Multilingual Practices in Language History


Book Description

Texts of the past were often not monolingual but were produced by and for people with bi- or multilingual repertoires; the communicative practices witnessed in them therefore reflect ongoing and earlier language contact situations. However, textbooks and earlier research tend to display a monolingual bias. This collected volume on multilingual practices in historical materials, including code-switching, highlights the importance of a multilingual approach. The authors explore multilingualism in hitherto neglected genres, periods and areas, introduce new methods of locating and analysing multiple languages in various sources, and review terminology, theories and tools. The studies also revisit some of the issues already introduced in previous research, such as Latin interacting with European vernaculars and the complex relationship between code-switching and lexical borrowing. Collectively, the contributors show that multilingual practices share many of the same features regardless of time and place, and that one way or the other, all historical texts are multilingual. This book takes the next step in historical multilingualism studies by establishing the relevance of the multilingual approach to understanding language history.




Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History


Book Description

Explores the roots of Europe's struggle with multilingualism. This book argues that, over the centuries, the pursuit of linguistic homogeneity has become a central aspect of the mindset of Europeans. It offers an overview of the emergence of a standard language ideology and its relationship with ethnicity, territorial unity and social mobility




Multilingual Practices in Language History


Book Description

Texts of the past were often not monolingual but were produced by and for people with bi- or multilingual repertoires; the communicative practices witnessed in them therefore reflect ongoing and earlier language contact situations. However, textbooks and earlier research tend to display a monolingual bias. This collected volume on multilingual practices in historical materials, including code-switching, highlights the importance of a multilingual approach. The authors explore multilingualism in hitherto neglected genres, periods and areas, introduce new methods of locating and analysing multiple languages in various sources, and review terminology, theories and tools. The studies also revisit some of the issues already introduced in previous research, such as Latin interacting with European vernaculars and the complex relationship between code-switching and lexical borrowing. Collectively, the contributors show that multilingual practices share many of the same features regardless of time and place, and that one way or the other, all historical texts are multilingual. This book takes the next step in historical multilingualism studies by establishing the relevance of the multilingual approach to understanding language history.




The Many Faces of Multilingualism


Book Description

Multilingualism has become an increasingly common global phenomenon especially in the last two decades. Therefore, multilingual programmes have now been regarded as a cornerstone of education systems in many countries around the world. Learning multiple languages helps us plug into a globalised world and strengthen links with a multitude of speakers from a diversified reality we live in. Thanks to the researched cases described in the chapters, further developments aimed at fostering multilingual practices in the contemporary world will be enhanced. The chapters included in the present volume, provide an overview of current theory, research and practice in the field. They deal with such prominent research topics as multilingual education, language policies, language contact, identity of multilingual speakers, to name only a few. The selected chapters focus on the numerous and heterogeneous relations between languages. They also incorporate a series of contextualized studies with diverse research designs applied in different settings across the globe. This volume constitutes a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on multilingualism from twelve different countries. It is a thought-provoking collection that provides a series of rich insights into the way multilingualism is practised in international contexts. It is ideally designed for academics, upper-level students, educators, professionals and practitioners seeking linguistic and pedagogical guidance on multilingualism.




Language Diversity in the Sinophone World


Book Description

Language Diversity in the Sinophone World offers interdisciplinary insights into social, cultural, and linguistic aspects of multilingualism in the Sinophone world, highlighting language diversity and opening up the burgeoning field of Sinophone studies to new perspectives from sociolinguistics. The book begins by charting historical trajectories in Sinophone multilingualism, beginning with late imperial China through to the emergence of English in the mid-19th century. The volume uses this foundation as a jumping off point from which to provide an in-depth comparison of modern language planning and policies throughout the Sinophone world, with the final section examining multilingual practices not readily captured by planning frameworks and the ideologies, identities, repertoires, and competences intertwined within these different multilingual configurations. Taken together, the collection makes a unique sociolinguistic-focused intervention into emerging research in Sinophone studies and will be of interest to students and scholars within the discipline.




