intrinsically linked with its speakers, their
society, culture, religion, economic situation, status and political power. Language shift
and language decline often occur because the speakers of one language have more
political power, privilege and social prestige than the speakers of the other language.
Causes of Language Shift
A variety of factors create downward language shift. For example, forced or voluntary
migration from a region may be vital to secure employment, housing and a future for the
family.
Within a country, intermarriage may also cause shifting bilingualism. For example,
bilinguals from a minority language community may marry majority language
monolinguals. The result may be majority language, monolingual children.
Increasing industrialization and urbanization has led to increased movement of labour.
The breakdown of traditional economic structures (e.g. traditional community livelihoods
such as fishing, crofting, craftwork), has led to new work structures including migration
in search of employment. With the growth of mass communications, information
technology, tourism, road, sea and air links, minority languages seem more at risk.
Bilingual education, or its absence, will also be a factor in the ebb and flow of minority
and majority languages. Language decline tends to happen at a time of social and
economic upheaval, when the permeation of another language and culture is
accompanied by the breakdown of traditional social and economic structures that
safeguard the minority language.
Language shift and language decline usually occur because of pressures from without
and within. A two-way process may occur. First, speakers of the high status language
1
may wish low status language speakers to become more like them. Second, speakers
of the low status language may wish to move towards the high status language. The
dominant language may be enforced from without, as the language of politics,
administration, the law, education and official life. The spread of compulsory education
for all in the dominant language has been one of the main causes of language shift and
decline in many bilingual situations in recent centuries. The dominant language may
also be desired from within, by speakers of the subordinate language, as a condition of
access to power and privilege and a marker of status and prestige.
The speed of Language Shift
Language shift and language decline may happen gradually over a period of decades.
At the other extreme, it may happen within two or three generations. Some migrant
communities (e.g. Chinese) have held on to their language for longer. This tends to
happen where migrant communities were large, socially, culturally and/or religiously
cohesive with their own social structures such as schools and mosques.
Language shift may occasionally stabilize within a bilingual community and a stable
two-language situation may emerge. The dominant, prestigious language is used for
some functions (e.g. official functions). The subordinate mother tongue continues to be
used for other functions (e.g. home and family life, socializing, sometimes work). This
usually happens where there is economic and social stability within a community, and
where the structure of the community is sufficiently strong to safeguard the continuing
use of the minority language.
However, this tends to be the exception rather than the norm in European countries.
Because of factors such as mass communications, information technology (e.g. WWW),
ease of transport, the mobility of labour, widespread compulsory education in the
dominant language, cultural change, industrialization and urbanization, many twolanguage and three-language situations have become unstable, and a period of
language decline in the mother tongue follows.
Language shift is particularly related to economic and social change, to politics and
power, to the availability of local social networks of communication between minority
language speakers and to the legislative and institutional support supplied for the
conservation of a minority language. While such factors help clarify what affects
language shift, the relative importance of factors is debated and unclear. Nor do they
reveal the processes and mechanisms of language shift.
Language shift is particularly related to:
1. A decrease in the functions of a language and its use in different contexts. The
majority language takes on an increasing range of social and interpersonal
functions, and finally even supersedes the minority language as the language of
the home.
2. A decrease in the number of speakers and the concentration of speakers within
the community. As the mother tongue is used for fewer functions, there are
increasing numbers of people who use it infrequently or not at all, especially
among younger people. As the mother tongue is ousted as the main language of
the home, fewer and fewer children learn to speak it.
2
3. A decrease in the fluency of speakers, the presence of ‘semi speakers’ who
understand the dying language but do not speak it, or sometimes cannot speak it.
As the minority language is employed for fewer functions, and thus used more
infrequently by its speakers, their fluency in the language decreases. Younger
speakers in a situation of language decline may not have the opportunity to learn
the language well, and may speak an impoverished or simplified version of that
language.
In spite of the considerable social, political and economic pressures towards language
shift, people are often determined to keep a language alive. Language activists,
pressure groups, affirmative action and language conservationists may fight for the
survival of the threatened language.
Determination is not always enough. The most worthy of mother tongue causes can
flounder on the rocks of economic and political realities. Strong wills and affirmative
action towards language survival can meet failure in a turbulent sea of personal
priorities and political power. Yet language pessimism, even if tinged with realism, in
itself constitutes a condition of language decay. Language pessimism can only foster
the demise of multilingualism. Therefore, it is important to promote language optimism
as it provides the needed psychological energy for multilingualism to struggle and
attempt to survive.
Migrants and Language Shift
A frequent, if generalized, scenario for migrant language shift is called ‘three generation
shift’. The first generation migrants sustain their native or first language while learning
the language of the host country. The second generation, intent upon assimilation into
the host country, begin the shift towards the dominant language by using the mother
tongue with first generation speakers (parents, grandparents, others) and the host
county language in more formal settings. By slow gradations, there is a movement
away from the mother tongue to the dominant language. Eventually, third generation
speakers discontinue the use of the original mother tongue entirely. However, a ‘three
generation shift’ is not the only possible pattern. There are case studies of emigrating
Greeks experiencing a four generation shift. This is due to: owning a standardized,
prestigious written language; learning the Greek language and literacy out of
mainstream schooling; religion (e.g. Greek orthodox affiliation) and arranged marriages
with one partner being a monolingual Greek speaker from Greece. Amongst Panjabi,
Polish and Italian communities in England, for example, there are occasional ‘fourth
generation’ individuals who sometimes wish to revive the language of their ethnic
origins. For some, assimilation into the majority language and culture does not give
self-fulfilment. Rather, such revivalists seek a return to their roots by recovering the
language and culture of their ethnic heritage.
Further Information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jqehF7fhDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXIW66_GzKU
3
D2. How can a mother tongue be preserved?
Languages are never stable. Change can occur across a few years, decades and
centuries (e.g. Greek, Latin, English). In the current context of migration, the languages
of migrants and their host countries are open to adjustment. For example, some mother
tongues may be at risk especially of they are seen as an impediment to progress and of
low status. Is such evolution inevitable? How can a mother tongue be maintained and
preserved?
Evolution: Those who believe that languages evolve will follow Charles Darwin’s idea
of the survival of the fittest. Those languages that are strong will survive. The weaker
languages will either have to adapt themselves to their environment, or die. A different
way of expressing this is in terms of a free, laissez-faire language economy.
Languages must survive on their own merits without the support or intervention of
language planning. Thus some migrant mother tongues may be at risk of being
replaced by the host country’s language(s).
However, survival of the fittest is a rather simple and negative view of language
evolution. A more positive understanding is the interdependence of languages rather
than constant competition between them. An evolutionist argument about language
shift also fails to realize that it is not a natural, spontaneous or thoughtless process.
Rather, the fate of languages is often related to the politics and power bases of different
groups in society, including migrants. Language shift (in terms of numbers of speakers
and uses) occurs through decisions that directly or indirectly affect languages and
reflects economic and political priorities, plus cultural, social and technological change.
It is therefore possible to analyse and determine what causes language shift rather than
simply believing language shift occurs by accident.
Evolutionists who argue for an economic, cost-benefit approach to languages, with the
domination of a few majority languages for international communication, hold a limited
view of the function of languages. Languages are not purely for economic
communication, they are also concerned with human culture and human heritage.
The second approach to languages is that those who argue for the maintenance and
conservation of languages. For such conservationists, deliberate language planning
must care for and cherish minority languages. Just as some animal species are now
deliberately preserved within particular territorial areas, so conservationists will argue
that threatened languages should receive special status in heartland regions of that
language. In Ireland, certain areas called the Gaeltacht are officially designated for
Irish conservation. Similarly, migrant languages may be safeguarded through, for
example, bilingual and multilingual education.
What is Language Shift and Language Maintenance?
Generally the term ‘language shift’ is used to refer to a downwards language
movement. That is, there is a lessening of the number of speakers of a language, a
decreasing density of language speakers in the population, a loss in language
proficiency, or a decreasing use of that language in different domains. This scenario
may be experienced by some migrant mother tongues. The last stages of language shift
are called language death. Language maintenance usually refers to relative language
1
stability in its number and distribution of speakers, its proficient usage in children and
adults, and to retaining the use of the language in specific domains (e.g. home, school,
religion). Language spread concerns the increase, numerically, geographically or
functionally in language users, networks and use.
However, there is a danger in the ways these terms are used. First, the terms are
ambiguous and may refer to the numerical size of the language minority, or to their
saturation in a region, or to their proficiency in the language, or the use of the language
in different domains. Second, languages do not lose or acquire speakers. Rather,
speakers acquire or lose languages.
A famous and relatively comprehensive list of factors that may create language
maintenance and shift was given by Conklin and Lourie in 1983 (see the table
below).This list essentially refers to migrants rather than indigenous minorities, but
many factors are common to both groups. What is missing from this list is the power
dimension (such as being in subordinate status among migrant languages).
The table below shows that language maintenance or language shift is particularly
related to factors such as economic and social change, politics and power, the
availability of local social networks of communication between mother tongue speakers
and the legislative and institutional support supplied for the conservation of a mother
tongue. However, the relative importance of such factors is much debated and will vary
across regions.
Also, a table of the relative importance of these factors is simplistic because the factors
interact and intermingle in a complicated equation. Such a list does not prioritize more
or less important factors in language shift.
