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Copyright © Estudios de Sociolingüística 7(2) 2006, pp. 173-196 Monolingualism: The unmarked case Elizabeth Ellis University of New England School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics University of New England Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia [email protected] Abstract It is frequently observed that bilingualism and multilingualism are more common in the world than monolingualism, and yet, as Romaine (1995) points out, it is rare to find a book with the title ‘Monolingualism’. Linguistic theories have often assumed monolingualism to be the norm (Pavlenko, 2000), and this view is often held by individual monolinguals who are speakers of a dominant language such as English (Edwards, 1994). This paper will review three representations of monolingualism in the applied linguistics literature. The first is as an unmarked case, against which bilingualism and multilingualism are set as the exception. The second representation is of monolingualism as a limitation on cognitive, communicative, social and vocational potential (Kirkpatrick, 2000; Crozet, Liddicoat & Lo Bianco, 1999). Perspectives from language policy documents in Australia are presented to illustrate the second representation. The third and most critical representation employs metaphors of disease, sickness and disability to portray monolingualism as a pathological state (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000a; Oller, 1997). This latter strand of literature critiques the influence of the monolingual perspectives held by those who wield authority in language policy and in education. The paper concludes with a call for the development of a framework within which to understand monolingualism and its social and educational effects. Key words: monolingualism, language ideology, language attitudes, English language teaching, hegemony.

Monolingualism the Unmarked Case

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Page 1: Monolingualism the Unmarked Case

Copyright © Estudios de Sociolingüística 7(2) 2006, pp. 173-196

Monolingualism: The unmarked case

Elizabeth EllisUniversity of New England

School of Languages, Cultures and LinguisticsUniversity of New England

Armidale, NSW 2351, [email protected]

AbstractIt is frequently observed that bilingualism and multilingualism are more common inthe world than monolingualism, and yet, as Romaine (1995) points out, it is rare tofind a book with the title ‘Monolingualism’. Linguistic theories have often assumedmonolingualism to be the norm (Pav l e n ko, 2000), and this view is often held byindividual monolinguals who are speakers of a dominant language such as English(Edwards, 1994). This paper will review three representations of monolingualism inthe applied linguistics literature. The first is as an unmarked case, against wh i c hbilingualism and multilingualism are set as the exception. The second representationis of monolingualism as a limitation on cog n i t ive, communicative, social andvocational potential (Kirkpatrick, 2000; Crozet, Liddicoat & Lo Bianco, 1999).Perspectives from language policy documents in Australia are presented to illustratethe second representation. The third and most critical representation employ smetaphors of disease, sickness and disability to port r ay monolingualism as ap a t h o l ogical state (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000a; Oller, 1997). This latter strand ofliterature critiques the influence of the monolingual perspectives held by those whowield authority in language policy and in education. The paper concludes with a callfor the development of a framework within which to understand monolingualism andits social and educational effects.Key wo rd s: monolingualism, language ideolog y, language attitudes, Englishlanguage teaching, hegemony.

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1. Introduction

Many writers on bilingualism and multilingualism make the point that there areestimated to be far more bilingual and multilingual speakers in the world than thereare monolinguals (Baker & Prys-Jones, 1998; Hamers & Blanc, 2000; Crystal, 1987;Dewaele et al., 2003). A villager in rural Kenya or a businessman in Mumbai mayconduct their daily business in five or six languages or varieties, and find in thisnothing remarkable. There are over a hundred languages spoken in Vanuatu, (Lynch& Crowley, 2001) and it is clear that most people use several languages on a regularbasis. Yet, as Romaine (1995) points out, in the introduction to her bookBilingualism, it would be strange to find a book with the title Monolingualism. Thispaper has just such a title, and it sets out to inve s t i gate the phenomenon ofmonolingualism, and attempt to ask why it is seldom the subject of scholarlyp u blications. One explanation for why such a title might be considered unusual isthat linguistic theories have traditionally assumed monolingualism to be the norm,and thus invisible (Pavlenko, 2000; Romaine, 1995). This is often also the view ofmonolinguals themselves who are speakers of a world language such as English.

In this paper I would like to first consider how monolingualism might bedefined, explain the proposition that it is ‘the unmarked case’, and then go on to lookat three main ways in which monolingualism has been constructed and representedin public debate. The first representation is that which I term ‘the unmarked case’,the normal situation, or the baseline against which bilingualism and multilingualismare set as the exception. This tends to be the view found in dominant societies,particularly, but not exclusively, English-speaking ones. The second representation isof monolingualism as a limitation on cog n i t ive, communicative, social andvocational potential. This representation emerges from linguists whose concern is topromote the learning of foreign languages. The third and most critical representationis of monolingualism as a pathological state: as a disease with symptoms wh i c hmanifest in educational and social language policy and practices. This is the positiontaken by some writers who examine the sociopolitical contexts of language use, andare concerned to expose the ideologies surrounding language policy and practice. Iwill then explain what I see as the importance of developing a theoreticalconstruction of monolingualism.