English as a Local Language


Book Description

When analyzed in multilingual contexts, English is often treated as an entity that is separable from its linguistic environment. It is often the case, however, that multilinguals use English in hybrid and transcultural ways. This book explores how multilingual East Africans make use of English as a local resource in their everyday practices by examining a range of domains, including workplace conversation, beauty pageants, hip hop and advertising. Drawing on the Bakhtinian concept of multivocality, the author uses discourse analysis and ethnographic approaches to demonstrate the range of linguistic and cultural hybridity found across these domains, and to consider the constraints on hybridity in each context. By focusing on the cultural and linguistic bricolage in which English is often found, the book illustrates how multilinguals respond to the tension between local identification and dominant conceptualizations of English as a language for global communication.




The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education


Book Description

Starting from the key idea that learners and teachers bring diverse linguistic knowledge and resources to education, this book establishes and explores the concept of the ‘multilingual turn’ in languages education and the potential benefits for individuals and societies. It takes account of recent research, policy and practice in the fields of bilingual and multilingual education as well as foreign and second language education. The chapters integrate theory and practice, bringing together researchers and practitioners from five continents to illustrate the effects of the multilingual turn in society and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of implementing multilingual curricula and activities in a variety of classrooms. Based on the examples featured, the editors invite students, teachers, teacher educators and researchers to reflect on their own work and to evaluate the relevance and applicability of the multilingual turn in their own contexts.




Multilingual Urban Scandinavia


Book Description

This book presents, for the first time, an overarching, trans-Scandinavian, comprehensive and comparable account of linguistic developments and practices in late modern urban contact zones. The book aims to capture the multilingual realities of all young people in urban contexts, whether they are of migrant descent or not. Taking a multi-layered approach to linguistic practices, chapters in the book include structural and phonological analyses of new linguistic practices, examine how these practices and their practitioners are perceived, and discuss the sociolinguistic potentials of speakers when constructing, challenging and negotiating identities. The book also contains three short overview articles describing studies of multilingual practices in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The editors have aimed to make Scandinavian research on urban multilingualism accessible to scholars and students who don’t speak Scandinavian languages, and also to make a valuable contribution to the global study of multilingualism.




Multilingual Brazil


Book Description

This book brings together cutting edge work by Brazilian researchers on multilingualism in Brazil for an English-speaking readership in one comprehensive volume. Divided into five sections, each with its own introduction, tying together the themes of the book, the volume charts a course for a new sociolinguistics of multilingualism, challenging long-held perceptions about a monolingual Brazil by exploring the different policies, language resources, ideologies and social identities that have emerged in the country’s contemporary multilingual landscape. The book elucidates the country’s linguistic history to demonstrate its evolution to its present state, a country shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces both locally and globally, and explores different facets of today’s multilingual Brazil, including youth on the margins and their cultural and linguistic practices; the educational challenges of socially marginalized groups; and minority groups’ efforts to strengthen languages of identity and belonging. In addition to assembling linguistic research done in Brazil previously little known to an English-speaking readership, the book incorporates theoretical frameworks from other disciplines to provide a comprehensive picture of the social, political, and cultural dynamics at play in multilingual Brazil. This volume is key reading for researchers in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, cultural studies, and Latin American studies.




Multilingual Computer Assisted Language Learning


Book Description

Recent developments in education, such as the increasing linguistic diversity in school populations and the digital revolution which has led to new ways of being, learning and socialising, have brought about fresh challenges and opportunities. In response, this book shows how technology enriches multilingual language learning, as well as how multilingual practices enrich computer assisted language learning (CALL) by bringing together two, thus far distinct, fields of research: CALL and multilingual approaches to language learning. The collection includes contributions from researchers and practitioners from three continents to illustrate how native languages, previously studied languages, heritage languages or dialects are activated through technology in formal and informal learning situations. The studies in this book showcase multilingual language use in chat rooms, computer games, digital stories, ebook apps, online texts and telecollaboration/virtual exchange via interactive whiteboards. This volume will be of interest to researchers interested in language learning and teaching and to practitioners looking for support in seizing the opportunities presented by the multilingual, digital classroom.