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English Pages 344 [362] Year 2023
Understanding Bilingualism, Bilinguality, and Bilingual Education in an Era of Globalization Ai-Ling Wang Tamkang University, Taiwan
A volume in the Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies (ARCS) Book Series
Published in the United States of America by IGI Global Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA, USA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2023 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wang, Ai-Ling, author. Title: Understanding bilingualism, bilinguality, and bilingual education in an era of globalization / authored by Ai-Ling Wang. Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “In this volume, I discuss the topic of being able to speak two or more languages from three different orientations: bilingualism, bilinguality, and bilingual education. Bilingualism is more theory-oriented discussed at three levels: the individual level, the societal and institutional level, and the national and international level. Bilinguality, on the other hand, focuses more on the cognitive and neuro-linguistic parts of language function. That is, how bilinguals function in their brain while dealing with two or more languages. Finally, bilingual education presents the practical part of how language learning and acquisition is arranged in different areas of the globe based on their historical backgrounds and language policies. Detailed sub-topics will be introduced in the Introduction part”-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023008236 (print) | LCCN 2023008237 (ebook) | ISBN 9781668448694 (h/c) | ISBN 9781668448700 (s/c) | ISBN 9781668448717 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Education, Bilingual. | Multilingual education. | Bilingualism. Classification: LCC LC3715 .W3 2023 (print) | LCC LC3715 (ebook) | DDC 306.44/6--dc23/eng/20230310 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023008236 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023008237 This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies (ARCS) (ISSN: 2475-675X; eISSN: 2475-6768)
British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher. For electronic access to this publication, please contact: [email protected].
Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies (ARCS) Book Series Nancy Erbe California State University-Dominguez Hills, USA
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Titles in this Series
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Evaluating Indigenous African Tradition for Cultural Reconstruction and Mind Decolonization Oluwole Olumide Durodolu (Department of Information Science, University of South Africa, South Africa) Olumuyiwa Olusesan Familusi (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) Ngoako Solomon Marutha (University of South Africa, South Africa) and Collence T. Chisita (Durban University of Technology, South Africa) Information Science Reference • © 2024 • 300pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781668488270) • US $215.00 The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Consequences on the Geopolitics of the World Nika Chitadze (International Black Sea University, Georgia) Information Science Reference • © 2023 • 303pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781668485217) • US $215.00 Strategies for Cultural Assimilation of Immigrants and Their Children Social, Economic, and Political Considerations Harish Chandra Chandan (Independent Researcher, USA) Information Science Reference • © 2023 • 267pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781668448397) • US $215.00 Implications of Marginalization and Critical Race Theory on Social Justice Harish C. Chandan (Independent Researcher, USA) Information Science Reference • © 2023 • 316pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781668436158) • US $215.00 Handbook of Research on Deconstructing Culture and Communication in the Global South Desmond Onyemechi Okocha (Bingham University, Nigeria) Muhammad Yousaf (University of Gujrat, Pakistan) and Melchizedec J. Onobe (Bingham University, Nigeria) Information Science Reference • © 2023 • 490pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781668480939) • US $270.00
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This volume is dedicated to my late parents who might be proud of me if they could have seen the publication of this volume personally.
Table of Contents
Foreword.............................................................................................................viii Preface................................................................................................................... ix Section 1 Bilingualism Chapter 1 Bilingualism at the Individual Level.......................................................................1 Chapter 2 Bilingualism at the Societal and Institutional Levels............................................39 Chapter 3 Bilingualism at the National and International Levels..........................................60 Section 2 Bilinguality Chapter 4 Bilinguality: Neuro-Lingualistic and Cognitive Perspective..............................119 Chapter 5 Bilinguality: Psycho-Linguistic Perspective.......................................................148 Chapter 6 Bilinguality: Socio-Linguistic Perspective.........................................................167
Section 3 Bilingual Education Chapter 7 Orientations Toward Bilingual Education..........................................................198 Chapter 8 Cases of Bilingual Education and Programs Around the Globe.........................223 Chapter 9 International Schools..........................................................................................297 Chapter 10 Informal Language Learning..............................................................................308 Chapter 11 Conclusion..........................................................................................................316 Compilation of References............................................................................... 325 About the Author.............................................................................................. 341 Index................................................................................................................... 342
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Foreword
The idea of writing about bilingualism and bilingual education came to my mind as a hunch one day on my way home. In retrospect, I am thankful for the hunch that I did not have to spend too much time and energy deciding on writing this book. Without any hesitation, I quickly organized my thoughts, and with the assistance of IGI Global publication team, I finalized my book title Understanding Bilingualism, Bilinguality, and Bilingual Education in an Era of Globalization. I did not feel much pressured in the course of writing this book. On the contrary, I felt like having a goal to achieve and life is meaningful with a goal in mind. To me, the writing process is enjoyable and satisfying. I went to the campus library everyday and enjoyed my reading and writing there. I was satisfied with myself each time when I got some ideas to write about or had some paragraphs written, imaging I was a step closer to achieving my goal. The only thing I felt embarrassed is that I did not realize that bilingualism and bilingual education are much more than minority groups and heritage language instruction until I read a considerable amount of relevant literature. Now witnessing the publication of this book, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I would like to see this book used on campuses as a textbook in the field of bilingual education or as a reference book collected in libraries. For individuals, in times of negotiating their identities as bilinguals or motivating themselves to be bilinguals, this book can be a useful guide. Or you might just want to use this book as a resource book to expand your horizon of knowledge in an era of globalization. Whatever reasons you might have for reading this book, I wish you a pleasant time communicating with me in writing and understand what I meant by bilingualism, bilinguality, and bilingual education in an era of globalization. Most importantly, I welcome feedback, questions, and comments you might after reading the book. Ai-Ling Wang Tamkang University, New Taipei City, Taiwan
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This volume intends to address issues of bilingualism and biculturalism as well as bilingual education in an era of globalization, where bilingualism and biculturalism are umbrella terms to mean two or more languages and cultures. Issues relevant to this topic are discussed from both the theoretical and practical aspects, ranging from the individual level to the global sphere. Issues covered in this volume include individual bilinguals’ attitudes toward language and language learning and how their attitudes along with their cultures and ideologies may shape their identities and power relations with others, how bilinguals interact at home, in schools and communities and in other social environments, and how their brain functions to deal with two or more languages when they are communicating with others or working on translation or interpretation. In the global sphere, language policies and language planning as well as ideologies behind deciding on the policies and structuring bilingual education and how language policies may change as changes occur in the globe are also important topics discussed in this volume. Other issues apparent in global communications, such as linguistic hegemony of English and native vs. non-native speakers of English, are also not ignored. Learning languages and acquiring cultural knowledge are important nowadays because, in an era of globalization, people around the globe are in effect interdependent and interrelated. There are considerable needs for collaboration or cooperation between and among nations around the world to solve global issues and to promote world peace. On the other hand, increasingly growing population, information, and knowledge mobility have greatly changed how people perceive language and culture. Language varieties and cultural integration and assimilation are commonly seen in different areas of the world. These issues in turn raise another issue concerning language teaching and learning. In a linguistically and culturally diverse educational setting, traditional ways of teaching and learning languages can no longer
Preface
fit in an increasingly globalized world. Bilingual education has been seen to be the norm in the nearest future around the world, although different areas of the world may have different interpretations of and different applications to bilingual education. In this regard, this volume can be a useful reference book for researchers, administrators, teachers at different academic levels, graduate students, policy makers in governmental and non-governmental organizations, community leaders, translators and interpreters, parents who are sensitive to their children’s language and culture developments, and individuals who are interested in language learning and cultural exploration and who in their professional career might be required to communicate with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Importantly, because this volume discusses different issues and practices of bilingualism and bilingual education around the world, it can be one of the valuable collections in local and public libraries around the world. To provide readers with a comprehensive knowledge and information required to understand the role bilingualism and bilingual education play in an era of globalization, this volume contains three major parts: bilingualism, bilinguality, and bilingual education. Each part focuses on a different aspect of working with two or more languages. Bilingualism focuses more on the theoretical part of relevant issues, whereas bilinguality concerns the ability to function in two or more languages. Bilingual education then discusses teaching and learning of languages. The first part, bilingualism, discusses bilingualism at individual, societal and institutional, and national and international levels respectively. Chapter one focuses on individual bilingualism. This chapter first clarifies that individual bilinguals can be categorized based on different factors, including their ability to use the languages, places to use the languages, their levels of language proficiency, ages of acquiring the languages, how they develop their languages, where the languages are learned, and how they choose to use the languages. This chapter then discusses heritage language development and motivation to learn a foreign language as well as anxieties in the process of learning a language, and the discussion is followed by pieces of research evidence revealing benefits of being bilingual. Other issues relevant to language learning such as how language can be associated with culture, power relations, ideology, and identity are also discussed with some specific cases around the world in order to remind readers of the various aspects of language and encourage language learners to explore different aspects of language.
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Chapter two moves the discussion of bilingualism to the societal and institutional level. That is, the discussion focuses on how bilinguals interact with each other and/or with monolinguals in societies, for example, at home, in communities, and in schools. Issues such as how bilinguals choose a code or codes to communicate in societies are discussed with some specific examples of societal bilingualism to exemplify that societal bilingualism are in effect dependent on various factors and these factors can be political, economical, and religious. In multilingual classrooms, the discussion focuses on co-languaging and language assessment in multilingual educational settings. Finally, in the research domain, I urge researchers to pay attention to the pragmatic part of bilingual communications, rather than just language alone. Discussions of bilingualism move further in chapter three to the national and international level. Language policies and language planning are first discussed. Different orientations in language planning, for example language can be viewed as a problem, as a right, or as a resource, are then analyzed together with some specific examples of language planning around the world, showing how different orientations toward language may be reflected in language planning. In these examples we may find that language planning of a nation or a region may be dependent on different historical backgrounds, political and social considerations, and people’s interests. Aside from language policies and language planning, I then discuss some issues relevant to the English language, which are recognized at the national and international level, namely language hegemony of English and native-speakerism, with an intention of drawing readers’ attention to and further discussion of the longexisting issues. Finally, with an intention of roughly providing an overview of how perception of language policies and language planning change along with the change and development of the globe, I describe how planning and structuring national languages have moved from colonialism to globalization and then the ideology of language education has been seen moving toward Neoliberalism. Yet, in addition to be aware of various differences in our use of languages, we as language users also need to attend to language universal in order to remind ourselves of language being part of human nature. The second part of this volume, bilinguality, views bilingualism from cognitive and neuro-linguistic, psycho-linguistic, and socio-linguistic perspective respectively. That is, the discussions are more concerned with how language use may be associated with our brain function and state of mind. Chapter four first discusses the mechanism of brain function in bilinguals’ mind with different theoretical models and debates explaining how bilingual brains function in dealing with two or more language. Research studies tend xi
Preface
to hold that bilinguals are not two separate languages existing in one human body. Rather, two or more languages are integrated and interconnected in bilinguals’ mind as one single linguistic system, and research studies also have shown some cognitive benefits of bilinguals. This chapter also compares bilinguals’ first and second language acquisition and cross-linguistic influence. Finally, cognitive distortions in monolinguals’ mind and language attrition may occur if bilinguals do not regularly use one of the languages they speak, can be issues deserving our attention and are discussed at the end of this chapter. Chapter five discusses bilinguals’ brain function from a psycho-linguist perspective, that is, bilinguals’ psychological states of mind in times of dealing with two or more languages. This may include their attitudes toward a language or languages, which is first discussed. Then, according to research studies, bilinguals’ being found to have strong creative thinking in their mind because of their being able to use various language skills and knowledge is illustrated. The discussion is followed by exploring what might be in a bi/ multi-cultural’s mind and how they might be able to adjust to two or more cultures and how bi/multiculturalism may benefit both an individual and an organization. Finally, child bilinguals and adult bilinguals are compared from a psycho-linguistic perspective. Chapter six discusses bilinguality from a socio-linguistic perspective. That is, how bilinguals’ use of two or more languages may lead to changes of languages at the societal level and how they make use of the two or more languages they speak to communicate with people in societies. First, I discuss how language varieties, dialects, and different styles are developed because of interactions between and among people from different ethnic groups and different areas of the world. Then, common practices in bilingual communications, namely code-switching, code-mixing, and translanguaging are discussed. These specific practices in bilingual communications are said to be dependent on various social factors, including whom they are speaking to and the power relations between them, where and when the communication occurs, and the purposes of the communication. Finally, tasks commonly found in bilinguals’ daily activities, namely translation and interpretation, are explored and are then compared with machine translation and multimodal translation. The third part of this volume, bilingual education, focuses its discussion on language policies in education, which is teaching and learning of a language or languages in educational and non-educational settings. Chapter seven first discusses different orientations toward structuring bilingual
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education or language programs in different parts of the world because of different historical backgrounds, social situations, political interests, and ideologies of the policy makers. Four types of orientation are brought up to differentiate the ways different nations or regions may structure bilingual education or language programs, namely: focusing on maintenance of minority or indigenous languages, focusing on restructuring language policy after the era of colonization, focusing on maintaining and promoting existing bilingualism, and focusing on promoting English in an era of globalization. After the categorization of different orientations toward structuring bilingual education, the discussion is then devoted to exploring the ideologies behind structuring different bilingual education. These ideologies can be liberalism, radicalism, Marxism, heteroglossic ideology and monoglossic ideology. After discussing different orientations toward structuring bilingual education and ideologies behind it, Chapter eight then presents bilingual education or language programs practiced in different areas of the globe, which is organized by the continents of the globe, namely Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania. Some nations in each continent are presented as specific examples of how bilingual education or language programs are structured. Although they may not necessarily be representatives of each continent, they somewhat reflect that geographical locations can be factors that influence the way bilingual education is structured. Chapter nine discusses yet another phenomenon emerged as a result of globalization, and it is generally connected to bilingual education: international schools. Different types of international schools are first introduced in this chapter, for example, as international schools develop, some are established for locals and the curricula organized may be different. The introduction is followed by descriptions of factors contributing to the growth of international schools, which can be described as ‘supply fed and demand-led.’ These factors are discussed from the demand side and the supply side respectively. The demand-side factors include the growth of the middle-class around the globe, the desire for an English medium of instruction, the collaboration between English schools and Asian countries, and the dissatisfaction with national education. The supply-side factors can be attributed to the growing access to internal market, several financially sound groups emerged to play dominant roles in the international school market, and importing and exporting international schools and development of international student assessment. Finally, in this chapter, some cases of international schools in different areas of the globe are illustrated.
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Preface
Chapter ten moves the discussion of bilingual education and language learning from traditional educational settings to informal settings. This chapter emphasizes that language learning can occur in any place and at any time, and learners can use different ways of learning to learn a language, for example, languages can be learned online, via social media and from the environments around you. This chapter first describes different types of informal language learning. They can be unplanned informal bilingualism and planned non-formal bilingualism. Among the different types of informal language learning, I first describe an online language learning platform, Duolingo, and it is followed by a film viewing project EURECAP, in which language learners watch foreign films at home to learn a foreign language, and finally it describes a project making use of linguistic landscapes as language learning resources. These examples reveal that learners are highly motivated in the learning process. It is regarded that informal language learning can be self-controlled and hence more rewarding and less pressured. Finally in the concluding chapter, Chapter eleven, in addition to briefly summarizing what I have covered in all the chapters of this volume, I first point to the two missing parts in commonly discussed bilingualism and bilingual education: mainstream students’ learning of a foreign language and the eventual goals of bilingualism and bilingual education. First, mainstream students’ learning of foreign languages and instructional materials used in foreign or second language teaching for them. Second, the discussion of the eventual goal of bilingual education: peace and development. In the field of bilingualism and biculturalism, as I read a considerable amount of relevant literature, I seldom came across research reports focusing on mainstream students, e.g. English-speaking populations learning a foreign language, especially minority languages. Even though there might be some instructional materials for them to learn a language and its culture other than their own, these materials tend to superficially introduce a foreign language and culture, not really engage students in comparing and evaluating different cultures and reflect them on one’s own culture. Second, I consider the eventual goal of bilingualism and bilingual education is peace and development. At the individual level, it can mean a peaceful everyday life and a peaceful mind to interact with people of different ethnic groups and speaking different languages. On the other hand language skills and knowledge of cultures can be used for personal and professional growth. At the collective level, peace and development represent a peaceful community, society, and world in which people of different ethnic groups, nationalities,
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social status, religious backgrounds, and educational backgrounds can live together and work together toward a better and more advanced life. On the other hand, developments not only mean technological advancements and physical conveniences, but also mean enhancements of spiritual well-being. At the end of this chapter, I envision the future of bilingualism and bilingual education. Because of the trends of globalization and neoliberalism, there is a promising future and considerable opportunities for minority groups in various domains. For language and culture learning, there is a tendency to go online. It is not only because of the advancements of technology, but also because learning online can reach people of different cultures and backgrounds more easily and more quickly. In times of COVID-19 pandemic, moving learning online even saved people’s rights to learn and exemplified how learning, including language learning, cannot be stopped for any reason and how people as global citizens can work collaboratively to solve global issues. It is hoped that this volume may draw readers’ attention to different aspects of bilingualism, which is not merely being able to speak two or more languages. It needs to be considered from different related domains, including politics, education, sociology, linguistics, and psychology. Readers are also reminded that bilingualism and bilingual education need to be considered in a broader sense. That is, they can mean different things to different individuals, groups of people, societies, and nations. Most importantly, readers are encouraged to consider the eventual goal of bilingualism and biculturalism as far as the entire global community and its citizens are concerned, that is, peace and development. In addition to avoiding prejudice and ethnocentrism, bilingualism and bilingual education should be aimed at individual and world peace and at personal growth and world advancements. After reading this volume, readers are encouraged to provide valuable comments and information relevant to bilingualism and bilingual education. I am from Taiwan and probably with only limited experiences and a narrowminded worldview to complete this volume. However, I do believe each global citizen deserves opportunities to have his or her voice heard globally. That is one of the reasons that I have tried hard in the course of writing this volume to cover people of different ethnic groups and from different areas of the globe. I am sure, like me and the communities I belong to, each group of people are eager to have their voices heard and to participate in and even to contribute to the global community. By excluding minority groups and less representative people from participating in the global community, a real globalization and a real equal global community can never achieve.
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I sincerely welcome your comments and am more than happy to add your feedback and ideas to the horizon of my knowledge. In addition to bilingualism and bilingual education, I am particularly interested in cross-cultural exchanges and collaborations. I also welcome proposals for collaboration from different areas of the globe and for different purposes. I believe collective wisdom can make a better globe and cross-cultural activities can improve our language skills and cultural understanding. On the other hand, as a non-native speaker of English, I completed this volume in English. I am proud that it can be persuasive to use my own experiences of being bilingual to discuss the topics of bilingualism and bilingual education. However, language learning is an ongoing task; you use it or you lose it. I wish I could keep using my language skills to express myself and to make my voice heard. That is what I expect of all bilinguals. Bilinguals are encouraged to make use of their language skills to speak for themselves and for their communities because being bilingual is both a blessing and a privilege. However, it is also an obligation. Being able to make use of two or more languages, bilinguals’ words can be heard by more people and can reach a farther distance. More importantly, bilinguals have better opportunities to explore some issues that may exist in the globe for a long time but may not be attended to by most people.
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Section 1
Bilingualism
1
Chapter 1
Bilingualism at the Individual Level ABSTRACT This chapter is devoted to the discussion of bilingualism at the individual level. The author first presents different types of bilingualism which can be categorized by a range of factors, including ability, use, balance, age, development, culture, context, and choice. Respectively, the author then discusses the development of heritage language for minority individuals and motivations to learn a new language for majority individuals. Then she moves on to discuss how a bilingual’s language(s), culture(s), and power relations or interactions with others may form his or her identity or identities. Some specific cases are exemplified to show how these factors may interact to affect the formation of identity. The discussion is followed by a general perception of advantages of bilingualism. Finally, the author interviews a bilingual individual to provide a rough picture of bilingualism at an individual level.
INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I first discuss the term “bilingualism” and then move on to explore bilingual individuals’ motivations and experiences of learning a language and how they perceive themselves as bilinguals and develop their identity or identites. Some cases of identity formation will be illustrated. Finally, I will explore how being able to speak two or more languages and familiar with different cultures can be seen as advantages at different points of lifetime and in different situations. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch001 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Bilingualism at the Individual Level
As mentioned at the beginning of this volume, the term bilingualism is not limited to mean only two languages; rather, it refers to more than one language. As Field (2011) points out, many “of today’s specialists link bilingualism with multilingualism….In fact, in most recent studies, the two terms are often used interchangeably because to know more than one language is to know multiple languages” (p. 3). Smith and Truscott (2014) also mention in their book that they treat the term ‘bilingualism’ as equivalent to ‘multilingualism’. Even though we treat bilingualism as equivalent to multilingualism, still it is not without problems in defining ‘bilingualism’. As Smith and Truscott (2014) point out that bilingualism is a fact of life in many parts of the world estimating that between a third and more than half of the world’s population are, in some sense, in possession of and use more than one language system….Some even suggest that everyone is bilingual…; others make the claim that monolinguals on this planet are simply in the minority (p. 182) Just the term ‘bilingual’ alone can mean “two-year olds simultaneously acquiring two or more languages but may also refer to, say, adolescents or adults learning a foreign language at home or in a formal classroom after they have fully acquired their mother tongue” (Smith & Truscott, 2014, p. 5). Or with the perspective of minimal and maximal bilingualism, both people with very limited proficiency in one of the languages and people with very proficient in the two languages may be categorized as bilinguals (Baker & Wright, 2017). Another issue relevant to defining bilingualism is that bilingualism makes sense only if it is viewed as being fluid and dynamic. As Chumak-Horbatsch (2019) points out, dynamic bilingualism “focuses on social and communicative aspects of language, such as language practice, actual language use and the language that bilinguals use rather than skills they have in separate languages” (p. 13). This idea echoes that of McGroarty (2010), who states “individuals have many ways of marking belonging, of noting multiple cultural affiliations…. [I]t is a social reality” (p. 106).
2
Bilingualism at the Individual Level
DEFINING BILINGUALISM AND UNDERSTANDING BILINGUALS’ USE OF LANGUAGES At the individual level of bilingualism, categorizing ‘bilinguals’ can be complicated. Smith and Truscott (2014) collect various scholars’ ideas and point out that there are “almost forty ways of categorising bilinguals involving adjectives that include additive, ascendant, asymmetrical, balanced, compound, coordinate, diagonal, early, horizontal, incipient, minimal, natural, passive, productive, recessive, subtractive, and vertical” (p. 182), if we take into consideration variables such as times and environments of learning the second language, proficiency level and preference of the two languages, frequency of using the two languages, and how the two languages are maintained or even promoted. In addition, being able to speak two or more languages depends on various other factors, such as one’s historical and ethnical backgrounds, motivation and personality to learn or acquire a language, and the target language the individual is learning as categorized by Baker and Wright (2017). Baker and Wright (2017) deliberately categorize bilingualism from different dimensions, including ability (e.g. productive bilingual vs. receptive bilingual), use (e.g. at home, in schools, on the phone), balance (e.g. one language is dominant than the other), age (e.g. simultaneous bilingual vs. sequential bilingual), development (e.g. ascendant bilingual vs. recessive bilingual), culture (e.g. monocultural bilingual vs. bicultural bilingual), contexts (e.g. endogenous communities vs. exogenous communities), and choice (e.g. elective bilingual vs. circumstantial bilingual). As we can imagine, different types of bilinguals may lead to different attitudes toward language and different achievement in each single language. In the case of the dimension of ability, for example, Baker and Wright suggest that the four language skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading, and writing) can be further categorized into sub-skills, such as pronunciation, extent of vocabulary, correctness of grammar, the ability to convey exact meanings in different situations and variations in style. However, these skills tend to be viewed from an academic or classroom perspective. Using a language on the street and in a shop requires a greater focus on social competence with language (p. 7).
3
Bilingualism at the Individual Level
Still Lin (2015) points out another type of bilingualism, and she terms it grassroots trans-semiotizing as opposed to elite bi/multilingualism. She argues that we should conceptualize bi/multilingualism from a heteroglossia perspective and “to deconstruct the notion of a unitary language, …[which] at every moment of its linguistic life is opposed to the realities of heterglossia” (p. 23). For her, there are multiple mean-making resources in the real world and in real communication, language is but part of them. She uses hip hop as an example to illustrate how hip hop artists “draw on local vernaculars …to built trans-local inter-networks and communities from ground up” (p. 23). For example, MC Yan, a hip hop artist in Hong Kong, made use of vernacularstyle Cantonese along with graffiti to create the song “War Crime” to express “his anger about Gulf War” (p. 24). As a rule of thumb, Beardsmore (2009) cites statements stipulated in the documents of the Council of Europe as defining a person’s plurilingual repertoire as saying “different languages and language varieties at different levels of proficiency and includes different types of competences. It is dynamic and changes in its composition throughout an individual’s life” (p. 199). Viewing from the perspective of functional bilingualism, Baker and Wright (2017) argue that communication “includes not the structure (e.g. grammar, vocabulary) but also who is saying what, to whom, in which circumstances” (p. 4-5). That is, bilinguals’ use of languages may be dependent on many factors. In addition to the context and participants of the communication, bilinguals’ choice of languages to communicate may be affected by their personal ideology, preference, and how they perceive each individual language. According to Robichaud (2020), language serves individuals in two dimensions: the identity dimension and the instrumental dimension. Generally speaking, language is closely tied to one’s identity and culture and one feels most comfortable and easy speaking is his/her mother tongue or first language. One can make each single effort to preserve and protect his language(s). On the other hand, language also serves individuals for instrumental purposes. Individuals might “want to learn and transmit a language that maximizes their opportunities of communications…to have access to as many people as possible, but also to specific people, jobs, touristic places, bodies of literature and other linguistically encoded goods” (p. 105). It is interesting to note that “bilingualism and multilingualism became the norm and not the exception” as Robichaud (2020, p105-106) points out. Although individuals may be “not willing to protect their vernacular language at the price of an access to a broader community,” (p. 105) say switching to English, which has important instrumental values, they may “choose the 4
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language in which to invest our time and energy on the basis of expected benefits” (p. 106). On the other hand, as to which language or languages to invest, individuals may consider the one that is the most complementary to the one(s) already spoken. We do not invest in languages in order to have more options to do the same things, but rather in order to have more options to do more and different things” (p. 106). For example, we might want to learn French in order to better understand French cuisine and French movies or, for a more academic purpose, we might want to learn a minority language in order to conduct research on the cultural and linguistic origin and/or development of the minority group. That is to say, for an individual, each language in his/her language repertoire may serve a specific purpose or fulfill a particular task depending on the context and the role the individual is playing in that context. Another very important point to make in defining bilingualism is the monolingual view of bilingualism and the holistic view of bilingualism. According to Baker and Wright (2017), a monolingual view of bilingualism sees bilinguals as having two separate language systems in one human entity. With this view in mind, advocates expect bilinguals to reach the proficiency level comparable to that of monolingual native speakers. A holistic view of bilingualism, on the other hand, argues “that all languages contribute to a single and universally accessible linguistic and cognitive system” (p. 11). Advocates of this view believe that “bilinguals draw on the range of features associated with socially-constructed language within their linguistic repertoire in complex and dynamic ways as they communicate with others and engage in collaborate task” (Baker & Wright, 2017, p. 11). In the following sections to come, I will discuss two main important linguistic areas that make an individual bilingual: heritage language and second or foreign language.
HERITAGE LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND HERITAGE LANGUAGE EDUCATION “Heritage speakers” is defined as bilingual “speakers whose native language or one of their native languages is socio-politically minority language, such as children of immigrants, of aboriginals, and of speakers of national minority 5
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languages are often referred to as heritage speakers in North America” (Montrul, 2019, p. 237). Citing from Polinsky and Kagan, Lima (2021) considers heritage language speakers in a broad and a narrow sense. In the broad sense, heritage language speakers are “individuals more likely to belong in families who have lived in this country for many generations. Even though they don’t have or have very little language proficiency, they may have ethnic/cultural interests tied to the language” (p. 71). On the other hand, heritage language speakers can also be described in a narrow sense to refer to “individuals raised in a home where the HL (author’s note: language with higher status) was predominant. The acquisition of the dominant language …stops these individuals’ learning of their HL through schooling” (p. 71). Baker and Wright (2017) also point out that “heritage language may also be called ‘native language’, ‘ethnic language’, ‘minority language’, ‘ancestral language’, [or] ‘aboriginal language’” (p. 225). For them, heritage language should not only be referred the past but also to the future and not only to traditions but also to the contemporary. However, as observed in immigrant communities, Field (2011) points to the phenomenon of the three-generation rule, referring to “the normal course of language shift and shows how native/ heritage languages can fall into disuse and eventually become lost to the community” (p. 62). He explains that the first generation immigrants are generally “adults and older adolescents who have migrated for economic reason. They attempt to learn the new, majority language for obvious utilitarian reasons” (p. 62). The second generation is typically born in the new country. They are “caught in the middle between two languages and cultures and the process of language shift” (p. 63). “The third generation may have little or no memory of what it was like to live in the ancestral homeland and to be completely immersed in its language, culture, and economy” (p. 63). Field draws educators’ attention to be aware of the interplay of different factors in order to make children’s educational experience positive and productive. It is encouraging that “[e]thnolinguistic groups that had experienced language shift ….or were experiencing language loss have started again to claim their heritage languages as their right, and as part of multiple identities” (Garcia, 2009, p. 245-246). Citing from Romaine, Garcia (2009) considers that “bilingual schools….are becoming a most important way of transmitting home languages when there has been large language shift” (p. 246). Montrul (2019) states that heritage speakers may have different degrees of proficiency in their heritage language. She describes that heritage “speakers start off as monolingual native speakers but because they grow up in a bilingual environment they often undergo a language shift to the majority language 6
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when they start school, and the majority language becomes dominant as a result” (p. 238). Their achievement in their heritage language and the dominant language may be relevant to a lot of factors. For example, they may be early bilinguals, who learned the heritage language at a very young age, or late bilinguals, who learned the heritage language at an older age, say the age of puberty; or they may be simultaneous bilinguals, who “acquired the heritage language and the majority language at birth” (p. 239) simultaneously or sequential bilinguals like adult L2 learners who learned their second or foreign language in schools. In addition to the order of acquisition of the heritage language and the dominant language, other factors can also be relevant to whether a bilingual is particular strong or weak in one of the two languages, for example, the quantity and quality of input and the learner’s age and, hence, how he or she operates in the learning process. As Montrul explains, when “children acquire language, they are primarily doing so implicitly guided by cognitive and/or linguistic universals, whereas adults learning a second language rely more on explicit knowledge, which is knowledge developed through metalinguistic reflection, than on implicit knowledge” (p. 240). Montrual (2019) describes the grammatical development of heritage speakers by drawing on relevant literature and comparing it with that of L2 adult learners. As she briefly summarizes findings of the studies, age “of acquisition seems to be particularly important for phonology. …Native-like pronunciation by L2 learners is only achieved if language acquisition took place very early in the childhood” (p. 242). This phenomenon may be a result of fossilization that stops the learner’s phonological development. “In the areas of morpho-syntax, semantics and pragmatics, by contrast, studies comparing heritage speakers and L2 learners do not always find an advantage (i.e. more native-like knowledge) for the heritage speakers due to age of acquisition” (p. 243). In terms of the development of literacy in heritage language, Lima (2021), on the other hand, suggests a situated literacy approach to in the heritage language classroom. That is, materials and topics for reading and writing can be connected to students’ cultural heritage in order to heighten students’ intrinsic motivation and facilitate their achievement. Baker and Wright (2017) describe that heritage language education can exist in various forms, for example, in-school or out-of-school programs, as an add-on to regular curriculum for a few hours, or as a strong form of bilingual education in that home or heritage language minority children is used as a medium of instruction with the goal of full bilingualism. According to Baker and Wright, in addition to the United States, heritage language education can be found in various countries, such as teaching of Māori language in New 7
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Zealand, Irish in Ireland, minority language education in China for over 20 minority groups, and similar programs found in Papua New Guinea and other Oceania countries. Baker and Wright further describe that heritage language education sometimes exists as schools or community-based initiatives. “Such schools may receive some support from community organizations, foreign governments or religious institution” (p. 224-225). In sum, as pointed out by Reyes and Moll (2010), in the development of children’s heritage language, all family, school, and community play important roles. At home, parents become instructors of the language, and the learning should be bi-directionality. That is, parents and children learn from each other. Parents can learn the mainstream language from their children. In schools, teachers and staff members’ language ideology is crucial to minority children’s development of heritage language. They need to be supportive in the process of children’s learning of their heritage language. Finally, communities can also provide children with considerable amount of exposure to heritage language, including “going to the store, reading the mail, visiting relatives, attending parties, and participating in community dances and festivals” (Reyes & Moll, 2010, p. 155). A good example illustrated by Lima (2021) is that, in a class with bilingual and multilingual students, students were required to create digital stories, and they “consulted their parents and local communities as a resource for the veracity of information in their digital stories” (p. 76).
MOTIVATIONS TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE Aside from learning the heritage language, we now turn to the discussion of learning a language other than one’s mother tongue. For bilinguals, especially late bilinguals who learn a second language at an older age, learning a new language might not be as easy as one can expect. As Federici (2021) describes it, language “learning is inherently long-term, process-driven, and accumulative” (p. 88). Many of second language learners learn their second or foreign language in the school with pressures from teachers, peers, and parents. They can no longer ‘acquire’ a language ‘unconsciously’. In the discussion of learning a new language, Santamaria-Garcia (2018) points to three important factors that language teachers cannot ignore in order for their students to learn the target language successfully: motivation, tasks, and interculturality. First, she points to the importance of enhancing students’ motivation to learn and argues that studying “a second language differs from studying most other subject in that it involves taking on elements of a 8
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different culture apart from the language” (p. 85). She urges language teachers to consider that the eventual goal of teaching and learning a language is the social function of communication. Second, Santamaria-Garcia suggests the use of Task-based Language Teaching approach in the classroom to engage students in working on the task and to increase “opportunities for meaningful communication and motivation” (p. 87). Finally, interculturality is “the ability for successful interaction with people from different cultural backgrounds, [and it] is an important goal to be achieved when learning a foreign language” (p. 87). Santamaria-Garcia urges language teachers to provide students with opportunities to communicate with students from different cultures. She recommends that teachers may have students from different cultures interact in the classroom or may initiate on-line cross-cultural communications. Santamaria-Garcia argues that learning a foreign language needs “to go beyond native-speaker-like linguistic competence,” (p. 87) and learners need to equip themselves with the ability to view and compare different cultures. Odo (2020), on the other hand, considers learner autonomy is very important in the success of language learning. He argues that “educators must move away from attempting to motivate learners toward helping learners to motivate themselves” (p. 422). Odo points out that learner autonomy can be fostered by metacognitive awareness, and autonomous language learners can develop their belief that they are responsible for their own learning. He suggests that some instructional approaches, such as instruction of language-learning strategies, cooperative and collaborative language learning, project-based language learning, experiential language learning, and extensive reading, can be helpful in promoting autonomous language learners. After all, “a knowledge of a second language can be gained without using it as a medium of instruction” (Mesthrie, 2010, p. 79). To autonomously learn a new language and totally control one’s own learning, Woodin (2018) proposes yet another type of language learning termed tandem learning. She describes tandem learning as “the learning which takes place when one (or more) native speakers and learners of each other’s language get together to learn from each other and help each other learn” (p. 9). According to her, tandem learning feature three important principles: autonomy, reciprocity, and intercultural learning. Being autonomous, each participant of a tandem learning context need to identify his or her own needs and goals and by all possible means to achieve them. Reciprocity is unique to tandem learning in which both “partners have a responsibility towards each other to help each other learn so they benefit equally from the exchange” 9
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(p. 9). Intercultural learning refers to that tandem learning, on the one hand, involves participants from different cultures and, and, on the other hand, learners can have the potential to learn each other’s culture. Given the features of tandem learning, Woodin (2018) points to some of the advantages of language learning in a tandem context, for example, learners are exposed to modified input…, such as self- or other correction of language….[Students develop] a heightened awareness of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in their language learning…, such as paying attention linguistically and socially; negotiating with one’s partner; and using the target language to cement the relationship (p. 17). For both monolinguals and bilinguals, tandem learning can be a good choice to learn a new language because it requires learners “to engage with the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social dimensions of language learning and to worry about how they interact with one another” (Woodin, 2018, p. 18). After all, tandem learners are communicating in an authentic and equal situation, and learners can decide on what they want to learn. Still, the learning environment is also relevant to learners’ willingness to be involved in language learning. Language teachers may not have total control over learners’ motivation to learn a new language. Gebhard (2017) also reminds us that teaching a language is context dependent. “How and what we teach depend very much on the setting” (p. 51). In the case of learning English, learners may be learning English in an English as a second language (ESL) or in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context. In an EFL context, learner “population is homogeneous in many ways, …sharing a similar history…. ESL settings, however, for the most part are quite heterogeneous. Students from a great variety of countries can be found in the same ESL classroom” (Gebhard, 2017, p. 39). Under this circumstance, we can assume that learners can be better motivated to learn English in an ESL setting, especially ESL is defined as learning English in an English-speaking environment. Like Santamaria-Garcia, Federici (2021) also stresses on the importance of motivation in learning a foreign language. She studied students learning Italian in a UK college. She points out that what “makes language learning so special in terms of motivation is that learners are experiencing these complex motivations and mind-sets for a language and culture that is different to their own first language” (p. 88). Students may enroll in a foreign language class “for the purposes of self-fulfillment, enjoyment, inherent interest” (p. 88) if they are intrinsically motivated, and self-determination in learning a foreign 10
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language may assist them in overcoming some learning difficulties and support their long-term aim. Federici also observed that students might also feel like to assimilate “to the target culture, and the values associated with a specific language, country, and way of life, [and this] integrative motivation is a crucial component in L2 acquisition” (p. 88-89). Santamaria-Garcia distinguishes between the motivation of those who enroll in a language course and learn onsite and that of those who learn via app-based language instruction. She comments that students enrolled in her language class had “shared aspirations and experiences of the L2 community and as such they are interested in the tastes and choices of other members of their community” (p. 89). App-based language, on the other hand, “is based on conscious learning and assesses learning of discrete lexical and grammatical, privileging respective skills and a reliance on translation….Apps…do not align the societal needs…[Learners feel] a sense of isolation and disconnection in online learning” (p. 89). Specifically focusing on learning English as a second or foreign language, Rose et al. (2020), based on different research findings, point out some reasons that motivate learners to learn English. While “some L2 users wish for a global, cosmopolitan identity which affords them with a sense of connectedness and belonging to a global community, some may want to display their L1 identity by tailoring their English to pursue their local needs and interests” (p. 143). They do not quite follow the traditional concept of integrative motivation; rather, they consider an ideal L2 learner is mostly motivated by a positive and active creation of one’s identity as a powerful and capable individual. Similarly, some may view mastering a foreign language from a socio-economic perspective. They consider learning a language is investment on their social capital which may lead to “a possible future socioprofessional and economic return” (p. 225). This viewpoint is in line with L2 self and identity as motivational factors proposed by Chik (2020). Chik suggests that L2 learners may create an Ideal L2 self and personal imaginary future L2 communities and thus desired identities, which may constantly change depending on the situated contexts. In addition to the above-mentioned motivational factors, Rose et al. (2020) also point out that learners can also be motivated by their personal interest. For example, TED Talks offers various available topics and varieties. “By focusing on the content of a TED Talk, learners can practice their ability to understand a particular variety while at the same time learning about an area of interest” (p. 80). Like the above-mentioned scholars, Smith and Truscott (2014) also stress the importance of motivation in learning a language. They view the issue of motivation from a neuro-linguistic perspective and point out that 11
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learners who find themselves immersed in the L2 and need to use it in sophisticated ways in their daily lives are likely to be much more successful than those who have only minimal exposure to it and little or no occasion to use it (p. 336). They point to the two variables that are currently popular research topics: motivation and language aptitude. They argue that learners’ motivation should ultimately be understood in the context of a process-oriented account of the mind, specifying …how motivational factors can influence each link in the processing chain that results in learning and how the affect that accompanies motivation influences subsequent use of the acquired knowledge (p. 336). Here Smith and Truscott are referring to the Modular On-line Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL) framework of language processing they propose, which I will introduce in detail in the next part of this volume. Referring to Dornyei and Ushioda’ idea, Evans (2018b) describes yet another psychological paradigm relevant to motivation to learn a foreign language. He explains that this model is irrelevant to sociocultural context; rather, it concerns the individual. The learner looks toward an imagined future selves and envision an ideal future self that combines the use of the language with how he/she would be in terms of self-concept having achieved mastery of the language. This positions future identity on the desire to integrate within a target language community (p. 225). Evans (2018b) explains that “this is not a cultural model narrating an ongoing process, but rather a psychological and ideologically neutral model” (p. 225). Yet, there are still language learners motivated by a desire to gain ‘cultural capital’. They view learning a language as a social investment and expect “a possible future socio-professional and economic return….[In this case, learners was framed]…as an integral member of a socio-economic community rather than just a linguistic community” (p. 225). Based on different perspectives relevant to motivation to learn a new language, Evans concludes that “socio-economic, intercultural and psychological future selfconcept paradigms for learner identity are separately framed in opposition to each other rather than interacting with each other” (p. 225). 12
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From the discussions above, we may understand that being motivated and being to successfully learn a second or foreign language is not as simple as we can expect. Internal factors may be relevant to learners’ desire to achieve in various aspects, such as socio-economic status, imaginary future, and even their mental orientation. Externally, language learners may be motivated by, say, enjoyable and encouraging learning contexts, appropriate and interesting teaching materials and instructional pedagogies. However, not every language learner can successfully learn a second or foreign language. Anxiety, which will be discussed in the following section, can be one of the important reasons.
ANXIETIES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING Contrary to motivation, second language learners may experience a considerable degree of anxiety in their learning process. Pichette (2009) points out that current foreign language teaching approaches “stress the importance of oral interaction between students, which is probably the most important source of anxiety for learners….A large number of studies have demonstrated negative relationships between anxiety and academic performance in foreign language learning” (p. 77). According to Smith and Truscott (2014), anxiety can “acts both as an input filter and as an output filter…, serving to maintain a state of preparedness for the appearance of a threat” (p. 337). In terms of input, sometimes anxiety can be facilitative, with its very low level of activation. However, “intense anxiety can be extremely harmful….[A]nxiety acts to limit the usefulness of input for the development of the language system” (p. 338). On the other hand, anxiety can also harm learning in learners’ output process. It can affect learners’ ability and fluency to make use the forms they have learned. Under this circumstance, learners tend to avoid the use of the representation. Based on a range of studies, Marcos-Llinás and Garau (2009) point out that language anxiety can affect different areas of language skill development, including communication apprehension, reading comprehension, oral proficiency, communicative skills, writing skills, and listening skills. Christianson and Deshaies (2020), describe an important difference between adult and child language being adults’ resistance to production. That is, adults are being anxious “about making mistakes or sounding foolish, [and it] is associated with lower L2 proficiency” (p. 33). They might want to wait until they learn enough and can produce error-free L2 speech. However, according to Christianson and Deshaies (2020), this reasoning is flawed. 13
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Recent studies have shown that “increased production in a foreign language during learning improves subsequent comprehension….[C]omprehension provides the raw materials for production…,and then that production… facilitates later comprehension” (p. 33). In education settings, anxiety in foreign language classes may be attributed to at least three reasons: peer pressure and dominance, written skills precede spoken skills, and exam-oriented teaching philosophy and lack of immediate references in the real world. First, in a foreign language class, students tend to compare with each other in terms of language fluency and accuracy. Zuengler and Miller view language learning as community of practice. They point to the fact that in the language classroom, “some members learn to take a less empowered position in a community of practice because the kinds of participation made available to them by ‘processed of exclusion and subordination that operate locally’” (p. 41). Under this circumstance, some more reticent students may learn and are used to not verbally participate in the class. Second, in many language classes in various countries, written skills precede spoken skills. In many cases, foreign languages are taught by local teachers. They themselves may not be confident with their pronunciation in a foreign language and expressing orally a foreign culture. In the case of nativelanguage speaking teachers, students may have problems comprehending the teacher, not to mention interacting with the teacher in the class. It is thus almost always the case that language teachers and students tend to pay more attention to lexical items and grammars than making use the language to communicate. Third, the problem with foreign language anxiety may be attributed to an exam-oriented teaching philosophy and a lack of immediate oral references. Foreign language assessments often take a written form. It is because written forms are much easier to be administered and measured than spoken forms and are considered to be more objective. For students, unlike in time of writing, it is not easy for them to get immediate references or assistance while they are presenting or communicating with others and confronting communication breakdowns. Applying the ideas of anxiety relevant to second language learning, language teachers, in addition to motivating learners to learn, should be aware of the negative affective factor, anxiety, exerting on learners’ minds. It is always the case, especially in countries eager to force their nationals to learn a foreign language, say English, that learners are forced by the government to learn a foreign language in order to be able to participate in the global community and, in turn, to promote the country. In this case, the governments usually do not provide amiable and enjoyable learning environments for learners. 14
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Instead, it is more than often that the way to promoting learning of a foreign language is coercive. Nationals will be punished in different ways for not attaining a required level of proficiency, for example, less opportunities in the job market and in admission to a prestigious school. More importantly, in the case of learning a foreign language, learners are not in an environment speaking the target language. This may cause learners’ anxiety in their learning process because of having little or no opportunity for them to practice their language skills to be confident with their learning. It may be an important task for language teachers to create such opportunities as cross-cultural exchanges, either physically or virtually, for their learners (Wang, 2019). To conclude this section, I would like to borrow Zuengler and Miller’s (2006) ideas and quote their words as they view “learning as changing participation in situated practices” (p. 40). That is, successfully learning a foreign language is not actually an individual achievement; rather, it is the social contexts that constitute it.
LANGUAGE, CULTURE, POWER, IDENTITY, AND INTERSECTIONALITY OF IDENTITY After discussion of language learning, let us turn to the discussion of how language may be associated with culture and power and may be relevant to language users’ identities. In his discussion on national identity, McCormick (2022) states that if “language is the most telling reminder of national differences, it is also the most important symbol of identity and culture” (p. 107). Heller (1999) also points out that “the notion [of linguistic minority] assumes that what makes the difference between that group and the majority has something to do with language” (p. 7). People from different areas of the globe may speak the same language; however, they may speak it differently in terms of accent, word usage, semantic implication and even syntactic structure. It can be a communicative barrier if you do not understand or if you misunderstand the language or language varieties of the person with whom you are communicating. On the other hand, as pointed out by Bernstein (2020), all of us hold beliefs about how language works and how people should use language. These beliefs, or language ideologies, come from our experiences as language users, and they shape not only the ways we use language but our reactions to and opinions about others’ language use (p. 57) 15
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Edwards (2009) argues that studies on bilingualism tend to be concerned with bilinguals’ competence in different languages and that we have to move beyond language itself…and consider issues of psychology and sociology, of symbol of subjectivity….In a word, we must think about the relationship between language and identity, and how this relationship may alter when more than one variety is involved (p. 248). Bilinguals, or multilinguals, may be struggling with their identities. As Edwards (2009) describes it, “[s]peaking a particular language means belonging to a particular speech community; speaking more than one may (or may not) suggest variations in identity and allegiances” (p. 248). However, Edwards does not consider that bilinguals’ different responses in different social settings “does not imply separate personalities, although it does suggest an enhanced repertoire of possibility” (p. 249). He also points to the fact that tensions and stresses found in immigrant or minority-group “are not linguistic in origin but, rather, result from broader pressures associated with cultures in contact, with cross-group antagonism and prejudice, with poverty and disadvantage” (p. 250). His view is echoed by Baker and Wright (2017), who argue that if there are anxieties and struggles in identity, bilingualism is unlikely to be the cause: ‘it is not language per se that causes the identity crisis; rather, it is often the social, economic and political conditions surrounding the development of bilingualism….Such conditions tend to be economic (e.g. material poverty), political oppression, racism, social exclusion, discrimination, hostility and powerlessness (p. 396-397). Mesthrie (2010) also suggests that variation is a normal part of human linguistic behavior, and is involved in subtle ‘identity’ work….It is more reasonable to try to add to a speaker’s stylistic repertoire, rather than replace the vernacular, since style shifts are part of normal linguistic behavior (p. 80). As McCormick (2022) states, some people may view globalization as a threat to their identity, while others may regard it “as an opportunity, regard exposure to new cultures and experiences as positive and enriching embrace the diversity of the human community” (p. 107). His significant advice is that 16
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to “recognize the co-existence of multiple identities, and instead of seeing globalization as either a threat or an opportunity, we can take the global view while also retaining our association with the local” (p. 107). McCormick (2022) illustrates three types of attitudes toward national identity: patriotism, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism. For people supporting patriotism, they love “their country simply because it is theirs” (p. 108). People may have different levels of patriotism in different countries and different age groups. Another type of attitude toward national identity is called cosmopolitanism. People with this tendency view “that local and global concerns cannot be separate or divorced….They argue that all humans should be treated equally” (p. 109). They view the globe as the only community and consider themselves global citizens. Still another type of attitude is called nationalism. Unlike patriotism, nationalists may take extreme actions to “promote their interests through a combination of superiority and exclusion” (p. 111). According to McCormick, nationalism has been developed several centuries ago. Cases include Nazis in Germany and American and French revolutions of the late 1700s. It can be said to be the product of increased international competition. States “encourage national unity so that citizens are loyal and more willing to make sacrifices for the state, so as to ensure their survival as independent cultural groups, and …to help create more unified economies and more productive populations” (p. 111-112). In addition to attitudes toward national identity, culture also plays a role in bilingual individuals’ making decisions on language use and preference to a particular language. According to McCormick, (2022), culture “comes in many different forms and is found at multiple levels,” (p. 113) including the local, national, civilizational, global, and human levels. According to Thomas (2003), in the process of acculturation, minority or immigrant groups of people may resist or accept influences from outside may reinforce “both the conservatism and dynamic nature of a culture or cultures….Attitude towards acculturation involve choices along two dimensions, the first relating to one’s own identity and the other, by maintaining a relationship with the other group” (p. 79). Another significant component contributing to shaping one’s identity is religion. As McCormick (2022) clearly states, religion “lies at the heart of both culture and identity…[and] is an important part of identity for many people, and is closely connected to culture and worldview” (p. 120). Although, according to McCormick, economic and technological change may contribute to the waning of religion, religious identity may still play an important role in bilinguals’ minds in terms of their choices and preferences for a language as 17
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will be discussed in some later parts of this volume. Thomas (2003) points to his concern that because “so much of global culture is dominated by Western influence, there is a strong danger that Western cultural superiority and the equally dominant cultural influences of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism may continue to swamp indigenous and less dominant cultures” (p. 79). However, he also puts some encouraging words by saying that “not only do cultures change, but can be made to change as a result of growing regional and global pressures” (p. 79). That is to say, people can make each single effort to change traditions or old practices that are no longer appropriate in an era of globalization and modernization. As argued by Evans (2018), “language and its social use or discourse can be viewed as a ‘symbolic capital’ analogous to economic currency where some languages and language types are more valued than others” (p. 3). Race (2015), on the other hand, notes that cultural “identities are shaped by how we perceive ourselves, but significantly also as how others perceive us” (p. 78). Rose et al. (2020) view identity from a constructivist view and consider language identity as dynamic and relevant to social contexts. They view ‘identity’ from five different themes: as socially constructed; as discursively constructed; as multidimensional; as part of a power relationship; and as shaped and negotiated by past, present and future” (p. 136). First, identity “is constructed in the company of others” (p. 136). In the case of learners of English, “learners’ perceptions of the relationship between their existing cultural identity and feelings about its compatibility with an imagined English culture have implications for the learners’ enthusiasm in learning the language” (p. 136-137). In another case, identity can be constructed discursively. For example, teachers “develop their professional identity by participating in various genres of discourses…with their students, teacher colleagues, other classroom stakeholders” (p. 137). Viewed from a different angle, identity is actually multi-dimensional. Our utterances may reveal different dimensions of our identity, including “race, ethnicity, gender, social class, etc.” (p. 137). Rose et al. point out that, in the field of TESOL, self-perceived marginalisation experienced by non-native English-speaking learners and teachers may occur due to their visible minority racial and linguistics identities in scenarios where pervasive attitudes and behaviours in English language teaching (ELT) enterprise and the worldwide presence of English are closely associated with ‘whiteness’ identities (p. 137).
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Furthermore, languages practiced in communications may reveal power relationships. “When we speak, we position ourselves in relation to others, and we are also positioned by others” (p. 138). Rose et al. (2020) illustrate an example: A proficient English and Chinese bilingual teacher, although trying hard in her accents, dresses, and behaviors to conform to the English-speaking community, cannot control her physical appearance, which is Asian-looking. Finally, Rose et al. point out that our past, present and future negotiate and interact to form our identity. People “construct and make sense of their relationship to the world across time and space, as well as their possibilities for the future” (p. 136). They conclude that “to make sense of L2 teachers pedagogical actions, all aspects of their life that have impacted on a language teachers’ identity need to be accounted for” (p. 138). Tomlin and Davis (2022), as native African American English speakers and higher education professionals, recount that language is an essential element in forming communities, families, and academic scholarship. On the other hand, “it also serves as a tool that can inhibit or grant access to certain communities or populations that society views as elite,” (p. 69) and those elite communities have absolute power and privilege to control those who are not. They argue that language “shouldn’t be used as a device to exact power….Language should be about learning to understand and accept the way people communicate because it is tied to their stories [and] their differing ways of life” (p. 69). Tomlin and Davis claim that there is much inherent power in language; however, “it does not have to be a power that dismisses others; it shouldn’t be a battle. We can choose to make the power holistic and all-encompassing—a power that is shared and does not further marginalize or delegitimize” (p. 70). For all the discussions relevant to identity mentioned above, individuals may understand themselves through comparison. As pointed out by Puntenty (2017), “our brains are hardwired to categorize people….[I]n addition to categorizing others, we inevitably categorize ourselves. In fact, we understand ourselves through comparison with others” (p. 69). The tendency to compare self and others is especially apparent in the case of bilinguals. Bilinguals understand two or more languages and cultures and have a better chance to make such comparison. They can compare the two languages and cultures they are familiar with, two ethnic groups or bilingual communities, or possibly two language policies that may affect their being bilingual. In this case, as we can imagine, their comparisons can be more unbiased and less egocentric and ethnocentric. They may be in a position of intersectionality of identity, which will be discussed in the following paragraph of this section. 19
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As Punteney (2017) points out, each “of us is simultaneously a member of many groups. We hold different statuses within each of those groups, and different groups may hold a more or less salient role in our lives at different points in time” (p. 68). She explains that the “premise that we belong to many different groups and simultaneously hold many statuses with those groups is known as the ‘intersectionality of identity’” (p. 68). For example, an individual may belong to a gender, community, religious, political, and professional or amateur group. In each different group, he or she may value a particular identity and have a status or a role to play in a group. In some cases, “identities of individuals, and groups comprised of similar individuals are often overlapping” (Geller, 2017, p. 20). How bilinguals perceive their identities can be even more complex. Just language use alone, they may consider themselves as belonging to language A group when they are communicating with members within this group. The same is true that they may switch to a language B group identity in this language speaking context. They may have different degrees of status and possess different degrees of power. As Geller (2017) puts it, “[i]ntersectionality describes the complexity of superdiversity and the multiple identities and statuses that individuals and groups may carry, negotiate, and contest” (p. 31). How a bilingual move between or among different groups smoothly and comfortably can be a tricky task. For example, a second-generation Taiwanese-American I know of cannot tolerate people speaking Taiwanese in front of her and refuse to identify herself as belonging to the Taiwanese group. This may be a case of imbalanced intersectionality of identity or, as described by Baker and Wright (2017), teenagers “may reject the minority language in favor of the majority language because of its higher status and more fashionable image” (p. 5-6). However, as pointed out by Rose et al. (2020), like languages, our identity (or identities) does not exist “in a homogeneously unchanging form. [L] anguage learners and teachers are continually inhabiting (and ascribed by others) new and emergent positions. Globalisation speeds up the process” (p. 149). They consider teachers’ self-perceived identity or identities crucial in shaping students’ L2 identity. It is because “the major objective of teaching EIL is to prepare learners to become agents of transculturation, global citizens, translingual cosmopolitans, or multilingual subjects” (p. 149). As Garcia (2009) well puts it, “it is not necessary for one language or one identity to take over a competing one, but that it is possible to hold on to multiple languages, to engage in multiple communicative and literacy practices, and
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to have multiple identities” (p. 245). In the following sections to come, I will use different national, regional, or community cases to demonstrate how language, culture, and power relation may interact to constitute one’s perceived identity in different situations and contexts and special needs of individuals in these groups.
The Case of Taiwan Unlike bilingual education in many culturally and ethnically diverse countries, bilingual education in Taiwan and probably also in many other Asian countries working hard to promote English as their main bilingual education policy reveals a quite different situation. Being bilingual in Taiwan means having the ability to use both Mandarin Chinese and English to communicate, and thus bilingual education refers teaching of Mandarin Chinese and English. Being able to communicate in English in Taiwan is considered as possessing a higher social status although some people might want to choose to behave in a low-profile manner. In their intersectionality of identity, they can only identify themselves as being able to use the English language in an Englishspeaking group. Speaking English in front of those who are not able to speak English is regarded as showing off their English proficiency and social status. This may be the case similar to those of Korean people. McGroarty (2017), based on a recent study, points out that “Korean young adults who were successful and fluent bilinguals showed reluctance to display their advanced English proficiency in public, finding ways to disguise their oral skills around interlocutors whose English level was unknown or less advanced” (p. 234). On the other hand, in some cases, you need to reveal your English proficiency in order to gain recognition or access, for example, in a job interview, in an English class as an English major or as a teacher of English, or at a meeting participated by many English speaking people. Still some Taiwanese people may hold a so-called ‘hybrid identity’ (Rose et al., 2020). They want to “become a member of both the global and local communities of practice” (p. 143). On the one hand, they learn English and get familiar with the cultures of English-speaking countries in order for them to be able to participate in the global community and have local voices be heard and each single endeavor to be seen. On the other hand, they understand the importance of local language and culture in getting access to the global communities and stick to the core value shared by Taiwanese people. As mentioned above, they position themselves in the intersection of identities. 21
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In sum, the situation of being bilingual in Taiwan can be described as elite bilingualism as Edwards (2009) terms it. Edwards divides bilingualism into two kinds: folk bilingualism and elite bilingualism. Folk bilinguals are said to “have a kinship attachment to each group…, [and signify] that necessity-induced repertoire expansion” (p. 251-252). Unlike folk bilinguals, elite bilinguals are “exemplified by members of the educated classes whose formal instruction would historically have been seen as incomplete without the acquisition of another [prestigious] language or two” (p. 251). This may be the case found in Taiwan and probably other countries in which the prestigious language refers to English. As Edwards puts it, “the elite variety often had as much to do with social-status marking as it did with a thirst for knowledge and cultural boundary crossing” (p. 252).
The Case of French Polynesia Paia, Cummins, Nocus, Salaün, and Vernaudon (2015) use French Polynesia as an example to illustrate how societal power relations may affect the status of a language, and hence the learning of that language. They describe how societal power relations influenced the history of literacy in French Polynesia where the social and educational policies of the colonial power transformed the population from one of the most literate in the world in the early 1800s to being only minimally literate in their mother tongues by the 1960s” (p. 150). According to Paia et al. (2015), six “indigenous languages are spoken in French Polynesia (Tahitian, Marquesan, Páumotu, Mangareva, Austral, Rapa). These languages are collectively called ‘polynesian languages’” (p. 150). The history of the French Polynesia linguistic landscape can be seen as moving from linguistic autonomy enthusiasm in indigenous language to being oppressed by the French colonizer to use French, and then to resistance to monolingual ideologies. Paia et al. recount the history of literacy in French Polynesia. After their arrival on the island of Tahiti in 1797, the missionaries focused intensively on learning and codifying the language in order to create a catechism in Tahitian, which was probably the first text based on the alphabetic principle ever written in a language of the Pacific (p. 150-151). 22
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The determination of the missionaries and the enthusiasm of the islanders helped “the rapid spread of the new literate competence in a traditionally oral society….In the nineteenth century, use of the written vernacular was extended beyond the religious sphere, [for example, the legal arena]” (Paia, 2015, p. 151). However, things had changed since 1842 when France officially colonized the islands. The “colonial administration systematically proceeded to replace Tahitian with French as the language of instruction in the name of its ‘civilizing mission.’ In 1859 the governor banned the use of Tahitian language in the capital Papeete” (Paia, et al., 2015, p. 152). They then mandate the teaching of the French language in all school districts outside the capital. Newspapers, periodicals, articles to be published in Tahitian or other languages “had to be submitted with a certified translation into French” (Paia, et al., 2015, p. 152). After World War II, the ideology of ‘French-only’ came to dominate social realities….More than ever, ‘the use of vernacular languages is prohibited in schools, not only by teachers, but also by students who are not allowed to use these languages during class or even in their play during recess’ (p. 152). This French-only social policy eventually received resistance. In opposition to the politics of assimilation conducted up to that point, schools were urged to adapt to local linguistic and cultural realities as a means of addressing the persistent academic failure experienced by indigenous students….Tahitian instruction was introduced progressively during the 1980s in Kindergarten and elementary school for two hours and 40 minutes per week (Paia, et al., 2015, p. 152-153) An even better change came in 2005 when the Ministry of Education and the Directorate of Primary Education initiated an early bilingual education program called the Polynesian Languages and Cultures Project (LCP) which will be introduced later in the part of Bilingual Education. The history of French Polynesia perfectly reveal how power was exerted on a colonized territory and how the oppressed people stand out for their own language, culture, and identity. Paia, et al. (2015) also discuss bilinguals’ intersections of language ideology, power, and identity in the case of French Polynesia. They first argue that empirical studies may not reveal the effectiveness of teaching the first 23
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language to minority students. However, these studies are often approached from a psycholinguistic perspective, insisting that “nondominant group students will be educationally disadvantaged as a result of the fact that there is less exposure to the dominant language in a bilingual program than in a monolingual program” (p. 147). Paia et al. argue that significant “positive relationships exist between the development of academic skills in first and second languages” (p. 148). They illustrate a study of a Tahitian-French bilingual program and other studies and argue that cross-lingual transfer includes “transfer of morphological knowledge…,phonological knowledge…, and overall metalinguistic awareness….There is also considerable evidence that development of bilingual skills result in a variety of cognitive advantages for bilinguals” (p. 148). In this regard, Bermúdz (2020) also asserts that you “cannot use the language that you are learning to learn that language. That would be pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” (p. 264). Paia et al. (2015) move their discussion of effectiveness of bilingual education to the societal level concerning societal power relations, ideology, and identity. They first states that extensive research carried out by sociologists and anthropologists has demonstrated a clear relationship between educational achievement and societal power relations. Social groups characterized by educational underachievement tend to have experienced material and symbolic violence at the hands of the dominant societal groups over generations (p. 149). These authors conclude based on studies done by psycholinguists and sociologists that “students will learn the target language (both L1 and L2) if they are given opportunities to use it for powerful purposes…that expand students’ sense of self (identity) in association with the language (p. 149).
The Case of the United States As pointed out by Field (2011), “there have three basic factors that have shaped American attitudes to bilingualism…: (1) Immigration, (2) Education, and (3) Language” (p. 161). These three factors can be seen directly link to economy. Historically, the United States witnessed the influx of immigrants from different parts of the world during different time periods. American people regard this phenomenon as a threat. They are afraid of their job and housing opportunities being taken away by immigrants. In education, parents 24
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are afraid of socialization and acculturation of values of their children in schools and how the school might practice its tracking and plan its language education. When it comes to language, American people consider that there is “a need for uniformity and cultural homogeneity, …and… ‘foreign’ languages …are somehow competing with American English for acceptance” (Field, 2011, p. 161). As well put by Baker and Wright (2017), in “the United States, ‘becoming American’ has historically been symbolized by being Englishspeaking. That means English-speaking monolingualism and not bilingualism. Bilingualism is seen as a characteristic of the poor, the disadvantaged, the foreigner, and the unassimilated immigrant” (p. 372). Historically, black English, or African American English or Ebonics standing for Ebony + Phonics, can be a good example reflecting how language and identity are intertwined with politics to exert in society. According to Edwards (2009), 41% of African-Americans in schools are labeled ‘mentally retarded’ because language evaluations “continue to see more incorrectness, more impurity and more speech pathology in Black English” (p. 76). In a study that compared ethnically different groups of students show that “black children, whose culture is orally strong, will produce the best linguistic results…when the context allows them to show evidence of that strength and richness (p. 76). Edwards (2009) demonstrates a more recent court case to show how social obstacles may prevent black people’s progress. The case was the famous ‘King decision’. I do not discuss the case in the third part of this volume under the heading of Legal Cases. It is because this case is much more complicated and involves much more concerned groups of people, including linguists, and it has aroused much more debate. The story started with the parents of black children from the Martin Luther King elementary in Ann Arbor, Michigan, alleged that the school had not properly educated their children. They were doing badly at school….[T]eachers were unaware of the important sociocultural differences between these children and their white counterparts, and that language barriers prevented school success (Edwards, 2009, p. 77). The fact was that these black children were inaccurately “labeled as educationally retarded and learning-disabled, were relegated to speech classes for language deficiency, and were suspended, disciplined and held back” (Edwards, 2009, p. 77). The rulings require the school to adapt and to develop curricula to help the children, not require the teaching of Black 25
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English Vernacular (BEV), nor teachers’ learning of the language. The fact was that the negative reactions to BEV and teachers’ expectations and racist perceptions appeared to be apparent barriers. The court case aroused a debate over the status of Black English that involved linguists. Some suggested that “Ebonics is an independent system, with a ‘genesis’ unrelated to English…, [while others considered Ebonics] a form of nonstandard English” (Edwards, 2009, p. 79). The court case turned out to be a language-dialect debate. As Edwards (2009) puts it, “linguistic difference is translated into linguistic deficit through the power of social pressure” (p. 81). He argues that we should genuinely concern for black children’s education and should not reject BEV on racially prejudiced principles. Mesthrie (2010) also points out that the actual standing of a dialect “depends on power relations within societies, habits of history, and degrees and kinds of literacies that operate within communities” (p. 78). This court case has provoked sociolinguists to testify that “the features [of African American English] considered to be defective by schoolteachers were in fact widely occurring regularities in the dialect” (p. 78). The court concluded that “the children’s home language is not in itself a barrier, but becomes one when it is not taken into account in teaching standard English” (Mesthire, 2010, p. 78). The school thus developed a teacher training program to “familiarize teachers with the details of African American English” (Mesthirs, 2010, p. 78). Although the training program was eventually terminated two years because of the uncertainty appeared in classroom practice, it was manifest that allowing minority students to make use of their mother tongue in developing their power of self expression to the full is important.
The Case of Satellite Kids in Vancouver Another phenomenon seldom reported and researched is the case of ‘satellite kids.’ Waters (2003) describes the ‘Satellite kids phenomenon’ in Vancouver, Canada as “the situation where, following migration, the adult members of the family return to the country of origin, whilst the children continue to reside in Canada, usually until the completion of their education” (p. 165). Waters interviewed these satellite kids from Hong Kong and Taiwan, who may live alone, with a sibling, or with a guardian, along with interviews or surveys responded by school principals, school staff, family councilors, relevant organizations, and homestay agencies. 26
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Based on her investigation, Waters (2003) points out that underlying the motives to arrange transnational migration is more than educational purposes. Educationally, parents of Chinese families are eager to situate their children in an English-speaking environment so that they can learn English in a better and quicker way and ensure a better career in the future as described sporadically throughout this volume. However, the motives behind this transnational migration arrangement are more than education and language learning. According to Waters, this kind of arrangement can be viewed as accumulation strategies, and middle-class Chinese families perceive it as a way to accumulate “particular types of capital at different sites around the world….Significant social and economic ties are maintain with more than one country simultaneously…as migrant provides enhanced opportunities for capital acquisition at different sites” (p. 168). It is interesting to note that on the one hand, the tradition of Chinese ‘familism’ teaches children the requirement of being loyal to their families and observance of filial piety. On the other hand, “the Chinese cosmopolitan has been prevalent in descriptions of Hong Kong business families” (p. 169). This view perceives being able to integrate different cultural perspectives as possessing “the language of the globe economic subject” (p. 169). In sum, Waters suggests that the “Astronaut and Satellite arrangements exemplify strategic migration in pursuit of capital accumulation….The differential geographical placement of household members facilitates the maximization of both cultural and economic accumulation with the family” (p. 170). She concludes that “the inclination of the family unit to acquire different types of capital at different sites…[exemplifies] the notion of the flexible family” (p. 173). In addition to learning English, Satellite kids inevitably learn a new culture different from those of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Having interviewed with Satellite Kids in Vancouver, Waters (2003) points to the different culture these kids sensed. Gaining more freedom from their parents’ control and supervision, Satellite kids can get rid of the traditional control mechanisms they experienced in their home country. They pointed out that lifestyle in Vancouver is much more slow and relaxed and academic load and pressure are much lesser than those of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Some of them even came here because they failed in their home country due to extreme competition. One of the positive sides of Canadian education is “the possibility of creative thinking and the availability of a greater range of academic subjects, in comparison with a more rigid and limited educational experience in Hong Kong or Taiwan” (p. 173). 27
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Aside from the linguistic and cultural domain, Waters (2003) points to some negative effects that may affect these bilingual kids’ personal growth in the long run. Interviews with those kids show that most of the kids were ‘forced’ to migrant to Canada, a totally strange country, with sufficient material resources left or guaranteed for them and without their parents being along with them. Some adjectives revealing these kids’ feelings or states of mind from their interviews by Waters can provide a rough picture: lonely, fear, scared, helpless, sad, pressured, cheated by parents, and not trustful to others. Feeling empathic with Waters’ recount, I am somewhat familiar with the Satellite Kids phenomenon. I, as a Taiwanese and as a major of bilingual education, I would like to insist that the real meaning of bilingualism is to understand different cultures and to communicate in two or more languages and ultimately to enrich personal life experiences and ultimately contribute in certain ways to societies, rather than learning a language at the expense of personal well-beings.
The Case of Refugee Communities In an era of globalization, although we aspire to world peace, we cannot deny that there are conflicts or competitions between or among states or communities occur in different areas of the globe. Sometimes it is the dictator’s electioneering consideration that puts some political dissidents into scapegoats for politicians. As a result, nationals of one country have to be forced to move to another country or seek for political asylum. Sometimes these refugees are located in the same place and thus form a refugee community. They may come from a variety of nations and backgrounds….However, many have one thing in common: They are unable or unwilling to return to their country because they have a strong fear of being persecuted based on their race, religion, nationality, or association with a particular group (Gebhard, 2017, p. 47-48). As Peyton, Cheffy, Haznedar, Miles, Minuz, and Yound-Scholten (2022) have pointed out, language teachers may increasingly have opportunities to work with adult learners who came from Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the globe as refugees or political asylum seekers. According to Gebhard (2017), some “refugee programs are non-profit organizations that rely on volunteers, …such as the Colorado Refugee ESL volunteers (CRESL)” (p. 48). 28
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Peyton et al. (2022) describe that these groups of immigrants are normally lacking minimum literacy skills or are even with limited education. It is thus important for language teachers who work with these learner populations to be trained to understand their particular needs and to develop teaching strategies appropriate for them. The authors point out that, based on studies, “these learners make more progress when they are taught by those with such training” (p. 280). Although “adult immigrant are observed to have an inadequate command of the language of the host country,…[they] demonstrate attributes of resilience, openness, and a sense of humor and possess a range of skills and strengths” (p. 281). To focus on the learner populations of refugees and immigrants, Peyton et al. (2022) initiated a “three-phase, eight-year, international project, EU-Speak” (p. 284) for training of teachers or volunteers working with this particular learner population. This project contains six modules. The researchers organized the six modules after surveying experts in the field of education around the globe, including practitioners, managers, trainers, activists, and researchers and several times of expansion. The six modules cover topics including acquisition and assessment of morphosyntax and vocabulary, bilingualism, language and literacy in social contexts, reading development from a psycholinguistic perspective, and working with learners in the Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults program. Among these modules, bilingualism is the focus of these authors and is also my focus in introducing the project. According to Peyton et al. (2022), when the module Bilingualism was first developed, “it was agreed that it would focus on adult learners’ language of origin, ways that they can maintain and develop them, and ways that their children can be supported in acquiring and using them” (p. 285). Since practitioners participating in this module did not really know what bilingualism really is and what people can be benefited from being bilingual, the module covers six very useful and informative topics, namely terms and definitions related to bilingualism and multilingualism, linguistic perspectives on bilingualism, bilingualism and cognitive development, neurolinguistic perspectives on bilingualism, learners as parents of bilingual children, and bimultiliteracy. As we can see, this module covers a wide range of bilingualism, and the authors expect that the future development of this module may require more resources. The resources “might include books, articles, newsletters, newspapers, academic texts, and other instructional materials as well as a range of multi-media resources for adults and children” (p. 288). Peyton et al. conclude that there is a need to train educators, including teachers, tutors, 29
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and program managers, “so that they can work effectively with adults who are learning the language of a new country and whose education and literacy in their first language is limited” (p. 289). On the other hand, as described by Kum (2018b), the “voices of forced migrants, exiles and refugees are rarely heard in most contexts, except to reinforce their passivity, vulnerability and ‘neediness’ as humanitarian aid recipients in an undefined space between nation-states” (p. 153). Kum concludes that the need is “not only for articulation but also for dialogue/ conversation; [that is] the difference between having voice and being heard” (p. 154). Koyama (2017) tells the story about refugee students (and their parents, ESL teachers, and communities) at the Harbor Middle School in New York. The story started from the school principal’s insistence on adopting “a pre-packaged curriculum and training program from a for-profit educational support company, Educational Success,” (p. 164) targeting at the school’s refugee and newcomer students after the school had “failed to meet the adequate yearly progress (AYP) objectives in English language arts (ELA) for six years” (p. 164). Understandably, this educational package was aimed at helping refugee students passing the exam and meeting the language requirement stated in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy. The school’s insistence received considerable objections from ESL teachers, refugee communities, and refugee parents. They managed to work together and challenge some educational inequity, such as categorization, and came up with their own instructional materials for their children. Specifically, they entangled expertise and developed their own tutorial videos for their own children. They claimed that, in an era of neoliberalism, “everything from ideas to the human genomes are potential commodities and thus open privatization. Language learning programs have become transformed as part of a market system that includes for-profit vendors, influential political officials and nonprofit ‘local’ educational activists” (p. 179). Koyama (2017) makes use of the actor-network theory (ANT) to explain the assemblage demonstrated in the Harbor as she writes this is a case of “how disparate people, their material objects and their discursive ideas are linked in a network, even temporarily, to get something done” (p. 165). In the case of refugee communities, following Thomas Faist’s discourse, Lee (2022) also points to the fact that the mobility paradigm is premised “in the discourse of …upward mobility, and as such, we frequently tend to neglect the lateral movements practiced by large swaths of the world’s population whose collective plight is largely ignored on the basis of their status as ‘unskilled’ migrants” (p. 16). He also warns that in an era of globalization and viewed 30
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from a cosmopolitan perspective, “there is the risk of only certain kinds of cosmopolitan practice being privileged …[to celebrate] the resourcefulness of those who are well-resourced as they move around the world and learn to get along with peoples from various cultural backgrounds” (p. 16).
