Multilingual Language Use Research Articles

Language choices reflecting social changes: multilingualism in the popular music of Guinean jelis

ABSTRACT This paper explores multilingual popular music in the Republic of Guinea (West Africa) by focussing on hereditary musicians of Manding origin, known as jelis or griots. I demonstrate how jeli songs developed in the course of recent Guinean history as divided into three periods: the Colonial period (1898–1958), the Decolonial Socialist Regime of Sekou Touré (1958–1984), and the Liberalisation period (1984 – present). While the Colonial period featured the dominance of European music and languages in the public domain, the jeli music and Maninka language appeared at the forefront of Guinean popular music stage in the radically decolonising Socialist regime of Sekou Touré. The Liberalisation period saw a growing capitalist economy and the rise of Susu urban music. In this more competitive context, the jeli songs have become truly multilingual, featuring other local Guinean languages, mainly Susu and Pular, which now appear as mixed registers, or urban vernaculars, influenced by French through code-mixing and borrowings. The transitions between local languages, however, are constrained by the song structure, first, reflecting the actual patterns of multilingual language use in Guinea, but also potentially signalling more discreet identities of the musicians reinforced via using Maninka jeli family names as professional ‘brands’.

A Comparison of White Matter Brain Differences in Monolingual and Highly Proficient Multilingual Speakers.

Language processing relies on the communication between brain regions that is achieved through several white matter tracts, part of the dorsal, ventral, and medial pathways involved in language processing and control (Coggins et al., 2004; Friederici & Gierhan, 2013; Hickok & Poeppel, 2007; Luk et al., 2011). While changes in white matter tract morphology have been reported as a function of second language learning in bilinguals, little is known about changes that may be present in multilanguage users. Here we investigate white matter morphometry in a group of highly proficient multilinguals, (individuals with proficiency in four or more languages), compared to a group of monolinguals. White matter morphometry was quantified using a fixel-based analysis (Raffelt et al., 2015; Raffelt et al., 2017; Tournier et al., 2007). Higher fiber cross-section and lower fiber density values were observed for the multilinguals, in the dorsal pathways (superior longitudinal fasciculus and arcuate fasciculus) and the ventral pathway, including the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and the uncinate fasciculus. Segments of the corpus callosum, the fornix, and the cortico-spinal tract showed decreases in all three morphometry measures for multilinguals. The findings suggest differential efficiencies in neural communication between domain-specific language regions and domain-general cognitive processes underlying multilingual language use. We discuss the results in relation to the bilingual Anterior to Posterior and Subcortical Shift (BAPSS) hypothesis (Grundy et al., 2017) and the Dynamic Restructuring Model (Pliatsikas, 2020).

Degree of multilingual engagement modulates resting state oscillatory activity across the lifespan

Multilingualism has been demonstrated to lead to a more favorable trajectory of neurocognitive aging, yet our understanding of its effect on neurocognition across the lifespan remains limited. We collected resting state EEG recordings from a sample of multilingual individuals across a wide age range. Additionally, we obtained data on participant multilingual language use patterns alongside other known lifestyle enrichment factors. Language experience was operationalized via a modified multilingual diversity (MLD) score. Generalized additive modeling was employed to examine the effects and interactions of age and MLD on resting state oscillatory power and coherence. The data suggest an independent modulatory effect of individualized multilingual engagement on age-related differences in whole brain resting state power across alpha and theta bands, and an interaction between age and MLD on resting state coherence in alpha, theta, and low beta. These results provide evidence of multilingual engagement as an independent correlational factor related to differences in resting state EEG power, consistent with the claim that multilingualism can serve as a protective factor in neurocognitive aging.

More than a few words?