2. Defining monolingualism

General dictionaries and specialist linguistic dictionaries define m o n o l i n g u a lvariously as follows:

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monolingual(adj) “able to speak only one language” (Macquarie Dictionary)(adj) “said of a person/community with only one language, also unilingual”

(Crystal, 1987: 425)(n.) “1. a person who knows and uses only one language.2. a person who has an active knowledge of only one language, though perhaps ap a s s ive knowledge of others.” Longman Dictionary of Language Te a ching andApplied Linguistics (Richards & Schmidt, 2002)

Other terms occasionally seen are monoglot “that speaks, writes or understandsonly one language” (Shorter Oxford Dictionary) or unilingual, which Crystal (1987)also gives as a synonym for monolingual.

In one sense these definitions are unproblematic, but we gain a hint ofcomplexity, appropriately enough, from the Richards and Schmidt definition, whichsuggests that a person can have a passive knowledge of other languages and still bemonolingual. Even the most cursory reading of the literature on bilingualism willintroduce the reader to the commonly held view that bilingualism eludes easydefinition, and to definitions which have ranged from one extreme (of double native-like proficiency) to the other (of a few words in a second language). So Bloomfield’s(1933: 56) we l l - k n own definition is “(...) a native - l i ke control of two languages”,while Diebold (1964) maintained that incipient bilingualism begins with ther e c ognition of words in another language. Edwards (2004a) begins his paper onbilingualism by saying “Everyone is bilingual. That is, there is no one in the world(no adult, anyway), who does not know at least a few words in languages other thanthe maternal variety”. It is also common to be unil i n g u a l ( eg in English), bu tb id i a l e c t a l, for example in Standard English and Aboriginal English, and there isc e rt a i n ly theoretical support for regarding this as a type of bilingualism (Eades,2003). Even the most monolingual of speakers has access to different registers, andthus has experience of social and linguistic variation. However, if we wish to identify‘ m o n o l i n g u a l i s m ’ as a phenomenon, and distinguish ‘being monolingual’ f r o m‘being bilingual’ we have to draw a line somewhere.

It is now accepted by many that bilingualism is best regarded as a continuum(Haugen, 1969) and it follows that the point on the continuum which separates abilingual from a monolingual will vary according to the interests and focus of thoseproposing it. In my research on the language background of Australian teachers ofEnglish as a Second Language (ESL) (Ellis, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2004b), I havefound the most useful definition to be the broad one proposed by Hamers and Blanc(2000: 6):

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Bilinguality is the psychological state of an individual who has access tomore than one linguistic code as a means of social communication: thed egree of access will va ry along a number of dimensions which arep s y c h o l ogical, cog n i t ive, psycholinguistic, social psychological, sociolog i c a l ,sociolinguistic, sociocultural and linguistic.

Working from this definition, an individual is monolingual who does not haveaccess to more than one linguistic code as a means of social communication. Usingthis as a working definition means, of course, that we must see monolinguals, too, asbeing placed on a continuum, ranging from someone who can say ‘guten Ta g ’ o r‘selamat pagi’ up to someone who has studied one or more languages but falls shortof being able to communicate in them. I also want to make it clear that when I usethe term ‘bilingual’ I am not adhering to the lay (mis)usage meaning someone whospeaks two languages equally perfectly (such creatures are rare), but using it in thesense in which Cook (1999) uses the term “L2 user” –or, as stated above, someonewho can use more than one linguistic code for social communication. This includesthose who have learned a second or foreign language form a l ly. Some readers mayobject to the inclusion of those with communicative competence in a fo re i g nlanguage in any definition of ‘bilingual’, but it is hard to find an agreed theoreticalbasis for supporting such an objection. There are to my knowledge no widelyaccepted definitions of ‘bilingual’ which have as necessary features earlyacquisition, emotional investment or frequency of use of both languages wh i c hmight exclude such ‘foreign language’ s p e a kers. It may be more useful tocharacterise bilinguality1 along a number of dimensions (Hamers & Blanc, 2000;Valdés & Figueroa, 1994) including age of acquisition, manner of acquisition,f r e q u e n cy of use, emotional attachment or affiliation, (Rampton, 1990), level ofp r o fi c i e n cy v i ewed as a dynamic pro c e s s over time (including attrition and re-establishment), domains of use, patterns of medium selection (Torras & Gafaranga,2002) and so on (Ellis, 2003). I therefore argue that while no single definition wills e rve all purposes, since it might exclude many varieties of experience within theparameters mentioned, the above broad definition (Hamers & Blanc, 2000) has auseful place in attempting to determine how monolinguality might be distinguishedfrom bilinguality.

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1 Hamers and Blanc (2000) use the term ‘bilinguality’ to refer to the language repertoire ofan individual person, reserving the term ‘bilingualism’ for the societal use of two or morelanguages.

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3. ‘Unmarked’

M a r kedness is a linguistic concept which has been applied to properties of alanguage which are more or less frequent, versatile and/or morphologically indicated(Ellis, 1994: 420). Hence, in English, the article form ‘a’ is unmarked (or, for sometheorists, less marked) and the form ‘an’ is marked -because ‘an’ occurs lessfrequently, can only occur before vowels, and has an extra sound /n/.