ADVANTAGES OF BILINGUALISM Bilinguals can be benefited from being able to speak two or more languages in various ways, for example, in cognitive development, in social life, and in career opportunities. In the modern world where various types of mobility are high, bilinguals are in a superior position and can better compete in the job market. Garcia (2009) maintains that bilinguals may be benefited in cognitive and social domains. Cognitively, bilinguals may have superior metalingualistic awareness, divergent thinking, communicative sensitivity, and ability to learn multiple languages. As pointed out by Smith (2017), “anyone with some degree of ability in just two languages is already a (developing) multilingual” (p. 173). According to Garcia, various studies have shown that bilingual “children’s cognitive functioning appears to impact not only their language knowledge, but also their critical thinking and sociolinguistic development in many aspects of their education and lives in general” (p. 96). These advantages need to “be built upon in order for [them] to result in academic achievement” (p. 96). In tests for divergent or creative thinking, bilingual “children tend to give more responses, and replies that are more varied, original, and elaborate” (p. 96). Finally, studies have also shown that bilinguals are more sensitive when it comes to choosing a language or languages to communicate and they “are more competent at learning additional languages then monolingual learners” (p. 97). Garcia (2009) also points to the social advantages bilinguals may have. First, “bilingualism is a form of capital used to ‘negotiate social goods and benefits’” (p. 97). In many cases in the United States and other parts of the globe, bilinguals are seen to have more economic advantages and better opportunities in the job market than those of monolinguals. Second, bilinguals can be advantageous in global interactions. “The ability to communicate flexibly, through different media and in more than one language is increasingly important in today’s globalized world” (p. 98). Global interactions feature different discourse modes and codes. “Translanguaging has become essential to participate in global and local interactions” (p. 99). Locally, children may need to communicate with their parents or grandparents or people in 31
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their communities in a minoritized language at home and with their peers and friends in the dominant language in schools. Furthermore, bilinguals’ communications can be seen in different modes, using different types of technologies to communicate with an individual or with a group of people. Third, bilinguals may develop their various identities. By immersing in different worlds, a “multiple identity developed through participation in different communicative networks gives children the possibility of developing more broadly, of drawing from many multiple perspectives…[relevant to] their gender, social class, ethnicity, race, nationality, [and] community” (p. 100). Finally, according to various studies, bilinguals are seen to have enhanced culture awareness, which can be termed as “cultural competence as an added dimension to communicative competence” (p. 100). This competence may include having knowledge of others’ language, history, traditions, and institutions, particular attitude towards a culture, being able to behave in an appropriate way in a particular cultural environment, and having metacultural awareness to understand “the distinctiveness of cultures, and a tolerance toward cultural diversity” (p. 101). Furthermore, Baker and Wright (2017) illustrate some career domains that may favor bilinguals, including tourism, mass media, information technology, and the economy. In an era of globalization, many career domains may require employees to be able to practice two or more languages. Job applicants may be tested in a fact-to-face interview for their language proficiency or may be required to submit their language proficiency certificates before they can be hired. For those companies or organizations, recruiting people with bilingual ability means being able to attract more people from around the world. For bilingual individuals, it means they can better compete with others in the job market. In addition to the advantages of being bilingual mentioned above, not surprisingly, bilingualism can also be advantageous in one’s life experience. Kuglin (2022) describes her own experience of how multilingualism can be instrumental and eventually saved her in a court case. According to Kuglin’s autoethnographic account, she is a native speaker of Turkish and German and she “began to learn English at the age of eleven….[When she] started a PhD program in English Literature in Ankara, [she] had already grown used to keeping a diary in English” (p. 100). In a lawsuit with her husband over children’s custody, her English diary was submitted as part of evidence. However, the Turkish translation of her English diary excerpts was warped and distorted in an attempt to silence her voice. Eventually, thanks to her multilingualism, Kuglin was able to defend for herself and won the custody 32
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battle. In her case, Kuglin concludes that “the later-learned language as a liberating and empowering tool for multilinguals, and….the extended vocabulary of multilinguals helps them to articulate trauma and thus aids their recovery” (p. 100). To conclude this section, I feel Grosjean’s words (cited by Wang-Hiles, 2022) are pertinent to illustrating the advantages of bilingualism. Being a bilingual herself, Wang-Hiles (2022) considers being bilingual is a blessing. “[T]he more monolingual a group or country is, the more difficult it is for the society to understand that bilinguals are a real asset to a nation in terms of what they can bring to cross-cultural communication and understanding” (Wang-Hiles, 2022, p. 163).
INTERVIEW WITH JOANNA I will conclude this chapter reporting on bilingualism at the individual level with an interview with Joanna, probably the only, at least one of the very rare, multilingual individuals I know of. Joanna was born to a Chinese father and a Thai mother. Her father speaks Yunnanese, a Chinese dialect spoken in Yunnan province, and her mother speaks Lanna, a Thai variety. So she speaks Yunnanese with her father and Lanna with her mother at home and occasionally in the market. She was first educated in Thai elementary schools and simultaneously attended Chinese schools to learn Chinese. On the other hand, she is from a Muslim family and she learns and speaks Arabic in religious gatherings. Joanna then came to Taiwan to complete her higher education at a college mainly focusing on teacher training. She attended the foreign language department of another college in which she took roughly half Japanese courses and half English courses and she was able to earn a teaching position to teach English in an elementary school. Joanna then got her Ph.D. in TESOL from the university where I am teaching now. I served in her dissertation committee and witnessed her being able to explore the linguistic landscape of her hometown, Taoyun, located in Northern Taiwan. Based on her sensitivity to languages, she was able to locate different languages from South-eastern Asia on street signs, including Vietnamese, Tagalog, Indonesian, Malay, and Thai. Speaking of language learning, Joanna considers having an environment to use the language and being enthuasistic about learning the language are important. In her English classes, her students are from different parts of South-eastern Asia. This is quite unique in Taiwan. It is because Taoyun is 33
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historically an industrial city where many skilled labors from neighboring countries are needed and is now where the international airport is located and where people from different parts of the world are brought to Taiwan. Having the advantages, I would say, of teaching students from diverse cultural backgrounds, Joanna is able to ask students to introduce their specific cultures in the class. She suggests that language teachers can create an enjoyable and meaningful learning environment and use communicative dialogues to motivate students to learn a language.
CONCLUSION In this chapter, I discuss bilingualism at the individual level. That is, how one’s language(s), culture(s) may form one’ identity and these factors may interact to position an individual in the intersection of identities. The discussion of bilingualism at the individual level reveals some advantages of being able to function in two or more languages and languages do reflect one’s culture and form an individual’s identity and his or her power relation with others. However, people are not born equal, and neither their opportunities to acquire, learn, and use two or more languages. Some may have problems developing their heritage languages; others may be not motivated to learn a foreign language. Some social, political, educational, cultural, and other environmental factors are decisive for bilingualism to develop. In the next chapter, I shall move the discussion of bilingualism further to the societal and institutional level.
REFERENCES Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th ed.). Multilingual Matters. Beardsmore, H. B. (2009). Language promotion by European supra-national institutions. In O. Garcia (Ed.), Bilingual education in the 21st Century: A global perspective (pp. 197–217). Wiley-Blackwell. Bermúdez, J. L. (2020). Cognitive science: An introduction to the science of the mind (3rd ed.). Cambridge UP.
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Chik, A. (2020). Motivation and informal language learning. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 15–26). John Wiley & Sons. Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2019). Using linguistically appropriate practice: A guide for teaching in multilingual classrooms. Multilingual Matters. Edwards, J. (2009). Language and identity. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511809842 Evans, D. (2018b). Cultural discourses in the foreign language classroom: Economic opportunity, instrumental motivation or cultural understanding. In D. Evans (Ed.), Language, identity and symbolic cultural (pp. 219–225). Bloomsbury Academic. Federici, T. (2021). A framework for meaningful assessment: The PRIME approach. In C. H. Xiang (Ed.), Trends and developments for the future of language education in higher education (pp. 84–101). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-7226-9.ch005 Field, F. (2011). Bilingualism in the USA: The case of the Chicano-Latino community. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.44 Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. John Wiley & Sons. Gebhard, J. G. (2017). Teaching English as a foreign or second language: A self-development and methodology guide (3rd ed.). University of Michigan Press. Koyama, J. (2017). Assembling language policy: Challenging standardization and quantification in the education of refugee students in a US school. In M.C. Flubacher & A. D. Percio (Eds.), Language, education, and neoliberalism: Critical studies in sociolinguistics (pp. 163–183). Multilingual Matters. doi:10.21832/9781783098699-011 Kuglin, A. (2022). The English diary in Turkish custody court files: An autoethnographic account. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 99–110). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch007
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Kum, H. (2018b). Refugee communities: The disappearance of voice and impact on care and identity. In D. Evans (Ed.), Language, identity and symbolic culture (pp. 135–160). Bloomsbury Academic. Lee, J. W. (2022). Locating translingualism. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781009105361 Lima, R. E. (2021). Understanding heritage speakers and the role of situated literacy in the mainstream classroom. In W. D. Thompson & D. J. Coffey (Eds.), Promoting educational success through culturally situated instruction (pp. 69–82). Lexington Books. Lin, A. (2015). Egalitarian bi/multilingualism and trans-semiotizing in a global world. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 19–37). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406.ch2 Marcos-Linás, M., & Garau, M. J. (2009). Effects of language anxiety on three proficiency-level courses of Spanish as a foreign language. Foreign Language Annals, 42(1), 94–111. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2009.01010.x McCormic, J. (2022). Introduction to global studies (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. McGroarty, M. (2010). The political matrix of linguistic ideologies. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 98–112). John Wiley & Sons. Mesthrie, R. (2010). Sociolinguistics and sociology of language. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 66–82). John Wiley & Sons. Montrul, S. (2019). Heritage language development and the promise of processability theory. In R. Arntzen, G. Håkansson, A. Hjelde, & J. Keßler (Eds.), Teachability and learnability across languages (pp. 237–259). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/palart.6.11mon Odo, D. M. (2020). Connecting informal and formal language learning. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 421–438). John Wiley & Sons.
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Paia, M., Cummins, J., Nocus, I., Salaün, M., & Vernaudon, J. (2015). Intersections of language ideology, power, and identity: Bilingual education and indigenous language revitalization in French Polynesia. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 145–163). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406. ch9 Peyton, J. K., Cheffy, I., Haznedar, B., Miles, K., Minuz, F., & YoungScholten, M. (2022). Teaching refugee and immigrant adults: Strategies and resources to respect and develop the languages they speak. In S. E. DeCapua & E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu (Eds.), Global and transformative approaches toward linguistic diversity (pp. 279–297). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-17998-8985-4.ch015 Pichette, F. (2009). Second language anxiety and distance language learning. Foreign Language Annals, 42(1), 77–93. doi:10.1111/j.19449720.2009.01009.x Reyes, I., & Moll, L. C. (2010). Bilingual and biliterate practices at home and school. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 147–160). John Wiley & Sons. Robichaud, D. (2020). Language ethics: Keeping linguistic freedom from becoming linguistic free riding. In Y. Peled & D. M. Weinstock (Eds.), Language ethics (pp. 90–116). McGill-Queen’s UP. Rose, H., Syrbe, M., Montakantiwong, A., & Funada, N. (2020). Global TESOL for the 21st Century: Teaching English in a changing world. Multilingual Matters. Santamaria-Garcia, C. (2018). Connected learners: Online and Off-line learning with a focus on politeness intercultural competences. In D. Tafazoil, M. E. G. Parra, & C. A. Huertas-Abril (Eds.), Cross-cultural perspectives on technology-enhanced language learning (pp. 83–99). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5463-9.ch005 Smith, M. S., & Truscott, J. (2014). The multilingual mind: A modular processing perspective. Cambridge UP.
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Thomas, E. (2003). The case for a culture sensitive education: Building cultural bridges between traditional and global perspectives. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education (pp. 65–81). Kluwer Academic. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_6 Wang-Hiles, L. (2022). Two languages, one self: The story of my bilingual journey. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 152–167). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch010 Waters, J. L. (2003). ‘Satellite kids’ in Vancouver: Transnational migration, education and the experiences of lone-children. In M. W. Charnet, B. S. A. Yeoh, & C. K. Tong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp. 165–184). Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_13 Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511615184
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Chapter 2
Bilingualism at the Societal and Institutional Levels ABSTRACT This chapter moves the discussion of bilingualism to the societal and institutional level. The discussion focuses on how individual bilinguals interact in societies and institutions. In the societal context, the author provides some examples of nations, communities, ethnic or religious groups, and regions practicing bilingualism. In the institutional context, the focus of discussion is on exemplifying how bilingual schools or programs may be structured and their teaching approaches, such as co-languaging in multilingual classrooms, and assessment may be practiced. Finally, the author calls for investigations on the less explored area of the pragmatic aspect of bilingual interactions.
INTRODUCTION Before moving on to the discussion of bilingualism at the societal and institutional level, I would like to clarify some terms to be used in the heading of this chapter. Baker and Wright (2017) point out that the term bilingualism is typically used to describe the two languages of an individual. When the focus changes to two languages in society, the term often used is diglossia, …Terms such as triglossia, multiglossia or polyglossia are used to describe societal contexts with three or more languages (p. 61). DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch002 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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However, for the sake of convenience and for the various sources cited, this volume will use the two terms ‘bilingualism’ and ‘diglossia’ interchangeably to mean the same thing: two or more languages used in a societal community. Another area of concern is the distinction between societal and social. Referring to Mey’s idea, Kristiansen (2020) states that a societal context “is primarily determined by the context of society’s institutions and a social context …is primarily created in the interaction” (p. 4). As far as this chapter is concerned, both the two levels of context are relevant to the discussion here. On the one hand I discuss how individual bilinguals’ use of languages may be affected by a wider society near them; on the other hand, how individual bilinguals’ language use and behavior in their ordinary social interaction contexts may, in turn, construct societal bilingualism is also my great concern. In some sense, the distinction between the two terms is getting blurred and interconnected; hence in this chapter, discussions may include the two levels of context. According to Mesthrie (2010), “there are almost no countries in the world…where everyone speaks, or identifies with, one language….In statistical terms,…about half the world’s population is bilingual” (p. 74). Garcia (2009) points out that societal bilingualism considers habitual language use of a community, community members’ behavior toward language, and sociocultural change processes, which is the sociopolitical dimension of societal bilingualism. For Garcia, the sociopolitical aspect of societal bilingualism is and should be getting more and more attention in the current era because of “the unprecedented mobilization of speakers and their language practices, multiple discursive practices and translanguaging have increasingly assumed a central role” (p. 74). Field (2011) clarifies bilingualism at the societal level by saying, “a community is multilingual when a number of languages are commonly used, regardless of how many individuals are multilingual” (p. 3). At the societal level, a bilingual/multilingual society will be naturally formed because of historical, geographical, political, and even economical factors. There are actually different types of bilingual society or nation and each of the languages in society serves different functions and has different status. Garcia (2009) notes the development of the term diglossia. The term first “refers to cases of society that use a H(igh) variety of one language for certain prestigious functions, and a L(ow) variety of the same language in ordinary functions” (p. 75). Then the term has been expanded to include different languages used at the societal level. In many cases, different languages or language varieties are used in society for different functions. As pointed out by Garcia, referring 40
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to Fishman, “no society needs two languages for one and the same set of functions” (p. 76). For this reason, societies may arrange their bilingualism based on specific geographical territory needs and/or decisions made by different social groups to use different languages for different functions. This has led to different types of societal bilingualism, which will be explained in the following paragraph. Let us temporarily confine the term bilingualism to the individual level and diglossia to the societal level here in this paragraph in order to better understand bilingualism at the societal level, and try to view different situations in various speech communities. Referring to Fishman, Garcia (2009) and Flores and Bale (2017) illustrate four types of bilingualism in society: bilingualism with diglossia, bilingualism without diglossia, diglossia without bilingualism, and neither diglossia nor bilingualism. Different types of bilingualism in society may have the following situations: most members of society may be bilingual but use different languages in different domains for different functions, such as the cases of Paraguay and Luxemburgish (bilingualism with diglossia); different ethnic groups speaking different languages in society, such as the case of the United States which is a highly bilingual countries but no societal arrangements for different minority languages (bilingualism without diglossia); most of the members of society are bilingual, but they do not use languages for different functions. The situation is seen as “different languages are spoken in different territories or by different groups, but the groups themselves do not have to be bilingual (Garcia, 2009, p. 76-77), such as the case of Germanspeaking Switzerland (diglossia without bilingualism); or most members of society are monolingual and they live in very isolated communities and seldom communicate with other ethnolinguistic communities, such as the case of Cuba (neither diglossia nor bilingualism). From these scholars’ categorization of different bilingualism in society, it is easy for us to realize that different historical backgrounds, language policies, and people’s needs may lead to different types of societal bilingualism. In an era of globalization, however, societal bilingualism may not be so clearly delineated. This can be the case of many different societies. For example, in Taiwan, in addition to some less spoken languages used by a small number of groups of people, Mandarin Chinese and the Taiwanese language are mainly spoken in Taiwan, with the Mandarin Chinese language has a higher status and is used officially in schools and other public domains and the Taiwanese language is spoken in the home and with intimate friends. Generally speaking, people in Taiwan can use both the two languages. Although this H-L paradigm was criticized by scholars and even Fishman himself as contributing “to the 41
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linguistic hierarchies that respond to differential power” (Garcia, 2009, p. 77), it seems not always the case at least in Taiwan. In Taiwan, Taiwanese people learn the Taiwanese language as their mother tongue. Children comfortably communicate with their parents in the Taiwanese language until they reach the school age and attend schools, they start learning Mandarin Chinese. However, the Taiwanese language is still used in the home or with close friends. Taiwanese people actually do not feel that the Taiwanese language is degraded in this case. First, the Taiwanese language actually does not have a writing system. It can hardly be used as a medium of instruction in the school. Second, the Taiwanese language is in fact not a minority language. On the contrary, it is a language spoken by a majority of Taiwanese people although it may not be used officially in schools or in official events. Third, in public spaces or informal events, communicating in the Taiwanese language is a sign of intimacy and friendship. It seems Taiwanese people do not consider the Taiwanese language situated in a low status. The same is true for still other languages less spoken in Taiwan, such as Hakka and some languages spoken by indigenous Taiwanese, their languages and cultures are well-respected and preserved. For example, their languages can be occasionally and sporadically heard in public speeches or election campaigns and their religious or cultural events can be officially observed. In the case of the United States, according to Field (2011), “[b]ilingual communities of various kinds have resulted both (a) the incorporation of lands previously inhabited by indigenous peoples or claimed by other colonial powers, and (b) massive immigration, that together represent a vast, often untapped reservoir of heritage languages” (p. 9-10). It is even more difficult to clearly classify the type of societal bilingualism a territory or community can belong to. It is thus, as mentioned earlier, bilingualism at the societal level is getting more and more complicate and can no longer be geographically defined. It may be the interplay of cultural, social, religious, economical, and political activities, and societal bilingualism can change as a result of policy change, different types of mobility, and unexpected social, national, or international incidents
CHOICE OF CODE There are a considerable number of bilingual/multilingual communities existing in the globe. But how do members of these communities make their choices while communicating with different people or peoples? Holmes and Wilson 42
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(2017) illustrate some social factors that might determine communicators’ choices: the participants, the setting, the topic, and the function. In the case of participants, who you are speaking to or who is speaking to you may determine how you choose the language to use. For example, you may choose different languages to speak to your parents, spouse, siblings, teachers, classmates, coworkers, customers, and store managers. Besides who you are speaking to, the places you are communicating with others is also relevant to which language to use, for example family, friendship, religion, education, workplace, etc. You may find patterns in language choice or language use. “They are known as domains of language use” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 22). In addition to those social factors mentioned above, Holmes and Wilson (2017) argue that there are more social factors that are relevant to code choice. Among them are social distance, status, formality, and function. Whether you are familiar with each other, the social status or power relations between you and your communication partners, whether your communication is in a formal or informal settings, and what are the purposes of your communications, for example, you might want to provide information for reference or you might want to convey how you feel about something, may affect your code choice. Another important topic relevant to bilingualism at the societal level is language ideologies. It may be always true that people use language to show their identities. People choose to use a particular language and a particular way of speaking, e.g. code-switching, depending on the situation of the context. It reflects how the speaker interprets, recognizes, and particulates in the communication situation. As described by Garcia (2009), aspects of identity have gone beyond attitudes to include one’s “emotions, preferences, anxiety, personality, and social influence” (p. 82). In the case of Taiwan, being able to speak English represents a higher level of education, intelligence, and social-status. It is thus important as to when and where you choose to use English. You do not want to be offensive, arrogant, and discriminating by speaking English in front of people who have problems understanding English. However, in other situations, such as in an English learning environment or with people who can feel comfortable communicating in English, it is quite appropriate that you switch to English to express yourself. Code-switching is especially apparent in these situations. In this circumstance, the language you use and your identity attached to it is dependent on you and your interlocutors’ familiarity with English and less to do with your ethnic membership.
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EXAMPLES OF SOCIETAL BILINGUALISM In the following sections, I will briefly describe bilingualism in different areas or communities of the globe to illustrate the various types of bilingualism at the societal level. While these few examples may simply not enough as compared to the number of bilingual societies around the world, each of these cases has its unique stories to tell.
The Case of French Polynesia Paia, et al. (2015) discuss bilinguals’ intersections of language ideology, power, and identity in French Polynesia. According to them, “[s]ix indigenous languages are spoken in French Polynesia (Tahitian, Marquesan, Páumotu, Mangareva, Austral, Rapa) These languages are collectively called ‘Polynesian language’…and they belong to the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian family” (p. 150). However, “French is currently the only official language and the main language of schooling….Opportunities to read and write in Polynesian languages are rare” (p. 150). Although Protestant missionaries had helped developing the writing system of Tahitian and Polynesians were happy about the literate activities, Polynesia became a French protectorate in 1842 and “the colonial administration systematically proceeded to replace Tahitian with French as the language of instruction” (p. 152). According to Paia, et al. (2015), after World War II, “the ideology of ‘French-only’ came to dominate social realities” (p. 152). Vernacular languages were prohibited in schools, and Tahitian language existed only in the oral sphere. Not until the 1970s, “schools were urged to adapt to local linguistic and cultural realities as a means of addressing the persistent academic failure experienced by indigenous students” (p. 152). However, the use of Tahitian was limited to the oral mode until around 2005 when pedagogical goals state the learning of reading and writing in Tahitian and other Polynesian languages.
The Case of French Canada In her book, Heller (1999) vividly tells the story of a group of French Canadians as they struggled to transform from linguistic minorities to being bilinguals. According to Heller (1999), French Canada “first manifested itself through a nationalism based on the association of language, nation and religion…. The French-Canadian nation was not tied to specific geographical territory, 44
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but rather to an ideological and social one” (p. 9). She reports on the study of a group of French-Canadians in the school, Champlain, Ontario, Canada. These students were linguistic minorities, struggling “for social, economic and political power…, and transformation from national industrial/agricultural to globalized service and information economies” (p. 6). According to Heller (1999), the school has its motto: Unity in diversity. “The unity is built on shared language, culture and identity, and on a common front of resistance against the attempts of the English-speaking majority of Ontario to deny francophones their rights” (p. 26). That is, students insisted “on French monolingualism within the school as a form of institutional territorial autonomy” (p. 26). However, in the school, there were “students who have invested in the acquisition and maintenance of bilingualism as defined by the school” (Heller, 1999, p. 138). As illustrated by Heller (1999), the reality was that there was a front stage/back stage distinction. Students were “seen to be playing the game through monolingual standard practices on the public floor, while they can construct their shared experience of that bilingualism with other students back stage” (p. 148). That is, they created their private space outside class to openly use English. In the case of French Canadians, Heller (1999) concluded that institutions and individuals need to always consider “how to overcome obstacles and take advantages of opportunities…, [and] opportunities created new choices, and the transformation of Champlain has different consequences for different peoples” (p. 275).
The Case of Taiwan: Linguistic and Cultural Borderland Cultural borderland is the “territory between the native cultural and the foreign culture” (Salyer & Leaver, 2021). Although I mentioned that ethnic and cultural diversity is less an issue in Taiwan than in the United States and probably many other countries. However, Taiwan has been changing its social structure in some way in recent decades, gradually but surely. Among these changes, marriage-migrant women from Southeast Asia is an emerging phenomenon. Mostly they are “from multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and middleincome countries in Southeast Asia,” (Cheng, 2021, p. 183) such as Mainland China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia. Cheng describes how these marriage-migrant women make use of their linguistic capital and manage to survive in Taiwan, which Cheng terms the phenomenon and their position as Linguistic borderland. 45
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Unlike geographically defined borderland, Cheng (2021) introduces cultural dimension to the concept of borderland and describes it as “the social, geographical, or administrative space where people meet from both sides of the demarcation …[which] is premised on the existence of perceived and acknowledged sameness” (p. 186). It can be conceptualized as a dynamic, fluid, and hybrid space where members of the borderland can “negotiate linguistic, ethnic, and gender identities” (p. 186). Drawing on the concept of borderland mentioned above, Cheng (2021) focuses on linguistic borderland. She considers “language is key to the maintenance of perceived sameness, which is integral to the construction of collective identity” (p. 187). Chen explains that shifting from one language to another in order to engage in social or economic activities is to cross the demarcation and enter a linguistic borderland. In this linguistic borderland, multiple languages are spoken so that the acts and thoughts of their speakers can be facilitated (p. 187). For individuals, according to Cheng, a linguistic borderland may exist in any situations, contexts, and spaces in everyday life by which individuals construct their personal identity. Salyer and Leaver (2021), on the other hand, discuss cultural borderland, which they mean “bicultural persons must ultimately traverse…between the two cultures and moving into a third space of critical thinking and dialogic interaction” (p. 190). They advocate transformative language learning and teaching and urge language teachers to go beyond the linguistic domain to consider the psychological and cognitive parts of language learners and to uncover “attributes of the invisible classroom…to include cognitive styles, demographics, learning histories, competing goals, out-of-class liaiso and conflicts,” (p. 191) and other significant characteristics. At a collective level, such as a community or a nation, the situation may be more complex. In terms of language use, migrants’ languages might threaten “the perceived sameness amongst the people who belong to a specific language group” (Cheng, 2021, p. 187). Therefore, a nation needs to regulate their linguistic borderlands as to whether to assimilate migrant populations to maintain sameness or to allow a certain degree of differences to prioritizes multiculturalism. Based on the conceptual framework of linguistic borderland, Cheng’s study aims “at emphasising the dynamic relationship between migrants and the languages spoken by them in their social surroundings that may include or exclude them” (p. 186). 46
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Cheng (2021) interviewed marriage-migrant women in Taiwan from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia respectively. These women came to Taiwan from their countries alone to marry their Taiwanese husbands and to establish their family and even career in Taiwan. Cheng’s (2021) interviews with these groups of marriage-migrant women focused on their manoeuvre in their linguistic borderland in Taiwan, and, interestingly, Cheng found that different groups of interviewees had very different experiences of and attitudes toward their use of their mother tongue, English, and the local language, Mandarin Chinese. In the case of the Filipino group, they have the advantage of being able to speak English. It is because the Philippines had a history of being colonized by English-speaking colonizer and Filipinos were forced to learn English then. This advantage allows them to “access information about public affairs, locally produced English-language newspapers or TV programs,” (p. 190) and may help them gain citizenship. Is that all we can describe Filipino women in Taiwan in terms of their manoeuvre in their linguistic borderland? Definitely No. First, being able to speak English “may reduce their incentive to adopt the Chinese language, which restricts their room for manoeuvre in the borderland….A lower level of Chinese proficiency can have an impact on the choice of entrepreneurship, such as [running] grocery shops” (p. 190). On the other hand, Filipino English is not really appreciated in Taiwan. According to Cheng, “in Taiwan [English] is strongly associated with white Caucasian ethnicity…, which does not include the Filipinos” (p. 190-191). The fact is that Filipino mothers are enthuasistic to teach their children English, but their children are not interested in learning English from them. As for their mother tongue, e.g. Tagalog or Visaya, they are not motivated to teach their children the languages because their children cannot gain any practical advantage from speaking the languages. Unlike Filipino interviewees, Vietnamese mothers cannot speak English, but they are proficient in Chinese and are more familiar with Chinese culture. They enrolled in Chinese-language courses for some instrumental and practical reasons, such as naturalization, employment, or running a family business. However, part of their being proficient in Chinese can be attributed to “their weaker position in relation to their in-laws” (Cheng, 2021, p. 193). At home, they may be forced to speak Chinese and may be forbidden to speak and teach their children Vietnamese. According to Cheng (2021), these Vietnamese mothers avoid speaking Vietnamese in order to satisfied their in-laws’ interest, “then the in-laws’ advantage in the linguistic borderland was achieved at the expense of diminishing mother-child intimacy” (p. 193). Some Vietnamese 47
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mothers consider that “their children were entirely Taiwanese because they were born in Taiwan and were fathered by Taiwanese men. Therefore, it made little sense for them to learn Vietnamese” (p. 194). Finally, Indonesian women were quite different from their counterparts in that they have some kind of remote connection with Chinese culture. They were called Indonesian Chinese. Historically, in 1912, those who lived in Indonesia and speak Mandarin Chinese “established Republic of China (ROC), and reading Chinese were regarded as respecting the cultural inheritance and authenticating the subjective Chinese identity amongst the Overseas Chinese community” (Cheng, 2021, p. 194). However, the Indonesian government banned the use of Chinese as a medium of teaching at non-state schools, and then “proficiency in speaking Mandarin and reading Chinese were largely lost in Indonesia” (Cheng, 2021, p. 194). As pointed out by Cheng (2021), “[e]ighty per cent of the interviewees (aged between 22 and 52) neither spoke nor read Chinese before they came to Taiwan” (p. 194). They are actually struggling with their Chinese proficiency like migrants from other countries. One of the differences that they distinguish themselves from migrants from other countries is that they are familiar with Chinese culture to a certain degree and they are enthusiastic in learning Chinese here in Taiwan. For younger mothers, they use some kinds of dialects to communicate with their spouse and in-laws. It is because the dialects they spoke in Indonesia and the dialects spoken here in Taiwan are mutually intelligible. This may somewhat ease their pressure in the linguistic borderland at home. However, when it comes to helping their children with their schoolwork, being able to comprehend Mandarin Chinese can be quite helpful. These younger mothers are encouraged to learn Mandarin in Chinese language centers sponsored by the Taiwanese government. They gained a sense of achievement and felt like they were treated as a civilized and educated person. They might experience some degree of frustration because of their Mandarin accent, and they responded with a quite positive way: our Mandarin “accent allowed the locals to draw another line to separate migrant women from the mainstream society” (p. 197). Cheng’s (2021) accounts of marriage-migrant women in Taiwan reveal not only how these women might struggle in their linguistic and cultural borderland but also how they used different strategies in order to survive in Taiwan. In a linguistic and cultural borderland, they may need to maintain their marriage and newly established family on the one hand. On the other hand, they also need to develop their own career or business here. This may reflect what McGroarty’s (2010) distinction between iconicity and erasure linguist 48
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reality. The iconicity reality considers that “any of the linguistic practices of a group are not merely contingent, but represent the essence of a group, …[while erasure is referred to as] ‘the process in which ideology….renders some persons or activities or sociolinguistic phenomena invisible’” (p. 99).
The Case of the Unites States The United States is an ethnically and culturally, and of course linguistically, diverse country. Even “[u]nder one roof, there can be members of different cultures, and each generation can have its own unique characteristics, motivations, and loyalties” (Field, 2011, p. 54). According to Field (2011), there are several types of bilingual families in the United States: one person, one language; one language, one environment; non-dominant home language without support; double non-dominant home language without support; nonnative parents; mixed languages; and post-shift with rememberers. The terms Field used to categorize bilingual families in the United States are basically adapted from Romaine’s survey of bilingual families in European contexts except for the last type, post-shift with rememberers. In the one person-one language and one language-one environment families, both parents have different native languages. Either each parent speaks his or her own language to the child or both parents choose only the non-dominant language to speak to the child in order to maintain the heritage language. In the non-dominant home language without support and double non-dominant home language without community support families, both parents either share the same nondominant language or they have different non-dominant languages. In this case, both parents and children need to learn the mainstream language. In the case of non-native parents families, “both parents are native speakers of the dominant language. However, one of the parents addresses the child in a non-native language” (p. 58). In the mixed languages type of families, both parents and the community are proficient bilinguals. It can be easily found in third-generation households. In these families, the “social conditions for bilingual behaviors and language mixing are almost always present” (p. 58). Finally, Field (2011) notices yet another type bilingual families, post-shift with rememberers. For this type of bilingual families, Field refers to those families that “may have had bilingual parents proficient in both dominant and non-dominant languages who failed to notice that their children were losing their heritage language and culture... [and] on their way to being fully assimilated members of U.S. society” (p. 60-61). 49
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The above-mentioned different types of bilingual family in the United States may be caused by different home language backgrounds, attitudes toward language and language learning, reasons for moving to the host country, expectations for their children, ideologies, and many other factors. Field (2011) maintains that children coming from different types of family may have very different experiences of home life and may hold very different worldviews. Teachers need to be very sensitive to and become knowledgeable about the family backgrounds of the children in their class.
The Case of Muslim Communities As mentioned by Raihani (2014), although “much attention in the literature on cultural diversity was focused on ethnicity, race, and culture, the recently emerging focus in related debates included religion as one of the pivotal concepts to mark social, political, and cultural politics and relations” (p. 1819). Nakae (2021) describes an interesting phenomenon found among Muslim people: they value and regard the Arabic language as having its high status and prestige, but they have never achieved proficiency in this language, a phenomenon that the author termed ‘incompatible discrepancy.’ According to Nakae, Muslim people emphasize their religious identity much more than their ethnic identity. Because “the sacred text al-Qur’ān is written in Arabic and the liturgical language in Islam is Arabic. They are eager to learn and acquire Arabic and study al-Qur’ān even outside the Islamic countries” (p. 55). It is true for both “Arabic-speaking and non-Arabic-speaking world…such as Malay, Indonesian, Filipino and the like” (p. 65). The Muslim community considers that “Arabic language unites Muslims across borders all over the world” (p. 63). It is the common practice in their sermons or congregations, the preacher uses Qur’ānic Arabic as the liturgical language to preach and uses attendants’ colloquial vernacular to explain and discuss in order for them to understand. It is interesting to note that the way of learning Arabic as a liturgical language is different from the normal way of learning a foreign language….Their study consists in nothing more than memorizing the koranic verses necessary for prayer, and mechanically learning to read and write the Arabic script, without being able to understand its contents (Nakae, 2021,p. 63)
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Referring to Dr. Selim Ben, Nakae (2021) recounts that “Arabic is learned not as a text but as a graphic, as a form which embodies the holy scripture. This graphic can be broken down into constituent parts for purposes of memorization” (p. 64). In Qur’ānic schools, students aim at learning the Koran, rather than the Arabic language. It seems the order for learning a language is reversed in this case. As accounted by Nakae, citing from Owens, only “after mastery of the Koran did students go on to the active study of the Arabic language and the Islamic sciences” (p. 65). In terms of bilingualism, the case of Muslim communities can only be better termed as ‘pretended bilingualism’ (Nakae, 2021). As Nakae puts it, “[l]anguage use can be divided into two purposes: symbolic purpose and communication purpose. Many of the Muslims are ardent to study al-Qur’ānic in Arabic for symbolic purpose, that is, for religious identity” (p. 68). Muslim people’s learning of English may be quite different from the way they learn the Arabic language. Gebhard (2017) uses Saudi Arabia as an example to demonstrate how Arabians perceive English. In the case of English instruction, according to Gebhard, “fourth graders in public schools in Saudi Arabia study English two days each week, and increase this to four 45-minute classes each week” (p. 42). Unlike probably other EFL settings, the textbooks used in junior and senior high school and curricula are not developed to help students pass entrance exams because “English is not tested on the university exam” (p. 42). The textbooks can be seen topics relevant to observing “the Saudi tradition of Muslim values and [emphasis on] having students learn to read, write, listen, and speak English” (p. 42).
The Case of Southeast Asian Studies at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Finally, I use an institutional example, UCLA, to demonstrate how societal bilingualism can be constructed and changed based on its participants and their needs. Reid (2003) recounts how the programs and curricula changed over time in accordance with the changing student populations at UCLA, focusing on the Southeast Asian group. According to him, “Asian-Americans …have been the fastest-grousing group on California campuses in general…. At UCLA,…[t]he class admitted in 1988 was forty percent Asian American” (p. 21). Not until the 1980s were the centers for China, Japan and the two Koreas established, “Southeast Asian Studies was only added…in 1999” (p. 22). However, as a result of globalization, Southeast Asia has greatly changed because it had “exceptional economic boom of the period 1970-97,…the 51
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end of the cold war had dramatic effects on the region,…[and] globalization is the rapid movement of peoples and communication among [Southeast Asians] (p. 18-19). Reid (2003) argues that “Southeast Asia lacked the weight in global affairs and American strategic thinking of China, Japan, or the Middle East” (p. 18). He points out that “[t]he numbers of students of Southeast Asian background escalated …, particularly as the Vietnamese, Laos and Khmer children who arrived in the years after 1975 reached university age in the 1990s” (p. 22). Reid points out that newer immigrants such as Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Samahang Filipino students “do not necessarily share the U.S. political orientation of the founders of the Asian-American movement” (23-24). Because of being urged by some Southeast Asian students associations, according to Reid, UCLA started teaching Vietnamese, Hindi, Thai, and Tagalog. Reid concluded that the next generation of Southeast Asians are “likely to be considerably stronger and better placed than their predecessors, especially in the western United States. They are likely to redefine Southeast Asian Studies completely” (p. 25).
CO-LANGUAGING IN MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOMS In educational settings, in multilingual classrooms, Walt (2015) suggests that placing “languages next to each other on public notices and in official documents is common practice and this strategy can also be used in multilingual classrooms. She provides examples of Finland and South Africa. At the University of Jyväskyla in Finland, “noticeboards use Finnish in big font, with English in smaller font below it” (p. 365). In the case of South Africa, at “the University of Stellenbosch, the placement of languages can be linked to the history and position of Afrikaans relative to English and isiXhosa: Afrikaans at the top, followed by English and then isiXhosa, all the same font size” (p. 365). The cases of language arrangements may be in accord with what Garcia (2009) describes in her preview-view-review paradigm. Walt describes “this strategy as it is used at school level, where a concept or topic is introduced or contextualized (previewed) in one language, explained and elaborated upon (viewed) in another, and then reinforced (reviewed) in the same language that introduced it” (Walt, 2015, p. 364). In the future of teaching and learning of and research on a second or foreign language, Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) envision a transdisciplinary framework. They suggest that the future of SLA need to involve “scholars 52
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from different disciplinary perspectives and approaches collaborate with one another in order to address real-world issues involving stake holders (e.g. learners, teachers, administrators, institutional and governmental agents)” (p. 170). For them, studies on SLA may need to involve sociolinguists, neurobiological and cognitive experts, psychologists, and educators.
LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT: A PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING-ORIENTED ASSESSMENT (LOA) In the domain of institutional bilingualism, language3 assessment can be critical to the success of creating a bilingual/multilingual learning environment. Traditional accountability-oriented assessment has been criticized as “teaching to the test that comes at the expense of real learning, mounting pressure on teachers, and narrowing down of the curriculum scope” (Gebril, 2021, p. 1). Unlike accountability-oriented assessment, [l]earning-oriented assessment (LOA) represents a recent orientation to considering assessment an integral part of the learning rather than a distinctive evaluative intervention which aims at ‘recording students’ achievement’….[I] t is directly related to learning outcomes and leverages the ongoing growth and development of students’ competencies both inside the classroom and beyond (Amer, 2021, p. 123). Saville (2021) also comments that the traditional ways of assessment “has tilted too far away from learners and their learning goals and towards policy-related processes and the summative use of results for accountability purposes” (p. 16). He thus considers learning-oriented assessment (LOA), which making use of some “good teaching practice, including questioning, eliciting, scaffolding, diagnosing, and providing feedback for reflection” (p. 17) can be an appropriate approach to be practiced both in and outside of the classroom to promote learning. Saville provides some models of LOA. Among them, Turner and Purpura’s model is particularly focused on second and foreign language classrooms. He points to the seven dimensions proposed by Turner and Purpura needed in practicing LOA: the contextual dimension, the elicitation dimension, the L2 proficiency dimension, the learning dimension (e.g. cognition, feedback, and self-regulation), the instructional dimension, the interactional dimension, and the affective dimension. These 53
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dimensions need to be integrated to “form a coherent whole” (p. 23) in order to achieve the learning goal. In developing and practicing the tasks of LOA, Saville (2021) stresses the importance of providing learning-oriented tasks, scaffolding and observing the tasks, feedback on performance, and decisions about new tasks, goals, and behaviors based on evidence elicited by the tasks. In sum, as Saville concluded, “LOA seeks to provide a coherent system for combining all forms and uses of assessment, and combines different kinds of evidence at each stage of the planning and delivery of instructed learning programs” (p. 30). Amer (2021) reports on Egyptian schools that followed learning-oriented assessment in their Arabic and English classes. He had three Arabic and two English teachers in two G8 classes in two schools in his study. He also interviewed the principal of the two schools. According to Amer, “[t]he LOA tasks most frequently stated by Arabic and English teachers were: ‘questioning techniques, presentations, home-work, self- and peer-assessment, projects, and group work’” (p. 130). Findings of the study show that feedback provided by both teachers and students had “an apparent tendency to focus on error correction pertaining to pronunciation, semantics, and grammar” (p. 131). Classroom observation revealed that “teachers’ feedback typically focused on correcting language errors of students more than supporting their reading/listening comprehension and/or scaffolding their oral/written fluency/ proficiency” (p. 132). Participants interviewed in this study agreed that they designed LOA tasks based on expected learning outcomes. However, parents’ resistance to LOA is a great challenge. They have great expectations of their children’ grade. Based on findings of the study, Amer finally suggests that “there is a need to consider issues of culture, tradition, and beliefs in both the theoretical and practical models that are aimed at conceptualizing and operationalizing LOA in classrooms” (p. 136).
AN INVITATION TO INVESTIGATION OF EMBODIED INTERACTION IN BILINGUALS’ COMMUNICATIONS To conclude this chapter bilingualism at the societal and institutional level, I would like to invite researchers to explore the less-discussed area of pragmatic aspect of bilinguals’ less visible parts of their communications, rather than language alone. As we can see, studies on human interactions focusing on the pragmatic aspects of communications have been prevailing. That is, researchers are aware of and are interested in how the participants, the contexts, 54
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and the timing of a communication may affect the way participants speak and behave, how they make sense of each other in a given communication, and how outsiders may interpret the communication. Furthermore, how a participant make use of gestures, body movements, facial expressions, and other body languages along with physical objects are all relevant to discourse analysis. In the field of bilingualism, however, little research has been found to explore how the pragmatic aspect of bilingual communications may be accountable and valuable for better understanding how and why bilinguals behave in social communications. As Hofstetter and Keevallik (2020) state, in “everyday interaction verbal and bodily resources may be intertwined to the degree that effaces the boundary between them” (p. 132). In addition, multimodal and multisensory resources may make human communications more complex. In this sense, studies on bilingual communications cannot just focus on the linguistic aspect of communications. Dressman (2020) argues that “within multimodal contexts, nonlinguistic modes of input provide additional context clues to a learner that can lower the threshold of understanding significantly” (p. 52). He urges theory-based research studies on multimodality and language learning. Linguistically, bilinguals make use of or mingle two or more languages in their communications, but how do they make choice of languages, purposefully or unconsciously? Do bilinguals use gestures, different tones or intonations or physical objects to signify any specific meaning? Does bilinguals’ being silence in response means they have problems with understanding the speaker or with choosing appropriate words or sentences to respond? Theoretically, they may just nod to signify their agreement or perform an act to respond to a request, e.g. passing a salt shaker in a restaurant, without saying a word. These behaviors are seldom accounted as being able to understand the language. Furthermore, speaking of the multisensoriality that we experience in our daily life, Hofstetter and Keevallik (2020) argue that in our social interactions, aside from moving various parts of our body, our sensory experiences are also counted for the messages we intend to convey. In a bilingual context, aside from languages and body movements, bodily sensation can hardly be recorded. However, it can be relevant to a bilingual’s preference, culture, and different kinds of experiences. For example, bilinguals may perceive the same picture or taste the same dish with different reactions or feelings. Adding bodily sensation to the investigation of bilinguals’ social interactions may allow us to have better understanding of how bilinguals’ sensory experiences, in addition to languages and body movements, may reveal some messages that we tend to ignore. Additionally, bilinguals’ applying different emotional 55
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expressions, such as straightforwardness, politeness, ignorance, arrogance, superiority or inferiority, and many other emotional predictors, to different groups of people in different contexts at different times and for different purposes may be worthy of investigation, given the fact that language is more than a static language itself, but a dynamic and communicative entity that have all the participants’ invisible emotions embedded in it. The idea of embodied interaction in human communications in general, and bilinguals’ communications in particular, can be better understood from Bohnacker and Gagarina’s (2020) research report. In discussing bilingual children’s narrative’s comprehension development, Bohnacker and Gagarina also underscore the multimodal nature of stories and story telling. For example, narratives can be presented to or told by a child in the forms of written texts, oral texts, sound effects, pictures, or/and body movements. In the process of understanding narratives, children are required to integrate his different senses in order to make sense of a story and, most importantly, to infer from the story what are the goals of the main characters, why they act in a certain way, and the cause-effect logics implied in the story. In sum, bilinguals’ daily activities are just like narratives. They cannot be understood solely on their expressions in language. Important elements, such as their emotion, preference, attitude, and intent cannot be ignored in understanding their communication.
CONCLUSION Bilingualism can be complicated when it is viewed at the societal and institutional level. It involves political, social, ideological, linguistic, and religious issues. For individual bilinguals, they face the issue of choosing a code or codes to communicate in bilingual societies in order to show their identity, social status, educational background, religion, friendship with others, and loyalty to the community. For bilingual societies, the formation of bilingualism can be dependent on various factors. From the examples of societal bilingualism described in this chapter, we may find that historical backgrounds, political, economical and religious considerations, policies made in accord with the status quo, and even some unexpected global incidents. It is worth noticing that the formation of bilingual societies cannot be attributed to one of the factors alone and focus only on the linguistic aspect; rather, different factors may combined and interact to develop bilingual societies and research need to expand to the pragmatic aspect of bilingual communications. 56
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REFERENCES Amer, W. (2021). Implementing learning-oriented assessment in Egyptian schools: A case study. In A. Gebril (Ed.), Learning-oriented language assessment: Putting theory into practice (pp. 123–139). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003014102-10 Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th ed.). Multilingual Matters. Bermúdez, J. L. (2020). Cognitive science: An introduction to the science of the mind (3rd ed.). Cambridge UP. Bohnacker, U., & Gagarina, N. (Eds.). (2020). Developing narrative comprehension: Multilingual assessment instrument for narratives. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.61 Cheng, I. (2021). Maneuvering in the linguistic borderland: Southeast Asian migrant women’s language strategies. In C. Shei (Ed.), Taiwan: Manipulation of ideology and struggle for identity (pp. 183–202). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351047845-11 Dressman, M. (2020). Multimodality and language learning. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 39–55). John Wiley & Sons. Field, F. (2011). Bilingualism in the USA: The case of the Chicano-Latino community. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.44 Flores, N., & Bale, J. (2017). Sociopolitical issues in bilingual education. In O. Garcia, A. M. Y. Lin, & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education (3rd ed., pp. 23–34). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02258-1_5 Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. John Wiley & Sons. Gebhard, J. G. (2017). Teaching English as a foreign or second language: A self-development and methodology guide (3rd ed.). University of Michigan Press. Gebril, A. (2021). Learning-oriented assessment. In A. Gebril (Ed.), Learningoriented language assessment: Putting theory into practice (pp. 1–10). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003014102-1 57
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Heller, M. (1999). Linguistic minorities and modernity: A sociolinguistic ethnography. Addison Wesley Longman. Hofstetter, E., & Keevallik, L. (2020). Embodied interaction. In J. Őstman & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics: 23rd annual installment (pp. 111–138). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/hop.23.emb2 Holmes, J., & Wilson, N. (2017). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315728438 Kristiansen, T. (2020). Methods in language-attitudes research. In J. Őstman & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: 23rd annual installment (pp. 3–37). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/hop.23.met5 McGroarty, M. (2010). The political matrix of linguistic ideologies. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 98–112). John Wiley & Sons. Mesthrie, R. (2010). Sociolinguistics and sociology of language. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 66–82). John Wiley & Sons. Nakae, K. (2021). Incompatible discrepancy between low proficiency of Arabic language and its high status and prestige. In A.-L. Wang (Ed.), Redefining the role of language in a globalized world (pp. 54–70). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-2831-0.ch004 Nsanja, G. W. (2022). No ubuntu here: Monologic addressivity in Malawian higher education. In C. H. Manthalu, V. Chikaipa, & A. M. Gunde (Eds.), Education, communication and democracy in Africa: A democratic pedagogy for the future (pp. 17–32). Routledge. Paia, M., Cummins, J., Nocus, I., Salaün, M., & Vernaudon, J. (2015). Intersections of language ideology, power, and identity: Bilingual education and indigenous language revitalization in French Polynesia. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 145–163). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406. ch9 Raihani (2014). Creating multicultural citizens: A portrayal of contemporary Indonesian education. London, U.K.: Routledge.
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Reid, A. (2003). Globalization, Asian diasporas and the study of Southeast Asia in the West: A changing perspective from California. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp. 15–25). Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_2 Salyer, S., & Leaver, B. L. (2021). Cognitive and affective transformations in developing bilingual and bicultural competence. In B. L. Leaver, D. E. Davidson, & C. Campbell (Eds.), Transformative language learning and teaching (pp. 184–192). Cambridge UP. Saville, N. (2021). Learning-oriented assessment: Basic concepts and frameworks in using assessment to support language learning. In A. Gebril (Ed.), Learning-oriented language assessment: Putting theory into practice (pp. 13–33). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003014102-3 Tomlinson, B., & Masuhara, H. (2021). SLA applied: Connecting theory and practice. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781108559263 Walt, C. (2015). Bi/Multilingual higher education: Perspectives and practices. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 354–371). John Wiley & Sons.
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Chapter 3
Bilingualism at the National and International Levels ABSTRACT This chapter moves the discussions of bilingualism from the micro level to the macro level, specifically the national and international level, to view bilingualism from a global perspective. The first topic explored is language policies and language planning. Some cases of language policies and language planning are exemplified to show how language policies or language planning can be affected by a nation or region’s historical backgrounds, societal and political changes, and even individuals’ linguistic attitudes and behaviors. The long-standing issues of linguistic hegemony of English and native speakerism are then discussed. The discussions are followed by discussions of how the trend of bilingualism and language education has changed from colonialism to globalization, and globalization, in turn, is affected by neoliberalism. Finally, the author draws readers’ attention to and reminds readers of the similarities existing between and among different languages and cultures.
INTRODUCTION McCormick (2022) defines nation-state as a “state whose citizens share a common national identity based on a shared language and culture” (p. 93). However, he also notes that there are very few nation-states existing in an era of globalization. In contrast, the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch003 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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world has many more multinational states, particularly in Europe and Africa, the former because of their long histories of interactions with one another, and the latter because most of their borders were imposed on them by colonial powers in the 19th century (p. 93). Under this circumstance, language distribution at the national level is quite complicated. In the case of Belgium, there is no Belgian language. Dutch, French, German, and some minority languages are spoken in Belgium. In India, linguistic and cultural diversity is even more dramatic, “with three racial strains (Aryan, Dravidian, and proto-Australoid), 16 major languages (English and Hindi are the two official national languages), 30 additional languages each with one million speakers or more, and many different scripts” (p. 93). McCormick terms most of the states like Belgium and India multinational state, referring to a “state consisting of multiple different national groups living under a single government” (p. 93). At the national level, governmental support, policies, and levels of globalization are keys to a well-established bilingual nation. Field (2011) points out that economic cooperation is one of the important factors that contribute to multilingualism. The processes of economic cooperation “over time have contributed to global trends toward industrialization, urbanization, multilingualism, and, ultimately, to globalization” (p. 4). In economic activities, in old times, there are considerable opportunities for many languages to be spoken and thus “one language or another would emerge as lingua franca of sorts” (p. 5). Valdiviezo and Nieto (2015) also point to the fact that bilingual education has led to a global policy trend. For example, in the case of Latin American context, “constitutions in at least eleven countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela) assert their multicultural character while four other countries (Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama) recognize the right to culturally relevant education” (p. 101). Some of the governments might be originally committed to the project of constructing national unity through language and cultural homogenization now support pluralism and promote bilingual education through new policy initiatives….They are part of coherent international agents concerning the right to access to mother tongue education.
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[I]t is possible to argue for the need to provide access to bilingual education as a human right as well as a social justice issue” (p. 102). In modern times, similar linguistic processes have created some so-called superlanguages, such as “English, Spanish, Mandarin (Chinese), Russian, and Arabic, that cross national boundaries, reaching international and/or world status” (Field, 2011, p. 5). It is because of the great needs for commercial, social, and political activities between or among communities, societies, and nations. In the case of the United States, Field (2011) urges American people to look at linguistic and cultural issues “through the eyes of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, women, and all other various ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups that make up what could be the most diverse society the world has ever known” (p. 6). As mentioned earlier, bilingualism means differently for different countries in different situations. For example, Taiwan may confront issues such as internationalization and globalization much more than issues such as social inequality, racial discrimination, and ethnic conflicts faced by the United States. In this case, in Taiwan, bilingualism means being able to speak both Mandarin Chinese and English in order to become a global citizen. In language planning, Taiwanese government aims at promoting the learning of English and at cross-cultural exchanges. This may be instrumentally motivated and described by Garcia (2009) as “groups or individuals acquire a second language because it will give them advantages, usually economic ones, in the market or in careers” (p. 87). Taiwanese government encourages its people to learn English in order for them to be able to compete in the global market. In the case of Paraguay, there are two languages spoken: Spanish and Guarani. “People in Paraguay are proud that they have their own language which distinguishes them from the rest of South America….Urban bilingual Paraguayans selected different codes in different situations” (Garcia, 2009, p. 22). Garcia (2009) describes some social advantages bilinguals may enjoy in a globalized world. For example, bilinguals may be superior to monolinguals in competing in different markets because they are benefited from being able to speak more than one language, and this ability may be translated into their socioeconomic status. In addition to socioeconomic benefits, Garcia also underscores how bilinguals may be benefited in global and local interactions. At the global level, in an era of globalization, bilinguals have better opportunities to communicate with people from different countries.
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As Garcia notes, advanced technology and convenient transportations have greatly accelerate population and information mobility, including not only migrant workers and immigrants, but also “[r]efugees and asylum seekers, business and expatriate workers, international students and even tourists” (p. 27). Locally, bilinguals have better chances to communicate with people in different communities and different age groups. Having all the benefits of being bilingual, then how governmental organizations around the world can decide on their language policies in order for their people to be able to function as global citizen. In the following section, we will tackle the issue of language policies and language planning.
LANGUAGE POLICIES AND LANGUAGE PLANNING Bernstein (2020), based on different scholars’ conceptions, considers language policy from a common and a broader sense. The most common understanding of language policy is a narrow one —that policy consists of official written rules or laws—those who study language policy (LPP), see policy as much broader….[They define] language policy as ‘all the language practices, beliefs, and management decisions of a community or polity’ (p. 58). For example, Koyama (2017) considers that language policy should be extended beyond classrooms and schools. “Language policy does not exist, and it not enacted, in bounded contexts” (Koyama, 2017, p. 180). It especially relevant in the neoliberal turn in education. The study of language policy needs to include “the global and the local, not as contexts, but as integral entities in the complex material, social and ideological conditions of language policy and practices (Koyama, 2017, p. 180). This section will focus its discussions on the national and international level of language policy. Bhatia (2022) maintains that language “planning involves any kind of decision concerning language choices in a society and their role in shaping language polices in different domains” (p. 61). This process can be either status planning, e.g. deciding on the official language, or corpus planning, e.g. standardization the language. Wiley (2015) describes the distinction between the two types of language planning in a more detailed fashion. He points out that the distinction 63
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was originally proposed by Heinz Kloss [in 1969]....Corpus planning involves ‘activities such as coining new terms, reforming spelling and a new script. It refers…to the creation of new forms, the modification of old ones or the selection from alternative forms in a spoken or written code.’ Status planning …often linked to the official promotion of one or more languages by governments or governing bodies….[S]tatus planning is more concerned with the relationship between languages rather than changes within them (p. 167). In the case of corpus planning, Holmes and Wilson (2017) state the important role missionaries play in the process of corpus planning, especially the written form of previously unwritten languages. “Missionaries were trained to translate the Bible into the local language of the place where they working” (p. 122). In the process of doing so, they “produced a spelling system which accurately represented the pronunciation of the language” (p. 122). Hamers and Blanc (1989) point out that language planning can be internal or external. Internal planning refers to “a systematic interference with the internal dynamic processes to which languages are subject” (p. 169). It may include standardization of “alphabet or orthography, the expression and modernization of the lexicon through terminology and neology, etc.” (p. 169). The Chinese language is a perfect example of this type. The Chinese government had to standardize the spoken language…, taking Northern speech as the basic regional dialect, Beijing pronunciation as the phonetic standard, and modern vernacular works as the grammatical norm; the vocabulary was based on modern popular literature; characters were simplified and a new phonetic alphabet, Pinyin, created” (p. 169-170). External planning, on the other hand, “is concerned with artificially interfering with the existing status relations between the languages in contact” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 170). That is to say, the language a group of people speak may function as “the relative economic, demographic, social and political power of the language groups that speak those languages and their subjective perception of the power relations in the wider society” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 170). This can be approached in two ways: nationalism and nationism. In the sense of nationalism, one group of language speakers, who consider their language an important symbol of their ethnic identity,
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may resist to fuse “into the larger nationality [and thus] develop a national consciousness of their own” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 170). In the case of nationism, a particular language may be chosen in order for a nation to be able to function efficiently. In regard to external language planning, Singapore and Malaysia can be good examples to represent nationalism and nationism approached respectively. Both Singapore and Malaysia are multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multilingual society….Malaysia seems to have chosen the solution of nationism…: divided along politicial, linguistic, ethnic, religious and economic lines, it has followed a cultural assimilation path with the adoption of Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) as the sole official language of the country. In Singapore, by contrast, the traditional values of each major ethnic group have been fostered….[A] policy of cultural integration has been pursued, with the four main languages (English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil) having been declared official (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 170-171). Still, in discussing the functional domains of language use, Coronel-Molina (2013) considers functional domains are relevant to status planning and “are the different social contexts in which a language is used on a daily basis. In general, the more public domains in which a language is used, the higher its status” (p. 279-280).
Bilingual Education as Language Planning According to Garcia (2009), “bilingual education is a form of language planning….Every society or group has to choose languages of instruction and is therefore involved in some kind of language planning” (p. 219). The implementation of language planning can be enacted from the top down, in which the authorities mandate the use of a language or languages in an educational setting, or from the bottom up, in which parents or local authorities decide on the language or languages used to teach and assess their children’s learning, or even from side to side, in which language policies are modifies over time based on continuous educational experiments and projects. It is often the case that national policies together with local efforts form the framework of bilingual education in a specific nation or region. In many cases, many countries may be confronted with the fact that many different
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languages or dialects are spoken by different ethnic groups within the country. Under this circumstance, language use must be carefully planned and policy wisely adopted. Wiley (2015) also focuses his discussion of language policy and planning on educational settings. He first states that “education was endorsed as human right; nevertheless, access to education often remains restricted or challenged as a result of inequalities related to the failure to acknowledge or accommodate language background” (p. 165). Referring to Cooper, Wiley describes yet another type of language planning: language acquisition planning, referring to a strategy used to, for example, “spreading literacy among previously undereducated sectors of society …[and choosing] which languages will be used as mediums for instruction” (p. 167). This can be relevant to different focuses of bilingual education I describe Chapter 7. That is, the strategies used in language acquisition planning can widely vary, depending on the group of learners and their learning needs, the current language policies, and how the acquisition of the language may benefit the learngers.
Orientations in Language Planning Flores and Bale (2017) point out that early practices of bilingual education showed different orientations, including restriction orientation, tolerance orientation, and promotion orientation, and later expediency and repression orientations were added to the list. A language policy having restriction orientation tend to make use of regulations to prohibit the use of languages other than the national language, whereas governments with a tolerance orientation would not interfere with people’s use of languages other than the national language, although they did not actively support bilingualism in the public domain. Still, governments with a promotion-oriented language policy tried to promote multilingualism by allowing for multiple languages to be used in public institutions. In some cases, the government might allow “for the use of languages other than the national language as a short-term accommodation (expediency orientation) or might actively eradicate a language (repression orientation). Referring to Ruiz’s idea, Flores and Bale (2017) and Baker and Wright (2017) point out that different orientations in language planning and in
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bilingual education may be the results of different perceptions of language. For example, language may be viewed as a problem, as a right, or as a resource. Those governments who view language as problem might support subtractive bilingualism where students are expected to replace the minoritized language with the dominant societal language. In contrast, both the language as right and language as resource orientation support additive bilingualism where students are supported in the development of both languages (Flores & Bale, 2017, p. 125) Commenting on early practice of and research on bilingual education, Flores and Bale (2017) point out that early bilingual education “for the most part emphasized top-down processes developed by governmental entities and overlook the grassroots political struggles that were demanding governmental recognition of minoritized languages that emerged as part of decolonization and civil rights worldwide” (p. 25). They point to a gradually emerging new era of more critical approach to viewing and researching bilingual education. The “study of the role of language in society was no longer seen by many scholars as an objectively scientific enterprise but rather as an ideologically driven process that was being used to benefit elites at the expense of the masses” (p. 26). Baker and Wright (2017), on the other hand, elaborate what might be seen as problems. They view the problems from an individual level and a group level. At the individual level, they point to the historical debate about the supposed cognitive problems of operating in two languages….[In addition to thinking] personality and social problems such as split-identity, cultural dislocation, a poor self-image, low self-esteem, alienation, emotional vulnerability and anomie (normlessness) have also sometimes been attributed to bilinguals (p. 371). At the group level, “bilingualism is sometimes connected with potential for national or regional disunity and inter-group conflict….[L]anguage minorities and language diversity may cause less integration, less cohesiveness, more antagonism and more conflict in society (p. 371). For all the arguments, Baker and Wright (2017) argue that bilingualism may be “associated with inequality and social disadvantage, ideologies of language….The co-existence of two or more languages is rarely a cause in itself of tension, disunity, conflict or strife. Rather…economic, political and 67
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religious differences are typically the cause” (p. 371-372). They suggest that, instead of trying to remove differences between groups, the government may intervene to improve the position of language minorities. In addition to those who see language as a problem, there are people who view language as a basic human right. Baker and Wright (2017) describe many cases in which students were inhumanely treated or punished because of their skin color and of speaking a language other than the dominant one. They advocate that there should be an individual right to choice of language, and to bilingual education. Just as there attempts to eradicate discrimination based on color and creed, so people within this orientation will argue that language prejudice and discrimination need to be eradicated in a democratic society by establishing language right” (p. 374). According to Baker and Wright, language rights also gained attention at the international level, such as “from the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe and European Union” (p. 375). There were also some lawsuit cases, such as Law v. Nichols and Meyer v. Nebraska, filed in the United States in defending for language rights and against discrimination. In addition to lawsuits in the United States, language “rights are often expressed at the grassroots level by protests and pressure groups, by local action, assertiveness and argument” (p. 378), for example, the Kohanga Reo movement for Māori people in New Zealand and the Celtic experience in Great Britain. The third language orientation mentioned by Baker and Wright (2017) is language-as-resource. For them, language can be “a personal, community and regional resource. Bilingualism can provide an intellectual…, cultural, economic…, social, communication…and citizenship resource” (p. 379). In addition, according to the authors, languages in Europe not only have “economic bridge building potential…but also be supported for their ability to build social bridges across different groups…,and bridges for increasing intercultural understanding” (p. 379). Baker and Wright (2017) argue that, in the United States, it is controversial and contradictory that the language policy and language ideology tend to, on the one hand, discourage the learning and maintenance of indigenous languages and, on the other hand, “English monolinguals [are] encouraged to study a foreign language at great cost and with little efficiency” (p. 380). They warn that promotion of minority languages may be seen a waste from social and cultural perspectives. However, minority “languages are a natural 68
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resource that can be exploited for cultural, spiritual and educational growth as well as for economic, commercial and political gain” (p. 380). For the three different language orientations mentioned above, Baker and Wright (2017) conclude that while they do have differences, “they also share certain common aims: of national unity, of individual rights, and of fluency in the majority language (e.g. English) being important to economic opportunities” (p. 381). The difference lies in the debate as to “whether monolingualism is the majority language or bilingualism should be encouraged as a means to achieving those ends” (p. 381). Finally, Hornberger and Hult (2010) view language policy in education from an ecological perspective. They consider language policy can be approached from a wide range of domains, such as “pragmatics and discourse analysis, anthropological linguistics, theoretical linguistics, language teaching and research…to link the study of language with ecology…which was called ecolinguistics” (p. 281).
EXAMPLES OF LANGUAGE PLANNING AROUND THE WORLD In the following sections to come, I will illustrate cases of language policy and/or planning to show how language planning at work in different areas of the globe. In understanding different language policy/planning in different areas of the globe, readers need to be reminded that “similar policies may have fundamentally different motives and aims” (Tollefson, 2013, p. 303) and may lead to different consequences. However, the following cases are organized based on geographical locations for the reason that they may reveal patterns relevant to a particular geographical area.
The Case of European Union (EU) Promoting bilingualism or multilingualism in Europe, especially members of European Union, can be traced back to the tandem learning activities in the
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1960s. According to Woodin (2018), in those activities, continental Europe organized more than 100 German/French tandem partnership each year by the bilingual University of Fribourg (Switzerland)….International tandem exchanges co-ordinated by Helmut Brammerts of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have involve bilingual and multilingual face-to-face exchanges between higher education institutions in four European countries as well as a network of over 34 bilingual subnets for tandem learning through electronic mail (p. 13). In the domain of language policy and language planning, European countries can never be ignored. According to Bahadir (2021), the “EU is a union with 24 official languages, and it is the only union, which has so many official languages….There are also many indigenous regional and minority languages” (p. 113-114). It is not uncommon for European countries, especially members of European Union, to practice bilingualism/ multilingualism. Beardsmore (2009) points out the key difference in language policies between the United States and European Countries by saying that the U.S. language policy is “one of tolerance toward languages other than English at best…[and the] present practices by those two supra-national bodies of the European Union [are] explicit promotion of bilingualism” (p. 198). The two EU organizations Beardsmore points out are the Council of Europe and the European Commission.
The Works of the Council of Europe and the European Commission According to Beardsmore (2009), the Council of Europe not only actively promotes and improves language learning, but also provides “support for all languages within the member states” (p. 198). He cites Council of Europe language education policies and states that the Council aims to promote plurilingualism, linguistic diversity, mutual understanding, democratic citizenship, and social cohesion. For the Council, equality “of opportunity for personal development, education, employment, mobility, access to information
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and cultural enrichment depends on access to language learning throughout life” (p. 199). They also provide assistance, recommendations and assessment to member states. In addition to promoting language learning, the Council of Europe also initiates a framework to guide language teaching and learning. According to Heyworth (2006), the Common European Framework (CEF) has its origin in over 40 years of work on modern languages in various projects of the Council of Europe…. [It provides] a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses, curriculum guidelines, examinations, textbooks, etc. across Europe” (p. 181). Stipulated in the framework is the “Common Reference Levels” in which a “global scale of six levels—A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2—with general descriptions of language competence for each level” (Heyworth, 2006, p. 182). Speakers with Level A proficiency are recognized as the basic user; Level B, the independent user; and Level C, the proficient user. According to Heyworth, the “levels have also been adopted as a language assessment scale in a number of European countries” (p. 182). Like the Council of Europe, the European Commission of European Union takes no less effort to promote language learning. Its Action Plan on Education states that children should be taught “at least two foreign languages from a very early age, so as to help Europe ‘become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’” (Beardsmore, 2009, p. 205). The European Commission in effect does not promote lingua franca that can be used among member states. For the commission, every “European citizen should have meaningful communicative competence in at least two other languages in addition to his or her mother tongue” (Beardsmore, 2009, p. 205). The European Commission also intends to promote regional and minority languages. They recognize “the importance of the first language as a symbol of cultural identity” (Beardsmore, 2009, p. 206). However, in reality, it has been proved that linguistic diversity is not an easy task, especially when it comes to the public perception of pro-English. Popular “demand for English impedes the encouragement of diversity” (Beardsmore, 2009, p. 207). The EU has long defined language as its soft power, which is referred to as the “ability to do something or act in a particular way or to direct/influence other states” (Bahadir, 2021, p. 115). Unlike hard power or military power,
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soft power features its making use of values, culture, education, government policies, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to attract people from other states and eventually to achieve the expected goals. Soft power instruments applied by the EU include “Europe’s art, literature, music, design, fashion, food, its languages, policies related to climate change, freedoms and human rights, the number of troops involved in peacekeeping operations, using multilateral institutions, being economic power and investing more in public diplomacy “ (p. 118). Among these instruments, language is the key concern of this volume and will be elaborated in the following paragraphs. The EU’s language policy has been changing as the world changed and as the “number of the member states of the Union changed” (Bahadir, 2021, p. 119). For example, as Bahadir (2021) states, in “order to sustain equality among the member states it needs to have an inclusive language policy because languages are important parts of national identities and excluding any national identity may cause integral problems within the EU” (p. 124). The EU has been consistent in their insistence on multilingualism and on unity in diversity. This can be interpreted from two different levels: the EU level and the international level. At the EU level, “for the existence of the EU and the coexistence of member states in harmony, it was decided to make the official languages of the member states the official languages of the EU” (p. 126). At the international level, as the world has become more and more globalized and world languages are viewed as “one of the basic skills to increase the competitiveness of the EU….[It] became a tool for being competitive actor within the knowledge-based economy in the world” (p. 126). To support its multilingualism, EU provides various supporting strategies and programs to achieve its goals. Providing translation and interpretation for its member states is one of them. To secure everyone’s voice and maintain transparency, people at the table are allowed to use their own language in oral communications or in documents. As we can imagine, given the fact that there are so many official languages used in the EU, a considerable number of translators and interpreters are needed and a heavy workload can be expected. On the other hand, the EU also provides programs to encourage and promote mobility, communications, and collaborations between and among member states. The Erasmus+ program is one of the well-known programs. The program sustains “the mobility of people interacting and sharing their cultures, making lifelong friendship and forming mutual understanding besides adding value to their skills like learning foreign languages” (Bahadir, 2021, p. 123). According to Bahadir (2021), the “budget of Erasmus+ is 14.7 billion Euros and it is aimed the mobility of 4 million people during 2014-2020” (p. 123). 72
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Criticisms of EU Language Policy However, Parekh (2006) points to a gap between the goal of multicultural education and the multicultural education actually practiced in schools. He criticizes that most of multicultural education is actually Eurocentric and monocultrual in the content and curriculum. Eurocentrism asserts that “European civilization represents the highest form of life reached by humankind so far and provides the standards by which to judge all others” (p. 225). European intellectual and political foundations, religion, and individualism are all of European origin. Parekh points to the limitations of a Eurocentric educational system. “It is unlikely to awaken students’ intellectual curiosity about other cultures, either because they are not exposed to them or because they are presented in uncomplimentary terms, or both. It is also unlikely to develop the faculty of imagination” (p. 225-226). For Parekh, “multicultural education is an education in freedom, both in the sense of freedom from ethnocentric prejudices and biases and freedom to explore and learn from other cultures and perspectives” (p. 230). Parekh’s (2006) criticisms may remind us of the eventual goal of multilingual/ multicultural education. Language itself may not be the only concern of multilingual/multicultural education. Rather, multilingual/multicultural education should be aimed at debunking ethnocentrism. Multilingualism and multiculturalism do not make sense as long as we allow such distinctions as East/West, South/North, and developing/developed countries continue to exist.
