MULTILINGUALISM Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community

of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Thanks to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is getting more and more frequent, and triggering therefore the need to acquire more and more languages. A multilingual person, in a broad definition, is one who can communicate in more than one language, be it actively (through speaking, writing, or signing) or passively (through listening, reading, or perceiving). More specifically, the terms bilingual and trilingual are used to describe comparable situations in which two or three languages are involved. A multilingual person is generally referred to as a polyglot. Poly (Greek: ) means "many", glot (Greek: ) means "language". Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two languages in this way are called simultaneous bilinguals. Even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals one language usually dominates over the other. A further possibility is that a child may become naturally trilingual by having a mother and father with separate languages being brought up in a third language environment. An example of this may be an English-speaking father married to a Mandarin Chinese speaking mother with the family living in Hong Kong, where the community language (and primary language of education) is Cantonese. If the child goes to a Cantonese medium school from a young age, then trilingualism will result. In linguistics, first language acquisition is closely related to the concept of a "native speaker". According to a view widely held by linguists, a native speaker of a given language has in some respects a level of skill which a second (or subsequent) language learner can hardly reliably accomplish. Consequently, descriptive empirical studies of languages are usually carried out using only native speakers as informants. This view is, however, slightly problematic, particularly as many non-native speakers demonstrably not only successfully engage with and in their non-native language societies, but in fact may become culturally and even linguistically important contributors (as, for example, writers, politicians and performing artists) in their nonnative language. In recent years, linguistic research has focused attention on the use of widely known world languages such as English as lingua franca, or the shared common language of

professional and commercial communities. In lingua franca situations, most speakers of the common language are functionally multilingual. Definition of multilingualism One group of academics argues for the maximal definition which means speakers are as proficient in one language as they are in others and have as much knowledge of and control over one language as they have of the others. Another group of academics argues for the minimal definition, based on use. Tourists who successfully communicate phrases and ideas while not fluent in a language may be seen as bilingual according to this group. However, problems may arise with these definitions as they do not specify how much knowledge of a language is required for a person to be classified as bilingual. As a result, since most speakers do not achieve the maximal ideal, language learners may come to be seen as deficient and by extension, language teaching may come to be seen as a failure. Since 1992, Vivian Cook has argued that most multilingual speakers fall somewhere between minimal and maximal definitions. Cook calls these people multi-competent. 1 Language as a Code any kind of system that two or more people use for communication factors that govern the choice of a particular code on a particular occasion very few single-code speakers 2 Diglossia two distinct codes which show clear functional separation high (H) variety (prestigious) and low (L) variety (lacks prestige), each has its own functions and is viewed differently (beautiful, logical, etc.) Each variety is used in a different set of circumstances All children learn L variety, H variety may be learned (taught) later L tends to borrow words from H, maybe resulting in pairs of words, doublets Development 1 large body of literature in a language related to the language of the community 2 literacy is limited Arabic regional varieties (L) and Standard Arabic (H)

respect for H, Quran difficult to chose one regional variety as the standard variety

3 Bilingualism and Multilingualism different views toward bi/multilingualism not the same abilities in all the languages, differences in competence Sridhar (1996): Multilinguals develop competence in each of the codes to the extent that they need it and for the contexts in which each of the languages is used bilingual - bidialectal Examples Tukano of the northwest Amazon, on the border between Colombia and Brazil (instrumental and pragmatic knowledge) Paraguay: Spanish (H) and Guarani -an American Indian Language (L): location, formality, gender, status, intimacy, seriousness, and type of activity Diffusion syntactic features become more similar vocabulary distinguishes the groups e.g. Kupwar, India: Marathi, Urdo, Kannada, and Telugu 4 Code-Switching Gal (1988): codeswitching is a conversational strategy used to establish, cross or destroy group boundaries; to create, evoke or change interpersonal relations with their rights and obligations Singapore: English (trade language), Mandarin (international Chinese language) , Tamil (important ethnic group), and Malay (language of the region); majority also speak Hokkien Causes of Switching solidarity with the listener choice of topic social and cultural distance motivation does not need to be conscious Types of Code-Switching 1 situational code-switching (change of situation), unconscious, reduce differences, socially prescribed metaphorical code-switching (change of topic) affective, formal to informal, serious to humorous, politeness to solidarity e.g. Barcelona, Catalans: Catalan with each other, Castilian with others code-mixing (both languages together, within a single utterance, no topic change)

Code-Mixing solidarity marker switch to single language when speaking to a monolingual speaker often criticized, but it is actually a sophisticated knowledge of langauge and social norms Why Code-Switch? Myers-Scotton (1993): speakers have marked and unmarked choices varying by situations marked-unmarked distinction is independent of H-L distinctions, but it is dependent on the situation solidarity, how you want to appear to others