Learning and Using Multiple Languages : Current Findings from Research on Multilingualism [1 ed.] 9781443874922, 9781443871822

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Learning and Using Multiple Languages

Learning and Using Multiple Languages Current Findings from Research on Multilingualism Edited by

Maria Pilar Safont Jordà, and Laura Portolés Falomir

Learning and Using Multiple Languages: Current Findings from Research on Multilingualism Edited by Maria Pilar Safont Jordà and Laura Portolés Falomir This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Maria Pilar Safont Jordà, Laura Portolés Falomir and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7182-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7182-2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .............................................................................................. viii Learning and Using Multiple Languages Pilar Safont and Laura Portolés Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Current Multilingualism and New Developments in Multilingualism Research Larissa Aronin Part I: Learning and Using Multiple Languages in English- speaking Settings Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 30 Immigration Language Policy Practices and Population Censuses in English-Dominant Countries: Monolingual or Multilingual Focus? Sanja Škifiü and Antonio Oštariü Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 58 Cross-Linguistic Influences in Canadian Learners’ Interpretations of Italian Emblematic Gestures Giuliana Salvato Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 82 Spelling Difficulty in a 10-year-old Trilingual Child: A Case Study and Report of an Effective Intervention Programme Georgia Zampia Niolaki and Jackie Masterson Part II: Learning and Using Multiple Languages in Northern and Central European countries Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 112 Multilingual Acquisition of English: Development of Grammar through Study of Null Anaphora Eva Berkes and Suzanne Flynn

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Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 134 Acquisitional Advantages of Simultaneous Trilingual Children: The Spanish Copulas SER and ESTAR Laia Arnaus Gil Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 155 Lexical Transfer in L3 Learning: A Cross-sectional Study on Swedish Ylva Falk Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 174 Multilingualism, Language Proficiency and Language Teaching in a Football Team Håkan Ringbom Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 189 Foreign Language Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Contexts: L3 Teacher Professionalization in Baden-Wuerttemberg Eva Maria Fernández Ammann, Amina Kropp and Johannes Müller-Lancé Part III: Learning and Using Multiple Languages in Southern Countries Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 218 Pragmatic Awareness in Early Consecutive Third Language Learners Pilar Safont and Laura Portolés Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 238 Language Anxiety and L3 Learners’ Oral Performance Amira Massabi Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 259 North-Western Catalan Vowels Read Aloud by Multilingual Adolescent Speakers Josefina Carrera-Sabaté Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 294 Vocabulary Acquisition in a Third (or Additional) Language: The Priming Effect in Long Term Memory Judith Fusté-Fargas

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Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 315 Promoting Multilingualism at the University Level: The Case of Andorra Carolina Bastida, Josep Díaz-Torrent and Miquel Nicolau Contributors ............................................................................................. 341

INTRODUCTION LEARNING AND USING MULTIPLE LANGUAGES PILAR SAFONT AND LAURA PORTOLÉS

A growing interest in the study of multilingualism has arisen during the last decades. The revitalisation of minority languages and the spread of English as a lingua franca have promoted the teaching and learning of multiple languages (Alcón and Safont 2013). In fact, multilingual users are the norm, not the exception. As described and presented in this volume, recent findings from research adopt the perspective of current multilingualism (see Aronin in this volume) which regards this phenomenon as a new linguistic dispensation that also differs from past conceptions. In line with Aronin’s view, although multilingualism has always existed and it is an assumed fact that the world is multilingual, we should bear in mind the important changes that research on this phenomenon has undergone, like that of adopting a multilingual perspective in its studies. As claimed by Gorter et al. (2014), despite known efforts for implementing coherent multilingual policies in certain institutions like schools or universities, classroom practices in multilingual settings are still monolingual. These authors advocate for promoting minority languages and analysing their role in the educational policies of multilingual communities. Our volume considers not only minority languages but also other languages within multilingual communities as well as the interaction among them. In line with the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (Herdina and Jessner 2002), languages are seen as complex and dynamic systems which are in constant interaction. Several studies (Cenoz and Gorter 2011; Jessner 2013; Portolés and Safont 2014; Portolés and Martín 2012; Safont 2013a) have suggested that language systems in the multilingual classroom interact with and influence each other since students may use their linguistic repertoire for different functions and intentions. The interaction among languages, also known as cross-linguistic interaction, may develop awareness to languages and increase the multilingual competence of