Research shows that multilingual pupils’ school achievements and socio-affective development may improve when their home languages are valued positively and used as educational resources. Meaningful shifts in education for social justice must therefore be based on valuing pupils’ home languages and implementing sustainable translanguaging methods. However, the implementation of these methods is often limited to symbolic interactional acts and superficial engagement with multilingual practices. Based on longitudinal case studies of three teachers in the north of the Netherlands, the current study investigates what changes occur in the function of translanguaging strategies in primary classrooms participating in an educational design research intervention, to what extent interaction and multilingual language use evolves, and the presence of dialogic empathy. Using Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-Squared and Fisher’s Exact analyses, we examined the frequency and quality of translanguaging interactions at three measurement points. An in-depth analysis of recorded video-data of several lessons per teacher (N = 123:06 minutes) revealed how opportunities for dialogic interaction arose with symbolic translanguaging. Although these opportunities were not always seized, they provided possibilities for active pupil participation.

Toward humanizing SFL praxis: Coconstructing language teachers' understandings of their intersectional identities via language use

AbstractContextualized within our Projects in Humanization in language teacher education and part of our on‐going collaborative self‐study of our language teacher educator practices, we used multiple case study to examine multimodal representations of cultural and linguistic identities curated by three language teachers—Daniel, Yuseva, and Sarah—and humanizing dialog to engage them in reflection on those identities. The central task, the Language Use Profile—part of the foundations course in our language teacher education programs—guided language teachers in developing their understandings of their bi‐/multilingual language use, language ideologies, and systemic functional linguistics (SFL). In all three cases, examination of language use served as a window for the language teachers to observe their intersectionality or, in some cases, to become aware of it. Each language teacher took up the assignment in different ways, with the task as the context for reflection on language use and identities journeys such as translanguaging to survive, negotiating my identity and being a white woman who learned Spanish. SFL metalanguage served as a tool for the language teachers to make sense of their multidimensional language use. Our findings point to the potential of the Language Use Profile as a means for guiding language teachers in the identity work that is central in humanizing language teacher education.

Constructing identity through code choice and code-switching

Abstract With the presence of Catalan, Spanish, and a variety of migrant languages, multilingualism in Catalonia extends across the region and is a regular practice for native-born and migrant residents alike. This study examines language use and its relationship to identity construction among first and second-generation Muslim women immigrants in Barcelona. Data was collected from 34 female informants in Barcelona, all of whom identified as first or second-generation Muslim. Data consisted of questionnaires and interviews which were designed to learn about the informants’ linguistic background as well as the extent to which they used Spanish, Catalan and their native/heritage language(s). As a further case study, specific instances of code-switching among the South Asian Urdu-speaking informants were examined. Results point to a generational divide in terms of domains of use. However, informants demonstrated a greater tendency towards multilingual language use rather than restricting themselves to single language use in specific domains, a reflection of informants’ self-reported code-switching practices, which were found to be a widely accepted communicative tool that serves an array of socio-pragmatic functions.

Multilingualism among children, age 7–12, typological representation and language use pattern in a medium-sized town in Norway

ABSTRACT This article examines multilingual language use in two groups of children, one group at a state school, and one at a private IB school. The IB school has earlier been assumed to reflect an ‘elite’ multilingualism. Three research questions are posed: to what extent is the children’s language use multilingual, what are their typological profiles, and are there any differences between the two groups in the language use patterns. The agency of the speaker is captured by self-reporting questionnaires. We use a method of circles in which the participant fills in the names and domains of the languages in use. The answers are registered according to three main dimensions: family, social interaction and media use. The study is exploratory and descriptive, and the results demonstrate that a large majority of the children at both schools used more than one language. The study is innovative in combining a sociolinguistic approach with language typology. Our results shed light on children’s dynamic and flexible language use, using languages from all of the world’s language families. We found similarities in the multilingualism of the two groups, and there was little to indicate that the IB pupils could be characterised as having an ‘elite’ multilingualism.

A mixed-methods approach to analysing interdependencies and predictors of pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism

ABSTRACT This paper presents findings from a pre–post study on pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and language use. A full cohort of pre-service middle school teachers in Germany (n = 259) was surveyed before and after completing a compulsory module on multilingualism using a validated instrument that captures participants’ beliefs about (a) multilingual language use in the home, (b) multilingual language use in the classroom, and (c) teacher responsibility for language support in teaching and learning. While mean average scores of the respondents’ beliefs are not as high as in comparable studies, the results show a significant increase between the pre- and post-test. Multivariate statistics are employed to explore different dimensions of beliefs improvement as well as predictors of positive beliefs. With a critical view about the Likert-scale type items, the quantitative dataset was expanded by structured interviews with five participants. The results of qualitative content analyses of these interviews make it possible to show different facets of the survey’s constructs of beliefs as well as individual backgrounds making them explainable, and thus help to gain a more nuanced picture of the respondents’ beliefs.