The Case of United Kingdom: Faith Schools Race (2015) describes multiculturalism in faith schools in the United Kingdom. According to him, Faith schools are schools “under the auspices of different denominations” (p. 62). English faith schools were initially supported by Christian churches. “In 1944 Education Act provided an option for faith schooling: Voluntary Controlled or Voluntary status” (p. 64). “Voluntary Controlled schooling guaranteed local authority funding and management, but also some guarantees concerning denominational religious instruction” (p. 64). Then non-Christian faiths such as Hindu and Muslim “were attempting to open schools to accommodate their religious” (p. 64). However, state-funded religious education was required to teach from a Christian perspective. As Race points out, the “near monopoly of faith school expansion in England was problematic because it was based on Christianity. The failure to acknowledge 73
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increased cultural diversity, multiculturalism and the need for non-Christian denominations to practice their religions are contemporary political issues” (p. 65-66). However, Race points to the need that, in an era of globalization, different faiths should be encouraged to open their own schools, given the fact of changing cultural diversity and the country being multicultural. Increasingly, multilingualism in English faith schools was realized by inclusion of different faiths. “The introduction of state maintained schools from the Muslim, Sikh, and Greek Orthodox communities is a political move in a new direction that is, a potential movement which would allow other faith groupings to open new faith schools” (Race, 2015, p. 68). Race (2015) cited Parekh’s words as saying that there is a “need to recognize that Britain comprises a range of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ communities which are internally diverse and which are changing” (p. 68-69). Under this circumstance, there were democratic dialogues seeking for “the possibility of an expansion of different faith schools combined with the need for an increasing culturally diverse focus” (p. 69). Then what was actually practiced in faith schools in order to reflect and respond to multiculturalism? Race (2015) points to the problems with having multi-faith or mono-faith schools: “Multi-faith schooling is culturally diverse but mono-faith schools intentionally segregated in a desire to put across a unique and individual set of religious value” (p. 72). For example, as mentioned by Race, “how the Jewish community in Glasgow shaped their community identity through a Jewish primary school, but without a Jewish secondary school” (p. 72). Race also cites Castelli and Trevathon’s words as saying young Muslims hear and participate in the prevailing patterns of reasoning and content of argument of contemporary English society and are necessarily influenced by these. The values of materialism, consumerism and individualism are paraded before Muslim children….The choice for the Muslim community …is either to try and isolate their children from contemporary influences …or to listen to their children’s experiences, understand and respect these experiences and, through dialogue, to explore a Muslim spirituality that responds to them (p. 74). Race (2015) points out that parents listening to children and communities can have better understanding of faith based schools and communities and can increase community cohesion. He also points out that Christian churches have monopolized the development of faith schools in England. For example, 74
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“none of the 83 Academics is sponsored by a non-Christian faith group” (p. 76). Race finally suggests that teachers can use virtual environments such as world wide web to teach cultural differences in the classroom, and develop multi-faith curriculum that can involve children in debates across different education subject such as citizenship and history.
The Case of Norway Before its dependence in 1814, Norway was under the rule of Denmark. The situation in that colonial period was that Danish was the H language, which was spoken by upper-class people in formal contexts, and a range of Norwegian dialects was the L varieties spoken by low-class and rural people (Holmes and Wilson, 2017). According to Holmes and Wilson (2017), after its dependence, Norway was facing a dilemma in choosing a national language. On the one hand, “Standard Danish was not used widely for informal interaction, especially in rural areas” (p. 116). On the other hand, if choosing from a Norwegian dialect, any “dialect selected would need codifying and would require extensive functional elaboration” (p. 116). Eventually, the Norwegian government took two approaches in their language planning process. One is that it “selected a variety based on Danish….This eventually developed into Bokmål….The other approach created a new Norwegian written standard by drawing on a range of rural Norwegian dialects…,Nynorsk” (p. 116). Holmes and Wilson state that these two varieties are actually quite similar in their word forms and syntactic structures and that official documents are printed in both varieties, and school children also learn to read and write in both the two varieties. However, the situation in choosing a national language is not without any dispute. Norwegians had different attitudes toward the two language varieties. Some rejected the modified Danish alternative, Bokmål, others considered Nynorsk “a standard based on rural dialects [is] rustic and uncivilised” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 117). Holmes and Wilson conclude that government intervention in the process of choosing a national language may be required. After all, “language planning is a fascinating mixture of political and social consideration, as well as linguistic ones” (p. 118).
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The Case of China In terms of language planning, China can be seen the dynamics of two languages: English and Mandarin Chinese. Hu (2022) divides China’s English education into six periods, from the earliest English language in the Qing Dynasty till now (Period Six since 2008). Since 2008, China has hosted 2008 Summer Olympics and World Expo 2010 and enjoyed economical growth and integration with globalization. These events have placed English in a new role in China. The “English curriculum standards for the compulsory education stage (age 6-15) released by the MOE in 2011 underscored the important forces of globalisation and China’s ‘important historical missions, international responsibilities and obligations’” (Hu, 2022, p. 27). However, in the past decade, China reassessed its language policy and started changing the weight of English and Chinese in the school curricula. In 2013, English course was removed “from the primary curriculum to make way for Chinese language studies” (Hu, 2022, p. 27). At the same time, English instruction at college level was reduced and English proficiency tests were dropped in recruitment examinations in some prestigious universities. As a result, China was placed in the Low Proficiency group in English Proficiency Index. While scaled down the instruction of English, China at the same time was aggressively promoting the Chinese language and culture around the world. The worldwide promotion of the Chinese language has been accomplished through Confucius Institutes and education aids….[T]he Chinese government spent over $500 million in just 10 years, and by 2011, there were 861 Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in 106 countries/regions teaching Chinese to thousands upon thousands of learners” (Hu, 2022, p. 28). Gao (2017) further reports that, by the end of 2014, “there were already 475 Confucius Institutes and 851 Confucius Classrooms around 126 regions and countries” (p. 29). Hu (2022) comments that “the concurrent foregrounding of Chinese and backgrounding of English represent China’s deliberate reorientation towards ‘a central position in the modern world system’” (p. 28).
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The Case of Japan Hashimoto and Glasgow (2022) state that Japan’s university entrance examination actually reflects its language policy. They describe that the “university entrance examination system in Japan has been considered to be an obstacle in changing ELT in high schools, since most students learn English in order to obtain good grades or high test scores….Japan is an examination-oriented society” (p. 35). Historically, English was changed “from being a language of instruction to a subject to be taught by explaining grammatical structures and translating texts into Japanese for the elite during the period between 1860 and 1945” (Hashimoto & Glasgow, 2022, p. 36). Hashimoto and Glasgow explain that, generally speaking, classroom practices focused on ‘translation’ rather than ‘conversation.’ The reason behinds the teaching practices was that, on the one hand, Japanese teachers of English themselves had little experience of traveling abroad and making use of English for communication purposes. On the other hand, to our surprise, Japanese people considered “education through a second language was considered to be humiliating and likened to Japan being colonised state” (Hashimoto & Glasgow, 2022, p. 36). According to Hashimoto and Glasgow (2022), not until the period between 1945 and 1970, “English was introduced as a compulsory subject from junior-high school” (p. 36). However, there were two conflicting positions in teaching methods: Grammar-Translation Method and English for communicative purposes. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Japanese government proposed a plan to increase Japanese people’s English proficiency in order to help Japan remain competitive in the international market after…a difficult period for the country owing to the collapse of the bubble economy and numerous natural disasters (Hashimoto, 2013, p. 175). According to Hashimoto (2013), Japanese people actually held a negative attitude toward globalization. They emphasized “on the positive qualities of Japan and its people” (p. 175). As can be imagined, “the teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL) has been designed to assure that the language of the new order does not undermine the core identity of the Japanese nation and its people” (p. 176). That is to say, in Japan, it has to strike a balance “between maintaining the national identity and legitimising the power of English in the society in order to achieve international economic success” 77
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(p. 176). As a result, English in Japan was ‘Japanized.’ Hashimoto argues for the situation that “TEFL policy in Japan is not fundamentally about furthering the learning of English, but instead functions to promote and shape the national language, Japanese” (p. 176). It is thus the case that Japanese people often have problems explain Japanese culture and history in English in an international context. Hashimoto (2013) concludes that the major government language policy documents reveals that TEFL policy in Japan cannot be considered a straightforward effort to promote English language learning in Japanese public schools. Instead, TEFL policy has ‘Japanised’ communication in English in the education system by placing the national language in the central position through the Course of Study (p. 188).
The Case of Indonesia Raihani (2014) describes that, unlike Canada and Australia whose multiculturalism features the influx of migrations and indigenous people, Indonesia is “largely constructed by various ethnic groups from within…. The idea that Indonesia is a country of cultural diversity has existed within Indonesian thinking since at least the early 20th century” (p. 29). In 1945, Indonesia officially declared its independence. This country is best known for its archipelagos, various ethnic groups, and different religions. “There are hundreds of ethnic groups in Indonesia inhabiting over 6,000 of the 13, 000 islands stretching from Sabang in Aceh to Merauke in Papua…. Unity in Diversity …was declared to be the Indonesia national motto” (Raihani, 2014, p. 29). However, the 1966 New Order stresses uniformity despite that “multiculturalism mandates the acknowledgement and understanding of the cultural identities of each group in a particular society” (Raihani, 2014, p. 30). That is, under the principles of New Order, unity is above diversity. Although people were free to move in this case, different ethnic groups were not really had harmonious multicultural relations “because of economic and cultural barriers” (Raihani, 2014, p. 80). Another factor important to Indonesia’s unity is religion. According to Raihani (2014), one of the distinctive characteristics of Indonesia is the religion factor. In the constitution, religion is made as one of the basic principles of Indonesia…. Both government and people in Indonesia essentialise religion in a way that it becomes not only a private but also public matter (p. 30). 78
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In Indonesia, multiculturalism is more than ethnocultural diversity; it includes religious diversity. The Indonesia government tended to create harmonious relationships among religious citizens by promoting interreligious dialogues and religious education. Although some secularists may argue that “the accommodation of religious identity undermines the role of public schools in a secular state…,if religion is to be neglected, an extricable identity of many groups and their rights are to be undermined” (Raihani, 2014, p. 33). Speaking of multiculturalism in Indonesia, Raihani (2014) concluded that the “discourse of multiculturalism has intensified through seminars, conferences, media talks, and so forth, but despite these continuing endeavours, Indonesia has not yet developed a model of multiculturalism through which the government and society can operate” (p. 32).
The Case of India Bhatia (2022) points out that “India has been a multilingual, multiethnic, and multireligious society since ancient times. Multiplicity of language, ethnicity and other factors is the defining feature of ancient and modern India” (p. 62). Because of the specific feature of India, India pioneered attempt to carry out language policy. Its language policy was carried out based on current sociolinguistic models and models of bilingual education and research on language acquisition. In the era of colonialism in the late eighteenth century, English “has added a new chapter in the linguistic landscape of India…, [and eventually] has become a member of the family of Indian languages” (p. 63). Bhatia recounts that, after the India’s independence, English was presented as “a neutral pan-India language with no prior regional, religious, ethnic or linguistic identity” (p. 65). According to Bhatia (2022), the “major milestone to determine language planning and policy was laid in the form of the Three Language Formula, which was designed to respond to the needs of multilingual modern India” (p. 65). The three languages in the formula referred to English, Hindi, and a regional language of the region’s choice. This formula was initiated to “enrich Indian languages in professional and educational domains by accessing the knowledge-based resources of English….[However, it] has led to the primacy of English in India” (p. 72). According to Annamalai (2013), India’s language policy is actually one of ambivalence. On the one hand, the India’s new Constitution clearly states its linguistic liberalism, “which refers especially to the maintenance in elementary education of large and small minority languages” (p. 193). On the other hand, it 79
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has been constrained by the economic policy of development, which was predicated on science and technology imported from industrialized countries, and on training a class of its citizens in these knowledge areas through higher education….Thus, the language of higher education, which produced the technologists and bureaucrats required by the policy of economy development, continued to be English, as in the colonial period (p. 193). As a result of designating public schools “to use regional Indian languages as media of instruction,…[there] has been the rise of new private schools,” (p. 194) which were allowed to use English as a medium of instruction and many of the private schools chose to do so. Parents from the middle class were eager to enroll their children in a private school, believing that “good education means education through English, and that it is such education which leads to white-collar jobs” (p. 194). More details will be discussed in a later chapter of the part of Bilingual Education. An important phenomenon existing in language use at the national level is how language is associated with caste. It is especially apparent in India. Nair (2020) describes that the “idea of caste is so extraordinarily widespread and resilient in India…that the phenomenon seems to demand explanation in terms of ‘language in use’, not to mention ‘language in us’” (p. 77). Although the Indian government has tried to eradicate caste in the postcolonial era, the strict measures seemed not working. A survey conducted in 2011 showed that “about one-third of the Indian population still openly practicing ‘untouchability’” (p. 77). Nair points out that caste is “characterized by a set of linguistic terms that have evolved from ancient ‘Hindu’ in the Rig Veda (circa 1500) over long periods of time…until they have reached their present forms and functions in the 21st century” (p. 78). For example, “in phrases such as ‘Boston Brahmins’ to indicate elite status. Conversely, the word ‘pariah,’ indicating a social outcast also derives from Indian caste terminology, denoting a low caste person who had to be shunned” (p. 78). Another issue that may add to the inherent problem of caste and may have relevance to language in India is gender. Nair (2020) describes that women or girls who are ranked low in the caste, such as Dalit, suffer unfair and inhumane treatment. They are always silent and resist ineffable. Some supporters did want to express their support and fight for those low-caste women. However, they faced problems. Linguistically, “they insist on the import of the first person, autobiographical mode as a primary act of self-knowledge, the space between fiction and lived experience” (p. 105), and they did not want to “write about Dalit problems and lower-caste life in the highly Sanskritised idiom 80
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of the upper classes” (p. 105), for fear of being regarded as “an upper-caste linguistic disguise and to succumb to the pressure to ‘fake’ their emotions and perceptions” (p. 105). As a result, Dalit writers “have to ‘invent’ new languages or recoup ‘old’ oral modes…in order to speak of their experiences” (p. 105). Under this circumstance, the Dalit community has created a subculture of belief that everyone is born equal, and, on the other hand, they appeared “to conform the usual caste-pollution norms in their everyday lives” (p. 105). Nair thus proposes an idea of “radical philology”, suggesting that linguists should trace the root and development of a language in order for them to better understand the stories behind the language. In the case of India, it can “be the bridge from the classical Sanskrit literature on caste, the colonial codification, to the intellectual world of modernity” (p. 105).
The Case of South Africa In its historical background, South Africa is known for its various indigenous tribes and the presence of Dutch and British people, and, not surprisingly, so is its languages. Language policies and use have been changed in South Africa over time. Davies and Dubinsky (2018) describe the history of South Africa that in the mid 1950s, South Africa passed laws to institutionalize the apartheid system, and the mission schools’ control over the education of black African children was removed. Instead of promoting the two official languages, English and Afrikaans, the government considered the mission schools’ education put too much emphasis on English and liberal ideas and required the use of African vernacular languages. According to Davies and Dubinsky (2018), legal apparatus was established “for effecting an ethnolinguistic separation of Bantu people from South Africa’s ‘white’ (and ‘coloured’) citizens, as well as a separation of the various Bantu tribe from one another” (p. 126). However, “laws and regulations designed to maintain minority white rule… was unsustainable [and] apartheid ended in 1994” (p. 127). Davies and Dubinsky (2017) describe the most recent change, namely from 1996 to the present, that may reflect how the South African government takes its language issues seriously. In its 1996 constitution of the Republic of South Africa, South Africa had a very clear stipulation on its language policy, including naming the eleven official languages and changing “South Africa …from a bilingual (English and Afrikaans) state to many-lingual one…[and] all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem and must be treated equitably” (Davies & Dubinsky, p. 127). As pointed out by Davies and 81
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Dubinsky, the 1996 constitution also “shows a remarkable shift toward the recognition of other forms of identity (i.e. ethnic, cultural, religious) and the explicit marker of these is asserted to be language” (p. 128). They speculate Given the complicated historical, political, and linguistic situation in South Africa, one can imagine it is not an easy task for its administrators to decide on their language policy. Different tribes and speakers of different language varieties might compete with or resistant to each other. As Davies and Dubinsky (2018) point out, it “is fair to say that compliance with the language provisions of the 1996 constitution has not been either easy or greatly successful” (p. 131).
The Case of Cameroon The case of Cameroon is sadly to be described as embracing “two or more foreign languages at the expanse of the national languages of that country” (Kum, 2018a, p. 105). According to Kum, Cameroon, located in the central West Africa, has a history of being colonized by Britain and France and was thus divided and administered by Britain and France. Eventually, Cameroon changed its name to “The Republic of Cameroon” as an independent country. However, as Kum (2018a) recounts, “although Cameroon has been the product of two equal states of two different colonial cultures of English and French, the realties in the country render a verdict of opportunities to one culture and marginalization of another” (p. 107). Although English and French are considered the two official languages in post-colonial Cameroon the two languages were not actually existing in an equal and peaceful status, especially when we connect language with power and politics. According to Kum (2018a), French speaking Cameroonians (Francophones) were the majority and were in a dominant position. English speaking Cameroonians (Anglophones) “make up less than one-third of Cameroon [and] the more privileged majority French speaking Francophone ethnicity…has also been in political power since the birth of independent Cameroon in 1960” (p. 107). The result of “the marginalization of Anglophones and the abounding opportunities of Francophones [has posited] competing tensions where one group closes its social borders to the other” (p. 107). Kum well describes the reality: The minority Anglophones view their majority Francophone counterparts as a privileged neocolonial clan that is determined to assimilate and stifle the Anglophone culture. However the majority Francophones view the 82
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minority Anglophones with suspicion as an emerging force that seeks the reterritorialization of itself into social, political and economic spaces that were earlier dominated by the Francophones (p. 108). The Cameroonian government did announce its official state bilingualism, recognizing French and English as the two official languages of the state with equal status. However, in reality, the “bilingual language culture of Cameroon provides opportunities for Francophones and marginalization for Anglophones,… [and] the policy of bilingualism is used to deny the social and cultural rights of the Anglophones that were protected in the 1972 unification constitution” (Kum, 2018, p. 129). In the post-colonial era, there were a considerable number of conflicts and competitions between Francophone and Anglophone Cameroonians. Anglophones, on the one hand, were fighting hard for their rights and cultures; Francophones, on the other hand, were making each single effort to protect and expand their power and dominance. Aside from the two dominant ‘foreign’ languages, there are over 300 tribes with 270 indigenous languages spoken in Cameroon (kum, 2018a). Kum describes the phenomenon as “a biculturalism of foreign languages of English and French in a multilingual context” (p. 108). However, because French and English, especially French, are strongly promoted by the Cameroonian government, many schools that provided instruction in indigenous languages were forced to shut down. It leaves no room for indigenous languages and cultures to be well-preserved and transmitted to the generations to come. French and English were widely used in public services, education, law, the military, commerce, health and all national life…[and] the ignorance of most indigenous populations on public affairs has made the state function as an elitist society of a selected few are able to operate…in the traditions of the French and less importantly as Anglophones rather than native Cameroonians (p. 111) As a result, scholars’ research studies show that “32 per cent of young people between the age of 10 and 17 did not speak any local language…[and] the younger generation would not have been able to transmit the language to the future generation due to their incompetence in the languages” (p. 109).
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The Case of Kenya Like many other African countries, Kenya has various different ethnic groups speaking a variety of languages. According to Mazrui (2013), there are “over 45 local languages …known to and used by members of the respective ethnic groups” (p. 139) in Kenya. He describes how the Kenyan government exerted its language policy in three different historical periods, namely the period before World War II, after World War II, and after independence. In the period before World War II, Kenya was mainly colonized by Englishspeaking British people. They exerted a so-called ‘dual mandate,’ which means “providing access to the English language in a regulated manner that would not risk colonial political stability or threaten the survival and use of local language” (p. 141). As stated in a 1925 report, “while ‘natives’ should not be denied the opportunity to acquire the English language, they have an inherent and inalienable right to their mother tongue” (p. 141). That is to say, until 1945, “the situation in Kenya was one in which English and local African languages maintained a certain degree of complementary in official institutions of the state (p. 141). In the period after World War II, however, there was a shift in language policy in this British colony. The then officially recognized lingua franca of East Africa, Kiswahili, was replaced by English as the medium of instruction in schools. There were considerable debates on the issue. Some nationalists had growing resistance to this policy, while others considered more English may facilitate “the creation of a Westernized elite…and the development of certain notions of self-determination and the growth of anti-colonialism in Africa itself” (Mazrui, 2013, p. 143). The introduction of English was seen to create new African elite. “The first students of the English language were sons and daughters of ordinary peasants and workers….[It] became a significant factor in new elite formation outside the more traditional social structure” (Mazrui, 2013, p. 244). As a result of Anglicization, English was seen to take the place of local languages in educational systems throughout the country. Finally, Mazrui (2013) describes Kenya’s language policy after its independence in 1963. According to him, popular wishes “were in favor of retaining English as the medium of instruction from the first grade of primary school” (p. 145). In addition, Kiswahili was later offered as a compulsory subject in Kenya’s primary schools “for purposes of national and pan-African unity….Since then, every student has had to demonstrate command of both English and Kiswahili to graduate” (p. 145-146). Generally speaking, “Kenya’s 84
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language policy put a high premium on English as the language of national and individual economic and social advancement” (p. 146). English was well spread in both urban and rural areas. Especially, Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, had an international status and had helped enhance “the value of English in the country as a whole and intensified the quest for its acquisition” (p. 147). As pointed out by Mazrui, “English is indeed threatening the future of Kiswahili as well as Kenya’s other languages” (p. 148).
The Case of Tanzania Similar to many other African countries, Tanzania also faced a dilemma in its process of restructuring its language policy after its independence in 1961(Holmes & Wilson, 2017). According to Holmes and Wilson, Tanzania has “over a hundred indigenous languages, each associated with a particular tribe” (p. 112). Choosing one might dissatisfied others. On the other hand, it might not be appropriate for a newly independent nation if choosing the former colonizers’ language, English, as the only official language. Holmes and Wilson (2017) continue to state that Tanzania eventually chose Swahili as the national language for some reasons. First, Swahili is a “language of the Bantu language family, which was widely used throughout the country as a lingua franca in many contexts…, [and] was already the medium of primary education” (p. 112). More importantly, “Swahili had served as the lingua franca of the anti-colonial political movement for independence” (p. 112). It thus can be said that the choice of Swahili as the national language is ideological and has its political and social considerations and it can be seen as a successful case in language planning. (Holmes and Wilson, 2017). As Holmes and Wilson state, it might be “due to [Swahili’s] ‘neurtal’ status … and the fact that Tanzanians developed a strong loyalty towards the language which united them in working towards …[freedom]” (p. 114). However, we as readers need to be reminded that “the story of how Swahili became the national language of Tanzania might be told rather differently by a group whose tribal vernacular was a competing lingua franca” (p. 115).
The Case of Rwanda In its history, Rwanda has been led by both the Francophone and Anglophone governments. According to Samuleson (2013),
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Kinyarwanda, French, and English have each played a major role in Rwanda’s social and political history….[Its Constitution] states that the national language is Kinyarwanda. The official languages are Kinyarwanda, French, and English….Other languages present in Rwanda include Luganda, Lingala, and Runyankole-Ruchiga (p. 213). Between 1996 and 2008, Rwanda had its trilingual language-in-education policy. That is, all children were required to learn all the three languages: Kinyarwanda, French, and English. However, at the end of 2008, French was no longer the language of instruction and it became a bilingual language-ineducation policy in the name of harmonizing the curriculum (Samuelson, 2013). According to Samuelson (2013), although Rwanda’s quickly shift in its language-in-education to privilege English over local languages is not a unique case around the globe, this language policy appears to be provisional tinkering. [I]ts most recent decision to preserve Kinyarwanda in the early elementary levels, coming quickly on the heels of a push for English, gives the impression that the policy is being created on a contingent basis in response to challenges and pressures, without a clear guiding vision (p. 225). In the case of Rwanda in English instruction, Samuelson (2013) suggests that appropriate pedagogy and engaged critical professionals are required to teach children in a multilingual/multicultural context like Rwanda.
The Case of Paraguay In some sense, Paraguay is unique in terms of language planning among Latin American countries. According to Holmes and Wilson (2017), “Paraguay is the only Latin American nation with a distinctive national language— Guarani” (p. 104). It has been seen as a stable diglossia, “with Spanish, the H language, used in formal contexts, for administration, a great deal of education and legal business, and Guarani, the L language of solidarity, the language of love, humor and poetry” (p. 104). It is interesting to note that, although Paraguayans recognize Spanish as their national language helpful for managing official business in formal contexts, they feel Guarani is “their
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real national language. Guarani is felt to be the language which best expresses their distinctive culture and traditions….Many Paraguayans consider that Guarani is an important symbol of Paraguayan identity” (p. 104). Given the phenomenon of language practice, “in the 1960s, the Paraguayan government used two different terms to distinguish between the status of Spanish and Guarani: Guarani was declared the ‘national’ language while Spanish was an ‘official’ language of Paraguay” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 106-107). In this case, national language is considered a symbol of national unity and used in political, cultural and social domains, while official language is mainly used for government business (Holmes & Wilson, 2017). In 1992, “Guarani was granted official status alongside Spanish. So Paraguay now has two official languages and one national language, Guarani” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 107). Holmes and Wilson (2017) point out that there is always a gap between government policies and actual linguistic practices by nationals. They use linguistic landscaping as an example to illustrate the gap. Holmes and Wilson point to the fact that, in terms of signage, what happens on the ground does not reflect the government’s language planning. They use Timor-Leste as an example. The indigenous official language was Tetun. However, Tetun was not evident on official signs in the capital of Timor-Leste, Dili. The linguistic landscape surveyed showed a dominance of English. Holmes and Wilson comment that the “extensive use of English in signage in Timor-Leste provides further evidence of the steady effects of globalisation” (p. 119). As they point out, language behavior of individuals may not comply with the top-down policies enacted by the government. Holmes and Wilson argue that “linguistic behaviour of individual language users [may determine] whether a national policy will succeed or not” (p. 129). To conclude this section concerning language policies and planning in different parts of the globe, I found Tollefson’s (2013) summary of language policies in education around the globe deserves policy-makers’ attention. Tollefson points to some issues relevant to language policy worldwide. First, he points out that some restrictive language policies are actually discriminatory in nature and may lead to other restrictions. For example, in “the United States, statutory and constitutional restrictions on the use of minority languages in education are greatest in states in which other restrictions are also in place” (p. 301). Another issue is that globalization may paradoxically impact on language policies in education. For example, in the case of Japan, the Japanese government was actually promoting the Japanese language and national identity under the guise of promoting English to be 87
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able to participate in the global community. In India, “the increasing use of English as a medium of instruction may be to reduce educational participation and to limit the probability of success in school for the rural poor and others who have virtually no access to English or to high quality English language instruction” (p. 302). Still in the case of Rwanda, the government rapidly adopted English “to replace French as the medium of instruction in Rwanda is due not only to the economic value of English but also to interest-group politics…in controlling the levers of power in the central government” (p. 302). Globalization also shows a tendency in language planning. As Holmes and Wilson (2017) point out, “the focus of language planning activity has altered from the promotion of national and official languages in countries trying to establish their autonomy, to include concern for minority and endangered languages” (p. 121). On the other hand, English has been seen greatly valued and preferred by the government and the public in the process of language planning. It seems not surprising because the hegemonic status of English has been long recognized and criticized. In the next section, we will turn to the discussion of linguistic hegemony of English.
LINGUISTIC HEGEMONY OF ENGLISH As pointed out by Haberland (2020), since “the mid-1990s, ‘hegemony’ seems to have become a household word, which most authors just assume as an analytical background without defining it (because they assume that everybody knows it)” (p. 147). In a general sense, they use the term to refer to “the transmission of values, norms and language ideologies of a dominant group of language users, where these values, norms and ideologies are considered as not in need of justification, since they appear as ‘natural’” (p. 148). McCormick (2022) recounts the historical background of English being the dominant language in the globe. He attributes the current phenomenon to four essential factors that lead to the dominance of English: exploration, colonization, industrialization, and imperialism. First, Europeans were seen going global in the late 15th century by visiting, understanding, and connecting with other parts of the world. They “sought to trade with more distant parts of the world, they had invented long-distant sailing ships that made this possible” (McCormick, 2022, p. 20). Then, the exploration had led “to competition among its leaders and peoples for the new opportunities … [and] created new connections, and expanded the opportunities and desire to trade….Trade interests combined with competition for political influence to 88
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launch the era of European colonialism” (McCormick, 2022, p. 21). At the same time, the industrialization of European countries even allowed them to establish connections with more areas of the world. “The industrial revolution… allowed Europeans to produce more, encouraging them to seek new sources of raw materials and new markets in which to sell their commodities, thereby building on the pressures to colonize and expand trade links” (McCormick, 2022, p. 23). Finally, as a result of colonialism, Europeans sensed and assumed the philosophy of imperialism to exert their colonizing power over foreign territories. “This philosophy of leaders and followers explains many of the political, economic, and social inequalities that continue to persist in the global system” (McCormick, 2022, p. 23). Even in the educational arena in Europe, “English hegemony in CLIL and foreign language programs is alive and well ‘despite the Council of Europe’s recommendations to protect linguistic and cultural diversity’” (Delavan, Freire, & Valdez, 2021, p. 28). Flores and Bale (2017), on the other hand, consider linguistic imperialism as the product of linguicism…[which was defined by Skutnabb-Kangas] as ‘ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (material and immaterial) between groups which are defined on the basis of language…. [L]inguicism leads to linguistic imperialism and imposed monolingualism in education (p. 26). Typically, aside from other dominant languages, many authors focus on the investigation of “the hegemony of Standard English in the USA and of English as a foreign language, mostly in Europe” (Haberland, 2020, p. 148). It seems that there is a strong connection between hegemony and English and that linguistic hegemony does not mean “several languages are seen as competing for leadership” (Haberland, 2020, p. 146). The dominance of English in the globe is indeed apparent. Non-native English speakers are forced to read, write, and publish in English in order to reach a larger range of audience; at an international conference, in most cases, presenters need to present in English; “[i]n the North American context, colonial discourses construct ESL (English as a second language) as a pathological, stigmatizing, and racialized category” (Shin & Kubota, 2010, p. 210-211); and in most of non-English speaking countries, English appears to be an important subject in a school curriculum. Under this circumstance, the sense of ‘English linguistic hegemony’ is thus accumulated. Ricento (2020) points to the three 89
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competing views on the role of English in non-English-dominant countries in the world today as either 1) a form of linguistic imperialism, or 2) a vehicle for social and economic mobility, or 3) a global lingua franca necessary for the promotion of global demos essential to achieving global justice (p. 205) For the three different views, Ricento (2020) argues that the studies and analyses of the role(s) of English in contemporary world need to be incorporated with political theories. He comments on the above-mentioned views respectively. His main points of arguments are that “‘English’ is not the inherent ‘hegemony,’ nor the de facto oppressor, nor the ticket to social or economic mobility, nor the crucial factor in promoting a global demos that it is claimed to be…by [some] scholars” (p. 221). Shih and Kubota (2010), on the other hand, ascribe linguistic hegemony of English to “[c]olonical constructions of the images of language and culture of the colonial subjects marked by essentialized otherness…, [and] such essentialized representations of the Other are often accompanied by constructions of the idealized images of the Self” (p. 210). Phillipson (2009) argues that “even if U.S. TESOL were to more actively embrace the other languages of its emerging bilinguals, the languages of a more multilingual TESOL would still be hierarchically ordered. ‘Globalizing’ English is incompatible with balanced multilingualism” (p. 336). He vividly describes how linguistic imperialism is manifest in the case of English and argues that, in Europe, English is the most widely learned and used foreign language. However, Phillipson fails to acknowledge that Europe is not the only and the largest continent in the globe and thus may not be representative of the entire globe. Phillipson made the statements about 15 years before the publication of this current volume. Fifteen years later, we witness the emergence of other languages, such as mandarin Chinese, to dominant the language market in different parts of the globe and global citizens are debunking the myth of Standard English. Whether English as a global language was viewed as hegemonic or whether it will continue to take hold of the global language market, one thing for sure is that teaching and learning of English in an era of globalization is not the same as what it was used to be. For example, multilingualism, translanguaging and plurilingualism, and issues of defining native speakers are topics emerging as a result of globalization in the field of teaching English to both native and non-native speakers (Rose, et al. 2020). Rose, et al. (2020) argue that “the term of native speaker is incredibly difficult to define…[and] it become apparent that neither proficiency, nor timing of acquisition are necessary criteria to 90
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be labeled as a native speaker” (p. 12). For them, the term native speaker is actual “a linguistic ‘figment’, …a ‘fallacy’, …and a ‘myth’ ” (p. 13). These authors point out that, as the increasingly growing popularity of human and information mobility around the globe, using English to communicate is no longer limited to interacting with native speakers of English and to communicating in a local or global setting. Unlike other languages, say Japanese, that you most likely to use to address Japanese people, you are likely to communicate in English with people from Japan in Germany. In reality, “English may have less than half as many native speakers as Mandarin Chinese, but it is by far the most widely spoken language in the world, and the most popular choice as a second language” (McCormick, 2022, p. 108). Similar to McCormick’s (2022) accounts of the dominance of English, Rose, et al. (2020) recount the spread of English in the global context and attribute the linguistic hegemony of English to four main channels: settler colonization, slavery, trade and exploitation colonies, and globalization. In the era of British colonialism, “the language spread around the world to places as far flung as Australia, Canada, Jamaica, Nigeria, Singapore and India” (p. 4). Another channel for the spread of English and causes of its creolization “was the result of speakers of languages other than English in sudden intense contact with English. For example, slavery forced different linguistic communities to adopt English as their primary…lingua franca in plantation colonies” (p. 5). The third channel can be seen in cases such as Singapore where “English was…used alongside with Chinese, Malay and Tamil” (p. 5). That is, English was used alongside other more dominant languages. Finally, globalization contributes significantly to the spread of English. As accounted by Rose, et al., as a result of 20th century globalization, English emerged as a global prestige language due to the economic and political power of the USA during the period….English was seen by many educational policymakers as a means to facilitate individual and national upward economic and social mobility (p. 5). Along with the issue of linguistic hegemony of English comes the issue of Standard English. In many parts of the globe, people favor Standard English. In the case of the United States, minority children are forced to learn Standard American English, and Standard American English is used in the classroom as the medium of instruction. Field (2011) points out that
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there are millions of children who don’t acquire standard varieties of English at home and in their respective communities. Some acquire a different language or a different, nonstandard variety of English. This means that these children must be taught Standard English in school…, taking valuable time away from the study of academic subjects while they learn the language of instruction (p. 163). In discussing linguistic imperialism, Rose, et al. (2020) also point to the fact that the hegemony of English is actually linguistic forms of imperialism and people tend to ignore the incentives behind the hegemony of English, such as “how English is used in diverse contexts, how English is appropriated and used, or how to further their own cultural, social and educational interests in opposition to those that promote its spread” (p. 53). As pointed out by Inglis (2003), the Australian case that immigrant minority’s attitudes toward linguistic and cultural maintenance seem to go against traditional intuition. However, Australia is not the sole case. In an era of globalization, these issues might be viewed from a different perspective. Inglis points to the fact of “the increasing difficulty in a period of cultural globalization and rapid change of defining and identifying the attributes of a distinctive cultural identity” (p. 144). Furthermore, the dominance of English and the rationalization and homogenization of courses has led to immigrant parents’ interest, in English speaking countries, “in their children performing well in the mainstream curriculum and gaining fluency in English….For immigrants in non-English speaking countries the effect is to encourage their children’s efforts in the national language and English in preference to the mother tongue” (Inglis, 2003, p. 145). Mesthrie (2010) predicts that “the vast majority of the world’s languages will face a struggle to survive in the present century…as regionally and globally more powerful languages spread” (p. 75). According to him, one of the important factors may be the perceived economic benefits and prestige among speakers. In an era of globalization, however, I argue that linguistic hegemony of English may change. Wiley (2015) and Garcia (2009) point to the fact that Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Arabic and other major languages are increasingly expanding. Wiley points out that “knowledge of these languages, especially when they are used as mediums of instruction, is critical for access to academic knowledge” (p. 181). The important point here is that every country or state may have its unique resources, historical background, or specific natural science or social science development. The knowledge can be better shared and understood through the originally written native language. 92
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Lin (2015) argues that the “way we disseminate our research is often done in monolingual English research publications….Access to research work published in diverse local sites and local (‘smaller’) languages has been blocked” (p. 32-33). In addition to language itself, Lin also points to the problem with singularity of the formal academic register that internationally published research reports are required to follow Western conventions of academic writing. She argues that allowing “research work to be written in a greater diversity of styles, registers, genres and trans-semiotics will enable a greater range of local researchers to participate in contributing to knowledge making and knowledge exchange” (p. 33). Learning a second or foreign language is definitely not an easy task. It takes time, energy, persistence, and even money. Most importantly, it requires learners to be really motivated, either intrinsically or extrinsically, to learn a new language successfully. As described earlier and will also be described later, being able to speak two or more languages will benefit an individual in a variety of ways. On the other hand, if most people can speak two or more languages, then English linguistic and cultural hegemony will decline gradually. All languages spoken in the globe are equally important and will contribute to the global community and global citizens in different ways. On the other hand, being able to speak other’s langue can not only bridge the gap between you and others, but also can facilitate international cooperation or collaboration. In an era of globalization, English linguistic hegemony is not really an issue; rather, people’s willingness to learn each other’s language and respect different language varieties makes a difference. Viewed from this perspective, languages used globally in the future may be more and more diversified, depending on how one language can contribute to a specific part of knowledge. The same can be true for the use of English. Globalization has led to more and more English varieties and each variety has its unique accent and linguistic structure. It may no longer be easy to distinguish between native and non-native speakers of a language. The issue of native vs. non-native speakers of English will be discussed in detail in the following section.
Native vs. Non-Native Speakers of English Turning to the educational setting, we may easily find that native-speakerism is prevailing in the field of TESOL. As Holliday (2006) defines it, “[n]ativespeakerism is a pervasive ideology within ELT, characterized by the belief 93
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that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a ‘Western culture’ from which spring the ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching methodology” (p. 385). Holliday and Aboshiha (2009) consider nativespeakerism a hidden racist ideology. They argue that an “understanding of culture should …be used not to label people, but to get to the bottom of how and why they label the Other” (p. 686). Evans (2018), in discussing the symbolic capital in language, points out that in “the United Kingdom, speaking the Queen’s English with ‘received pronunciation’ is highly valued and seeking to undermine this by ignoring correct grammar, especially in an educational context, would be highly controversial” (p. 37). As Qin and Ibrahim (2021) point out, “when it comes to ELT, ‘native speaker’ are often positioned as the ideal teachers, superior to their ‘non-native’ counterparts….Specific to the ELT recruitment process, the native status is attributed with superiority and valued more than the professional qualifications” (p. 89). There is a considerable inequality and huge gap between native English speaking teachers and non-native speaking teachers in terms of employment opportunities and financial rewards. It is not uncommon that, other qualifications and conditions being equal, non-native English speaking teachers are paid less than native speaking teachers. In this scenario, there exists a center-periphery divide in which native speaking teachers are in the central position whereas non-native speaking teachers are perceived as playing a peripheral role. Rose, et al. (2020) also describe how native-speakerism may have negative impact on non-native English teachers and international teaching assistants. “Many international teaching assistants feel insecure about their English, an experience similar to that of other non-native English-speaking teacher…. [Sometimes they were] questioned and ridiculed by the so-called US experts” (Rose, et al., 2020, p. 119). These authors argue that, in case of communicative breakdowns, every party of the communication event is responsible “to adapt and accommodate in order to communicate successfully with individuals from diverse backgrounds” (Rose, et al., 2020, p. 119). They argue that the English language is globally owned and native speakers are actually losing their power “in terms of informing global English language norms” (Rose, et al., 2020, p. 6). Blommaert (2010) even argues that “[n]o one knows all of a language. That counts for our so-called mother tongues….Native speakers are not perfect speakers” (p. 103). He considers the users of a language cannot be the resources of the language. In EFL settings, as a common practice, nonnative speakers are always assigned to “teach reading and grammar-related courses, while native or near-native speakers ….are often asked to teach conversation because of a widely held (and often misinformed) belief that 94
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only native English speakers can teach students to converse” (Gebhard, 2017, p. 42). Gebhard (2017) argues that the assumption that teaching speaking courses do not need special qualifications is actually wrong. Teachers who teach conversation in another language need to “develop an understanding of what learning to converse in a second or foreign language entails, as well as the ability to make use of activities that provide opportunities for students to speak,” (p. 196) along with skills in classroom management and interpersonal and cross-cultural communication. Kubota and Lin (2006), on the other hand, view the issues of nativespeakerism from a perspective of racialization. They argue that “the discussions on native/nonnative issues have tended to address linguistic aspects only (e.g. accent, standard/nonstandard use of language) without paying sufficient attention to the racialized aspect of native/nonnative speakers” (p. 481). They point to the fact that people tend to dichotomize native speakers and nonnative speakers and “equate the native speakers with White and nonnative speaker with non-White. These equations certainly explain discrimination against nonnative professionals” (p. 481) and that there are actually many Asian or Black native speakers of English. In the post-colonial era, however, “the study of language and language teaching can be observed in the research on WEs (my note: world Englishes) and the advocacy of NNS teachers of English” (Shin & Kubota, 2010, p. 212). As a result of language varieties, it comes to the issue of teaching language varieties. Rose, et al. (2020) argue that research studies tend to show students appear to have negative attitude toward non-native speaker varieties and accept the superiority of native-speaker English. They argue that learners “were less familiar with non-native speaker varieties. These attitudes are more likely to be affected by how the learners are exposed to learning language in the classroom” (p. 107). The researchers even found that “[c]onsistently found from learning choice are not limited to learners but also acknowledged in language teachers themselves” (p. 117). Using teaching English varieties as an example, Rose, et al. (2020) thus propose three possible ways for teachers of English to teaching English varieties. First, teachers may explicitly expose learners to the diversity of English. In this case, teachers can use different learning “materials that contain textual, audio and visual examples of other varieties of English” (p. 55). Second, teachers may implicitly provide learners with “opportunities to interact with English users from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds” (p. 55). Finally, English varieties can be explicitly taught. In this case, learners can gain knowledge of how English is globally spread. They warn that 95
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[i]f materials continue to favor native speakers for a small range of countries, it follows that learners may not be able to understand the majority of their future interlocutors of develop negative attitudes towards those speakers whose English differs from the native speakers they encountered in the classroom (p. 67). Other problems with native-speakerism are illustrated by Qin and Ibrahim (2021) as detailed in the following paragraphs. Qin and Ibrahim (2021) use critical discourse analysis method to analyze the British Council in China website, for the “British Council is a world-famous English-language learning institution and is often considered an ‘authoritative’ voice in ELT profession” (p. 96). They insist that “language itself does not reflect events, the reality cannot meaningfully exist outside our systems of representation, and the knowledge about something is created during representation through the work of language” (p. 96). Specifically put it, these authors intend to analyze the image, verbal and non-verbal utterance used in the website to create and represent the image of ‘native speaker’ and consequently inappropriately leave out certain important groups of people. The webpage the authors analyzed is titled English is GREAT. In their investigation of the webpage of the British Council in China, Qin and Ibrahim (2021) identify four main themes consistently represented on the webpage: “‘We’ as the authority and experts, the global language and genuine English, arbitrator of the English language, [and] racialized profiles of ‘native speaker’” (p. 98). First of all, the British Council in their campaign webpage and slogan create an image that they are the sole English experts in the world. For example, “Learn English with the British Council and you’ll be learning with the world’s English experts” (p. 98). Qin and Ibrahim point out that “this brief introduction has established a ‘We’ identity: self-positioning the British Council as an authoritative community of ELT professionals” (p. 99). As Qin and Ibrahim question, it is not clear “whether this expertise is in the English language itself, or in the competence of teaching the English” (p. 98). In a video clip on the webpage, Roger, a staff member from the British Council whose real title is not identified by the authors, in talking about the future of English is open to change, says that “some of the changes we make now in internet chatrooms and the way we talk to each other and the way people around the world use English will become the future of English as well” (p. 99). Here Qin and Ibrahim point out that Roger is actually referring to ‘we’ as native speakers and ‘people around the world’ as ‘others’. 96
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The second theme on the webpage identified by Qin and Ibrahim (2021) is ‘the global language and genuine English’. That is, on the webpage, the British Council tries to promote “the special status of English as the global language among all languages, as well as the notion of the genuine English among all type of Englishes” (p.100). Qin and Ibrahim provide video excerpts from the promotional video in which the Director of the Global English Product Development, Martin, was interviewed. To be concise and to the point, I will quote only words relevant to the discussion here and put together words that in effect may not be spoken to respond to the same interview question. Martin: the reasons for [English being a global language] are the widespread use of English…. There is the global language, which is English….it can be global in the numbers, but in terms of the use in different areas of education, science, research, English is the only global language….there’s lots [sic] different types [of English]…with England itself, within the UK, there’re many variations in the English pronunciation. And that extends globally. So you see English in America, or as used in Australia, which is different in accent and also in usages as well….In the past, students in locations in other countries didn’t have access to much genuine English (Qin & Ibrahim, 2021, p. 100-102). From the partial collection of Martin’s words from the promotion video, one can perceive how the British Council is trying to create a sense to its audiences that English is a global language and British English is genuine English. Qin and Ibrahim (2021) first point out that in terms of the number of speakers and learners around the world, English may be the only global language. However, Martin fails to acknowledge the reality of the colonial history and “leaves out any discussion on how the English language became so widely spread and ended up being the official language of many countries” (p. 101). In the interview, Martin mentions there are different types of English with different accents and usages, such as English in America and in Australia. Qin and Ibrahim note that “the variety of accents are limited to traditional English-speaking countries” (p. 101), and different varieties or accents spoken in the so-called non-native English speaking countries are ignored. The third theme identified by Qin and Ibrahim (2021) is that the British Council’s website acts like the arbitrator of the English language. A “grammar error made by [two] speakers multiple times in the promotional video” (p. 103) was found by audiences of the website, and in “the comment area in the 97
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external link, it is found that during the course of six years…questions about this usage has been raised three times by different users on this website” (p. 103). However, responses by the team from the British Council gave different explanations on this:….In informal situations, it’s not uncommon for native speakers to use ‘there’s with plural nouns….Roger does indeed use these forms and it is common use in some dialects….it’s important to remember that the people in these videos are speaking spontaneously and not writing. Therefore, they may say things that are not perfect English….[I]t’s quite normal to hear people in informal spoken English use there’s, probably it’s easier to say (p. 103-104). Qin and Ibrahim comment that “none of the three different responses confronts this mistake squarely. Rather, they start with discursively justifying and defending the usage….[They avoid] directly criticizing that this is plainly wrong” (p. 104). For the two researchers of this website, it seems that “this mistake is forgivable only when speaker is a ‘native speaker,’ whereas it is explicitly stated that a ‘non-native’ will be ‘judged differently’ for the same error, regardless of the contexts” (p. 104). They conclude that “native speakers are rule makers and arbitrators of the English language. Consequentially, it will only perpetuate the superiority of ‘native speakers’ in the ELT field” (p. 104). Finally, the fourth theme identified by Qin and Ibrahim (2021) is that the “website has filled up the presumed ‘natives’ and ‘non-natives’ through visual language, mainly pictures and video representations” (p. 104-105). For example, a Chinese teacher and several Chinese students are featured in the Teaching Award unit and Individual Learners unit respectively. This example reveals that the competence of non-native speakers of English has to be judged by us native English speakers and that you can become as confident and proficient in English as these learners if you learn English with the British Council. Another example features a middle-aged White male giving a speech in a conference setting. Obviously, “this White male is positioned as the representative of ‘us,’ the authority community of ‘native speakers,’ whereas people like the Chinese female mentioned above, are labeled as the Chinese nationals who are non-native speakers of English” (p. 106). Having carefully reviewed the entire website, Qin and Ibrahim (2021) conclude that
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those who are identified as ‘native speakers’ are all White people supposedly coming from the UK….As such, in the whole website, there is not just a simple White/non-White dichotomy in parallel with the native/non-native binary, but a sort of hierarchy, where the White, mostly male British speakers are placed at the top, positioned as the native norm and the absolute authority of the English language (p. 105-107). Norrby, Lindström, Nilsson, and Wide (2020) echo Qin and Ibrahim’s arguments and add “English provides an illustration of a language with degrees of asymmetrical relationships between its national varieties” (p. 204). It might be true that, in the colonial era, “English spread world-wide from England…, but it would make little sense to consider British English as the sole dominant variety today” (p. 204), and nativized varieties such Indian English and Singapore English are the least dominant varieties. For these researchers, “power relationships between different national varieties are not static, but may change over time due to economic, political and demographic changes” (p. 204-205). Norrby, et al. (2020) also remind us of the fact that dominance is a matter of comparison. That is, one variety of language may be dominant in one region but non-dominant in another. As a non-native English speaker and as a major of bilingual education in my post-graduate studies, I would like to personally express myself and discuss these issues concerning hegemony in linguistics. It is true that, in an era of globalization, we do need a lingua franca to communicate with people who speak a different language at least for the time being, be it for political, economical, educational, or even religious purpose. Historically, in the colonial era, most colonizers were English speaking, and those colonized were forced to learn English. Added by people in those countries irrelevant to colonization that created a fad to learn English as a foreign language, the number of English speakers and learners has been growing significantly. It seemed natural that English gradually became dominant in the globe and were used as the lingua franca in international communications. Whether you like it or not, being able to speak English allows you to widen your world, enrich your knowledge, and even promote your career and status upward. However, let us look at the issue from a different angle. The English language definitely does not cover everything essential or important in our lives. Some scientific knowledge or inventions, social systems, arts performance, or philosophical wisdom may be specific to a country or a group of people who may not use English to express themselves, and these may be better 99
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expressed in their own languages. Viewed from this standpoint, speaking only English may be too narrow-minded and may prevent one from developing a world view. It seems that learning more languages in an era of globalization is quite natural and quite logical. After all, English is NOT the language of globalization; each single language is. As Woodin (2018) puts it, the “native speaker has long been questioned as a concept…, and yet remains central to goals in language learning, even where they are consciously recognized as untenable” (p. 10). Viewing from a pluricentric language perspective, Norrby, et al. (2020) point out, many “languages are pluricentric in nature, i.e. they exist as a national or official language in more than one nation” (p. 201). For example, English and Spanish are widely used across different continents, and in another case, Dutch and Swedish are just spoken in neighbouring countries. As can be imagined, asymmetrical power relationships might “exist between different national varieties of a pluricentric language” (p. 203). According to Norrby, et al., the power relationships existing in a pluricentric language are generally determined by the relative population size of the nations involved, their respective economic and political power, their historical role as a core or peripheral area, their position as an official language…or as a regional or minority language without official recognition, and…whether it is a native or a nativized variety of the nation (p. 203) Like we cannot judge native speakers and non-native speakers and standard and non-standard languages simply by geographical and ethnical division, we cannot assume that each single language or language variety is spoken only in a specific region of the globe and possesses a given status in that region.
From Colonialism to Globalization In this section, we will discuss how the hegemonic status of English and the distinction between native and nonnative speakers may change as a result of globalization. DomNwachukwu (2019) describes that the “nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked the era of an unbridled spread of European power and dominance across the globe” (p. 2). In this period, the contacts between Western European and Africa have turned trade missions
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into a mission of conquest and dominance, ... [and Western Europeans] began to articulate a concept of racial superiority….These concepts of racial superiority have, sadly, undergirded the way Western Europe has related to the rest of the non-Western world since colonialization (p. 3) These interactions, or we may say ‘colonial relations’, include “conquest, repression, religious conversion, scientific exploration, educational and medical missions, trade and commerce, exploration of the arts, economy, and even the population. These interactions have left behind colonial legacies that have lasted into the twenty-first century” (DomNwachukwu, 2019, p. 4). For DomNwachukwu, Western people need to “first confront the colonial legacies that have been handed down, confront the dualistic world view that has shaped their societies…To deal with these issues, one must first confront the idea of white racial identity, white privilege, and cultural responsibility” (p. 5). As Thomas (2003) suggests, a drive to modernize educational systems has let to neglect of cultural heritage of many developing countries. “However, developing countries are starting to realize they have a rich cultural store of traditions, ways of communication, specific discourse, sets of values and beliefs that continue to endure, irrespective of change” (p. 73). DomNwachukwu (2019) points out that white “people develop a racial consciousness and identity that progresses from oblivion to differences in race and ethnicity to an identity that is affirming of the white superiority consciousness” (p. 6). He illustrates some of the white privileges that can be easily found in societies, including access to any office, social networks, and professional ties; being accepted and welcome in department stores or staying late at a park without any trouble; more opportunities for employment and business; choosing to live in a secure place; and being safe wherever and whenever they go without fear of being stopped by the police. DomNwachukwu claims that White privilege is undeniably a logical by-product of the combined forces of colonialism, domination, and colonial relations….[W]hile it is a fact that today’s whites did not participate in slavery (and colonialization), they have continued to re-create white supremacy on a daily basis (p. 9-10). McCormick (2022) recounts that, after the two tumultuous world wars, “European powers lost the capacity and the will to sustain large militaries or empires, sparking an intensive process of decolonization that led to the most active phase of new state creation in history” (p. 26). A new global 101
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system was thus created. In an era of globalization, as communications and transportations have made us closer and more dependent on one another, the myth of white supremacy should be debunked and genuine social equality established. DomNwachukwu (2019) defines globalization as the convergence of the economic, social, and political forces of the world in such a way that a strong tread of interdependency is woven through world societies to the extent that individual and group lives and existence become codependent upon those of others outside of the self and nation states (p. 19). He points out that, in an era of globalization, white supremacy as practiced in the colonial era can no longer be fitted into the educational arena in an era of globalization. DomNwachukwu thus points to three areas that particularly need to be addressed and/or changed: developing students’ cross-cultural competency, developing cross-cultural curriculum, and adopting cross-cultural instructional and teaching practices. In developing students’ cross-cultural competency, DomNwachukwu (2019) points out that, in addition to understand the complex components and variables of one’s own culture, students need to develop “the ability to function effectively when moving away from one’s community to another country or culture… [and feel comfortable] in traversing cultural boundaries and being able to function effectively in the new context” (p. 27). He found that some programs in the United States aiming at developing students’ cross-cultural competency “have not served as vehicles for cross-cultural education; rather, they have worked to service the needs of particular ethnic groups who seek to know more about their culture and heritage” (p. 28). Instead, DomNwachukwu argues that the “educational curricula of the twenty-first-century world need to be cross-cultural and multicultural, employing the constructs, concepts, ideals, ideas, and even educational materials from the global arena” (p. 28). In language use and language education, Shin and Kubota (2010) urge writers and thinkers to reclaim the voices of the colonized people of color and women and [reveal] how colonial power has been exercised through constructing the exotic Other and making the colonized desire to speak the colonizer’s language….This process involves the liberation and legitimation of subjugated voices which are reflected in language policies in education in many post-colonial societies as well as in such inquiry topics as WEs (p. 207). 102
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Shin and Kubota (2010) argue that, in an era of globalization and (neo) colonialism, “Western knowledge is often universalized….We tend to see a one-way flow of knowledge from the West to language classrooms in less developed countries through textbooks, theories, and teaching practices” (p. 214). They suggest that “to reclaim local knowledge in language education, [we should] take to position of globalization from below…and attempt to pluralize the norms by legitimating local knowledge, identities, codes, and teaching practices from the perspective of the local communities” (p. 214). Shin and Kubota (2010) explain that this postmethod pedagogy is “a bottomup pedagogical process situated in the local, initiated by local language teaching professionals based on their own knowledge” (p. 214). In sum, in the course of moving toward globalization, the once colonized people need to be granted autonomy and their voices need to be heard.
Language Education under Neoliberalism According to Gao (2017), Neoliberalism is a political economic theory stipulates that state intervention should be kept to a minimum so that the principle of market saturated every aspect of society…, [and] is generally associated with the destruction of former institutional frameworks under embedded liberalism through deregulation, privatization and individual entrepreneurship (p. 21). Referring to Harvey, Flores (2017) comments on the process toward neoliberalism as ‘accumulation by dispossession,’ that is, “making a profit by extracting wealth from marginalized populations” (p. 64). The free flow of capitalism and competition in various markets actually benefit economic elite and promote white supremacy. In the arena of applied linguistics, Flores points to the fact that commodification of language has led to ‘a shift from understanding language as being primarily a marker of ethnonational identity, to understanding language as being a marketable commodity on its own” (p. 64). McGroarty (2017) points to the trends of language education being affected by neoliberal reforms. According to her, neoliberal economists reflect “an acceptance of the need for government and business to work together, the value of competition, and expectations that the operation of market forces in most arena of social life will produce benefits” (p. 229). In the field of language education, McGroarty points to the three trends of language 103
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education: language as a recruiting tool, the restructuring, deregulation and privatization of language education, and language learning as self-realization. First, McGroarty points out that language education around the globe has “long served as recruiting tools that enable institutions to increase student numbers” (p. 230). As far as English is concerned, not only international students seek for degrees in English-speaking countries, but also non-Englishspeaking countries such as Asian countries are offering English-medium degree programs. Furthermore, “English is not the only target language to serve as a recruiting tool….China’s Confucius Institute provides low-cost materials …to spread the knowledge of Mandarin, the national standard, and good will for the country” (p. 231). Secondly, McGroarty (2017) describes how language education was deregulated and privatized in an era of Neoliberal Reforms. “Global enthusiasm for learning English has led to a proliferation of private providers of instruction and pedagogical materials, many operating entirely outside the ambit of any of the traditional authorities” (p. 231). That is, a major current has shown that curricular design and material development were largely relied on private providers. This can be found in different areas of the globe, including China, Japan, the United States, and Italy. Finally, McGroarty (2017) points out how language learning has been seen to aim at self-realization toward professional or occupational ends. That is, “the promotion of language skills [was seen] as part of a successful adult self” (p. 233). In many cases, “the language linked with success has most often meant the mastery of some level of English thought to both demonstrate and facilitate ability to engage in entrepreneurial behavior, to become ‘enterprising’ in the literal sense” (p. 234). In addition to English, some cases show that indigenous languages are also valued as well. McGroarty points to the example of the Isthmus Zapotec language. Some members of this community in Mexico continue to use this language because they see the value of the language “in the local, literal market,…[and] a connection perceived as meaningful beyond commercial or business applications” (p. 235). However, viewing from a raciolinguistic perspective, Delavan et al. (2021) comment on the dual language education practiced under the neoliberal ideology in Utah, U.S.A. They describe that Utah dual language (DL) education is basically a top-down, one-size-fits-all model, featuring marketing “a homogenized DL model as product,” (p. 24) like a commodity to be mass-produced and mass-marketed. After carefully investigating and analyzing the Utah DL, the authors found that “it articulated what we called a globalized human capital (GHC) framework at the expense of discourses about 104
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creating educational equity by drawing on students’ language and heritage” (p. 24). Delavan, et al. comment that the Utah DL is actually promoting elite multilingualism, favoring “privileged white, propertied, English-only monolingual constituents” (p. 29). It focuses on broad appeal and ignores “racial, linguistic and class differences among segments of the market and homogenized its message toward one audience” (p. 29). Flores (2017), on the other hand, illustrates how neoliberalism has in effect promoted racial formation in a bilingual education for US Latinxs. He argues that “the rise of neoliberalism served to politically incorporate the political struggles of the era in ways that accommodated superficial celebrations of diversity while doing little to challenge racial inequality” (p. 65). According to him, bilingual education for US Latinxs has gone through language-asproblem, language-as-right, and language-as-resource orientations. For Flores, “the institutionalization of a language-as-resource orientation may become incorporated into the neoliberal racial project of accumulation by dispossession that exploits diversity by converting the linguistic resources of language-minoritized communities in ways that reinforce the racial status quo” (p. 70). That is, bilingual education under this orientation and a society with racial hierarchies, “language as a resource for all is likely to benefit the language-majoritized community more than the language-minoritized community. For example, in a dual language bilingual program where both minoritized and majoritized students sitting alongside to learn each other’s language; as a result, majoritized students may win a better position in the future job market. To structure bilingual education, Flores (2017), proposes a language-asstruggle orientation. He considers a language-as-struggle oriented bilingual education needs to include at least the following principles. First, languageas-struggle orientation needs to explicitly address the issues of how racial inequalities and social hierarchies are formed at the core of neoliberalism. Second, this orientation calls for carefully analyzing “neoliberalism and the ways in which neoliberalism contributes to the continuing racialization of the language practices of language-minoritized students” (p. 78). Flores considers that bilingual education should be situated “within larger political struggles that seek to combat the racial inequities of our current political and economic context” (p. 78). Third, a language-as-struggle orientation needs to go beyond engagement with organizations to engage with community organizations to explore issues “such as income inequality, housing segregation and immigration policy” (p. 78). Finally, language struggles of minoritized students should be brought into discussion in the classroom. For Flores, 105
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bilingual programs and teachers can play a role in this social transformation by bringing a language-as-struggle orientation into the classroom….to treat language use as ideological and embedded in relations of power as well as to provide space for students to develop strategies for negotiating these power relations (p. 79). Flores concludes that “a language-as-struggle orientation would avoid uncritically celebrating bilingual education. Instead, it would make the concerns of language-minoritized students and communities central to any advocacy of these programs” (p. 79).
LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS After discussing different language uses and different language policies in different areas of the globe, I would like to invite you to consider the question: Aside from differences between or among languages and language varieties, are there any language universals that can be applied to all, or at least most of, language users around the globe? If we consider differences tend to cause conflicts, inequalities, and struggles, then similarities may have the potential to tie people of different races and linguistic and cultural backgrounds together to work on a better global community. Linguistically, we cannot deny that “one of the hallmarks of human language is diversity, which is present at all levels (phonetic, phonological, lexical, grammatical, semantic, pragmatic” (McGregor, 2020, p. 221). However, we are also aware of the universal grammar that can be applied to all or most of the human languages, although the grammar is broadly defined and we might not be entirely sure that the grammar is inclusive of all the languages in the globe. McGregor examines especially the pragmatic domain of language use and sheds some lights into how we might ignore that human nature may link people around the globe together and, hopefully, toward the well-beings of all the members of the global community. As we can imagine from the perspective of universal grammar, these can-be-applied-universally rules must be rare and broadly defined. McGregor first examines the domain of speech acts. He illustrates some classification types of speech acts proposed by scholars, including those of Stivers et al, Eades, Walsh, Gardner, Wierzbicka, Ameka and Terkourafi, Searle, Halliday, and Matthiessen. He found that there are discrepancies existing in these classifications. However, McGregor is able to conclude that “it seems possible that there are some basic speech act 106
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types that could be claimed to be universal, including possibly statements, questions, and commands; many other less ‘basic’ speech act types are almost certainly not universal” (p. 225). In this chapter, I will focus on some similar characteristics shared by human languages at least for the time being.
Cooperative Principle McGregor (2020) then discusses Grice’s Cooperative Principle, which is presumably universal. Grice proposed four maxims in conversations to achieve expected communicative goals: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner. That is, in your conversations with your communication partners, you need to be aware of the quantity you provide, not say too much or provide not enough information required for the listeners to understand, the quality of your information, being relevant to the topic or topics you are talking about, and the manner you present the information must be in accord with the contents of the information. McGregor points out that Grice’s theory of four maxims of cooperative principle was later challenged by some scholars. For example, Keenan, an ethnographic researcher, points out that “Malagasy speech interactants regularly violate the maxim of Quantity, specifically the submaxim “Make your contribution as informative as is required” (p. 226). Keenan observes that Malagasy speakers tend not to provide enough information in their conversations, and it does not mean that the speaker has problems providing specific information. It is simply “because the expectation that speakers will satisfy informational needs is not a basic norm” (p. 226). Scholars’ comments on cooperative principle may reveal a fact that universal grammar can never be concluded as less-known speech communities are being explored and human behaviors unfamiliar to common global people are being found.
Politeness and Euphemism Although the ways to show politeness in speech is culturally specific, human beings in a civilized world tend to show politeness in their communications with others to show their merits and values as an individual on the one hand and to show their respect to others on the other. To do this, people in different parts of the world may have different ways of expressing themselves and may perform particular behaviors. However, this is considered a universally recognized human nature. McGregor (2020) illustrats some examples to show 107
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how people in different countries may use different ways or different behaviors to achieve the goal. For example, citing from Wierzbicka, McGregor points out that “directness to speakers of Slavic languages may connote sincerity and straightforwardness rather than represent impositions on their negative face” (p. 235). On the contrary, as my personal cultural experiences show, Chinese people tend to use indirect speech acts to show their politeness and respect to others. They may use indirect speech acts to save other’s face and avoid offending others. There is also a so-called negative politeness. People may use negatively polite behaviors in situations that may reflect social distance and status or power distances between people. “Negative politeness is respectful and avoids imposing on the addressee” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 474). For example, new acquaintances may not address to each other using direct speech acts. On the other hand, there are different taboos existing in different parts of the world, be it relevant to religions, traditions, cultures, or politics; again they are culturally specific. For example, Chinese people may not feel comfortable saying the number “four” because it is pronounced in Chinese similar to the pronunciation of “death.” Because taboos are things people try to avoid to say or to act, euphemisms or non-sexist terms are invented as alternatives of those taboos. That is, we want our utterances to be culturally appropriate and politically correct. For example, we may say ‘pass away’ instead of ‘die’, ‘physically disabled’ instead of ‘handicapped’, and ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman.’ This is also one way to show your politeness and your respect to others by using euphemism or non-sexist terms. Showing your politeness and avoiding taboos are equally important in cross-cultural communications. Failing to do either one of them will ruin your communications. In some cases, meddling in matters relevant to language is termed verbal hygiene. For example, some linguistic purists may prescribe and proscribe “what constitutes ‘proper’, ‘correct’ and ‘acceptable’ usage in a range of contexts” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 361). Santamaria-Garcia (2018), on the other hand, discusses politeness theory and considers the issues of politeness in a much broader sense. She argues that politeness conventions, especially stipulated in the Council of Europe publications, as too misleadingly simplified. She first points out that people from different cultures may choose different language uses in addressing politeness, “the need for positive and negative faces is universal and this should be basic cultural knowledge in the language classroom” (p. 89). She employs Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory and ‘views politeness as a set of strategies used to redress face and culture as a factor influencing strategy 108
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choice’ (p. 88). These scholars consider “every individual in a society is assumed to have negative and positive face. Negative face is ‘the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction, …whereas positive face include ‘the desire that the self-image be appreciated and approved of” (Santamaria-Garcia, 2018, p. 88). Whether negative face or positive face is concerned, people, in many cases, attempt to “show mutually shared forms of consideration for others whilst not appearing to be uncooperative and losing the respect that they may have gained or they might wish to gain in the eyes of others” (Watts, 2003, p. 120). Watts (2003) distinguishes between first-order and second-order politeness. He considers that the traditional view of politeness (i.e. first-order politeness) tends to take forms for granted. These politic behaviors of a social interaction may include saying please, thank you, and I’m sorry, “open doors for others to enter or exit before oneself, not belching at mealtimes, holding one’s head away when coughing, offering one’s seat in a tram or bus to an older person or invalid, etc.” (p. 31). He argues that the second-order politeness should not only concern with how lay members evaluate and comment on (im)polite behavior but with how “social scientists lift the term ‘(im)politeness’ out of the realm of everyday discourse and elevate it to the status of a theoretical concept in which is frequently called Politeness Theory” (p. 9). He points out that the second-order politeness “means something rather different from our everyday understanding of it and focuses almost uniquely on polite language in the study of verbal interaction” (p. 10). Watts argues that the term ‘politeness’ should be treated “as a technical term used in the pragmatic and sociolinguistic study of socio-communicative verbal interaction” (p. 30).
Innateness Hypothesis vs. Social Constructivism Bilingualism cannot be discussed without dealing with how a language is learned. There are two competing paradigms relevant to acquiring a language: innateness hypothesis and social constructivism. In discussing language universals, McGregor (2020) argues that previous studies on language universals tend to investigate and focus on language structures and systems and “say little about pragmatics and issues of usage” (p. 237). He supports Levinson’s idea of ‘human interaction engine’ that advocates it is “a core universal set of proclivities and abilities that humans bring, by virtue of human nature, to the business of interaction …[and this] interaction engine includes arguably pragmatic components” (p. 237). It is similar to the idea of innateness hypothesis supported by many linguistic scholars, which 109
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states “that children are equipped with an innate template or blueprint for language …and that this blueprint aids the child in the task of constructing a grammar for her language” (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2014, p. 395). McGregor argues that Innateness Hypothesis should go beyond human faculties of speaking to include the ability to community based on different people, purposes, contexts, and times. That is to say, in addition to learning a language or languages, children are born to be able to interact with people, which may be added to the list of Universal Grammar. Chomsky proposes innateness hypothesis, stating that the “young child internalized external linguistic data from the social world which corresponds to language shaped innate mental structures” (Evans, 2018, p. 12). That is, each single normal individual is born to learn language. Children are equipped with facilities to learn language as long as they receive proper linguistic input. It is also “thought of as a central part of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD)….[It] guides L1 development [and] is not fully accessible to L2 learners” (Meisel, 2010, p. 226). Although the linguistic skills of individuals may vary, depending on their intelligence, personality, and the social contexts where they acquire their language or languages, “native speakers never fail to acquire the complete set of structural properties underlying the utterances occurring in the ambient language” (Meisel, 2020, p. 225-226). However, social constructivists, such as Vygotsky, hold a different view (Evans, 2018). They argue that “[w]ord and object are separate entities and not intrinsically connected but nevertheless enter into each other by close sociocultural association….It is also possible for the word to change meaning over time” (Evans, 2018, p. 13). Social constructivists maintain that thoughtlanguage interaction and higher order thinking require social interactions and education. McCarthey, Nuñez, and Lee (2020), on the other hand, also argue that “Chomskian orientation of language learning as innate, monolingual, and occurring in a homogeneous environment [is under great challenge]. Instead, bilingual learners shuttle between languages to co-construct meaning and utilized creative improvisation within social practices” (p. 352). Human languages, as we perceive them, are dynamic. New vocabulary words and new expressions are kept invented. It is thus the list of language universals can go on and on or some characteristic of language universals may prove to be ineffective to be applied to each single language. My purpose here is to drawn readers’ attention that, like human nature, human languages do have similarities existing between or among different languages. It is hoped that language universals can bring us as members of the global community better understanding of and closer to each other. 110
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CONCLUSION This chapter discusses bilingualism at the national and international level, and language policies and language planning are first discussed because it is pertinent to each single government’s administrative agenda. Depending on different historical backgrounds, political and economical considerations, and policy makers’ orientations and ideologies, different regions or states may have their unique, or sometimes similar, language policies. From cases of language policy or planning presented in this chapter, it is even more evident that language policies can be affected by various factors. For example, in many African countries in the colonial era, African people were forced to learn the colonizers’ languages. After their independence, they faced a dilemma of the problem over choosing a national or an official language. Maintaining the colonizer’s language may allow people to have access to the global community and earn a better and more advanced life, but it may sound strange after independence. On the other hand, choosing from existing vernacular languages can develop a national identity, but it may prevent people from participating in the global community and may cause conflicts among different ethnic groups. In the case of Asian countries, mostly their priority is to promote English in order for their people to be able to participate in global activities, be it political, economical, educational, or religious, especially English has been seen as a global language and had its hegemonic status since the colonial age. However, as we witnessed the world has been moving from colonialism to globalization and featuring a Neoliberal world, English can no longer claim its hegemony and native and nonnative distinction became a myth. Despite the emergence of various English varieties, and other language varieties, language universals may remind us of the eventual goal of language use—to communicate, to collaborate, and to develop knowledge, not to be the cause of conflicts, discriminations, and oppression.