2
FACTORS ENCOURAGING
LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
FACTORS ENCOURAGING
LANGUAGE LOSS
A. Political, Social and Demographic Factors
1.
Large number of speakers living
closely together.
Small number of speakers well
dispersed.
2.
Recent and/or continuing
migration.
Long and stable residence.
3.
Close proximity to the homeland
and ease of travel to homeland.
Homeland remote or inaccessible.
4.
Preference to return to homeland
with many actually returning.
Low rate of return to homeland and/or
Little intention to return and/or
impossible to return.
5.
Homeland language community
intact.
Homeland language community
decaying in vitality.
6.
Stability in occupation.
Occupational shift, especially from
rural to urban areas.
7.
Employment available where home
language is spoken daily.
Employment requires use of the
majority language.
8.
Low social and economic mobility
in main occupations.
High social and economic mobility
in main occupations.
9.
Low level of education to restrict
social and economic mobility, but
educated and articulate community
leaders loyal to their language
community.
High levels of education giving
social and economic mobility.
Potential community leaders are
alienated from their language
community by education.
10.
Ethnic group identity rather than
identity with majority language
community via nativism, racism,
isolation and ethnic discrimination.
Ethnic identity is denied to achieve
social and vocational mobility; this is
forced by nativism, racism, isolation
and ethnic discrimination.
3
FACTORS ENCOURAGING
LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
FACTORS ENCOURAGING
LANGUAGE LOSS
B. Cultural Factors
1.
Mother tongue institutions (e.g.
schools, community organizations,
mass media, leisure activities).
Lack of mother tongue institutions.
2.
Cultural and religious ceremonies
in the home language.
Cultural and religious activity in the
majority language.
3.
Ethnic identity strongly tied to
Mother tongue language.
Ethnic identity defined by factors
other than language.
4.
Nationalistic aspirations as a
language group.
Few nationalistic aspirations.
5.
Mother tongue is the homeland
national language.
Mother tongue not the only
homeland national language, or
mother tongue spans several
nations including with migration.
6.
Emotional attachment to mother
tongue giving self-identity
and ethnicity.
Self-identity derived from factors
other than shared mother tongue.
7.
Emphasis on family ties and
community cohesion.
Low emphasis on family and
community ties. High emphasis
on individual achievement.
8.
Emphasis on education
in mother tongue schools to
enhance ethnic awareness.
Emphasis on education in
majority language.
9.
Low emphasis on
education if in majority
language.
Acceptance of majority language
education.
10.
Culture unlike majority
language culture.
Culture and religion similar to that
of the majority language.
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FACTORS ENCOURAGING
LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE
FACTORS ENCOURAGING
LANGUAGE LOSS
C. Linguistic Factors
1.
Mother tongue is standardized and
exists in a written form.
Mother tongue is non-standard
and/or not in written form.
2.
Use of an alphabet which makes
printing and literacy relatively
easy.
Use of writing system that is
expensive to reproduce and
relatively difficult to learn.
3.
Mother tongue has international
status.
Mother tongue of little or no
international importance.
4.
Mother tongue literacy used in
community and with homeland.
Illiteracy (or aliteracy) in the
mother tongue
5.
Flexibility in the development
of the mother tongue (e.g. limited
use of new terms from the majority
language).
No tolerance of new terms from
the migrant language; or too much
tolerance of loan words leading
to mixing and eventual language
loss.
(The table has been adapted from N. Conklin & M. Lourie (1983) A Host of Tongues. Published
by The Free Press, New York.)
Further Information:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/galmeff/galmeff.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4actLHRLC4
5
D3. When does language death occur?
Language lies at the heart of education, culture and identity. When a language dies, so
does a considerable amount of the culture, identity and knowledge that has been
passed down from generation to generation through and within that language.
Knowledge about local land management, lake and sea technology, plant cultivation
and animal husbandry may die with language death. Each language contains a view of
the universe, a particular understanding of the world. If there are very approximately
6000 living languages, then there are at least 6000 overlapping ways to describe the
world. That variety provides a rich mosaic. Avoiding language death has become part of
the ecological preservationist crusade to maintain diversity across our planet.
David Crystal (see Further Information below) has suggested that there are a number of
solutions to avoid language death. While the solutions will be different for languages at
different stages of survival and revitalization, he suggests that an endangered language
will progress if its speakers:
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
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increase their prestige and wealth within the dominant community;
have access to a economy;
increase their legitimate power in the eyes of the dominant community;
increase the number of contexts in which their language is used;
have a critical mass of people in communities and regions;
have a strong presence in the educational system;
have a literacy in that language;
make use of electronic technology;
have a strong sense of ethnic identity;
have internal and external recognition as a unique group with a unity;
resist the influence of the dominant culture or are protected and formally
recognized by that dominant culture.
When minority language speakers become bilingual and prefer the majority language,
the outcome for the minority language may be decline, even death. Yet, where people
are determined to keep a language alive, it may be impossible to destroy a language.
Language activists, pressure groups, affirmative action and language conservationists
may fight for the survival of the threatened language.
Language decline often reflects a pragmatic desire for social and vocational mobility, an
improved standard of living, and a personal cost–benefit analysis. When the priority is
food in the stomach and clothes upon the back, ‘you can’t eat the view’. Sometimes,
there may be a gap between the rhetoric of language preservation and harsh reality.
This is illustrated in a story from the famous linguist, Bernard Spolsky:
A Navajo student of mine once put the problem quite starkly: if I have to choose,
she said, between living in a hogan a mile from the nearest water where my son will
grow up speaking Navajo or moving to a house in the city with indoor plumbing
where he will speak English with the neighbors, I’ll pick English and a bathroom!
1
However, where there are oppressed language minorities who are forced to live in
segregated societies, there is often little choice of where to live and work. In the quote,
the Navajo may have had the choice. In actuality, many language minorities have little
or no real choice. Thus, the idea of language suicide is misleading. Ascription of suicide
is a way of ‘blaming the victim’ and diverting a focus on the determination of real causes
of language shift. Freedom of choice is more apparent than real. There is often no
viable choice among language minority speakers, including migrants.
Further Information:
'Language Death: A Problem for All' By David Crystal - Vimeo https://vimeo.com/6677955
2
D4. Can language planning help a language to survive and spread?
Two opposing views may be held regarding change and development in a language.
The first view holds that a language gradually changes over time. A language evolves
as its speakers make changes such as in pronunciation and a new uses of words.
Language change may also be caused by external influences such as language contact
where one language may borrow words and phrases from another.
A second view is that, for minority languages to survive and be revitalised, language
planning is needed. Language planning refers to ‘deliberate efforts to influence the
behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition and status, usage and
standardisation of a minority language’.
Types of Language Planning
Language planning has traditionally been divided into three types: status planning
(changing the status of a language within society by increasing or decreasing its
functions and usage), corpus planning (concerning the alteration or standardization of a
language to fulfil new functions) and acquisition planning (creating language spread by
increasing the number of speakers and uses by, for example, language reproduction in
the family, language teaching in schools).
It has been found useful to accent a fourth category: usage or opportunity language
planning. This refers to top-down and bottom-up language planning interventions that
directly seek to increase the integrative use of the minority language and its attendant
culture in areas such as leisure, sport, and technology, to foster social networking
through that language, and to increase the instrumental use of the language in the
economy, for example in the workplace, employment and education. This includes
grass-roots language planning, through community involvement, parent-community
links, ‘master speakers’ mentoring apprentice language learners, and mother tongue
schooling.
Language Planning: A Nine Point Plan
Acquisition
1. Family Language Reproduction
2. Bilingual Education – pre-school to university
3. Adult Language Learning
Status – Societal
4. Institutionalization e.g. use in local and national government and organizations
5. Modernity e.g. use on television, internet
Corpus
6. Linguistic Standardization (e.g. by dictionaries, school, TV)
7. Public Vernacular (‘clear’ or ‘plain’ language)
Usage / Opportunity- Individual
8. Economic, workplace – instrumental
9. Culture, leisure, sports, social, religious, social networks – integrative
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Status Planning
Status planning is a wide and ambiguous term that involves a variety of overlapping
aims and interventions. This includes:
1. Expanding the official uses of language, for example as declared in legislation,
declaration of official languages, and status of languages in law and uses in
political and government institutions.
2. Planning at a regional (country, district, and province) level. This may include the
social, cultural, economic and leisure uses of a minority language.
3. Wider communication across regional and state borders (e.g. the adoption of
Hebrew among a linguistically diverse Jewish population during the last century.
4. International, particularly referring to the spread and use of English as an official,
international language in the world (e.g. British Council).
5. The use of language in the national capital city for political power, social prestige
and economic activity (e.g. Dutch and French in Brussels).
6. The daily use of languages in a minority group (e.g. Bretons in France; Turks in
Germany). This includes use of a language in the mass media, internet, social
networking.
7. The educational use of languages in nursery, primary, secondary, technical,
vocational, further and higher education as well as in adult education.
8. The use of languages in different curriculum areas.
9. The literary use of languages not only amongst elites but also among the masses.
10.
The religious use of languages.
Corpus Planning
If a language is used for new functions that it has not previously served, then the corpus
or ‘body’ of that language may need to be adapted or elaborated to make it suitable for
the new communicative functions. A prime example of this is the creation of new
scientific and technological terminology. Another example is the development of
suitable language styles for use in specialized fields such as computers and law.