A language socialisation perspective on Swedish immersion in Finland

Abstract This retrospective review applies a language socialisation perspective in examining the findings of a four-year research project on Swedish immersion in Finland. Findings from nine sub-studies within the project are reported with a point-of-view from three key actors’ (teachers, students, and parents) language socialisation processes. Results show that a special feature of immersion teacher socialisation is its continuous attention toward the additive multilingual nature of immersion education, which requires sustained attention to multilingual language use and development. Students in Swedish immersion are socialised into the use of multiple languages in school and act as socialisation agents also outside school. They bring the immersion language to their homes and influence the family language use. Immersion may thus have a considerable influence on how majority language speakers self-identify as language users. Altogether, the sub-studies demonstrate that the benefits of immersion education extend well beyond learning success of students.

Language biographies and multilingual language use: A sociolinguistic study of young refugees from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan living in Germany

AbstractThis paper describes the individual experiences with migration-related multilingualism of young refugees from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan living in Germany. Young refugees are a social group of particular linguistic interest because their late L2 learning takes place with limited family background and limited maintenance of heritage language and culture. These interview excerpts are connected to the current dissertation project titled“Sprachbiographien: Das Beispiel junger Geflüchteter aus Syrien, Iran und Afghanistan”(“Language Biographies: The example of young refugees from Syria, Iran and Afghanistan”). The nonrepresentative corpus of the study comprises 21 language biographical interviews with female and male refugees between 17 and 27 years. Specific guidelines were adhered to obtain insights into participants’ languages and cultural identities with a special focus on strategies of multilingual performances. The aim of this article is to show how young refugees’ language biographies are influenced by multilingual language use, based on selected samples from this survey.

Multiple identities of multilingual minorities: Values and practices influencing social, national and personal identity formation

This empirical study examined the ways in which multilingualism influences the community identities of individuals and minority groups. The motivations for their specific social behaviors are rarely obvious to the multilingual speakers themselves, which made it necessary to scrutinize their behaviors and attitudes using a mixed-methods analysis (including sociolinguistic interviews, questionnaire surveys, and field observations) of the mostly unconscious processes of identity formation among multilingual Kui speakers in northeastern Thailand. The approach used, focusing on group behavior and analyzing extralinguistic sociocultural data in terms of social identity formation in a minority group, revealed specific rituals and practices. These findings add to the knowledge of overt multilingual language use in the context of multilingual Kui people and demonstrate how social psychology and sociology can be used to analyze the identities of multilingual minorities and show how multilingualism itself does not imply multiple identities. This investigation, using theories of multiple social and linguistic identities, demonstrates how important Thai national identity is and how strongly it influences identity formation in a minority group. Key words: Identity formation, minority languages, multilingualism, extralinguistic practices, social networks, group behavior.

Reading identities across language contexts: The role of language of text and talk for multilingual learners

Reading identities are the ways that a child constructs the self as a reader across contexts and time. This study examines the impact of language contexts on the reading identities of multilingual children. Participants were ten prekindergarten children participating in a Chinese-English family literacy programme with a parent or grandparent. Participants read Chinese and English language books across English, Chinese and multilingual contexts. Children’s reading identities were examined across language contexts to explore the interplay between language contexts and reading identities. Findings describe convergences and differences in reading identities across contexts for Chinese, English and multilingual language use and Chinese and English texts, and provide insights into the ways that different language contexts for reading affect multilingual children’s early reading identities. Multilingual contexts appear to provide key spaces for the development of reading identities, and English and Chinese contexts contribute to unique aspects of children’s reading identities.