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Nair, R. B. (2020). Caste and language. In J. Östman & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: 23rd annual installment (pp. 77–110). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/hop.23.cas3 Norrby, C., Lindström, J., Nilsson, J., & Wide, C. (2020). Pluricentric languages. In J. Östman & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: 23rd annual installment (pp. 201–220). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/hop.23. plu1 Parekh, B. (2006). Rethinking multiculturalism: Cultural diversity and political theory (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-0-230-20425-6 Phillipson, R. (2009). English in Globalisation, a Lingua Franca or a Lingua Frankensteinia? TESOL Quarterly, 43(2), 335–339. doi:10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00175.x Qin, L., & Ibrahim, A. (2021). Re-examining the “native speaker question”: Representing Native speakers on an ELT website. In A.-L. Wang (Ed.), Redefining the role of language in a globalized world (pp. 88–112). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-2831-0.ch006 Race, R. (2015). Multiculturalism and education (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury. Raihani (2014). Creating multicultural citizens: A portrayal of contemporary Indonesian education. London, U.K.: Routledge. Ricento, T. (2020). Language policy, political theory, and English as a “Global” language. In Y. Peled & D. M. Weinstock (Eds.), Language ethics (pp. 202–227). McGill-Queen’s UP. doi:10.2307/j.ctv15d7z03.11 Rose, H., Syrbe, M., Montakantiwong, A., & Funada, N. (2020). Global TESOL for the 21st Century: Teaching English in a changing world. Multilingual Matters. Samuelson, B. L. (2013). Rwanda switches to English: Conflict, identity, and language-in-education policy. In J. W. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed., pp. 211–232). Routledge. Santamaria-Garcia, C. (2018). Connected learners: Online and Off-line learning with a focus on politeness intercultural competences. In D. Tafazoil, M. E. G. Parra, & C. A. Huertas-Abril (Eds.), Cross-cultural perspectives on technology-enhanced language learning (pp. 83–99). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5463-9.ch005 116
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Shin, H., & Kubota, R. (2010). Post-colonialism and globalization in language education. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 206–219). John Wiley & Sons. Thomas, E. (2003). The case for a culture-sensitive education: Building cultural bridges between traditional and global perspective. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp. 65–81). Kluwer Academic. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_6 Tollefson, J. W. (2013). Language policy and democratic pluralism. In J. W. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (2nd ed., pp. 301–310). Routledge. Valdiviezo, L. A., & Nieto, S. (2015). Culture in bilingual and multilingual education: Conflict, struggle, and power. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 92–108). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406.ch6 Watts, R. J. (2003). Politeness. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511615184 Wiley, T. (2015). Language policy and planning in education. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 164–184). John Wiley & Sons. Woodin, J. (2018). Interculturality, interaction and language learning: Insight from tandem partnerships. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315640525
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Chapter 4
Bilinguality:
Neuro-Lingualistic and Cognitive Perspective
ABSTRACT This chapter mainly discusses from neuro-linguistic and cognitive perspectives how bilinguals deal with their two or more languages in their brain. The author first presents different models to illustrate the functioning of bilinguals in their brains, namely the model of modular on-line growth and use of language (MOGUL), the developmental bilingual interactive-activation (BIA-d) model, and multilingual assessment for narrative (MAIN). The author then compares first language and second language acquisition and how age factors may affect heritage language learning. Finally, the author discusses cognitive distortion that may be faced by monolinguals and crosslinguistic influence and language attrition that may be faced by bilinguals.
INTRODUCTION Hamers and Blanc (1989) define bilinguality as “the psychological state of an individual who has access to more than one linguistic code as a means of social communication” (p. 6). According to Garcia (2009), bilinguality thus includes multiple aspects of a bilingual identity-emotions, preferences, anxiety, personality, social influence, and reference groups” (p. 68). Garcia suggests that the study of bilingualism must include not only the social and DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch004 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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political aspects but also the psychological aspect of bilinguals’ state of mind. Especially when we are reminded of the long-established Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the “fact that some languages had few, if any, number words,…[it is] indicative of people’s needs and life-style, rather than any deficiency of language or thought” (Pavlenko, 2014, p. 2). Garcia insists that “bilingualism is not monolingualism times two” (p. 71). Still Smith and Truscott (2014) state that the “bilingual mind is one that includes at least a basic knowledge of two or more languages, not necessarily a high level of competence in each of them. In this sense bilingualism (or multilingualism) is the norm in the world” (p. 211). As Sabourin and Stowe (2010) have pointed out, “it is only through cross-disciplinary collaboration that answers to language questions can be answered” (p. 27). Reiterer (2010) also argues that “proficiency level is not a singular or ‘pure’, but complex factor, which function as umbrella term and subsumes many of the other factors,” (p. 316) such as biological, psychological, socio-cultural, and linguistic factors. Based on the perspectives purposed by different scholars mentioned above, the second part of this volume, bilinguality, will be discussed from neuro-linguistic and cognitive, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspectives. In this chapter focusing on the neuro-linguistic and cognitive aspects of bilinguality, I will first discuss some models demonstrating the mechanisms of language acquisition and learning and child cognitive development, including the Model of Modular On-line Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL) and Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narrative (MAIN). Then I will compare first and second language learning and explain how monolinguals may encounter some kinds of cognitive distortions. In the following two chapters (Chapter Five and Chapter Six) I will discuss bilinguality from the psycho-linguistic and the socio-linguistic perspective respectively.
THE NEURO-LINGUISTIC DEBATS ABOUT BILINGUALISM The second part of this volume first discusses bilingualism from a cognitive and neuro-linguistic perspective. The entire discussion is relevant to “detailed qualitative analyzes of the ways in which language is grounded in our experience and our embodiment” (Barjesteh, Ardestani, Manoochehrzadeh, & Heidarzadi, 2022, p. 33). First, you might have the question in mind ‘Why should I learn more than one language?’ Just viewing from a neuro-linguistic perspective, Smith and Truscott (2014) suggest that the 120
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bilingual or multilingual mind will consequently almost always be capable of some degree of crosslinguistic insight….It has been suggested by recent research in Canada…that, if you are going to suffer from dementia of some kind, being bilingual give you on average four extra years before the onset of the disease….The research involved suggest that the habitual management of two language systems places extra demands on working memory and this enhances executive functions. The inroads made on certain executive functions by degenerative disease consequently take longer to develop (p. 206-207). People might curious about how bilinguals might position and function in their brains when dealing with two or more languages, such as the common question mentioned by Reiterer (2010) “Is there a common store for all languages or are there brain areas, larger networks, or even hemispheres which are specifically dedicated for each of the language?” (p. 308). According to Reiterer, “there is little consensus as to the exact nature of bilingual language representation” (p. 308). She illustrates three major viewpoints presented so far: the common storage viewpoint, the multi-center-storage view point, and the partial overlap view point. The common storage viewpoint claims a more or less precisely defined common network being responsible for the handling of all language a speaker knows;… [while the multi-centerstorage viewpoint]…. would assign each language an own processing entity in the brain;… [and finally, the partial overlap viewpoint maintain that] only some areas show common activations for processing L1 (first language or mother tongue) and L2 (second language) and additionally other areas get activated by the L2 (L3, L4) only (p. 308). Some are even doubt about the effectiveness of being bilingual. Baker and Wright (2017) point to general public’s doubts about bilingualism such as “a burden on the brain, mental confusion, slowing down of the acquisition of the majority language, identity conflicts, split loyalties, alienation, and even schizophrenia” (p. 132). These doubts are even strengthened by empirical studies in the 1960s, revealing that monolinguals are superior to bilinguals in various areas. “Modern research suggests that bilinguals have a few potential cognitive disadvantages when compared with monolinguals. There are studies that identifies differences favoring monolinguals in languagespecific processing” (p. 136), such as semantic fluency and picture naming. However, Baker and Wright also point to the problems with these research studies, such as the way researchers defined and measured intelligence, 121
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language of testing, the way researchers classified participants, analyzed and generalized the research findings; and the contexts of different language and cultural environments. However, Baker and Wright also present findings of more recent studies, showing that bilingualism provides: greater mental flexibility; the ability to think more abstractly, and more independently of words, providing superiority in concept formation; that a more enriched bilingual and bicultural environment benefits the development of IQ; and that there is a positive transfer between a bilingual’s two languages, facilitating the development of verbal IQ (p. 138).
MECHANISMS OF BRAIN FUNCTION IN BILINGUAL MIND AND RESEARCH FINDINGS Although Baker and Wright (2017) point to different problems with different research designs and conflicting research findings, my purpose of this part is to roughly present to you the mechanisms of the brain of the bilingual from neuro-linguistic and cognitive perspectives, rather than arguing for the research itself. First, neuroscientific and neurolinguistic research studies on bilingualism, using modern technological equipments such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have revealed some clues relevant to how bilingual brains function in dealing with two or more languages. Baker and Wright (2017) report on some of the research findings. Unlike monolinguals that show their left lateralization, “bilinguals appear to be less left lateralized….and the degree of lateralization among bilinguals vary as a function of their age of exposure to the second language” (p. 140). Gray matter in the human brain was also found playing an important role in learning a second language. Research studies have shown that “learning a second language increases the density of gray matter…but decreases as the age of acquisition increases….[That is,] age of language acquisition may contribute to the functional organization of the human brain” (p. 140). Furthermore, neuroimaging studies also show that “frontal regions of the brain are activated when bilinguals are switching or selecting languages” (p. 141). This may be a piece of evidence showing that bilinguals are advantageous in terms of cognitive control. As far as second language vocabulary acquisition is concerned, Grainger, Midgley, and Holcomb (2010), citing from Kroll and Stewart, maintain that “as a 122
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speaker gains fluency in L2, there is a gradual shift from an indirect access to meaning via L1 translation equivalent to direct connections from L2 words to concepts” (p. 274). The above account may provide a rough picture concerning how a bilingual functions. However, as Baker and Wright (2017) warn us, these researchers tend to ignore or not measure adequately several important variables that have been shown to affect multilingual processing….These variables include age of second language acquisition, level of proficiency, language contact and use, motivation to learn the language, language aptitude, and attitudes towards the L1and L2 (p. 141). First, I will focus the discussion on how we learn a language and a culture from a neuroscientific perspective. According to Kartoshkina (2017), the study of how our brain learns, e.g. learning a language or learning a culture, cannot be said to have a long history. However, she claims that the “researcher in [the field of educational neuroscience] are interested in exploring the brain mechanisms involved in learning and aim to develop principles that can be applied to enhance practices of teaching and learning” (p. 88). For example, Kartoshkina illustrates the mechanisms of language learning and acquisition. Basically, our brains are designed in such a way that when we are born, we can learn any language in the world. As babies, our listening and speaking mechanisms allow us to tune in and learn any language to which we are exposed” (p. 97). However, this language mechanism cannot be activated without the stimuli of the environment surrounds us. That is to say, babies need to be exposed to human languages then they can learn to distinguish sounds and learn to speak. Another trick is that the “ability of our brains to tune into any language decreases over time….[T]he ability to distinguish phonetic differences between languages persists up to about age 7 or 8” (Kartoshkina, 2017, p. 97). Another drawback of learning a language at an older age, say adolescence is that “it takes more time and effort to learn a second language….[I]t becomes almost impossible to speak a newly learned language without an accent because our phonetic apparatus has been solidified according to our native language(s)” (Kartoshkina, 2017, p. 98).
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Despite the inevitable fossilization of our speech organs, the good news is that studies have shown benefits specific to adult learning a second language, including improvements in overall intelligence and reading skills, attention and task-switching capacities, planning and decision-making processes, and slowing down the rate of brain aging and lower the risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s” (Kartoshkina, 2017). In the regard of deterring dementia and Alzheimer’s from happening too soon, Smith (2017) refers to it as cognitive reserve. Based on studies done in Canada and other countries, he points out that increased cognitive flexibility is conferred on those who have acquired more than one language from early childhood: this provides a cushion against the mental disabilities brought on by dementia and allows people who are affected to find a way…to compensate for the inroads that disease had made on their brains….The result is that they do not display the symptoms of their disease until much later (p. 191). Given the mechanism of language learning stated above, educators or language teachers may encourage their students to learn a second or foreign language as earlier as possible to avoid speaking with an accent and may tell them that “learning a new language will allow their brains to develop new neural pathways that will provide them with new knowledge, skills, and opportunities” (Kartoshkina, 2017, p. 98). Along with learning a new language is the learning of a new culture, which can be viewed as an important part of learning a language. According to Kartoshkina (2017) our brains have all the necessary mechanisms that not only help us to survive in one cultural environment, but also enable us to navigate in a variety of such environments and interact with people whose brains are wired differently from ours….Traditionally, cultural variations have been explored by cultural anthropologists and cultural psychologists mainly through observations, behavioral surveys, and cognitive experiments (p. 89-90). Studies on cultural values using modern technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) have shown that “cultural values influence neural mechanisms that support a range of psychological domains, such as perception, memory, emotion, and social cognition” (Kartoshkina, 2017, p. 90). Neurologically people are wired to adapt themselves to the cultural pattern they are used to, and 124
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human brains have the ability to recognize our cultural patterns. Moving to a new cultural environment, they need to re-wire their neurological system to accommodate the new cultural pattern. There is a very good implication here that, having understood how our neurological system functions, we may be able to tolerate different cultures and better understand how a bilingual may navigate between or among different cultures. One of the tricks to manage a linguistically and culturally diverse class is to “skillfully facilitate interactions between students, domestic and international, they can all learn more from each other” (Kartoshkina, 2017, p. 91). As a matter of fact, to understand how our brains are involved in cultural learning is quite complicated. “These mechanisms include: neuroplasticity, pattern recognition, language acquisition, and memory” (Kartishkina, 2017, p. 91). Kartoshkina (2017) explains how a ‘neural network’ is formed in our brains and how our brains’ capacity to adjust changes because of ‘neuroplasticity’. The human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons….Every time the brain gets stimulated by incoming information, one neuron sends an electrochemical signal to another neuron. When we continue repeating the same information over and over again, the connection between neurons becomes stronger and stronger and a pattern of interconnected neurons called ‘neural network’ is created….To adjust to changes in our environment, established connections between neurons can be modified with new incoming information. This capacity of our brains to rewire to adapt to changes in our environment and learn something new is known as ‘neuroplasticity’ (91-92). Because “the degree of neuroplasticity reduces as we age” (Kartoshkina, 2017, p. 93), we are advised to learn a new language and/or a new culture as earlier as possible. Bilinguals can acquire a new language and adjust to a new culture much easier at a younger age when their neuroplasticity is high.
Cognitive Benefits of Bilingualism Viewing from neurolinguistic and cognitive perspectives, Baker and Wright (2017) also point out that bilinguals are benefited from their divergent and creative thinking. They explain that traditional IQ tests require students to choose one correct answer to each question, which is termed convergent thinking. Unlike traditional IQ tests, divergent questions allow students to 125
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provide a variety of answers which can be “more creative, imaginative, elastic, open-ended and free in thinking” (p. 142). Baker and Wright hypothesize that bilinguals can be more creative in thinking because being able to speak in two languages “may increase fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration in thinking” (p. 142). A variety of international and cross-cultural research studies have shown that “bilinguals are superior to monolinguals on divergent thinking tests….[S]uperior divergent thinking was facilitated by bilinguals’ proficiency in two languages, the age of acquisition of these languages and the length of exposure to a new cultural environment” (Baker and Wright, 2017, p. 142-143). They also point out a meta-analysis of the advantages of bilingualism done by Adesope et al. that “bilingualism is associated with several cognitive benefits. Those include increased working memory…, attentional control, metalinguistic awareness, and abstract and symbolic representations” (p. 151-152). Baker and Wright (2017), however, also point to some limitations of the findings favoring the cognitive advantages of bilingualism. They argue that most of the research studies only take balanced-bilinguals into account and they also ignore the socioeconomic status of the family and other non-linguistic factors such as “the immigrant experience, political pressures, subtractive and additive contexts” (p. 152). They also warn the reader of possible biases and ideololgies of the researchers or journal editors. In addition to brain function, societal function may also affect bilinguals’ bilingual abilities. Garcia (2009) points out that bilinguals may have different abilities in using their languages. For example, they may only have oracy abilities, i.e. the ability to listen and speak, in one language and have the literacy ability, i.e. the ability to read and write, for both or the other languages. According to Garcia, this can be a result of language function, and “language ability and language are often interrelated, since one has to have the possibility to function and use a specific language or two languages in order to develop ability to engage in language practices” (p. 62). The fact that bilingual speakers are benefited for their cognitive development has long been reported in the literature by scholars. As earlier as 1962, Peal and Lambert’s report had shown that bilingual children in Montreal “outperformed the monolingual children in verbal and non-verbal intelligence tests” (Garcia, 2009. P.94). Specifically, Garcia lists some areas of cognitive advantages that bilingual speakers enjoy, namely metalinguistic awareness, divergent thinking, communicative sensitive, and ability to learn multiple languages, although “whether the more intelligent child became bilingual or 126
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whether bilingualism aided his intelligent development” (p. 20) is yet to be explored. Cummins (2021) also has been working on the study of cognitive benefits of bilingualism. He points out that Peal and Lambert’s findings show a general intellectual advantage in favour of bilinguals who had attain similar levels of fluency in both of their languages….[T]he enriched linguistic environment experienced by bilinguals promoted greater cognitive flexibility, superiority in concept formation, and a more diversified set of mental abilities (p. 13). Craik, Bialystok, and Freedman’s study (2010), on the other hand, investigated “211 consecutive patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer disease…, and found that the bilingual patients had been diagnosed 4.3 years later and had reported the onset of symptoms 5.1 years later than the monolingual patients” (p. 1726). Although various studies have shown the cognitive benefits of being bilingual, there are also a number of studies reporting on the academic failure of bilinguals. Cummins (2021) argue for the inconsistence existing among research studies. He thus proposes a threshold hypothesis, which is described below.
Threshold Hypothesis Based on all the consistent findings, Cummins (2021) initiates the Threshold Hypothesis, aiming at explaining the inconsistencies of research findings that either positively claim that bilingualism benefits cognitive development or “suggest that bilingualism might adversely affect cognitive and scholastic progress” (p. 14). He first points out that the inconsistencies in research findings lie in the fact that the studies were conducted in different socio-linguistic contexts, with those conducted in additive contexts reporting positive cognitive consequences and those conducted in subtractive contexts reporting lower cognitive and academic achievement among bilinguals. Cummins explains that in additive contexts, “bilinguals were adding a second language to their cognitive and linguistic repertoire; ….[whereas, in subtractive contexts], students’ home languages were being actively suppressed within the school, …[for example], negative stereotyping and discrimination against minority language groups” (p. 14). In his Threshold Hypothesis, Cummins argues that “there may be a threshold level of proficiency that bilingual students must attain to avoid cognitive/academic difficulties and allow the potentially 127
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beneficial aspects of becoming bilingual to enhance cognitive/academic functioning” (p. 14). He considers two thresholds might be needed in this case. The lower threshold is required “to avoid anything cognitive/academic effects; …[while the higher] level of proficiency in both languages might be required to experience cognitive, linguistic, or academic advantages” (p. 14-15). As Cummins himself points out, more than 40 years after the threshold hypothesis was initially proposed, it continues to generate research, with much of it generally supportive of the claim that developing patterns of L1 and L2 proficiency mediate the cognitive, academic and metalinguistic consequences of bilingualism” (p. 18).
MODELS OF BILINGUAL BRAIN FUNCTIONING In the following sections, I will present three models that hopefully can better explain how languages function in bilinguals’ brains: MOGUL, BIA-D, and MAIN.
The Model of Modular On-line Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL) Smith and Truscott (2014) propose the model of Modular On-line Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL) of language processing to explain how human brain functions in the process of acquiring or learning a language. This model basically has its domain-specific linguistic area, including phonological system (or module) and morpho-syntactic system (or module), as its core language system. Outside this area, there is a conceptual system that associate with non-linguistic cognition such as images and sounds and our conscious manipulation of the meaning that may “have a more direct impact on the use of, and the development of linguistic conceptual structure” (p. 15). This conceptual structure “is generally thought of as semantics and pragmatics as well as concepts that are not clearly expressed in language” (p. 15). Similarly, “there are areas of the auditory system where what may be described as ‘speech sounds’ are encoded” (p. 16). That is to say, outside the language module, relevant to the phonological system, we can find audition, including the auditory, visual, and articulatory systems that interact with phonology. These three modules together form the tripartite organization; that is: the 128
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phonological system, the syntactic system, and the conceptual system. For example, in the case of Noticing Hypothesis in language learning, traditionally it is viewed as “the means by which input becomes intake, available for use in acquisition” (p. 289). However, Smith and Truscott argue that noticing “does not involve understanding of these items, just aware of their presence. In MOGUL terms, input to linguistic processing, and therefore to linguistic development” (p. 289). Then, how do we apply the MOGUL model to bilinguals? First, Smith and Truscott (2014) discuss the development of metalinguistic knowledge through language processing. They point out that this knowledge can be acquired either by explicitly told, for example, what a noun is and horse is a noun, or by a conceptual processing based on auditory structures of a sentence. For the researchers, a word is conceptualized in a sequence of Auditory structures—Phonological structures—Syntactic structures— Conceptual structures. Both L1 and L2 learners simultaneously activate the representations of the new word’s form and representations of its conceptual structures, that is, its meaning. Smith and Truscott view the approach from a MOGUL perspective and argue that “this approach is describing not the development of linguistic knowledge in general but rather the development of linguistic knowledge outside the language module. In addition to language acquisition, Smith and Truscott (2014) also raise the issue of language attrition in bilinguals. They define language attrition as “a non-pathological change in language ability which has the effect of moving away from some external norm…referred to as ‘loss’ or ‘forgetting,’ reflecting the feelings and perceptions of the language user” (p. 246). They argue that the growth of your language can go either positively or negatively. That is, “you use a language or you lose it….[T]he language user currently possesses a near identical system to those around him or her….[T]his system will remain in this state more or less until they die” (p. 248-249). Viewing from the MOGUL perspective, Smith and Truscott argue that “any language, including an L2, is continually in flux: activation levels are dependent upon stimulation. No stimulation means decline in resting levels” (p. 249). The issue of language attrition will continue to be discussed in a later section of this chapter. In the case of bilinguals, referring to the notion of Bilingual Interactive Activation Model already mentioned by others, they claim that “both or all languages are always activated during language use whether the language user is operating in L1, L2, or L3….[T]here is an integrated lexicon for words of different languages” (p. 250). 129
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Given what we understand about the MOGUL framework, Smith and Truscott (2014) provide some useful ways to apply it to second language instruction. First, they suggest teaching for metalinguistic knowledge and its use in performance. They claim that “consciously acquired metalinguistic knowledge can end up successfully mimicking the workings of the language module” (p. 302). Second, language teachers can enhance input to raise learners’ consciousness by, for example, pronouncing an affix more carefully or making use of boldface or colors to draw learners’ attention to an affix. Finally, Smith and Truscott suggest teaching metalinguistic knowledge to help learners adjust their own input. For example, providing learners of English with extensive examples and practice in recognizing English final consonants they hear. This may affect learners’ subsequent processing of English. Or language teachers may teach grammatical forms for comprehension. Smith and Truscott argue that instruction in this sense seeks to give learners metalinguistic knowledge not for direct application to performance but rather as a means of helping them to better understand the input they receive, in the hope that the ultimate result will be better development of the language module (p. 306) Based on many research findings, Smith and Truscott (2014) conclude that “teaching form can give learners knowledge that will help them notice aspects of grammar in their input and notice the gap between their current grammar and the target grammar….[F]orm-focused instruction in general is valuable specifically for this reason” (p. 306).
The Developmental Bilingual InteractiveActivation (BIA-d) Model In terms of L2 vocabulary acquisition, Grainger, Midgley, and Holcomb (2010) illustrate a developmental bilingual interactive-activation (BIA-d) model. This developmental model can be illustrated as follows: (a) excitatory connection strengths from L2 word forms to semantics gradually increase; (b) the inhibitory connections from the L2 language node to L1 word forms gradually increase; (c) the excitatory connections between L2 word forms and the word forms of their L1 translates gradually increase, and then decrease as the inhibitory input from the L2 language node increases and the L1 clamping process is dropped; (d) inhibitory connections develop from the L2 word form to other orthographically similar words in L1 and L2 (p. 278). 130
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Based on the results of experimental studies, they explain that one key aspect to this approach is that the joint action of increased excitatory weights from the L2 word form to semantics and increased inhibitory weights from the L2 node to the L1 word form, causes the excitatory connection between L1 and L2 word forms to gradually decrease (p. 279). That is to say, as L2 learners’ proficiency level increases, “the initial excitatory connectivity between L2 word forms and their translation equivalents in L1…rapidly disappears” (p. 279). However, the BIA-d model may be applicable to explain cognate pairs of L1 and L2 vocabulary words, such as English and French shown in the researchers’ experiments. For noncognate pairs, such as English and Chinese, because of their dissimilar forms, learners need much more time and effort than those of cognate pair learners to acquire FL words. The overlap in form between L1 and L2 may provide learners with recall cues in their learning process (Groot & Brink, 2010). Grainger et al. (2010) consider that, applying to the BIA-d model, learners’ prior L1 training can be useful sources for providing L2 input.
Mulitlingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) Bohnacker and Gagarina’s (2020) edited book Developing Narrative Comprehension: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narrative is a collection of studies on bilingual children’s narrative comprehension conducted and reported by different authors, using Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) to access bilingual young children’s cognitive development through assessing their comprehension of narratives. Bilingual children described by the authors in the edited book are from different areas of the globe and studying different languages, including Arabic-French, GermanSwedish, Turkish-Swedish, Finnish-Swedish, Croatian-Italian, RussianGerman, and Turkish-German bilinguals. As the authors claim, “MAIN contains near-identical comprehension tasks for structurally parallel stories, narrative comprehension abilities can straightforwardly be compared in the two languages of bilingual children” (p. 2). Bohnacker and Gagarina argue that traditional assessment of bilingual children’s narrative comprehension generally focus on testing children’s ability to recall the facts presented in the story, rather than testing children’s logical and creative thinking to infer the main purposes or goals of the characters. Another thing that MAIN is unique 131
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in its operational procedure is that relevant picture series are kept in children’s full view while they are working on their telling and/or retelling tasks. In the edited volume, some authors do compare bilingual children’s performance in their two languages, others compare bilinguals with monolinguals. Basically, these authors investigate very young children, say 3-9 years old. This can be very helpful in understanding children’s language acquisition and language development through narrative comprehension tasks. Bohnacker and Gagarina (2020) summarize different authors’ findings and draw some conclusion. They found that Age 5 is probably is a milestone for children to achieve in terms of “having good inferential comprehension of the MAIN story character’s goals. Bilinguals are reported to have similar narrative comprehension scores in their two languages” (p. 26). In this regard, the authors claim that “some minimum language proficiency is necessary in order to be able to verbalise the inferred goals and internal stated of story characters…,[and] story comprehension develop with age in both languages” (p. 24). In commenting on the MAIN project, one of the authors, Pearson (2020), maintains the importance of communicating through stories by saying that there is a “crucial link between oral stories and literacy development that underlies academic success…has the rare quality of being reciprocal” (p. 331). On the other hand, Pearson describes how the attention of child language development theory has been shift from viewing “the sentence as the unit of analysis to …how children move from words and parts of words to structured sentences …[to] seeking tools to explore the structure of connected speech” (p. 332). She argues that in “order to qualify as a narrative, a sequence of two (or more) sentences must have relationships and/or dependencies that bridge across the sentences” (p. 332). In narratives, children not only can express themselves, but also are able to represent others’ mind. Aside from children’s cognitive development by linking oral stories and literary, as pointed out by Pearson (2020), the MAIN model has been spreading “around the globe to study developing narratives in many different languages and cultures” (p. 333). It aims at providing an assessment tool to evaluate children’s comprehension of narratives that can be used for any language and “across languages to compare monolinguals speaking different languages… ,[and] multilinguals speaking any two or more languages” (Person, 2020, p. 334). The rationale underlying the MAIN is that “if discourse followed a common set of principles across cultures, then evaluation of discourse might, too” (Person, 2020, p. 333). When it comes to culture, we might stress too 132
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much on the differences between or among cultures and ignore the similar part of cultures. Differences remind us of respecting others; whereas, similarities may bridge the gap between people and make people closer to each other. As described above, the MAIN project has demonstrated that people around the globe may be different in their languages spoken and cultural background, as mentioned by one of the participant authors, “the universality of macrostructure [suggests] that macrostructure is robust to language dominances and paucity of exposure to narratives in both languages” (p. 55). Some studies on bilingual education did show that bilingual children had problems achieving academically in schools, and many researchers ascribe the reasons to bilingual students’ cognitive deficit and their neuropsychological ill-functioning. However, some issues need to be more deeply explored in order to better understand the nature of bilingualism. For example, are bilinguals provided with equal opportunities to schooling? Are the bilingual programs that minority students attend actually help students with the mainstream language and on the other hand maintain students’ home language? Is the linguistic mismatch between home language and school language the major cause of poor academic achievement of minority children (Hamers & Blanc, 1989)? Are there any intervene factors, such as socio-economic status and national or school policies that, affecting students’ learning and development of language? In the following section we first delve into the nature of first and second language acquisition, focusing on the cognitive and neurolinguistic aspects of language acquisition.
FIRST LANGUAGE VS. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND COMPREHENSION Before the discussion of language acquisition, we need to understand how language is comprehended by speakers or learners. Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) state that “comprehension involves multiple factors that could influence meaning: e.g. who is saying what, to whom, for what purposes, when and in what contexts” (p. 219). It goes without saying that bilingual communications, be it oral, written, or other modes, can be even more complex because they may involve two or more languages and cultures. Tomlinson and Masuhara argue that, in addition to linguistic processing, participants of a communication event need to have pragmatic and sociocultural processing to take all the relationship, intent, and purpose of both sides into account. Furthermore, 133
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communicators’ life experiences, knowledge of the world, emotional and attitudinal reactions, and the contexts of the communication can affect the comprehension or interpretation of communications. Tomlinson and Masuhara thus provide an insightful definition of comprehension: “a process and product of interpreting incoming information of various kinds and figuring out the likely meaning and intention of the speaker/writer/producer from the perspective of the listener/reader/viewer” (p. 222). Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) point to the role mental imagery plays in comprehension based on studies in various fields. In studies, participants were asked to read a descriptive or narrative text in their first language and later report their mental experience. “Ninety-six percent reported that they visually imaged to content of the texts as they read them” (p. 223). However, in another experiment with L2 learners, very few participants reported their experience of visualization and the few participants “who reported using visual imaging tended to achieve greater comprehension and recall than those did not” (p. 223). In literature surveys of studies, Tomlinson and Masuhara “confirm very similar text-bound reading behaviours among L2 learners, which often result in poor comprehension and low self-esteem….What is remarkable is that, in most of these cases, the L2 readers are proficient and avid readers in their L1” (p. 225). Tomlinson and Masuhara attribute the differences between L1 and L2 readers to the neural activities occurred in our acquisition of L1 and L2. According to Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021), in L1 “listening/reading, the main stimuli come in the form of linguistic codes. It is left to the listener/ reader to process the linguistic codes in the input and to activate the associative networks in sensory, motor, affective system of the brain” (p. 226). Unlike L1 listening/reading, L2 learning tends to have less necessary neural connections and “comprehension/interpretation may require a longer decoding process, which results in vague and fragmented mental representation” (p. 226). They point to the fact that L2 learners are always taught in a bottom-up linguistic manner and consider “extensive listening and reading requires a certain vocabulary size….[They argue that L2 learners need to] create vivid mental representation when they are reading and listening” (p. 226). Based on research findings and viewing from a neurolinguistic perspective, Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) point out that L1 children normally spend their first five years in aural-oral modes, then reading and writing are gradually introduced in primary school….Thousands of years of evolution have genetically programmed the human brain to acquire 134
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spoken language. Reading and writing, however are nurtured skills….Even the genetically prepared infant’s brain takes five years to acquire a basic repertoire of language and processing skills. It is staggering to consider that L2 learners are expected to cope with L2 sounds, words, spellings, grammar and discourse and comprehend and acquired all at the same time (p. 227) Tomlinson and Masuhara compare L1 and L2 acquisition and provide some points that L2 learning environment can be improved. They maintain that L1 and L2 learning might not be the same. For example, we traditionally view first language learning as “part of an innate capacity, but learning a second language is learning many linguistic rules on a systemic basis” (HanciAzizoglu, 2022). However, brain does not change its fundamental mechanism for learning. That points out in L1 acquisition, “the brain first learn to hear the pitch and rhythm of the mother’s voice….Then the developing ability to identify phonemes and the ability to manipulate individual sounds eventually lead to speaking and finally to reading, spelling and writing” (p. 228). According to them, in the L1 learning process, words “are being developed together with associated sensory, motor and emotional networks…, [and] affective factors have a strong influence on learning” (p. 228). Unlike L1 learning, L2 learning commonly views language acquisition as reading acquisition. Learners learning words and grammar presented in L2 textbooks, and, in speaking sections, they listen to dialogues presented by native speakers focusing on specific language points to be learned. Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) comment on second language teaching by saying that, “L2 learners are not the central participants of communication. Instead, they are the receivers of instruction and language…, and often little emotional investment is encouraged or expected” (p. 228). Another point that distinguish between L1 and L2 learning is that vocabulary acquisition in L1 is generally based on children’s needs and wants and “language acquisition takes place in an embodied and multimodal manner situated in a familiar social environment” (p. 229). Unlike L1 learning, words in L2 learning textbooks “are often taught without consideration of learner needs or wants or of their experience of life, and are selected possibly on the basis of a frequency database taken from an English-language corpus in UK or the United States” (p. 229). In the stage of transiting from listening to reading, L1 learners’ “syntactical awareness starts to emerge in children’s utterances….[They] distinguish clauses by learning the prosody of a language – the rhythm of sounds and pauses, the varying pitch in the voice, the different pattern of loudness and softness” (p. 229). In contrast, in L2 learning, 135
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grammar tends to be taught in an explicit and deductive way….[T]he context is usually limited and explicit teaching of structures takes away opportunities for the development of learners’ own syntactical awareness and of the development of integrated networks in their brain ….Materials….are usually written to cover a large and predetermined syllabus of vocabulary and grammatical items (p. 229-230). Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) further point out that L1 children are capable of seeing and feeling the language because associativememory networks between linguistic and multidimensional neural networks have been established in the initial five years of aural-oral learning in an implicit and embodied manner.…In L2 language learning, reading starts when the students have a very small vocabulary, which has often been learned through L1 mediation….[R]eading is in fact sound-based….Print is processed as visuals in the brain and transformed into sound to be processed in Wernicke’s area in which sound-meaning connections with established networks (p. 230-231). Based on the functioning of our brain, Tomlinson and Masuhara (2021) suggest that beginning language learners should first focus “on listening, then on speaking and only then on reading and writing….[W]eak or fragmented mental representation in L2 is a sign of the lack of associative neural networks involving linguistic, sensory, motor, cognitive and affective areas of the brain” (p. 231). Barjesteh, et al. (2022) also report on studies that show the order in which a language is learned by children in terms of syntax and morphemes, for example is highly similar in many cases between L1 and L2…that in fact the so-called errors that a child makes in learning English as a L2 are similar to those of a child learning English as L1….The learners’ L1 does not affect the order of development in child SLA” (p. 200). Bardovi-Harlig and Comajoan (2010) also point out that whether children learning first language or adults learning second language is systematic. That is, scholars believe that there exists acquisitional stage in language learning. The only thing is that children “develop language at the same time as other skills (motor, cognition, socialization, and communication). In contrast, adults come L2 acquisition with cognitive skills already developed….Context and discourse also play a role in adult L2 acquisition” (p. 384-385). In discussing the role of instruction in L2 acquisition, Bardovi-Harlig and Comajoan point 136
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out that instruction “can be a positive influence on L2 acquisition….Yet, instruction does not change acquisitional sequences nor does it seems to help skip stages” (p. 393-394). Similarly, viewing from a neurobiological perspective, Sabourin and Stowe (2010) consider that understanding how the brain deals with linguistic input of second or foreign languages can be helpful in programs of language training. They resort to the use of neuroimaging techniques to trace “when and where language processing is occurring” (p. 33). They point out that recent “reviews of language localization studies…suggest that the normal language areas, including Broca’s and Wernicke’s, are also used to process L2. Thus it does not seem likely that totally different learning mechanisms are employed in SLA” (p. 33). The only thing is that “L2 requires more work than L1” (p. 34). Sabourin and Stowe state that although “adult L2 learners do not process their L2 in a totally native-like way, the patterns which they exhibit are in fact fairly similar to those found during the earlier stages of L1 acquisition” (p. 34). They thus conclude that “the same brain structures and mechanisms are involved in acquisition of a first and second language, both during and after hypothesized sensitive periods” (p. 35). In sum, as Mesthrie (2010) points out, there are many factors contribute to the success of bilingual education, including the relationship between first and second language, motivational, emotional, financial, and sociopolitical factors. Meisel (2010), based on different research studies, also point out that “simultaneous acquisition of bilingualism is a type of L1 acquisition….[B] ilingual as well as monolingual L1 acquisition is guided by principles of UG” (p. 228). That is, “the development of core grammatical properties [of L1] proceeds through strictly ordered developmental sequences” (p. 226). It is thus teaching L2 grammar in the case of simultaneous acquisition of bilingualism (2L1) is not necessary and L1 learning is always successful. In the case of successive acquisition of bilingualism (i. e. bilinguals learn the second language at an older age), unlike first language acquisition, second language acquisition does not fit in with Universal Grammar. It is apparent that people learn a second language with a much slower rate than they do with the first language and it is not necessary that people will learn the second language successfully. Different second language learners might have different developmental sequences and different levels of attainment. Studies have shown that children can differentiate linguistic systems very early on and that process of grammatical development and attainment of grammatical knowledge of each language in bilinguals are “identical in nature to [those] of their monolingual counterparts” (p. 228). According to Meisel (2010), it 137
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can be explained by the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH) which stating that “UG as the centerpiece of the language making capacity is not fully accessible anymore in L2 acquisition” (p. 230). In the case of heritage language learning, Montrul’s (2019) study examines similarities and differences between heritage language speakers, who learned their heritage language at a very young age and then almost transferred to the dominant language, and L2 learners, who learned the heritage language at an older age as a second language in the school. She first applies the concept of implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge, which considers implicit knowledge is stored in procedural memory, where linguistic rules are typical stored, and executed with automaticity and speed. Explicit knowledge is usually learned explicitly, with awareness of what is being learned and with conscious effort. It is stored in declarative memory and can be verbalized more often than not (p. 245) As Montrul points out and as her studies show, heritage language speakers, “who received little or no schooling in the heritage language, they typically have limited academic literacy in their L1, which developed through reading, writing and spelling” (p. 246). Actually, Montrul’s (2019) article on heritage language development is to argue for the Processability Theory to be a useful framework in examining the development of a heritage language. Drawing on Pienemann’s Processability Theory, which “is a theory of L2 development guided by Lexical-Functional Grammar,” (p. 248). Montrul explains the main rationale underlying the theory that at any stage of language development the learner can only comprehend and produce the linguistic forms that his/her language processor can handle….[T] here is an implicationally ordered processability hierarchy that constrains the language process, but this implicational hierarchy is language specific. (p. 248)
CROSSLINGUISTIC INFLUENCE (CLI) As Smith and Truscott (2014) state that some researchers studying crosslinguistic influence (CLI) (or language transfer as some researchers would like to call it) view language as a product, whereas others view it as a process. They argue that, “[f]rom a cognitive perspective, crosslinguistic 138
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influence is primarily something that happens internally, that is, within the individual” (p. 195). They consider external indications such as speakers’ linguistic behavior are derived from speakers’ internal mental processes. Viewing from their MOGUL model, Smith and Truscott explain that, in a language processing activity, both or all language systems have some degree of activation. Now it comes to the issue of competition. Relevant candidates from any language compete for inclusion in a representation. According to Smith and Truscott, because of the extensive use of L1, L2 items can seldom “successfully enter into L1 representations” (p. 197). That is, in the competition, L1 routinely triumphs. However, this phenomenon can only be interpreted as L2’s ‘failure to win’, not “the absence of the feature in the learner’s repertoire but rather a problem arising during processing” (p. 197). More than viewing CLI from a cognitive perspective, Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) categorize CLI types into ten dimensions based on the development of studies on CLI. These dimensions are (a) area of language knowledge and use, including phonological, lexical, morphological, semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, etc., (b) directionality, meaning the direction of CLI can be either forward (i. e. from L1 as the source language to post-L1 languages), reverse (i.e. from post-L1 to L1), or lateral (i.e. between two post-L1 languages), (c) cognitive level, as mentioned at the beginning of this section, referring to CLI occurs between different levels of cognitive process, say, the levels of conceptual, semantic, linguistic representations, (d) type of knowledge, which can be implicit or explicit, and CLI is much easier to occur when implicit knowledge is involved, (e) intentionality, which can be either intentionally apply CLI as a communicative strategy or CLI can unintentionally occur “as the result of formed mental association between elements of two languages” (p. 24), (f) mode, either productive/interpretation or receptive/comprehension can be relevant to occurrences of CLI, (g) channel of communication, e.g. oral or written, is also a useful source to distinguish CLI, (h) forms of performance, either verbal or nonverbal, can reflect an L2 learner’s language development. That is, “the language or languages speakers know can influence their use of gestures in bimodal communication” (p. 25), (i) manifestation, referring to CLI can be either overt or covert. In the case of overt CLI, we can easily spot it, whereas in the case of covert CLI, because speakers tend to omit or avoid certain patterns, structures, forms, or meanings because they do not exist in either the source language or the recipient language, and (j) the outcome of CLI can be either positive transfer or negative. However, according to Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008), previous studies mostly focused on the exploration of negative CLI. They call for the investigation of the overall effects of CLI. 139
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The CLI classification discussed above basically concerns the linguistic aspect of transfer. However, Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) consider that CLI is beyond the language level. They extend their discussion of CLI to cover “the larger realm of discourse, rhetoric, communicative interaction, and the illocutionary functions that are performed through language” (p. 102). They consider three types of transfer are relevant: discursive, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic transfer. In the case of discursive transfer, according to Jarvis and Pavlenko, discursive transfer “concerns the ways thoughts are introduced, organized, and contextualized within an oral or written discourse” (p. 102). Although the researchers provide some examples of research findings, I would like to demonstrate some of my personal experiences to show how this type of transfer may actually occur in everyday conversations. I as a Chinese speaker did not realize that the word ‘no’ at the beginning of a sentence is always followed by a negative sentence. In Chinese, ‘no’ can mean you do not agree to what the speaker says. For example, if you are asked “You don’t like English?” If you do like English, then your response should be “No, I like English.” For speakers of Chinese, and probably other language, this can be confusing. In a similar vein, I just learned that, in some countries, people shake their head to express agreement and nod their head to express their disagreement. Another example of discursive transfer is seen manifest in writing. In writing in Chinese, Taiwanese students are told not to make their main point or stand clear until the end of their essay. This is contrary to the English writing style, which require writers to clearly state their position at the very beginning and then they may detail their arguments or present evidence to support position in order for readers to have chances to examine the writer’s reasoning. Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) consider the second type of transfer, pragmatic transfer, can occur in a bilingual’s both perception (i.e. listening and reading comprehension) and performance (i.e. speaking and writing skills) speech acts. This type of transfer is relevant to an individual’s illocutionary act, that is, the act to carry out one’s language functions, such as to inform, request, persuade, apology, and amuse. Jarvis and Pavelenko point to research findings showing that “Japanese-speaking learners of English tend to transfer their perception of the status relationship between professors and students from their L1 into the decisions they make about how English should be used in interactions between professors and students” (p. 107). It reminds me of the story of a classmate of mine when I was working on my degree in the United States. The Japanese lady kept calling our professor ‘professor so and so.’ Our professor told my classmate to just call her by her first name. Unfortunately 140
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or fortunately, my Japanese classmate could not feel comfortable to do that until the last day of the class. She came to the professor and called her by her first name, and this almost brought tears to our professor’s eyes. The third type of language transfer Jarvis and Pavlenko (2008) mention is sociolinguistic transfer. According to them, this refers to a bilingual’s “sensitivity to and ability to adjust one’s language in accordance with social conventions that call for different forms of address, different pronunciation, different words, different grammatical structures, different discourse patterns, and so forth, in different social context” (p. 106). Literally speaking, it means saying the right thing and using the right words to the right person in the right place. It of course includes a culturally diverse context. In Chinese culture, to show their humbleness and politeness, people tend to express their being flattered and overestimated to respond to people’s praises as opposed to Western people’s thanking for the praise. Taiwanese people who have received education in a western country are seen to learn to work on the sociolinguistic transfer properly. Hanci-Azizoglu (2022) also points to yet another issue that bilinguals may experience: semantic transfer across languages. This may include the problems that some phrases or even lexical units in their first language do not exist in the target language and challenges to choose an appropriate concept from a polysemous word in the target language when translating between two languages because a polysemous word can have multiple meanings. Hanci-Azizoglu points to the fact that we cannot “deny that the capacity to think in two different languages creates confusion because of homophones, polysemous words, proverbs and idiomatic expressions since they can be quite distinctive across languages” (p. 12). Hanci-Azizoglu’s study show that different semantically ill-formed language transfers occur in different linguistic systems such as Korean, Turkish, Chinese, and Spanish as shown in her study. She concludes that it is almost impossible to make a direct word-to-word translation from one language to another without distorting the meaning….[B]ilinguals should not translate each word within a sentence structure. Rather, they need to translate the meaning, which is the semantic aspect of the language (p. 16). From the discussion above, we may realize that CLI seems an inevitable phenomenon, given the fact that an increasingly growing cross-cultural exchanges and communications in an era of globalization. We may view it from a positive perspective, for example, it may enhance linguistic and cultural 141
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understanding and may facilitate people’s learning from each other. In effect, viewing from a neurolinguistic perspective, both bilinguals and monolinguals need to be aware of some effects caused by their language behaviors, which will be discussed in the following sections.
COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS IN MONOLIGUALS We discussed earlier the cognitive benefits bilinguals may enjoy, and, in contrast, we cannot overlook what might bring to monolinguals in their cognitive development. Salyer and Leaver (2021) point out that cognitively monolinguals may show some degree of cognitive distortions; whereas bilinguals can be benefited from being able to speak two languages and experiencing two cultures. The cognitive distortions of a monolingual may include binary thinking and dysmorphic focus.
Binary Thinking As claimed by Salyer and Leaver (2021), anyone who has studied a foreign language or been exposed to a foreign…or immigrant culture realizes that life is truly not binary. Wang-Hiles (2022), being bilingual herself, also considers most “bilinguals seem to adapt to new environment faster and learn new things easier. They also seem to view and understand things objectively and thoroughly; instead of judging quickly, they are inclined valuing differences” (p. 163). However, those whose only experience has been in a monolingual, monocultural environment may develop binary thinking, which is realized as expecting everything to be either ‘on’ or ‘off’ (p. 185). To the best of our knowledge, many things in the world actually exist in a continuous fashion. Binary thinking may limit monolinguals’ choices to only the extreme of a continuum.
Dysmorphic Focus In this case, monolinguals are unable to see the entire fact of one thing; rather, they take only a part of the fact as a whole. For example, they may draw “a conclusion based on only one or two of several factors” (Salyer & Leaver, 2021, p. 186) or they may overgeneralize and quickly jump to conclusions or minimize an important but difficult-to-master aspect. This may affect their 142
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language learning. For example, they can either think that a bad accent means an inability to learn the language (overgeneralization) or they may think a good accent is not important at all (minimization). In reality, for bilinguals, a particular accent may be perceived as a norm in an era of globalization and ‘native speakers’ is no longer easy to define.
LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN BILINGUALS Cognitively monolinguals may face some kinds of mental distortions as mentioned above. Being able to speak two or more languages, bilinguals on the other hand need to be aware of the issue of language attrition. Köpke (2007) suggests that language attrition can be considered as the reverse of language acquisition and learning. She first points out that plasticity of our brain can play an important role in language attrition. “[A]n L2 learned early in life has been repeatedly reported to quickly replace another language, while in later bilinguals the L1 appears largely impervious to erosion” (p. 11). That is to say, younger immigrants, who have greater brain plasticity, tend to adapt to the host language more easily than older immigrants do. However, it “might also imply strong L1 attrition in young immigrants” (p. 11). Köpke (2007) further points to the activation mechanism of our brain in relation to language attrition. She maintains that “a certain amount of neural impulses is needed in order to reach activation..., [and] the activation threshold of any item stored in memory is dependent upon frequency and recency of previous activation” (p. 12). From a sense of competition, “those L2 items or rules used more frequently will be more easily activated when they are in competition with less frequently used L1 items or rules” (p. 12). Contrary to activation, “[i] nhibitory neural cells inhibit the electric activity of the neural cells with which they establish contact….It helps to prevent activation from spreading too many parts of the system and allows for temporarily stable representations” (Köpke, 2007, p. 12). In the case of L2 learning, “Ll may be doubly impeded: by lack of activation of L1 on the one hand and the need to strongly inhibit highly active L2 on the other” (Köpke, 2007, p. 13). Köpke (2007) points to the cases of immigrants. If they “have no contact with other immigrants and…never use L1, that language will be completely dormant….[If] they have frequently contact with other bilingual immigrants and …are used to operating in a bilingual mode, both L1 and L2 are active” (p. 13). 143
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Finally, Köpke (2007) points out that the involvement of subcortical structures that may contribute to language attrition. She explains that “[l] anguage processing is not only a matter of the cortical structures of the left (grammar) and right (pragmatics) hemispheres, subcortical brain structures have also been found to participate in language processing” (p. 14). Based on clinical research, Köpke points to the fact that “the subcortical structures of the right hemisphere play a role in the regulation of automatic speech of high emotional significance” (p. 14) in both L1 and L2. Applied to bilinguals or multilinguals, maintaining a language or being motivated to learn a language “entail high emotional values which may be related to subcortical brain structures. Emotion is most likely a key factor in any case of attrition” (p. 15). In sum, Köpke states that brain mechanisms including plasticity, activation, inhibition, and subcortical involvement can be said to contribute to language attrition. Smith (2007), on the other hand, views language attrition from a Modular Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL) framework introduced earlier in this chapter. His main principal argument is that both language acquisition and attrition can be meaningfully explained within the MOGUL framework. According to Smith, the “core of MOGUL as it now stands is ‘A’-by-ProcessingTheory…where ‘A’ may stand for both attrition and acquisition” (p. 43). He argues that there is a close relation between attrition and acquisition. If you do not use a language, then you will lose it. The MOGUL framework describes the process of language acquisition, and the “same process in reverse counts as attrition” (p. 47). Smith explains that if you do not use a language in a long period, then the structures of the language will become less accessible and these less “accessible structures may lose out in the competition to select the best candidate structure in an effort to produce or interpret utterances” (p. 47).
CONCLUSION The discussions of the cognitive and neurolinguistic functioning of bilinguals show that bilinguals are not two separate languages inhabit in one physical body. Rather, as many research studies and models of brain functioning in bilinguals have shown, bilinguals integrate two or more language in their speech acts as evident in their crosslinguistic influence, differences between first and second language acquisition, and other linguistic behaviors. While there have been debates on the mental states of bilinguals, bilinguals seem to enjoy some kinds of cognitive benefits. On the other hand, while monolinguals may 144
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suffer some kinds of language distortions, bilinguals may lose one or more of their languages, if they do not use them often or are not regularly in the language speaking environment, this so-called language attrition may occur.
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Groot, A. M. B., & Brink, R. C. L. (2010). Foreign language vocabulary learning: Word-type effects during the labeling stage. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 285–297). John Benjamins Publishing. doi:10.1075/lald.52.19gro Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (1989). Bilinguality & bilingualism. Cambridge UP. Hanci-Azizoglu, E. B. (2022). Bilinguals’ semantic transfer across languages. In S. E. DeCapua & E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu (Eds.), Global and transformative approaches toward Linguistic diversity (pp. 1–21). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-8985-4.ch001 Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A. (2008). Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203935927 Kartoshkina, Y. (2017). Neuroscience behind intercultural learning. In B. K. Mikk & I. E. Steglitz (Eds.), Learning across cultures: Locally and globally (3rd ed., pp. 87–107). NAFSA. Köpke, B. (2007). Language attrition at the crossroads of brain, mind, and society. In B. Köpke, M. S. Schmid, M. Keijzer, & S. Dostert (Eds.), Language attrition: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 9–37). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.33.03kop Meisel, J. (2010). Age of onset in successive acquisition of bilingualism: Effects on grammatical development. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 225–247). John Benjamins Publishing. doi:10.1075/lald.52.16mei Mesthrie, R. (2010). Sociolinguistics and sociology of language. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 66–82). John Wiley & Sons. Montrul, S. (2019). Heritage language development and the promise of processability theory. In R. Arntzen, G. Håkansson, A. Hjelde, & J. Keßler (Eds.), Teachability and learnability across languages (pp. 237–259). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/palart.6.11mon Pavlenko, A. (2014). The bilingual mind: and what it tells us about language and thought. Cambrideg UP. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139021456
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Pearson, B. Z. (2020). Commentary: Time travel in the development of cross-linguistic narrative evaluation. In U. Bohnacker & N. Gagarina (Eds.), Developing narrative comprehension: Multilingual assessment instrument for narratives (pp. 331–336). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.61.11per Reiterer, S. (2010). The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism: Factors that matter in L2 acquisition—A neuro-cognitive perspective. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 307–321). John Benjamins Publishing. doi:10.1075/lald.52.21rei Sabourin, L., & Stowe, L. A. (2010). Neurobiology of language learning. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 27–37). John Wiley & Sons. Salyer, S., & Leaver, B. L. (2021). Cognitive and affective transformations in developing bilingual and bicultural competence. In B. L. Leaver, D. E. Davidson, & C. Campbell (Eds.), Transformative language learning and teaching (pp. 184–192). Cambridge UP. Smith, M. S. (2007). Understanding attrition within a MOGUL framework. In B. Köpke, M. S. Schmid, M. Keijzer, & S. Dostert (Eds.), Language attrition: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 39–51). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.33.04sha Smith, M. S. (2017). Introducing language and cognition: A map of the mind. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781316591505 Smith, M. S., & Truscott, J. (2014). The multilingual mind: A modular processing perspective. Cambridge UP. Tomlinson, B., & Masuhara, H. (2021). SLA applied: Connecting theory and practice. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781108559263 Wang-Hiles, L. (2022). Two languages, one self: The story of my bilingual journey. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 152–167). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch010
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Chapter 5
Bilinguality:
Psycho-Linguistic Perspective
ABSTRACT This chapter discusses bilnguals’ psychological state of mind toward their languages and cultures. The author first introduces two types of hypothesis to address the functioning of bilinguals’ mind in: the unitary system hypothesis and the dual system hypothesis. The author then discusses bilinguals’ attitude toward the two or more languages they speak and demonstrates that bilinguals tend to have more creative thinking then monolinguals because of having the ability to move back and forth between two or more languages. The state of mind of bi-or multi-culturals are then explored at two levels: the individual level and the organizational level. The individual level discusses how biculturals may adjust to two or more different cultures, whereas the organizational level explores the benefits of having people from different cultures working collectively in an organization or an institution. Finally, the author compares child and adult bilinguals.
INTRODUCTION Shen (2019) describe psycholinguistics as “the study of language processing and mental representations in perception, comprehension, acquisition, storage, and production of language” (p. 178). This chapter intends to discuss and to “understand the mental processes and psychological mechanisms which make it possible for humans to acquire, understand, produce, and process language” DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch005 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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(Barjesteh, et al., 2022, p. 32), especially in the case of bilinguals. Ritchie and Bhatia (2010) describe the mechanism of bilinguals from a psycholinguistics perspective. They first compare two different types of bilinguals based on the time of language acquisition: simultaneous bilinguals, who acquire two languages simultaneously from birth, and sequential and adult bilinguals, who sequentially acquire two languages in childhood or learn a second language as adults. According to Ritchie and Bhatia, for simultaneous bilinguals, there are generally two ways of planning linguistic input by caregivers: one person/ one language scheme, “under which one person in the child’s environment speaks one language and another person speaks the other” (p. 43) and the mixed input scheme, “under which no provision is made for allocating input from the two languages to particular individuals” (p. 43). There are two hypotheses addressing the question concerning the issue of “whether the two language systems…are separated in the child’s mind or not” (p. 43). For advocates of the Unitary System Hypothesis, bilingual children undergo a stage of ‘confusion’ before separating the two language systems…,[while the] Dual System Hypothesis claims that children do not undergo a stage of confusion; rather they separate both the lexical and the grammatical system as early as age 2 or before (Ritchie & Bhatia, p. 44). Ritchie and Bhatia (2010) then compare sequential and adult bilingualism with monolingualism. Based on research studies, they state that both young bilinguals, i.e. between the age of 5 years and puberty, and adult second language learners may experience a so-called ‘silent period’ during which they seldom produce utterances in front of second language speakers, and then they may move “through a sequence of stages of acquisition, each stage consisting in a language system” (p. 45). Ritchie and Bhatia (2010) also point to some critical differences between second language learners and simultaneous learners. First, because second language learners “have a well-established language system for their first languages, some form of that system will be the initial language system in the sequence that makes up the process of second language acquisition” (p. 45). Second, because second language learners generally are older and more mature, their ultimate attainment may be affected by their capacity to acquire a language, such as critical period. Finally, the second language
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learners may learn the language in an environment quite different from that of a monolingual or simultaneous bilingual. However, in terms of the implicit knowledge and use of major structures, “the stages of acquisition are, for the most part, shared across monolingual learners, simultaneous bilinguals, and second language learners” (Ritchie & Bhatia, 2010, p. 46). As far as older second language learners are concerned, they can learn more quickly than younger learners, but they are at a disadvantage in the long run. For example, the ability to achieve native pronunciation begins to decrease when the learner begins learning the second language at 6 years of age or more; likewise, the capacity for achievement of native proficiency in morphology and syntax begins to decrease significantly when the learner begins to learn at about 15 years of age or older (Ritchie & Bhatia, 2010, p. 46). In general, according to Ritchie and Bhatia (2010), “bilinguals have tacit knowledge for keeping the two linguistic systems apart–which enables them to activate and deactivate/suppress languages with efficiency and accuracy” (p. 47). For example, in the case of speaking to monolinguals, “bilinguals can restrict themselves to a monolingual mode…; or they can switch into bilingual mode…while interacting with a bilingual” (p. 47). That is, bilinguals are pragmatically competent, and they can make their language choice based on the participants, contexts, topics being discussed, and lots of socio-psychological rules. Scholars have been curious about how information is processed in the bilingual’s mind. There are several models proposed to describe the complicated mechanism when bilinguals are dealing with two or more languages. Hamers and Blanc (1989) demonstrate basically two hypotheses: independence hypothesis and interdependence hypothesis. The independence hypothesis holds that there exists “two independent psychological mechanisms, one for each language, [whereas the interdependence hypothesis proposes that] the existence of a single mechanism common to both linguistic codes” (p. 85). In the single-switch hypothesis, viewing from a psychological perspective, Hamers and Blanc (1989) and other scholars discuss the distinction between coordinate bilinguals and compound bilinguals. They differ in that “for compound bilinguals a verbal label and its translation equivalent have one representation common to both languages, whereas for coordinate bilinguals there should be two distinct representations, one for each language” (p. 93). 150
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Field (2011), on the other hand, states that researchers such as François Grosjean point to the existence of different language modes, or psychological states, that are brought on by the kinds of social situations that speakers encounter (based on participants, setting, and so on). They are mental states that occur in the minds of bi- or multilingual speakers as they interact with their environment and with other potentially multilingual speakers” (p. 102). That is to say, a bilingual may activate only one monolingual mode in their interactions with other monolinguals, depending on the language used by other monolinguals. In another situation, if the bilingual is interacting with other known bilinguals, then he may ‘switch on’ his/her bilingual mode. But how a bilingual makes his or her quick decision in a communication situation? According to Field (2011), the bilingual status can be quickly observed “according to the norms of social interaction that are unconsciously held by members of the community. This perception may be based on physical appearance…, culturally based mannerism…, or merely based on the observation of how the person interacts with companions” (p.102). Field reminds us that people in a bilingual communication situation, the dynamics in bilingual communications can vary from place to place and can be affected by various factors, including immigration history, history in the nation of origin, racial traits, socioeconomic status, deep cultural traits, and individual variation such as age, sex, and personal experience. Citing from Jim Commins, Garcia (2009) argues for “the interdependence of the two languages of a bilingual ….that the instruction in Lx is effective in promoting proficiency Lx, transfer of this proficiency to Ly will occur provided there is adequate exposure to Ly” (p. 68). Her point here is that it is not wise to learn a second language at the sacrifice of the first language whether the first language is fully developed or not. Bilinguals may have different phonological, morphological, and syntactic systems for each of the language, the motor that makes language use and practices possible is exactly the same for each language ….[W]hat is learned in one language does not have to be re-learned in another, since conceptual knowledge transfers, and it is just linguistic labels that might have to be taught (p. 69).
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The use of two languages in a bilingual’s mind is in fact dynamic. Translanguaging among bilinguals is a norm of communication. Still, Reiterer (2010) points out that some brain imaging research reports have shown “significant differences between ….outstanding language talent’s cell structure in Broca’s area as compared to normal reference brain” (p. 312). She explains that both nature and nurture factors may be at work in the phenomenon. Hyperpolyglottism “could influence, act upon and alter brain function as well as structure (plasticity) [or]…brain structure determines the amount or relative level of language aptitude/ability in an individual” (p. 312). She concludes that both nature and nurture “would predict a constant and life-long intricate interplay between nature (our genetically pre-wired brain, ‘giftedness’) and environment (events triggering experience with language and thus ‘learning’) —eventually resulting in language learning talent and expertise” (p. 312). Having a rough picture of how two or more languages may interact in a bilingual’s brain, we now turn to the discussion of bilinguals’ attitude toward the languages the speak in the next section.
LANGUAGE ATTITUDES In speaking of language attitudes, Kristiansen (2020) distinguishes between explicit and implicit attitudes. He points out that “there is no necessary connection from what people say about how they will treat others to how they treat them in practice” (p. 5). That is the gap between explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes. Researchers dealing with the explicit/implicit attitudes distinction assume that “implicit attitudes may not only be different from explicit attitudes, but also that they will be more interesting in relation to the research goal—and in that sense more real ” (p. 7). For example, people may “give answers to questions in ways that they believe to be ‘socially appropriate’…. [That is, they may]….tell you about the attitudes they think they ought to have, rather than the ones they actually do have” (p. 7). Another case may be found in heritage language learning. Lima (2021) points out one of the obstacles in teaching heritage language in the classroom. “The pressure to assimilate into mainstream society often produce negative emotions that students bring to the classroom. Considering their heritage and culture as non-legitimate or inappropriate for the academic setting is common situation educators will encounter” (p. 76). That is, minority and immigrant
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groups of students may thus develop a negative perception of and attitude toward their heritage language. The same can be true if applied to language learning and attitudes toward languages. People may not learn a new language because they love the language and/or its culture and people. In an era of globalization, many people around the world are forced to learn English. For example, English is a required course at different levels of education in many countries, many professional journals around the world are published in English, and, if you travel around the world, be it English-speaking or non-English-speaking countries, English is the lingua franca of the world. Others may feel comfortable in learning English and may truly love English and the cultures of Englishspeaking countries. Different achievements in learning English may be apparent because of their attitudes toward English. Rose, et al. (2020) point out that “a favourable attitude towards the subject of language is crucial for the successful implementation of foreign language policy and practice” (p. 100). Smith (2017), viewing from cognitive and neurolinguistic perspectives, further points out that a longer period of nonuse will reduce accessibility to the language structure and “will accordingly reduce the chances of successful competition for the structure concerned” (p. 179). Slightly different from motivation, attitude may be easier to change just like we may change our attitude toward a person or a group of people after a long period of contact or observation. For example, you may unconsciously learn English through social media or communicating with people in English. This is the so-called ‘acquisition’ of language proposed by Krashen. Smith and Truscott (2014) elaborate that Krashen “proposed that there are two qualitatively different kinds of learning, i.e. conscious and subconscious. Conscious learning provide the learner with increased ability to do well in formal classroom tests,… [whearas subconscious learning] is always subconscious and impervious to outside intervention” (p. 216). Applied to the idea of attitudes, unconscious learning may include development of the attitude toward a language and its people and culture. Being able to speak two or more languages, bilinguals may develop their preference for a particular language because of their own experiences. Salyer and Leaver (2021) point out that, in addition to language attitudes, bilinguals may encounter some kinds of affective dissonance, which may affect their bicultural development. Among them are emotional reasoning and self-absorption. In the case of emotional reasoning, bilinguals may rely things on how they feel, rather than
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on the facts. They may view things regard the reality negatively because of their negative feelings. Another case typical to these bilinguals is that they can only think about themselves. They have self-imposed standards, and they feel despondent or stressed if they cannot achieve these standards. They may display their offensive or defensive nature to respond. In regard to attitudes toward languages or language varieties, Rose, et al. (2020) urge language teachers to help learners develop positive attitudes and understand that “varieties are approached as an expression of local culture and local communication needs” (p. 77-78). Mentioning or using a particular language or language variety cannot only “positively influence learners’ attitude but also.…increase their confidence in using that variety” (p. 78). Still, in a school setting, language instructors may contribute in some way in shaping students’ attitude toward a foreign language, for example, native vs. non-native instructors. Hertel and Sunderman (2009) did a quantitative study to investigate students’ attitudes toward native and non-native language instructors. They surveyed native English-speaking students at a U.S. university enrolled in different levels of Spanish courses. Their research findings show that “NSs and NNSs both have strengths and weaknesses with regard to knowledge and teaching ability” (p. 479). Generally speaking, NSs are preferred because of their pronunciation and being familiar with the culture of their home countries. On the other hand, NNSs are good at teaching grammar and can better understand their learning difficulties. Hertel and Sunderman thus suggest that in the field of teaching foreign language, collaboration between NSs and NNSs may contribute to students’ positive attitude toward learning a foreign language. There are also other factors that may affect students’ communication in the classroom. Scholars such as Yarwood and Bennett (2022) discuss issues relevant to Willingness to Communicate (WTC). According to them, students in the language classroom may show their unwillingness to communicate. The authors distinguish between silence and reticence. For these authors, “reticence stems from deficiencies in communicative competence….On the other hand, silence can be utilised as a powerful communicative tool to show agreement, disagreement, respect, moments of reflection, or even a scheme to negotiate power” (p. 228). In other words, a moment of silence may provide others with time and space to gather thoughts to respond; whereas reticence often reveals the motive to save face. However, research studies also show that “there are intersections between the two, generated from shyness or due to communicative breakdown” (p. 228). 154
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Personal life experience may also affect an individual’s attitude toward language. For example, as the story illustrated earlier in Part One of this volume, Kuglin (2022) describes that both “when writing the diary and when trying to heal from the trauma described in it, my languages gave me clarity and strength, and made my healing possible” (p. 105). She cites Kroll and Dussias’ words as saying that being bilingual or multilingual ‘changes the mind and the brain in ways that create resilience under conditions of stress’ (p. 105). According to Kuglin, multilinguals “usually perceive their laterlearned language to be less emotional” (p. 160). In this case, a multilingual may be able to record down detailed and dispassionate descriptions of events and “using the later-learned language provides ‘emancipatory detachment’… which facilitates the disclosure of the traumatic past” (p. 106).
CREATIVE THINKING OF THE BILINGUAL MIND Michailidis and Paschalidou (2019) consider creativity an inherent characteristic of human nature and it can be either enhanced or hindered within the environment. They see “creative discourse as problem-solving activity whose solution is giving through the interaction among the language code, individual and social experiences, and information integrated into new shapes projected to language” (p. 56). For Michailidis and Paschalidou, in terms of language code, we can make use of the dynamics of language and avoid any human struggles or limitations of the tradition to express ourselves creatively. For them, creative discourse indicators can be “metaphor, simile, metonymy, wordplay, humour, irony, allegory, and so forth” (p. 70). Michailidis and Paschalidou further subcategorize creativity into divergent and convergent thinking skills. They consider divergent thinking should include originality, flexibility, fluency, and elaboration, whereas convergent thinking tends to use “facts and data to respond to a prompt or to answer a question. It requires reasoning and goal-oriented practicability” (p. 70). Bilinguals are able to speak two or more languages and may experience two or more cultures, and thus they can maneuver between languages and integrate, switch, split, and blend different languages and different modes of communication to create new meanings and to express themselves. Hommel, Colzato, Fischer, and Christoffels (2011), on the other hand, consider creativity, viewed from different facets, can have different
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components, such as cognitive control, creative individual, or creative act. They choose components of creativity, divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to measure bilinguals’ creativity. They define divergent thinking “as the process that allows people to generate as many responses as possible based on relatively weak constraints….[Whereas convergent thinking is] a more strongly constrained process that searches for one possible outcome” (n. p.). Hommel, et al. (2011) studies 42 bilingual adults, consisting of both lowproficient and high-proficient bilinguals. They used alternate uses task (AUT) to test participants’ divergent thinking and remote associates task (RAT) to test their convergent thinking. Their main argument is that “the bilingual benefit is related to executive control functions….This suggests that learning multiple languages does not improve inhibitory skills but, rather, leads to a stronger, more selective focusing of cognitive control” (n. p.). That is, learning a new language does not mean to suppress the dominant language. As Hommel, et al. state in their conclusion that bilinguals perform better if the task requires more cognitive control. On the other hand, they tend to perform poorly if the task only requires weaker top-down control and less local competition involved. Their study showed that “benefits in convergent thinking come with losses in divergent thinking” (n.p.). As pointed out by Garcia and Wei (2015), the “notion of translanguaging highlights two concepts that are fundamental to education, …namely creativity and criticality” (p. 226). For them, translanguaging, “as a socioeduational process, enables students to construct and constantly modify their sociocultural identities and values, as they respond their historical and present conditions critically and creatively” (p. 226). They argue that translanguaging is much more than just picking up a new word in the acquisition process just like traditional communicative language teaching or grammar-translation method. Garcia and Wei consider translanguaging is actually learning “not only new ways of speaking and acting, of languaging but also of being, of knowing and, of doing” (p. 229). It is flexible that bilingual learners “take control of their own learning” to decide on when and how to perform language. Garcia and Wei believe that “learning is not a product, but process, mediated by peers and teachers” (p. 230).
BI/MULTICULTURALISM It seems that studies on bilingualism focus more on the linguistic aspect than on the cultural issues of bilinguals. In effect, multiculturalism, with 156
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its focus on the cultural aspect of bilinguals, may reveal how bilinguals’ cultural identity may affect their motivation to learn a language, be it the dominant language, the heritage language, or a foreign language. In this section, I will explore the issue of multiculturalism from both the individual and the organizational aspect. At the individual level, I mainly discuss how bilingual individuals may maneuver between two or more languages and, of course, two or more cultures; whereas at the organizational level, I focus on how multiculturalism has been practiced and perceived in organizations or institutions. Both of the two sub-sections are viewed from a psycho-linguistic or psychological perspective.
Individual Multiculturalism Szymanski and Kalra (2019) argue that “bilingualism and biculturalism are not identical terms” (p. 37). That is, bilinguals are not necessarily bicultural, and vice versa. Like they classified bilinguals into different types, scholars also differentiated between biculturals based on their cognitive and identity differences: innate biculturals and achieved biculturals. Innate bicultural are said to be immersed in a culture mixing environment at a young age and are guided by a single, hybrid cultural frame; whereas achieved biculturals are able to switch between different cultural frames (szymanski & Kalra, 2019). These different types of biculturals may have different attitudes toward their cultures and may have their strategic approaches to deal with two or more cultures. It has been widely recognized that an individual’s language(s) and culture(s) are critical to construct his/her identity or identities. As Szymanski and Kalra (2019) point out “an individual’s behaviours, attitudes and values are closely tied to his/her social identity….Social identification leads to activities and behaviours that are consistent with the values of the social group” (p. 33). Early studies have shown that biculturalism can be detrimental to an individual’s state of mind because of the potential conflict of two or more cultures within one individual and of being marginalized in both cultures that might cause stress and anxiety. However, more recent studies have also shown that biculturalism has its potential benefits, especially in multinational organizations. In multinational organizations, bi/multiculturals are shown to have intercultural skills to bridge culturally different contexts and are more creative and innovative (Szymanski & Kalra, 2019).