Alternatively, the language may be modified to attain non-linguistic goals. A colloquial
standard may be developed for use in mass literacy and education. Attempts may be
made to purify the syntax, vocabulary and even orthography of a language from foreign
influence to emphasize the independence, dignity and distinctive character of its
speakers.
The two main aspects of corpus planning are: (1) Standardization: the development of
an overarching standard language that provides a norm for regional and social dialects,
and also for literacy. (2) Modernization: the development of styles of language and
terminology in a range of topics of international relevance (e.g. science, medicine,
2
information technology), which can be easily transferred in translation to other
languages.
Acquisition planning
This refers to organized efforts to promote the acquisition, learning or re-learning of a
language. These might include the learning of the language as a second or foreign
language (e.g. English speaking children in Manx-medium education on the Isle of
Man), and also the learning of a language by populations for whom it was once a
mother tongue (e.g. Welsh language evening classes and intensive courses for adults,
and Catalan language broadcasts for learners).
The foundation of all language planning is acquisition planning. The intergenerational
transmission of a language (parents passing their language(s) onto their children) and
language learning in bilingual education is an essential but insufficient foundation for
language survival and maintenance.
In recent years, acquisition planning is concerned with language reproduction in the
family as well as language production at school. In all minority languages, there are
families who use the majority language with their children. If this occurs across
successive generations, the language will rapidly decline.
Language acquisition planning is therefore partly about encouraging parents to raise
their children bilingually. Grass-roots interventions to persuade parents to use a
minority language with their very young children are to be found, for example, in the
Basque country, Wales, Ireland and Sweden. Midwives, nurses and health workers
provide expectant mothers and new parents with information about the many benefits of
bilingualism. This intervention attempts to lead new parents to make a deliberate and
rational choice about the languages of the home, choice in pre-school education and
later bilingual education.
Minority languages need a supply line, and if families fail to reproduce such languages
in children, bilingual education has to attempt to make up the shortfall. A lack of family
language reproduction is a principal and direct cause of language shift. In this scenario,
a mother tongue can die within two or three generations unless bilingual education can
produce language speakers who then find everyday purposes (e.g. economic, social,
religious) for that language.
Where there is a shortfall in language maintenance in families, education becomes the
principal means of producing more language speakers. Through bilingual education,
second and third language learning but also via adult classes (e.g. Ulpan) Master /
Apprenticeship programs, and youth language practices, the potential numbers of
minority language speakers can be increased.
Further Information:
Language Planning - Robert Phillipson vs. Abram de Swaan. A University of Groningen and the
University Campus Fryslân event entitled: Multilingualism: The Key Debates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeABr3stcR4
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D5. How can a language be marketed and promoted?
When we talk about marketing, it is often with reference to promoting products such as
computers, perfume, cars and foods. Many people are aware of the vocabulary of
marketing, for example, the product, customer needs, advertising and promotion,
marketing outlets, loss leaders, soft and hard selling, competitive pricing and profit
margins, marketing plans and performance indicators. But can social marketing be of
value in marketing a language, especially a mother tongue that is being revitalised?
Marketing a language and its culture is neither as simple nor as straightforward as
promoting a brand of toothpaste, breakfast cereal or washing powder. However, among
the Catalan and Basque language planners in Spain, the promoters of Hebrew in Israel,
and among the Welsh in Wales, some of the propositions of social marketing are being
successfully adapted to promote the minority language as a desirable possession.
While not all the concepts of marketing that deal with material products (e.g. washing
powder) or social products (e.g. health campaigns) are usable in the marketing of a
language, the following text will reveal that the concepts of marketing are an important
conceptualization in reversing language shift and revitalising a language and is a
valuable component in language planning.
A Marketing Strategy for Languages
Ten stages of a marketing strategy for languages, particularly minority languages, will
now be given. The following table provides an initial outline of this ten stage strategy
and is based on an initiative by the Welsh Language Board. Many of the stages or
levels both overlap and interact, and should not be seen as distinct or sequential but
interrelated.
_____________________________________________________________________
A Summary of the Ten Stages
Stage 1:
Stage 2:
Stage 3:
Stage 4:
Stage 5:
Stage 6:
Stage 7:
Stage 8:
Stage 9:
Stage 10:
Defining the Product.
Investigating Customer Needs.
Defining the Market.
Making the Product Attractive.
Promoting the Product.
Anticipating and Challenging Counter-Propaganda.
Distributing the Product.
Pricing and Yields.
Evaluating the Product and the Marketing Strategy.
Revising the Marketing Strategy and Implementing a Longer-Term
Marketing Plan.
_____________________________________________________________________
Stage 1: Defining the Product
A language has many dimensions and colours. It is therefore necessary to define what
component of language is to be marketed. What is the particular competence or
attribute of language that we are marketing as a valuable product?
1
i.
Is it language standardization- the preferred used of particular vocabulary, new
technical words and preferred structures to the language?
ii.
Is it everyday spoken language among those who already speak the language?
iii.
Is it use of the language by non-speakers and learners?
iv.
Is it the promotion of literacy in the minority language rather than oracy?
v.
Is the focus more on the culture or cultures attached to the language rather
than the language itself?
vi.
Is the focus more on identity attached to a language and its attendant culture
rather than the language?
The above questions suggest that marketing a language is not just about language as a
worthwhile possession. Language marketing is about influencing behaviour through
means of campaigns, different forms of communicating ‘the message’ and education.
Just as the Volkswagen motor company does not produce all forms of transport (e.g.
bikes, motor cycles and racing cars), so the language product being marketed needs to
be specifically defined and clarified. If one danger is in failing to focus, the opposite
danger is focusing too short-sightedly. Often a prioritization is needed in language
marketing, while keeping the whole entity in mind.
Stage 2: Investigating Customer Needs
A most important part of marketing strategy is to ascertain the needs of potential
customers and consumers. This also may include an investigation of their attitudes,
even susceptibility to the selling of the product. The initial step is to identify the
customers: non speakers, learners, those who are able to speak the language but don’t,
or illiterates in the language? What groups must be given priority for investigating needs
and wants? Such questions are not about inclusion and exclusion in a target market,
but about prioritization based on overall language planning goals and probabilities of
success.
Having decided on a target sector of the consumer market, a set of questions need
answering, for example:
i.
What are the opinions of the targeted group towards the language?
ii.
What are their personal motivations about the language and other key factors
(e.g. employment, leisure, education) that considerably affect their choice of
language behaviour?
iii.
What are the differing needs of existing speakers of the language and nonspeakers?
iv.
Do different groups of non-speakers have different needs, motivations and
attitudes?
v.
Does a profiling of different groups mean varying probabilities of likely
marketing success of that language?
To sell a new model of car or food requires careful market research to establish current
behaviour patterns, preferences, likes and dislikes, and the likelihood of changing
2
purchasing behaviour. Such a consumer survey may also go deeper into reasons for
choice. For example, it may look at emotional decisions made about the shape of the
car or the colours on the food box.
In the same way, language surveys are needed that are directly and explicitly related to
an overall marketing strategy. Such language surveys may seek to answer one or
more of the following illustrative questions:
i.
Who speaks which language in what domains, and where are the weaknesses
in a capture of language domains for the minority language?
ii.
Which groups have a positive attitude to learning the minority language?
iii.
Which groups of potential customers or clients are more susceptible to a soft
sell?
iv.
What are the needs and motivations of parents with regard to their children’s
education that relate to language marketing issues?
v.
What deeper and underlying factors affect whether parents decide to use the
minority language with their new-born children (i.e. family language
transmission) that need marketing attention?
While there have been many language use surveys, attitude studies and censuses, few
of these relate directly to a marketing strategy. Generally, language use questionnaires
and language attitude surveys are created to provide up-to-date information about, for
example, the size and density of active language speakers in a region, the use of
language in different domains, intergenerational transmission and personal opinions
about the status and value of the majority and minority languages.
In comparison, language surveys for language marketing purposes may need to be
more specific, relating to the defined product and targeted markets. Such surveys
should explicitly dovetail into the decision-making processes discussed in the remaining
stages of languages marketing (given below). Such language surveys are an integral
part of a language marketing framework.
Stage 3: Defining the Market
Having investigated customer and consumer needs, it is important to define and target
particular products for specific groups for marketing the language. There are usually
limited human and material resources to market a language and create interventions
(e.g. classes for learners, supporting mass media in the minority language). Therefore,
targeting of particular products for particular groups (where there is likely to be a higher
chance of success) becomes an important part of strategy.
Initial decisions may be about strengthening the language among existing speakers, or
among those who have lapsed in using the language, or among non-speakers,
including recent immigrants. Afterwards, a more refined targeting may occur. A
consumer needs survey should reveal groups where there is an increased probability of
success. For example, particular communities with ‘vitality’, particular areas or regions,
particular employment groups or age groups, and particular constellations of needs and
motivations may make the defined target groups either wide or narrow. There are
never unlimited resources to target all groups, so that prioritization becomes essential.
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Stage 4: Making the Product Attractive
In the world of marketing cars, perfume and computers, it is important to make a
product maximally attractive and appealing to as wide a defined market as possible. A
parallel similar operation needs to occur in language marketing. For example, when
language standardization is being marketed, the new technical terms or preferred
vocabulary must be attractive and appealing to as many potential consumers as
possible. When new technological terms for computing, information technology and
telematics are introduced, they must be maximally appealing to the consumer.