Talking multilingual families into being: language practices and ideologies of a Brazilian-Norwegian family in Norway

ABSTRACT This article sets out to explore the relationships between parental language ideologies, and language use and negotiation in parent–child interaction. The primary dataset is composed of around 10 h of audio recordings of everyday interactions of family members (i.e. a Brazilian mother, a Norwegian father, and a 3-year old Norwegian born daughter) during a three-year ethnographically-oriented project undertaken in Norway. A discourse analytical approach with a focus on instances of language negotiation led to the identification of a set of seven parental discourse strategies in the corpus: addressee-bound, code-bound, code rebuttal, filling gaps, rephrase, say ‘x’, and ‘what is–’ frame. Results indicate that, contrary to what parents might expect, drawing on discourse strategies that make explicit references to language names might hinder the active use of the child’s full linguistic repertoire. Conversely, discourse strategies that only implicitly serve as requests to use a given language can foster continuous multilingual language use. Finally, I suggest that strategies that make explicit references to named languages could be linked to a one-person-one-language-one-nation ideology, and I demonstrate how these strategies help us understand the ways family members navigate their complex national affiliations and talk their multilingual selves into being.

Bi-/multilingual Communication, Identity and the Posited Intermingling of Language Systems in the Mind

There seems to be a desire abroad in some areas of our field to abandon all talk of bounds between language-varieties in the mind. The response offered here to such a position is that language knowledge in the mind is all its aspects, in fact, highly differentiated, and that this differentiation broadly follows the lines recognized by the traditional conception which draws (always, of course, crossable) lines between languages. One powerful set of evidence in favour of this latter claim is that offered by phenomena observable in everyday bilingual and multilingual language use and interaction. Such evidence bespeaks a necessary capacity on the part of multilinguals to keep their languages apart when using them, and an adeptness – even at a very early age – at making decisions as to which language to speak to whom. The article explores such phenomena, which are heavy with consequences for the unboundedness view of languages. Another dimension of bilingual/multilingual experience which bespeaks boundedness is the way in which different languages connect to different identities or aspects of identity, which is also discussed in the article.

Cruzar fronteras em espaços acadêmicos: Transgressing “the limits of translanguaging”

Abstract Scholarship on translanguaging and related concepts has challenged traditional assumptions about how people use their multiple languages, urging us to move beyond the boundaries of named linguistic codes and toward conceptualizations of multilingual language use as flexible use of a speaker’s whole linguistic repertoire. Critiques of this theoretical shift have included assertions of translanguaging’s conceptual and practical limits—limits to its transformative potential as well as limits to its practical use. This paper takes up, in particular, the question of why we academics may assert the value of translanguaging in schools and communities while still largely failing to move beyond monoglossic English norms in our own academic spaces of professional practice (Jaspers, 2018), especially in the dissemination of research. Acknowledging this hegemony as well as its potential disruption, we present a counterexample of an academic research conference that developed as a trilingual, translingual space unlike most other spaces of research dissemination. In this polyvocal, translingual reflection, we describe and analyze the event from the perspectives of conference organizers, keynote speakers, and attendees. We explore the factors that constituted the transformative nature of the conference’s translanguaging space and offer some preliminary principles of language planning for translingual academic spaces.

English-Estonian code-copying: Comparing blogs and vlogs

AbstractThe article focuses on a comparison of English-Estonian code-copying in blogs and in vlogs. This paper applies a usage-based approach, combining a cognitive angle with the code-copying framework. The aim is to provide a holistic view on contact-induced language change by applying bottom-up analysis of naturalistic multilingual language use. In contact linguistic literature it has been observed that there is a preference for insertions vs. alternations depending on sociolinguistic setting (community type, generation, proficiency) and structural properties of the languages involved. Research on English-Estonian language contacts has shown that in blogs there is no clear preference for either. From a different point of view, it has been observed that lexical impact (global copying in the terms of code-copying framework) precedes semantic and structural impact (selective copying) but provide no explanation. Comparisons between blogs (750 entries and 275,263 words from 45 bloggers) and vlogs (5,5 hours, approximately 36,854 words from 5 vloggers) shows that global copies and alternations heavily prevail over other types of copying, yet the number of selective copies is somewhat higher in vlogs and of mixed copies in blogs. Selective copies are loan translations rather than structural changes. We assume that (1) prevalence of global copies and alternations depends on genre norms (blogs and vlogs are constructed as non-monolingual, highly individualized genres); (2) as selective copies are mostly loan translations, it implies the role of meaning and cognitive aspects: idioms and fixed expressions are figurative and cognitively prominent; combinational properties and grammatical meanings are abstract; so, the more abstract the meaning is, the more cognitive effort and time is required for entrenchment and conventionalization; (3) copying and alternation is denser in vlogs because the genre is oral and spontaneous vs. written, edited genre of blog.

