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Pavia, 19.5.2009 1
Multilinguismo: prospettive per la ricerca
Multilingualism: ResearchOpportunities
Rita Franceschini Centro di ricerca lingueLibera Università di BolzanoFreie Universität BozenFree University of Bozen-Bolzano
Pavia, 19.5.2009 2
Key concepts1. diversity: The European area is
able to demonstrate its very specific expertise in engaging with great diversity.
2. historical foundation: The European cultural area has been multilingual for centuries.
3. cultural sensitivity: the natural innate capacity of multilingualism is developed through contact, in exposure to real speech.
Pavia, 19.5.2009 3
The change of perspective
driving forces:
ﾐ increased sensitivity towards diversity
ﾐ linguistic phenomena arising from migratory movements
Pavia, 19.5.2009 4
• not only economic benefits through multilingualism
• enhanced levels in cognitive skills:– changes in perspective– empathy– creative thinking, etc.
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Multilingualism is understood as the ability of societies, institutions, groups and individuals to engage on a regular basis in space and time with more than one language in everyday life.
Multilingualism is based upon the fundamental human capacity to communicate in a number of languages. Distinctions may be drawn between social, institutional, discursive and individual multilingualism.
In this spirit, multilingualism is used to designate a phenomenon embedded in cultural habits and is therefore characterised by significant cultural sensitivity.
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Some predecessors and pioneers …
...Adams Janse Swain Simon Ammon Dittmar Mattheier Androutsopoulos Aronin Singleton Auer Li …Backhaus Behrent Berruto Birdsong Bloch de Bot Braunmüller Bybee Hopper Ferraresi Byrnes Weger-Guntharp Sprang …Cenoz Genesee Hufeisen Jessner Gorter Clyne Cook Cornips Nortier …Darquennes De Angelis DeGraff Dentler Hufeisen Lindemann Deppermann Dewaele Dirim …Ehlich Extra Yagmur Kutlay
...Fase Jaspaert Kroon Fishman Francescato Florida Fusco Orioles Parmeggiani…Goebl Nelde Stary Wölck Gicacalone Ramat Green Grin Grosjean Li Münte Rodriguez-
Fornells... ...Herdina Jessner Hoffman Ytsma Hufeisen Lindemann Marx Hyltenstam Obler Jenkins
Modiano Seidlhofer Jucker Fritz Lebsanft...Kallmeyer Keim Kemp Kecskes Klein Perdue Carroll Coenen Deulofeu Huebner Trévise Krefeld...
...Lambert Tucker d’Anglejan Lamnek Leopold Lüdi Werlen... …Marti Mechelli Crinion Noppeney O'Doherty Ashburner Frackowiak Mackiewicz Meisel
Miecznikowski Milroy Milroy Muysken Müller Kupisch Schmitz Cantone Müller-Lancé Riehl Mondada Maess Koelsch Friederici Meisel Moscovici Mugny Van Avermaet Myers Scotton...
…Nelde Nicol Pavlenko Pekarek Doehler Petersilka Py Rampton Rinaldi Rindler Schjerve Metzeltin Ronjat...
…Selinker Schlieben-Lange Schrauf Steiner Schumann Pulvermüller Seidlhofer Singleton Lengyel Steiner von Stutterheim …Taddei Gheiler Taeschner ten Thije Tracy Zeevaert Thomason Kaufman Titone Tomasello ...
...Wattendorf Weinreich Wildgen Wode Zappatore Nitsch …etc. etc. …
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0. Underexposed topics
1. the historical dimension of multilingualism2. the interplay between language learning and
acquisition (neurobiological basis, cognitive development, interaction and formal instruction…)
3. Unfocussed language acquisition, e.g. acquisition through exposure
4. the age range between 7 and 14 in bilingual-multilingual acquisition
5. Long-term effectiveness of early acquisition programs of L2, L3, Ln… in primary schools.
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1. Historical dimension
Questions to investigate
• What kind of configurations of multilingualism can we detect in the past?
• What can we say about the attitudes toward multiple use of languages?
• What was the "awareness" of being multilingual?
• How did people deal with one another and how did people learn languages?
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towards a historical grammatology:
• history of language X as a history of language contact
• historical grammar of discourse practices
• "migration linguistics" • transition grammars: areas of contact between dialects/regional languages as continuum between varieties
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2. Historical minorities and new
minorities“Multilingual individuals and groups, once regarded as peripheral minority groups or exceptions, are therefore located at the focal point.
They have become symbols of European communication skills and can be the bridge-builders for a plural European identity.”(Franceschini 2009, forthcoming)
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• lack of comparative studies for historical minorities and regional languages
• need for a Ethnography of multilingual communication in language border regions
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Requirements for language maintenance (historical and new minority languages):
• varied input at all levels
• attitudinal dimension: enhancing factors of self-consciousness (e.g. by establishing living examples)
• gaining new speakers
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Research questions
• How combine the topic of historical and new minority languages?