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Szymanski and Kalra (2019) consider some problems with research on biculturalism. First, they point to the problem with definition. According to them, the term biculturalism can be defined ranging “from general (i.e. based on demographic or ethnic characteristics) to psychological and sociological (i.e. based on cultural identifications or orientations)” (p. 42). In the case of self-categorized biculturals, studies of such may involve individual biases. Second, in a multicultural organization, team members with different cultural backgrounds can be beneficial to the organization; however, studies on organizational biculturalism can always only have limited number of participants and are not easy to be generalized to a large sample. Qualitative approaches such as ethnographic studies may shed lights into biculturals’ experiences of two cultures and how they identify themselves with both cultures. Groot (2011) discusses bicultural bilinguals. She associates their experiences of switching from one language (and culture) to another language (and culture) with linguistic relativity, and she argues against the view that “the structure of the language acquired first determines one’s conceptual world once and forever….[Instead she considers] acquiring two languages results in a unique conceptual system that reflects both” (p. 374-375). Based on previous scholastic studies, Groot distinguishes bilinguals’ functioning of two or more languages into three forms: compound, subordinative, and coordinate bilingualism. Groot explain that “compound and subordinative system organizations…both assume a single conceptual system shared by both languages. The coordinate system organization…assumes two conceptual systems, one for each language” (p. 129). Hall (2023), on the other hand, views individual multiculturalism from a perspective of intersectional identities. He argues that “[i]ntersectionality involves the simultaneous consideration of multiple categories of identity, such as gender, race, class, and sexual orientation….Any identity…cannot be fully understood in isolation” (p. 20). For example, two bilingual/biculturals may be similar in their race, but different in their gender. That is, different identities of an individual may intersect as the individual participates in a particular group or activity. Another issue that bilingual/biculturals may experience is the so-called semantics accents as mentioned in the previous chapter of the crosslinguistic influence section. As pointed out by Groot (2011), [l]anguage differ from one another in how their vocabularies carve up conceptual space and the physical world into lexicalized concepts. As a 158
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consequence, it is generally the case that the referent of a particular word in one language and that of its closest translation equivalent in another language do not perfectly overlap (p. 367). Groot (2011) thus argues that in order to have fully understanding of a foreign vocabulary should not be de-contextualized; rather, it should be contextual learning. That is, “through extensive reading in the target language or other forms of immersion in that language’ (p. 367). From the discussion in this section, we may infer that, like bilinguals are not two languages in one person, bicultural is not two or more separate cultures in one person; rather, two or more cultures interact in an individual’s mind.
Organizational Multiculturalism Christiansen and Gad (2019) discuss multiculturalism in a collective fashion, focusing on organizational multiculturalism. As they point out, “cultural origins can permit the prediction of individual behavior in an organizational environment under various situations” (p. 131-132). They argue that being able to effectively manage cross-cultural interactions is a complex task. They consider that human-capital based advantage can be viewed as cultural indoctrination. That is, “general skills may actually lead to (higher) organizational-level performance” (p. 132). Shen (2019) also points out that “[l]anguage diversity is one of the challenges to multilingual or multinational corporate” (p. 191). She further points out that “language diversity and language competence contributed to the difficulties in communication during the work process” (p. 193). Then, how about using English as a lingua franca to communicate in the workplace. In discussion problems of Englishization, Shen points out that non-native speakers of English entered conversation in English with insecure and uncomfortable feelings about their ability to express themselves well in a foreign language. Further communicative challenge occurred for cognitive reasons stemming from a lack of general English competence, the limited semantic transferability for certain words into English, as well as linguacultural differences in discourse practices (p. 192-193). Hall (2023) raises yet another issue of organizational multiculturalism: zero sum thinking. That is, people think that policies benefitting other groups may necessarily harm mine. This kind of thinking can potentially impede the 159
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collaboration or cooperation brought up by people from different cultures. As Hall concludes, “[v]aluing people only for their social identity can result in stereotyping. Moreover, a multicultural diversity policy can create an illusion of fairness that may prevent the detection of discrimination” (p. 120). Race’s (2015) discussion of multiculturalism mainly focuses on the educational settings. He discusses that, in the United States and England in the 1980s, multiculturalism was seen as a failure because there was resistance to it among minority groups. Race recounts that the focus of multiculturalism was “on the child and parent as the problem rather than the education system… and racial divisions get reproduced from generation to generation” (p. 23). He argues that issues such as power and oppression in society were ignored. Not until the publication of the Swann Report in 1985, the problematic focus was moved “away from migrants, minority children and parents to the education system…, [and] education policy is not only recognizing but attempting to educate a culturally diverse society for the first time” (p. 25). Race (2015) also mentions some limitations of the Swann Report. For example, in the teaching of English as a second language, Chinese and Cypriot cultural elements for Chinese and Cypriot students need to be strengthened in the multicultural curriculum and negative stereotypes of Chinese and Cypriot communities should be overcome. However, as a Chinese speaker living in Taiwan and as an outsider of the Swann Report, I feel respecting or tolerating different cultures can only be seen as an insubstantial slogan if the voices of minority students and less dominant groups are not heard. From the discussion above, we realize that, whether at the individual or collective level, “in intercultural interactions, misunderstandings can happen and to avoid that, it is essential to improve people’s communicative abilities” (Scala, 2022, p. 244). Scala considers that communicative competence in intercultural communication may include: 1. knowing how to speak a second language. 2. ability to understand a different culture. 3. willingness and ability to see the world from a ‘third-person’ perspective. (p. 244)
Child vs. Adult Bilingual There are considerable debates over child vs. adult bilingualism. Advocates of the theory (or hypothesis) of a critical period (or sensitive period) for L2 learning maintain that to learn a second language, the younger the better. They consider that “[t]heoretically and practicaly, learners’ age is determined as one of the influential and crucial issue in the area of second or foreign 160
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language learning” (Barjesteh, et al., 2022, p. 109). They argue that a second language learned after the age of puberty can hardly reach a native-like competence. Other scholars use the term sensitive period to refer to “a linear decline rather than salient start of finish” (Barjesteh, et al., 2022, p. 110). Still Hanci-Azizoglu (2022) explains the situation from the perspective of neural plasticity loss. She states that adults’ “brain plasticity no longer resembles to a child’s” (p. 3). However, there are also opponents who do not believe that, in the process of learning a second language, a critical period exists. According to Reiterer (2010), the relevant studies so far give “the impression that there are at least as many studies in favour …as against …age as being ‘the’ ruling organizing principle in a bilingual’s brain” (p. 315). However, as pointed out by Garcia (2009), “there seem to be no age-related differences in the process of language learning” (p. 66). She argues from different research findings that “early second-language learners are neither more successful nor more efficient in acquiring a second language” (p. 67). While the social and educational settings where children learn their second language may be “more conductive to authentic practice….Yet, in formal educational settings, adults, able to use their metalinguistic skills in a first language more efficiently, learn more quickly than younger learners” (p. 67). Based on various research findings, Christianson and Deshaies (2020) also point out that “language learners with more language experience…are more efficient and successful applying learning and study strategies in the learning of a new language” (p. 30). However, they also point to a critical different between adult and child language learning. That is, adult learners tend to resist to production. They feel anxious “about making mistakes or sounding foolish is associated with L2 proficiency….Adults might be prone to reason that they want to avoid L2 production until they learn enough via comprehension to attempt error-free L2 speech” (p. 33). It might be quite encouraging for adult second or foreign language learners as Barjesteh, et al. (2022) summarize Neufeld’s words by saying that under the right condition, adults can achieve native-like ability in pronunciation. Children learn implicitly, adult learn explicitly. Children learn better adult learn faster. Children can outperform adults in terms of ultimate learning. In formal L2 adults outperform children because of superior cognitive ability for problem solving. Adults and Children learn similarly if they should have an equal amount of time and exposure (p. 110).
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According to Menyuk and Brisk (2005), children “acquiring the second language by the age of 7 are able to reach native-like ability in phonology and semantax especially if they are learning the second language in a country where it is used as the main medium of communication” (p. 175). Smith (2017) also points to the fact that “young children are able to start separating out the grammatical system very early on….This may be because very young learners have finely tuned perceptual skills, pay greater attention and are generally uninhibited about language having no fear of making mistakes” (p. 186). In the domain of accent alone, Scales, Wennerstrom, Richard, and Wu (2006) researched on language learners’ perceptions of accent. They investigated language learners from different areas of the globe, aged between 18 and 30. Their research findings showed “a mismatch between these learners’ own accent goals and their ability to perceive accents. Although a majority wanted to have a native accent, few were able to identify the accent they claimed to want internalize” (p. 735). The authors thus suggest that, in the field of teaching pronunciation, language teachers should also consider who the learners will need to understand, not only how they can be understood. That is to say, learners can “become more versatile in participating in a variety of interactions to meet their communication goals….Courses could be expanded from the traditional focus on learner pronunciation alone to include oral communication as a whole” (p. 735). To conclude the comparison of language learning between children and adults, Hanci-Azizoglu (2020) well puts it, first language acquisition is the natural growth of linguistic structures in the mind of children without any intentional effort. In comparison, second language acquisition is rather conscious since the learners are already exposed to a set of linguistic rules through their first language. But more significantly, second language adult learners are cognitively more mature with their metacognitive awareness while children are faster language learners (p. 4). Pallier’s (2010) words are also very encouraging. He states that even in adults, intensive training can induce cortical modifications which can be detective at a macro-scopic level.…Moreover, …bilinguals have higher grey matter density….which may be linked to vocabulary acquisition….This
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was true even when the second language had been learned after 10 years of age. One’s own brain anatomy should not be an excuse to avoid learning languages! Indeed, analyses of language learning across the life span suggest that it is never too late to learn a foreign language (p. 303). From the discussions presented in this section, second language learning is very similar in many aspects. However, the psychological state of mind is relevant. To return to the state of mind of child language learning can be an important task for adult language learners to work on.
CONCLUSION This chapter discusses bilinguals’ ability to use two or more languages and intends to explore the mental processes and psychological mechanisms of bilinguals. There are two hypotheses to address the question of whether bilinguals have two separate language systems in their mind or the two language systems are integrated as a hybrid one. Advocates of The Unitary System Hypothesis maintain that bilingual children may experience a stage of confusion before they can separate the two languages, whereas supporters of the Dual System Hypothesis claim that bilingual children can separate the two language systems at a very young age. Bilinguals’ attitude toward different languages or language varieties can be positive or negative and are affected by different factors such as their experiences in schools. This chapter also reveals that bilinguals are shown to have more creative thinking in both their convergent and divergent thinking because they are able to maneuver between two or more languages. They are able to challenge the traditional limits of linguistic code and make use of the multimodal features of communication to create their own linguistic space. Relevant literature has also shown that biculturalism, just like bilingualism, has different degrees of involvement into two or more cultures, depending on the cognitive and identity differences. Innate biculturals can be viewed as immersing in a culture mixing environment at a young age and are guided by a single, hybrid cultural frame; whereas achieved biculturals have two different cultural systems functioning in their mind and are able to switch between different cultural frames
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REFERENCES Barjesteh, H., Ardestani, E. M., Manoochehrzadeh, M., & Heidarzadi, M. (2022). Trands in second language acquisition. Society Publishing. Christiansen, B., & Gad, M. A. (2019). Cultural indoctrination and open innovation in human creativity. In B. Christiansen & E. Turkina (Eds.), Applied psycholinguistics and multilingual cognition in human creativity (pp. 124–148). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-6992-3.ch006 Field, F. (2011). Bilingualism in the USA: The case of the Chicano-Latino community. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.44 Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. John Wiley & Sons. Garcia, O., & Wei, L. (2015). Translanguaging, bilingualism, and bilingual education. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 223–240). John Wiley & Sons. Groot, M. B. (2011). Language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals: An introduction. Psychology Press. doi:10.4324/9780203841228 Hall, G. C. N. (2023). Multicultural psychology (4th ed.). Routledge. Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (1989). Bilinguality & bilingualism. Cambridge UP. Hanci-Azizoglu, E. B. (2022). Bilinguals’ semantic transfer across languages. In S. E. DeCapua & E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu (Eds.), Global and transformative approaches toward Linguistic diversity (pp. 1–21). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-8985-4.ch001 Hertel, T. J., & Sunderman, G. (2009). Student attitudes toward native and non-native language instructors. Foreign Language Annals, 42(3), 468–482. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2009.01031.x Hommel, B., Colzato, L. S., Fischer, R., & Christoffels, I. K. (2011). Bilingualism and creativity: Benefits in convergent thinking come with losses in divergent thinking. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 273. doi:10.3389/ fpsyg.2011.00273 PMID:22084634
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Kristiansen, T. (2020). Methods in language-attitudes research. In J. Őstman & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: 23rd annual installment (pp. 3–37). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/hop.23.met5 Kuglin, A. (2022). The English diary in Turkish custody court files: An autoethnographic account. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 99–110). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch007 Lima, R. E. (2021). Understanding heritage speakers and the role of situated literacy in the mainstream classroom. In W. D. Thompson & D. J. Coffey (Eds.), Promoting educational success through culturally situated instruction (pp. 69–82). Lexington Books. Menyuk, P., & Brisk, M. E. (2005). Language development and education: Children with varying language experiences. Palgrave Macmilian. doi:10.1057/9780230504325 Michailidis, T., & Paschalidou, G. (2019). Creative discourse as a means of exploring and developing human creativity. In B. Christiansen & E. Turkina (Eds.), Applied psycholinguistics and multilingual cognition in human creativity (pp. 55–82). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-6992-3.ch003 Race, R. (2015). Multiculturalism and education (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury. Reiterer, S. (2010). The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism: Factors that matter in L2 acquisition—A neuro-cognitive perspective. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 307–321). John Benjamins Publishing. doi:10.1075/lald.52.21rei Ritchie, W. C., & Bhatia, T. K. (2010). Psycholinguistics. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of education linguistics (pp. 38–52). John Willey & Sons. Rose, H., Syrbe, M., Montakantiwong, A., & Funada, N. (2020). Global TESOL for the 21st Century: Teaching English in a changing world. Multilingual Matters. Salyer, S., & Leaver, B. L. (2021). Cognitive and affective transformations in developing bilingual and bicultural competence. In B. L. Leaver, D. E. Davidson, & C. Campbell (Eds.), Transformative language learning and teaching (pp. 184–192). Cambridge UP. 165
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Scala, C. (2022). Replacing the “melting pot” with a “colorful mixed salad” in the language classroom. In S. E. DeCapua & E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu (Eds.), Global and transformative approaches toward linguistic diversity (pp. 240252). IGI Global. Scales, J., Wennerstrom, A., Richard, D., & Wu, S. H. (2006). Language learners’ perceptions of accent. TESOL Quarterly, 40(4), 715–737. doi:10.2307/40264305 Shen, L. (2019). Multilingualism in international business. In B. Christiansen & E. Turkina (Eds.), Applied psycholinguistics and multilingual cognition in human creativity (pp. 178–206). IGI Global. Smith, M. S. (2017). Introducing language and cognition: A map of the mind. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781316591505 Smith, M. S., & Truscott, J. (2014). The multilingual mind: A modular processing perspective. Cambridge UP. Szymanski, M., & Kalra, K. (2019). Foreign language acquisition, bilingualism, and biculturalism: A new theoretical avenue for organizational research. In B. Christiansen & E. Turkina (Eds.), Applied psycholinguistics and multilingual cognition in human creativity (pp. 31–45). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-15225-6992-3.ch002 Yarwood, A., & Bennett, P. (2022). Engendering WTC in online learning spaces: Peer connectivity connectivity is more important than we may think. In C. N. Giannikas (Ed.), Transferring language learning and teaching from face-to-face to online settings (pp. 227–246). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/9781-7998-8717-1.ch012
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Chapter 6
Bilinguality:
Socio-Linguistic Perspective
ABSTRACT This chapter discusses bilinguality from a socio-linguistic perspective. That is, how an individual bilingual interacts in societies with his or her languages and how a bilingual society and language varieties and dialects can be developed because of interactions between bilinguals. An individual bilingual’s common practice of mixing different languages in their communications in societies, i.e., code-switching, code-mixing, and translanguaging is discussed. Then this chapter continues to discuss another bilingual practice commonly found in societies: translation and interpretation. That is, the time when bilinguals are required to maneuver between two languages in a limited time. The author suggests that translators or interpreters should take speakers’ emotion, cognition, perspective, and the multimodal aspects of the environment into consideration in the process of translating or interpreting.
INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses different aspects of the relationship between bilinguals’ use of languages in societies. As Zuengler and Miller (2006) point out that “the SLA process was considered, almost unanimously, to be an internalized, cognitive process” (p. 36). However, they argue that more recent concepts in the field of SLA view language learning from sociocultural perspectives that consider “language use in real-world situations as fundamental, not ancillary, to DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch006 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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learning” (p. 37). As described by Kharchenko (2022), bilingual/multilingual children “use the right language with the right people at the right place, at the same time developing her insatiable desire to experiment with new words, sentences, and narratives” (p. 85). Johnson (2006) also claims that language teaching and learning is in a sociocultural turn, which is defined as “human learning as a dynamic social activity that is situated in physical and social contexts, and distributed across persons, tools, and activities” (p. 237). She considers that learning is “the progressive movement from external, socially mediated activity to internal mediational control by individual learners” (p. 238). According to Mesthrie (2010), the subfield studies of sociolinguistics are concerned with the use of language. That is, these subfield studies pay “attention to the social background and intentions of speakers, issues pertaining to their social characteristics and identities, as well as to the social context of speaking” (p. 66). According to him, people who use the same language but are from different cultural backgrounds “may have different cultural assumptions and norms” (p. 66). It may include “linguistic identity of social groups, social attitudes to language, standard and nonstandard forms of language, the patterns and needs of national language use, social varieties and levels of language, the social basis of bilingualism and multilingualism, and so on” (Barjesteh, et al., 2022, p. 34). “The bilingual’s development and behaviour cannot be envisaged independently from society, its structure and its cultural dimension….language is an important part of culture” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 115). That is, sociolinguistics never views language as somewhat static and idealized patterns; rather, it is dynamic, bottom-up, and non-prescriptive (Mesthrie, 2010). However, Hamers and Blanc also point out that cultural identity is not synonymous with social identity. For Hamers and Blanc, a specific society may include different cultural groups, and each cultural group may share to a great extent many cultural characteristics apparent to this cultural group, including language, religion, ethnicity, and core cultural values. That is to say, “cultural identity is part of…social identity” (p. 116). Hamers and Blanc describe that children develop their social identities by comparing their cultural groups with others in the same society. They recognize some cultural characteristics that belong to their groups but not other groups, and vice versa. Reiterer (2010) discusses how socio-cultural factors may influence bilingual brain organization. For her, socio-cultural factors are the ‘nurture’ side of factors that may play roles in determining and shaping the outcome or proficiency level of a language learner. These factors may include “manner of acquisition/teaching method, amount and quality of input/training, exposure 168
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time, purpose of language use and linguistic environment, language attitudes of social group and individuals, exposure to or experience of bidialectalism and polyglottism” (p. 310). She points to Evans et al.’s investigations in 2002 that showed “lateralization in bilinguals is strongly affected by the specific language environment during development” (p. 313). The researchers found that more right hemisphere involvement for the later learned language in bilinguals. Now let’s turn to the discussion of how minority bilinguals living in a society dominated and controlled by a majority group of monolinguals feel. It is a complex state of mind. Collecting data from different research studies, Hammers and Blanc (1989) describe at least two basic problems that disadvantaged minorities may face: personality disorder and anomie. Personality disorders may be such things as emotional disorders. In this situation, minority bilinguals feel that they are inferior and are pressured to acculturate and assimilate to the dominant society. Anomie, on the other hand, is “a complex psychological state implying feelings of alienation and isolation vis-à-vis the society one lives in” (p. 121-122). In a relevant study done by Child and cited by Hammers and Blanc, the researcher studied second-generation Italians in the United States and found three typical modes of adjusting to this conflict: some rebelled against their Italian background and assimilated to the dominant culture; others rejected American ways, associating themselves with Italian culture; a third group displayed apathetic withdrawal (anomie symptoms) and refused to think of themselves in ethnic terms, either by avoiding situations where the issue of cultural background might come up, or by denying that there were any differences between Italians and Americans (p. 122). In a similar study done by Gardner and Lambert to investigate FrancoAmerican minorities (Hammer & Blanc, 1989), however, the researchers found yet another group of Franco-American minorities “who identified positively with both cultures, the American and the Franco-American” (p. 122). Hamers and Blanc (1989) point to the mechanisms of how a child is socialized in a cultural community and then move to a new cultural environment. The child may first ‘enculturated’ to his own culture, and that is his first socialization and are accustomed to the way people of his culture behave, believe, and the language they use. In case, for some reason, the child moves to a community or a country of a different culture, then he has to ‘acculturate’ to a new culture. This culture may be different significantly in many ways 169
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with his native culture. Especially people of the new culture may speak a language different from his own, and he may have difficulties communicating with them. Under this circumstance, in order to survive in a new culture and become a member of the new culture, he has to try to integrate himself into the new community, including learning their language and familiarizing himself with the way people in the new culture behave, think, and believe. On the other hand, the child has to ‘deculturate’ from his native culture to facilitate his acculturation in a new land if he chooses to do so. However, if a bilingual child can have well-integrated cultural identity enriched by a bicultural situation, then he is said to have “additive bilinguality at the cognitive level, …[which] is dependent on social factors that lead to the valorization of both languages and cultures” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 124). Hamers and Blanc (1989) point out that the development of a wellintegrated cultural identity and a dual membership needs support from society and parents that do not see two cultures as conflict and mutually exclusive. They suggest that the development of bilinguality and cultural identity are interrelated and that they can influence each other. On the other hand, “it seems that a harmonious bicultural identity has to rely on a state of equilibrium where possible conflicts between the two cultures have been resolved at the individual level” (p. 128). At the societal level, how a bilingual and bicultural individual is perceived by others and how he in turn perceives monolinguals and bilinguals can greatly affect his attitudes toward his own language and group and other languages and groups. Hamers and Blanc (1989) point out the power of speech by saying that “individuals and groups may be positively or negatively evaluated according to the language or language variety they speak” (p. 129). They further point out that there is no such thing as superiority or inferiority among languages. Our value judgments are actually expressions of “the attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices that members of a speech community have towards the speakers of another community and their language” (p. 129). This may include language varieties, accents, dialects, and styles. Holmes and Wilson (2017) discuss people’s choices of different language varieties, accents, dialects, and styles from an accommodation theory perspective. There are two types of speech accommodation: speech convergence and speech divergence. In the case speech convergence, “each person’s speech converges towards the speech of the person they are talking to” (p. 261). It may be one way to show your politeness and to show your respect to and agreement with your communicative counterpart. In a different case in which people may “deliberately diverged from the speech style, and 170
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even the language, of the person addressing them” (p. 263) in order to show their disagreement, different social status, and even different political stands. In the case of bilinguals, these considerations may affect their choice and use of languages.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE VARIETIES, DIALECTS, AND STYLES Now let us turn to the discussion of how language varieties, dialects, and styles are formed in societies. As Holmes and Wilson (2017) point out, “[i] nteraction and contact between people is crucial in providing the channels for linguistic change” (p. 234). This may include face-to-face interaction and the media. In the case of English, which is a widely spread language used globally, as Baker and Wright (2017) recount, Germans want to sound like Germans and Indians like to speak Indian English when they speak English. “Native speakers of English are outnumbered by second language speakers of English around the globe. The existence of multiple varieties of ‘World Englishes’ reveals that no single nation or ethnic group can claim the ownership of English” (p. 396). The same is true for other languages. As we witness, new varieties of a language are emerging in multilingual communities, by speakers of the same language, and are used to represent different identities. Mesthrie (2010) argues that the “study of linguistic variation focuses on the form of speakers’ utterances rather than the content of the communication” (p. 68). He points out that a speaker always reveals his or her social and personal background. This may include “one’s social class, status, region of origin, gender, age group, etc.” (p. 68). According to Mesthrie, some researchers studying language variations “are concerned with style, situation, and function. They deal with the importance of contextual factors in determining different ‘registers’, styles, and genres” (p. 68). That is, choice of a language or style may be “the combination of specific times, settings, and role relationships” (p. 68). When I was reading articles or books relevant to bilingualism and was writing this chapter, I felt a sense of incongruence as I resorted and applied all the ideas to the situation of Taiwan and probably that of other Asian countries. Under this circumstance, I felt I need to look into these ideas from a different angle. In Taiwan, as I mentioned sporadically in this volume, bilingualism mean differently in Taiwan and probably other Asian countries differ from that of the United States. In Taiwan, bilinguals are referred to as being able to 171
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speak both Mandarin Chinese, which is the official language and is commonly used in Taiwan, and English. Although those who are able to speak English are considered as the minority group in terms of the number of speakers, they are considered elite of society, for being better-educated, advantageous of obtaining broader knowledge and information by reading books or articles written in English, and having wider interpersonal relationships by communicating with people from different countries. In terms of bilinguality and acculturation, bilinguals in Taiwan can only benefit from their being able to speak two languages, i.e. Mandarin Chinese and English. They are superior in their education, employment, and interpersonal relations. Bilinguals in Taiwan do not have to worry about being ‘acculturated’ to another culture, say American culture, because they are living in Taiwan and because they can be proud of being more knowledgeable to know more cultures. Previously, in terms of language varieties and different accents, Taiwanese people tend to favor American accent. However, in an era of globalization, gradually Taiwanese people can accept different accents. In many different English proficiency tests, speakers of different accents are recruited to conduct the test of the listening comprehension part.
CODE-SWITCHING AND CODE-MIXING Many scholars have pointed out a particular phenomenon commonly found in bilinguals’ interactions; that is linguistic mixing in their utterances (e.g. Hamers & Blanc, 1989; Garcia & Wei, 2015, Baker & Wright, 2017). This can include code-switching, code-mixing, and translanguaging, at lexical, syntactic, or semantic level (Hamers & Blanc, 1989). Unfortunately, as pointed out by Edwards (2009), some prejudices come from monolinguals “but bilinguals too have been wont to see their ‘mixed’ linguistic behaviour as embarrassing, lazy or bastardised” (p. 249). He argues that bilinguals choose some particular usage of a language to help “a listener understand more quickly and fully, strengthening feelings of friendship and intimacy…. If a speaker has two or more languages to draw upon, it makes good sense to maximise the usefulness of this happy circumstance” (p. 249). Ritchie and Bhatia (2010) also point out, based on Communication Accommodation Theory, that “code-mixing [is] a form of accommodation or modification of one’s speech to match that of an interlocutor. Despite the unfavorable social evaluation of mixed speech by prescriptivists…, bilinguals cannot resist language mixing” (p. 49). 172
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Garcia (2009) argues that “bilinguals usually have differentiated use and competence in the languages in which they translanguage… [and] any bilingual is never two monolinguals in one person” (p. 48). Scholars have pointed out some communicative strategies bilinguals use to facilitate or ease their communications with people of the same or different ethnic, linguistic, or social groups in different contexts. Generally speaking, the phenomenon involves a bilingual’s social activities, and are “the situations in which people find themselves typically determine which language a bilingual uses” (Field, 2011, p. 93). Among these strategies, code-switching and code-mixing are the most apparent ones, and translanguaging provide bilinguals with yet another space for communication with their criticality and creativity. Smith (2017) points out that two forces may drive language switching. “Conceptually driven language switching may arise spontaneously, without any intention on the speaker’s part. Alternatively, it may be the result of a deliberate conscious choice to switch” (p. 180). Code-switching is generally defined as “the alternate use of two or more languages in the same utterance or conversation” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 148, cited from Grosjean, 1982, p. 145). A “code-switch may be related to a particular participant or addressee…as a signal of group membership and shared ethnicity with an addressee” (Holmes & Wilson, 2017, p. 35). However, it is often times that “much switching takes place below the level of consciousness” (Baker & Wright, 2017, p. 278). In the case of codeswitching, a bilingual may use two language chunks or larger linguistic units within a sentence, between or among sentences. Field (2011) calls the type of switching that completely changing from one language to another in different conversational situations intersentential code-switching and the type of code-switching that “occurs when speakers switch mid-sentence….[and] looks and sounds like two languages being spoken at the same time” (p. 94) intrasentential code-switching. But, how do these types of code-switching function in a bilingual’s brain? Field describes a theoretical model referred to as the ‘Matrix Language-Frame (MLF) model, proposing that “one of the two languages involved in CS frames the utterance, the Matrix Language (ML), and into that basic frame, organized chunks of the other language, or Embedded Language (EL), are inserted” (p. 98). An alternative viewpoint proposes that there is no underlining matrix in the case of code-switching. It may be the case that “the two languages being mixed coalesce together to form a single composite or blended matrix” (p. 99).
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Hamers and Blanc (1989) further divide code-switching into two kinds based on bilinguals’ competence in the languages: bilingual code-switching and incompetence code-switching. The case of bilingual code-switching may occur, for example, in a mixed-lingual family in which children may use different languages to address to their father, mother, and siblings. On the other hand, incompetence code-switching “is typical of certain immigrant populations who have acquired a limited functional competence in L2 but have to resort to their L1 to compensate for their lack of knowledge of L2” (p. 149). Generally speaking, code-switchers tend to show their intimacy or closeness with their addressees. However, as Holmes and Wilson (2017) point out, it is times that they intend to distance from their communication partners in order to, for example, show their superiority, prestige, and being welleducated. Similarly, Mesthrie (2010) views interaction “between speakers, degrees of convergence and divergence, and intentions to alter the rights and obligations associated with one code rather than another have all been fruitfully employed to account for the facility that fluent bilinguals show in switching between languages” (p. 75). In some cases, code-switchers ‘cross’ the social boundaries and purposefully choose an ‘outgroup’ language in order to “build links with members of what may be otherwise seen as an ‘outgroup’” (p. 75). This may be especially apparent in times of election campaigns. Candidates may purposefully insert into their addresses some language varieties or dialects familiar to the local audience to win support. The situation to accommodate to the listeners’ expectations reminds me of a seemingly divergent case in Taiwan. As will be described in the third part of this volume, as the government of Taiwan has been promoting the learning of English, being able to communicate in English is viewed as more intelligent, better educated, and probably higher socio-economic status. Some enthusiastic teachers of English in Taiwan show reluctance to openly reveal their English proficiency, e.g. code-switching between Mandarin Chinese and English in conversations, because they are afraid of being labeled as being arrogant, especially in front of those who have problems speaking in English. On the other hand, the topic or topics communication participants are discussing may be relevant to code choice. In the case of Taiwan, college English majors discussing an issue relevant to language learning and acquisition in English or code-switching between Mandarin Chinese and English is considered legitimate in the name of practicing English. However, there are still affective factors that may affect the choice of a code by a bilingual to show his or her feelings. For example, in my English Department, a senior 174
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American teacher always switches his language use to Mandarin Chinese for amusement and friendship despite that he is responsible for demonstrating Standard English for the students and even for the teachers in the department. In other cases, the speakers may quote and insert original words in a code different from what they are using now in order to show the fidelity of these words and to gain listeners’ trust. For example, a host of a serious talk show, i.e. a talk show focusing on discussing of political and economical issues, in Taiwan may quote original words from speakers of a different country in order to be more persuasive to his audiences. In this case, the host would consequently translate these words into the local language for the audiences’ better understanding. In the previous paragraphs we have been discussing choices of code; however, it is not so easy to identify why the speakers make the choice. Holmes and Wilson (2017) provide a very good example; that is the case of Luxembourg. “Luxembourg is a multilingual nation where language switching is very common. Where people are equally fluent in three or more languages, it is often difficult to explain why they use one rather than another” (p. 43). For example, there are three language spoken in Luxembourg, namely German, French, and Luxembourgish. Generally speaking, “German and French are mostly used in written materials…, and Luxembourgish is mostly used in speech contexts….But the boundaries are very permeable….[P]erhaps it was just a matter of the first word which came to mind” (p. 44). It is thus far apparent that code-switching and code choice are, in effect, dependent on various factors, and these factors can be individual, societal, and even national. The term code-mixing is also known as popularly practiced by bilinguals. However it is the term not to be mixed-up with code-switching. In the process of code-mixing, bilinguals generally transfer elements from another language to the language they are using for some purposes, such as showing their social status, regional, religious or ethnic identity. Hamers and Blanc (1989) provide a good example from an empirical study. They cite the study done by Kachru in a multilingual and multicultural context of India and illustrate three varieties of code-mixing. Those who tended to mix English into different regional languages, called Englishization, intend to show their high social status and being educated elite. Some would mix Sanskrit or High Hindi with an Indian language to show their caste or religious identity. This process of code-mixing is called Sanskritization. Still the third type of code-mixing is called Persianization in which the law courts borrow vocabulary from the Persian language. Users of Persianized code-mixing basically intend to mark their Muslim religious identity. 175
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Holmes and Wilson (2017) discuss yet another type of moving from one language to the other: lexical borrowing, which is “account for by lack of vocabulary in a language” (p. 44). Speakers may borrow a word from a language other than the language they are using now because there is no exact equivalent or probably they do not know the exact word available in their second language. However, borrowing is viewed by other scholars in a different way. For example, Field (2011) considers borrowing similar to intrasentential code-switching. “In borrowing, only one language is in use, although it is drawing upon the resources of the other, …[and only] smaller chunks of the embedded language [are] tucked into the base language ” (p. 100). Sometimes the word-level phenomenon is called nonce-borrowing. It may “start out as a one-time event, but then gradually diffuses out into the community” (p. 100-101). There is a blurry boundary between borrowing and code-switching. Some scholars, such as Field (2011), prefer to view it as a continuum between the two. Smith and Truscott (2014), on the other hand, view code-switching and code-mixing from a cognitive perspective. They state that researchers tend to focus on “the external environment conditions that motivate switches between language systems” (p. 198). However, they argue that “relevant environmental elements in the external world, for them to become relevant for the language user, have to become internal, i.e. cognitive: they have to become part of the language user’s cognitive environment” (p. 198). The researchers state that code-switching can be communicatively motivated or socially motivated. Communicative motivated code-switching occurs when expressing an idea using items and constructions from another language will turn out to be an improvement on what is available in the language being used at the time and its use will allow the person to more precisely express the intended meaning (p. 200). Under this circumstance, according to Smith and Truscott, code-switching can be a sigh of success in language acquisition, not of limited achievement of the language. In another case, socially motivated code-switching, bilinguals choose a particular language in order to achieve some social functions. For example, speakers may purposefully choose to “use a low-prestige minority language as a means of expressing group solidarity, or the person’s identity with the group” (p. 203).
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Bilinguals should not be viewed as treating two or more language equally. Rather, they make choices in using a particular language depending on the circumstances, the interlocutors, the topics being talked about, and their personal preference and proficiency level of the language. They are able to choose the most appropriate and the most expressive language and the one they feel most comfortable in a specific situation. Their practices of language are definitely “not like a bicycle with two balanced wheels” (Garcia, 2009, p.45). Garcia describes a study conducted by Fishman et al concerning Puerto Rican communities’ choices of language use, and states the finding: the “domains of family, friendship, and religion were mostly carried out in Spanish, whereas employment and education were domains in which English were used” (p. 47). That is to say, bilinguals are able to choose a language that can fulfill a communicative function and is socially meaningful. When we explore how bilinguals can control their two or more languages and their ability to switch from one to the other, the “Markedness Model…claims that ‘humans are innately disposed to exploit code choices as negotiations of position’” (Ritchie & Bhatia, 2010, p. 48). For example, a bilingual may choose the minority or less dominant language “to mark in-group membership and local identity, whereas they may choose [the dominant language] to mark objectivity, neutrality, and identity as participants in the wider world” (Ritchie & Bhatia, 2010, p. 48). Furthermore, like monolinguals using different speech styles in different social domains, bilinguals may use different languages to associate with “modernity, locality, royalty, and deep-rooted cultural appeal respectively” (Ritchie & Bhatia, 2010, p. 48). As Mesthrie (2010) has pointed out, code-switching “can be considered a social and linguistic skill. Speakers do not mix words randomly; rather there are specific grammatical points at which one may (or more frequently may not) switch to another language” (p. 67). In some cases, “switching is used to achieve subtle strategic effects, like to change the ‘tone’ of the conversation, to distance oneself from what is being said, to evoke a greater sense of authority or rapport, etc.” (p. 67).
TRANSLANGUAGING Now we turn to the discussion of yet another phenomenon found in bilingual communities and language classrooms termed translanguaging. As accounted by Garcia and Lin (2017), the term translanguaging was initiated
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in 1994 to refer to a pedagogical practice where students in bilingual Welsh/ English classrooms are asked to alternate languages for the purposes of receptive or productive use, [and it] has been increasingly used in the scholarly literature to refer to both the complex and fluid language practices of bilinguals, as well as the pedagogical approach that leverage those practices (p. 118). That is to say, “the term [can refer to] as both an act of bilingual performance and a pedagogical approach to teaching….Pedagogical translanguaging is planned by the teacher inside the classroom….Spontaneous translanguaging refers to fluid discursive practices that can take place inside or outside the classroom” (McCarthey, Nuñez, & Lee, 2020, p. 351). However, the concept of translanguaging has been expanded “beyond simply instructional strategies… [and] ‘is less focused on language per se, and more concerned with examining how bilinguals make sense of things through language’” (McCarthey, et al., 2020, p. 86). As Garcia and Wei (2015) point out, traditional subtractive bilingualism and additive bilingualism is “insufficient in the twenty-first century, with interactions increasingly occurring in contact spaces…between speakers of different origins, experiences, characteristics, and histories….[T]here are no homogenous groups using the same language practices” (p. 223). Lee (2022) also points out that one of the problems with monolingualization is that it sacrifices “the precision of hitherto untranslatable cross-cultural communicative nuance in exchange for the transposability across newly invented …language categories” (p. 17). The same is true for bilingual education programs. You cannot assume that students in the programs are homogeneous. Garcia and Wei thus advocate the use of translanguaging pedagogy in bilingual or multilingual classrooms. For them, the prefix ‘trans’ symbolize trans-system and trans-space “to fluid practices that go between and beyond language and educational systems, structures, and practices to engage diverse students’ multiple meaning-making systems and subjectivities” (p. 224). Bernstein (2020) points out that many classes practice language separation and require a particular language to be used for a particular class. Under this circumstance, translanguaging was “called the underlife of the classroom— practices taking place under the institutional and pedagogical radar” (p. 34). However, she encourages teachers to be creative in the practice of translanguaging. Bernstein also points out that “a multilingual underlife is not the same thing as an officially multilingual classroom” (p. 150). It is because “a multilingual underlife does not make visible and valuable the process of language learning or being multilingual” (p. 150). 178
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Now let us turn the discussion of translanguaging to a language learning classroom, which can be experiences of many late bilinguals. Evans (2018) points out that “within the same classroom and lesson some students may simply wish to conform to the teacher’s demands, others resist and still others learn for much wider or different reasons from those that are officially stated” (p. 222). Citing from Kramsch and Van Lier, Evans describes the concept of the ‘third culture’. For these scholars, modern language learning is a process of “the discovery of the language of the ‘Other’ and the community of the ‘Other’” (p. 224). When a student uses the foreign language, and of course its culture, he or she constructs “a ‘third culture’ which represents a dialectical hybrid between the student’s native culture and the target language culture” (p. 224). The third culture thus creates a ‘third place’ that allows the student to create “other meaning than native speakers would…. [That is,] ‘speaking our meaning with their language’ and ‘reading against the grain’’ (p. 224). Some scholars regard translanguing as being synonymous with codeswitching or code-mixing. However, Rose, et al. (2020) challenge this view, and they view “languages as part of the interwoven linguistic system of a user, rather than as separate entities” (p. 15). They further argue that code-switching may reinforce “power hierarchies between two named languages, but translanguaging views all languages as part of a user’s entire linguistic repertoire” (p. 16). Similarly, Chumak-Horbatsch (2019) describes translanguaging in a broader and deeper sense as she wrote, “[translanguaging] characterizes bilinguals’ language use or languaging as fluid and dynamic…. [T]hey naturally ‘shuttle’ between their two languages ….[and] strategically select words, rules, speaking style and pronunciation from their ….language repertoire which includes features of both of their languages” (p. 13). She suggests linguistically approach practice (LAP) to reflect to the increasingly multilingual and multicultural school population. In a multilingual classroom, LAP teachers may either allow students to freely and spontaneously use whatever language they choose (pupil-directed) or have the structured multilingual agenda prepared for the class. Put in another way, in bilingual education, translanguaging aims at “using one language to reinforce the other in order to increase understanding and augment the pupil’s activity in both languages” (Garcia and Lin, 2017, p. 119). According to Garcia and Lin (2017), “translanguaging goes beyond code switching and translation because it refers to the process by which bilingual students perform bilingually in the myriad multimodal ways of classroom” (p. 121). In a translanguaging space, multilingual students’ communications were viewed as using “one single integrated system in which there is a mixing 179
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of communicative modes and diverse symbol systems other than language per se” (p. 122). Garcia and Lin consider that a particular type of mental grammar can be shaped through social interactions. Bilingual advocates, such as Garcia and Lin (2017), keep arguing that bilinguals are not two monolinguals in one individual; rather, two or more languages are integrated as one linguistic system that bilinguals can freely make use of the system, depending on who is communicating, where the communication takes place, and what purpose or purposes for the communication. Even as a ChineseAmerican bilingual, Wang-Hiles (2022) also claims that “I do not have two separate monolingual languages, but two languages coexisting in one self” (p. 164). Baker and Wright (p. 2017) also have pointed to the fact that we “have recently become emancipated from strict language separation ideas to concepts about bilingualism that are holistic rather than fractional…, less compartmentalized than diglossia with separate functions for two languages” (p. 279). However, Garcia and Lin (2017) also point to the controversies with practicing translanguaging in bilingual education. There exist tensions between advocates of the weak version and the strong version of translanguaging. For advocates of the weak version of translanguaging, it might be enough to just soften the boundaries set by the named language. For advocates of the strong version, minority language speakers should be given more freedom to break the boundaries set by the language. As suggested by Garcia and Lin, the two versions of translanguaging theory can be combined in bilingual education to achieve its eventual goal. “On the one hand, educators must continue to allocate separate spaces for the named languages although softening the boundaries between them. On the other hand, they must provide an instructional space where translanguaging is nurtured and used critically and creatively” (p. 127). Baker and Wright (2017) maintain that translanguaging in classrooms may be of benefit to students. They list several reasons. First, students are always better in their first language. Allowing them to use first language in the classroom can facilitate their learning, especially for some cognitively demanding subjects. Second, a translanguaging classroom context may “help students develop oral communication and literacy in their weaker language” (p. 282). Third, it can help parents who are not familiar with the dominant language discuss and assist their children’s homework. This can strengthen the connection between school and home. Finally, integration of fluent native speakers with target language learners can help language learners develop both their second language ability and content learning. 180
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Kharchenko (2022), on the other hand, describes how translanguaging is practiced in her home targeting at her baby girl as a strategy of maintaining heritage language. Her daughter was born and raised in a physically multilingual and multicultural environment, namely Ukrainian, Russian, and English. She herself speaks Ukrainian as her first native language and Russian as her second native language, her husband speaks Russian but not Ukrainian, and they live in an English-speaking country, Canada. When the baby daughter was with her mom during the day, she normally had linguistic input in Ukrainian and was switched to Russian in the evening when her dad was taking care of her in the evening. Kharchenko and her husband kind of follow ‘one parent—one language approach’ in their communication with their daughter. When the girl grew older, she was taken care of in daycare centers, and interestingly first in a Ukrainian-speaking environment and then in an English-speaking environment. Based on her observation on her daughter’s linguistic development as a trilingual, Kharchenko (2022) notes that “children intuitively choose some common language to communicate with each other, and this language is not necessarily the one they speak at home, even if they share the same linguistic background” (p. 92). In the case of her daughter, although “she does not always understand which language is called Ukrainian, Russian or English, she does know how to use them, where and with whom” (p. 93). Kharchenko concludes that “children’s linguistic choices are tied to a particular context and circumstances, so that any life change may have potentially detrimental effects on immigrant children’s home language” (p. 94). These multilingual children may ‘attribute different values to the languages in their repertoires, values that do not necessarily correspond to those held by their families, teachers, or schools’ (p. 94). The practice of translanguaging, at first glance, may not be particularly relevant for those less culturally diverse countries and those homogeneous language classrooms in terms of learning a foreign language, especially English. As I read literature concerning translanguaging, I found discussions overwhelmingly pointed to linguistically and culturally minority or immigrant groups and to culturally diverse classrooms. It may not be the case of my own experiences of teaching English as a foreign language in Taiwan. Generally speaking, students in my class were linguistically and culturally homogeneous, with only very few exceptions. However, the foreign language learning context has its specific problems. Unlike heritage language learners, foreign language learners are less motivated to learn the language and culture of other countries. Without sufficient opportunities to use the target language to 181
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communicate with its native speakers, the learning environment is seen boring and sometimes meaningless. Most importantly, learners feel pressured and anxious when it comes to evaluating their performance in learning, especially for their accuracy and fluency in the target language in an almost culturally homogeneous classroom. In the case of Taiwan, people are learning English as part of their bilingual education. It is especially important to note that, linguistically, Chinese and English are far from being similar to each other, whether viewed from the domains of morphology, phonology, semantics, or syntax. It is hard to imagine that the two languages can be integrated in one individual as a linguistic system. Especially, Taiwanese people generally have a much lower proficiency level in English than they have in Chinese. However, given the fact of learning English as a foreign language existing in Taiwan, it may not be impossible to practice translanguaging in an English classroom in Taiwan, as long as the term translanguaging is broadly defined. I would like to suggest that foreign language teachers can create a learning environment that allows learners to have more creative and critical ways to explore, understand, and compare different cultures and, of course, allows learners to freely translanguage in the classroom. That is, learners may be allowed to express their ideas in their mother tongue if they have problems speaking the target language. This may go against the current practice of English instruction in Taiwan, which claims that English as a medium of instruction is the way to go and that immerse students in an English-speaking environment can facilitate their learning of English. The reality of this kind of learning environment is that students feel anxious to speak in English, even though they are only asked to communicate with their peers. However, by allowing students to freely and creatively moving back and forth between their mother tongue and the target language for communication purposes in the classroom, foreign language learners can feel, on the one hand, less pressured in their learning process, and on the other hand gradually sense the real purposes for learning a foreign language. McCarthey, et al. (2020) also point to some criticism targeting at translanguaging strategies. The main critic is that “the use of translanguaging strategies can be a threat to heritage language preservation….[L]anguagemeshing will increase pressure to switch to a majority language that can, once again, threaten the survival of minority languages” (p. 353). Beyond the classroom setting, McCarthey, et al. (2020) discuss translanguaging practiced in informal settings such as homes and communities. That is spontaneous translanguaging. The researchers consider 182
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that translanguaging occur in the home and community environments can be significant opportunities and experiences for language learning and development. In a bilingual home environment, children, on the one hand, may be required to use their linguistic repertoire to act as translators or language brokers between their teachers and parents. On the other hand, bilingual parents may “creatively engage in translanguaging to support their children’s development of bi/multilingualism and biliteracy” (p. 358). In these cases, research studies report that parents alternate between languages, translate, read and write in two languages, and interpret across languages to facilitate their children’s development of bi/multilingualism and biliteracy. In community environments, reports on immigrant communities also show that communities use thranslanguaging to support bi/multilingualism. For example, “in Valle del Bluegrass Library,…the library supported the bilingual Latinx community by creating a safe space, encouraging translanguaging practices, incorporating bilingual material, providing mentorship, and honoring the literacy practices and text productions of the community” (p. 359). Another case was found in a Polish store in London. The “signs or advertisements in the shop were written in Polish and English to connect with customers who speak Polish or English….[D]uring transactions and interactions, the manager was translanguaging linguistic and multimodal practices to meet the needs of customers” (p. 359). Finally, McCarthey, et al. suggest that “students should be provided with specific opportunities and models for translanguaging in the classroom….Instructional support within classrooms as well as acknowledgement of students’ home and community practices can assist students in understanding the value of using translanguaging across contexts” (p. 364). Still, Lee (2022) views translingualism from the context of globalization and not limits his discussion to the academic disciplines. He argues that the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries can be considered and understood as a ‘translingual turn’. He argues that boundaries between languages, i.e. the concept of language-as-code, limit our everyday communication. Communication itself is not limited to ‘language’ insofar as interlocutors draw on a range of semiotic and spatial repertoires….[And] today speakers of multiple languages do not necessarily view their utterances as falling within the discrete ‘codes’, but rather as operating in a cohesive ‘continuum that is assessed’ (p. 6-7).
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Lee (2022) examines and demonstrates multilingual presentation of language, semiotic resources, and spatial elements “of publicly visible signage and other artifacts of the built environment in Korea and Korean town around the world. He argues that research should be treated as a human right and research data should be publicly available, “not premised on the study of inaccessible archives held by elite and exclusive institutions….[T]he study of linguistic/semiotic landscapes in many ways blurs the boundaries between scholarly thought and ‘nonspecialist’ inquiry insofar as we are always already studying linguistic/semiotic landscapes” (p. 173-174). Bilinguals have a variety of opportunities to encounter people from different cultures and speaking different languages. However, in an era of globalization, as Lee (2022) has noted, that language and culture are fluid and keep changing. He argues that we need to view language and culture from a global perspective. Lee uses the concept of linguistic landscape to demonstrate the idea of semiotic precarity. According to him, semiotic precarity refers to “when the presumes essence of an entity is unable to be taken for granted… and therefore demands affirmation or reaffirmation via semiotic distinction (semiotic acts that distinguish it from another cultural entity)” (p. 21). For Lee, semiotic precarity is “a condition imminent in spaces in which the quotidian and unremarkable specificities of cultural difference are unpresumed…and, as a result, come to be both remarkable and as semiotically distinct” (p. 21). He uses examples of Korean restaurants in Korea and Korean restaurants in other countries to explain that “we can make better sense of the logics of cultural distinctiveness through various moments of encounter in contexts of semiotic precarity (p. 22). Lee (2022) reminds us that we might not actually know a culture or are not familiar enough with a particular culture and mistakenly take it as being associated with another culture. By viewing culture from a global perspective allows us to view culture anew.
TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION It goes without saying that you need to know both the source language and the target language in order to be able to translate or interpret from one language to the other, although you might have varying degrees of proficiency in the two languages. Translation and interpretation are actually two different things in nature. Translation is a verbal task, which allows translators to have time to check and revise, whereas interpreting is basically an oral task in which interpreters face a considerable amount of time constrains. However, viewing 184
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from a cognitive and neurocognitive perspectives, Halverson and Martin (2021) consider that these two tasks “also share a number of key cognitive and neurocognitive characteristics. Oral and written language draw on the same cognitive resources and from a language user’s (or language use) perspective, one cannot exist without the other in today’s complex knowledge societies” (p. 5). In this section, to facilitate understanding, I will treat translation and interpretation as two separate things. The process of translation may involve “reading, transfer, and writing processes across two languages. [The transfer procedure comprises] the interpretation of the sense of the source text and the production of a target text with the intent of establishing a relationship of equivalence between two texts” (Lehr & Hvelplund, 2021, p. 49). Still there are differences in information processing in the brain between consecutive and simultaneous interpretation. Consecutive interpreting relies more “on memory processes and on the ability to reconstruct a text after a certain delay” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 248). Smith and Truscott (2014) further point to two different forms of consecutive interpreting: interpreting in one direction and “liaison interpreting, which works in both directions with the interpreter translating both into and from a source language” (p. 209). While doing simultaneous interpretation, interpreters speak “one part of the message in the target language while listening simultaneous to the next part of the message in the source language” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 244). As Hamers and Blanc (1989) point out, interpreters are not actually characterized by their bilinguality as much as their “capacity to decode a message in the source language while simultaneously re-encoding it in the target language” (p. 245). Researchers have investigated the complicated information processing while the interpreter is working on simultaneous interpretation. The topics of interests include selective attention as to the source language or reconstructing into the target language based on what they hear from the speaker, how does the interpreter chunk sentences in the process of interpretation, to what extent does the interpreter rely on memory, and, in the case of consecutive interpretation, to what extent and in what way does the interpreter rely on note-taking. In their discussion of translation and interpretation, Hamers and Blanc (1989) conclude: The task required by interpretation is in the first place a complex cognitive activity of information processing which also calls into play high competences in two or more languages. What makes the translator or the interpreter 185
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distinct from other bilinguals is neither his fluency in several languages, nor his bilingual competence, but his ability to use them in complex informationprocessing activities (p. 254). It is especially worth noticing that “the interpreter’s comprehension phase for a specific sentence uttered by the speaker usually overlaps (partly) with the production phase of the previous sentence” (Plevoets & Defrancq, 2021, p. 22). Plevoets and Defrancq (2021), first define load as “the extent to which demands are met by capacity. Higher demands or lower capacity increases load” (p.19). Cognitive load theory is referred to as ‘a multidimensional construct representing the load that performing a particular task imposes on the learner’s cognitive system’ (Doherty, 2021, p. 160, cited from Paas et al. 2003). There are two dimensions in this theory. One reflects how the task and the learner characteristics interact in the process of translation or interpretation. For example, different communicative means, such as gestures, “interact with natural languages to merge into higher, compound communicative objects” (Halverson & Martin, 2021, p. 5). Citing from Mayoral et al., Halverson and Martin argue that translators should take non-linguistic systems into consideration in the process of translation and interpretation. The other one reflects ‘the measurable concepts of mental load, mental effort, and performance’ (p. 160). This theory focuses basically on the senses of vision and hearing, for they are central to our everyday tasks. Studies have shown that combining the visual and auditory senses can maximize processing in various contexts and enhance performance if one can effectively integrate multisensory resources (Doherty, 2021). Hanci-Azizoglu (2022), on the other hand, point to yet another issue that bilinguals or second language learners, in daily life environments, “cannot avoid making semantically ill-formed transfers because they impulsively and simultaneously construct those sentences by grabbing ideas from their first languages” (p. 12). In the process of interpreting, delivery rate, lexical density, frequency of number, formulaicity, and syntactic complexity are all accountable for the degree to which cognitive load is at work. For a simultaneous interpreter, “at the moment when the interpreter starts interpreting, sentence-internal load is co-determined by the delayed production load of the preceding sentence segment and the comprehension load of the current segment” (Plevoets & Defrancq, p. 22). In the case of simultaneous interpreters, if the load is high, it may cause errors, omissions, and infelicities in the process of interpreting. Drawing on the theoretical framework of cognitive load, Plevoets and Defrancq (2021) argue that “delivery rate, frequency of numbers, lexical 186
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density, and formulaicity, which are known to affect cognitive load in the comprehension phase, are also likely to affect load in the production phase” (p. 21). They call “cognitive load associated with the production of Sentence A is said to be ‘imported’ into the processing of the next sentence, B” (p. 22). This imported load may add to current load. Under this circumstance, the imported load may cause cognitive saturation and even lead to failures in the process of interpreting. Smith and Truscott (2014), on the other hand, applied the MOGUL framework to explain how a bilingual or multilingual mind functions in the process of translation and interpreting. According to them, a translator, assuming in front of a text to be translated from L1 to L2, first read the text in L1 and a conceptual structure associated with the linguistic features of L1 will be highly activated. “At the same time, …structures in the L2 will be activated albeit more weakly” (p. 208). The process produces conceptual structures. The translator then raises “the overall activity of L2 associated items …and at the same time keeping the message…generated by the L1 version highly activated” (p. 208). He/She masticates the message and “at the same time seeking indirectly to raise the activation levels of appropriate L2 items” (p. 208). That is, L2 becomes the winner in competing with L1. In this process, phonological structure appear first, then comes the corresponding auditory and visual structures “which will then form the basis of an oral or written L2 text” (p. 208). As noted by Smith and Truscott, the translator may confront L1 interference in producing a natural L2 equivalent text. However, competition between L1 and L2 may allow the translator “to be able to move back and forth between the two systems to achieve the desire effect” (p. 208-209). In the case of interpreting, much of the processing of translation in a bilingual’s mind can be applied to it; however, interpreting is much more demanding than translation. Smith and Truscott, citing from scholars’ research on response time, suggest that “switching from a stronger to a weaker language takes longer than switching in the reverse direction” (p. 209-210). This may be relevant to the degree of inhibition required. However, they also argue that it may not be necessarily the case. Structures “competing for selection and winning do so simply because they have a relatively higher level of activation than the losers” (p. 210). Still in the process of translating or interpreting, speakers’ or writers’ emotions and perspectives should be taken into consideration and will be discussed in the following sections.
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Emotion and Cognition Aside from cognitive and social factors mentioned above, Lehr and Hvelplund (2021) claim that “increasing evidence has been provided for the interdependence of emotion and cognition, and today emotion is recognized as a fundamental principle of human behavior” (p. 44). Emotion is said to be able to shift human’s focus of consciousness and behavior. There are more and more researchers studying on how emotion might affect the performance of a translator. Lehr and Hvelplund focus their study “on the interaction between emotion and attention in professional translation” (p. 45). For those researchers on interactions between emotion and attention, in the process of translation and/or interpretation, translators or interpreters may drop something trivial so as to focus their attention on more important information because of the capacity limit of human brain and in order to survive and to achieve their goals and meet needs. Psychological studies have mentioned that in our daily life, our attention may be influenced by internal and external stimuli. “Researchers have also proposed that emotional content might constitute a third distinct source of influence, as it is mediated by a different neuronal structure, the amygdala” (Lehr & Hvelplund, 2021, p. 46). According to Lehr and Hvelplund, emotional stimuli can be either positive or negative. Appraisal theories of emotion suggest that a sequence of stimulus evaluation checks result in both positive and negative emotions. Such checks allow us to classify the types of information “in order to prepare an appropriate action to a stimulus or, more generally, an event” (Lehr & Hvelplund, 2021, p. 47). We may rapidly assess how the event might affect our well-being and our goals and we have “the potential to cope with or adjust to the consequences of the event” (Lehr & Hvelplund, 2021, p. 47). Lehr and Hvelplund report that several research studies have shown that “a processing advantage of positive and negative emotional words over neutral words….for example,… both positive and negative verbs were processed faster than neutral verbs in a lexical decision tasks” (p. 47). Now let us turn to the linguistic dimension of interpreters. StachowiakSzymczak (2021) discusses linguistic transfer between the source language and the target language observed in simultaneous interpreters in the process of interpreting. She argues that cognitively “linguistic transfer can be both intra- and inter-lingual; it may affect the syntax, grammar, lexicon, phonetics, phonology, and so on of a speaker” (p. 69). Phonologically, based on previous studies done by other scholars, Stachowiak-Szymczak assumes that listeners prefer a native accent. Her study focuses on the phonological dimension of 188
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the interpreter. She investigates how the two phonological features, voice onset time (Note by the author: the length of time that passes between the voiceless stop release and the onset of voicing) and linguistic rhythm, may “undergo transfer during simultaneous (inter-lingual) interpreting from the interpreters’ foreign language to their mother tongue” (p. 67). There were 40 professional interpreters whose first language was Polish and English was second language involved in the study. Stachowiak-Szymczak found that “phonological changes in L1 occurring when bidirectional interpreters work in the simultaneous mode and interpret from L2 to L1” (p. 85). However, whether this type of transfer have impacts on the quality of the interpretation and whether the transfer may affect listeners’ understanding of the text and their level of comfort remain to be investigated. Beyond the linguistic dimension involved in the process of translation and interpretation, Szpak, Alves, and Buchweitz (2021) argue that there are always conventional meaning and speaker meaning in utterances. Conventional meaning (i.e. natural meaning) is irrelevant to the context and time of the utterance, whereas speaker meaning (i.e. non-natural meaning) “implies how a speaker, in a particular context, intends to use certain terms” (p. 133).
Perspective Taking in Translation Szpak, et al, (2021) argue that translation studies on speaker meanings tend to explore at textual, communicative, and cognitive levels. “These discussions have brought forth an understanding that translation involves… the representation of the intentions of others” (p. 134). These same authors further use Grice’s concepts of conversational maxim and implicatures to argue that a translator, while working on the translating task, needs to present the perspective of the author of the source text. The results of their study shows that “translation engages an area associated with semantic memory and semantic retrieval, [that is the left Superior Temporal Gyrus]” (p. 147). Szpak, et al., citing from Moser-Mercer, as saying “expert translators’ semantic interpretation ‘almost always is tied to the context of a speech or a text, whereas novices’ semantic interpretations are often entirely unrelated to sentence in a more isolated manner and fail to establish discourse links” (p. 148). Szpak, et al. (2021) discuss Grice’s concepts of expressions, and they illustrate that our utterances involve natural meaning and non-natural meaning as mentioned earlier. It is always the case that an utterance of a speaker goes 189
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beyond what the utterance can be literally interpreted. This section is devoted to the discussion of how the implicature, or the speaker’s intention, works in a bilingual translator’s mind. As Szpak, et al. (2021) point out, when “faced with an utterance, an audience needs to infer the communicative intent of the speaker on both linguistic and social levels” (p. 134). We, as normal people, are able to recognize “what the other person is thinking, feeling, or intending. …Such recognition requires the ability to represent other people’s mental states of affairs” (p. 135). This is referred to as theory of mind (ToM) by Leslie. According to Szpak, et al., our real communications are represented in two orders. The “first-order ToM enables the recognition of the speaker’s intention to inform….Second-order ToM, in contrast, enables the recognition of the speaker’s intention to make information mutually manifest….[T]his recognition is understood as an interpretative ability to represent the mental states of others” (p. 135-136). A translation process, viewed from a relevance-theoretic perspective, “is an activity that involves both the descriptive and the interpretive use of language….[T]ranslators, in addition to encoding items and the communicative cues related to them, should reflect on how people represent states of affairs in their cognitive environments” (Szpak, et al., p. 137). In other words, translation needs to take others’ perspectives into consideration. Szpak, et al. (2021) conclude that “[p]erspective taking was observed in reading tasks but not in translation tasks, revealing a novice-like cognitive behavior in which translation is driven by low-level, micro-contextual plans” (p. 148). However, in an era of globalization and as the advancing of technology, one might argue that it is possible that we no longer need human translation and interpretation. We can resort to machine translation and it will save a considerable time and energy to work on the translation task. However, some argue that machine will never take the place of human beings working on the task of translation and interpretation. In the following section, we will discuss the arguments underlying this issue. López and Alarcón’s (2021) raise a question of whether translators can be judged by their intelligence. The results of their study show that translation quality and creativity are most strongly associated with abstract reasoning, and spelling ability of all of the seven cognitive abilities….[G]eneral intelligence was shown to be related to translation quality and creativity, [and translators’] attentional and concentration styles were found to be related to both translation accuracy and creativity (p. 111-112). 190
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López and Alarcón (2021) conclude that there are various factors that might affect the quality of translation, including the translator’s abstract reasoning, concentration, and his or her cognitive abilities. These factors “seemed to play a key role not only in the number of mistakes and overall quality of the target texts but also in the novelty of the solutions and the achievement of an adequate rhetorical style” (p. 112). In addition to mastery of the languages, they suggest that logical reasoning and concentration skills need to be added to translators’ training programs.
Machine Translation vs. Multimodal Translation Modern technology advancements have led to a new issue for discussion in the field of translation and interpretation: machine translation (MT). Many people praise it for its convenience, especially the invention of neural MT, which is claimed to be more human-like. Is that to say MT will replace human translation and interpretation? As Halverson and Martin (2021) have made it clear, “we are dealing with dynamic social events and not with stable natural entities” (p. 2). In modern societies and in an era of globalization, we even have to integrate multisensory and multimodal inputs in the process of translating or interpreting either in personal conversations or in public speeches. As far as the dynamic feature of social events is concerned, translators and interpreters must be aware of the “different attributes and understandings in different areas of our little planet” (p. 3). According to Halverson and Martin, it is fictitious that there is “a zero degree of divergence…between the expectations and abilities of audiences speaking different languages” (p. 3). It is overgeneralized if we assume that the expectations and abilities of audiences speaking different languages are the same. Speaking of MT, Halverson and Martin (2021) conclude that “MT is quite good for some language pairs but has not yet reached parity with human translators; nor it is expected to do so in the immediate future” (p. 4). On the other hand, Halverson and Martin (2021) speak of the development of the multimodal forms of communication and call the trend of translation and interpretation multilectal mediated communication. They provide examples such as interpreting with written text…, sight translation…, sign-language interpreting,…audio description… and remote interpreting” (p. 5). As a result, they claim that the distinction between translation and interpretation actually got blurred. Halverson and Martin claim that translation and interpretation “share a number of key cognitive and neurocognitive characteristics, [and]… 191
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binding, which is a cognitive mechanism by which input from different sensory modalities is cognitively brought together to create a unitary representation” (p. 5). As pointed out by Doherty (2021), in an era of globalization, the trend of translation and interpretation can be seen moving toward audiovisual translation, featuring integration of multisensory stimulated by multimodal sources. As the field of translation and interpretation is threatened by the availability of new tools, such as “manual or semi- and fully automated subtitling and captioning software, speech-to-text systems, and (neural) machine translation,” (p. 166), Doherty calls for studies from cognitive load theory, which is high-ecological valid and real-world contextualized. Now let us turn the discussion of machine translation to the domain of personal language learning. Slatyer and Forget (2020) discuss machine translation from a language learning perspective. They recount the development of machine translation, ranging from rules-based machine translation to the most-recently developed neural machine translation. The developments have been driven by users’ needs and are reflected on various translation apps. Based on various research studies on the effectiveness of machine translation, Slatyer and Forget conclude with benefits and drawbacks of language learning with translation apps. They claim that translation apps do provide language learners with “fast access to the information they are searching for and can use it straightway” (p, 451). However, they remind us of the fact translation apps “were not designed as language-learning tools….The may therefore introduce errors that the language learner, especially the beginner, will have difficulty identifying” (p. 452)
CONCLUSION This chapter discusses bilinguality from a socio-linguistic perspective. Language varieties and dialects are being developed as a result of globalization. In the case of English, native speakers of English are outnumbered by second language speakers of English around the globe. The term ‘world Englishes’ means that speakers of an English variety can claim ownership of that variety. Being able to speak more than one language or language varieties may facilitate bilinguals’ code-switching, code-mixing, or translanguing in their communication in societies. Switching between two or more languages cannot be viewed as deficit or incompetence of the bilingual’s knowledge of language; rather, it is the way bilinguals show their intimacy and friendship 192
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with communication participants. In the classroom, teachers may practice translanguaging to stimulate students’ creativity and motivate their interests in language learning. Finally, translation and interpretation are also commonly practiced among bilinguals. In the process of translation or interpretation, speakers’ or writers’ emotions and perspectives should be taken into consideration; especially in an information age and an era of globalization, communications tend to be multimodal and machine may not be able to fully take the place of human beings in the tasks.
REFERENCES Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th ed.). Multilingual Matters. Barjesteh, H., Ardestani, E. M., Manoochehrzadeh, M., & Heidarzadi, M. (2022). Trands in second language acquisition. Society Publishing. Bernstein, K. A. (2020). (Re)defining success in language learning: Positioning, participation and young emergent bilinguals at school. Multilingual Matters. Christianson, K., & Deshaies, S. (2020). Learning languages in informal environments: Some cognitive considerations. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 27–37). John Wiley & Sons. Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2019). Using linguistically appropriate practice: A guide for teaching in multilingual classrooms. Multilingual Matters. Doherty, S. (2021). Multisensory integration in audiovisual translation. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 155–170). Routledge. Edwards, J. (2009). Language and identity. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/ CBO9780511809842 Evans, D. (2018). Cultural discourses in the foreign language classroom: Economic opportunity, instrumental motivation or cultural understanding. In D. Evans (Ed.), Language, identity and symbolic cultural (pp. 219–225). Bloomsbury Academic. Field, F. (2011). Bilingualism in the USA: The case of the Chicano-Latino community. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075ibil.44 193
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Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. John Wiley & Sons. Garcia, O., & Lin, A. M. Y. (2017). Translanguaging in bilingual education. In O. Garcia, A. M. Y. Lin, & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education (3rd ed., pp. 117–130). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02258-1_9 Garcia, O., & Wei, L. (2015). Translanguaging, bilingualism, and bilingual education. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 223–240). John Wiley & Sons. Halverson, S., & Martin, R. M. (2021). The times, they are a-changin’: Multilingual mediated communication and cognition. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 1–17). Routledge. Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (1989). Bilinguality & bilingualism. Cambridge UP. Hanci-Azizoglu, E. B. (2022). Bilinguals’ semantic transfer across languages. In S. E. DeCapua & E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu (Eds.), Global and transformative approaches toward Linguistic diversity (pp. 1–21). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-8985-4.ch001 Holmes, J., & Wilson, N. (2017). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315728438 Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40(2), 281–308. doi:10.2307/40264518 Kharchenko, N. (2022). Translanguaging as a heritage language maintenance strategy. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 84–98). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch006 Lee, J. W. (2022). Locating translingualism. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781009105361 Lehr, C., & Hvelplund, K. T. (2021). Emotional experts: Influences of emotion on the allocation of cognitive resources during translation. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 44–68). Routledge. 194
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López, A. M. R., & Alarcón, C. M. A. (2021). Can translators be Judged by their intelligence?: A study on the impact of cognitive abilities on translation performance. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 90–112). Routledge. McCarthey, S. J., Nuñez, I., & Lee, C. (2020). Translanguaging across contexts. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 351–367). John Wiley & Sons. Menyuk, P., & Brisk, M. E. (2005). Language development and education: Children with varying language experiences. Palgrave Macmilian. doi:10.1057/9780230504325 Mesthrie, R. (2010). Sociolinguistics and sociology of language. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 66–82). John Wiley & Sons. Pallier, C. (2010). Cerebral imaging and individual differences in language learning. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 299–305). John Benjamins Publishing. doi:10.1075/lald.52.20pal Plevoets, K., & Defrancq, B. (2021). Imported load in simultaneous interpreting: An assessment. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 18–43). Routledge. Reiterer, S. (2010). The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism: Factors that matter in L2 acquisition—A neuro-cognitive perspective. In M. Kail & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems (pp. 307–321). John Benjamins Publishing. doi:10.1075/lald.52.21rei Ritchie, W. C., & Bhatia, T. K. (2010). Psycholinguistics. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of education linguistics (pp. 38–52). John Willey & Sons. Rose, H., Syrbe, M., Montakantiwong, A., & Funada, N. (2020). Global TESOL for the 21st Century: Teaching English in a changing world. Multilingual Matters. Scales, J., Wennerstrom, A., Richard, D., & Wu, S. H. (2006). Language learners’ perceptions of accent. TESOL Quarterly, 40(4), 715–737. doi:10.2307/40264305 195
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Slatyer, H., & Forget, S. (2020). In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 441–456). John Wiley & Sons. Smith, M. S. (2017). Introducing language and cognition: A map of the mind. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781316591505 Smith, M. S., & Truscott, J. (2014). The multilingual mind: A modular processing perspective. Cambridge UP. Stachowiak-Szymczak, K. (2021). Voice onset time and rhythm transfer in simultaneous interpreting. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 69–89). Routledge. fcd. Szpak, K. S., Alves, F., & Buchweitz, A. (2021). Perspective taking in translation: In search of neural correlates of representing and attributing mental states to others. In R. M. Martin & S. L. Halverson (Eds.), Multilingual mediated communication and cognition (pp. 133–154). Routledge. Wang-Hiles, L. (2022). Two languages, one self: The story of my bilingual journey. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 152–167). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch010 Zuengler, J., & Miller, E. R. (2006). Cognitive and sociocultural perspectives: Two parallel SLA worlds? TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 35–58. doi:10.2307/40264510
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Orientations Toward Bilingual Education ABSTRACT In this chapter, the author first defines different orientations of bilingual education programs around the globe based on a nation or region’s historical background, people’s needs, and the status quo viewed from political, societal, economical, and other factors. Different orientations toward bilingual education may include those focusing on maintenance of minority or indigenous languages, focusing on restructuring language policies after independence, focusing on maintaining or expanding existing bilingualism, and focusing on promoting English in an era of globalization. The discussion of different orientations toward bilingual education is then followed by discussions of ideologies behind the structuring of bilingual education.