The term ‘unmarked’has been used more widely than this in a social sense, andhas featured in, for example, discussions of gendered language. The first critics ofsexist language pointed out that the generic ‘he’ was seen as the unmarked form (eg“the applicant must supply his resume …”) resulting in the representation of womenas exceptions or oddities (eg “three people, one a woman, were injured when a carove rt u rned ...”). This usage, common in English language newspaper reports threedecades ago, suggests that the male is the prototypical (or unmarked) ‘person’ andthe female is the unusual, or the ‘marked’ person. It is this sense of the normal, theex p e c t e d, or the unremarkable which I intend to convey by the use of the term‘ u n m a r ked’. It is that-wh i c h - d o e s - n o t - n e e d - t o - b e - s t a t e d, let alone questioned.Another way of theorising this idea of norm a l cy or invisibility is by drawing onFa i r c l o u g h ’s (1992) term “naturalisation of a discourse type”, which refers to thebuilding up of a socially normalised way of thinking and talking about something tothe point where it is seen as obvious, common sense and the only natural way toview the phenomenon.

4. Monolingualism: The unmarked case

Something which is taken for granted does not tend to have a literaturedescribing or examining it –hence the dearth of books entitled M o n o l i n g u a l i s m(Romaine, 1995). Edwards (1994) claims that many speakers of a ‘powe r f u l ’language of wider communication such as English take for granted thatmonolingualism is the normal state of affairs, and that those who use two or morelanguages are the exception. Pe n nycook (1994) argues that the spread of English isoften regarded by monolingual English speakers as “natural, neutral and benefi c i a l ” .Christ (1997), too, maintains that populations of developed countries whose languageis a language of international communication “live with the impression that their ow nlanguage is the normal case which speakers of other languages must adjust to”(Christ, 1997: 221). Gogolin (1994), in her examination of multilingual schools inG e rm a ny, terms this view a “monolingual habitus”, drawing on Bourdieu’s (1977)notion of ‘habitus’ as strategic practice which is structured by a social env i r o n m e n t .

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It is only in the questioning and critiquing of the accepted state of affairs thatthe phenomenon becomes visible. It is through the writings of critics, then, that wes t a rt to perceive that l i n g u i s t s h ave traditionally been among those who seemonolingualism as normal –an irony indeed.

Both Kachru (1994) and Sridhar (1994) have criticised the discipline of SecondLanguage Acquisition (SLA) for assuming a monolingual starting point. Sridhar andSridhar (1986: 5) point out that “SLA researchers seem to have neglected the fa c tthat the goal of SLA is bilingualism”, and it is also true to say that they have tendedto include third and subsequent language acquisition with SLA, assuming that theprocesses are the same. This assumption is now being challenged by a generation ofresearchers into third language acquisition (see, for example, Jessner, 1999). Sridhar(1994: 802) refers to the “monolingual blinder of the dominant SLA paradigm” andsuggests that in traditional SLA the learn e r s ’ other languages are “shadow ypresences” with at best “nuisance value”. He goes on to say that

The fact that most of the dominant models of SLA have been developed inp r e d o m i n a n t ly monolingual We s t e rn countries is not merely ahistoriographic curiosity. It has made them constrained by Western culturalpremises.” (Sridhar, 1994: 803)

There is much evidence, (and in the last decade, not a little critique), of the factthat in the worldwide English Language Teaching (ELT) profession, dominatedd i s c u r s a l ly if not numerically by teachers trained in “core” (English-speaking)countries (Phillipson, 1992) the ideal and prototypical teacher is a monolingualnative speaker (Howatt, 1984; Phillipson, 1992; Holliday, 1994; Widdowson, 1997).I have argued elsewhere that if the teacher is not monolingual, s/he is expected bythe norms of the profession to act as if s/he is (Ellis, 2003, 2004b). The ve rynormality of English-only monolingual teaching means that where there is a limitedamount of bilingual ESL teaching, it is often poorly understood.

C rystal points out that monolingualism is regarded as the norm by many inWestern societies:

People brought up within a we s t e rn society often think that themonolingualism that forms a routine part of their existence is the norm a lway of life for all but a few ‘special’ people. T h ey are wrong.Multilingualism is the natural way of life for hundreds of millions all overthe world. (Crystal, 1987: 360)

and Edwards (2004b) explains that this is no accident. He claims that a“monolingual mindset” can be traced to 19t h c e n t u ry Europe, and the rise of thenation state, when

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one dominant group at the core achieved political and economic control of thep e r i p h e ry (…) European views on language were transported to the colonies,helping to perpetuate the monolingual my t h . ( E d wards, 2004b: 1-2)

Writers in linguistic anthropology have begun to critique what Silve r s t e i n(1996) calls “monoglot standardization” in the U.S.A., seeing in this an expressionof a desired unity and uniformity of the nation-state. Blommaert (2004) draws onhistory and social science to argue that a single language is an important precursorof modernity, assisted by print capitalism (Anderson, 1991). Print capitalism becamethe instrument of language ideologies which are, Blommaert argues, socially andculturally embedded ideas of language and how it is used. Piller (2001) and Eades etal. (2003) draw on such arguments to examine how ideologies of national andlinguistic identity in both Germ a ny and Australia result in practices in assessingcitizenship eligibility for refugees and migrants which are not compatible with whatwe know about multilingual realities.