• Which are the concepts bridging the two groups?
• Which are the invariants?• Which solutions are preferred for multilingual communication at work, in neighbourhood., at school, etc.?
• Which practices are associated with aspects of identity, and which not?
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3. Statistical basis and legal status
• a map of multilingualism (with various "linguistic-tectonic plates” for any country/region)
• need of comparative studies of the legal basis for languages
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4. Multilingualism in institutions
• include language skills in ‘knowledge balance sheets’ of companies
• study multilingual practices which are used to communicate in an daily working environment
• verbal and written sub-forms• explore practices along the emerging language industries
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• research on "multilingualism in business" should be expanded, above and beyond the immediate economic benefit
• second and third generation: "educational residents” (in Germany: “Bildungsinländer”) represent a potential for business contacts, with side-effects for integration
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Research questions
• Are multilingual skills applied systematically in institutions?
• Are employees' language skills promoted?
• Are companies aware of the networking and mediating potential of second and third generation immigrants?
• Is there any common ground and have practices been established?
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5. Multilingualism in discourse
Forms of multilingual interaction:(besides Code-switching and Code-mixing)
• „interalloglottal communication” (Behrent 2007)
• „crossing ” (Rampton 1995)• ethnic varieties• linguae francae and emerging varieties
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“Language adoption”
• sociolinguistic dimension: majority language speakers use (parts of) languages of minorities
• process:“unfocussed language acquisition” (Franceschini 2003)
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European media discourse
Research questions
• Is there any European communications culture?
• Are fragments of a European journalism detectable?
• How can European identity be communicated by media?
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CMC and the web
Research questions
• Non-native speaker of English dominate the Internet: which methods are used to be comprehensible worldwide?
• How are problems in expressing oneself overcome?
• Which approach is taken towards cultural assumptions?
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6. Multilingualism in the individual
Future matters:
• to fill up the gaps in life-spans like:– the age from 4 to approx. 14– learning in a very advanced age
• to assess non formal learning contexts for their learning potential (‘learning outside of school’)
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Multiple language acquisition in early childhood
Research questions
• Which effects are there if a child acquires two or more languages in succession at the age of 4-14 (in family and at school)?
• Are the forms of acquisition evident as the child grows older?
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• At which level does it possibly become apparent (phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary) and are the effects detectable later on?
• What influence does starting a foreign language earlier at school, at the age of 7 or 9 or 11, have upon the skills attained when the learner enters working life?
• Are some differences measurable?
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L3, L4… Ln
• Continue studies on the acquisition of a third language (or fourth… Ln-language) – effects on those languages already mastered (acceleration, feedback effects…)
– role of ‘auxiliary’ languages– intercomprehension and enhanced receptive multilingualism
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Research fields
• language learning at an advanced age
• interdisciplinary co-operation with teachers: bring research and teaching closer together
• receptive multilingualism
• general "acquisition strategies" used outside school (self-regulation)
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• peer mediation
• language biographies
• "near-native" skills
• study of cases in which multilingualism does not succeed
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Main question:
Why some groups of children, above all some sub-groups of migrant children, do not manage to gain positive social capital from the potentially positive conditions which multilingualism entails?
– systemic approaches are needed
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Linguistics of Potentiality
from the hypothesis of deficit to the view on
potentiality
• studies of ecosystems and ethnographic analyses to understand heterogeneity
• interdisciplinary collaboration (sociology, urban studies, linguistics, communication and educational studies, psychology etc.)
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Final remarks
interconnections between languages
• feed-back effects by being or becoming bi- or multilingual
• from form–> to function–> to processes
• now: interdependence between processes
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Theoretical and methodological challenge:
Multilingualism as trendy ‘week term’
or
Multilingualis as consistent research field, with his own profile
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Future
1. foster theoretical and methodological reflexion, based on a good empirical basis
2. develop multifactorial approaches
3. formalization of complex, non-linear developments
4. promising: orientation on system theory
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Application
Necessity to ‘pioneer’ the field of research on multilingualism for useful mediation:
– Which findings and concepts are helpful at school and outside formal education?
– What can be said to parents, to decision makers and to entrepreneurs?
– How the emerging ‘language industry’ can be in touch with research in multilingualism?
Pavia, 19.5.2009 38
Centro di ricerca lingue
Freie Universität Bozen - Libera Università
di Bolzano - Free University of BozenDantestrasse 8, via Dante
I-39100 BOLZANO-BOZEN
[email protected]://www.languagestudies.unibz.it/
Report of the High Level Group:http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/doc/multireport_en.pdf
Pavia, 19.5.2009 39
Skipped fields
• translation and interpreting• multi-literacy• working memory, SLA and multilingualism• musicality and multilingualism• …..
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