INTRODUCTION The third part of this volume is devoted to the discussion of bilingual education. The practices of bilingual education are derived and based on the theories of bilingualism and bilinguality discussed in the previous two parts of this volume. In this part, I first briefly classified the bilingual education or language programs practiced in the globe into four different orientations or different focuses, and then I explore cases of bilingual education practiced in different parts of the world in the next chapter. However, readers should be reminded that ‘bilingual education’ here in the part of this volume does DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch007 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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not necessarily mean language education in a formal educational setting. Rather, it broadly refers to and covers any language teaching programs, be it indigenous languages, mainstream languages, or English as a global language, in formal or informal settings, and these programs may be only representatives of a particular area or region. Holmes and Wilson (2017) term ‘bilingual education’ as part of acquisition planning or language-in-education planning. According to them, issues relevant to language education may involve promotion of and access to language programs, teaching materials and methods, and evaluation of the programs. Although this part is termed ‘Bilingual Education,’ as I read relevant literature, I realized that the term is too simplified. The development of a language program and the decision made on language education planned by the government are dependent on various social, historical, political, economical, religious, and educational factors. As argued by Inglis (2003), “the debates [over multicultural education] are actually very specific to countries and their education system for there is no agreed definition of what constitutes ‘multicultural education’” (p. 134). Likewise, Flores and Beardsmore (2015) also state that “[b]ilingual education programs serve many functions in the societies where they exist” (p. 207). They roughly differentiate the nature of bilingual education into two different functions it serves: “the basic function that they serve for language-majority versus the basic function that they serve for language-minoritized populations” (p. 205). Drawing on the sense that bilingual education or programs serve different functions in different areas or countries, I find it useful to discuss bilingual education based on four different focuses: (1) focusing on maintenance of minority or indigenous languages, (2) focusing on restructuring language policy after the era of colonization, (3) focusing on maintaining and promoting existing bilingualism, and (4) focusing on promoting English in an era of globalization. In this chapter, I mainly discuss the four different orientations toward bilingual education practiced by different countries around the globe. Those states or countries focusing their bilingual education on maintenance of minority or indigenous languages are said to be multilingual and multicultural in nature. For some historical, political, economical or religious reasons, these countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom are ethnically diverse, and they accommodate immigrants, refugees, foreign workers, and students from different parts of the globe. Their main tasks of language planning and bilingual education are to maintain the languages and
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cultures of minority, immigrant, and indigenous groups and to develop an equal society. Other countries, such as South Africa and some other African countries, had a history of being colonized by English-speaking colonizers and were forced to replace their indigenous languages with English or other dominant languages. After their independence from the colonizer, they may need to consider their new national identity and restructure their language policy. Still other countries that have long been developing their multilingual and multicultural societies might want to maintain their status quo and keep encouraging and facilitating people’s language learning, and, most importantly, making use of their language skills in an era of globalization to participate in the global community. Typical of these countries are members of European Union. Finally, there are countries that are less ethnically diverse. For them, bilingual education means teaching and learning of their state language and English as an international language. Their prioritized task is to promote English in order for their people to be able to connect with the entire globe and to benefit the country politically, economically, and technologically. China, Taiwan and some other Asian countries can be seen as representatives orienting to this type of bilingual education. These roughly classified different orientations toward bilingual education in different countries may be helpful in understanding the underlying politics for a country to structure its bilingual education. However, we need to be very cautious that different orientations toward bilingual education cannot be seen as mutually exclusive within a country. That is to say, a country may apply different types of bilingual education in different areas of the country, depending on the situations of specific areas. Furthermore, ‘bilingual education’ here in this chapter and in the third part of this volume is an umbrella term; it may just refer to a single language program or language ideology that leads to the decision of language policies, and, most importantly, it refers to two or more languages rather than limits itself to two languages. Aside from different orientations toward bilingual education, Raihani (2014), on the other hand, discusses two dimensions of multicultural education: the development of understanding cultural diversity and the creation of school environment for students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds to experience equally good quality education. The first dimension focuses on rising students’ understanding of cultural differences by developing appropriate curriculum that address cultural diversity and develop students’ critical judgments on “different cultures, religions, ways of life, societies, and so forth” (p. 34). The second dimension aims at creating a multilingual school environment that “every student—regardless of race, culture, religion, 200
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gender, and class—is provided an equal opportunity to develop his or her potential” (p. 34). This can mean that schools need to employ multicultural perspectives in different areas of practice, such as “hidden curriculum, institutional norms, school policy, the counseling program, assessment and testing procedures, the formalised course of study, teaching methods and materials, and the attitudes and expectations of the school staff” (p. 34). Raihani’s perspective can mean that bilingual education goes beyond the teaching and learning of language and is actually aimed at creating a bilingual or multilingual society in which people of different ethnic groups can interact and communicate peacefully and respectfully. As mentioned above, different countries or areas may have different situations in terms of structuring their bilingual education. In the following section, I will discuss different orientations toward bilingual education or bilingual programs based on the different situations mentioned above.
ORIENTATIONS TOWARD BILINGUAL EDUCATION In an era of globalization, the quantitative and qualitative changes in and causes of international migration has complicated multilingual and multicultural education even more. As mentioned early at the beginning of this volume, a particular type of bilingual education or language program may be good for a particular group of children or adult learners but not for others, and may be good for the situation of a particular country and may not be appropriate for another country or in another situation. In discussing educational issues in multicultural societies, Inglis (2003) suggests three types of society: the newly independent former colonies in Asia and elsewhere, the old immigrant societies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA, and in Europe where the idea of the nation-state had been a defining feature of society since the nineteenth century. (p. 135) In the case of newly independent former colonies, “the departure of the colonial power necessitated extensive political, economic and social change of the colonial administrative and institutional structures” (Inglis, 2003, p. 136). For these countries, the “challenge in the post-colonial period for policy makers was to bring together into a new state very different interests and ethnic groups…, [being] able to incorporate diverse ethnic groups in a socially cohesive manner” (Inglis, 2003, p. 136). Language, as one might 201
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imagine, is a critical element relevant to one’s identity and power. An awkward phenomenon found in newly independent former colonies is that while “symbolic and emotional attachment to mother tongues played an important part, even more critical for many involved in the debates was the way in which access to the national language(s) would directly influence access to political and economic power” (Inglis, 2003, p. 136). For these countries, in reality, they tended to develop programs that emphasize commitment to the state, rather than addressing issues of potential concern to immigrants such as supporting their distinctive culture or ensuring equality….[D]ebates about the educational needs of immigrants’ children rarely concern the children of recent immigrants. Instead, issues addressing diversity now typically involve provisions for citizens, educated in the national language and growing up not in a colony but in a formally unified nation (Inglis, 2003, p. 137). For those old immigrant societies, according to Inglis (2003), they may confront different issues and require different strategies to deal with them. In the case of Australia, after World War II, they needed to attract sufficient immigrates in their economic reconstruction tasks. They could no longer stick to their White Australia Policy, and hence resort to immigrants from Asian countries. To accommodate non-native English speaking immigrants, Australia sensed “a need for schools to make some provision for children, …,[given the fact that Australia is a country] where one-quarter of the population is overseas born” (p. 137-138). In the case of Australia and Canada, they employed a socalled ‘integrated multiculturalism’ that concerns “issues surrounding cultural maintenance and the retention of identity as well as equitable outcomes…; [whereas the United States] focuses on issues of cultural maintenance while ignoring issues of equality” (p. 138). In the case of European Nation-States, “Western European states ended World War Two strongly committed to their identity as nation states….[T] his has meant that immigrant, who come from outside the ‘nation,’ find it extremely difficult to gain citizenship or …seek recognition of education needs” (Inglis, 2003, p. 138). In the 1960s, when they worked on their economic rebuilding, Western European countries “recruited large numbers of labour migrants …to compensate for shortages in their labour markets” (Inglis, 2003, p. 138). However, once the shortage disappeared, European governments sought the emigration of the migrants. In the 1990s, “substantial numbers of refugees and illegal immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia continue to arrive in Europe” (Inglis, 2003, p. 139). When it 202
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comes to mother tongue education, European Union member states have long agreed upon that “schools must provide for the children’s access to mother tongue language education….[A]nti-racism education is also an important issue in many European countries although the issue of educational equality receives lower priority in much of the public debate” (Inglis, 2003, p. 139). Yet, there are still countries that may not fit into the above-mentioned categories, such as some non-English speaking countries in Asia or the Gulf. They may not have a colonial history and may not ethnically or culturally diverse. However, in an era of globalization, these countries cannot get away from the global wave of various types of mobility. In order to be able to communicate with people from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds, teaching and learning English can reach the immediate goal. It is thus useful to categorize the so-called bilingual education into four quite different orientations of practice: focusing on maintaining minority or indigenous languages, restructuring national language policy after declaring independence, promoting English as a global language, and sustaining an existing bilingual or multilingual society. It is thus apparent that bilingual education may mean differently for countries with different focuses as illustrated in the following subsections.
Focusing on Maintenance of Minority or Indigenous Languages The United States can be a salient example of this category. According to McCormick (2022), “[t]he United States has a long history as a country of migrants, beginning with its original British colonists, followed in the mid19th century by northern Europeans” (p. 260). For highly multilingual areas, such as the United States, in the globe, there are different ways of classifying bilingual education. As cited by Hamers and Blanc (1989), Fishman and Lovas categorize bilingual education programs based on their intensity, goal, and status. First, bilingual education programs can be classified according to the intensity of the two languages in the instruction. Among them, in transitional bilingualism, L1 is used only to assist the transition to the second language; whereas mono-literate bilingualism only uses L2 to develop children’s literacy skills although the two languages are used in all activities in the school. In partial bi-literate bilingualism, L1 and L2 are used both orally and for writing, but L1 is used for cultural subjects whereas L2 is used in science, technology,
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and economics courses. Finally, total bi-literate bilingualism equally develops the two languages in all domains for all abilities. The second category described by Fishman and Lovas is goal, in which bilingual education programs is categorized by the goal of the program. For example, in the compensatory programs, “the child is first schooled in his mother tongue in order to be better integrated into the mainstream education” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 190); whereas enrichment programs aim at developing majority children’s bilinguality by an additive language. Still another form of goal-oriented bilingual program is group-maintenance program, “in which the language and culture of the minority child are preserved and enhanced” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 190). Finally, bilingual education programs are classified according to the status of the two languages, including “primary importance vs. secondary importance, home language vs. school language, major world language vs. minor language, and institutionalized vs. non-institutionalized language in the community” (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 190). Hamers and Blanc (1989) briefly demonstrate a number of bilingual programs practiced mainly in the United States. They conclude that these bilingual programs “all deal with potentially highly subtractive contexts; all make use of the mother tongue for formal education, either simultaneously with the dominant language, or before instruction is given in the dominant language” (p. 208). Garcia (2009), on the other hand, views bilingual education from its language ideology, linguistic goal, and types of practice and she classifies types of bilingual education into four types: subtractive, additive, recursive, and dynamic bilingual education. In subtractive bilingual education, advocates hold a monoglossic ideology that considers “a second language and its development as separate from that of the other language” (p. 123). The goal of this type of bilingual education actually aims at students’ eventual achievement of the mainstream language. Thus, this type of bilingual education can be seen as gradually moving from the minority language to the mainstream language as medium of instruction. Unlike the subtractive type of bilingual education, the additive bilingual education intends to maintain minority groups’ heritage languages and promote the mainstream language to develop students’ bilingual competencies. Unlike subtractive and additive bilingual education, recursive
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bilingual education holds a heteroglossic language ideology. Advocates of recursive bilingual education believe that many children come from homes and communities that have some familiarity with bilingualism….[They] do not start out as monolinguals, but have access to diverse language practices….These bilingual education types recognize that even within a single speech community, there is much diversity of language practices (p. 127). The recursive type of bilingual education tends to have children immersed in their home language or heritage language at their early stage or later stage of their schooling. Finally, the dynamic type of bilingual education also views language as heteroglossic with a goal to develop bilingualism. Advocates of dynamic type of bilingual education see language use as dynamic and polydirectional or two-way immersion. The most apparent way of practicing this type of bilingual education is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). This type of bilingual education is supported and promoted by the European Commission. The CLIL-type bilingual education includes all children in the learning of an additional language and builds flexibility in its conception of bilingualism. It does not require equal time for the two languages, nor does it call for ‘native-like’ proficiency of bilingual teachers or bilingual children (Garcia, 2009, p. 130). The case of United States is used as an example to illustrate how bilingual education focusing on minority and immigrant gropes is because the United States is known for its cultural diversity and has developed different types of bilingual education. However, in its history, bilingual education is heatedly debated, both favoring minority groups’ rights and insisting on English-only is the way to go. The ideologies underlying the language policies and practices may play an important role.
Focusing on Restructuring Language Policy Another orientation toward bilingual education can be found in newly independent countries. In the post-colonial era, newly independent countries were required to restructure their language policies to establish their new national identities. “While some societies have continued to use the former 205
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colonial language as the main medium with some bilingual instruction…, others have adopted a local language at least for primary education” (Shin & Kubota, 2010, p. 213). In fact, these newly independent countries were facing challenges in formulating their language policies. As Shin and Kubota (2010) point out, persisting to use the colonial language as the medium of instruction would continue to privilege elites, while the urge of globalization “has elevated the perceived importance of the colonial language, especially English” (p. 213). As described by McCormick (2022), in some points of the history the state system has been seen expanded globally. For example, “after 1945 as a result of the dismantling of their empires by European states exhausted by war, …nearly 90 new states…emerged in Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and Pacific” (P. 91). Another salient example can be seen in the case of the collapse communism in 1990s. “This led to the break-up of the Soviet Union into 15 successor states, including Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. It also meant new freedom for more than a dozen Soviet’ satellites in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Poland” (p. 92). Other cases can be seen in “the break-up of Sudan, the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia and of East Timor from Indonesia” (p. 92). For these newly independent countries, on the one hand, they need to maintain indigenous languages of each ethnic group to secure their languages and cultures and to establish their national identity. However, it might be seen as impeding integration and unification of the country and it may cause conflicts among different ethnic groups to compete for recognition of their indigenous languages. On the other hand, maintaining the colonial language may be considered as being able to facilitate the integration and unification of the newly independent country, but it might fail to claim a national identity. In the case of Tanzania, as recounted by Kangalawa (2022), the country was colonized by German in 1890-1920 and was British colony in 1920-1961. After their independence in 1961, Tanzanians people had different opinions of languages used as media of instruction. As pointed out by Kangalawe, “Tanzania is one of the countries of East Africa whose lingua franca is Swahili” (p. 96). For many Tanzanians, “Swahili was viewed in terms of overthrowing colonialism…,and as a means of fostering unity” (p. 99). However, some elite Tanzanians considered applying Swahili in the classroom as a medium of instruction to be localizing and destroying the education sector. They “claimed that the British education system was undoubtedly the best one worldwide” (p. 99). In the neo-liberal era, private schools were introduced in Tanzania. These schools were called ‘international schools’, and they used English as the medium of instruction. They had attracted a considerable number of 206
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parents, both poor and rich, to send their children to these schools. At this point, according to Kangalawa (2022), although “Swahili is more than ready to be used as the language of instruction up to university level, the state is still ambivalent on the wholehearted use of Swahili” (p. 101). The examples of African countries mentioned above are typical of those countries desperately needed to restructure their language policies after their independence.
Focusing on Maintaining and Promoting Existing Bilingualism Some states or regions in the globe already appear to be bilingual or multilingual. The most salient examples of an orientation toward bilingual education to maintain and promote their existing bilingualism can be found in European countries. Cenoz and Gorter (2015) state that multilingualism “has a long tradition in the European context. Many years ago, during the Roman Empire, Latin was already in contact with other languages and some institutions were multilingual” (p. 473). For many European countries, especially member states of European Union (EU), bilingual or multilingual education can mean “the teaching of minority languages, state languages, and English as school subjects and/or languages of instruction” (p. 473). Cenoz and Gorter further state that the European Union defines multilingualism as ‘the ability of societies, institutions, groups and individuals to engage, on a regular basis, with more than one language in their day-to-day lives’ (p. 475). That is to say, multilingualism has been greatly promoted by EU at both the individual and the social levels. In the case of European countries, there is a hierarchy of languages, with English on the top as an international language, then respectively come the four widely used languages, namely French, German, Russian, and Spanish. These languages are followed by the remaining official state languages. Languages which are not originally from Europe and which are used for trade purposes are positioned in the next layer of the hierarchy. Finally, the last layer includes regional and immigrant minority languages as well as sign languages. In the case of “European Schools, which are controlled by the governments of the European Union states… [and which are] attended mainly by the children of European civil servants in seven countries” (p. 474) offered four to twelve languages. According to Cenoz and Gorter (2015), one of the challenges faced by multilingual education in Europe is that “English is so predominant that other languages may not be any longer learned in the near future” (p. 480). They 207
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point out that “the learning of European languages other than English has decreased in some countries” (p. 480). Cenoz and Gorter suggest that different languages should be integrated in the curriculum “so that learners can apply what they learn in one language to other languages” (p. 481). They envision the future of multilingualism in Europe should “go beyond the isolation of the different languages into models that accommodate the integration of the different languages in the curriculum” (p. 481).
Focusing on Promoting English in an Era of Globalization In an era of globalization, there are still countries whose priority at least for the time being may be promoting the English language in order for their nationals to be able to participate in the global community, given the reality of the dominance of English currently in the globe. For these countries such as Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan, bilingual education can mean teaching of the state language and English. Promoting teaching and learning of English can be one way to let their voices heard globally. Lee (2020) describes how linguistically Korea was moving from a colonized state toward a member of a globalized world. According to him, Korea’s first modern English school was established in 1883, mostly for nobleman and government officers. During the Japanese Colonial Period (1910-1945), native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) were replaced with Japanese instructors, weakening the status of English language….After independence in 1945, the US military settled in Korea, making English the primary foreign language….In the 1950s and 1960s, Koreans with proficiency in English occupied a high social standing, so many elites wanted to study at an American university….In 1994, the Korean government placed a significant emphasis on the English language in an effort to globalize Korea” (p. 290). However, promoting teaching and learning of English can be complicated in some way, given the different conditions existing in different countries and changes in perceptions of English. In this section, I will first discuss how the English language is viewed in an era of globalization. As a result of globalization, English has been undergone various changes in terms of the language itself, perception of its ownership, and the way to teach and learn the language. Rose et al. (2020) illustrate at least four paradigms currently prevailing in the field of teaching and learning of English: World Englishes, English as a lingua franca, Global Englishes, and English as an 208
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international language. Basically speaking, the paradigm of World Englishes “was mainly concerned with exploring linguistic variation in English used around the world, with a particular emphasis on phonological and grammatical variation of English in British post-colonial countries” (p. 6). Within this paradigm, Kachru’s Three Circle model can be seen as the most influential one. This model categorizes all English varieties into three circles: the Inner Circle, referring to countries in which English is used as a native language such as the United States and the United Kingdom; the Outer Circle, referring to those countries in which English is used as a second language with their national languages as the first language in the colonial era such as India and Singapore; and the Expanding Circle, referring to those countries whose nationals learn English as a foreign language such as China and Germany. Although Kachru’s model had received different criticisms, given the global reality of increasing growing population and information mobility, Rose et al. (2020) assert that World English research has emphasized the need for students to develop an awareness that speakers of English today adhere to a diverse range of grammatical and phonological norms. Thus, an education that seeks to only teach one standard of English might not prepare students to use the language with the majority of its speakers….[It] also helped to establish the legitimacy of a number of English varieties, and seeks to empower L2 users of the language as not needing to adhere to so-called ‘native’ English norms (p. 8-9) The second paradigm, English as a lingua franca (ELF), “sought to explore how English was used in dynamic and fluid global contexts, where speakers of different first language (L1s) used English for communication purposes” (Rose et al., 2020, p. 9). In the early stage of research on English as a lingua franca, researchers applied corpus studies, expecting that some patterns would emerge across diverse contexts. Findings have shown that this approach is problematic, and it is impossible to codify “patterns and features of English use in …diverse contexts” (Rose et al., 2020, p. 9). Researchers then “emphasized a fluidity or norms in each ELF communications….Because of its focus on dynamism and variability, much ELF research conducted in the late 2000s and early 2010s explored the way in which speakers used English to communicate” (Rose et al., 2020, p. 9).
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The third paradigm, Global Englishes, is used to “describe the global spread and use of a diversity of Englishes as part of larger globalisation processes” (Rose et al., 2020, p. 10). Researchers of Global Englishes challenge the ideologies viewed traditionally. They do not focus “on codifying varieties of English at all, thus moving beyond state-based and community-based contrast of language…[and challenge] the very boundaries between varieties, languages and communities” (p. 9). Global Englishes advocates do not consider that the aim of learners of English is to use the language to communicate with native English speakers; rather, “users reconstitute English for their local purposes” (p. 10). Finally, Rose et al. (2020) discuss the one termed English as an international language. They explain that English as an international language (EIL) as a field of study has largely focused on the implication of the spread of English rather than the language itself….EIL scholars are particularly interested in the sociolinguistic, political, economic and educational implications for the global spread of English (p. 11). That is to say, researchers of EIL embody “a pragmatic perspective…. [and they] eliminate traditional distinctions between English as a Native, Second, Foreign and Additional Language…, as these distinctions are seen as increasingly irrelevant to today’s globally integrated world” (p. 11). Based on the concept of EIL, Rose et al. (2020) then discuss the materials used to teach English as an international language. Although they view materials in language teaching and learning can be anything that facilitate language learning, ranging “from commercially designed textbooks to realworld materials such as restaurant menus to movie tickets, …[they consider the textbook is] a major source of exposure to English in the ELT classrooms and information about the language” (p. 62-63). In choosing and developing materials for teaching English as an international language, these authors introduce some key concepts, including authenticity, hidden curriculum, and flexibility. First, they consider “to what extent the materials used in ELT represent or mirror real-world English and English use,…whether or not the materials truly depict the diversity of the English language, its speakers and language use tasks and contexts” (p. 63). In addition, Rose, et al., also draw language educators’ attention to the fact of hidden curriculum, referring
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to “the idea that textbooks and other materials have underlying norms and assumptions which are communicated to the students” (p. 63-64). In the paradigm of EIL, the authors especially ask language teachers to examine whether teaching materials have an underlying structure that is shaped by the Inner Circle norms and standards of English use….[They argue that materials] based on the native speaker model are likely to foster strong attachment to so-called standard language ideology, which is not conductive to using EIL with a variety of speakers (p. 63-64). Rose et al. (2020) also argue for the term ‘flexibility.’ For them, being flexible in using the materials does not only mean having the “ability to adapt and appropriate materials” (p. 64). Rather, it means that language teachers should be able to make use of guided evaluation to increase their knowledge of materials. To evaluate materials, these authors provide some elements that should be taken into consideration in the process, including checking whether pluricentric language is used, whether “a range of different speakers from diverse linguistic backgrounds at different levels of competence” (p. 67) are included, whether the materials “display language use situations that highlight English medium interaction between Outer Circle and Expanding Circle speakers” (p. 68), whether the materials include speakers from diverse cultural backgrounds, and whether the materials “focus on developing multiple forms of competency” (p, 71). Oxford (2021), on the other hand, views teaching English in the TESOL field from a transformative perspective. She illustrates Mezirow’s cognitiveanalytic approach and Dirkx’s emotional-integrative approach to transformative language learning and teaching and concludes that both the two approaches are useful in transformative teaching and learning and can be integrated to attain the teaching and learning goal. Oxford explains that Mezirow noted that ten phases in the perspective transformation process included experiencing a disorienting dilemma; examining one’s own assumptions; critically assessing the assumptions; recognizing dissatisfaction and its sources; exploring alternatives (i.e. new role options); planning a course of action; acquiring new knowledge; trying out new roles; building competence; and integrating the new perspective into one’s life (p. 24).
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Mezirow’s approach is cognitive in nature and was criticized as ignoring emotions and not taking social forces such as “ideology, race, class, gender, and power [into account as to how they might] affect the individual or vice versa” (Oxford, 2021, p. 25). Like Oxford (2021), Leaver (2021) also advocate of the new paradigm of transformative approach of language learning and teaching. She describes that transformative approach pulled learners from their seats and onto center stage, while the teacher became the ‘guide on side.’ Acquisition of knowledge was replaced with skill development, or the ability to use the language to do things….Tasks replaced exercises….Tests required examinees to complete a task, not to reproduce a rule (p. 16). Another approach discussed in Oxford’s (2021) article is Dirkx’s emotional-integrative approach. Strongly influenced by depth psychology, which “emphasizes relational, emotional, and largely unconscious issues associated with development of the individual, interpersonal interactions, and social development…[and] which involves imaginatively elaborating the meaning of emotions in human lives, rather than dissecting emotions with reason” (Oxford, 2021, p. 26-27). The activities involved in this approach first required students to describe an emotion-laden image, including the context and people relevant relationships involved. Then students try to associate the image with their past experiences, and they make “use of popular culture, literature, and mythology to expand the meaning of the original image from the personal to the transpersonal, thus tapping the collective myth” (Oxford, 2021, p. 27). Finally, students animate the image and interact with it by having a two-way communication between the person and the personified image. Dirkx’ approach thus “moves from the personal to the collective, including cultural aspects….since language is social practice, culture is at the very heart of language teaching and learning” (Oxford, 2021, p. 27). Presenting the two approaches, Oxford (2021) argues that the twain can and shall meet. Mezirow’s tends to be cognitive, while Dirkx’s is inclined to be emotional. Oxford explains that the “human brain is emotional…, as well as cognitive ….[e]motions and cognition help us understand complicated things and solve complex problems….Emotion and cognition are complex systems that closely and necessarily interact” (p. 29-30). Applying the two approaches aiming at transforming teaching and learning of English in the TESOL field in an era of globalization, teachers of English require the ability to motivate 212
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students to critically think, compare, analyze, evaluate, and integrate different languages and their cultures, using both their emotion and logical reasoning. Their immediate environments may not be so diverse; however, students need to be prepared for the impact of globalization. Please note that the above-mentioned different focuses on language planning and different perspectives on teaching and learning of English in an era of globalization are not absolute or mutually exclusive. Depending on the individual country’s historical background and the status quo, people’s needs and expectations, requirement for political and economical developments, and the trends of globalization, its language planning may have different focuses simultaneously or practiced in different parts of the country. However, one thing for sure is that there are always ideologies behind language education. Having discussed how English is viewed from different perspectives, we may need to know the motives behind governments to decide on their language policy.
IDEOLOGIES BEHIND STRUCTURING BILINGUAL EDUCATION Torricelli (2021) describes ideology as ‘science of vision’ and she stresses that same “things do not have the same meaning for everyone” (p. 32). The same is true when it comes to language planning and language policy. Torricelli points to the importance “of understanding between people, countries and civilizations in the modern globalized world” (p. 34). McGroarty (2010) also points out that some “political and social factors [may] shape language ideologies, the belief systems that determine language attitudes, judgments and ultimately, behavior” (p. 98). At the individual and the societal level, “all users of language and all speech communities possess ideological frameworks that determine choice, evaluation, and use of language forms and functions. Some types of ideology of language planners actually exist in the different focuses of language programs mentioned above. As Mesthrie (2010) states, “[w]hile multilingualism is not uncommon throughout the world, many schools have a policy that recognizes (and replicates) the hierarchy of relations within a territory and the world as a whole” (p. 74). He further points to the fact that “[e]ducational intervention is thus open-ended” (p. 78). Wortham (2010) also focuses his discussion on language ideology. He points out that some linguistic anthropologists of education focus more “on 213
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the power relations bound up with language and education” (p. 90). Before discussions of different cases of bilingual programs around the world, it is necessary to discuss the ideologies behind these language programs to shed lights into how historical, political, societal, and religious backgrounds may affect decision-making. Jeffcoate (2017), in his article, first points to two seemingly competing ideologies in multilingual education: liberalism and radicalism. He states that liberalism has been developed from three ideological tributaries: the Romantic libertarian tradition, which may be seen as being allied with developmental psychology and is child-centered; the Victorian meritocratic philosophy, which emphasized “positive measures to promote equal opportunity for the socially disadvantaged” (p. 162); and the democratic education, which “spoke of maximizing society’s talents and fostering rationality, considerateness and empathy…in more democratic forms of government and control” (p. 162-163). Liberalism practiced in a multicultural classroom can be seen “mixed ability grouping, integrated curricula, and collaborative and less formal methods of teaching and learning” (Jeffcoate, 2017, p. 163). In the educational environment, socially disadvantaged students are secured for equal opportunities. The multiracial school was seen “as a microcosm of a harmonious multiracial society in which children from different ethnic backgrounds work and play together as equals….[It] demonstrated the strength of the hedonistic view of education—school as a place to enjoy oneself” (Jeffcoate, 2017, p. 163). On the other hand, radicalism is described as sharing Marxist sense of ideology. “According to Marxist, the essential function of schools under capitalism is to reproduce its class structure and social divisions” (Jeffcoate, 2017, p. 164). Under this circumstance, radicalists consider that schools can “satisfy the demands of the labour market by classifying and selecting children for appropriate employment in an apparently objective manner” (Jeffcoate, 2017, p. 164). On the other hand, schools are in effect reproducing “hierarchies typical of places of work, in their patterns of authority and control” (Jeffcoate, 2017, p. 164). For radicalists, the education system should not aim at “promoting equality of opportunity, social mobility or enlightened attitudes….[Rather, it is] for maintaining the hegemony of the middle class, and for socializing working-class children into employment as industrial helots” (Jeffcoate, 2017, p. 164-165). Still there are countries that are less culturally and ethnically diverse. Promoting social and educational equality, while important, may not be their top priority. For these mostly non-English-speaking countries in Asia, they are eager to promote the English language in order for their people to be able 214
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to participate in the global community. The governments may even put more efforts in creating an English-speaking environment than in strengthening people’s basic functioning of their native languages. Many countries mandate English proficiency tests as a threshold for graduation; other countries practice English as a medium of instruction (EMI) or English for specific purposes (ESP) in the classroom despite of being proved ineffective in students’ professional learning. As Rose, et al. (2020) describe it, in China, the National College Entrance Examination has the English section “equal to the Chinese section. In Japan and South Korea, English has replaced ‘Foreign Languages’ on entrance examinations. Other countries such as Hong Kong make passing an English test compulsory to graduate high school” (p. 85). In this case, scores earned on the proficiency tests, which are designed based on the norms of native English speakers rather than on the real world situations, are considered as reflecting one’s real proficiency level. Worse yet, as a result, teachers are teaching English for preparing students to earn high scores on the exams, and students are motivated to learn English for a higher score on their exams in order to get admitted to a better school or get a better job. That is to say, language instruction is entirely exam-oriented. For these countries, social and educational inequality may lies in people’s levels of English proficiency. For example, those with higher English proficiency may have better chances in their admission to prestigious universities, searching for employment, and participating in meetings or social gatherings with people of high social-status. Better yet, they may have more fun and more confidence travelling abroad, expressing themselves in English to people around the world or publishing articles in professional journals, and gaining more information and knowledge from media presenting in English. For people in some countries, improving English proficiency may require considerable investment of time and money. It may be not enough to learn English solely in schools, given the fact that learning English as a foreign language can find little chances to communicate with native English speakers. People may need to find extra money and time to learn English outside of the school setting, especially many English learning centers are taught by native English speakers. Those with less financial sources and need to spend more time working for a living may opt for not learning English at all. Still others may feel not confident in learning English, especially those natural science majors. They feel confident in their professional learning but feel they can never learn a foreign language. Because of their English proficiency level, they are deprived of their rights to present their research accomplishments 215
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in a journal of international level. This is an area of inequality less discussed in publications. To respond to the problematic language ideology, scholars such as Garcia and Beardsmore (2009) maintain that heteroglossic ideologies, instead of monoglossic ideologies, should be used in bilingual education. Garcia and Beardsmore’s heteroglossic beliefs “view the multiple languages of bilinguals as multiple and co-existing” (p. 246). They argue that bilingualism “cannot be seen through a traditional diglossic lens” (p. 117) and propose two theoretical frameworks of bilingual education programs: recursive and dynamic. To argue for the recursive nature of bilingualism, they point out that, “depending on personal and sociohistorical circumstances, bilingualism can take different directions at various times from that of simple shift, addition, or maintenance” (p. 118). In this framework, students recapture “a lost language and culture in the context of the present and in imagining the future….[They go] back and forth between discourse modes and the bilingual continua of the community in question” (p. 118). In the dynamic framework of bilingual education, Garcia and Beardsmore argue that bilingual education programs should allow language interactions [to take] place on different planes including multimodalities and other linguistic interrelationships,...[and allow] the simultaneous coexistence of different languages in communication, [accept] translanguaging, and [support] the development of multiple linguistic identities to keep a linguistic ecology for efficiency, equity and integration, and responding to both local and global contexts (p. 118-119). Baker and Wright (2017) state that “[e]ducation for bilingual students is impacted by a range of ideologies, which may impact students’ identity” (p. 388). For example, Flores and Beardsmore (2015), referring to culturally diverse countries such as the United States, argue that two kinds of language ideologies may affect how a bilingual or multilingual education is structured: monoglossic language ideologies and heteroglossic language ideologies. “Monoglossic language ideologies begin with the assumption that monolingualism is the norm. This assumption leads to two different schools of thought” (p. 206). These two schools of thought are termed: subtractive bilingual education and additive bilingual education. Subtractive bilingual education, which makes an explicit case in support of monolingualism, advocates a temporary use of students’ home languages with the ultimate goal of creating monolingual speaker of the dominant 216
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language of society. Additive bilingual education, though explicitly rejecting monolingualism, advocates the creation of balanced bilinguals—bilinguals who develop equal competencies in both languages (p. 206). Subtractive bilingual education targeting at language-minoritized populations aims to have their home languages either “completely excluded from, or minimally included in, public spaces” (Flores & Beardsmore, 2015, p. 208). These programs either completely prohibit using home languages in school or gradually decrease the use of minoritized languages in school and moving towards the use of the dominant language. As Flores and Beardsmore point out, the underlying goal of all of these programs is the same: the minoritized language is simply a tool for the development of the dominant language, … [and] in order for language-minoritized students to become full members of society, they must give up their home language and replace it with the dominant language of society (p. 208-209). “Unlike subtractive bilingual education programs…, additive bilingual education programs can serve language-majority students, languageminoritized students or both student populations simultaneously” (Flores and Brardsmore, 2015, p. 209). The goal of additive bilingual education is to develop students’ “competency in both languages” (p. 209). As an UNESCO report recommended, “where a child’s language is not the official language of the country concerned, or is not a world language, she/he needs to learn such a second language” (Mesthrie, 2020, p. 78). According to Flores and Beardsmore (2015), however, both subtractive and additive bilingual education are subject to monoglossic language ideologies. They argue for heteroglossic language ideologies. Citing from Garcia, Flores and Beardsmore argue that “monoglossic language ideologies continue to treat bilingualism as the mastery of two separate and distinct languages and treat it as ‘double monolingualism’” (p. 213). In contrast with monoglossic language ideologies, heteroglossic language ideology views of languages are inseparable and uncountable and are not associated with nation-states. Different languages existing in a bilingual’s mind can in effect flow easily and comfortably as he/she communicates. This situation is termed translanguaging. Flores and Beardsmore state that the emergence of heteroglossic language ideology is
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a result of globalization. In an era of globalization, people view fluidity as a norm and a desirable phenomenon. In a similar vein, Cenoz and Gorter (2015) also distinguish the terms between ‘plurilingualism’ and ‘mutilingualism”. For them, plurilingualism is the “repertoire of varieties of language which individuals use, [while multilingualism] is understood as ‘the presence in a geographical area, large or small, of more than one variety of language….[T] he concept of plurilingualism implies that there is a single competence that encompasses the different languages in the speaker’s linguistic repertoire” (p. 475-476). In discussing multilingualism in Europe, Cenoz and Gorter (2015) also argue that multilingualism should establish soft rather than hard boundaries between languages….[L]earners are multilingual speakers who can communicate in different languages but also navigate between languages….[T]hey do not use each of their languages for the same purposes in all communicative situations, in the same domains, or with the same people” (p. 481). Citing from Bourhis, Baker and Wright (2017) have a more sophisticated way of identifying ideologies relevant to bilingualism: pluralism, civic, assimilation and ethnist. Advocates of the pluralist ideology respect individual’s right to “own, learn, and use two or more languages….Canada’s Official Languages Act (1969, 1988) and Multiculturalism Act (1988) reflect such a pluralist ideology” (p. 388); the civic ideology, on the one hand, “expects language minorities to adopt the public values of the politically dominant majority while allowing freedom in the private values of individuals….[That reflects] an official state policy of non-intervention and non-support of the minority languages and cultures” (p. 388). Unlike the above-mentioned two ideologies, the assimilation ideology has a strong argument toward abandoning minority groups’ heritage language. For advocates of this ideology, “minority languages and cultures are seen as potentially divisive and conflictive, working against national loyalty and allegiance by producing factions” (p. 389). Finally, the ethnist ideology can be seen as the most extreme one of all the four ideologies of bilingualism. On the one hand, it “encourages or forces language minorities to give up their language and culture and adopt those of the dominant group. [On the other hand, it] also attempts to prevent or exclude such minorities from assimilating legally or socially” (p. 389). This ideology not only excludes minorities, but also “defines who can be a rightful member of the dominant group or a legitimate citizen” (p. 389). 218
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In the school contexts, according to Baker and Wright, assimilationist and pluralistic discourses are most commonly found.
CONCLUSION This chapter mainly discusses different orientations toward bilingual education programs around the world. There are four orientation types that are commonly found in the field of bilingual education in different areas or countries of the globe, depending on their historical backgrounds and language policies. First, some countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom may focus their bilingual education programs on maintenance of minority or indigenous languages because of their considerable numbers of immigrants and their multicultural societies. Second, other countries, such as some African and Asian countries, that had a history of being colonized by mostly Englishspeaking colonizers. After their independence, they needed to restructure their language policy. Third, some countries, such as those EU member states may have already developed their bilingual or multilingual societies. The EU may keep promoting its existing multilingual/multicultural policy and encouraging cross-cultural exchanges among its member states. Finally, still other countries, such as some Asian countries, may be less culturally diverse. Their priority is to promote English in order for their people to be able to participate in the global community. Different types of bilingual education may reflect different ideologies in structuring bilingual education. Liberalism structure mixed ability grouping, integrated curricula, and less formal ways of teaching, whereas radicalism considers the school places to reproduce hierarchies of work places in societies. On the other hand, people with heteroglossic ideology consider that multiple languages are co-existing in bilinguals’ brain, whereas monoglossic ideology views bilinguals as double monolingualism, mastering two separate languages. Still there are subtractive and additive ideologies in structuring bilingual education. Subtractive ideology in effect supports monolingualism, and teaching of minority languages is to help minority groups to move into the mainstream education, whereas additive ideology aims at developing balanced bilinguals fluent in both the mainstream language and the minority language.
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REFERENCES Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th ed.). Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2015). Minority language, state language, and English in European education. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 473–494). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406.ch28 Flores, N., & Beardsmore, H. B. (2015). Programs and structures in bilingual and multilingual education. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 205–222). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118533406.ch12 Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. John Wiley & Sons. Garcia, O., & Beardsmore, H. B. (2009). Heteroglossic bilingual education policy. In Garcia (Ed.), Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective (pp. 244-285). West Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons. Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (1989). Bilinguality & bilingualism. Cambridge UP. Holmes, J., & Wilson, N. (2017). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315728438 Inglis, C. (2003). Contemporary education issues in multicultural immigrant societies. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp, 133-148). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Jeffcoate, R. (2017). Ideologies and multicultural education. In M. Craft (Ed.), Education and cultural Pluralism (pp. 161–187). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315393629-10
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Kangalawe, H. R. (2022). “There is no english outside the classroom”: A historical interrogation of the language or instruction policy in Tanzania 19612019. In C. H. Manthalu, V. Chikaipa, & A. M. Gunde (Eds.), Education, Communication and Democracy: A democratic pedagogy for the future (pp. 96–108). Routledge. Leaver, B. L. (2021). Transformative language learning and teaching: The next paradigm shift and its historical context. In B. L. Leaver, D. E. Davidson, & C. Campbell (Eds.), Transformative language learning and teaching (pp. 13–22). Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781108870788 Lee, J. S. (2020). An emerging path to English in Korea: Informal digital learning of English. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 289–301). John Wiley & Sons. Lee, J. W. (2022). Locating translingualism. Cambridge UP. doi:10.1017/9781009105361 McCormick, J. (2022). Introduction to global studies (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. McGroarty, M. (2010). The political matrix of linguistic ideologies. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 98–112). John Wiley & Sons. Mesthrie, R. (2010). Sociolinguistics and sociology of language. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 66–82). John Wiley & Sons. Oxford, R. L. (2021). Shaking the foundations: Transformative learning in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages. In B. L. Leaver, D. E. Davidson, & C. Campbell (Eds.), Transformative language learning and teaching (pp. 23–31). Cambridge UP. Raihani (2014). Creating multicultural citizens: A portrayal of contemporary Indonesian education. London, U.K.: Routledge. Rose, H., Syrbe, M., Montakantiwong, A., & Funada, N. (2020). Global TESOL for the 21st Century: Teaching English in a changing world. Multilingual Matters.
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Shin, H., & Kubota, R. (2010). Post-colonialism and globalization in language education. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 206–219). John Wiley & Sons. Torricelli, P. (2021). Ideology as social imagination: Linguistic strategies for a cultural approach to controversial social situations. In A.-L. Wang (Ed.), Redefining the role of language in a globalized world (pp. 28–42). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-2831-0.ch002 Wortham, S. (2010). Linguistic anthropology. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 83–97). John Wiley & Sons.
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Cases of Bilingual Education and Programs Around the Globe ABSTRACT In this chapter, the author first points to some ideologies behind structuring bilingual education. Then the author moves along to briefly discuss bilingual education or language programs practiced in some nations or regions in different geographical areas of the globe, namely Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania. In so organized, readers are encouraged to compare and contrast how one nation or region’s bilingual education or language programs can be affected by its ideologies, and its ideologies, in turn, can be reflections of its historical background, societal and political situations.
INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I will present bilingual education practiced in different areas of the world. As I mentioned earlier, a specific form of bilingual education may be appropriate for a specific group of people, in a specific time period, and for a specific purpose. I carefully choose countries that may be representative of different areas of the world, specific in their historical and political backgrounds, and purposeful in their language policies or language planning. A large country may have different types of bilingual education DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch008 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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in different areas of the country, depending on their particular situations. Strictly speaking, the following sections to come might not necessarily the bilingual education programs practiced in different countries or regions. Rather, they might be language planning or language policies exerted by the government of a particular country based on the historical background or the status quo of the country, or they might be some significant events or anecdotal episodes or case studies that reflected how the government’s or its people’s attitude towards language use or language education at a certain point of time. Furthermore, a country’s language policies may change over time according to the needs required by globalization, nationals’ preferences, and most importantly how the decision of language policies may benefit the country and its nationals the most. As mentioned earlier, different countries, states or regions may have different language policies and may plan their language use based on their specific historical, political, economical, geographical, educational, and religious backgrounds. On the other hand, different countries may have their own priorities, needs, and interests in structuring their own national language system, and the factors involved in the system may be quite complicated. In this chapter, bilingual education does not necessarily mean formal education taken place in school settings or teaching of heritage or minority language. It can also mean language programs including teaching of English held outside of the school classroom and after the class time. It is possibly administered by public sectors such as the governments and schools or by private nongovernmental organizations. It is also found that different regions in the same country may need to practice their language instruction differently. That is, language instruction approaches need to move away from the constraints of nation-based framework and take language speakers or learners to the core. In the following global cases, whatever situations they might be, they all reflect the needs of their people. In an era of globalization, given the fact that bilingual education may be relevant to almost all the countries or regions in the globe, the following sections to introduce bilingual education in different countries are organized based on the main continents known to the global community and ranked based on the size of population; they are: Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania, with an assumption in mind that similar geographical locations may share similarities or patterns of bilingual education programs and that the size of population and area may reflect the complexity of bilingual education programs.
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ASIA The Case of India India has a very complicated situation in terms of bilingual education. Hamers and Blanc (1989) describe that, in India, it “is not unusually to come across schools where teachers and students communicate in one language, teaching is conducted in another, school materials are in a third language and homework is done in a fourth” (p. 193). Garcia (2009) also recounts that India has “the number of languages in thousands and at least thirty languages being spoken by over a million native speakers” (p. 270). In education, the Indian government adopted the Three-Language Formula in 1957 as mentioned in an earlier section in this volume, recommending that using regional languages or mother tongue as the first teaching language for five years; Hindi in non-Hindi areas and any other Indian language in Hindi areas as the second language for three years; English as third language subject from the third year onwards (Garcia, 2009, p. 270). In this section, I will focus on the teaching of English in India. According to Bhatia (2022), the “tradition of English language teaching in India…has its roots in colonial ideology. …[T]he primary objectives of learning English were mastery of English literature and acquisition of English culture and religion, including Christianity” (p. 66). Then, English teaching in India moved to secular models, following then popularly developed second language teaching methodology such as “the Grammar-Translation method, the Direct Method, the Audiolingual Method, and the Structural Method” (p. 66). There were research projects developed and institutions established to determine the context, objectives, and curricular agenda of English instruction in India, which contributed to new curriculum development such as task-based language learning. However, Bhatia (2022) also points to some drawbacks encountered by these research projects and ineffectiveness of English instruction in India. First, they did not take diverse learner-types and different proficiency levels into account in their design and development of teaching materials. For example, the materials they developed may be appropriate for more advanced learners, not for beginning learners. Second, “lacking uniform language teaching 225
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policies and practices, ELT failed to satisfy the variable needs of a highly diverse body of Indian teachers and students” (p. 67). Third, how teachers, students, and parents perceive learning English differently also added to the difficulties of English instruction. In India, students learn English mainly for instrumental purposes, that is, “for economic and social mobility gains rather than to assimilate in the target language culture. While the teachers place emphasis on academic achievements, society and parents prefer the demonstration of oral skills over academic achievements” (p. 68). For the issues and challenges in English education in India, Bhatia (2022) points to three intertwined problems: access to English language education, the global vs. local paradox, and the on-going issue of model(s) of English for Indian learners. According to Bhatia, there are two types of schools in India: privately-funded public schools and government-funded schools. Privately-funded public schools possess a considerable amount of funds and resources in comparison with those of government-funded schools. It is like the situation found in the urban vs. rural and the haves vs. have-nots divides, those who can afford to attend well-funded schools can enjoy quality education in English. Another problematic issue in the Indian context is the global vs. local paradox. On the one hand, English is a way to connect with the globe and to global economy and it seems that “English education eradicates religious, regional, social and caste barriers in India” (p. 70). On the other hand, “the failure to provide Hindi or other regional languages access to basic information …is a gross violation of human rights for approximately 90% of Indian population” (p. 70). Bhatia also points out that Indian people’s preference for English may cause the loss of the cultural contributions by various authors, artists, innovators, etc. Still the model of English is another issue in India. As a result of globalization, there exist various language varieties and hybrid languages. In the case of India, Bhatia argues that “Indian English should take precedence over native varieties of English” (p. 71). He points to the fact that “centuries-old coexistence and on-going process of convergence has led to the evolution of several hybrid languages, including Hinlish – a mixed Hindi-English variety. Hindi-English mixing is the salient and natural characteristic of Indian verbal behaviour” (p. 71). This may affect the ways of teaching English and may create future challenges. In sum, a dilemma about restructuring language use in India after independence may reflect in its language policies and English instruction.
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The Case of Singapore The Mission School in the colonial period played an important role in English instruction in Singapore. Singapore was home to immigrants of different ethnic groups, including Indian, Chinese, and Malay. Among them, Chinese was the largest group. As recounted by Goh (2003), from early twentieth century, “English education takes its place as a central social, economic and political force in Singapore” (p. 28). The colonizer, England, attempted to practice colonial progressivism in order to subordinate “the native to the functional machinery of colonial administration” (p. 29), and the administrators considered language an important means to achieve the goal. For some Chinese parents, they were afraid that their children taught in English by British missionaries will eventually lose their own Chinese culture and convert to Western cultures and values. For example, an author with the pen-name “Isaiah” wrote to the newspapers to draw the Methodist schools and parents’ attention about this. However, for other Chinese parents in Singapore, they had a different view. They regarded “an English education was prized for its ability to secure its possessor a good job…,quite regardless of issues of values training and identity” (Goh, 2003, p. 32). But, how were English-Chinese educated? Mission schools played a significant role in terms English training and moral training. They basically used “English literature as a means of acculturation” (Goh, 2003, p. 32) and moral training. Goh (2003) recounts that the “pioneers in the field of mission education were the missionaries from the London Missionary Society, who were active in this region from 1815-1847, at which time they transferred their attentions to China” (p. 32), and then, in 1886, the Anglo-Chinese School was established. Mission schools were able to adopt “a strategy of conciliation with the native races, and pedagogy that would syncretize Christian values with the commercial ethos and social ambitions of immigrant population in Singapore” (Goh, 2003, p. 32). There are basically two aims reflected in their “mission”: teaching of English competency and moral habits. As Goh (2003) recounts, “‘moral teaching’ carries positive but also vague ethical connotations which are not necessarily opposed to or different from (especially) Confucian ethics” (p. 34). In terms of English instruction and moral teaching, mission school made “literature the vehicle of a moral instruction that was in turn seen as a prelude to religious conversion” (p. 34). For mission schools, their “reliance on pleasurable literary activity not only made the acquisition of sophisticate 227
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English skills an unconsciously easy matter, but also inculcated the desired moral values not as a ponderously pedantic exercise, but in rituals of literary imitation and conformity” (p. 35). In the post-colonial era and in its separation from Malaysia, Singapore has recognized English and its three vernacular languages, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, and Malay, as official languages having equal status. As its “Education Minister Dr. Tony Tan in 1986 pointed out: English provides a window to the knowledge, technology, and expertise of the modern world; while mother tongues enable children to know what makes them what they are” (Yu & Altunel, 2021, p. 140). In its bilingual language policy established in 1981, Singapore clearly stated that “English and one of the three vernacular languages (i.e., Chinese, Tamil, Malay) have been required to learn in all schools” (Yu & Altunel, 2021, p. 141). Even though English is underscored in Singaporean language policy, according to Yu and Altunel (2021), “social differences contributed to the various levels of English proficiency for different students” (p. 141). There can be seen a distinction between Standard Singaporean English (SSE) and Colloquial Singaporean English (CSE), and “people who speak SSE often took a higher social position than those spoke CSE” (p. 141). Interestingly, being not dependent on the structure of the so-called Standard English spoken in English-speaking countries, “Singapore English has earned an increasing recognition globally, attitudes toward Singapore English are also getting more positive, which serves as a critical marker of the Singaporean identity” (p. 143). As far as approaches to teaching English are concerned, Singapore can be seen as keeping up with the steps of globalization. In the 1990s, “Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) started to gain more attention. Learners were more encouraged to actively participate in the language learning process rather than receiving the instruction prescriptively” (Yu & Altunel, 2021, p. 142). However, ignorance of grammar teaching and too much emphasis on flexibility has led to ineffectiveness of Singaporean students’ reading and writing in English. The Singaporean government then revised their guide to teaching English to combine the CLT and systematic teaching of grammar…. [In addition to English instruction,] educators in Singapore also increasingly focus on the promotion of bilingualism and multilingualism…to facilitate the communication among teachers of English and other mother tongues to better outcomes in students’ biliteracy learning” (Yu & Altunel, 2021, p. 142). 228
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The development of English instruction in Singapore stated above reveals that Singapore has been trying very hard in keeping up with the trend of globalization while maintaining its national identity.
The Case of Indonesia As Raihani (2014) states, the “population of Indonesia is very diverse. There are hundreds of ethnic groups speaking more than 300 different languages” (p. 1). The complexity of the languages used in Indonesia can be seen from the process of the Focus Groups Discussions and interviews described by Raihani. She describes that in her interviews, and informal chats were mostly held in Bahasa Indonesia in Yogyakarta…in Palangkaraya, often I used the Banjarese as one of the local language spoken by the community in my conversations with informants…. The informants in Palangkaraya often looked uncomfortable using Bahasa Indonesia….Dayak informants in Palangkaraya speak the Dayak Ngaju language, but never used it during conversations with me…students in Palangkaraya preferred the Banjarese language as their social language (p. 9-10) In order to save the Dayak Bgaju language, a program had to be established to make the “language as the official language on certain days in every week in schools and government offices” (Raihani, 2014, p. 170). As Raihani recounts, after a major change from decentralization to democratization in 1998, “entails an increasing emerging dichotomy between the putra daerch (sons of the soil) and pendatang (migrants)” (Raihani, 2014, p. 223). This dichotomy has led to the dominance of putra daerah and “unfair treatment of teachers and students from migrant backgrounds. In terms of local languages, there has been enforcement of the use of respective local languages-Javanese and Dayak Ngaju-in the respective provinces” (Raihani, 2014, p. 224). However, discrimination and divide do not just occur in the enforcement of languages but also in the choice of field of study. According to Raihani (2014), there are basically three subject streams that students can choose from: natural science (NS), social science (SS), and language (LS). Among the three streams, NS is the most prestigious and honored one, whereas non-NS, including SS and LS, are considered less important. Students in the non-NS streams are considered as less smart and are rejected in the screening process and failed to get access to the NS stream. In discussions and interviews with 229
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Raihani, many students in the non-NS streams expressed their feelings of being discriminated or humiliated by the teacher or the school. The situation in Indonesia may reveal yet another type of preference in choosing a language to use and another type of social inequality.
The Case of Arab Gulf States Based on my classification of different focuses of practice in bilingual education, Arab Gulf States belong to the second focus of practice: focusing on promoting English as a global language. According to relevant literature, in the field of English language teaching, Gulf States tend to recruit teachers of English from English-speaking countries and prefer native English speakers. In this section, instead of introducing how instruction of English is generally practiced in Arab Gulf States, I will tell experiences of native-English speaking teachers teaching in Arab Gulf States, i.e. stories told from Westerners’ perspectives. One is experienced by Barnawi (2019), who applied critical pedagogy in his English class to his Saudi Arabian students, and the other one is the story of Hudson (2019) who experienced an Arabian classroom culture totally different from that of his own. Barnawi (2019) first describes education, including teaching English as a foreign language of course, in an era of neoliberal economy in Saudi Arabia. He comments on education practiced in the neoliberal economy age as a source of knowledge and skill contributing solely to economic growth, and ‘the role of schools is to prepare students as enterprising workers and citizens with the prerequisite skills, knowledge and values to survive in a volatile and competitive global labour market….schools become more like business and more business-like’ (p. 40). It is also evident that “critical issues centered on English language teaching (ELT) have become interwoven with ‘a neoliberal capitalist academic culture of incessant knowledge production and competition for economic and symbolic capital’” (Barnawi, 2019, p. 40). Barnawi (2019), as a teacher of English teaching Saudi college EFL students, describes ELT in Saudi Arabia is similar to that of other nonEnglish-speaking countries in that they mostly organize their school policies, curricula, and classroom practices based on neoliberal principles. Among the ELT principles practiced in Saudi colleges is applying English-as-themedium-of-instruction approach (EMI) in the classroom and at the same time 230
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denying “students’ right to the Arabic language” (p. 44). English is viewed as associating with societal worth, position of prestige, and access to better education and socioeconomic opportunities. Another phenomenon commonly seen in college ELT in Saudi Arabia is an exam-oriented approach. Like many non-English speaking countries, English instruction in Saudi Arabia tends to focus on the teaching of sentence structures, vocabulary words, and grammatical rules that can help students achieve “high-stakes tests such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)” (p. 44-45). Barnawi criticizes that [s]uch educational modes, indeed, do not provide space for critical thinking, self-voicing, and/or self- expression inside or outside schools, nor do they help Saudi students develop a critical consciousness, and at the same time read their social and cultural realities to challenge the status quo (p. 45) In order to challenge the traditional ways of teaching and learning in English education in Saudi Arabia and having the opportunity to see some issues from an outsider’s perspective, Barnawi (2019) set a ‘read, reason, response’ working format in his undergraduate academic writing class. The tasks he assigned to his students “involve gathering ideas through extensive reading, drafting, revising, responding, editing different types of essay, evaluating, reflecting critically, and leading classroom discussions” (p. 46). Barnawi finally uses a student’s case as an example to demonstrate how this critical pedagogy helped his students to move from resistance, confusion, and struggle to have a sense of achievement. As described by Barnawi (2019), English instruction in Saudi Arabia, probably like that of many other non-English-speaking countries, follows a so-called “banking method of education such as memorization, teachercentered approaches, and a test-oriented ideology” (p. 46). However, in order to apply critical pedagogy to his academic writing course, he initiated a ‘read, reason, response’ working format as mentioned above. He used one of the students, Alaa, as an example to demonstrate how students may experience from struggle to a sense of achievement. Alaa resisted the idea of choosing his own reading materials at the beginning. After that he negotiated his footing with the teacher and gradually learned from his peers’ comments as well as from the teacher-student negotiation (p. 54).
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Hudson (2019), on the other hand, told a different story, recounting his experience of teaching English in Arabian countries. He interviewed “34 ELT professionals working in Arabia” (p. 243), and illustrated a clear picture of teaching English in Arabian countries from Westerners’ perspectives. As Westerners, why did they choose to teach English in Arab Gulf countries? According to Hudson, in “this environment, ELT professionals are often able to find teaching facilities, benefits, and salaries far greater than those available to those teaching English in other part of the world” (p. 242). Unlike Barnawi, who describes how critical pedagogies can be practiced in Arab classrooms, Hudson advice those who expect to have a teaching career in Arabia to keep in mind some political ideologies practiced in Arabia and they cannot be ignored. Arabia students are generally required to pass certain kinds of external examinations to be eligible to have access to higher education. However, these examinations are claimed “to be culturally biased against Gulf Arab students….[Arabian countries thus] imported a large number of predominantly native-speakers ELT professionals. These [are] mainly British, American, Australian, Canadian, and Irish language teachers” (p. 244-245). Hudson particularly reminds those Westerners who work in Arabia to avoid two things: religion and politics. Violations of Arabian cultures or commonly held views can be expelled within 24 hours of your violation. Unlike Barnawi (2019), Hudson (2019) does not consider that critical pedagogy that “engage students in discussions regarding discriminatory practices, social inequality, identity negotiation, and issues of power” (p. 258) can work properly in Arabia. He concludes and suggests those well-paid foreign teachers not to become centers for political unrest and not to dabble in political issues. He considers that the introduction of a critical pedagogy based on Western ways of thinking by a native-speaker teacher in the classroom of the GCC could be seen as…the native-speakerist ‘moral mission’ to bring a ‘superior’ culture of teaching and learning to students and colleagues (p. 259). From the stories told by Westerners, we may realize that there exist significant differences in perceiving the world in the West and the Arab Gulf states and in practicing education. The two stories further reveal the importance of understanding and respecting cultures other than their own.
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The Case of Turkey In the case of Turkey, discussions should be focused on English language teaching because, like Taiwan and China, Turkey has been promoting learning of English in order for its nationals to be able to participate in the global community. According to Yu and Altunel (2021), Turkey had its policy to promote the English language since its establishment in 1923 to advance development at national and individual level. Although in recent years Turkish students started learning English from the second grade of elementary on, “the average proficiency level of students in Turkey has consistently ranked low on various international English proficiency examinations” (p. 147). Yu and Altunel attribute this situation to the exam-based and grammar-based language teaching and learning. Very similar to the cases of Taiwan and China, Turkish teachers are teaching English to help students pass the required exams and students are devoted their energy to memorizing grammar, which is often the focus of paper-pencil tests. Yu and Altunel (2021) state that the impacts of globalization have led English education in Turkey moving toward a more communication-focused and technology-based pedagogy. As a result, teaching approach such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and English Medium Instruction (EMI) are seen employed in the classroom, and performance-based assessment also replaced the traditional paper-pencil test. However, Yu and Altunel also point out that the university entrance exam in Turkey still occupies an exceedingly important position in shaping an individual’s academic and future development…and hinders the development of ELE toward a communicative direction and contributes to the gap between the ideal language policy and actual classroom and learning practices (p. 148) Another issue in English education in Turkey is ‘inequality.” Inequality in race or ethnicity may not be a problem in terms of English education; rather, it lies in social-economic status. Yu and Altunel (2021) point to the inequality “in accessing quality English education among learners from different regions and social class backgrounds” (p. 148). This may include “various aspects, such as available resources for English learning, teacher education, family support, and so forth” (p. 148), and factors relevant to family support alone may include “family income, family’s willingness and abilities to spend on extra-curricular tutoring lessons, [and] parents’ educational level” (p. 148). 233
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Like Yu and Altunel (2021), Dimici and Başbay (2021) also discuss English language teaching in Turkey. However, Dimici and Başbay consider Turkey a multicultural country. They describe the region where Turkey is situated has been inhabited by different civilizations having different languages, religions and ethnicity for long centuries, making Turkey a multicultural country. This multicultural social structure has recently been restructured as a result of the migrations to Turkey, especially from Syria. Some reports show that Turkey is the country that has hosted the most refugees around the world (p. 21). Like many universities around the world, the university environment in Turkey is also perceived as much multicultural and multilingual. However, according to Dimici and Başbay (2021), in “Turkey, some reports claim that there is marginalization among the youth and no tolerance towards people whose ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and language are different. Moreover, young people do not prefer to be together with people from different cultures” (p. 22). Dimici and Başbay also describe common English curriculum in higher education. “In Turkey, a separate year for English language learning called a preparatory class is offered at the beginning of the university because of the existence of English-medium departments” (p. 22). However, according to Dimici and Başbay, reposts show that “cultural contents and diversity are mostly ignored in classes” (p. 22). The reasons lie in the facts that there are not enough appropriate instructional materials and enough time to be used in English classes and, importantly, “teachers do not feel competent to teach these topics” (p. 22). They explain why the coursebook publishers do not want to reflect the framework of multicultural education by saying that it is “mostly because of economic and political concerns, cultural taboos, and public reactions that publishers do not prefer to face” (p. 22). Dimici and Başbay claim that multicultural education programs need to be developed based on “the institution they work for and the country they live in” (p. 23). That is to say, there is no way of standardizing bilingual educational programs; rather, teachers need to take diversities of students and institutional policies into consideration. Sometimes, it needs a transformative process to develop a multilingual and multicultural education curriculum, and it is beyond an individual teacher’s ability to achieve. However, Dimici and Başbay suggest two models proposed by James A. Banks as a point of departure to achieve the goal: the Content Integration Model and the Five Dimensions of Multicultural Education. 234
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Dimici and Başbay’s (2021) Content Integration Model include four levels, applying different approaches: the contributions approach, the additive approach, the transformation approach, and the social action approach. In these four levels of approach, the authors are actually guiding multilingual and multicultural education teachers step-by-step toward their goals. The first level, the contributions approach, only requires teachers to have “some content related to different cultures …added to the curriculum….[for example,] holidays, heroes, and festivals” (p. 25). In the second level, the additive approach, teachers need to add “content and themes related to different cultural groups…to the curriculum” (p. 25). This may include people with disabilities, how social classes are developed, and inequality in the society. The third level, the transformation approach, moves the students to a more proactive position. It requires changes in “the main purposes, viewpoints, and structure of the curriculum are changed….This contributes to the elimination of ethnocentric views of the students because it enables students to gain new viewpoints” (p. 26). Finally, the fourth approach, the social action approach, invites students to make decisions and take actions. In this approach, students first “make decisions on an issue to define a problem, [then] they collect data about the problem….[After that they do] value inquiry and moral analysis…. [Finally, they make] decisions to take action on by using their knowledge and values” (p. 26). Dimici and Başbay’s (2021) Five Dimensions Model include “content integration, knowledge production, prejudice elimination, equity pedagogy, and empowering school culture and social structure” (p. 23). They consider that content integration in a multicultural curriculum is not enough in terms of multicultural education. Dimici and Başbay thus suggest that the next dimension can be ‘knowledge production.’ That is, moving to the dimension, students can be guided and encouraged to search about how different perspectives in the subject area have become effective in the construction of the knowledge….[S]tudents are supported to understand the effect of diversity of the knowledge … [and have] the chance to show a critical manner and ask complicated questions about the content they confront, leading to the development of critical thinking skills (p. 27). “The third dimension, prejudice elimination, requires teachers to help students to develop positive behaviors towards students from other groups” (p. 27). In this dimension, teachers can develop students’ empathic skills and create a positive learning atmosphere by providing chances for students to 235
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work collaboratively. The fourth dimension, equity pedagogy, requires teachers to use different teaching strategies and approaches to address to different cultural and linguistic groups in different educational settings. Finally, the fifth dimension, empowering school culture and social structure, requires teachers, students, and administrators to work together in a transforming process to restructure the school into a multicultural educational setting. Based on their Five Dimensions Modeol, Dimici and Başbay (2021) illustrate how they integrate multicultural education into English language teaching. In their design of English curriculum, they point out that teachers of English need to choose a theme or themes to be covered in the curriculum. In addition to race, possible themes may include “ethnicity, language, religion, social class, political orientation, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, prejudice, discrimination, stereotypes, cultural hegemony, citizenship, cultural values, democracy, lifestyles, assimilation, marginalization, conflict resolution, globalization, migration, and cultural interaction” (p. 28). These themes are all relevant to multicultural education and are critical issues in an era of globalization. Dimici and Başbay’s (2021) Content Integration Model and the Five Dimension of Multicultural Education may provide insights for countries or states that are less culturally and linguistically diversified, such as Taiwan, that multicultural pedagogies are still relevant. In an era of globalization, given the increasingly growing population and information mobility, students around the world need to be sensitive to linguistic and cultural differences. However, English language teaching materials at best superficially introduce cultures of different countries, and these introductions can be found having some problems. First, many teaching materials tend to introduce the cultures of North American and European countries and ignore other cultures, such as those of African, Arabic, and Asian countries. Second, those English teaching materials tend to be written by the so-called native English speakers. It is thus easy for students of non-English speaking countries to develop a stereotypical view toward English-speaking people and tend to accept their cultures as being superior and advanced. Third, English teaching materials tend not to include articles relevant to local cultures. Under this circumstance, nonEnglish speakers may have problems introducing their own cultures to others in English. As we understand very well, cross-cultural communications are two-way cultural exchanges. Non-English speakers are in a disadvantageous position of having to struggle with their English when communicating with native-English speakers, let alone introducing their local culture and comparing 236
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their cultures with others’. Adding local cultures to the English instructional materials may help English learners develop their confidence in their crosscultural communications and have better abilities in expressing themselves.
The Case of Bangladesh If we focus on learning English as a foreign language in non-English speaking countries, then, in addition to learning English in schools, different countries may vary and may reveal a learning ‘phenomenon’ specific to the culture of the country. For example, Hamid, Sussex, and Khan (2009) describe private tutoring in English in Bangladesh. According to these authors, Bangla (Bengali) is spoken by 98% of the population in Bangladesh. English was introduced during British rule and still enjoys a position of dominance and prestige….English is taught as a compulsory subject from the 1st to the 12th grade and also at the tertiary level (p. 284). Hamid, et al. (2009) continue to describe that private tutoring (PT) is a phenomenon quite common in Bangladeshi education. They attribute this phenomenon to inadequate public investment in education and poor teacher salaries. The researchers’ study mainly focuses on private tutoring in English (PT-E). “PT-E has become a common…a socioeducational phenomenon, which was desired by secondary students irrespective of gender, family socioeconomic conditions, and parental characteristics” (p. 301). Interviews with participants in PT-E show that the main reason for them to take PT-E lessons after school is that they are not satisfied with the poor quality of English instructions in schools, for example, “classes were not held regularly….[and] teacher incompetence and lack of experience, sincerity, and commitment” (p. 299). Based on the interviews with students, the researchers explain that students prefer private tutoring to mainstream schooling is because students expect they can get higher grades and pass school-leaving examinations, given the fact that PT-Es are commonly business- and examination-oriented. Hamid, et al. (2009) conclude that “PT-E is viewed as a need rather than a luxury in the Bangladeshi context: as a necessary condition for academic success,” (p. 302) unlike “the Jordanian university students [who] took private lessons in English to display their social class and prestige” (p. 302).
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The Case of China China is known for its great population and diverse ethnic groups. Most surprising of all is that its various ethnic groups speak different dialects or local languages but share only one written system. That is to say, people from different regions of China may not communicate well and understand each other orally, but they can have good communications in writing. For this reason, the Chinese government may need its unique bilingual education. Citing from Chou, Garcia (2009) states that besides “the Han majority that speak many dialects of Chinese, there are two minorities that speak other dialects of Chinese (the Hui and Manchu, and then fifty-three minorities that speak over eighty languages from five different language families” (p. 230). To deal with the complex situation of linguistic eco-system in China and to facilitate minority students learning, the government allows minority languages used in education. However, local dialects or languages are used to only orally explain the contents of the text, which is written in standard Mandarin Chinese originally a Beijing dialect. As children move toward higher levels of grade, the teacher mainly only uses Mandarin Chinese to explain classroom subjects. However, outside of the classroom setting, students are free to use their local dialects or languages at home to communicate with their family members. This can be seen as, on the one hand, facilitating children’s learning in the school and, on the other hand, saving minority languages and cultures from being obsolete. Unlike Garcia (2009), Reynold and Teng (2021), on the other hand, focus their investigation on teaching English writing to Chinese speaking students at different academic levels, namely primary, secondary, university, and graduate level. In their book, Innovative Approaches in Teaching English writing to Chinese Speakers, Reynold and Teng refer to students in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan as ‘Chinese speakers’. Generally speaking, they speak mandarin Chinese and/or its variants or dialects. Most importantly, they share similar ways of thinking, structural patterns, and logical sequences as far as writing is concerned. The traditional ways of writing in Chinese may not be appropriate when it comes to writing in their second language, English. Based on research reports contributed to their volume, Reynold and Teng (2021) provide suggestions for future directions in the field of teaching English writing to Chinese students at different academic levels. At the primary education level, the authors point out that probably because of educational 238
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policies, primary education teachers are not encouraged to teach second language writing and “investigations on the teaching of English writing in primary schools [are] much less than that of other educational levels” (p. 258). They suggest that, at the primary level, second language writing teachers may combine different effective writing approaches in their instruction. For example, combining collaborating approach and e-learning along with metacognitive instruction may encourage interactions among students, extend their learning beyond the classroom, and apply metacognitive strategies in their second language writing. In the following sub-sections, I will particularly illustrate the case of Uyghur in Xinjiang and how China’s language policy works in a neoliberal era.
The Case of Uyghur in Xinjiang As mentioned earlier, China is a large country, considering its total land area, population, and ethnic groups. It is thus logical to envision that China may apply different language policies in different areas of the country. In mainland China, Uyghur in Xinjiang is a very unique case, especially when it comes to language planning and language policy. Sunuodula (2018) describes that Xinjiang is “one of the fifty-five minority nationalities in China and, in 1956, Xinjiang was named the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), … designated as an autonomous region” (p.186-187), with its mostly non-Han populations and its local language being Uyghur. However, the Chinese government’s political construct had been based on centralization. The increasingly forceful promotion of Mandarin Chinese over the past decade and through it a linguistic centralization over the diverse population of Xinjiang is not only about the learning of Mandarin Chinese and communicative competence, it is, more importantly, also about setting Mandarin Chinese as the norm and bearer of superior civilization and devaluation of local knowledge (Sunuodula, 2018, p. 185). As pointed out by Sunuodula (2018), competency in Mandarin Chinese and Han cultural norms is always rewarded with political, economical, and educational advantages, and, on the contrary, those who do not comply with the policy are punished. As one can imagine, forcing a minority group to learn the mainstream language and its culture is not so simple. Sunuodula, referring to Bakhtin’s idea, asserts that 239
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activities of passing ideas from one language to another is not and has never been neutral. Not only are they imbued with language ideologies and cultural-bound textual practices, in the context of Xinjiang, issues of power are never far from surface….[Language is] populated…with the intentions of others. Expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and accents, is a difficult and complicated process (p. 186). The bilingual education policy promulgated in Xinjiang in 2004 made Mandarin Chinese the primary or the sole language of instruction in elementary and middle school classrooms…A further document issued in 2005 expands the scope of the policy to preschool education….Bilingual education has come to mean that Mandarin Chinese is the medium of instruction from kindergarten onwards and minority languages are to be relegated to a school subject where it is offered (Sunuodula, 2018, p. 192). Under this circumstance, bilingual education in Xinjiang is in effect meant to promote “Chinese through an education system in which Chinese is taught both as a school subject and used as the medium of instruction for other subjects, regardless of the special status of Uyghur as minority language” (Sunuodula, 2018, p. 195).
English Language Education and Promotion of Chinese Language under Neoliberalism Gao (2017) considers neoliberalization as a historical and process-based approach, and she focuses “on dynamic mutations of neoliberalism as shown in the commodification of Mandarin and English” to explain the change of the Chinese government in its language policy. Gao recounts that “despite the uneven distribution of language educational resources, the importance of the English language remains unequivocal all over China. In this context, English language competence symbolizes a good educational background and relatively high social status” (p. 25). Craze for learning English in China has led to the emergence of private English language training centers under the market economy. Under this circumstance, people started to “embrace English language education as a private enterprise during the early 1990s when the legitimacy of private economic forms first started to be acknowledged and 240
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encouraged in China” (p. 26). According to Gao, “[i]n this context, individual entrepreneurship flourishes and the commodification of English results in the emergence of English language education as a big industry” (p. 28). In an era of neoliberalism, on the other hand, Gao (2017) recounts how the Chinese government promotes its Mandarin Chinese in a roll-out neoliberalism fashion. As already mentioned in the first part of this volume, China has been aggressively promoting its Mandarin Chinese around the world through the establishment of Confucius Institutes or Confucius Classrooms. In plain words, China has been trying to form “a linguistic market for Mandarin…. In other words, power relations formerly framed in political terms are now recast as economic ones to re-legitimize them under the neoliberal economy” (p. 28). Under this ideology, language and its accompanying textbooks and language testing are actually treated as commodity, not purely as education. In the process of promoting Mandarin Chinese, the government did adjust its strategic directions. First, they understand that “textbooks need to be customized and adapted to the needs of target learners of Mandarin….[and] that linguistic authority and authenticity are give way to localization for the purpose of marketization” (Gao, 2017, p. 30-31). Another strategic change in promoting Chinese was seen to move away from the so-called elite path toward a more flexible way to popularize the learning of Chinese. Initially, the Chinese government positioned the teaching of Mandarin as elite education. That is, any grammatical mistakes cannot be tolerated. Teachers “must make sure that [foreign learners] speak proper and beautiful Chinese” (Gao, 2017, p. 31). However, this strategy turned out to be not workable. Instead, popularity and mass consumption are more important. Hence, “preference is given to securing a hopefully profitable mass market as opposed to having only a small elite market of education” (Gao, 2017, p. 32). Gao (2017) concludes that the promotion of Chinese and well-establishment of Confucius Institutions, in addition to popularizing Chinese language and culture around the world, “also help increase the competitiveness of Chinese universities in worldwide university rankings under the neoliberal economy” (p. 32) and attract more international students. As Gao puts it, “the commodification of language is not simply an inevitable process of neoliberal globalization. Instead, there are socio-historical, political and economic conditions that underpin the actual practice of commodifying and marketing language” (p. 33).