Piller points out in relation to language testing for naturalization purposed inGermany that

(...) the legal provisions as well as the testing practice in the naturalizationi n t e rv i ews are guided by the assumption that any (monolingual) nativespeaker can judge the proficiency of a second language speaker.

(Piller, 2001: 272)

While Eades’ work with Aboriginal interpreters in Australia and hercollaboration with forensic linguists in other countries leads her to conclude that

(…) legal systems in these countries [those studied by the scholars wh o s ework she cites] generally assume monolingualism: for example, wh e r einterpreters are used in courtrooms, the official transcript records only theEnglish utterances, so that the original utterances, in a language other thanEnglish, have no legal status. (Eades, 2003: 115)

Eades (2003) cites authors who claim this is also the case with Hebrew in Israeland with Danish in Denmark, and argues that this assumption of monolingualism inthe legal system can lead to a lack of understanding of what it means to be bilingual,compromising the possibility of justice by, for example, leading courts to ex c l u d ebilingual potential jurors.

Blommaert and Verschueren (1998) suggest that “the dogma of homogeneism”is entrenched in European views, and they explain this as:

a view of society in which differences are seen as dangerous and centrifugaland in which the ‘best’ society is suggested to be one without intergr o u p

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d i fferences. In other words, the ideal model of society is monolingual,monoethnic, monoreligious, monoideological.

(Blommaert & Verschueren, 1998: 194-95)

The dominant model of economic, financial and political globalisation is basedon English monolingualism, argues Blommaert (2004), and others point out that thee m e rgence of English as a dominant world language has strengthened theconvictions of some English-speaking monolinguals that learning another languageis unnecessary (Crystal, 1997; Kirkpatrick, 2000). Edwards (1994) refers to ap e rverse pride in monolingualism, rarely made explicit, wh e r e by British andAmerican monolinguals complain they have no aptitude for foreign languages:

[this complaint] (…) is usually accompanied by expressions of envy forthose multilingual Europeans, and (sometimes) by a linguistic smugnessreflecting a deeply-held conviction that, after all, those clever ‘others’ whodo not already know English will have to accommodate in a world madeincreasingly safe for Anglophones. (Edwards, 1994: 60)

It is via glimpses and critiques such as these, plus, of course, the observation ofmultilingual societies elsewhere, that we see that the normality of monolingualism isindeed a construction, or a “monolingual ideology” (Blackledge, 2000). There is noserious literature which claims that speaking more than one language isundesirable2. Such a position comes into being through public policies which neitherfund nor promote language learning, and which misunderstand and underva l u ebilingualism, as we shall see in a later section.

5. Monolingualism –an absence of skills

There is a body of literature which frames monolingualism as consisting of alack of skills. This is generally not stated overtly, since this view also tends to startfrom the first perspective: that monolingualism is the norm contrary to wh i c hlanguage learning must be vigorously justified and defended. The views examinedhere come larg e ly from authors and organisations who promote foreign languagel e a rning in schools and universities, but also from language policy scholars wh owrite not only of the place of foreign language learning, but also of the role ofcommunity language learning and the value of the maintenance of ‘heritage’

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2 There are, however, certainly attempts to argue that children will suffer if their educationtakes place in more than one language (see, for example, the proponents of ‘Official English’in the U.S.A.).

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languages. Since the terms used va ry widely between countries and learn i n gcontexts (second language, foreign language, modern language, language other thanEnglish, additional language, community language, heritage language), there is aplace for the use of ‘L2’ and “L2 user” (Cook, 1999) which can include all thesewhen generalisation is necessary, without denying the very real nature of differentlanguage-using and language-learning contexts. The premise of the authorsexamined in this section is that L2 learning (sometimes by growing up bilingual butmore usually considered as studying a language through formal education) confers al a rge number of benefits, and therefore being monolingual means missing out onthese. Much of this literature is positive and forgiving –after all, anyone can cease tobe monolingual by learning an L2– and since the authors come from a traditionwhich encourages everyone to learn languages, they assume a welcoming rather thana hostile stance. In this section I will consider policy statements and otherdocuments from Australia over the last 25 years which make claims for the benefitsof L2 learning. These benefits, we can assume, are unavailable to monolinguals.

The earliest policy statement reviewed for this paper was one jointly issued bythe Australian Linguistics Society and the Applied Linguistics Association ofAustralia in 1981. The paper was a response to a gove rnment paper wh i c hmaintained that languages need not form part of a core curriculum for A u s t r a l i a nschools (ALS & ALAA, 1981). The statement was wide-ranging and containededucational arguments, sociopolitical arguments and personal/family arguments forthe place of language learning in education. The authors argued that a monolingualcore curriculum would ill-equip young Australians to be part of a multiculturalnation, leading to attitudes which would deride the linguistic and cultural heritagesof A u s t r a l i a ’s diverse population. There were a number of important initiative sthroughout the 1980s defending and supporting the role of language learning as partof a civil society, and these culminated in the development of the National Policy onLanguages (NPL) (Lo Bianco, 1987), perhaps the most detailed, coherent and fa r-reaching such document in the Australian context and still widely cited outsideAustralia.

The NPL stated that “second language study [is] intrinsically valuable (…) ase d u c a t i o n a l ly, culturally and intellectually enriching” (Lo Bianco, 1987: 124), andgoes on to say that this is true for all languages, whether they are communitylanguages (ie spoken by immigrant communities), indigenous languages orlanguages of international use.