Packaging an attractive language product means defining all the many and varied uses
and values of a language. Packaging the language product means emphasizing
customer needs that the product meets. No product will sell well unless it matches, and
is attractive to customer needs.
Also, as part of its packaging, the language needs to be associated with major virtues
and values. For example, a new perfume is marketed by being associated with beauty
and romance. A charitable organization obtaining money for the poor of a region may
emphasize relief from guilt and the raising of self-esteem among contributors if
donations are given. An adult literacy campaign may associate itself with economic
opportunity, greater affluence and more sophistication as a person.
Similarly, a minority language must be made as attractive and appealing as possible by
being associated with major virtues such as liberty, freedom, social justice, enablement,
empowerment and individual/group rights. Speaking a minority language may be
associated with cognitive or thinking advantages, with being able to enjoy two or more
worlds of cultural experience, of greater achievement through bilingual education and
raised self-esteem through celebrating heritage values and ethnic identity. Such
positive benefits of speaking a language and enjoying its attendant culture may need
advertising in no less an aggressive manner than advertising cars or perfume.
Part of making a language attractive and appealing to as wide a market as possible
means clarifying precisely what kind of language product will be attractive to which
audience.
i.
The marketing campaign may aim at raising awareness about the existence of
the language, its history and heritage, its value and vitality. Such awarenessraising may be necessary before offering language learning. For example,
among those who do not speak the language and have an ambivalent attitude
towards the language, it is important ‘not to sell them boot polish before they
are willing to wear shoes’.
ii.
A different type of attractive and appealing product will be needed for those who
have negative attitudes, who need more persuasion and where a longer-term
reversal of attitudes needs attempting.
iii.
Another kind of language marketing is required to evoke as many positive
associations with a minority language as possible. If it is thought that among
both speakers and non-speakers there is a need to increase the attractiveness
and appeal of the minority language, a more general, mass media-based
marketing campaign may be commenced.
iv.
If the marketing strategy is directed at increasing the size and density of
language uses within a defined area, a wide market that includes both language
4
speakers and non-speakers may be included, but this time, targeting
institutional and infrastructural means of increasing language use (e.g. through
bilingual education, nursery schooling, participative cultural use of the minority
language).
v.
A more specific product will be required when targeting increased proficiency
among all current speakers of the language. When the focus is on those whose
proficiency could be improved, the product may be concerned with more
informal networks and relationships as well as with educative formal structures.
vi.
Another target may be extending the domains in which the minority language is
used. For example, if the language is restricted to home and religious
observance, there may be marketing to extend use of that language to mass
media, education, literacy and/or employment.
vii.
If a major historical problem has been the lack of language reproduction in
families and schools, and if marketing aims at producing a more stable
language reproduction in the family and education system, then the marketing
may target these two institutions. For example, means of encouraging mothers
and fathers to use their minority language in raising their children need
exploring. Ways of making bilingual education an attractive option for parents
may also need a marketing strategy (e.g. the use of promotional videos,
pamphlets, meetings).
viii.
Another target for marketing may be to secure the increased presence of state
legislation and language rights for minorities. When law and litigation are
included in language marketing, this can be a ‘hard sell’ in product marketing.
At this point, marketing an attractive and appealing product moves towards
conformity, even coercion.
While stipulating language rights and enforcing language normalization procedures
(e.g. as in the Basque region) are often seen as essential accompaniments to language
marketing, conviction is stronger than conformity. Ultimately, conformity and coercion
are temporary, with the consent of the governed being ultimately more powerful. Even
in totalitarian and autocratic states, coercion is not a long-term solution. Through
conflict or constitutional means, the consent of the governed is ultimately required in
language planning enforcement.
Thus marketing an attractive and appealing language product becomes crucial, even if
language legislation and litigation are available. In Race Relations and Equal
Opportunity legislation, there has been a valuable stipulation of rights and freedoms.
Yet the perpetuation of racial hostility and violence, and the continued existence of
unequal opportunities, attest that legislation is never enough by itself. There has to be
persuasion and promotion, and the marketing of an attractive and appealing product
essential in language shift.
Stage 5: Promoting the Product
We are all used to advertising on billboards, television and in newspapers and
magazines; to slogans and mailings to promote particular products; to the soft sell and
the hard sell; to gentle pressure and more persuasive coercion. Minority languages
have generally failed to use the tricks and strategies of marketing material products to
sell a language. The Catalans are one of the few exceptions.
5
As social psychologists reveal, advertising a product needs to be more than a one-off
big bang. Rather advertising needs to be continuous and repetitive. The message
needs to be frequently given to the consumer who increasingly associates a particular
name with a product, and hopefully a quality product. The message needs continuous
emphasis and re-emphasis so that it becomes a part of the consciousness and subconsciousness of the individual.
Advertising of a language can come in many forms. A language may be publicized on
posters, through adverts in newspapers, magazines and television, videos and pictures,
through cartoons and computer graphics, through balloons and plastic shopping bags,
through badges and labels, and through signposts and speeches.
Slogans are an important part of marketing, especially when the effect is subliminal.
Sometimes this will start by offering prizes to members of the general public producing
the best slogans. The act of competition is a form of awareness-raising and of getting
people to think in a positive way about a minority language. Thinking of a slogan for a
language is a subtle form of attitude formation, even attitude change in the individual.
The individual may come to believe their own propaganda.
Following the competition, the publication of slogans becomes an important and
valuable marketing activity. At a general level, television and radio, papers and
magazines may broadcast the language slogan. Through postal literature and through
marketing by the telephone, a more direct and targeted promotion may be attempted.
Stage 6: Anticipating and Challenging Counter-Propaganda
When a minority language is promoted, it is often seen as upsetting balances of power,
status, employment and earning power. Promoting a minority language often
challenges existing power structures, privileges and dominant interests. Language
marketing may challenge the status quo and appear to provoke political or social
unrest. Therefore, opposition to marketing the minority language must be expected and
anticipated. A campaign to present opposite and conflicting viewpoints must be
assumed.
Preparation for this opposition is needed. As a football player once said, ‘it is important
to get your retaliation in first!’ That is, it is important to anticipate what kind of counterpropaganda and counter-claims will be made. It is vital to work out in advance what
kind of arguments against the minority language and its spread will be promulgated. It
is also important to anticipate the marketing approach and strategy of such counterpropaganda.
When positively marketing the minority language, it is possible to implicitly counterattack when promoting the language product and to build in lines of defence and
arguments to attempt to defeat counter-propaganda when initially promoting the
product. Also, there usually needs to be an explicit rebuttal of the counter-propaganda.
Stage 7: Distributing the Product
When a new material product such as a computer or breakfast cereal is marketed, it is
important to ensure there are plenty of appropriately sited outlets from which
consumers can acquire the product. Part of marketing strategy is to target, for
6
example, which shops to persuade to sell the product, appropriate advertisement and
placement within the shop, and an efficient chain of distribution to ensure a plentiful
supply.
In marketing a language, it is important to target the institutions and processes for
acquiring the language product. For example, if the language is to be spread by
bilingual education, a targeting of particular schools to promote bilingualism may be
attempted. Or, if adult classes are to be provided for learners of the language, these
must be sited in easily accessible, suitable, and well distributed buildings. Another
example of distributing a product is in deciding which television and radio stations, what
times of the day, and what kinds of attractive programs need to be presented on the
media to increase proficiency and the numbers of language users. At a more informal
level, sufficient participative cultural activities need to be provided to ensure an
increased use of a language across domains, and to help foster strong local cells and
networks of language users. For example, discos and dances, drinking and debating in
the minority language need planning and provision.
Stage 8: Pricing and Yields
In language promotion, money is never far removed from decision-making. For
example, the cost of marketing and promotion or the cost of putting on language
courses for new or existing speakers of the language need to be assessed and
defended as cost-effective. An intensive crash course in the language for non-speakers
needs to be costed against a more long-term and gradual course.
However, consumer needs (e.g. wanting to speak a language within a short time rather
than slowly learning the language over a number of years) must be brought into
account. The cost of such courses also needs to match what consumers, providers and
sponsoring companies are willing to pay for language learning.
Another area concerned with finance is where there is a possibility of offering economic
incentives for having learnt a language or being competent to use a language at work.
For example, promotion within the job or an extra increment on a salary scale may be
possible for having learnt a language.
Another element in this stage is to gauge the ‘profit margin’. This will not be in
monetary terms but, for example, in the increased proficiency of speakers who have
been targeted, the extension of the minority language to other domains, an increase in
the size and density of language speakers from one census survey to another, or the
raising of awareness and positive attitudes towards the language in society.
Where new initiatives have been launched and existing schemes are examined for their
profit margin, the concept of ‘value-addedness’ may be relevant. That is, what have
initiatives and schemes of action delivered that is above a profit baseline or greater than
customary delivery? This raises the question of what has been ‘value added’ when a
language gets marketed. Is it the language or the people? Is the profit gauged in
linguistic terms only, or is the spotlight more on the quality of life of individuals and
communities?
Working out the language profit gained through interventions and the marketing of the
language requires a baseline to be initially specified, and then improvements over and
above that baseline to be measured at a later date. Some profits are not measurable.
7
Indeed, some of the most important outcomes of language revival and maintenance are
the least measurable (e.g. security in personal identity). However, this difficulty should
not be an excuse for failing to set clear aims and objectives in language planning. Nor
should it be an excuse for not monitoring and evaluating the successes and failures of
language planning and marketing.