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The Case of Japan As mentioned earlier, English instruction in Japan can be described as being examination-oriented. English tests in university entrance examination mainly test students’ receptive language skills, i.e. reading and listening. To meet students’ needs to gain high scores on the examination, English instruction in classrooms basically follow Grammar-Translation Method (GTM), emphasizing on translation rather than conversation. That is because, on the one hand, Japanese teachers seldom have opportunities to travel abroad and use English to communicate. On the other hand, using English for instructional purposes is “considered to be humiliating and likened to Japan being a colonised state” (Hashimoto & Glasgow, 2022, p. 36). Still the classroom culture in Japan, and probably also in some other Asian countries, “Confucian heritage cultures can lead to learners experiencing communicative apprehension” (Yarwood & Bennett, 2022, p. 229). This may lead to students’ unwillingness to communicate. Not until the early Meiji period when native English-speaking missionaries started teaching English in Japan did English instruction focus on communicative purposes. However, due to several factors, “GTM has been continuously positioned as a major obstacle to communicative approaches to ELT in Japan” (Hashimoto & Glasgow, 2022, p. 37). According to Hashimoto and Glasgow (2022), these factors may include the existing institutional culture, the gap between government-approved textbooks and ELT policies, and a lack of professional development for ELT teachers. In 2017, in order to influence ELT pedagogy in high schools, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan changed the university entrance examination system. In the new system, students’ over-all proficiency in a foreign language is evaluated throughout primary, junior-high, and senior-high schools, and commercial tests were used to presumably test the four English skills. The case of Japan in teaching English as part of its bilingual education may be typical of many non-English speaking countries.
The Case of Taiwan In the case of Taiwan, bilingual education needs to be explained in two spheres: English as a foreign language and indigenous languages for minority and immigrant groups. As mentioned earlier in this volume, there is no real bilingual education in Taiwan if bilingual education is viewed from the 242
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perspective of minority or immigrant groups of people because minority or immigrant groups are less an issue in Taiwan than in the United States or other countries. Aside fr om a small number of indigenous groups and migrant marriage women from Southeast Asia, Taiwan cannot be really considered as a multicultural state. However, if it is viewed from a linguistic perspective and bilingual education is interpreted as the teaching of Chinese and English, then it can arouse a considerable amount of discussions and debates. For Taiwanese people, being able to speak English represents a higher social status and is more intelligent, and, of course, is more powerful in the public eye. Citing from Chang, Baker and Wright (2017) point out an interesting phenomenon in Taiwan that “children can find themselves in an awkward language context. The pressure is to gain perfect English skills, but if they become too Americanized, for example in emotional expression, they can be rejected for not being Chinese” (p. 95). This may be explained through Pirandello’s theory of the non-existence of a unique ‘ego’ (Scala, 2022). That is, bilinguals may be struggling with two egos in their mind. However, this phenomenon may just reflect the high status of the English language perceived by Taiwanese people. Critiques may come out of jealousy. For those who are not able to achieve a satisfactory proficiency level in English for some reason may feel frustrated and may intend to divert people’s attention into proficient English speakers’ behavior. In Taiwan, English is taught as a subject from the third grade on. However, as pointed out by Gebhard (2017), “in recent years the trend [to teach EFL students English worldwide] has been to offer English to younger and younger students” (p. 41), many elementary schools in metropolitan areas in Taiwan cannot wait to teach children English even in their first grade. The hours offered to teach English might not be enough, given the fact that Taiwan is not an English-speaking country and Taiwanese people are learning English as a foreign language (EFL). As pointed out by Gebhard (2017), “the goals of learning EFL and ESL are often quite different” (p. 39). In an EFL environment, like the situation of Taiwan, students learn English in schools in order to pass English entrance exams to enter good high schools and universities…. and to be able to use English as an international language. However….[t] he purpose [for studying ESL] is often tied to literacy. The aim is being able to read, write, and interact in English in culturally defined ways (Gebhard, 2017, p. 39).
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Even though some people in Taiwan might learn English at different levels of schooling for many years, they still have problems communicating either orally or in writing in English. The situation does not turn better at college level. Theoretically, college students may have higher degrees of English proficiency. However, college students, except language majors, in Taiwan have a great preference for their professional domains, especially SEMI majors. They may have great ideas or research findings in their professional fields. However, they are unable to express their entire knowledge in English and make it public to the entire world. They will not devote their efforts to studying English unless they feel like their English proficiency can reach a functional level. In Taiwan, many Taiwanese people resort to English learning centers to learn English. There are English learning centers for students to improve their English proficiency, aiming at passing the English exams or English proficiency tests. Others may focus on adults who wish to learn English, especially oral skills, for different purposes, such as employment requirement, communicating with international friends, traveling or studying abroad. Those who learn English at an English learning center may do so after school or work in the evening. Some of the English programs are taught by native English speakers, especially those focusing on oral skills. There is a tricky thing found at English learning centers in Taiwan. Learners have a preference for native speaking Westerners. They can more easily attract learners than Oriental teachers can. Generally speaking, Western teachers are paid more than Taiwanese Teachers are. In colleges, native speaking teachers are also favored by the students in a foreign language department. Students are said to be able to learn authentic languages from native speakers. Some parents of wealthy middle-class families even plan well-ahead to arrange their kids to be educated in an English-speaking country, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. In many cases, kids stay alone, with siblings, or with homestay families without their parents around them. Waters (2003) describes those children in Vancouver as ‘satellite kids’ as discussed in the first part of this volume. The government in Taiwan has announced the implementation of bilingual education in the year of 2030, aiming at responding to an era of globalization and at preparing Taiwanese people to be adequate global citizens. That is to say, English will be used as a medium of instruction in the classroom. As of the preparation of this volume and to the best of my knowledge, one of the greatest problems in implementing the policy so far lies in the fact that it is 244
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not easy to recruit bilingual teachers to teach content subjects in English, not to mention the need for bilingual teachers has been skyrocketing since the announcement of the language policy. Generally speaking bilingual education in Taiwan represents a step forward toward globalization, and this one is quite different from that of the United States. However, generally speaking, Taiwanese people’s English proficiency level is far from the required level to be able to communicate globally despite the craze for learning English in Taiwan as mentioned above. This may lie in the fact that there are scarce opportunities for those English learners to use English in an authentic environment outside the English classroom and that Taiwanese people’ involvement in learning English is generally not intrinsically motivated. Aside from those who may have practical purposes, e.g. required by employment, studying or travelling abroad, marriage, or personal growth, many Taiwanese people may learn English involuntarily. For example, English is a required subject in schools equally important to Chinese and is one of the subjects to be tested at different levels and different domains of exams. For some Taiwanese people, not only the hours offered to learn English in schools is not enough to allow learners to reach a functional level, but also students seldom have chances to use English in the real world. Under this circumstance, from the theory of second/foreign language learning, being intrinsically motivated is particularly critical to the situation of learning English in Taiwan. It reminds me of my own experience of learning English. I remember, in my dissertation oral defense in the United States, one of my committee members asked me a question: why do you want to learn English and how do you feel in the process of learning English? I responded: When I just started learning English, of course, I did not have enough English vocabulary words required to understand an entire article that I was interested in. The entire article was Greek to me. As I looked up a dictionary and patiently made sense of the article, I felt like I could decode telegraphic codes into meaningful messages and, most importantly, I gained knowledge that I might not otherwise gain from only reading in Chinese. It seemed that my committee members were satisfied with my answers. However, after several years of learning and teaching English, I would have a different answer if I were asked the same question. Now, having published some articles and books written in English, I feel obliged to make use of my language skills to demonstrate how non-native-English speakers can succeed in presenting themselves in English, and, most importantly, it is part of my responsibilities to use English to make my country and my culture known to as many people as I can. 245
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Furthermore, another reason for the failure of learning English for most of Taiwanese people can be attributed to the great linguistic differences between Chinese and English. Chinese and English belong to very different linguistic systems. Phonologically, Chinese is a tone language, with its four tones to distinguish the meaning of a lexical representation, whereas English is an intonation language, using different levels to stress the important parts that the speaker intends to express. Morphologically, Chinese characters are constituted of different strokes; whereas English words are formed with different alphabetic symbols. For Taiwanese people, it may not be easy to memorize all the English vocabulary words. On the other hand, a Chinese character does not always have a neatly equivalent and corresponding English word, and vice versa. To discuss even further, syntactically, Chinese and English have very different ways to organize a phrase or a sentence. For example, in Chinese, speakers do not have to reverse a verb to be and the subject in order to form a question; whereas English speakers are required to do so in order to form a grammatical sentence. All the linguistic differences between Chinese and English mentioned above may confuse a learner of English in Taiwan. Still another important factor contributing to the unsatisfactory achievement of Taiwanese people learning English is the problems with oral skills. Taiwanese students have problems with those English sounds that do not appear in Chinese pronunciation. For those sounds that are similar to English sounds, they tend to imitate the Chinese sounds that they are familiar with. It sometimes is intelligible perceived by native speakers of English. When it comes to listening comprehension skills, Taiwanese students have difficulties fully understanding the sentences a native speaker of English says. In their training of listening comprehension, Taiwanese students are generally provided with audio or video tapes recorded by native speakers of English which are intentionally slowed down in their rate of speaking to accommodate foreign language learners. In the real world, Taiwanese students are not used to the authentic language articulated by native speakers. As Menyuk and Brisk (2005) point out, “L2 acquirers need to know what happens to words in fast speech as opposed to carefully articulated speech” (p. 176). For college and post-graduate students, they confront an additional problem with English; that is, publishing their research findings in English. Pressured by the Ministry of Education (MOE), many colleges in Taiwan require their graduate students to publish articles in professional journals in English before they can get their degrees. Under this circumstance, some students resort to professional translators, and others choose to take an additional English course as an alternative. Although some universities in Taiwan do organize 246
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writing centers or language centers to help students for their needs to write research papers in English. However, one of the problems with these centers lies in the fact that most of the instructors or consultants in the centers may be good at English but may not be familiar with the knowledge of a particular domain and particular formats or writing conventions of scientific or technical writing. Aside from the above mentioned issues, there are still social and political issues relevant to professional publications, such as understanding the conventions of review process and negotiating with journal editors (Huang & Wu, 2021). Generally speaking, in terms of learning English, Taiwanese people need to debunk the myth of Standard English. As Field (2011) has clearly stated, “English itself is not monolithic in the sense that it has always been the same everywhere one goes. It consists of various dialects.” (p. 9). In an era of globalization and in the sense that language keeps changing, it is inevitable that a language learner needs to be aware of language varieties and different accents. For examples, to reflect on a variety of accents in an era of globalization, many official English proficiency tests have employed speakers with different accents and from different areas of the world in their oral tests. It is evident that being able to comprehend the so-called Standard English is definitely not enough to function in a globalized world. For college and post-graduate students in Taiwan, a pedagogy applying approaches to teaching English for specific purposes (ESP) can be worthy of research investigation. In this regard, Huang and Wu (2021) propose English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) as a sub-category of ESP and suggest an integrated approach to solve the problems encountered by post-graduate students in terms of publishing research findings in English in professional journals. They interviewed faculty members who advise graduate students, language teachers who help graduate students in refining their research findings for publication, and graduate students who are in need of publishing their articles. Each of the three groups has its specific problems in terms of advising students in their professional research, providing required language assistance, and writing up an acceptable research findings in English. Huang and Wu, after carefully investigating the problems faced by the interviewees, finally conclude with recommendations for different groups of interviewees. For professional faculty members advising graduate students who themselves might have problems reporting research finding in English, they suggest that co-teaching with language instructors might be feasible. For language instructors who might lack the professional knowledge, they can encourage 247
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students to analyze professional journal articles and create their own corpus, including vocabulary words and sentence patterns, to facilitate their own report writing. I mentioned earlier in this part of the volume, Bangladeshi students view attending private tutoring to learn English as a necessity, rather than luxury; whereas Jordanian college students regard taking private English lessons as a way to demonstrate their social status. For Taiwanese people, the reasons may vary and are somewhat complex, depending on different age groups, educational backgrounds, career or educational requirements, and social status. Did the situation of learning English create social inequality in Taiwan? Maybe! Viewed from a more practical perspective, people who can speak English are more advantageous than those who cannot in their job employment and career advancement, educational development, and even elevation of social status. However, unlike minority groups in multicultural societies, the inequality is more an issue of competition than an issue of marginalization. People in Taiwan are said to be equally encouraged to learn English. Although children of wealthy people may start learning English at a younger age and although poorer children may have fewer resources to learn English, it is a matter of motivation when it comes to learning a language. Now, aside from promoting English as part of Taiwan’s language policy, I want to turn the case of Taiwan to the other sphere: maintenance of indigenous and migrant people’s native languages. As I mentioned earlier, Taiwan is less multilingual and multicultural in comparison with those highly multilingual and multicultural states or societies. However, as the impacts of globalization, Taiwan has encountered some changes and is becoming a more linguistically and culturally diverse society. In the 1990s, Taiwan witnessed an increasing growing number of immigrants from South-East Asia, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Mostly they came to Taiwan to do some labor works and home-care services. Some may came to Taiwan through inter-cultural marriage. In an interview with me, Na (2022) carefully described the status quo of Taoyun, her hometown and an important city in Northern Taiwan. It is important because it is where the main international airport is located and where, as an industrialized city, is in a great need of foreign workers. Na has been living in Taoyun and teaching in a local elementary school for many years. She recounts that her students are actually quite ethnically diverse, including children of new immigrants from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Basically, it takes about one 248
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fifth of the entire school population. The Ministry of Education (MOE) requires the school to offer different heritage language classes, depending on the population of the group, and students are required to choose one of the language classes to attend. Teachers of these heritage language classes are chosen from native speakers of these immigrant groups and they need to attend some kinds of training and get a certificate in order to be eligible to teach a heritage language. It is not uncommon that teachers need to shuttle among different schools to teach. In order to encourage the second-generation children to maintain their heritage language, MOE would hold some kinds of heritage language competition, such as speech contests. These school children have different degrees of proficiency in their heritage language, depending on their parents’ attitude and ways to educate their children. Some parents consider learning and maintaining their heritage language important; others think that mastery of the mainstream language or English may help their children’s future career development. Inevitably, immigrant children also learn English in schools. According to Na (2022), generally speaking, they are better in their oral skills than in reading and writing skills. Their parents are very supportive of their learning of English. The instructional materials used to teach English cover a variety of cultural elements, although not really explain in depth. Na (2022) told me that, in her English class, Vietnamese students even volunteered to introduce Vietnamese culture in the class. From the discussions on the case of Taiwan above, we may see how Taiwan’s language policy intends to keep up with the trend of globalization.
AFRICA The Case of South Africa According to Makoni and Makoni (2015), “South Africa’s bilingual policy dates as far back as the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902). As in most African countries, the bilingual policy was never targeted at African-language speakers but at non-African invaders” (p. 555). That is, invaders were forced to learn an additional language as punishment. “For instance, the English introduced the Anglicization policy to punish the Boers for having put up a fierce fight during the Anglo-Boer war” (p. 555).
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Before and in the era of apartheid, the bilingualism “focused exclusively on two languages—English and Afrikaans….This bilingual education policy echoes colonial bilingual” (Makoni & Makoni, 2015, p. 555). That is to say, those in power can decide on the two languages for the minorities. As a result of Anglicization, in “South Africa, all whites learned either English or Afrikaans…, [and] was constructed as ostensibly a white bilingual country” (Makoni & Makoni, 2015, p. 556). Under this circumstance, African languages were devalued, and this had led to Afrikaaner nationalism, claiming “shared language, religious orientation, and descent” (Makoni & Makoni, 2015, p. 556). As Makoni and Makoni (2015) recount, the “post-apartheid government’s multilingual policy is deeply embedded in the South African constitution. In addition to English and Afrikaans, nine African languages acquired officiallanguage status” (p. 560). However, the fact is that if you can communicate in English, you have better chances to win a position in government departments. It makes “the bilingual education system of the Anglicization era the de facto policy in practice” (p. 560). Moreover, the authors point to a situation in which black elite who were supportive of bilingual education to include the English language and who have better access to resources and “marshal arguments that promote their values and ultimately influence the formulation of policy in ways that the average local community members cannot do” (p. 561). A good thing to note is that legal instruments were said to be more flexible for language instruction. An example is that if “the school is located in a predominantly Afrikaans-speaking area, then the language of instruction is Afrikaans; if it is in an English area, then it is English (p. 561). In the history of South Africa, much of the information on its apartheid and segregation policies has been reported, and these policies did affect colored people and migrants to South Africa. I do not use the term “minority groups” because white people are actually one of the “minority groups,” although they own superior status and are privileged in many ways in South Africa. Under this circumstance, prestigious schools were almost reserved for children of white European descent. Among colored, non-white groups of people, I will in this section especially discuss the education of South African Chinese relevant to its culture and language maintenance. According to Harris’s (2003) recounts, groups of Chinese people went to South Africa as indentured mine laborers around the mid-nineteenth century. To educate their children to learn the Chinese culture and language, these same people
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would send their children back to China. The Chinese community is actually segregated and Chinese people are treated as second-class people. In the schools designated for Chinese children, students were taught in English as the medium of instruction and Christian components. South African Chinese then decided to “take education matters into their own hand” (Harris, 2003, p. 109). They organized their own Chinese schools around the first half of the twentieth century. Although the curriculum in these schools was western and include Christian religious instruction, Chinese children were allowed to learn Chinese a couple of hours in the afternoon. Gradually, it became unnecessary for Chinese parents sending their children back to China to have “Chinese education” because Chinese teachers were allowed to be employed from China in 1923 in order to maintain “some form of Chinese cultural cohesion and identity” (Harris, 2003, p. 111). As described by Harris (2003), despite “the various apartheid educational constraints and obstacles, the South African Chinese rank as one of the most highly educated communities in the country” (p. 113). She attributes this to the fact perhaps “a combination of Confucian education values, as well as a desire to escape from the confusion of apartheid legislation inspired the success” (p. 114).
The Case of Ethiopia Dana (2022) describes how the Ethiopian language policy has moved from a single language, culture and religion to a multilingual one. According to Dana, “Ethiopia is home to more than 80 distinct languages…, [and] it is a land of diverse ethnic groups” (p. 83). However, before 1991, “Ethiopia’s successive leaders …made Amharic the only language of instruction in schools besides foreign languages….[U]ntil recently, the rights of various ethnic groups to be educated in their own languages have been denied” (p. 83). After “the adoption of federalism in 1995, the Ethiopian government implemented a multilingual education policy…at primary education level…,[trying] to ease the ethnic tension in the country” (Dana, 2022, p. 83). However, according to Dana, learners learn in their mother tongue at primary level and…little attention has been paid by the government to the teaching of Amharic—the lingua franca for nearly the last three decades—we see little or no communication between members of various ethnic groups at university level (p. 84).
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Furthermore, although English was the medium of instruction at the higher education level, “learners …have little or no command over English” (p. 84). Dana (2022) points to the importance of mother-tongue education. First, viewed from the pedagogical perspective, “when people learn new concepts in the language that they understand best, their chances of understanding the new concept greatly increase” (p. 85-86). Second, “inevitable bias in favour of the dominant language …puts the disadvantaged languages in a more vulnerable position” (p. 86). In the case of Ethiopia, the “government made Amharic the working language of the federal government and the language of countrywide communication, it has already given one of the most important forms of support required to maintain the language…as a living and developing one” (p. 86). For language minorities, they need to be able to speak the designated language and being familiar with its relevant culture in order to be able to function properly in the political, societal, educational, and religious arena. Third, as Dana states, “education has to aim at the promotion of equality among human beings….It should therefore aim at carrying all existing languages into the future” (p. 88). For marginalized minority groups, seeing their languages are being taught and used, they feel like they are being recognized and respected. As Dana (2022) describes, when “mother-tongue education was started in more than 25 national languages in Ethiopia, parents of different ethnic origins took it as an affirmation of their cultural identities” (p. 89). However, “Amharic was the only Ethiopian language that served as the language of schooling for all the ethnic groups of country” (p. 89). For parents of minority groups, they were not seeking wider communication of their mother-tongue languages; rather, they argue that they “deserve the same kind to support to be the living and developing languages at least in their locality” (p. 89). Dana argues that “the state should promote the multilingual educational approach, which seeks to promote the cultures, values, beliefs and world views of all the citizens of the state….Education in the mother tongue thus helps learners feel respected” (p. 91). Dana (2022) further describes the current situation of multilingualism in Ethiopia by saying that several ethnic minorities therefore made their language the language of schooling…. However, as many testify, in the last nearly three decades, due emphasis has not been placed on teaching the language of wider communication. Because of this, inter-group communication has been declining at an increasing rate in Ethiopia (p. 92). 252
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Thus, as Dana states, many scholars suggest that one or more languages used for wider communication is required if Ethiopia wants to stand as a multiethnic state. Dana on the other hand suggests that the implementation of bilingual education may alleviate the pressure of being assimilated by the mainstream society. He argues that preserving minority languages and cultures does not mean not learning the language of the dominant group. If minorities are constantly isolated from the mainstream society in the name of preserving their distinct cultural identity, they will not have better economy benefits than those concentrated in mainstream society. They also cannot be represented adequately in the political life of the mainstream society because that requires, at the minimum, a mastery of the language of the larger society and its culture (p. 92). Ethiopia’s issues on structuring its language policy can also be commonly found in many African countries, facing a dilemma of language planning. One the one hand, assigning a lingua franca to be used by different ethnic groups may promote intergroup communication. On the other hand, it may fail to protect each indigenous language.
EUROPE The Case of European Union and European Countries In this section, I will first focus on the discussion of how EU’s language policies practiced in its member states. Then I will move on to discuss the teaching approach, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), commonly found in EU member states.
EU Multilingualism As mentioned in the first part of this volume, European Union (EU) plays a significant role in the language planning or policies of its member states. Beardsmore (2009) points out that there were many EU member states that established their bilingual education programs since the nineteenth century, including Luxembourg, Malta, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Germany.
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According to Cenoz and Gorter (2015), students in most European countries start learning a foreign language in primary education….In many cases, a second foreign language is introduced in secondary education. With few exceptions, the first foreign language is English and the second foreign language is German or French (p. 474). They point to two specific features relevant to multilingual education in Europe: “its diversity and the increasing role of English” (p. 480). In the European context, multilingual education can be referred to as involving “indigenous minority languages, official languages of the states, immigrant languages, and English” (p. 480). These different languages can be practiced for both minority and majority people and people of different social backgrounds at different educational levels as a subject or language arts or as the medium of instruction. The other feature of multilingual education in Europe is the predominance of English. English has been seen so predominant that many instructional programs used English in their instruction and the numbers of students learning German and French, for example, have decreased. Scholars were worried that “other languages may not be any longer learned in the near future” (p. 480). Multilingual schools in European countries vary in different ways and can be viewed from different dimensions. Cenoz and Gorter (2015) point out that at least three dimensions combined differently may lead to different types of multilingual education: “language distance, sociolinguistic context, and educational variables” (p. 475). First, some “languages such as Swedish and English or Dutch and English are typologically closer than languages such as Spanish and English or Italian and English” (p. 475). Different arrangements of bilingual education in different European countries may be understood by comparing how distant or close of the languages they promote in their bilingual education. Another dimension that may affect how bilingual education is structured is relevant to the sociolinguistic context. Some European countries are ‘more multilingual’ while others are ‘less multilingual.’ It may be because of what languages are taught at school, where the school is located and chances of using particular languages, and “the social networks students have in the family or with friends and neighbors” (p. 475). Finally, educational variables can also affect how bilingual education is structured and the degree of multilingualism in a European country. These variables may include “the use of the different languages as subjects and language of 254
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instruction, the introduction of languages at different ages, teachers’ degree of multilingualism and specific training or use of languages in the school environment” (p. 475). Finally, minority languages also play a role in multilingual education. Like different dimensions can determine the way bilingual education is structured in a European school, how to define minority languages is also complicated. According to Cenoz and Gorter (2015), minority languages in the European context can be divided into different categories. Some minority languages…are spoken in one or more than one state, but are nowhere the official dominant or majority language of a state....In other cases, a language that is a minority language in one state is the official and dominant language in another, neighboring state….[For example,] Luxemburgish is the official language of Luxembourg where German and French are used as well, and English is the dominant language in Ireland although Irish is the first official language (p. 476).
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in EU Member States The European Union initiated Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) for EU bilingual education. It is intended to distinguish its bilingual education programs from other similar programs, such as Canadian immersion programs. Beardsmore (2009) explains that CLIL is different from Canadian immersion programs in that CLIL “aims at achieving a functional competence in both receptive and productive skills, [and the aim can be achieved] when the target language takes a low portion of curriculum time” (p. 210). Another difference is that some of the CLIL-type programs also offer courses to teach the target language used in the content areas as a subject. In this case, students not only learn the official forms and rules of the target language but also learn the language from an authentic, real-world environment. According to Beardsmore research findings have pointed out that CLIL “results in high levels of communication both between teachers and learners, and among learners themselves. In this way, CLIL fosters fluency where typical foreignlanguage teaching tends to focus on accuracy” (p. 212). Having practiced CLIL widely in EU member states, CLIL is not without is challenges. Beardsmore (2009) points out some challenges schools might encounter. First, there is a short supply and lack of training of CLIL teachers 255
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and the supply of teaching materials is also inadequate. “There is an inadequate supply of teachers with the necessary qualifications in both the subjectmatter and the target language” (p. 213). As far as the teaching materials are concerned, “foreign language materials produced abroad may not cover syllabus requirements in a different country, and may be linguistically too complex in the earlier stage of the program” (p. 214). Second, there are also problems with assessment. Basically, the problems lie in the fact that teachers may be forced to use standardized tests to measure students’ achievement. Some teachers commented that a “language test needs to focus on the ‘doing’ part of how the student performs and not just the ‘knowing’” (Beardsmore, 2009, p. 214). In realty, assessments of CLIL programs “focus on accurate knowledge of the content-matter, but allow infelicities in the target language” (p. 215). Under this circumstance, teachers may try hard to meet the certification requirements, rather than the use of the target language in the real world. Beardsmore (2009) points to a study done to a bilingual classroom in Brunei, where Malay and English were the two languages in the classroom and when students were asked to respond in the target language, English, “not a single sentence was produced by a child in the lesson” (p. 215). Ramirez-Verdugo and Garcia de la Vega (2018) pose a question for teachers and researchers to further explore: whether the implementation of current CLIL programs promote in students the same content depth and complexity than they would acquire in their first language. [Some concerns are students’] ability to grasp, analyse, assess and evaluate content and critical thinking in the second language in some cases” (p. 226). Cenoz and Gorter (2015) suggest that future developments in multilingual education in Europe need to go beyond the isolation of the different languages into models that accommodate the integration of the different languages into the curriculum so that learners can apply what they learn in one language to other languages (p. 481). Cenoz and Gorter (2015) point to some challenges that practitioners of multilingual education involving minorities may face. First, “English is so predominant that other languages may not be any longer learned in the near future” (p. 480). For example, CLIL is always connected to English, and it 256
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is found that learning “European languages other than English has decreased in some countries” (p. 480). Second, research on CLIL programs needs to be conducted in different areas to “analyze the effects of CLIL programs on the learning of academic content and on the development of second/foreign language proficiency” (p. 481). Especially, CLIL programs can be analyzed and compared with immersion bilingual programs to explore valuable information on good pedagogies. As Beardsmore (2009) states, there “are at least thirty-three different designations for some type of ‘bilingual education,’ which may be the term used in some countries but which tends to be avoided at the European level, given that in certain countries it has a negative connation” (p. 208). European Union thus coined the term CLIL to represent Content and Language Integrated Learning, which it defines as “any type of program where a second language is used to teach non-linguistic content-matter” (p. 209). According to Cenoz and Gorter (2015), CLIL “was launched in the 1990s by a group of European experts and it is nowadays widely used outside Europe as well” (p. 478). In this instructional approach, teachers can either teach “some subject content in the language class by having some activities or units on academic content, but… [they may also teach]…a school subject through the medium of English or another language” (p. 478). CLIL has four principles: content, which focuses on “subject learning and the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and understanding inherent to the discipline” (p. 213) ; communication, underlining the importance of using language in an authentic environment; cognition, which provides an environment that students can develop “both basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive-academic language proficiency (CALP); and culture/citizenship, in which students get a chance to be involved in a different culture by learning another language. Having discussed the role CLIL plays in language education in EU member countries, I choose Sweden as an example to briefly illustrate how the learning of English is generally practiced in Sweden. According to Henry (2014), people “living in Sweden are generally regarded as being good at English” (p. 94). It is interesting to note that Swedish students consider themselves learning English in out-of-school environments more than in schools. Henry, based on survey results, describes that “[m]any of the online activities, digital games, music, and TV programs popular among people in Sweden are mediated in English” (p. 95). Research studies show that there are positive correlations between the amount of time spent in English-mediated environments and students’ test scores. 257
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In Sweden, according to Henry (2014), Swedish students start learning English in school at age 7. Reports published by official inspectors who observed the English classes in different schools identified some problems with English Education in Sweden. They describe that few activities could really awaken students’ interest or provide them with real challenge. Teachers used commercially-produced learning materials, and they seldom used authentic materials in the classroom. Students revealed in interviews that “there were few, if any, opportunities to make use of out-of-school experiences of English in the classroom, and how they are much more comfortable using English outside school than inside” (Henry, 2014, p. 98). Henry points to a possible reason that students learn English from English-mediated environments may be because the environments are often personally meaningful, identityconfirming and in which they feel comfortable using the language (p. 100). It is interesting to note that, in Sweden, studies have shown “L2 English had a negative impact on L3 motivation” (Sundqvist, 2020, p. 327). That is to say, students do not think they will learn an L3 well if they are not a good L2 English speaker. Aside from English, Swedish students also learn many other foreign languages. Among them, French, German, and Spanish are the most traditional modern languages taught in schools (Sundqvist, 2020), although these languages might be less learned informally or outside the school than they do with English. According to Sundqvist, “Asian languages have been on the rise in Sweden for some time, which appears linked to a general interest in Asian languages and culture” (p. 328). These Asian languages include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
The Case of the United Kingdom The discussion of bilingual education in the United Kingdom is somewhat different from those of other countries. First, the United Kingdom is considered the main provider of English that export the English language to many nonEnglish speaking countries as will be discussed in the next chapter of this volume. Second, according to Edwards (2015), in English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, “literacy learning is framed very much from a monolingual perspective,…awareness of the challenges for bilingual learners is limited” (p. 81). Third, even though dual language books can be “widely found in multilingual classrooms throughout the English-speaking world…. [T]hey use the standard literary variety of the minority language; children 258
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living outside the country of origin, however, have limited access to this variety” (Edwards, 2015, p. 86). For these reasons, in this section, I choose, instead, to discuss the assessment of foreign language learning viewed from a UK perspective and assessment of foreign language learning textbooks used in the UK. On the other hand, the language programs offered for minority groups in the UK is targeted at refugees and asylum seekers.
Assessment of Foreign Language Learning and textbooks Federici (2021), teaching in a UK university, provides a framework for assessment of foreign language learning, the PRIME approach, which stands for Purposeful, Relevant, Integrated, Motivating, and Empowering. She introduces the framework in the hope that it can support “learning and teaching and [illustrate] the centrality of aligned assessment in creating a dynamic, flexible, and motivating curriculum” (p. 85). She argues that teaching, intended learning outcomes and assessment should be aligned with one another. Federici claims that this approach “could be adapted to fit different modules and language levels” (p. 85). She first uses two case studies to demonstrate how the PRIME approach works before she recounts the PRIME approach. Participants of the two case studies were “second-year undergraduate advanced students of Italian” (p. 86). Basically, the two cases of language learning feature their process-led approach “in which students increase their cultural and linguistic competences [was] seen as a continuum, not judged solely on a final products” (p. 86). It integrates the idea of cycle of learning because “it relies on multiple points of feedback and reflection that enable students to re-engage with their own work over time” (p. 86). Criteria-Referenced Assessment, which may “avoid students ranking their ability against each other [and may] assist students in acquiring a more holistic view of their progress;” (p. 87) and finally, the focus on individual choice, which may eliminate “a source of comparison and competition amongst students” (p. 87). In sum, Federici claims that this course design is collaborative, interactive, and meaningful, which may motivate students to learn a language that is relevant to them and to the real world. Federici (2012) elaborates the PRIME model for assessment design. First, PRIME stands for Purposeful, Relevant, Integrated, Motivating, and Empowering, aiming at providing “a coherent and relevant scaffold that can allow practitioners the freedom to create engaging and inspiring content that can be rigorously and fairly assessed” (p. 91). Federici first maintains 259
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that the purpose of assessment must be clearly stated and considers that “assessment purpose statements can refocus students on the individual and skill-building outcomes, rather than on percentages and ranking outcomes with peers” (p. 91). Second, assessment needs to be “meaningful, rather than superficial, content…, [and puts] the ‘living, thinking, experiencing and feeling person at the centre of the language learning process…to make language learning a personally contextualised, meaningful activity for the learner’” (p. 92). In addition, Federici considers that integrating different modes of assessment into syllabus and aligning with learning objectives is key to the PRIME model. For example, the outbreak of COVID has moved most of the teaching and learning online. Under this circumstance, teachers and students need to be ready for the shift and get to understand and interact with different forms of technology. Another element required in the PRIME model is being motivating. According to Federici, “[u]nderstanding student motivation and adopting strategies to motivate learners are central to language teaching” (p. 93). Motivation in assessment must be realistic tasks and trueto-life communication in order to keep learners stay motivated toward their goals of language learning. Finally, Federici considers empowering “focuses on expanding the possibilities of students’ future L2 selves….Introducing assessment that is process-driven and self-directed can enable students to restructure their mindset and become more learner-oriented” (p. 94). Mohamed (2021), on the other hand, analyzes “the reading content in four prominent Arabic textbook series that are widely used in the UK and USA to assess their reading proficiency progression” (p. 57). She points out that there is rapidly growing demand on learning Arabic in the English speaking world (UK and USA) over the past two decades….[and it might be because] Arabic is a strategic language for the English-speaking world for economic and political reasons, and there has been a growing interest in studying it at the university level (p. 59-60). Mohamed applied the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) to assess Arabic textbooks used in UK and found that “the reading content in the analysed textbooks does not maintain steady progression in terms of language proficiency as per the CEFR proficiency scale” (p. 71). That is, these textbooks “did not agree in interpreting and exemplifying those proficiency levels through their reading texts” (p. 73). She urges that teachers should be 260
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trained on “criteria for material development, not only to evaluate and adapt existing textbooks, but to develop their own materials based on their local contexts and learners’ needs” (p. 73).
Teaching Refuges and Asylum Seekers Language education for minority people can no longer be practiced in a traditional way during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many changes have been encountered by language teachers around the globe, for example, moving from face-to-face communications to interacting online and to a flux of unexpected refugees and asylum seekers. Motteram, et al. (2022) describe how the United Kingdom managed to work with and educate refugees and asylum seekers in Manchester, the Caritas Refugee Education (CRE). According to them, in the UK, “funding of language support for refugees started in 1966” (p. 249). In the 1960s and 1970s, the charity sector started being involved in English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) because of funding being reduced. In their investigation of teaching English to refugees and asylum seekers at CRE in a time of Covid-19 pandemic, Motteram, et al. (2022) mainly focused their discussions on how teachers and volunteers being shaped and, in turn, shaped their teaching practices and attitudes toward teaching online throughout the pandemic. They approached their investigations from two perspectives: technological perspectives and ecological perspectives. Viewed from the technological perspectives, the authors were concerned about the fact that, although many teachers and students as the so-called ‘digital residents’ may have developed their technological skills and “very high-tech classrooms in almost any part of the world, but there are a lot more places where access is either limited or non-existent” (Motteram, et al. p. 250), especially given the fact that ESOL is considered non-formal education, ESOL classrooms were not likely to be equipped with high-tech facilities. Aside from technological perspectives, the authors also “use an ecological perspective …to explore the teachers’ developing understanding of their online language teaching practices during the pandemic” (p. 250). That is, Motteram, et al. tried to “explore what shapes the CRE teachers’ different approaches and attitudes towards the use of technology in the online environment, and how in turn, that online environment shapes teaching and learning during the ongoing pandemic” (p. 250). Findings of Motteram et al’s (2022) investigation show that the “realities of the living conditions, language abilities, digital literacies and access to technology and the [I]nternet of their asylum seeker and refugee students 261
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profoundly shaped their search for and perception of the different action possibilities available to them” (p. 261). The authors conclude that their research has shown “how a small group of teachers working within a very specific political, economic and social environment have both shaped and been shaped by the ongoing pandemic environment with regards to their language teaching practice” (p. 263). They suggest that, in resource-limited language learning contexts, “the need to work with both the technology and the digital literacy that students have as a starting point [and] …help develop skills which are essential to surviving an increasingly online world and increase the employability of students” (p. 262-263).
NORTH AMERICA The Case of the United States Historically, the United States is known for its multi-cultural societies and the various languages spoken by different ethno-linguistic groups. Field (2011) describes how multi-cultural societies have formed in the United States. First of all, the United States “is a nation of immigrants, …[and] various immigrant groups brought their languages with them” (p. 2). For example, the original settlers from Britain, including the North and West of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, brought with them their ancestral languages and English varieties. As time moves on, German-speaking migrants settled in the rough now-Pennsylvania, and then Scandinavians, including Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, settled in the Midwest states. After that, there came Italians and French people. Still a significant group is Africa-origin people, who came to the United States around the 17th century. They were “brought by the predecessor of those who would become slaves….[and they] have lived mostly in the American South” (p. 2). A case slightly different from the migrant groups mentioned above is Spanish-speaking people. As described by Field (2011), “many [Spanish] speakers were already ‘here,’ occupying land that would later be taken over by the U.S.” (p. 2). These states, including Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and California, “were under Spanish rule for three centuries, and then, briefly, under Mexican rule. Still there were Spanish-speaking people moving into the United States from Latin American. Given the history of immigration, there is little wonder that “people in the part of the world that 262
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became the United States of America have spoken many languages” (Field, 2011, p. 3). In the United States, bilingual education can be categorized into two types. One “is developed for children of the dominant group in society, the other for ethnolinguistic minorities (Hamers & Blanc, 1989, p. 1887). As mentioned above, the United States features its various ethnic groups, immigrants, and a variety of temporary residents such as international students and expatriate workers. Bilingual education naturally focuses on the teaching of English and the languages of minority groups and developing an equal and a non-discriminating society. In this section, I will discuss different forms of bilingual education developed for different groups of people based on their particular needs and interests, including critical multicultural education, dual language education, and bilingual communication education in New York.
Critical Multicultural Education Critical multiculturalism emerged about a decade ago in the United States. Advocates of critical multiculturalism challenge the liberal or benevolent forms of multiculturalism (May & Sleeter, 2010). They criticize the generally recognized and practiced of liberal multiculturalism as abdicating “any corresponding recognition of unequal, and often untidy, power relations that underpin inequality and limit cultural interaction” (May & Sleeter, 2010, p. 4). As stated by Hanley (2010), the “term critical implies criticism, an act of analysis used to examine society” (p. 192). The two major concerns of advocates of critical multicultural education are: minority or marginalized groups should be given equal opportunities and access to education and business and multicultural education should reflect minority groups’ needs, interests, and realities in the world. However, as May and Sleeter (2010) point out, teachers are actually reluctant to practice critical multiculturalism in their classroom. On the one hand, they do not really know how to put all the theories of multiculturalism into practice in the classroom; on the other hand, they can hardly get support from the school for fear of destroying the stability of the school. In their edited book, May and Sleeter have collected a number of examples to demonstrate how critical multicultural education can empower and benefit minority groups. Among these examples, Gutstein (2010) describes how individuals’ culture and local population can be applied in science education to reflect a critical multicultural perspective. In his math class, Gutstein purposefully direct his students to get involved in their own community and find problems in their community and look for ways to 263
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improve the place they were living. In one of the critical mathematic projects, students were assigned to investigate into Hurricane Katrina that strongly devastated New Orleans where his African American students lived. Gutstein raised some critical questions and asked his students to use the mathematical knowledge they have learned to investigate into these questions: The picture of the Hurricane Katrina looks like only African Americans lived in the sports stadium in New Orleans. Is this true that only African Americans lived in New Orleans or “maybe they were the only ones who stayed/got left behind?” (p. 131). Students in this project were asked to use their mathematical arguments to create graphs and present in the class. Another example of critical multicultural education is demonstrated by Flynn (2010). She describes yet another multicultural class she observed that focuses on the discussion of race, racism, and White privilege and superiority. The teacher organized the entire project “into four evolving themes: (1) defining cultures; (2) cultural collision; (3) cultural conflict; and (4) cultural resolution” (p. 168). At the beginning of this project, students were asked to examine the issues of culture and race because the teacher considered it necessary to create a safe space for the following discussions. In the second quarter, students were asked to examine “the patterns of contact that tend to emerge when cultures collide, as colonizing forces enter the territories of indigenous people” (p. 169). That is, they examined issues relevant to marginalization and colonization. In the third quarter, the discussions focused on cultural conflicts, especially the issues of White privilege and ‘othering’. It can be envisioned that white students felt difficult to talk about the issue and sometimes they were silenced. However, the teacher in the class wanted the white students to honestly think about how they feel and talk about these issues. Finally and importantly, the teacher concluded the project with cultural resolution. The teacher used South Africa’s apartheid as an example to guide students to continue “to explore issues of race, exploration, and power along with culture” (p. 173). Still there are examples of research on critical multicultural education relevant to language teaching and learning done by Locke (2010), who focuses on teaching subject English in multilingual classes, and by Kubota (2010), who in her research pays great attention to teaching of second/foreign language. In teaching subject English in a multilingual classroom, Locke proposes four models that may have slightly different focuses: cultural heritage, personal growth, rhetorical or textual competence, and critical practice. In the case of cultural heritage model, teachers, for example, can ask students to search for information or any kinds of document relevant to their cultural heritage from 264
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written documents, books, newspapers, pictures, advertisements, videos or movies, and, most importantly, carefully examine the contents to see if there are any kind of inequality, discrimination, or anything they took for granted for so long but actually deprives them from their basic rights. The personal growth model claims that reading English textbooks facilitates a person’s linguistic, cognitive, and intercultural growth. Although some scholars “saw this paradigm as culturally bound, favoring social elites, and productive of social inequality” (Locke, 2021, p. 92), Locke (2010) argues that by interacting with texts students gain cultural capital and that this model helps students form a hybridized identity that “can serve children’s developmental needs in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms” (p. 93). The third model, the textual or rhetorical model, can be easily understood as aiming at improving children’s language skills. But how is this model related to critical multicultural education? Theoretically, this is a “decontextualized skills-based model [and an] outcomes-based education in general” (p. 93). Under this circumstance, practitioners of this model are quite careful about presenting the lessons. They use a top-down grammar approach “which viewed texts as explicable only in relationship to contexts of situation and culture” (p. 94). On the other hand, they pay equal attention to written and oral language and are willing to “analyse and critique the status of various languages in terms of …power …[and] to debate the relation ‘between a language curriculum, society, and social change” (p. 94). Finally, the critical literacy model, aims at “encouraging students to be resistant readers and empowered language users” (p. 95) although, as Locke admits, there are shortcomings and limitations in practicing critical literacy approach. Kubota (2010), on the other hand, expands Locke’s discussion of teaching English in a non-English-speaking environment and to a homogeneous group of English learners. She first argues that currently practiced multicultural education is actually promoting monolingualism in the sense that minority or non-English speaking students are forced to learn and accept the cultures of English-speaking countries. Kubota then focuses her main discussion on race, racism, racialization and language and the issue related to critical multicultural education. She first uses examples or stories to illustrate how racialization and discrimination prevail in educational institutions and society. For example, students or teachers of color are judged of their English proficiency based on their race, and employees are categorized and paid based on their skin color and accents in speaking English. “Speakers of English are further recialized by additional linguistic categories such as World Englishes” (p. 101). In the 265
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cases of native speakers of English from Africa, Caribbean, and South Asian countries, they are forced to enroll in the ESL program even though their first language is English.
Dual Language Bilingual Education Avni and Menken (2021) point out that one “of the main intentions of bilingual education is not only to serve as a site for language learning, but also to foster non-linguistic growth, including the development of cross-cultural understandings and positive attitudes toward self and others” (p. 156). These principles can be more attainable in the case of dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs, which “bring children of two language groups together with the aims of developing bilingualism and biliteracy in both languages. Given the facts that DLBE also receives many negative research results, such as perpetuating “racial discrimination, linguistic marginalization, and class and ethnic hierarchies in public schooling” (Avni & Menken, 2021, p. 157). Avni and Menken describe a study on a Hebrew-English dual bilingual program in a so-called Multilingual Public Middle School (MPMS) in New York City. They focus on the Hebrew-English program, which was organized in 2017. According to them, students in the program were “mainly comprised low- and middle- income Jews, many of whom were children of immigrants from a wide variety of countries who spoke many different languages at home” (p. 159), and racial/ethnic hierarchies within Judaism existed. According to Avni and Menken (2021), although “many of the Jewish students in the Hebrew program at MPMS may be viewed by others (and themselves) as white and benefit from white privilege, their non-Ashkenazi backgrounds points to the complex dynamic of Jewish racialization at work (p. 159). That is, there were racial hierarchies within Judaism and Ashkenazi Jews viewed “Sephardic/Mizrachi Jews’ identities, histories, customs, and practices inferior and inauthentic forms of Judaism and in need of ‘Ashkenazificatin’” (p. 159). This type of bilingual programs is sometimes termed two-way immersion bilingual education (TWBE). Garcia-Meteus, et al. (2021) did an ethnographic study describing a white middle-class girl, Tessa’s (pseudonym), six-year’s experiences of being educated in a TWBE program. Tessa was a white, middle-class, and English-dominant girl. However, she was taken care of by a Spanish-speaking care-giver since her infancy, and her parents purposely put her in a both Spanish and English speaking environment. This bilingual program was practiced in a school in Hillside, Texas, featuring its increasing 266
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English-speaking population “due to the influx of white, middle-class families eager to participate in the TWBE program” (p. 247). Making use the example of Tessa, these authors intend to illustrate how white supremacy is visually or invisibly practiced in even well-intended bilingual program and how white supremacy is actually normalized and maintained in a raciolinguistically unequal environment. Starting from Tessa’s year in kindergarten, Garcia-Meteus, et al. (2021) observed that, in the TWBE kindergarten, students were labeled and color coded as ‘English expert’ or ‘Spanish expert’ based mainly on their language assessment scores. The school had its policy of language separation by content area. In an activity in the classroom, the teacher was found to direct Tessa, although being labeled as Spanish expert, to help her Spanish-speaking partner in counting beans in Spanish. For these researchers, this may reinforce the notion of white supremacy. “Tessa’s bilingualism was celebrated and honored, while [her partner] was made invisible and problematized” (p. 251). In a video taped in her first grade, Tessa was found to dominantly show her intention to help her group members in activities and positioned herself in a role of helper. In Tessa’s second grade year, a teacher who was designated to teach content areas in Spanish was found largely speaking in English in the class. Being asked, the teacher expressed her concern over white students’ problems with comprehending in Spanish. For researchers of this study, it is another example of white supremacist. Because Tessa was positioned as ‘strong’ bilingual, she was always assigned to help her peers. The researchers commented that “these privileges characterize her school experience…is recognized and rewarded by those around her” (p. 254). In her third grade year, Tessa was even more apparent showing her pride in being bilingual and in being white. She challenged her Spanish-speaking teacher over rhymes in Spanish words. Garcia-Meteus, et al. (2021) commented that Tessa constructed her notion of white supremacy since her kindergarten year and argued that institutions “that embody whiteness normalize this perception…that whites command authority and expertise related to language practices – even those that are not, in some ways, their own” (p. 257). In her fifth grade year, as described by Garcia-Meteus, et al. (2021), Tessa moved into more critical terrain. Due to gentrification, which “is the process whereby impoverished working-class urban areas are initially found as an attractive place to locate to by artists, students and bohemians for its cheap but architecturally attractive accommodation and central locality” (Anderson, 2018, p. 51), population of the bilingual elementary changed significantly. At “least half of the Latinx and bilingual students present came from upper 267
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middle-class backgrounds” (Garcia-Meteus, et al. 2021, p. 258). Tessa’s fifthgrade teacher “was a bilingual… who naturally engaged in translanguaging practices, and did not curb this practice in the classroom despite the TWBE’s program mandate to separate languages during instruction” (Garcia-Meteus, et al. 2021, p. 258). Most importantly, she “took an openly critical stance in her pedagogy, which intentionally and actively privileged students from working-class and Latinx backgrounds” (p. 258). She mentioned in the class the impact of gentrification and displacement of Latinx and Black populations occurred and aroused a considerable discussion among students. This may provide Tessa “with access to a critical narrative about her reality” (GarciaMeteus, et al. 2021, p. 258). Having reported Tessa’s story in TWBE, GarciaMeteus, et al. (2021) conclude that if we are committed to the integration that comes with two-way bilingual programs we must be committed to the work of ensuring that these programs serve the needs of historically marginalized populations just as much as they serve the needs of dominant-group students (p. 263). Flores, et al. (2021) also view dual language programs from a raciolinguistic perspective and argue that “if dual language programs….marked by inequity, then the task is much bigger than addressing what takes place within the walls of the classroom or even within the walls of the school” (p. 266). For them, much more political issues, “such as policies at various levels related to housing, migration, standardized testing and educational funding” are relevant” (p. 266). Unlike Garcia-Meteus, et al. (2021), who report on a case of an individual in a dual-immersion bilingual education program, Field (2011) reports on the Cuban Refugee Program in Florida. He recounts that “Cuban refugees flooded into the Miami-Dada area following the 1959 revolution in Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power” (p. 217). According to Field, many of this group “were professionals who brought with them job skills, education, and professional expertise” (p. 217). In Dade County, the government quickly set up ESL programs for the refugees. In 1963, the government set up dual-immersion bilingual programs at “Coral Way Elementary School in Miami…, providing Spanish for English speakers and English for Spanish speakers in addition to native-language instruction….Each group started the day in their native languages, and spent the afternoons in the other” (p. 218). Documented reports show that 268
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[t]he results were remarkable, and both groups progressed academically…. [although] the Anglo American students did not progress in Spanish skills as well as hoped….[probably] because of the environment, the social milieu surrounding each child, and the lack of exposure and possibilities of interaction with Spanish speakers that the Anglo Americans encountered (p. 218). Unfortunately the Coral Way bilingual programs eventually stopped because a change in the laws and some political reasons. “Politically there was talk of the special treatment that the Cubans were getting through federal assistance programs, and other groups felt entitled to government money, as well (p. 219). The stories of dual language bilingual education illustrated above may reveal that these programs are theoretically well-intended. However, they might be affected by political, ideological, and other factors.
Bilingual Community Education in New York As mentioned earlier, the United States is well-known for its immigrants of diverse ethnic groups and its multicultural communities. It is especially apparent in New York, which is considered a globally multilingual city. There are a considerable number of ethnolinguistic groups in New York and each group seems to have its own ways of maintaining their languages and cultures and learn the mainstream language and culture. These ethnolinguistic groups include Chinese, Korean, Greeks, Turkish, Jewish, and Russians, just to name some. Garcia, et al. (2013) collect accounts of bilingual community education from different ethnic groups to provide a picture of how minority groups are making each single effort in transmitting their heritage languages and cultures to their next generation. Garcia, et al. (2013) claim that bilingual community education may be just after-school or weekend activities or supplementary schools; however, they are “not just the maintenance of an ‘ethnic-mother tongue’ or development of a ‘heritage language’ …[they] go beyond what has been called ‘heritage language education [and] beyond those of ‘speech communities’ of traditional sociolinguistics towards diasporic communities” (p. 4). The researchers explain that these bilingual community education “contrast sharply with publicly funded bilingual education programs” (p. 7) in that public bilingual education basically set it goal in a transitional manner to develop ethnolinguistic groups academic English proficiency rather than to maintain their heritage languages. As the authors have made it clear that the “goal of these bilingual community education programs is the 269
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bilingual development of American children living in a global multilingual context” (p. 10-11). On the other hand, bilingual community education is different from heritage language education in that it provides “a context for American children to live the language other than English, not as heritage, but as life in an American present and a global future….[T]he focus is on the development of a holistic bilingual community in the US” (p. 19). That is to say, learning a language other than English is certainly not the main purpose of these bilingual community education programs. Rather, bilingual community education aim at developing children capable of speaking various languages in a globalized world. An overview of the bilingual community education programs in New York reveals that they are different from that of traditional bilingual education and that of heritage language maintenance education as mentioned at the very beginning of this section. These programs are also different among themselves in terms of goals, ways, and inherent perspectives of practicing them. In most cases, translanguaging is apparent as one of the most significant features of these programs. Some communities allow both heritage languages and English to be conducted in the classroom, whereas others may be conducted in English or the heritage language in the classroom, but allow both languages to be used freely in conversations and other activities. Some parents hope their children learn English for academic purposes, but they speak their heritage language with their children at home. Some teachers mix two languages in their instruction; others may use English to teach first and use the heritage language to explain. As far as the principal goal of bilingual community education is concerned, as we can imagine, most programs aim at maintaining the heritage language and facilitating children function properly in an English-speaking society and educational environment. However, there are more broader and globally-oriented goals that guide the practices of bilingual community education. For example, the situations in Sub-Saharan African communities are quite complicated. The ‘language’ of Africans includes complex indigenous communicative resources that go beyond the so-called African languages….[They] use all their complex languaging to offer services to new immigrants, …but rarely do they establish educational programs to teach what others consider their ‘language’. Rather, their complex languaging is transmitted through socialization in more informal venues….This …is in keeping with the African concept of teaching and learning in which everyone is a teacher and any space is an appropriate educational space” (Garcia, et al., 2013, p. 23). 270
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As Garcia, et al. (2013) describe these bilingual community education: rather “than reproducing a past that is often full of pain and inequities, they point to an American future of interactive language and cultural resources” (p. 23). Bilingual community education in New York actually functions more than the domain of language teaching, learning, and use. The language practices of the bilingual community are being used in music, theater, arts, religion, hair braiding, tutoring in academic subjects and many other cultural activities, but also in video, TV and technology….[There is a] tendency to act in particular ways as inculcated through implicit and explicit socialization” (Garcia, et al., 2013, p. 23). Passing on their religious values to their American children is also apparent for parents of ethnolingistic groups. For example, “Yiddish is acquired by Hasidic Jews, Hebrew by Jews, Punjabi by Sikhs, Arabic by Muslims, and Greek by Greek Orthodox, precisely to read holy texts and transmit religious and cultural traditions” (Garcia, et al., 2013, p. 24). Bilingual community education in New York exists in different forms of practice as mentioned earlier, including dynamic bilingualism, supplementary bilingual community schools, informal community education, bilingual community day schools as categorized by Garcia, et al. (2013). In the following of this section, I will present three bilingual community education programs representative of different forms of practice and different ethnolinguistic groups. That is, the Mexican bilingual community education is a case of community organizations educating their own bilingual children, the African bilingual community education is a case of informal community education, and the Russian bilingual community education is a case of community-public school alliances for bilingualism. The Case of Mexican Bilingual Community Education Makar (2013) describes how Asociacion Tepeyac de New York works together with Mexico in integrating “language learning strategies and practices, and holistic philosophy towards diversity and multilingualism” (p. 46). However, it is relevant and essential to trace the history and language diversity of Mexicans in New York City before we can better understand the rationale and practices of Asociacion Tepeyac de New York. As described by Makar, Mexico is the most Spanish-speaking country in the world. Spanish in New 271
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York “is characterized by the variety of countries of origin among Latinos in New York and thus the absence of a norm that serves as a foundation for the creation of a New York standard” (p. 47). On the other hand, many Mexicans in New York are actually multilingual. They are proficient not only in English but also in other languages. That is to say, there is also no monolingual standard in Mexican communities in New York. In sum, there is a “high degree of diversity in the Spanish spoken in New York City” (p. 48), and it is because New York City is close to the Mexican border and because new immigrants and other indigenous Mexicans have created “a heterogeneous set of language practices and identities with seemingly homogeneous Mexican communities” (p. 48). As Makar (2013) have observed, Mexican students in New York City “have the least schooling, the lowest per-capita income, the lowest rate of English proficiency and the lowest high school graduation rates among the City’s immigrant groups…[and] they are often categorized as ‘English Language Learners’ [ELLs]” (p. 49). As ELLs, Mexican students are offered two types of English as a Second Language Programs: “Transitional Bilingual Education Programs in which the students’ home languages are used only until they are English proficient; or Dual Language Bilingual Programs in which both English and the language other than English is used throughout the child’s education” (p. 49). Makar comments that these programs are English as a Second Language in nature and segregate Mexican students “from their peers and hinder their educational development” (p. 49). Although there are about 20 Mexican hometown associations identified in different parts of New York City, problems with funding made them “perceived as disperse, divided and… not as close-knit or as cohesive as other groups” (p. 51). However, there are still some well-established community organizations, such as Asociacion Tepeyac de New York, whose detailed work follows. According to Makar (2013), Asociacion Tepeyac’s programs are highly honored by the Mexican community. Its “after-school and summer program is designed to address the academic, social and cultural needs of the children in their community by providing different strategies to enhance the schooling experience of the students and their families” (p. 52). Their activities feature three main important goals: connecting Mexico and the United States, putting language into practice, and creating a diverse and multilingual community. In transnational connecting activities, students learned information relevant to their Mexican root, especially current happenings in Mexico. In terms of language learning, students are encouraged to use both languages to tell 272
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stories of their personal experiences. By making use of languages in realtime, real-space scenarios, students develop their language and literacy skills. Tepeyac contributes to framing the Mexican community in New York as a multilingual community by, for example, putting students of the same age but may speak different languages (e.g. Spanish, English, and Mixteco) together in the same group and providing them with opportunities to interact and learn different languages. Makar (2013) concludes that there is an “increasing need to connect community education efforts to formal schooling processes….The role of many of these community organizations has been to pick up where the schools have left off, often trying to complement with limited resources the work of schools” (p. 58). The Case of African Bilingual Community Education Makoni (2013) describes African bilingual community education in New York. She first points to the complexity of defining African languages because of the complex backgrounds from which African languages originate and the changes that might have occurred in the use of African languages as a result of the contacts between speakers of different African languages and between speakers of African languages and speakers of non-African languages (e.g. Spanish, Chinese) that are widespread in NYC (p. 142). Makoni (2013) thus focuses her investigation on Africans from Sub-Saharan Africa. Her investigation aims at seeking to establish whether community-based initiatives in NYC focused on teaching African languages to children of African immigrants and the form these initiatives took….In addition, the study sought to indentify the attitudes and feelings of immigrant parents and children born in America toward learning African languages (p. 146). Makoni (2013) interviewed different African immigrant groups, including adults and children, immigrants came from Africa and those of American-born. Practice of African bilingual community education in NYC can be said only an informal one. Makoni’s investigation showed that “formal supplementary schools or community-language education initiatives have not been formed” (p. 151). At a community level, community-based associations put greater emphasis on teaching English to young immigrants in order for them to be 273
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able to settle down in NYC. On the other hand, parents may have different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and it may not be an easy decision for them to choose an African language for their children to learn. For African immigrants, there are also two different types of attitude toward their African heritages and cultures. Some consider themselves as part of a diaspora and they “regard retaining and passing on African languages as important because they fear their cultures and languages will be lost” (p. 152). Others may consider Africa as ‘home’ and NYC as a place of work….[They] may not feel the need to invest time and energy in community establishments since they have to use their time and energy in America to their maximum benefit, and learning African languages may not necessarily be one of the key aspects on their agenda (p. 152) The Case of Russian Bilingual Community Education According to Kleyn and Vayshenker (2013), Russian speakers living in New York “are diverse in their ethnicities, immigration experiences and religions…. Russian bilingual programs in NYC are characterized by their diversity across people and program models” (p. 259). They describe that Russian bilingual community programs can be found in both the public and private sectors. At the private level, some culture centers offer after-school and Saturday-school Russian language and culture programs, and bilingual summer camps that “allow children to use the Russian language through activities that integrate the arts and academic content” (p. 265). At the public sector, however, “there are only two Russian language programs at elementary level” (Kleyn & Vayshenker, 2013, p. 265). One of them puts Russian-speaking and non-Russian-speaking students in the same classroom and practiced in the form of two-way bilingual immersion program to allow students to learn each other’s language. Kleyn and Vayshenker (2013) comment that sparse bilingual offerings within the public schools speak to the devaluing of the education of students in language other than English and the subsequent push for communities to create their own programs where language are viewed as an asset for all American children (p. 265).
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For all the bilingual community education programs in New York, Garcia, et al. (2013) recommend that “policy makers, educators, parents and communities have to be able to collaborate and trust each other if we are going to raise a generation of bilingual Americans” (p. 309). They argue that bilingualism “is not about ‘adding’ separately, but about integrating and performing dynamically” (p. 310). Although the authors are referring to the bilingual community education in New York, it is always true in language acquisition or learning in different parts of the globe and in different situations. There must be a purpose or purposes for learning a new language, whatever purposes you might have, you need to make use of the language to communicate with people either orally or in writing and directly or indirectly. For example, suppose you are reading an article written in the language you are just learning, you are communicating with the author probably from a different culture, and, in addition to making sense of the meaning of the article, you will integrate your own language and culture to judge, compare, and justify, and, at the same time, you improve your language proficiency in both languages. As Garica, et al. insist, bilingual “children are not two monolinguals in one” (p. 310).
Court Cases In addition to different forms of bilingual education practiced in the educational arena, some court cases observed in the United States are in effect reflective of how people in the United States perceive bilingual education. In this section, discussions of bilingual education will move to the legal arena to demonstrate how legal rulings may further secure the core value of bilingual education in the United States. As mentioned by Beam-Conroy and McHatton (2015), in “addition to legislation, litigation has also played a significant role in addressing the educational rights of [learners of English]” (p. 374). There are some court cases occurred in the United States that reflect how bilingual education is viewed and judged as an effort to secure equity in a multilingual country. Among those court cases are Meyer vs. Nebraska, Lau vs. Nicolas, Brown vs. Board of Education, and Castaneda vs. Pickard. These cases exhibit how civilians may fight for their rights and freedom to make use of their indigenous languages in participating in public activities, including education.
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Meyer vs. Nebraska The case can be traced back to the 1920s, the “Nebraska statute was enacted shortly after World War I in response to widespread hostility against Nebraska’s large German American community that had arisen as a result of the war” (Ross, 1994, para. 2). The statute banned “the teaching of modern foreign languages in private and parochial elementary schools” (Ross, 1994, para. 1). Meyer, a teacher in a Lutheran school and was found to read a Bible story in German to a 10-year child, argues that German-American children need to be taught “the religion of their parents in the language of their parents” (Ross, 1994, para. 3). In its ruling, the court decided that “parents had a right to control the education of their children unless such education directly threatened the interests of the government” (Ross, 1994, para. 3) and that the law was unconstitutional because being proficient in a foreign language will not injure “the health, morals or understanding of the normal child” (Field, 2011, p. 190) Lau vs. Nicolas In 1970, after the establishment of Bilingual Education Act, a lawsuit case, Lau vs. Nichols, was brought to the court “on behalf of Chinese students against the San Francisco School District [over an issue of] whether or not non-English speaking students received equal educational opportunities when instructed in a language they could not understand” (Baker & Wright, 2017, p. 377). The Supreme Court’s ruling stipulates that there “is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers and curriculum; for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education” (Baker & Wright, 2017, p. 176). “The Lau decision …acknowledged the close ties between language and national origin, and that discrimination based on language was in effect discrimination based on national origin” (Field, 2011, p. 192). Brown vs. Board of Education According to History.com Editors (2009), “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public school was unconstitutional” (2009, para. 1). Before this case, some cases ruled based on a ‘separate but equal doctrine’. That is, “racially segregated public facilities were legal, so long as the facilities for Black people and Whites were equal” (2009, Separate But Equal Doctrine section). The court ruling was in effect 276
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“attacking the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine that had allowed such racist practices to persist” (Field, 2011, p. 190). According to Field, while “this ruling specifically dealt with issues of Black and White, it had ramifications that reached into Latino communities” (p. 190). Hall (2023) also mentions that many of the subsequent studies on racial and ethnic issues were mainly based on the court’s decision to end school segregation. Castañeda vs. Pickard The case was filed in 1978 by the father of two Mexican American children, Castañeda, against the Raymondville Independent School District (RISD). Castañeda claims that the RISD was discriminating against his children because of their ethnicity. He argued that the classroom his children were being taught in was segregate, using a grouping system for classrooms based on criteria that were both ethnically and racially discriminating …, [and the RISD] failed to establish sufficient bilingual education program, which would have aided his children in overcoming the language barriers that prevented them from participating equally in the classroom (Wikipedia, n.d. para. 1). Not until the Court of Appeals, the ruling was decided in favor of the father. The court also stated the assessment of bilingual programs must be decided based on the criteria: having sound educational theory, being implemented effectively with recourses for personal, instructional materials, and space, and being able to be proved as effective in overcoming language barriers after a trial period. The above-mentioned court cases have clearly shown that legal rulings tend to protect minority students’ rights to equal education, and an equal education is much more than equal access to resources and facilities. To my great disappointment, in the case of the United States in terms of bilingual education, there is little discussion on how American people or other native English speakers learn a second/foreign language, be it French, Germany, Russian, Chinese, or certain minority languages. As Kubota (2010) points out, bilingual education can be the one for minority and/or majority students. McGroarty (2010) also points out that foreign language instruction may “allow learners to develop wider horizons [through] experiencing a language code different from their own and learning to appreciate a range of spiritual and ethical systems….[This presents] the learning of another language 277
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from the perspective of majority group learners” (p. 107). Unfortunately, a majority of discussion relevant to bilingual education in the United States focuses on teaching minority or immigrant students, issues of inequality and social justice, racism, maintenance of minority cultures, etc. Rarely how American mainstream people learn a foreign language is an issue of interest. As Rose, et al. (2020) put it, TESOL practitioners of emerging trends in applied linguistics …aim to embrace multilingualism, rather than monolingualism, as a global norm. This [implies]…the use of other languages as resources in the classroom, and challenges some prevailing TESOL ideologies such as the perceived importance of English-only classrooms (p. 19-21). Field (2011) even states straightforwardly, there is a shortage of proficient translators and other language professionals in the U.S. diplomatic corps, the military, and other intelligence gathering agencies, …the U.S. is…discouraging the development of proficient multilinguals so that it can promote English to the exclusion of all other languages (p. 11). He further points out that international, “multilingual centers of trade and commerce have existed throughout the world since the dawn of civilization” (p. 162). Historically, there may be some incidents that discouraged American people from learning a second language, such as anti-German during World Wars I and II and the words stated by President Roosevelt in 1926, claiming English-only policies (Hatcher & Reaser, 2019). Wang-Hiles (2022) describes it straightforwardly, “monolingualism is a tradition in the US and bilingualism was viewed as ‘a stigma’, representing ‘an alien way of thinking and alien value’” (p. 163). However, in an era of globalization, as mentioned earlier in the volume, particularly in the part of bilinguality, speaking two or more languages benefits an individual cognitively, psychologically, and interpersonally. At the national level, at an era of globalization and greater mobility of different kinds, developing nationals’ ability to speak more languages to communicate with people from different countries may help debunk ethnocentrism and develop a world view. It may be far from being persuasive if a monolingual country intend to promote bilingual education. 278
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The Case of Canada When it comes to languages spoken in Canada, people can easily think of English and French. According to Hamers and Blanc (1989), immersion programs were first developed in the sixties and seventies in Quebec, Canada. In that period of time, Quebec was transformed into a unilingual French Province and the Anglo-Québécois was then English-speaking minority. In order for those English-speaking minority students equipped with French language skills, bilingual immersion programs were initiated. There are different types of immersion, namely Early total immersion, Early partial immersion, and late immersion. In Early total immersion, Anglophone children, starting their kindergarten, were educated and acquire their literacy skills exclusively through the medium of French in the first two years of elementary school. English was introduced to children after their three years of learning French. Unlike early total immersion, in early a partial immersion program, “both languages are uses as means of instruction from the onset of schooling” (p. 199). In a late immersion program, high-school students were targeted to develop their French language skills. Ricento (2015) briefly explains the historical background of how the linguistic landscape is formed in Canada. The British conquest in 1760 had led to the imposition of English as the language to be used in governmental organizations. However, “the French language was given increased status through the Quebec Act of 1774 and the Constitutional Act of 1791” (p. 462). Since then, “francophone minority communities outside Quebec [are allowed] to be educated in French,…but the shift to English among Francophones outside Quebec apace” (p. 462). After extensive investigations, the Official Language Act of 1969 “made English and French Canada’s official languages” (Ricento, 2015, p. 462). However, the area of language education is only generally stated because it is under provincial jurisdiction. Because commission members understood the importance of the survival of French Canada cultural identity, they recommended “on minority-language schooling and second language learning for official language minorities” (Ricento, 2015, p. 463). It is interesting to note here that English in the French-dominant Quebec and French in the other nine English-dominant provinces are minority-languages. “This was generally known as the Bilingualism in Education Program (BEP) until its name was changes in 1979 to the Official Languages in Education Program (OLEP)” (Ricento, 2015, p. 463).
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At college level in Canada, University of Ottawa claims to be the largest bilingual university in the world, focusing on French and English, and “a long tradition of coexisting multiple identities. Stipulated under the heading of Regulation on Bilingualism at the University of Ottawa, “[t]he university seeks to further progress towards the substantive equality of English and French on its campus.” (n. p.). As a bilingual university, University of Ottawa is known not only for providing a variety of language programs, but also for publishing bilingual newsletters and gazettes and hosting bilingual conferences. I attended one of their bilingual conferences about ten years ago, and I can still receive their electronic bilingual newsletters to date. In a gazette posted in 2018, the University proudly reported that the “Multilingual Education and Language Learning: Canada and Belgium at a Crossroads” held at University of Ottawa was visited and taken part in by Their Majesties the king and queen of the Belgians. At the conference, the University of Ottawa and Universite Catholique de Louvain “signed an agreement for a double degree in multilingual communication/organizational communication” In addition to French and English, there “are currently 50 Aboriginal languages spoken by indigenous people in Canada, belonging to 11 major language families….[However, over] the past 100 years, approximately 10 Aboriginal languages in Canada have become extinct” (Ricento, 2015, p. 465). There are several reasons that keep Canadian indigenous people from speaking their languages at home and passing the language to the next generation, including the pressure to learn the official languages, use of indigenous languages are prohibited in religious schools and most of the indigenous languages are simply oral. Under this circumstance, the “younger generation of indigenous people is increasingly more likely to acquire an Aboriginal language in school as an additional language rather than as a mother tongue….There are very few Aboriginal immersion programs [and curriculum support] in Canada” (Ricento, 2015, p. 466). According to Ricento (2015), although “broad objectives of educational policy are covered in the Canadian Constitution, the formalizing and implementation of policy is primarily the responsibility of provinces and territories” (p. 467). It is noted that across “the country, there are a few heritage/ international programs that offer languages other than English, French, and Aboriginal languages. In about 50% of the Canadian provinces, heritagelanguage teaching is offered at the end of the school day or on Sunday” (p. 467). A commonly found situation is that language-minority students were performing poorly academically. Citing from Cummins’ idea, Ricento (2015) claims that ‘Anglo conformity’ and institutional racism are critical factors and 280
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that “what is needed is not multicultural education but anti-racist education” (p. 468). Based on Cummins’ bilingual interdependence hypothesis, Ricento (2015) states that “the better immigrant children develop their first language, the better their English or French would be” (p. 468). However, generally speaking, there was opposition to heritage language teaching and a lack of consistent support from the government. Despite all of the opposition, “one can notice a progressive change towards the recognition of the benefits of teaching an additional language to all children, regardless of their mother tongue” (Ricento, 2015, p. 468). For example, as Ricento illustrates, in Alberta, Calgary, and Manitoba, schools started teaching heritage languages to children, including Spanish, German, Chinese, Hebrew, Ukrainian, etc. There were also organizations devoting to the teaching and maintenance of heritage languages, such as the Saskatchewan Organization for Heritage Languages (SOHL), Northern Alberta Heritage Language Association, and the Canadian Languages Association (CLA).