The NPL was replaced by the Australian Language and Literacy Policy (DEET,1991). This policy has been widely critiqued as devaluing languages (Clyne, 2005;Moore, 1996), and framing second language learning only in terms of acquiring

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English literacy, but it does state that language learning can result in a betterunderstanding of one’s first language and stimulate rigorous thinking and memory(DEET, 1991). A statement on Languages Other than English (LOTE) was issued bythe Australian Educational Council (1994) and contained 14 benefits of languagel e a rning, including the development of language analysis skills and cross-culturalskills. Other policy or strategy statements on which space does not perm i telaboration include those by the Modern Language Te a c h e r s ’ Association ofQueensland (MLTAQ, 2002) and the National Asian Languages Strategy forAustralian Schools (AEC, 1994).

All of these va r i o u s ly mention the we l l - e s t a blished benefits of learning asecond language which were well-summarised by Lo Bianco (1987) as:

enrichment (cultural and intellectual),economic (relating to vocations and foreign trade),equality (social justice and overcoming disadvantage),external (relating to Australia’s role in the world).

Language study is credited with assisting cog n i t ive processes as it constitutes an“intellectual stimulus” and includes “new ways of thinking and learning ando rganising knowledge” (ALS & ALAA, 1981: 24). It can “(…) help learners tounderstand that there are altern a t ive ways of conceiving and labelling the phy s i c a lu n iverse (…)” (Gibbons, 1994: 3). Bilingual children show greater cog n i t ive flex i b i l i t yand creativity in problem-solving (Lambert & Tu c ke r, 1972). Language learn i n gp r ovides an “analytic and communicative skill that enhances learning in other fi e l d s ”(Baldauf, 1993: 125). Byram (1999: 93) maintains that other languages “prov i d eaccess to different bodies of knowledge which are unava i l a ble to the monolinguals p e a ker”. Learning other languages invo l ves processes of “metaphorization”(Kramsch, 1996) and “hypothesis forming and testing” (Corder, 1981).

Two further aspects of the benefits of language learning are the“apprenticeship” notion (Hawkins, 1999), meaning that learning one languagem a kes it easier to learn others, since one acquires learning skills, allowing one to“(…) compare language systems and (…) develop different language learn i n gstrategies [from monolinguals]”. See also Postmus (1999) who found that bilinguall e a rners of Mandarin had more advanced metalinguistic abilities and were morestrategic in their learning than learners who entered the course as monolinguals. Ano f t - ove r l o o ked aspect is the pleasurable one: Clyne (2003) terms this “intrinsicmotivation”, Hawkins (1999: 134) calls it “the sheer exhilaration of the journey intoa foreign language and a foreign culture for its own sake” while Kramsch puts itmuch more eloquently, describing how multilinguals:

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take intensive physical pleasure in acquiring a language, thrill in trespassingon someone else’s territory (…) multilingual speakers create new discoursecommunities whose aerial existence monolingual speakers hardly suspect.

(Kramsch, 1997: 365)

The literature which researches and defends the benefits of having two languages,either through second language study, or gr owing up bilingual, is substantial, and Ih ave only touched on it here. It claims intellectual, cultural, social, emotional andeconomic benefits for both individuals and society. We must presume that none ofthese benefits are ava i l a ble to the monolingual, but there are two points to be made toqualify this. First, it was stated at the outset of this paper that monolingualism is bestr egarded as a continuum, from total monolingualism up to the possession of a level ofL2 knowledge just short of that which could be described as being an “L2 user”.Hence s o m e of the above benefits may accrue to a monolingual with s o m e l a n g u a g estudy or ex p e rtise. Many of the above policy statements acknowledge that somelanguage learning is better than none, but that many of the stated benefits accrue onlyto those who develop high-level facility in a language. Second, several authors are atpains to point out that language learning does not i n ev i t ably confer all of these benefi t s( p a rt i c u l a r ly in regard to claims of ‘cultural sensitivity) but it cert a i n ly prov i d e sp o t e n t i a l for them (Liddicoat, 2002; Lambert, 1999). How far that potential is realiseddepends on the individual and also on whether the social and economic infrastru c t u r eexists to permit individuals to use their skills. You may be a highly - q u a l i fied speaker ofsix languages, but if you do not speak English in Australia or French in France you arel i ke ly to be cleaning toilets for a liv i n g .

N ow let us consider the statements of authors who ex p l i c i t ly look at thed i s a d vantages of monolingualism. I include these authors in the secondrepresentation of monolingualism –as consisting of a lack of skills, since they aree s s e n t i a l ly arguing from the same premise as the authors considered above: thatlanguage learning is beneficial to the individual and society. The difference is thatt h ey ex p l i c i t ly examine the downside of failing to learn languages, but thewo r l d v i ew is the same: language learning is a good thing to be encouraged bygovernments and education systems, and to fail to engage in it constitutes a missedopportunity.