Stage 9: Evaluating the Product and Marketing Strategy
Part of a marketing strategy is to monitor that strategy as it is being implemented,
providing feedback to language planners and implementers as the product is
distributed. Such evaluation is not purely in terms of profit, but takes on board
questions such as:
i.
Was the product adequately defined before marketing?
ii.
Were the markets well chosen?
iii.
Was the product made as attractive and appealing as possible?
iv.
Were customer needs fully investigated, and in sufficient depth?
v.
Was the product promoted in appropriate and effective ways?
vi.
Was the promotion and distribution cost-effective?
vii.
Was the anticipation of counter-propaganda well-judged and effective in
replying?
viii.
Was the distribution of outlets to market the product adequate, effective and
efficient?
ix.
What are the performance indicators of success in marketing the language?
x.
Was the evaluation useful, impactive on future decisions and cost-effective?
The evaluation of the marketing strategy needs to involve both an ongoing, formative
evaluation of the process. At particular stages of development, there is also a need to
audit in a more summative manner. Formative evaluation feeds back into the daily
process of operating a language marketing strategy. Summative evaluation focuses on
whether aims, goals and objectives have been attained. Such summative evaluation
ensures accountability for past marketing plans and amount of progress achieved. It
also feeds forward into Stage 10, a revised plan of action.
Stage 10: Revising the Marketing Strategy and Implementing a Longer-Term
Marketing Plan
Marketing a language is a continuous process. It is never be a one-off event but rather
will be incremental, with many developments that produce an upward spiral in the
maintenance and spread of a minority language. Thus, the marketing strategy must be
sustained rather than short-term, evolutionary and not momentary. The marketing
strategy must be a cyclical activity. The evaluation of the past and the present must
provide ‘feed-forward’. Failures and unrealized ambitions need investigation, with an
alternative marketing strategy put in place. Successes need sustaining and building on,
in such a way that success breeds success.
8
The Limitations of a Language Marketing Strategy
Some people are cautious, sceptical or even hostile to the idea of marketing language
in a way that parallels marketing cars and perfume. So it is important to express the
limitations and reservations about language marketing.
First, in language planning and language reversal, language marketing is one tool
among many. Status language planning and corpus language planning already have a
body of literature and a set of ideas and theories from sociology, linguistics, geography,
social psychology and education to guide language reversal. Language marketing
provides an extra perspective and an additional range of ideas. It is not a selfcontained or stand-alone recipe for language restoration.
Second, language marketing is not an overall theory of reversing language shift. It has
neither the breadth of understanding of causes of language shift, nor a wide enough
range of solutions for reversing language minority trends.
Third, the vocabulary of language marketing can trap the language planner within a
narrow set of aims, goals and solutions. With the vocabulary of language marketing
goes a particular perspective and culture. The language of the ‘hard sell’ does not
always fit easily with the ‘affective’ language of heritage cultural transmission. For
example, talk of capitalizing, profit-margins, persuasion and inducements is a world
apart from preserving family language traditions, language community integration and
self-identity. The very idea of language marketing thus may need marketing.
Further Information:
https://www.llas.ac.uk//700reasons
http://ec.europa.eu/languages/inspire/prolang_en.htm
9
Section E:
Multilingualism in the
Modern World
NPLD2020
2015
E1. Do bilinguals and multilinguals obtain economic gains?
Bilinguals and multilinguals have linguistic assets that can relate directly to financial
capital. Areas such as Berlin and London, Amsterdam and Rome, Brussels and Madrid
are a few examples of cities with immense linguistic capital that leads to increased
wealth. Over time, skilled bilingual and multilingual migrants can enhance the GDP
(Gross Domestic Product) for example by expanding the economy, increasing the
labour force and labour market flexibility, thus supplementing the stock of human and
linguistic capital of the host country.
Bilinguals and multilinguals typically have marketable language skills and intercultural
knowledge. In an increasingly bilingual and multilingual world, with trade barriers falling,
with new international markets growing, and with economic competition rapidly
developing on a global scale, competence in languages is ever more important. The
nature of the New World economy is an ability to cross boundaries, and many bilinguals
and multilinguals are relatively skilled in such behaviour. In such a context, bilinguals
and multilinguals can act as brokers between different monolingual economic and
political zones.
Which languages are important for economic progress?
Which languages may be useful for economic advancement? In many countries of the
world, it is English as a second or foreign language that has visible economic value.
English is not enough. In a competitive world, exclusive reliance on English leaves its
monolingual speakers vulnerable and dependent on the linguistic competence and the
goodwill of multilingual others. Bilingualism and especially multilingualism is important,
and growingly important.
Thus a country’s main language(s) are important for selling. Willy Brandt, a former
Chancellor of the old Federal Republic of Germany once said: ‘If you wish to buy from
us, you can talk any language you like, for we shall try to understand you. If you want to
sell to us, then you must speak our language.’
Alongside the English language, the French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and
Spanish languages have historically been regarded as important trading languages.
However, in the future, this list of modern languages for marketing and trading purposes
is likely to grow significantly. For example, Arabic and Bahasa Melayu, Chinese
Mandarin and Cantonese, Swahili and Hausa, Portuguese and Russian, Bengali, Hindi
and Urdu may each become increasingly valuable. These are often the languages of
migrants into Europe. Their speakers are potentially valuable in trade across the world.
A workplace may thus need to take into account the language expectations of its target
markets, the language profile of its suppliers, and ensure that its workforce has the
multilingual skills to meet such expectations and preferences. Profitability may be
enhanced by such considerations, whether the business is goods or services, and
increasingly whether it is about the globalized knowledge economy. Such ‘language
expectations’ include many mother tongue languages across the world.
1
How do minority languages relate to the economy?
In suggesting that bilingualism and multilingualism can have economic advantages for
individuals and organizations, the languages highlighted so far have mostly been
majority languages. English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and Arabic, for
example, are relatively prestigious majority languages. What is the place of local
minority languages in the economy? Will bilinguals and multilinguals from language
minorities have no economic advantage, no valuable trading language in their minority
language, and no chance of getting out of the poverty trap that some bilinguals
experience?
Compared with a mainstream language majority, a marginalized language minority may
experience relatively high unemployment, low pay, poverty and powerlessness. Where
language minorities live in remote rural areas or in downtown inter-city areas, then often
there is relative material deprivation. Some migrant groups have historically fitted this
scenario.
The harsh reality for many of the world’s bilinguals is that their minority language has
little or no economic value. The pressure is on them to move into a majority language
area in e.g. Germany, Britain or Spain. Where there is some economic value associated
with a migrant language, it is frequently in sweatshops, factories, and fast food
restaurants and is not necessarily connected with wealth, affluence or influence.
In some European countries, a migrant language is supported by businesses where
factory workers, shop workers and managers work partly or mainly through their mother
tongue. On occasions, the migrant language is a trade language with another trading
country (e.g. Spanish, Urdu, Panjabi, Hindi), with profitability and local niche
economies.
Where and when there is some economic value associated with an indigenous minority
language, it has often been associated with non-sustainable developments in rural
areas. Such bilinguals may work in barely profitable industries in remote language
heartland areas. In Europe, for example, the move from regional and state economies
to a single European market policy (with interlocking business structures in different
European countries encouraging mobility in businesses across European countries),
may leave a distinction between core and periphery, between those in important urban
business areas and those in rural peripheries (e.g. rural areas and scattered
communities in Ireland, Wales and Scotland). Since many indigenous minority
languages in Europe are found in regions that are relatively sparsely populated,
economically underdeveloped, with poorer rural road and transport systems, there is a
danger that there will be inequality between core and periphery.
In the economic restructuring that has occurred in the last 60 years, increased
competition has led to the need for more efficiency to maintain profit. Industries and
services have frequently had to ‘automate, emigrate or evaporate’. Emigration of
industries has been to countries such as India, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil and Singapore,
where wages, and therefore production costs, are relatively low. Such outside
investment may sometimes offer work and wages to language minority members, but
may also have negative wealth (low pay) consequences for language minorities.
2
Another negative consequence is that economic investment may not reach a language
minority. For example, where such minorities live in rural areas, economic growth may
be in the urban ‘core’ rather than the rural periphery. Alternatively, the higher-grade jobs
may be in relatively affluent city areas, and the lower grade, poorly paid work in the
more remote areas.
A different scenario is when a peripheral area attracts inward investment (e.g. factories
are located in remoter areas). The tendency is for the local language minorities to
provide relatively cheap workers, while the better paid (language majority) managers
either operate from their far-away city headquarters or move into the periphery
language community. In both cases, the managers may have a negative effect on
language maintenance.
By working from city headquarters, there is a geographical separation of majority
language manager and minority language proletariat that represents a status, and a
social, cultural, economic and power division. Such a division has prestige
consequences for the majority and minority language. Each language is identified with
greater or lesser affluence, higher and lower status, more or less power.
By living in the language minority community, a manager who does not learn the local
language evokes a class distinction. The manager speaks the majority language; the
workers the minority language. One is a higher socioeconomic class; the other a lower
socioeconomic class. There is a social class division, and a separation or fracture within
the social class structure of the community. Social tensions may result that lead to
divisions along both social class and language dimensions. One solution is language
minority managers who are able to operate across social classes inside their language
group.