Multilingualism and Local Literacy Practices in Ethiopia: Language contact in regulated and unregulated spaces

The study of the linguistic landscape has provided a new dimension to theories andissues related to multilingualism, including language policy. In this growing field ofinquiry, however, not enough attention has been given to the linguistic landscape insites in the Global South. Since one of the aims of literacy studies is to reveal the varietyand social patternings of practices, there is a need to compare linguistic landscape datawith other various textual materials. In this article, we present linguistic landscape datafrom two federal regional capitals in Ethiopia that demonstrate multilingual languageuse. We also compare the linguistic contact patterns with those found in schoolbooksused in the same region. Such a comparison involves language use in unregulatedas well as in regulated spaces (see Sebba 2009). Regional ethnically based languagesare now being used in new arenas, including the linguistic landscape and educationbecause of a new language policy promoting the use and development of regionallanguages. The two regional capitals provide privileged sites for examining theproducts of local literacy practices, involving values, attitudes, ideologies, and socialrelationships. We discuss the results in light of various ideologies and argue for thespeaker-writer’s active mobilisation of multilingual resources in new language arenas.

Mixing, multilingualism, and intelligibility

AbstractThis article expands the discussion of Larry Smith's theory of intelligibility to explore multilingual language use with reference to code‐mixing in the Indian context. Our findings suggest that the understanding of intelligibility in the context of bilingual/multilingual language mixing calls for a rich sociolinguistic model that is socially realistic and culturally rooted.

"Only When Absolutely Appropriate": Attitudes Toward Codeswitching in a Public Middle School

This study examines educator and student attitudes toward codeswitching in a K-12 public school and the perceived role of languages other than English in the learning environment. Although largely unfounded in recent research, it is commonly assumed by educational practitioners that successful second language (L2) acquisition requires the avoidance of the L1. This view commonly manifests itself in generalized monolingual expectations in public schools. In contrast, current research suggests that codeswitching practices are beneficial for language learners, as well as established bilinguals. This paper seeks to uncover educator and student ideas that permeate our public schools concerning codeswitching and L2 acquisition. In addition, this study offers a sociocultural perspective of multilingual language practices and advocates for codeswitching in school as a valid way for all students to use available linguistic resources. Finally, the need for more extensive educational opportunities regarding multilingual language use is emphasized and encouraged for students and teachers alike.

Neoliberalism, linguistic commodification, and ethnolinguistic identity in multilingual Nepal

ABSTRACTThis article examines the consequences of neoliberalism in two separate domains of multilingual language use in the context of Nepal: language education and tourism. We show that institutions and individuals have appropriated and reproduced this ideology with their creative tactics, agency, and practices that both help them promote and commodify their ethnolinguistic identity and language skills while also allowing them to acquire multilingual repertoires in global languages such as English, German, Chinese, Japanese, and the indigenous local language Newari. We show that English as a global language does not always accord more cultural capital and economic value, nor is the teaching and learning of local indigenous languages always confined to the ideologies of identity politics and language preservation. We argue that while the ideologies of English as a global language and of indigenous languages as tools for ethnolinguistic identity do not disappear from the scene, new forces of globalization and neoliberalism bestow new meanings to multilingual repertoires and practices. (Neoliberalism, multilingualism, commodification, ethnolinguistic identity, Nepal)*