SOUTH AMERICA The Case of Latin America Latin American countries are quite complicated in terms of languages used in the continent. According Garcia (2009), in “Latin America there are over 30 million Indigenous people who speak one of over 1,000 autochthonous languages” (p. 224), and these languages are in fact remain marginalized. In the 1970s, Latin American countries started to pay attention to their indigenous languages. First in Peru, “a National Bilingual Education Policy was passed in 1972 promoting bilingual education of a transitional kind” (p. 225). In the late twentieth century, Latin American countries started to initiate intercultural bilingual education programs to recognize the languages and cultures of native populations and to promote cross-cultural understanding, they “passed laws recognizing their multiculturalism and multilingualism….However, these efforts often still depend on sponsor organizations from abroad and most programs are of a transitional kind” (p. 225). In the following paragraph in this section, some specific cases will be introduced. In the case of Guatemala, according to Garcia (2009), there are a considerable number of Guatemalans speaking at least a Mayan language and Spanish. Their National Language Act passed in 2003 offers an early transitional bilingual 281
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education in primary schools. In the bilingual education programs, Mayan Indigenous would be instructed “traditional Mayan knowledge, philosophy, spirituality, and community involvement. After the third grade, there would be Spanish-only education for the same kids. In Bolivia, there are only 40 percent Spanish monolinguals. In addition to Aymara speakers, there are mostly Quechua speakers. The Bolivian government wished to initiate their own interculturality and required “Spanish-speakers to learn an additional Indian language” (Garcia, 2009, p. 226). However, the reality turned out that “the bilingual education programs remain transitional in nature, and few monolingual Spanish speakers of European descent are learning Aymara or Quechua” (Garcia, 2009, p. 226) even though the first Indian President was elected in 2006. In Peru, “conceptualized intercultural bilingual education simply as a model for the education of Indian people….The State…guarantees the right of Quechua, Aymara and other communities to receive primary education in their own tongue” (Garcia, 2009, p. 226). In another Latin American country, Ecuador, the government also stipulate in 1998 in its constitutional reform that it is a multinational state. Its intercultural bilingual education policy focuses “on using Indigenous languages, while having the Indian population learn Spanish” (Garcia, 2009, p. 226). In the cases mentioned above, we can find that Quechua was the language greatly promoted in many Latin American countries. However, the issue of standardization of Quechua had been hardly debated among these countries. It is because Quechua has many varieties. “The Quechua spoken by people today has much Spanish-language influence and differs greatly from the traditional Quechua of the past” (Garcia, 2009, p. 226). According to Garcia (2009), in “Latin America, only Paraguay seems to have truly gone beyond transitional bilingual education in its intercultural bilingual education efforts” (p. 226). In fact, before 1973, education in Paraguay was exclusively Spanish-only, and then a transitional bilingual education program was initiated in an attempt to transfer the students to study in Spanish. However, in 1974, “Paraguay implemented the study of Guarani as a subject in the first three years of secondary education ….[and] required the teaching of Spanish and Guarani in the educational curriculum with the purpose of proficiency and literacy in both languages” (p. 227). However, as can be imagined, the varieties of Guarani and the issue of standardization are problems that Paraguay faced.
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OCEANIA The Case of Australia Bianco and Slaughter (2017) discuss Australia’s bilingual education, focusing on three different groups: indigenous groups, immigrant groups and mainstream English speakers. Indigenous groups and immigrant groups were seeking language maintenance, while mainstream speakers were seeking additive language study. Historically, Australia had a period of being British colony. “By the 1860s, in addition to around 250 Indigenous languages, a multitude of immigrant languages were present, with Irish, German, Chinese, Gaelic, Welsh, and Scandinavian languages and Italian predominating” (p. 349). In the Indigenous groups, colonial administration repudiated any understanding of the ancient Indigenous presence in Australia as a unique human civilization….[A]lthough vernaculars were sometimes utilized…between colonizers and colonized…,there is little evidence of any formal indigenous language bilingual education during the nineteenth or the early twentieth centuries. In education, Indigenous children had endured decades of extreme assimilation, taught to read and write exclusively in English under curricula that provided little acknowledgement of their cultural backgrounds” (Bianco & Slaugher, 2017, p. 350-351) From 1972 on, things had changed. Bilingual teaching was introduced for Indigenous children. Then, “from 1973, five schools introduced bilingual education, expanding quickly so that by 1981, half of enrolled Indigenous primary aged children were receiving bilingual teaching in one of 13 languages” (Bianco & Slaughter, 2017, p. 351). However, bilingual schools were eventually closed and “a decisive shift against linguistic pluralism” (Bianco & Slaughter, 2017, p. 350). According to Bianco and Slaughter (2017), the destabilization of bilingual programs can be traceable to “inadequate program costing, high non-indigenous staff turnover…and regular absenteeism among Indigenous workers, who were critical for the success of team teaching…compounded by high family mobility; endemic poverty; health problems…; and even community violence (p. 351). Due to strong support from the communities for continuation of bilingual programs, the government suggested to replace bilingual education with ‘two-way learning’, which was actually a water-down version of bilingual 283
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education. Bilingual education was doomed to close because of yet other reasons. For example, on the one hand, Indigenous children seldom had exposure to Standard Australian English and did not have full knowledge of their native languages; on the other hand, teachers lacked training in teaching English as an additional language or dialect. Speaking of the groups of immigrants, Bianco and Slaughter (2017) recount that the war between Britain and Germany has curtailed German bilingual education and worked on promotion “of English monolingualism, modeled on Southern British norms, continued uninterrupted until the 1947 post war immigration program which injected a vast new settler population drawn from non-English sources” (p. 350). Bilingual programs reemerged during the early 1970s when “activist second generation European Australians were ultimately catalysts in the expansion and development of multilingual services and expansion policy” (p. 351). Australia has been viewed as responding to an era of globalization and to a growing diversified population. According to Inglis (p. 2003), in “the 1970s, considerable emphasis in the development of Australian multiculturalism was placed on the importance of cultural maintenance, and in particular language maintenance” (p. 142). Concerned ethnic groups and educators viewed bilingual education as being able to contribute to the development of students’ self-esteem and cognitive ability. The 1983 New South Wales Multicultural Policy Statement views multiculturalism as “a social value which focuses on national unity within which there is cultural diversity” (Inglis, 2003, p. 142). In reality, the initiatives of multicultural education aimed at all students. The components of tdfhe policy involved introducing multicultural perspectives to the curriculum and intercultural education designed to achieve intercultural understanding. Elements of the policy that targeted minority students consisted of English as a second language, transitional bilingual education, community language education and ethnic studies. This listing highlights the diversity inherent in what constitutes ‘multilingual’ education in Australia (Inglis, 2003, p. 142). Gradually, Australia has sensed the advantages of cultural diversity. It realized that, in an era of economic globalization, Australia can make use of the human resources of immigrants. Its idea of ‘productive diversity’ emphasizes that “the value inherent in the cultural knowledge and skills … existed within Australia and …could assist the development of international trade in goods and services” (Inglis, 2003, p. 142). Its New South Wales 284
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multicultural policy statement revised in 1998 stipulated that globalization “has broadened the context and scope of education and training to include international perspectives and an increased emphasis on the skills and understanding necessary to function in diverse social and cultural environment” (Inglis, 2003, p. 143). However, when it comes to assessing Australian multicultural education policy, some interesting and probably unexpected phenomena revealed. There were objections from ethnic community lobby groups to language maintenance and teaching of ethnic languages in schools. The government thus revised its language policy to give “much greater priority to the importance of English in Australia….[It is interesting to note that] protests at this development came largely from educators” (Inglis, 2003, p. 143). Inglis (2003) explains that the ethnic communities did not enthusiastically lobby “for more extensive educational support to community language maintenance cannot be explained simply by reference to the extent of support already given” (p. 143). She points to the fact that although globalization and job market may support language maintenance, ethnic groups may view language as a solely representative of cultural identity, and various cultural elements may integrate to develop cultural identity. More importantly, as pointed out by Inglis (2003), parents may view language competency from a more instrumental perspective and, if financial situation allowed, they may choose more effective ways to learn a language such as overseas visits and local intensive language learning centers. Furthermore, parents and students are likely to prioritize mainstream academic success before language maintenance. And given the status of English as the major lingua franca in the globalized economy, the opportunities for occupational and social mobility available in Australia and internationally to academic high achievers may in many cases outweigh interest in maintaining the mother tongue (Inglis, 2003, p. 144).
The Case of New Zealand Bianco (2015) describes that, according to the 2006 census, “76.6% of New Zealanders are monolingual,” (p. 610) and the most widely spoken minority language is Māori. Multilingual education for minority language students involves complementary first language and English support in cross-curricula academic-oriented bilingualism” (p. 610). That is, bilingual education in New Zealand “is always premised on English + Other” (p. 610). As far as English is concerned, Holmes and Wilson (2017) state that New Zealanders 285
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have very positive attitudes toward Standard English and RP, i.e. “Received Pronunciation—the accent of the best educated and most prestigious members of English society” (p. 147). As for minority languages, Māori is most widely spoken in New Zealand as mentioned above. It had experienced a time of revitalization as will be described below. Lee and McCarty (2015) describe the revitalization of the indigenous language, Māori, in New Zealand. According to them, “[l]anguage and cultural revitalization among the Māori is often cited as an international model of Indigenous education control that has inspired the growth of other Indigenous and minoritized languages” (p. 415-416). Māori people first intervened in the education of Māori children and claimed to “strengthen Māori linguistic and cultural knowledge among Māori children” (p. 416). They organized Māori language centers to immerse Māori children in a completely Māori language and culture environment. In 1987, “the Māori Language Act made Māori co-official with English” (p. 416). In the educational settings, to “ensure integrity of the Māori language environment, Māori and English instruction are separated by time, space, and teacher” (p. 416) to ensure full bilingualism and biliteracy.
The Case of French Polynesia As described in the part of bilingualism of this volume, French Polynesia had its unique colonial history and Polynesians had been struggling for maintaining their indigenous languages. Paia, et al. (2015) report that the Polynesian Ministry government implemented an initial experiment named Project Language Cultures Polynésiennes (LCP) (2005-2008) with the intention of reinforcing the presence of Polynesian languages and cultures in the 1st and 2nd cycles of school….A total of 5 hours per week was reserved for the teaching of Tahitian or other Polynesian languages in 20 sites (p. 153). However, teachers responsible for teaching native languages experienced great pressure and discomfort, especially when it comes to teaching reading and writing. Although some teachers might think that “learning reading and writing was useful for the students but they didn’t have sufficient confidence, competence, or an enabling environment to support this learning effectively” (Paia, et al., 2015, p. 154). Unlike teachers, parents held great expectations that the school can teach reading and writing, for they “themselves felt competent to teach the oral language” (p. 154) at home. 286
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Under this circumstance, teachers adapted textbooks that integrate oral and written language with engaging content that “encouraged children to become fully invested in reading and writing and enabled teachers to generate a variety of additional language and literacy activities” (Paia, et al., 2015, p. 154). To create a bilingual environment, the LCP project displayed bilingual signs in the classroom and the school and established bilingual areas in the library. The curriculum design, instructional materials tend to be related to students’ cultures and lives. They first argue that empirical studies may not reveal the effectiveness of teaching the first language to minority students. However, these studies are often approached from a psycholinguistic perspective, insisting that “nondominant group students will be educationally disadvantaged as a result of the fact that there is less exposure to the dominant language in a bilingual program than in a monolingual program” (p. 147). Paia, et al. argue that significant “positive relationships exist between the development of academic skills in first and second languages” (p. 148). They illustrate a study of a Tahitian-French bilingual program and other studies and argue that cross-lingual transfer includes “transfer of morphological knowledge…,phonological knowledge…, and overall metalinguistic awareness….There is also considerable evidence that development of bilingual skills result in a variety of cognitive advantages for bilinguals” (p. 148). In this regard, Bermúdez (2020) also asserts that you “cannot use the language that you are learning to learn that language. That would be pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” (p. 264). Paia, et al. (2015) move their discussion of effectiveness of bilingual education to the societal level concerning societal power relations, ideology, and identity. They first states that extensive research carried out by sociologists and anthropologists has demonstrated a clear relationship between educational achievement and societal power relations. Social groups characterized by educational underachievement tend to have experienced material and symbolic violence at the hands of the dominant societal groups over generations” (p. 149). These authors conclude based on studies done by psycholinguists and sociologists that “students will learn the target language (both L1 and L2) if they are given opportunities to use it for powerful purposes…that expand students’ sense of self (identity) in association with the language” (p. 149).
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CONCLUSION Lin (2025) calls for disciplinary plurilingual and cross-site, trans-disciplinary research collaboration to allow “bilingual education models, curriculums and pedagogical practice be re-conceptualized and re-designed in light of the critical intervention goals of egalitarian bi/multilingualism and valuing trans-semiotizing practices” (p. 33). In school contexts, Raihani (2014) suggests a whole-school approach to multicultural education. According to the author, a whole-school approach should involve “teachers, management, parents, students, and school councils in various activities and processes to approach effective multicultural education….[That is to say, it covers] policy, curriculum construction, homeschool partnership, learning strategies, teacher’s professional growth, and evaluation” (p. 35). At the first glance, whole-school approach to multicultural education may not be quite relevant to those countries or societies that are less culturally diverse and have stronger values of communalism or collectivism such as some Asian countries. However, in an era of globalization, “following the complex nature of people migration, interaction which incites both harmony and conflicts, and of the different construction of societies around the globe,” (Raihani, 2014, p. 37) no individual or society can be exempt from the trend of globalization and communicate only with people of the same culture. For example, there can be seen more and more international students and faculty members on the campus, chances to travel around the globe for various purposes are getting higher and higher, and needs to obtain information or knowledge from different sources are more and more demanding. Viewed from this perspective, the whole-school approach to multicultural education has its long-term effects to individual growth and societal and global development. In addition to the involvement of the whole school in multicultural education, power relations in a multicultural context also an issue need to be aware of. Citing from Fairclough’ concepts of context of culture and context of situation, Nsanja (2022) argues that context of culture refers to the ‘there and then’ while context of situation refers to the ‘here and now’….[In an educational context], the attendant local interaction that takes place in it and how it is informed by, as well as points to, the wider social milieu” (p. 18).
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Nsanja mainly describes the imbalanced power relations in a Malawian university context. In the context, Nsanja describes teacher-student interactions as monologue, rather than dialogue and students were not really given chances to reveal their voices. Although Nsanja (2022), were not specifically referring to bilingual contexts, the account is well suited to bilingual contexts. Bilinguals’ preference to and attitude towards a particular language may be greatly influenced by their own experiences, education, supports, and the status of different languages and their proficiency levels. Most importantly, bilinguals’ reactions to a more specific immediate situation may be a reflection of the larger societal context they belong to. It is sometimes the case that the power relation between two bilinguals is dependent on the communicative situation. For example, the two bilinguals may have different proficiency levels in the two languages and may have different degrees of knowledge in the two cultures. In this situation, the power relation may be said to favor the one who possesses better language proficiency and more cultural knowledge.
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Goh, R. B. H. (2003). The mission school in Singapore. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp. 27–37). Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_3 Gutstein, E. (2010). Critical multicultural approaches to mathematics education in urban, k-12 classrooms. In S. May & C. E. Sleeter (Eds.), Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis (pp. 127–137). Routledge. Hall, G. C. N. (2023). Multicultural psychology (4th ed.). Routledge. Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (1989). Bilinguality & bilingualism. Cambridge UP. Hamid, M. O., Sussex, R., & Khan, A. (2009). Private tutoring in English for secondary school students in Bangladesh. TESOL Quarterly, 43(2), 281–308. doi:10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00168.x Hanley, M. S. (2010). The arts and social justice in a critical multicultural education classroom. In S. May & C. E. Sleeter (Eds.), Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis (pp. 191–201). Routledge. Harris, K. L. (2003). Confucian education: A case study of the South African Chinese. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp. 105–114). Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_9 Hashimoto, K., & Glasgow, G. P. (2022). English language policy in Japan: History, current realities and challenges ahead. In E. L. Low & A. Pakir (Eds.), English in East and South Asia: Policy, features and language in use (pp. 33–46). Routledge. Hatcher, J., & Reaser, J. (2019). Bringing critical language pedagogy to the middle school social studies classroom: Lessons for standard English learners. In M. D. Devereaux & C. C. Palmer (Eds.), Teaching language variation in the classroom: Strategies and models from teachers and linguists (pp. 93–100). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780429486678-17 Henry, A. (2014). Swedish students’ beliefs about learning English in and outside of school. In D. Lasagabaster, A. Doiz, & J. M. Sierra (Eds.), Motivation and foreign language learning: From theory to practices (pp. 93–116). John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/lllt.40.05hen 292
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History.com Editors (2022). Brown v. Board of Education, A & E Television Networks. from https//www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-boardof-education-of-topeka Holmes, J., & Wilson, N. (2017). An introduction to sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315728438 Huang, Y. Y., & Wu, H. H. (2021). Toward better English for research publication purposes practices through the lens of activity theory: A case study of a cross-disciplinary graduate writing course in Taiwan. In B. L. Reynolds & M. F. Teng (Eds.), Innovative approaches in teaching English writing to Chinese speakers (pp. 233–256). Walter de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9781501512643-010 Hudson, P. (2019). ‘A Gin and tonic and a window seat’: Critical pedagogy in Arabia. In M. E. López-Gopar (Ed.), International perspectives on critical pedagogies in ELT (pp. 241–263). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3319-95621-3_12 Inglis, C. (2003). Contemporary education issues in multicultural immigrant societies. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp, 133-148). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kleyn, T., & Vayshenker, B. (2013). Russian bilingual education across public, private and community spheres. In O. Garcia, Z. Zakharia, & B. Otcu (Eds.), Bilingual community education and multilingualism: Beyond heritage languages in a global city (pp. 259–271). Multilingual Matters. Kubota, R. (2010). Critical multicultural education and second/foreign language teaching. In S. May & C. E. Sleeter (Eds.), Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis (pp. 99–111). Routledge. Lee, T. S., & McCarty, T. L. (2015). Bilingual-multilingual education and indigenous peoples. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 409–427). John Wiley & Sons. Lin, A. (2015). Egalitarian bi/multilingualism and trans-semiotizing in a global world. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 19–37). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406.ch2
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Locke, T. (2010). Critical multiculturalism and subject English. In S. May & C. E. Sleeter (Eds.), Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis (pp. 87–98). Routledge. Makar, C. (2013). Building communities through bilingual education: The case of Asociación Tepeyac de New York. In O. Garcia, Z. Zakharia, & B. Otcu (Eds.), Bilingual community education and multilingualism: Beyond heritage languages in a global city (pp. 45–59). Multilingual Matters. Makoni, S., & Makoni, B. (2015). “Too many cooks spoil the broth”: Tension and conflict between language institutions in South Africa. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 554–565). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406. ch35 Makono, B. (2013). Community-based initiatives and Sub-Saharan African languages in the ‘Big Apple. In O. Garcia, Z. Zakharia, & B. Otcu (Eds.), Bilingual community education and multilingualism: Beyond heritage languages in a global city (pp. 141–153). Multilingual Matters. May, S., & Sleeter, C. E. (Eds.). (2010). Critical multiculturalism: Theory and praxis. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203858059 McGroarty, M. (2010). The political matrix of linguistic ideologies. In B. Spolsky & F. M. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 98–112). John Wiley & Sons. Menyuk, P., & Brisk, M. E. (2005). Language development and education: Children with varying language experiences. Palgrave Macmilian. doi:10.1057/9780230504325 Mohamed, S. (2021). An analysis and leveling of reading texts across Arabic textbooks based on the CEFR proficiency levels. In C. H. Xiang (Ed.), Trends and developments for the future of language education in higher education (pp. 57–83). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-7226-9.ch004 Motteram, G., Dawson, S., Fay, R., Mora, A., & Leoni, F. (2022). Exploring the shaping of English language teacher practices while working with refugees and asylum seekers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In C. N. Giannikas (Ed.), Transferring language learning and teaching from face-to-face to online settings (pp. 247–265). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-8717-1.ch013
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Na, C. Y. (2022). Ethnographic study of the multilingual linguistic landscape in Taiwan from language policy and planning and geosmiotic perspectives [Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tamkang University, New Taipei City, Taiwan]. Nsanja, G. W. (2022). No ubuntu here: Monologic addressivity in Malawian higher education. In C. H. Manthalu, V. Chikaipa, & A. M. Gunde (Eds.), Education, communication and democracy in Africa: A democratic pedagogy for the future (pp. 17–32). Routledge. Paia, M., Cummins, J., Nocus, I., Salaün, M., & Vernaudon, J. (2015). Intersections of language ideology, power, and identity: Bilingual education and indigenous language revitalization in French Polynesia. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 145–163). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406. ch9 Raihani (2014). Creating multicultural citizens: A portrayal of contemporary Indonesian education. London, U.K.: Routledge. Ramirez-Verdugo, M. D., & Garcia de la Vega, A. (2018). A conceptual reference framework for sustainability education in multilingual and crosscultural settings: Applied technology, transmedia, and digital storytelling. In D. Tafazoli, M. E. G. Parra, & C. A. Huertas-Abril (Eds.), Cross-cultural perspectives on technology-enhanced language learning (pp. 222–236). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5463-9.ch013 Reynolds, B. L., & Teng, M. F. (2021). Practice and future directions for developing Chinese speakers’ English writing across different education levels. In B. L. Reynolds & M. F. Teng (Eds.), Innovative approaches in teaching English writing to Chinese speakers (pp. 257–270). Walter de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9781501512643-011 Ricento, T. (2015). Global dimensions of bilingual and multilingual education: Canada. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 461–472). John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118533406.ch27 Ross, W. (1994), Meyer V. Nebraska, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Sundqvist, P. (2020). Sweden and informal language learning. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informational language learning (pp. 319–332). John Wiley & Sons. 295
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Sunuodula, M. (2018). Mandarin Chinese in education and society in XinJiang. In D. Evans (Ed.), Language, identity and symbolic culture (pp. 183–215). Bloomsbury Academic. Wang-Hiles, L. (2022). Two languages, one self: The story of my bilingual journey. In E. B. Hanci-Azizoglu, Ş. Şahinkarakaş, & D. J. Tannacito (Eds.), Autoethnographic perspectives on multilingual life stories (pp. 152–167). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-6684-3738-4.ch010 Waters, J. L. (2003). ‘Satellite kids’ in Vancouver: Transnational migration, education and the experiences of lone-children. In M. W. Charnet, B. S. A. Yeoh, & C. K. Tong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp. 165–184). Kluwer Academic Publishers. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-0117-4_13 Wikipedia (n. d.). Castañeda v. Pickard (para. 1). Yarwood, A., & Bennett, P. (2022). Engendering WTC in online learning spaces: Peer connectivity connectivity is more important than we may think. In C. N. Giannikas (Ed.), Transferring language learning and teaching from face-to-face to online settings (pp. 227–246). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/9781-7998-8717-1.ch012 Yu, X., & Altunel, V. (2021). Impacts of globalization on English language education across inner, outer, and expending countries. In A.-L. Wang (Ed.), Redefining the role of language in a globalized world (pp. 131–158). IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-2831-0.ch008
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International Schools ABSTRACT This chapter describes the emergence of international schools as a result of globalization. The author first discusses different types of international schools. Then the author continues to discuss the pattern of the emergence of international schools is supply-fed and demand-led. The demand-side factors contributing to the emergence of international schools include: the growth of middle class around the globe, the desire for an English medium instruction, the collaboration between elite English schools, and the dissatisfaction with national education. The supply-side contributing to the development can also be attributed to some factors, including the growing access to international markets, financially sound groups emerged to play dominant roles in the international school market, and the import and export of international schools and the development of international student assessment. At the end of this chapter, the author presents some prominent cases featuring international schools, including Latin America, China, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
INTRODUCTION Having briefly discussed bilingual education programs around the globe, I now turn to the discussion of the emergence of international schools in different areas of the globe as they are essentially products of globalization and, of course, providers of bilingual education and language programs. As a result of globalization, international schools have emerged in response to the increasingly growing popularity of population, information, and other forms DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch009 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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of mobility. It is thus international schools can exist in various forms and can be interpreted in different ways, depending on each individual country’s political, societal, economical, and educational concerns. In this section, I follow Bunnell’s (2019) definition to refer international schools to mean “schools with a global outlook located mainly outside an English-speaking country delivering a non-national curriculum at least partly in English” (p. 1). There are a considerable number of international schools around the world, especially in an era of globalization, which witnesses an increasingly growing number of population mobility. These schools are initially established to accommodate the needs of the children of those diplomats, expatriate business workers, technicians who have assignments in another country or scholars who are temporarily conducting their research in another country. For those temporary migrants, Inglis (2003) describes that “the home governments [may establish] schools that follow their national curriculum for these children in major overseas destinations…to encourage parents to undertake overseas postings considered important for national economic development” (p. 146). Another case is that the host governments may establish international schools for children of transient population that offer “a form of education and educational qualification which have a high level of transferability” (p. 146). In many cases, international schools also grant admission to local nationals, such as the case of China. Hamers and Blanc (1989) account that the first immersion program practiced in international schools started in Quebec, Canada in the sixties and seventies. Bunnell (2019) points out that the growth of the number of international schools is particularly evident since 1995. As he describes it, the continuous growth of international schools “is being supply fed and demand led” (p. 111). In this chapter, I will first describe different types of international schools, then I will illustrate some examples of international schools around the globe.
TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS Hayden and Thompson (2013) roughly classify international schools into three types: Type A: traditional international schools, Type B: Ideological international schools, and Type C: non-traditional international schools. Type A international schools are “established principally to cater for globally mobile expatriate families for whom the local education system is not considered appropriate” (p. 5). Examples of this type of international schools are Maseru English Medium Preparatory School in Lesotho, the International School 298
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of Geneva and Yokohama International School (Hayden and Thompson, 2013). Type B ideological international schools are “established principally on an ideological basis, bringing together young people from different parts of the world to be educated together with a view to promoting global peace and understanding” (p. 5). Examples of this type of international schools are United World Colleges worldwide and the Spring Grove International College in west London. Type C non-traditional schools are established principally to cater for ‘host country nationals’—the socioeconomically advantaged elite of the host country who seek for their children a form of education different from, and perceived to be of higher quality than, that available in the national education system (p. 5). According to Hayden and Thompson (2013), this type of international schools is found popular in Thailand. From Hayden and Thompson’s (2013) classification of international schools, we may understand that the development of international schools is in effect quite complicated, involving various political, societal, economical, and educational factors. In the following section, I will explore the development of international schools from both the demand-side and the supply-side perspectives.
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS As mentioned by Brummitt and Keeling (2013), the “international schools market has changed beyond recognition in the past 40 years and has experienced sustained, significant growth for the last 13 years” (p. 27). They mention that “most international schools are for profit and the future will continue to be dominated by profit-making schools and school groups. Bunnell (2019), on the other hand, recounts factors contributing to the growth of international schools, including globalized English medium of instruction schools (GEMIS) that also accept local nationals. He considers that the demand-side and the supply-side of international schools interact to develop an interdependent relationship between the schools and the parents and students. In this section, I will discuss the two sides respectively.
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The Demand Side The demand-side concerns why and how parents and children choose to attend international schools. Bunnell attributes the growth of international schools to some major factors. First, the growth of the so-called middle class around the globe. For example, in Yangon, Myanmar, although “the handful of International Schools in Yangon were once the preserve of expatriate families, they are seeing an increasing number of applications from middle class Myanmar families” (p. 90); in India, in “mid-range fee schools …75% of children are ‘local’ ….There are low- to medium-fee catering largely for ‘locals’ and high-fee schools catering largely for the traditional expat ‘international community’” (p. 90-91). In the case of China, it is expected that about 35% of China’s population will have an annual disposable income in excess of US$10,000 by 2030 compared to just 10% in 2017....China is experiencing a rapidly growing wealthy and educated ‘middle class’, with a growing ability to purchase private education (p. 92). Interestingly, there is yet another group of ‘middle class’ emerging in countries such as China, India, and Kuwait, which is termed ‘Global Middle Class’ (GMC). Parents of this group are financially sound and are willing to pay for their children’s international schooling, but they are not social elites and their children are academically low-performing at schools. On the one hand, they may gain a higher social status. On the other hand, their children may receive a ‘better’ education. Second, the desire for an English Medium of Instruction (EMI) education. English Medium Instruction is defined as the “use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English” (Bunnell, 2019, p. 93). The “increasing numbers of wealthy local family who are recognizing the benefits of an English medium education for their children” (Brummitt & Keeling, 2013, p. 34). Bunnell (2019) quotes words reported by Vietnamese authors, Nguyen and Nguyen, as saying “the students attached their imagined future identity to English and global mobility more than to Vietnamese and local experience” (p. 93). The signing of the declaration by the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also recognized English as the lingua franca of the association and encouraged the establishment of Globalized English Medium of Instruction Schools. On the other hand, as pointed out by Shortland (2013), expatriate mobility in an era of globalization 300
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also requires those expatriates and their children to communicate in foreign countries with locals in English as a lingua franca, and it also facilitates the growth of international schools. Third, the collaboration between elite English schools, such as Clarendon schools, and Asian countries, such as China and Thailand. For the emerging middle class, being able to reach the British elite seems to guarantee their future success. Furthermore, UK- and US- based curriculum seemed to gain a growing popularity globally, and this has attracted “an increasingly wealthy middle class who are keen to embrace a Western education for their children and have the spare cash to pay for it” (p. 96). Fourth, the dissatisfaction with national education. An example of this situation occurred in Malaysia. “In 2008, the ban on Malaysian children attending an ‘International School’ was reduced to a 40% quota, but this cap was removed completely in 2012. Subsequently, the supply of [international] schools increased rapidly” (p. 97). In the case of China, it is probably that Chinese parents want their children to be educated in a less stressful, not an intensely competitive test driven, learning environment, and attending international school may be a “smoother pathway into a top university” (p. 98). As Bunnell puts it, “much of the driving force behind demand is internally driven, as nation-states in Asia and the Middle East in particular develop economically yet at the same time their education systems lag behind the aspirations of an emerging middle class” (p. 97). In sum, Bunnell (2019) uses a capital accumulation framework to explain local middle class parents’ craze for international schools and their eagerness to have their children educated in international schools even though their children are poorly performer academically. Behind their intention lies their desire to accumulate different levels of capitals. Among these tangible or symbolic capitals, having their children attending international schools can show off their financial capability and their presumed social status. On the other hand, by having connections with international schools, parents can be said to be able to join a network of wealthy parents with high social status and thus strengthen their social capital. Children can also accumulate their social capital through networking and socializing in elite international schools. In addition to social capital, in an EMI-driven international schools, students may accumulate their cultural and human capital, which can benefit their future access to Western-based English-speaking universities and subsequent job hunting.
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The Supply Side Demand and supply in businesses are just like two sides of a coin. They stimulate and influence each other. As pointed out by Bunnell (2019), the supply-side of international schools faithfully and enthusiastically feed parents needs with an ever-growing number of international schools. He points to why and how. Bunnell indicates some factors that lead to the growth of international schools. The first is the growing access to internal markets. In countries such as Malaysia, South Korea, and Qatar, the governments were enthusiastically encouraging investments and establishment of international schools in their own countries. This may, on the one hand, provide “more schools for expats and more choice for ‘local’ parents…. [On the other hand, the governments may have a] desire, and long-term need, to reduce and even reverse the growing talent ‘brain drain’” (p. 116-117). The second factor on the supply-side contributing to the growth of international schools can be said to be commercially relevant. Bunnell reports that several financially sound groups emerged to play dominant roles in the international school market, for example the Dubai-based private school company Global Educational Management systems (GEMS), the originally London-based Nord Anglia Education who then moved to Hong Kong, and the UK-based Cognita. These investments may be quite short term; however, the time is enough to ensure a considerable amount of profit. Finally, some economical factors also can be seen as contributing to the growth of international schools to a great extent. These factors can be discussed from three different spheres: the import of international schools, the export of international schools, and the development of international student assessment. In the sphere of importing international schools, many countries were deliberately encouraging foreign investments to establish international schools in their countries to assist economical growth and to solve local educational problems. Excellent examples are those of Vietnam and China, whose details are recounted below as individual cases below. Contrary to importing international schools, some cases are seen in the opposite direction, to export international schools. The most salient example is the case of UK. One of the important reasons for this can be easily understood: UK is the perceived legitimate provider of Standard English. How the UK deliberately export their international schools will also be explained below. Aside from deliberately importing and exporting international schools, the initiation of the ‘Programme for International Student Assessment’ (Pisa) to include assessment of students’ ‘global competence.’ This domain of 302
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measurement is said to “assess teenagers’ ability to understand and appreciate different perspectives, cultures and worldviews” (Bunnell, 2019, p. 133). As one can envisage, the added domain of assessment is just what international schools intend to offer. It is inevitably promote the growth of international schools. Despite the growing popularity of international schools around the globe, Bunnell (2019) also identifies some emerging issues relevant to the growth of international schools. He points out that since many international schools are seen to be attended by local students, we may term it ‘Globalized English Medium of Instruction Schools (GEMIS).’ Bunnell suggests that ‘international schools’ can be referred to as the ones that deliver “an international curriculum …to facilitate international mindedness” (p. 136). He observes that the field of international schools is seen practicing in two sectors: premium and non-premium sectors. However, “a ‘semi-elite’ dimension of activity …has been joined by a bigger but under-looked ‘sub-elite’ area of activity….80% of …the ‘sub-elite/non-premium’ sector is submerged and largely operating beneath the radar” (p. 158). Furthermore, Bunnell (2019) also points to an emerging phenomenon which he calls Neo-colonial exploitation. In these examples, “the power relations of demand-side growth are heavily one-sided, skewered towards the needs and resources of the Global North” (p. 160). In the case of Myanmar, the entry of Dulwich College Yangon, which has “an extremely powerful Global North education brand with enormous symbolic capital alongside the huge potential to offer capital accumulation” (p. 160), can be seen as “creating a powerful platform for exploiting Myanmar’s predicaments….At what point in time will this be seen as just another form of (British) colonisation?” (p. 160-161). Another issue concerns Bunnell (2019) is the supply-side growth factors. According to him, in the ‘New era,’ people show less and less concerns for ethical activity. International schools are seen to be funded and controlled by international financial groups. Under this circumstance, some wealthy manufactures are becoming international educators. As Bunnell states, “a serious issue around the independence and ownership of some schools with what might termed a model of ‘Inter-National Education’ appearing, where one nation-state owns…and sometimes partially controls schools in another country (p. 164).
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CASES OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS AROUND THE WORLD In this section, I will present some cases of international schools especially prominent in this field around the world. Among the stories of the growth international schools, the cases of Latin America and China are particularly noteworthy.
The Case of Latin America According to Bunnell (2019), English-medium international schools have been fast growing in these years in Latin American countries, especially in Colombia and Argentina. In Colombia, “the market had grown 6% per year between 2010 and 2015, and Argentina had seen growth during that period from 17 schools to 98” (p. 108). The factors contributing to the growth can be said to be the expansion of middle class population and “the fact that some schools changed status from being Spanish-speaking to English-speaking in instruction” (p. 108). Then a new model of international schools, called World Schools, emerged. These schools had New York as their hub and had branches established around the world. For example, the first branch was opened in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2018. “The aim is for 2,000 students of which 70% will be Brazilian….This model offers enormous cultural, social and symbolic capitals accumulation potential for the parents’ as much as for children” (p. 109).
The Case of China In the field of International School, Bunnell (2019) particularly mentions that “China is worthy of specific attention as the emerging epicentre of this ‘New Era’….Much of this growth will involve bilingual schools offering the Chinese national curriculum ‘enriched’ or ‘blended’ by a British ethos” (p. 11). Given the fear of ‘brain-drain’ by some Asian governments, China has managed to create a ‘brain-circulation’ effect. According to Bunnell (2019), the promoting of international schools in China “could be seen as a method of encouraging the Chinese overseas Diaspora …to return and there is evidence emerging that China’s ‘brain-drain’ is close to ending” (p. 126). As a result of some changes in policy, China can be seen to have created four types of international schools 304
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that are far beyond the mainstream of ‘International Schools’….First, schools only accessible to expat children or those Chinese with a foreign passport…. Second, there is a growing body of Chinese-owned ‘International Chinese Private Schools (ICPSs) eligible to accept Chinese children….Third, there is a body of ‘Sino-Foreign Co-operatives’. Fourth, there is a growing area of ‘International Streams in Public Schools’….[F]rom the age of 15 schools can adopt an ‘international curriculum’ (p. 126-127). Still, there are some British-based elite private schools showed interests in investing in China, targeting at young Chinese locals who might crave for British-style schooling.
The Case of UK As accounted by Bunnell (2019), UK is a case of deliberately exporting their international schools, specifically, exporting British education. The UK government launched the ‘GREAT Britain’ initiative after the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The government was, on the one hand, selling British education; on the other hand, contributing to the UK economy by collecting “almost £1 billion in revenue to the UK economy” (p. 128-129). As pointed out by Bunnell, the UK government focused its development of overseas international schools in China that “has emerged as the ‘star venue’” (p. 130). Several elite English private schools, such as King’s College School Wimbledon, Lucton School Herefordshire, Hurtwood House, Wycombe Abbey, Uppingham School Rutland, Reigate Grammar School, and Malvern College, had opened or are planning to open branches/outposts in China. These overseas British schools aim at teaching mainly Chinese nationals. These ‘satellite college’ of the English-based schools actually shared one common goal: “to create an alternative revenue stream to facilitate scholarship and bursaries back ‘home’ which in turn helps the ‘father/mother school’ to protect their charity-status” (p. 131).
The Case of Vietnam In the field of international school, the case of Vietnam cannot be overlooked. According to Bunnell (2019), between 2011 and 2016, the growth of international schools in Vietnam was in effect slow. However, the Vietnamese government sensed the urgency and necessity to develop and promote international schools for at least two reasons: to prevent the country from 305
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brain-drain and to improve Vietnamese people’s English. Vietnam had been seriously facing the problem of brain-drain. Young and talent students went abroad to seek for their foreign degree and mostly they did not return after graduation. The Vietnamese government was eager to ‘import’ international schools and to internationalize national education. On the other hand, economically, Vietnam is one of the ASEAN members, and ASEAN is “an English-speaking trade bloc….Vietnam needs English-speakers who can operate locally within the new trade bloc” (p. 125-126). Whatever type an international school might be, Roberts (2013) argues that “[i]nternational mindedness seems an inadequate term to embody international education’s concern for the wider world” (p. 132). The ways forward for international schools should be an education for a better world. The aspects of a better world can include three Es: ecologacy, ethicacy, and efficacy. The three Es can be interpreted as “living on earth in a way that recognizing people and planet – the environment, including other species, the ability to make ethical judgements, and the ability to make effective action” (p. 138).
CONCLUSION This chapter describes the emergence of international schools around the globe as a result of globalization. International schools around the globe can be roughly classified into three types: traditional international schools, ideological international schools, and non-traditional international schools. Factors contributing to the growth of international schools can be attributed to both the demand side and the supply side. The demand side can be attributed to several factors: the growth of the middle-class around the globe, a desire for an English medium of instruction education, the collaboration between elite English schools and Asian countries, and the dissatisfaction with national education. By attending international schools, both parents and children also gain different levels of capital. Factors contributing to the supply side of international schools include the growing access to the international market, investing international schools can be profitable, and the importing and exporting of international schools and the inclusion of global competence in language proficiency assessment are seen to assist national economic growth. From the discussions and the examples presented above, we may find that English-medium instruction is a key factor attracting children to attend and promoting the growth of international schools. According to Hayden and 306
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Thompson (2013), although some international schools are bilingual, the “vast majority of international schools are, however, English-medium” (p. 10). For them, bi- or multi-lingualism can have long-term benefits for some attendees of international schools. However, they consider that “an everyday facility in many languages masks a lack of sufficiently deep facility in any one of these languages” (p. 71). This can be an interesting area of research.
REFERENCES Brummitt, N., & Keeling, A. (2013). Charting the growth of international schools. In R. Pearce (Ed.), International education and schools: Moving beyond the first 40 years (pp. 25–36). Bloomsbury. Bunnell, T. (2019). International schooling and education in the ‘new era’: Emerging issues. Emerald. doi:10.1108/9781787695412 Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (1989). Bilinguality & bilingualism. Cambridge UP. Hayden, M., & Thompson, J. (2013). International schools: Antecedents, current issues and metaphors for the future. In R. Pearce (Ed.), International education and schools: Moving beyond the first 40 years (pp. 3–23). Bloomsbury. Inglis, C. (2003). Contemporary education issues in multicultural immigrant societies. In M. W. Charney, B. S. A. Yeoh, & T. C. Kiong (Eds.), Asian migrants and education: The tensions of education in immigrant societies and among migrant groups (pp, 133-148). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Roberts, B. (2013). International education and global engagement: Education for a better world? In R. Pearce (Ed.), International education and schools: Moving beyond the first 40 years (pp. 119–145). Bloomsbury. Shortland, S. (2013). The effects of children’s education and supporting organizational policy and practice on corporate expatriation. In R. Pearce (Ed.), International education and schools: Moving beyond the first 40 years (pp. 37–57).
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Informal Language Learning ABSTRACT Having discussed formally organized bilingual education or language programs, this chapter is devoted to the discussion of informal language learning that contributes to the development of bilingual individuals. Informal language learning can be either learning online or learning from the physical environment. In the part of learning online, the author introduces two online learning resources: the Duolingo learning platform and the EURECAP Project. In physically involved informal language learning, the author presents an example of making use of linguistic landscapes to learn language informally.
INTRODUCTION As pointed out by Bartlett and Bajaj (2015), in an era of globalization, many people learn a new language through formal schooling. “However, an incalculable number, and particularly out-of-school youth and adults, seek less formal means of learning an additional language” (p. 428). They distinguish between unplanned informal bilingualism and planned nonformal bilingualism. Nonformal learning contexts may include out-of-school contexts, such as “nongovernmental organizations, community-based originations, … technology-enabled independent learning, families, religious groups, and playgroups” (p. 428).
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch010 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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Learning a language in a nonformal context can be unplanned or planned. Unplanned informal language learning in a nonformal context can include learning at home from family members and caregivers, learning from neighborhoods and peer groups, learning in immigrant communities, learning from media, and learning from work. Bartlett and Bajaj (2015) identify some principles of unplanned bilingual acquisition: it is common in both industrialized and developing world, it may be dependent on participation in diverse social networks, hybrid language practices such as translanguaging may be manifest in unplanned bilingual acquisition, and it is based on “functional interrelationships that maintain an adjusting language ecology” (p. 434). Planned nonformal bilingualism, according to Bartlett and Bajaj (2015) is purposefully planned by communities “who sense a need to maintain a language that is perceived to be under threat…[and] minoritized languages need to be reinforced beyond formal schooling” (p. 434). In addition to families and media that can be found in unplanned bilingual learning contexts, contexts of planned nonformal bilingualism can also be found in “community groups, refugee camp and refugee/migrant learning centers, religious organizations, cultural/recreational groups, and political/national groups” (p. 434). In the following sections. I will illustrate some informal language learning in nonformal contexts, namely the Duolingo learning platform, the EURECAP project, and linguistic landscapes.
The Duolingo Learning Platform In addition to formal language learning in educational settings, Chik (2020) points out that “[l]anguage learning is moving increasingly from formal to informal contexts, both at individual and societal levels” (p. 15). She illustrates the Duolingo learning platform as an example of online language learning social network sites that provide access to different language learning resources and opportunities. According to Chik, not all language learners have access to formal language education, and Duolingo “combines language learning and features of social networking” (p. 17). In addition to having attracted a considerable number of language learners, Duolingo claims to be “the only free learning platform available in multiple languages” (p. 17). As described by Chik (2020), “Duolingo primarily adopts a translation model to teach a target language” (p. 17). In the learning process, learners are required to translate from English into the target langue or vice versa. She
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mentions there are “32 language courses available to English speakers” (p. 18), and she personally has taken Italian, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Welsh, Korean, and Chinese. To describe the language-learning landscape on Duolingo, Chik follows “five main dimensions: location, formality, pedagogy, locus of control, and trajectory” (p. 18). “Location refers to the place in which a learning activity takes place and can be physical or virtual” (p. 18). Chik’s study shows that learning with Duolingo “can occur in any location with access to the internet and other technology” (p. 18). For example, she found learners include Syrian refugees in a refugee camp in Jordan, a considerable Spanishspeaking learners of English in the United States, and Arabic and Turkish speakers learning German with Duolingo probably as a result of “recent large number refugees [from the two countries] entering into Germany” (p. 19). When it comes to the formality of the language-learning process, Chik states that, compared with other formal language learning contexts and certificates conferred by official language proficiency tests, Duolingo language learning may be less formal and learners may be mostly motivated by personal interest. However, there are some stories showing that successful language learners were benefited in their career from being able to make use of the language they are learning from Duolingo sites. There is an interesting phenomenon relevant to pedagogical practice found on the Duolingo sites; that is, users (also learners) correct each other’s grammatical mistakes and provide better answers. This can include punctuations, vocabulary words, and comparisons between languages. Chik concludes that “a user-generated learning and teaching community motivates users to both ask and teach, which in turn creates authentic opportunities for language learning” (p. 22). She continues discussing Duolingo language learning sites in terms of locus of control, referring to “the degree to which learners direct their learning compared to others directing the learning” (p. 22). In this regard, Chik comments that “it is the user’s autonomous decision to download and use the app for English learning….However, once a learner has made the decision, then the locus of control is redistributed back to the course provider” (p. 22). She points out that Duolingo makes use of bilingual translation as a way of instruction “assuming that everyone is becoming bilingual….[However], not all combinations of bilingualism are supported” (p. 22-23). For example, Arabic, Indonesian, Japanese, Chinese and English speakers may have unequal opportunities to choose a language or languages to learn. Chik suggests that learners should be provided with opportunities to do reverse learning and each language “actually be officially treated as members of the target language” (p. 23). Finally, Chik discusses the dimension of trajectory on the online language 310
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learning sites, which tends to understand “how learners manage their learning over time” (p. 23). She describes that, because Duolingo provides learners with “a course completion ‘certificate’ with a golden Duo owl on it” (p. 24). It can certainly encourage learners to keep learning. Based on learners’ stories, Chik concludes that “persistence is most important to maintain the motivation to learn a language” (p. 24). One of the most salient advantages of the Duolingo language learning is that this learning platform involves a variety of language learners from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and they teach and learn from each other. As we understand, a language may embed in it with its culture and may have its specific metaphoric meaning extensions and expressions. As we understand, language and culture are inseparable. You cannot learn a language without learning its culture. One of the benefits of learning with the Duolingo language learning platform is that, in your learning process, you can always have native speakers to clarify how a linguistic element may be associated with a particular cultural tradition.
The EURECAP Project According to Vanderplank (2020), there are still relatively few studies which have directly tackled research questions involving video and truly informal language learning….[T]he EURECAP project was the first to examine the effects of watching foreign language films which the participants could select and then watch in their own time, at their own pace at home or in other informal settings (p. 195). Participants in this project were Oxford University language learners, and they viewed films in French, German, Italian, or Spanish. Basically, the survey investigated the role or roles video captions can play in building up participants’ confidence in their listening comprehension skills, and participants’ viewing behavior and attitude toward relying on captions in their viewing process. Findings of the study show that “caption-supported viewing in informal situations [is] a highly dynamic process for the learner/ viewer,…[and participants were found to become] better at understanding films in their chosen foreign language” (p. 196-197). However, the researchers also found that “there was a clear tension between the desire to improve their listening ability through simple caption-aided viewing and their mindset and attitude toward the value or potential threat 311
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to listening development posed by captions” (Vanderplank, 2020, p. 197). Some language teachers were also afraid of students’ being overdependent on captions in their listening process. However, the good news was that evidence of research findings show that “the benefits of greatly enhanced access to comprehensible input from captions and the ability to retune what one is hearing to foreign sounds guided by the captions far outweighs the disadvantages” (Vanderplank, 2020, p. 197). In this section, I briefly introduce two informal language learning projects. As we can imagine, there must be opponents who do not recognize informal language learning. They consider that engaging in informal “language-learning activities may not be beneficial or may even be detrimental to learners’ formal language learning….[These] activities are usually unstructured and not always well aligned with specific learning content or a fixed format of language learning” (Zheng & Lin, 2020, p. 388). Zheng and Lin thus call for bridging the gap between formal and informal language learning. Citing from Thorne and Reinhardt’ framework, using digital writing in informal settings as an example, Zheng and Lin propose “a three-stage model-observation and collection, exploration and analysis, and creation and participation-to implement this framework into L2 literacy practices” (p. 388-389). Similarly, teachers of different subject matters and with different purposes in mind can apply different ways to connect formal learning and informal learning to enhance learning effects, such as the case of using linguistic landscapes as language learning resources described below.
Linguistic Landscapes as Informal Language Learning Resources In addition to informal learning online or viewing foreign films described above, Roos and Nicholas (2020) consider that linguistic landscapes situated in our immediate environments are available for us to learn languages. They expended the traditional meaning of linguistic landscape, which views linguistic landscape as the language contained on signs in public spaces” (p. 244) to cover “inscriptions of all kinds appearing in society, such as those on signs, clothing, newspapers and personal items….Further, the visuality involved in the perception of writing has been expanded radically to include the perception and interpretation of multiple forms of images” (p. 245). They argue that different people will view the environment differently and have different ways of connecting to the environment. 312
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Roos and Nicholas (2020) report examples of how classroom formal language learning was connected with informal language learning outside of the classroom, focusing on exploring the linguistic landscape in our immediate environment. Primary and secondary school students in Germany, who were learning English as a foreign language, “were asked to photograph or draw an example of English that they had found in their local environment,” (p. 250) aiming at drawing on learners’ language awareness of the languages around them. Findings of the studies show that these activities have helped young language learners develop their language awareness. Among all the examples, an eighth grader commented on an advertisement aiming at helping cancer patients by saying “I think it would be better when there would be used different languages because then more people from different countries can help” (p. 253). Roos and Nicholas (2020) explain that “these younger learners were not originally aware of the presence of English in their immediate worlds. They had not noticed the presence of English until prompted” (p. 253). Roos and Nicholas conclude that connecting linguistic landscapes and language learning is more than a process of fostering the acquisition of diverse language competences. It may open doors for personalized learning and can be understood as a process of self-discovery at both the individual and the social level (p. 254). Yes, viewing linguistic landscapes only as a way of individual language learning may be too narrow-minded. It has social significance. Na’s (2022) ethnographic fieldwork on linguistic landscapes in Taiwan, although not focusing on language learning, show that linguistic landscapes not only reflect the historical backgrounds and developments of a particular region but also imply the emergence of a multilingual society. As I mentioned earlier, Taiwan is less culturally diverse in comparison with the United States or other countries. However, Na’s report on the linguistic landscapes in Taiwan reveals that Taiwan is emerging as a multicultural society. Na investigated the landscape in Taoyuan City, where the international airport is located, and found that multilingual signs, including those written in English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, and Tagolo, can be seen, and different languages and language varieties can be heard in this area.
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CONCLUSION This chapter focuses on the discussion of informal language learning; that is, learning outside of the school context. This type of learning can be unplanned and planned. Learners in an unplanned context can unconsciously and randomly acquire expressions of a new language by communicating with family members or peers or by accessing the media, whereas the planned one can be intentionally planned by the family, community, or organizations. Examples of informal language learning illustrated in this chapter include online language learning provided by the Duolingo Learning Platform that involves language learners from different areas of the world learning a variety of languages. The EURECAP project, on the other hand required students to watch foreign videos with or without subtitles at home to investigate how video subtitles may affect students’ learning of a foreign language. Finally, linguistic landscapes are used as sources of language learning, and students were asked to walk out of their classrooms to attend the languages used in the environments around them. The above-mentioned examples are but only a few ways of informal language learning. There are many more ways to learn a language informally. Individuals can encourage themselves and teachers can encourage students to make use of each single resource around them and each single way available to them to improve their language skills. After all, informal language learning features its being self-controlled, less pressured, and possibly more rewarding.
REFERENCES Bartlett, L., & Bajaj, M. (2015). Nonformal bilingual education. In W. E. Wright, S. Boun, & O. Garcia (Eds.), The handbook of bilingual and multilingual education (pp. 428–460). John Wiley & Sons. Chik, A. (2020). Motivation and informal language learning. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 15–26). John Wiley & Sons. Na, C. Y. (2022). Ethnographic study of the multilingual linguistic landscape in Taiwan from language policy and planning and geosmiotic perspectives [Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tamkang University, New Taipei City, Taiwan]. 314
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Roos, J., & Nicholas, H. (2020). Linguistic landscapes and additional language development. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.) The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 243-255). Hogoken: John Wiley & Sons. Vanderplank, R. (2020). Video and informal language learning. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 183–201). John Wiley & Sons. Zheng, B., & Lin, C.-H. (2020). Digital writing in informal settings among multilingual language learners. In M. Dressman & R. W. Sadler (Eds.), The handbook of informal language learning (pp. 383–393). John Wiley & Sons.
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Conclusion ABSTRACT This chapter concludes the discussion of the three parts of this volume: bilingualism, bilinguality, and bilingual education. In her concluding remarks, the author argues that the eventual goal of learning languages and understanding cultures other than one’s own is to achieve peace and development. A peaceful mind in an individual may lead to peaceful communications among different groups of people and eventually to a peaceful world. On the other hand, individuals being able to speak more than one language and societies and countries promoting bilingualism may facilitate developments at different levels, including personal and professional growth, political, economic, societal, and technological developments. Finally, the author envisions the future of bilingual education to go to online learning.
THE THREE PARTS OF BILINGUALISM DISCUSSED This volume discusses three areas of concern relevant to bilingual/multilingual: bilingualism, bilinguality, and bilingual education. The discussion of bilingualism is oriented to a more theoretical side of issues at different levels, namely the individual, the societal and institutional, and the national and international levels. At the individual level in Chapter One, bilinguals can be defined from different dimensions, including ability, use, age, development, culture, contexts, and choice. Individual bilinguals’ motivation to learn their heritage language or a foreign language and anxieties in language learning are then discussed to demonstrate how achievement of language learning may be DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4869-4.ch011 Copyright © 2023, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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relevant to different psychological, ideological, societal, cultural, and political factors. That is to say, language, culture, power, and identity may interact to construct a bilingual, which is then discussed and some cases are illustrated. Finally, at the individual level, I present some advantages of bilingualism, including cognitive development, social life, and career opportunities. Chapter Two, bilingualism at the societal and institutional level, mainly discusses how bilinguals interact with people of different language skills in schools, in communities, and at home, and different cases of societal bilingualism are illustrated to show how bilingual societies or communities function and practice. Finally, in bilingual or multilingual educational settings, co-languaging and a learning-oriented language assessment are discussed. Chapter Three moves the discussion of bilingualism to the national and international level. Language policies and language planning are first discussed, including language planning and orientation toward language planning in bilingual education. These discussions are followed by examples of language planning in different areas of the world. It is not difficult to find out that language policies or language planning in a nation or a region is dependent on various historical, political, societal, geographical, and even religious factors. Other issues relevant to language use at the national and international level that cannot be overlooked are the perceived linguistic hegemony of English and the divide between native and non-native speakers of English. They are then discussed and are followed by discussions of how, historically, language use and bilingualism have moved from an era of colonialism to globalization and this, in turn, have affected by an era of neoliberalism. Finally, I discuss language universals such as cooperative principles, politeness and euphemism, and innateness hypothesis. Although language universals may eventually change as time moves on, my purpose of writing this section is to remind readers that we as human beings can also look at things we share in the global village instead of emphasizing the differences so that we may realize the real meaning of learning a language. The second part of this volume is devoted to the discussion of how language or languages work in our brain. It is viewed from cognitive/neurolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspective. Chapter Four first discusses Neuro-linguistic debates over bilingualism and how human brains function in bilinguals’ mind. Research findings do show cognitive benefits of bilingualism. Then, I provide some models explaining how two or more languages act or interact in bilinguals’ mind, including the Model of Modular On-line Growth
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and Use of Language (MOGUL), the Developmental Bilingual InteractiveActivation (BIA-d) model, and the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives Model. These models are followed by a comparison of first and second language acquisition and a discussion of crosslinguistic influence. Finally, the issues of cognitive distortions such as binary thinking and dysmorphic focus in monolinguals and language attrition in bilinguals are discussed. Chapter Five discusses bilingualism from a psycho-linguistic perspective, that is, the psychological aspect of bilinguals. Bilinguals’ language attitudes are first discussed, including their preference for a particular language and attitude toward the two or more languages they speak and their heritage language. Then, how bilinguals use their various linguistic skills and creative ways of thinking to express themselves is discussed. The discussion moves along to focus on the cultural aspect of bilinguals’ mind, including how individual bi-/multi-culturals may adjust to two or more cultures and how multiculturalism may benefit international organizations. Finally, child and adult bilinguals are compared from a psycho-linguistic perspective. Chapter Six views bilingualism from a socio-linguistic perspective; that is, how bilinguals make use of their various languages to interact with others in societies. First, how various language varieties, dialects, and styles developed because of interactions between or among people speaking different languages and from different areas of the globe is discussed. Then, the discussion moves to explore the language behaviors commonly found in bilingual communications, Including code-switching, code-mixing, and translanguaging. Finally, another language behavior also commonly practiced by bilinguals, namely translation and interpretation, are discussed. In contemporary practice of translation and interpretation, speakers’ or writers’ emotion, cognition, and perspectives should be taken into consideration. As we might imagine, translation and interpretation trend toward machine translation and multimodal translation. These issues are discussed at the end of this chapter. The third part of this volume, starting Chapter Seven, is devoted to the discussion of bilingual education or language programs. Chapter Seven first classifies different orientations toward structuring bilingual education or any language programs because of different historical backgrounds, social structures, individual and social interests and needs, and governmental language policies. These orientations can include: focusing on maintenance of minority or indigenous languages, focusing on restructuring language policy, focusing on maintaining and promoting existing bilingualism, and focusing on promoting English in an era of globalization. After the classification, ideologies behind 318
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structuring bilingual education are discussed. In Chapter Eight, some of the cases of bilingual education and language programs around the world are presented based on the five continents of the globe in the order of space area, namely Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania. Having discussed individual country’s bilingual education, I focus Chapter Nine on the discussion of international schools which have been emerging around the world in an era of globalization with different types of practice. The emergence of international schools is described as being ‘supply-fed and demand-led.’ The demand-side and the supply-side of factors that contributing to the popularity of international schools is discussed. At the end of this chapter, some cases of international schools around the world are illustrated. Finally, in terms of language learning to be a bilingual or multilingual, it is not necessary to learn a language in formal educational settings. Chapter Ten discusses informal language learning. Some examples of language learning outside of schools or classrooms are illustrated. Among these examples is the Duolingo Learning Platform, which allows language learners from different parts of the world and with different linguistic backgrounds to learn a variety of languages from each other online. Another example is the EURECAP project. Learners in the project were required to watch foreign films either with or without captions or subtitles at home to learn a foreign language. Still another example of language learning activity made use of the linguistic landscapes in the environments that surround us to search for any linguistic clues as a way of language learning. Learners were told that this search could include their personal belongs, commercial ads, newspapers, and anything in private or public spaces. Having collected relevant information and completed the volume, I found something missing in the field of bilingualism and bilingual education. In the rest of this concluding chapter, I would like to remind readers that underscoring the importance and benefits of learning a second language alone is not sufficient as reasons to motivate people to learn a language; rather, engaging instructional materials and creative and critical teaching approaches as well as an awareness of the eventual goal of language learning are relevant. Finally, I try to picture the future of bilingual education as the trends of globalization and advancement of technology go.
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THE MISSING PARTS OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION Having discussed a range of practices of bilingual education in different areas of the globe, I found there is little scholarly discussion on the contents covered in the teaching of a foreign language to mainstream students. As mentioned earlier in this volume, there is little discussion on mainstream students learning a foreign language. In addition to some ideological and historical reasons, instructional materials and teaching approaches can be important factors contributing to the success of language learning. As I read relevant literature, I found in many situations of foreign language learning around the world, most of the teaching materials and teaching approaches are test-oriented and instrumentally motivating. For example, can we just superficially introduce a foreign country’s people and their relevant culture to motivate students to learn the language and culture of the country? Can we just test learners’ vocabulary and grammar to decide on their language proficiency level? Ramirez-Verdugo and Marquez (2021), in describing their Spanish students learning English, urge foreign language teachers to enhance their students’ critical thinking skills. They applied literary works and connected them to “worldwide crisis related to economic, health, or sociocultural challenges” (p. 93) and asked students to reflect, analyze, and criticize to prevent them from misconceptions and biases. The ways of teaching and learning a foreign can be more meaningful and more enjoyable.
THE EVENTUAL GOAL OF BILINGUALISM AND BILINGUAL EDUCATION Readers of this volume, however, need to be reminded that learning an additional language or understanding another culture is not the sole goal of bilingualism/multilingualism. Rather, the eventual goal of bilingualism is to develop a peaceful and joyful mind of individuals, equal societies, and harmonious and collaborative relationships among states or regions in the global community. As Galtung and Udayakumar (2013) claim, education should be practiced for peace and development. It can be, of course, perfectly applied to bilingual education. It does not make sense to learn a new language and to understand a foreign culture if our knowledge of language and culture become the causes of conflicts and discriminations. On the other hand, knowledge of language and culture should be used for personal, societal, 320
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and national development. At the personal level, the development can be interpersonal and communicative skills, professional growth, and financial benefits. At the societal and national level, by collaborating or cooperating with people from other countries or communities, the benefits can be found in political, economical, technological, and educational domains. As Bartlett and Bajaj (2015) point out that some areas of concern relevant to bilingual education have yet to be explored. One of them is “the relationship between bilingual education and peace. [That is], the impact of bilingual education on attitudes toward peace and conflict in general has not been fully examined” (p. 441). They might mean minority and majority groups in conflict areas. However, more importantly in an era of globalization, peaceful relationships between and among different countries and different ethnical groups need to be promoted as the eventual goal of bilingualism. McCormick (2022) also points out, “peace has been studied far less thoroughly [than] war, in spite of the fact that it has been much more common (and desirable) than war” (p. 181). He points out that people tend to assume that peace is considered the normal states of affairs and tend to be less interested in discussing the topic. However, in an era that individuals are closely connected to one another and nations cannot be separated and isolated from the global community, conflicts and competitions are more commonly seen. As Lehtomäki and Rajala (2020) describe the situation in Finland, “in the last decade research explicitly addressing the topic has been scarce….[Research studies] showed that analysing historical moral problems in teaching can develop youths’ empathy and capacity for peaceful conflict resolution and ethical reflection” (p. 113). Under this circumstance, how to maintain a peaceful mind and sustain a peaceful world should be brought forth for more discussion consideration. We need to “bring harmony from conflict, unity from rupture, that is based more on ‘us’ than ‘me’” (Goulah, 2021, p. 36). As Oxford (2013) well puts it, to “understand peacefully and to work for peace, we need to know and use its language” (p. 3). In addition to working toward world peace as its partial objective, bilingual education can be perceived as a pedagogical approach to global education. Bourn (2020) describes that the emphasis of global education “has been on its interdisciplinary focus, applicability across subjects and bodies of learning” (p. 19). He views global education as a pedagogical approach to learning rather than an academic discipline. In the case of bilingualism and bilingual education in an era of globalization, Bourn suggests that global education can “emphasize perspectives o globalization and the wider world, reflections on pupils’ own perception of global issues and that contextualized 321
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learning with the influence of global forces and power relations in the world” (p. 20). Among global issues, power relations, social justice, and poverty can be important topics. As Bourn (2020) argues, global education “goes beyond mere interconnectedness and broadening of horizons, important as they are, to locate the discourse in context of globalization” (p. 20). In the case of bilingualism, languages are used to facilitate communications and international collaboration or cooperation, and eventually lead to a better developed and more harmonious world. Then, what could be the future direction of bilingual education?
THE FUTURE OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION In discussing bilingualism in the modern world, Baker and Wright (2017) claim that the “future of majority and minority languages in the world is unpredictable. Current economic, political, religious, social and cultural change is rapid (e.g. globalization), affecting all languages of the world” (p. 403). They provide valuable insights into how linguistically minority groups can do in an era of globalization. For example, in the job market, Baker and Wright consider that bilingualism “can become a marketable ability to bridge languages and cultures, securing trade and delivery of services” (p. 407). In the domain of tourism, they suggest that minority groups can promote the socalled ‘cultural tourism’ that promote their languages and cultures and “raise their profile, create employment and find a niche economy in such cultural tourism” (p. 408). In the field of mass media, the authors use examples of Wales language television channel to argue that minority language ventures can add “prestige for a minority language, leading to the maintenance and promotion of minority languages, cultures and economies” (p. 411). Minority language channels can also create and maintain a sense of identity and unity among minority language groups. In the field of information technology, Baker and Wright suggest that “[t]he [I]nternet provides teachers and learners with ready-to-use banks of multimedia language resources….Providers of information and training for language teachers can use the [I]nternet to publicize events, courses, materials, services and a subscription-based, remote training, advice and information service” (p. 414). Finally, Baker and Wright discuss economic advantages bilinguals may have. They claim that although some research studies may show economic inequality and antagonism towards immigrants, “bilinguals have a potential economic advantage” (p. 418). For example, professionals and workers, such as doctors and nurses, lawyers, 322
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public officers, fire officers and government leaders gain benefits for being able to speak more than one language in their job. Yet, an incident occurred in the recent years has received global attention and has significantly affected people’s life, including language education, the spread of Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). After the outbreak of COVID-19, due to the temporarily shut down of schools, language teaching and learning has to move online. Aysu and Sanli (2021) term it ‘emergency online learning.’ It is because [s]tudents and teachers had to transit from their traditional classes to online platforms in the middle of the spring term abruptly.…Due to this emergent transition, teachers did not have time plan their online teaching tools an activities properly….Moreover, students were not ready to learn independently and communicate to learn online (p. 125-126). In the Post COVID-19 era, cross-cultural exchanges and language teaching and learning have to make use of various online language learning platforms and tools. It is further evidence revealing the interdependence of global states and individuals. Our empathy may need to reach beyond our own “immediate surroundings and [extend] to those suffering in distant places” (Goulah, 2021, p. 37). In addition to moving toward online learning, bilingual education can be expected to move toward the trends of global education. According to Bourn (2020), global education is moving “from consensus to divergent discourse and dissensus” (p. 16). He argues that the funding systems for global education practiced in areas of the globe, as consequences of consensus, have resulted in lack of funding for NGOs and hence lack of innovatory approaches and risk-taking projects. On the other hand, global education may be subject to the influence of the funding power of policy-makers. Bourn (2020) maintains that global education should take “critical and reflective approaches to learning [and]… encourage different perspectives to learning” (p. 17). Importantly, voices of academics and researchers should be taken into consideration. Applying Bourn’s ideas of global education to bilingual education in an era of globalization, we may insist that contemporary bilingual education needs to go beyond traditional ways of teaching language and culture. It needs to engage students in exploring, comparing, and evaluating different cultures in a critical and innovative way. In this regard, students may be first encouraged to investigate their own communities or nations to look for issues or cultural heritages and compare with each other’s. Classroom activities and instructional 323
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materials should be able to stimulate students to explore issues they might not think about before.
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About the Author
Ai-Ling Wang is currently an Associate Professor at Tamkang University, Taiwan. She got her PhD in Bilingual Education from New York University, New York. Her research interests include cross-cultural communications and collaborations, e-learning and m-learning, video conferencing, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), language teaching and learning, and global issues relevant to education and language.
342
Index
B bilingual education 7, 21, 23-24, 28, 61-62, 65-68, 79-80, 99, 105-106, 133, 137, 178-180, 182, 198-201, 203-205, 207208, 213, 216-217, 219, 223-225, 230, 238, 240, 242-245, 250, 253-255, 257258, 263, 266, 268-270, 272, 275-278, 281-285, 287-288, 297, 308, 316-323 bilingual societies 44, 56, 317 bilingualism 1-5, 7, 16, 22, 24-25, 28-29, 31-34, 39-45, 51, 53-56, 60, 62, 6670, 83, 109, 111, 119-122, 125-128, 133, 137, 149, 156-158, 160, 163, 168, 171, 178, 180, 198-199, 203-205, 207, 216-218, 228, 250, 266-267, 271, 275, 278-280, 285-286, 308-310, 316-322 bilinguals 1-5, 7-8, 10, 16-17, 19-24, 3133, 39-40, 44, 49, 54-56, 62-63, 67, 90, 119-122, 125-129, 131-133, 137, 141-145, 148-159, 162-163, 167, 169180, 184, 186, 192-193, 216-217, 219, 243, 287, 289, 316-318, 322 body movements 55-56
C Chinese 19, 21, 27, 33, 41-42, 47-48, 62, 64, 76, 90-92, 98, 108, 131, 140-141, 160, 172, 174-175, 182, 215, 227-228, 238-241, 243, 245-246, 250-251, 258, 269, 273, 276-277, 281, 283, 301, 304-305, 310 code-mixing 167, 172-173, 175-176, 179, 192, 318
code-switching 43, 167, 172-177, 179, 192, 318 Creative Thinking 27, 31, 125, 131, 148, 155, 163 cultural backgrounds 9, 31, 34, 106, 158, 168, 200, 203, 211, 283, 311 culture mixing 157, 163
E education programs 178, 198-199, 203-204, 216-217, 219, 224, 234, 253, 255, 269-272, 275, 281-282, 297
F foreign language 2, 5, 7-15, 33-34, 50, 52-53, 68, 77, 89-90, 93, 95, 99, 124, 142, 153-154, 157, 159-161, 163, 179, 181-182, 189, 208-209, 215, 230-231, 237, 242-246, 254, 256-257, 259, 264, 276-278, 311, 313-314, 316, 319-320
G global language 90, 96-97, 111, 199, 203, 230
H hegemony 60, 88-93, 99, 111, 214, 236, 317 heritage language 1, 5-8, 49, 119, 138, 152-153, 157, 181-182, 205, 218, 249, 269-270, 281, 316, 318
Index
higher education 19, 33, 70, 80, 232, 234, 252 historical backgrounds 41, 56, 60, 111, 219, 313, 318
I indigenous languages 22, 44, 68, 83, 85, 104, 198-200, 203, 206, 219, 242, 275, 280-283, 286, 318 instructional materials 29-30, 234, 237, 249, 277, 287, 319-320, 323 international schools 206, 297-307, 319 international students 63, 104, 241, 263, 288 intrasentential code-switching. 173, 176
L language attrition 119, 129, 143-145, 318 language culture 83, 179, 226 language learning 9-10, 13-15, 27, 29-30, 33, 46, 50, 55, 70-71, 78, 100, 104, 110, 119-120, 123-124, 129, 135-136, 138, 143, 152-153, 161-163, 167, 174, 178-179, 181, 183, 192-193, 200, 210212, 225, 228, 234, 245, 259-260, 262, 266, 271-272, 279-280, 285, 308-314, 316, 319-320, 323 language policy 63, 66, 68-70, 72-73, 76-79, 81-82, 85-87, 111, 153, 199-200, 203, 205, 213, 219, 228, 233, 239-240, 245, 248-249, 251, 253, 285, 318 lingua franca 61, 71, 84-85, 90-91, 99, 153, 159, 206, 208-209, 251, 253, 285, 300-301 linguistic code 119, 163
M magnetic resonance imaging 122, 124 Mandarin 21, 41-42, 47-48, 62, 65, 76, 9092, 104, 172, 174-175, 228, 238-241 monolinguals 2, 10, 31, 62, 68, 119-122, 126, 132, 142-144, 148, 150-151, 169-170, 172-173, 177, 180, 205, 275, 282, 318
mother tongue 2, 4, 8, 26, 42, 47, 61, 71, 84, 92, 121, 182, 189, 203-204, 225, 251-252, 280-281, 285 multicultural 61, 65, 73-74, 78, 86, 102, 158, 160, 175, 179, 181, 199-201, 214, 219, 234-236, 243, 248, 263-265, 269, 281, 285, 288, 313 multilingual 8, 20, 31, 33, 39-40, 42, 52-53, 65, 70, 73, 79, 83, 86, 90, 119-121, 123, 131, 151, 155, 159, 168, 171, 175, 178-179, 181, 184, 187, 199-201, 203, 207, 214, 216, 218-219, 234-235, 248, 250-252, 254-256, 258, 264, 266, 269270, 272-273, 275, 278, 280, 284-285, 313, 316-319 multiple languages 2, 20, 31, 46, 66, 126, 156, 183, 216, 219, 309
N neurolinguistic 11, 29, 119-120, 122, 125, 133-134, 142, 144, 153, 317 Non-native speakers 90, 93-94, 98, 100, 159, 317 non-traditional schools 299
O On-line Growth 12, 119-120, 128, 317 out-of-school youth 308
P physical objects 55 political backgrounds 223 psycholinguistics 148-149 psychological mechanisms 148, 150, 163 psychological state 119, 148, 163, 169
S second language 3, 7-10, 13-14, 29, 62, 77, 89, 91, 119-124, 127, 130, 133, 135138, 144, 149-151, 160-163, 171, 176, 180, 186, 189, 192, 203-204, 209, 217, 225, 238-239, 256-257, 272, 278-279, 284, 318-319 343
Index
shared language 45, 60, 250 social communication 119 social factors 43, 170, 188, 213
U
T
W
translanguaging 31, 40, 90, 152, 156, 167, 172-173, 177-183, 193, 216-217, 268, 270, 309, 318
whole-school approach 288
344
Unitary System 148-149, 163