The absence of community-based businesses increases the risk of the outward
migration of more able, more skilled and more entrepreneurial people away from the
area, hence leaving the local language itself in peril. Also, a language community
without economic activity is in danger of starving the language of one essential support
mechanism. An economically wealthy language has a higher probability of being a
healthy language. An economically impoverished language is placed at great risk.
What does research say about bilinguals and multilinguals obtaining economic
gains?
There is very little research on the earnings of bilinguals and multilinguals compared
with monolinguals when other factors are kept equal. From the little research that
exists, (1) in Switzerland, according to a study directed by Professor François Grin, it is
estimated that foreign language skills contribute to 10% of the GDP. The fact that
people, organizations and businesses can communicate, work and do business in
three, four or five languages gives Switzerland a competitive advantage worth around
50 billion euros a year.
(2) a book on this area has recently been published (2014). Entitled ‘The Bilingual
Advantage: Language, Literacy and the US Labor Market’ and edited by Rebecca
3
Callahan & Patricia Gándara, It focuses on bilinguals, especially migrants, in the U.S.A.
labour market, and the complexity of advantages for particular groups.
(3) The case of Wales demonstrates a salary advantage for bilinguals in some
language minority areas. Two researchers at Aberystwyth University found that
bilinguals in Wales were earning 8% to 10% more salary specifically for their
bilingualism (http://repec.org/res2003/Henley.pdf). This earnings advantage is separate
from educational and occupational achievement. The advantage is also not explained
by ‘discrimination’ towards bilinguals. Rather the intrinsic ‘dual communication’
advantage of bilinguals is joined by their wider networks of contacts among both Welsh
and English language communities.
Conclusion: This is a complex topic, with much research badly needed. Historically,
antagonism towards migrants (particularly in times of economic recession) is typically
directed at newcomers who are blamed for taking away jobs from long-standing
citizens. Migrants are then blamed for economic and social ills in society. However,
migrants can have a stimulating effect on the economy by (a) opening many new
businesses, and (b) keeping businesses from relocating outside the country by
providing inexpensive labour, which (c) keeps down the costs of goods and services.
However, if there is a growth of ethnic businesses (e.g. in urban areas), and a
development of language minority businesses in peripheral, rural areas, then
bilingualism rather than monolingualism can become more economically valuable.
Further Information:
http://www.goethe.de/ges/spa/prj/sog/fst/en4094907.htm
http://www.officiallanguages.nb.ca/newsroom/press-releases/two-languages-its-good-business
4
E2. Are two or more languages more useful in employment than one?
Forecasting the future is dangerous. The future of bilingualism and multilingualism is
unpredictable. Over history, languages have grown and spread, withered and died. As
wars and migration, trading and travel, the spread of religions and scars of poverty have
changed economies and cultures, languages and language minorities have been
affected.
Current economic, political, technological, religious, social and cultural change is swift
(e.g. globalization, migration), affecting the world’s languages. The flow of people (e.g.
tourism, migration, and refugees), the flow of money and technology, the flow of
information and images, and the flow of ideas and ideologies are all more rapid than
hitherto. Minority languages, language minorities, bilingualism and multilingualism will
be affected by each and all these changes. It may lead to the increase of bilinguals and
multilinguals around the world. Yet minority languages are often threatened species.
Forecasting the fate of languages, including in combinations, among bilinguals and
multilinguals is unsafe yet important if we are to be vigilant about the people who speak
these languages, and not least those who migrate across boundaries and borders.
The ownership of two or more languages is increasingly seen as an asset as the
‘communication world’ gets smaller. Globalization seems to increase the demand for
multilinguals. As immediate communication by phone and computer across the world
has become a reality, and as air travel has brought peoples and countries closer
together, so the importance of those who can operate in two or more languages has
been highlighted. As the amount of information available has dramatically increased,
and the ease of delivering information round the world has quickened, many (but not all)
bilinguals, have become more important in the employment market, depending on the
commodity value of their languages.
In tourism, marketing, call centres, retailing, airlines, public relations, banking,
performing arts, media, information and communications technology, accountancy,
business consultancy, secretarial work, hotels, law and teaching, for example, bilingual
and multilingual employees often have the competitive edge when applying for a post
and for promotion. At the least, a bilingual and multilingual has ‘value added’ by offering
language abilities in employment. Where there is a customer interface, then interacting
in the language of the customer is good for business. In the growing prevalence of
screen-based and information-based labour, bilinguals and multilinguals are often very
marketable and seen as more multi-skilled.
However, there is a marked contrast between bilingual professions that carry a high
prestige, and professions where bilinguals are in jobs that symbolize the lower status of
many language minority bilinguals. This particularly occurs among recent and longerterm migrants. In this latter case, migrants may speak two or more languages, yet be in
low paid jobs, and be marginalized in their employment prospects and chances of
sharing wealth. Thus bilingualism and multilingualism may be directly valuable for some
professions, but can also be indirectly associated with poverty and marginalisation as
with some migrant groups.
1
What types of employment need bilinguals and multilinguals?
An example of professions that need bilinguals and multilinguals is the tourism and
travel business. International flight attendants, instructors on ski slopes in mainland
Europe, and those who cater for sun seekers in the Mediterranean, all prosper when
they are bilingual or multilingual. To communicate with clients, to inform those being
instructed, to satisfy those seeking rest and excitement, the use of two or more
languages enhances job performance.
For bilinguals and multilinguals who are skilled in two or more languages, being an
interpreter or translator is often a prestigious post. When politicians meet (e.g.
European Commission, NATO, United Nations, on foreign visits) interpreters form the
essential bridge, provide a smooth connection and maintain communication.
Interpreting can also exist in a local language minority region. In the highlands and
islands of Scotland, translating facilities are available for those English-only speakers
who need a translation when local government officials or elected community
representatives are speaking Gaelic. Translating also can exist as a large-scale
enterprise (e.g. in the European Union) where many documents have to be translated
into official languages. Translation may also occur in language minority communities
where, for example, a sacred book or a key legal document may be translated to or
from the minority language.
Another example of a relatively prestigious bilingual profession is that of gov
ernment officials. When enquiries are made about education, health, social benefit or
local taxes, it is often necessary to have people who can use the language(s) of the
local people. In many language minority contexts, bilinguals and multilinguals in
government may have to deal with superiors and paper work in the majority language,
but deal orally or in writing in the minority language with some or many of the local
population.
In the caring professions (e.g. counsellors, therapists, psychologists, doctors, nurses,
religious leaders), one job performance factor is the bilingual or multilingual ability of
such professionals. Take, for example, the midwife. The midwife is present at that very
special moment of a mother’s experience. Communication with the midwife is not only
important, it is also very emotional and precious. Can the midwife assist in the moment
of pain and joy in the preferred language of the mother? If not, the mother will need to
switch to using her second language, or may not be able to communicate with the
midwife at all.
When people visit a psychiatrist or counsellor, it may be important for them to discuss
and reveal the innermost depths of their being in the language of their choice. To switch
to a second or third language because the professional is monolingual may be
unsatisfactory for both the client and the professional. In a religious service, it can be
important for a religious leader to conduct prayers or a funeral service in the language
of the people. People may find praying in a second or third language unnatural, even
awkward.
2
There are times when the more prestigious professional (e.g. the consultant surgeon)
only speaks the majority language, while the relatively less prestigious professional
(e.g. the nurse on the hospital ward) is bilingual. This raises the occasional dilemma
about whether it is more important to hire a monolingual who is more skilled at a
profession, or a bilingual who is less skilled. (There will be many cases when bilinguals
are as skilled as, or more skilled than the monolingual applicant for a post.)
Yet there is a paradox with languages and employment. Bilingualism and
multilingualism may be associated with unemployment and poverty. In some minority
language situations, those who are bilingual may be unemployed or in lower status
jobs. In some migrant situations in Europe, migrants may not have the majority
language skills for the most prestigious positions, or are simply lower graded in the
employment market because they are migrants.
Sometimes, the more prestigious jobs are sometimes filled by monolinguals and less
prestigious posts by bilinguals. The managers may be majority language speakers with
high status, while the lowly-paid workers are from the local language minority. This may
send a signal. Monolingualism symbolically connects with higher status employment,
and bilingualism with lower status employment. This sometimes links with a possible
vicious cycle of poverty, powerlessness, low expectations and lower motivation leading
to under-achievement at school, with unemployment and lower status jobs becoming
part of this cycle.
Another example is found in some more prestigious schools in urban areas of Europe.
The teachers and principals speak the dominant, majority language of the region. In
contrast, the cooks, cleaners, secretaries and teacher assistants in the school may
speak a minority or migrant language. For students in the school, such a differentiation
between bilinguals in the roles they play may send out messages to the students and
parents. There is a hidden agenda in employment patterns within the school. The
students may acquire the idea subconsciously that bilingual majority language speakers
are prestigious, relatively well paid and in relatively secure jobs. Those who speak a
minority language at home and can just about cope in the majority language tend to be
allocated the lower class, more unskilled and humble jobs.
Conclusion
This discussion of bilingual professions has revealed the dual nature of the link between
bilingualism and employment. In the first case, there are those who can use their
bilingualism or multilingualism as an advantage: to sell, to satisfy clients’ needs, to
succeed in providing a service. Bilingualism and multilingualism has an economic
potential; it is an asset used by an individual for advancement. Bilingualism and
especially multilingualism can become a marketable ability to bridge languages and
cultures, securing trade and delivery of services. In the second case, there are those
people, for example some migrants, whose bilingual nature tends to mark them for
lower status, more marginalized and precarious employment. Such bilinguals may be
allocated the poorest paid jobs in schools and shops. Bilingualism is then attached to
low status jobs that symbolize the least powerful, the least affluent and the least
prestigious sections in a society.