Kirkpatrick (2000) maintains that those who speak only one language aredisadvantaged in the global job market and in business, as do Mughan (1999), Peel(2001) and Djité (1994). Crozet, Liddicoat and Lo Bianco (1999) doubt the ability ofmonolingual speakers to become tru ly interculturally competent, since they lackaccess to other cultures’ n o rms and world view as represented through language.Peel (2001: 14) laments the narr owness of perspective of monolingual English-

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speakers in an increasingly multilingual world, arguing that if they do not understandhow languages work and how they differ, they will never understand other peoplesb eyond a superficial level. He calls a monoglot world “a world of terr i f y i n gblandness” stripped of the subtlety and negotiation invo l ved in multilingualcommunication. This limitation is pointed out by Liddicoat (2002) too, wh omaintains that while English is a useful part of a person’s repertoire, English alone isnot enough. Snow and Hakuta (1992) argue that the English-speaking tendency tov i ew monolingualism as the norm has both individual and societal costs.Monolingual children miss out on the opportunity to develop an early appreciationof language, and the cog n i t ive and linguistic flexibility referred to in thebilingualism literature (Hamers & Blanc, 2000; Baker, 2001).

The benign explanation for why (at least in most English-speaking countries)language learning is not more valued is that monolinguals just do not see thebenefits. Baldauf (1993) points out that many Anglo Australians do not see why theyor their children should learn a second language, while Djité (1994) attests to asimilar disregard among businesspeople.

English-speaking Australians are we l l - k n own for believing they cannot learnlanguages, as revealed by a statement by the Australian Linguistic Society:

[i]t appears to be widely believed in Australia that foreign languages areessentially unlearnable to normal people, and that Australians have a specialinnate anti-talent for learning them. (ALS & ALAA, 1981: 15)

The then Australian Minister for Immigration, the late Mr. Al Grassby, made thesame point even more graphically a few years earlier, referring to:

the view that the Australian born (…) suffers a mutation of the genes so he[sic] can never adequately learn a second language (…) for an Australian tohave a second language is some kind of treason (…). (Grassby, 1977: 2)

This view is not unique to Australians, as can be seen from Edwa r d s ’ c l a i mquoted earlier, that languages are just too difficult for (British) speakers of English.Other languages, and their speakers, can also be seen as a threat. While thexenophobia of the White Australia Po l i cy and the general distrust of immigr a n t s ’languages and cultures (Ozolins, 1993) gave way to more inclusive policies of the1970s and 1980s, it can be argued that the post-2001 perceived threats to nationalsecurity have led to a renewed suspicion of difference in language and culture.Crystal (1997) points out another stumbling block, the “linguistic complacency” ofE n g l i s h - s p e a kers and a “genuine, widespread lack of motivation” linked to thespread of English as a global language.

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Before going on to look at the third representation of monolingualism, I want toreflect on the purpose for doing this analysis. After all, why victimise monolinguals?Do we risk creating a new form of discrimination against people who have not beenf o rtunate enough to be brought up with two languages or had the educationalopportunities to study them? The problem is, that, as suggested earlier, it tends to bemonolingual discourses, in powerful We s t e rn nations, and part i c u l a r ly in English-speaking nations, which dominate discussions in educational and social policy. It isoften monolinguals who are formulating policy on bilingual education and on ESLp r ovision for immigrants and refugees. Monolingual perspectives dominate ineducational testing, in curriculum development and in the perennial discussion ofthe ‘problem’of literacy among young people. Monolingual worldviews of languageand dialect infect our policies and processes of determining the origin of refugees(Eades et al., 2003) and the application of these policies can lead to statelessness,imprisonment or even death. These are not small stakes.

That is why I argue that it is essential to interr ogate the phenomenon ofmonolingualism: to bring to light how its wo r l d v i ew might affect many aspects ofs o c i e t y. Perhaps applied linguists should pause in our wo rt h while endeavours inpromoting language learning, in arguing for the retention of Asian and Europeanlanguages in schools, in trying to make politicians understand that ESL needs arenot the same as literacy needs, in defending parents’ rights to bring up their childrenb i l i n g u a l ly, in maintaining community languages, in f ighting for funds to researchdying languages. Let us turn the spotlight in the other direction and ask –why is itn e c e s s a ry to defend what seems to be the natural tendency of humankind– to usemore than one language? Let us ask who the other side is and what they stand for.The aim should certainly not be to vilify individual monolinguals, and thereby createa new class of pariahs. Instead, our aim should be to better understand howmonolingual discourses operate unseen in our governing bodies and our professionsso that we can better counteract them.

6. Monolingualism –a pathology

The third way of representing monolingualism I wish to consider here is by farthe most controversial. The authors who take this view frame it as a dangerous andp a t h o l ogical state rather than a normal way to be (the first representation) or asimple absence of skills (the second).