3
Further Information:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/multimedia/video/francophoneadvantages/francophone-advantages.asp
http://repec.org/res2003/Henley.pdf
4
E3. Does modern technology help bilingualism and multilingualism?
On buses and trains, in lecture theatres and playgrounds, shopping malls and busy
streets, technology is everywhere and growing. Mobile phones, tablets, computers, and
many other electronic devices are ever present. Some are texting or downloading from
the internet. Others are on email, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogs and many other
forms of social networking via technology. Some are using GPS, MiFi, electronic
watches. Communication for the hearing and Deaf people, for old and young, students
and staff, has increasingly become electronic. This is the IT epoch and revolution.
What languages are used with such hardware and software, for example, for
electronic social networking?
Does such a rapid change lead to extra functions, status and use of majority languages
such as English and German? Does the value and use of minority language mother
tongues suffer? Has minority language use been valuably extended to electronic
communication? Is multilingualism central or peripheral on the internet?
With the rapid spread of technology and networked information has gone the rapid
spread of English. The inherent danger is that minority languages, cultural diversity and
therefore bilingualism come under threat. The information that transfers across the
internet tends often to be in English. Over 350 million people in the world are estimated
to access the internet in English. However, times are changing, with multilingualism
becoming slowly more visible as WWW sites try to attract non-speakers of English.
Arabic, Chinese and Spanish show recent increases in internet use, with an increasing
numbers of sites incorporating more than two or three languages in different ways.
Other mother tongues may seem in comparison to be part of heritage and history, and
may fail to attain the status and prestige of modern, high-prestige and high-profile
international languages used by information technology except in social networking.
The danger lies in the identification of advanced technological society with the English
language, and consequently minority languages being identified with home and history,
ritual and religion. The danger is of a tiered information society: those who have the
linguistic abilities to access information; and those who cannot access new forms of
communication and information as they do not own a language used in the information
society.
Bilingual Education. Yet it is possible to harness technology to aid bilingual and
multilingual education. For example, software can be displayed in, or translated into the
mother tongue. Email and information exchange can be in that mother tongue. As more
businesses begin to advertise using websites, regional networks have developed using
local languages on the internet. As schools, colleges, universities, local government,
libraries, record offices and local information agencies go online, their local pages are
sometimes bilingual, even multilingual.
Terminology. It is necessary to extend mother tongue vocabulary to embrace
technological and computer terms in languages other than English. Such modernization
aids the symbolic status of a language, particularly among the impressionable young.
1
Such a modernization of a language also attempts to move that language into modern
domains, and ensure that information technology is a supporter and not a destroyer of
bilingualism and multilingualism in children.
Employment. It is also possible to harness technology to aid minority language
employment. The increasing speed of connections to the internet makes residence in
language minority rural areas more possible through improved speed and access in
communications, and employment that allows people to work at home, using highspeed computer links to receive and deliver services and products.
Social networking. The internet provides new possibilities for social networking
among bilinguals: conversations across countries and continents, communities and
constituencies, connecting to other speakers of the heritage language. This includes
Deaf people who can use new technologies to join Deaf communities across the world
and not just in the locality. The rise of text messaging and VOIP (Voice over Internet
Protocol such as Skype) makes communication in any language possible across a few
fields or vast oceans.
Language Experience. When students use communication technology, bilingual
proficiency can be enhanced. Through the internet, for example, authentic language
practice is possible via purposeful and genuine activities (e.g. the use of social
networking sites). There may be increased motivation to acquire a language via contact
with real students in other countries and accessing authentic language sources to
complete curriculum activity (e.g. a project on another country). By its interactive nature,
the internet brings people speaking different languages into closer contact. By
exchanging information with students in other countries, students can build increasing
independence in language use, vary their language according to audience, and use
language for real purposes.
Facebooking, email, twittering, blogging, chat rooms and messaging are wellestablished internet activities for language students, using both text and video, giving
the feeling of the global village where barriers to communication (such as cost and the
time of travel) are removed. There are increasing numbers of language servers on the
internet accessible via ‘sensitive maps’ of sites in each country. They provide useful,
relevant and topical information that is in a different language.
Technology also holds the promise of conversations between speakers of different
tongues, minority and majority. The joining of speech recognition (turning spoken words
into text), a machine translator (converting text to other languages) and a speech
synthesizer that turns translated text back into audible words in the language of the
listener’s choosing is not far away. This will enable conversations in two (or more)
languages, and help protect minority language use and users.
Further Information:
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/infoethics_2/eng/papers/paper_5.htm
2
E4. Is the mass media important in bilingualism and multilingualism?
Radio and television, newspapers and magazines have become important vehicles of
mass communication, in the form of news, information and entertainment. Each and all
affect languages in terms of language use and language status, affecting communication
across individuals, communities and countries.
Television. The majority of households in Western countries possess at least one
television set, and to own a television is the ambition of many families in less
economically advanced countries. Television (especially satellite television) has
contributed to the creation of the global village – to the worldwide diffusion of important
and immediate news, sport and culture. Television enables viewers to cross cultures. The
development of satellite and cable technology has facilitated the transmission of
programs worldwide. Television can contribute to inter-culturalism, and to an empathy
and insight into other cultures, languages and lifestyles.
However, there is another side to television. The largest television industry in the world is
in North America. It provides a mass of programs, mainly light entertainment and news.
These programs transmit Anglo-American culture to other parts of the world. AngloAmerican news broadcasts, music, cultural practices and lifestyles may be seen as
prestigious and important, and, by implication, the indigenous cultures of other countries
may seem outmoded and backward.
The English Language. The English language is also diffused throughout the world by
such mass media. The use of subtitling (cheaper than dubbing) means that the English
language is experienced by audiences in many worldwide countries. Since the advent of
satellite television, even more viewers have access to English language programs.
The widespread mass media diffusion of the English language has had some beneficial
effects. It has contributed to the development of bilingualism and multilingualism. It has
provided a means for speakers of other languages to develop competence in English as
a useful language of international communication. In Scandinavian countries for instance,
many English language films and other programs have traditionally been broadcast with
subtitles. Motivation to learn English is usually high in Scandinavian countries, and
television is one aid to competence in English. This is an additive bilingual situation,
where the second language does not displace the first.
Minority Languages. Minority language groups tend to be concerned about the
potentially harmful effect on speakers of their language, especially teenagers and
younger children, of the daily diet of majority language and culture. They are concerned
that it further weakens the prestige and status of their own language and culture, further
widening the gap between English (or another majority language) as the language of
power, prestige, modern technology, fashion and entertainment and their own language,
as an old-fashioned, outdated and backward language of yesterday. There is also
concern that watching majority language television may affect children’s acquisition of
their native language, and hasten language shift to the majority language.
During recent decades, there has been a concerted effort by many minority language
groups to gain access to radio and particularly television. Minority language activists
1
have seen minority language radio and television as vitally important to the maintenance
of their language for the following reasons:
•
Minority language media add to the prestige and status of a language in the eyes
of its speakers.
•
Minority language media can add to a sense of unity and identity among its
speakers.
•
Minority language media help to keep minority language speakers, especially
children and young people, from being overwhelmed by the influence of majority
language and culture. They acquaint them with their own heritage and culture
and give them pride in it.
•
Minority language media can help disseminate a standard form of the language
and also promote new and technical vocabulary. Mass media can help the
standardization of a minority language across a variety of registers.
•
Minority language media can help the fluency of minority language speakers and
can also help learners acquire the language.
•
Minority language media create well-paid, high prestige jobs for minority
language speakers. The radio and television industry can help boost the
economy of minority language regions.
There are benefits in having minority language media in the prestige, maintenance and
promotion of minority languages, cultures and economies. Galician television contributed
greatly to the increase in social prestige of the language. In Catalonia, the Catalan
television channels are now watched by up to 40% of the population. In Wales, the
establishment of a Welsh language television channel in 1982 led to the creation of many
independent television companies in Wales, which have boosted the economy of the
country. The same has occurred in Scotland with the Gaelic language. Such minority
language television is regarded as important in standardizing the language in a wide
range of registers across a region or country. Welsh language television has also been
viewed as a major force in the creation and maintenance of a sense of identity and unity
among Welsh speakers.
Further Information:
europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-07-567_en.pdf
2
E5. What is the relationship between religion and bilingualism?
Bilinguals and multilinguals sometimes use one of their languages for religious purposes.
They may only use that one language for religion and not in other contexts. Migrants
often bring with them religious memberships and an associated language. That sacred
language can be crucial to their well-being, such that bilingualism and multilingualism are
highly important to them. The following discussions about various religions and their
languages will reveal the important connection for many individuals between their religion
and their languages.
Religions such as Islam and Judaism have a sacred, historic language. Thus in Islam,
the use of Arabic is sacred in praying and reading the Qur'an. It is important for Muslims
to read the Qur'an in the original Arabic so that the original teachings do not become
distorted by translation. Similarly, holy writings in Judaism and Hinduism stress that the
language of the original text is sacred in itself. In contrast Buddhism and Christianity
have often promoted the vernacular (as in the many translations of the Christian Bible).
In Judaism, Hebrew has traditionally been the sacred language of liturgy in the
synagogue and praying. However, in both Islam and Judaism, there are exceptions to
the prominence of Arabic and Hebrew as religious languages. For example, the Qur'an
is available in English so that new converts and potential converts in English-speaking
countries can be aware of the wisdom of the Qur'an. The Qur’an is often used in
mosques with a translation into the vernacular language (e.g. Gujarati, Pashto, Urdu), so
that worshipers can follow the text. In Reformed Jewish synagogues, the vernacular
language has often been promoted for public worship. Public readings of the scriptures
continue to be carried out in Hebrew but with translations often accompanying or
following that reading.
While the language of the mosque and the synagogue may be the sacred language,
many people who attend may use a different language outside of their religion. Many of
those who use Hebrew in the synagogue speak another language outside. Similarly,
many Muslims use Arabic inside the mosque and speak one or more languages outside.
In Arabic-speaking Muslim countries, the classical Arabic of the mosque is different from
the colloquial Arabic of daily life, and Modern Standard Arabic used in education, written
communication and the mass media. For many such bilinguals, this is an example of
relatively stable bilingualism (diglossia) where the boundaries between the religious
language and other language domains are kept stable and separate. Hence, the status
and function of those languages is maintained. Such language compartmentalization
(i.e. not allowing any other language than Hebrew inside a synagogue or Arabic inside a
mosque) maintains the status and function of the sacred language, and provides some
unity and continuity in religion.
For some of those who use Hebrew in the synagogue and for some of those who use
Arabic in the mosque, their understanding of those languages may be limited to religious
domains. Such worshipers will not understand Hebrew or Arabic outside the confines of
religious observance. Thus their bilingualism may be limited.
In previous centuries, the language of religion was often the language of everyday
existence. The Hebrew of the synagogue and the Arabic of the Mosque was little
different from the language of daily communication. Over time, the language of religion
tended to stay much the same, while daily languages shifted. For example, the Roman
1
Catholic Church retained Latin as its language of worship until the 20th century even
though Latin has not been a language of everyday communication for over a thousand
years, and has not been used in official life in Europe for several centuries.
Hinduism also has a sacred language. For Hindus, their scriptures are written in
Sanskrit. The main body of classical Sanskrit literature consists of the Vedas, sacred
Hindu writings from about 1400 to 1200 BC; the commentaries on the Vedas in the
‘Brahmanas’, the ‘Aranyakas’, and the ‘Upanishads’ (1000 to 500 BC); the epic and
wisdom literature (400 BC to AD 1000); and poetry in a style called kavya (AD 200 to
1200). Vedic Sanskrit, the language used in the Vedas, is the earliest form of Sanskrit.
A later variety of the language, classical Sanskrit (from about 500 BC), was a language of
many literary texts. It is still studied in India and functions as a sacred and learned
language. However, very few families use Sanskrit as a first language.
In Hinduism, Sanskrit is the language of ritualistic chants, litanies and mantras (prayers,
words of power). For example, Hindus may start their ritual prayers at home in front of
the altar by saying prescribed Sanskrit prayers alongside ritualistic observances (e.g.
offering flowers to a specific deity at the altar). Near the end of this time of worship,
Hindus may speak to God in their preferred language (e.g. Tamil, Bengali, Hindi and
Malayalam). Hindus also have conversations with God (prayers) away from the temple
or home altar (e.g. in a car). This will tend to be in the home language, except when
repeating mantras or the name of the deity. Thus, formal and historic elements of prayer
are often in Sanskrit; informal prayer may be in the home language.
In the Hindu temple, there is often a similar separation in use of languages. A priest and
his helpers will clean the inner sanctum and statues of the temple. While doing this, they
may talk to each other in the local language as will onlookers. When the service (pooja)
begins, the priest will switch to Sanskrit to chant the prayers. Sanskrit will also be used
for prayers (archanei) requested by individuals. Once the rituals are complete, the priest
will converse with devotees in the local language(s).
Other religions also have important language traditions with their followers being bilingual
or multilingual. For example, the Ethiopian church uses Ge’ez for religious purposes.
Ge’ez is an archaic form of the modern official language of Ethiopia, Amharic. In
contrast, the Quakers have valued the inner language of silence, as do some
meditational forms in Buddhism.
Buddhist sacred literature comprises a vast body of texts that were transmitted both orally
and in written form and have been preserved principally in four languages: Pali, Sanskrit,
Chinese, and Tibetan. Pali, the language of the Buddhist canonical writings, is the oldest
literary Prakrit. It remains in liturgical use in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. The sacred
teachings of Sikhism are recorded in Panjabi in the Gurmukhi script.
Zoroastrianism, an ancient monotheistic religion, has religious texts known as Avesta
which were originally documented in a form of ancient Persian. After the Parsis
(descendants of the original Zoroastrians) fled from Iran in the 10th century and settled in
India, the Avesta were translated into Sanskrit and parts are still extant. Thus, in present
Zoroastrianism, the language of prayers, hymns and texts is Sanskrit. However, such
Sanskrit is memorized and not often understood. The language of conversation for the
many Zoroastrians living around Mumbai is Gujarati.
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The use of a sacred language creates a boundary between the sacred and the secular.
The language of religion sets apart the pious and the worldly. A separate language for
religion may also help produce a holy, other-worldly atmosphere. Use of a sacred
language and not the language of the street and screen may make religious liturgy and
ceremony all the more evocative and ethereal. Yet at the same time, that sacred
language may not be readily understandable, except through special classes for children
and adults.
A similar contrast was witnessed in the Roman Catholic Church in the latter part of the
20th century. With Latin traditionally the exalted liturgical language, there was a general
substitution of Latin by vernacular languages in public worship. What is lost in mystery,
history and other worldliness may be gained by the homeliness, meaningfulness and
modernity of the vernacular language.
Missionary Work and Bilingualism
Christian missionaries and evangelists throughout the centuries have emphasized the
importance of preaching to people in a language they can understand. This has often
involved the missionaries learning local languages, and communicating religious truths
and basic literacy and other skills to indigenous peoples in their own native tongue.
Nineteenth century missionaries in New Zealand, for instance, established schools for
Maori people where the instruction was mainly in Maori. In many situations, missionaries
have translated religious texts into a vernacular literacy, so that the indigenous language
was maintained.
However, just as often missionary work in the colonial period meant the transmission of a
colonizing language (e.g. English, French, Spanish), along with religion. Such
missionaries shared the imperialist ideals of other colonizers. They viewed their own
language as the language of a superior civilization, as opposed to the ‘inferior’, ‘primitive’
language and culture of the natives. They taught children of the local population the
majority language and cultural practices as a means of not only converting them to a
religion but also of civilizing them. In these situations, religion created bilingualism or
increased multilingualism, but also reinforced the inequalities of power and status
between the natives and the colonizers.
In the post-colonial era, missionary activity has tended to make use of indigenous
languages and cultural practices. It has become standard for missionaries to learn the
language of an area either before leaving their home country or as soon as possible after
arriving in foreign lands. Part of missionary activity in the 20th century was to translate
the Bible into as many languages and dialects of the world as possible. Some Protestant
sects, in hymns and sermons, deliberately use modern, colloquial language, partly to
appeal to those preferring a less detached and more contemporary and relevant style of
worship.
Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox churches have often retained a traditional service
couched in an historic liturgical language. Yet, when wishing to convert others to their
religion, they will switch to the vernacular. One example is St. Stefan of Perm, a 14th
century Russian Orthodox bishop, and a native speaker of the Komi language. Instead
of using Russian with the Komi people, he made extensive use of their language in his
missionary activity. He preached in Komi, translated the Russian Orthodox liturgy into
Komi, used Komi in church worship, and was so successful that the majority of the Komi
were baptized into the Russian Orthodox faith.
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Religion and the Maintenance of Minority Languages and Ethnic Identities
Religious practice can help maintain a separate ethnic or group identity, partly through
use of the vernacular language. In Wales, for example, the translation of the Christian
Bible into Welsh in 1588 by Bishop William Morgan is said to have saved the Welsh
language, which was thus preserved as the language of chapel and church, of prayers
and Bible readings in the home. To read the Bible, children and adults needed to
become literate in Welsh, adding status and function to the language. Later, in the 18th
and 19th centuries, Welsh language nonconformist denominations became an important
symbol of Welsh ethnic identity, and a boundary from the colonializing English. A further
illustration of religion maintaining a separate ethnic identity includes 19th and early 20th
century Brittany, where loyalty to Roman Catholicism maintained Breton identity in the
face of French secularism.
Another example of religion maintaining ethnic identity is the existence of Saturday
schools (and schools maintained and run by ethnic minorities) where Jewish or Muslim
minorities, for example, teach their children to read and write Hebrew or Arabic, and to
study religious texts. Muslims living in non-Muslim countries, for example, often set up
extra schooling (and Muslim schools) to teach children Arabic, the Qur'an and Islamic
beliefs. Such schooling helps preserve religious continuity and the language of religion
and also maintains ethnic identity.
In many historical situations, when a shift towards the majority language initially began,
the church provided an institution where the minority language was used and respected.
However, over time, as younger people tended to lose fluency in the minority language
and became unable to understand sermons in it, the church made increasing use of the
majority language. Eventually, the minority language was used seldom or not at all. But
when a language is kept across generations for religious purposes, it tends to give that
language status and a strong future.
Further Information:
https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/mdm.1/main
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