Of these authors, Skutnabb-Kangas (1996, 2000a, 2000b) gives the mostdetailed justification for such a view. She lists four common myths: thatmonolingualism is normal, desirable, sufficient for communication, and inevitable at

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both a societal and individual level. She outlines the arguments for each of these andthen proceeds to refute each in turn (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000a, 2000b). She arguesthat monolingualism at a societal level is a social construction which has been usedto marginalise various groups of people (those who do not speak the dominantlanguage, or who speak varieties which are not socially valued), and that at anindividual level it is the result of misguided educational policies and linguicism. Inother words, the monolingual individual is so because he or she has suffered fromlack of opportunity to learn (or maintain) a second language through discriminatorypolicies and practices. Ultimately, she maintains: “Like cholera or leprosy,monolingualism is an illness which should be eradicated as soon as possibl e ”( S k u t n a b b - K a n gas, 2000a: 185). While Skutnabb-Kangas is vociferous in makingthis point, and has been criticised for “loaded and (…) inflammatory language”( H a n d s fi e l d, 2002: 549), she is not the only one who sees monolingualism as ap a t h o l og y. Oller (1997) employs the discourse of disability to suggest thatmonolinguals suffer from a kind of language blindness. Seeing the world onlythrough one language or dialect means that they are unaware of how languageshapes and reflects both thought and social structures. He terms this condition“monoglottosis” and calls it:

(…) a general unawareness of the languages or dialects that must be calledupon to make sense of the surface-forms of speech or other signs that enablecommunities to share abstract meanings (…). Monoglottosis is a specialblindness towards the general dependence of all sign-users on suchconventions in some particular language/dialect. (Oller, 1997: 469)

Oller has a particular purpose in making this observation, which is referred tobelow in examining what authors say are the effects of monolingual perspectives, butr egardless of his purpose, his statements about monolinguals are intended to havebroad applicability. Other terms used to frame monolingualism as a sickness or adysfunction are “monolingual myopia” (Smolicz, 1995), “monolingualreductionism”, “monolingual stupidity” and “monolingual naïvety” (Skutnabb-K a n gas, 2000a). Handsfi e l d ’s (2002) critique of Skutnabb-Kanga s ’ work includesthe charge that she criticises monolinguals as abnormal and intellectually andmorally deficient. Whether or not this is a justified criticism, there are grounds formaking it.

6.1. The effects of “monoglottosis”

A further and key dimension of arguments maintaining the paucity of themonolingual experience is that which critiques the effects produced by a

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monolingual perspective. Clyne (1991b) remarks, for example, that multilingualismhas been larg e ly ove r l o o ked by the majority of writers on Australian multiculturalism,s i m p ly because most of the authors are monolingual. T h ey simply do not see, orp e r c e ive the relevance of, the many-language abilities of sections of the population.So, too, Crozet, Liddicoat and Lo Bianco (1999) argue that multiculturalism viewe dfrom a monolingual perspective can only result in a shallow, voyeuristic and‘ o t h e r i n g ’ v i ew of culture. ALS & ALAA (1981: 14) describe cultural awa r e n e s sp r ograms which do not include a second language as “an illusion of monolinguals”.Their statement rejects the notion of a monolingual school curriculum on the gr o u n d sthat it disadvantages Australian students compared to their overseas counterp a rts, andthat it is all too compatible with attitudes which denigrate other languages. Snow andHakuta (1992) found that one effect of monolingual educational policies is thatminority children lose their first language, which could have been maintained atmuch less social and educational cost than teaching new languages from scratch.Another effect of monolingual perspectives is that bilingual transition classes act as a“ r evolving door” between monolingualism in L1 and the ‘achieve m e n t ’ o fmonolingualism in L2 (Snow & Hakuta, 1992: 390). In fact ‘bilingual’ is now almosta synonym for “educationally disadvantaged” in the USA (Craw f o r d, 1992).

Lo Bianco (1999), in his analysis of an Australian Federal Pa r l i a m e n t a ryHansard transcript3, marvels at the Federal Education Minister’s lack of grasp ofwhat ‘bilingual’ means and his constant reframing of ‘bilingual education’ in theN o rt h e rn Te rr i t o ry as a kind of English literacy methodology for A b o r i g i n a lminorities. Lo Bianco does not say so ex p l i c i t ly, but such a persistent redefi n i n gsuggests not only ignorance arising from monolingualism, but also an inv i d i o u spolitical monolingual agenda. This process, he states, removes the possibility ofc o n s t ructing bilingual education using indigenous cultural, human rights orlinguistic frameworks. Lo Bianco concludes: “Literacy (coterminous, but silently,with E n g l i s h l i t e ra c y) serves as a superordinate categ o ry organising all specialistinterventions in minority language education in Australia today” (Lo Bianco, 1999:46, emphasis in the original).

S k u t n a b b - K a n gas (2000b) and Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas (1995) leve lthe charge of ‘linguistic genocide’ a gainst the monolingual elites who makelanguage and educational policy. T h ey argue that monolingualism leads to aninability to see the value of language surv ival, and causes children to gr ow up

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3 Hansard is the Australian Federal Government’s official audiotaped and transcribed recordof Parliamentary proceedings. In this paper, Lo Bianco takes a discourse analysis approach tothe Minister’s construction of ‘bilingual education’.

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believing that to succeed it is necessary to choose between their languages. Oller’s(1997) critique of “monoglottosis” (above) arises from his attempt to counter thep r evailing view that IQ tests are free of language bias and to show that they doindeed have cultural bias expressed through language. In his view, the result of‘monolingual bl i n d n e s s ’ on the part of the test-makers and test administrators hasbeen to wrongly ‘diagnose’ bilingual and minority children as ‘learning deficient’,‘retarded’or ‘semi-lingual’(Oller, 1997). Valdés and Figueroa (1994) argue a similarcase, conducting a careful and systematic rev i ew of the assumptions and log i cbehind educational testing and concluding that these are informed by the view thatmonolingual language profi c i e n cy is the norm, and that bilinguals can be testedusing the same approaches and instruments. This is despite the fact that Grosjean(1985) laid the theoretical foundations in for viewing bilingual proficiency as beingmore complex than a supposed ‘double monolingual profi c i e n cy ’ and for theargument that it should therefore be measured and researched in different ways.

These authors suggest that since those who make language and educationalp o l i cy in developed countries and often fo r d eveloping countries (in the case ofinternational aid projects (Holliday, 1994; Forman, 1994) are usually monolingual,they are in a powerful position to enforce a monolingual viewpoint.

While all the above authors write about monolingualism in the generalpopulation and among policy - m a kers, Skutnabb-Kangas (2000a) also turns herattention to ESL teachers.

To me, monolingual ESL teachers are [by] definition incompetent to teachESL: they simply lack several of the capacities or proficiencies that a learnerneeds and can reasonably expect from the teacher (…) a starting point for allESL teachers is to eradicate monolingualism among themselves.

(Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000a: 37-39)

This is a radical, and, in my view, indefensible statement. There is more to beingan eff e c t ive teacher of ESL than having a second language. However Skutnabb-Kangas takes a provocative stance, I believe, in an attempt to shake the establishedpresumptions of the profession, and with her next point I concur. She goes on to saythat teachers need “first-hand experience of having learned and [of] using a secondor a foreign language (…) [a] bilingual or multilingual native speaker is thus betterable to understand what the learners experience than a monolingual one” (Skutnabb-K a n gas, 2000a: 38). My own research bears out this proposition: that other thingsbeing equal, a teacher who is an L2 user has greater linguistic, sociocultural andempathetic resources to draw on in ESL teaching than does a monolingual teacher(Ellis, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2006).

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However, it is not the individual teacher who is the villain, but the monolingualdiscourse of the profession, as Phillipson (1992) points out in his analysis of thed evelopment of the ELT profession over the last century. He argues that it hasp r iv i l eged both the native speaker (who is not expected to be other thanmonolingual) and a monolingual (ie English-only) methodology. He claims that “[a]monolingual methodology is orga n i c a l ly linked with linguicist disregard ofdominated languages, concepts and ways of thinking. It is highly functional ininducing a colonized consciousness” (Phillipson, 1992: 187).

7. Conclusion

This paper has presented three different representations of monolingualism. Thefirst is as the relative ly uncontested normal state of a human individual, or theu n m a r ked case. This view, although mainly prevalent in We s t e rn, and English-speaking societies, dominates despite the fact that the majority of the wo r l d ’spopulation is estimated to be bilingual or multilingual. One explanation is that it is aconsequence of the rise of the European nation state, later exported to their colonies,and another is that powerful English-speaking nations are both the producers andbeneficiaries of English as a global language, and they tend to be monolingual.

The second view is that which is prevalent in those who wish to promoteforeign language learning (and by some whose concerns are ‘community languages’(Clyne, 1991a) and are keen to argue its benefits of intellectual, cross-cultural, socialand economic kinds. Monolinguals here are seen as lacking access to these benefits,but this view is not part i c u l a r ly critical. Monolinguals are potential languagestudents to be courted: the as-yet-unconverted.

The third view described here is that of authors who see monolingualism aspowerful, hidden and insidious. They employ metaphors of disease and disability toreconstruct what monolingual speakers see as normal into a deficit. A certain lust forrevenge is discernible in some of these writings, a desire to turn the tables. For toolong language minorities in Western societies have been marginalised and patronisedand had their potential limited: now it is the monolinguals’ turn, they imply. Such acritical approach finds its mark with some, gaining attention where none wa sforthcoming, and it alienates others (Handsfield, 2002).

Whether or not one wishes to align oneself with the third view, I argue thatmonolingualism is deserving of study as a phenomenon in its own right, and not justas the inv i s i ble and unexamined corollary of bilingualism. In Australian languagep o l i cy in the twe n t y - first century applied linguists and educators are having littlesuccess in defending language study, language maintenance and bilingual education.

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Perhaps further examination and publicising of the causes and effects ofmonolingualism might contribute to an awareness of the sources of silent bu tp owerful opposition to societal and individual multilingualism, and to possibilitiesfor resisting it.

M a ny of the claims of scholars quoted here about the perva s iveness ofmonolingualism and its effects on social and educational policy are untested,existing mainly at the level of assertion. One reason for this is perhaps the lack of aclear research framework within which to research monolingualism. Certainly it is a‘linguistic ideology’ which needs to be studied not only by linguists but also socialscientists, historians and cultural theorists. Another reason, though, is perhaps thatfor the majority of writers in language and social policy there is simply noe s t a blished framework for recognizing it as a phenomenon. Hence I make noapology in this paper for not providing empirical evidence to support the contentionthat monolingualism is “the unmarked case”, but call for further exploration of it.Monolingualism, like bilingualism, is a complex phenomenon whose nature andeffects are manifested across a range of social disciplines, and to make sense of it weneed to draw on the range of analytical tools employed by social scientists as well aslinguists.

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