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learners. Nevertheless, the linguistic background of the learners, the existing relationships among languages and the interactions within the wider context have been widely ignored in language acquisition studies. On that account, common to all chapters in the present volume is the research-orientation adopted. A multilingual approach guides the analysis of grammatical, lexical and pragmatic development together with the role of affective and social factors in multilingual settings. In short, the volume contains the latest findings from research on multilingual language learning and use in multilingual communities and it is not restricted to an age group. In fact, our proposal contains studies on children, teenagers, young adults and adults. Furthermore, it covers a wide range of sociolinguistic settings including English-speaking countries, like United Kingdom or Canada, Northern and Central European contexts like Sweden or Germany as well as Southern settings like those of Spain or Tunisia. The present book comprises 14 chapters including well-known scholars in the field. This introduction serves as a link among all these contributions and raises the need for research on learning and using multiple languages as monolingual language learning is nowadays an exception. The opening chapter, by Larissa Aronin, presents a theoretical account of past and present research on multilingualism while signalling out how studies have moved from monolingual to multilingual perspectives as well as the changes involved. The author refers to multilingualism as a new linguistic dispensation that differs from past assumptions. The interaction between the spread of English as a lingua franca and the diversification of languages is discussed along with the inherent qualities of multilingualism, namely those of suffusiveness, liminality, complexity and super-diversity. Chapter one addresses these issues and is the starting point of the volume. Studies on learning and using multiple languages are presented in chapters 2 to 14. The collection of chapters in this volume is divided into three main sections in line with the sociolinguistic setting in which the studies have been conducted. A first set of studies focus on Englishspeaking countries, namely those of USA, Canada and UK. The extent to which multilingualism is officially recognized in these countries is described in chapter 2, and empirical descriptions tackling cross-linguistic influence and spelling difficulties in the process of becoming multilingual are raised in chapters 3 and 4. In chapter 2, Sanja Škifiü and Antonio Oštariü focus on the language policies of English-speaking countries by examining the language data which appear in population censuses. The analyses confirm that those

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countries largely follow the recommendations of the United Nations on language issues, although further effort should be made in raising an awareness of indigenous and minority languages. Furthermore, the authors deal with some educational implications deriving from their analyses and related to the issue of language ideologies. Chapter 3 opens a recent line of investigation in multilingualism focusing on the role of gestures in the acquisition and learning of an additional language. Giuliana Salvato believes that learning a language not only deals with the verbal component of a language, but also with nonverbal language. By referring to complexity inherent to multilingualism and the Mfactor included in the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (Herdina and Jessner 2002; Jessner 2008), the author proposes that the multilingual background of 329 learners may facilitate the identification and interpretation of Italian emblematic gestures. The results found that prior knowledge of Italian was the most determining factor in the interpretation of gestures. Unexpectedly, the language repertoire of the learners did not influence the results, even though previous languages were typologicallyrelated such as Spanish and French. Salvato highlights the importance of including pragmatic and sociolinguistic knowledge of the target language in syllabi in order to increase students’ multilingual awareness. Chapter 4 provides new evidence on multilingual development since intervention case studies with multilingual subjects are rare. Georgia Niolaki and Jackie Masterson report a case study of a 10-year-old trilingual child who is literate in her L2 and L3 (English and Greek) but not in her L1 (Turkish origin alphabetic language). The authors focus on the assessment and intervention for the spelling difficulties of the multilingual subject in English and Greek. Assessment reports found that the child had spelling difficulties in familiar words and nonwords in both languages. In order to mitigate her linguistic weaknesses, they conducted an intervention which consisted of visual imagery and flashcard techniques that triggered the pre-existing knowledge in her L1. Postintervention assessment revealed that the techniques helped the multilingual girl to improve her spelling. The authors emphasize the importance of conducting detailed assessments and interventions with children that have literacy difficulties in order to help them to accommodate in the multilingual classroom. The second set of chapters discusses language learning and proposals for fostering multilingualism in Northern European settings like Finland, Sweden, Germany and Austria. The studies on language learning included in this part of the volume analyse grammatical choices (chapters 5 and 6) and vocabulary acquisition (chapter 7). Proposals for promoting

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multilingualism deal with the role of the proficiency level of football players (chapter 8) and the linguistic background of immigrant children (chapter 9) for the social integration of both child and adult language learners. Chapter 5 explores the multilingual acquisition of trilingual learners whose L1 is Hungarian, L2 is German and L3 is English. In this chapter, Eva Berkes and Suzanne Flynn focus on the L3 acquisition of adverbial adjunct control sequences by taking into consideration learners’ previous languages and therefore, a multilingual perspective. The results propose that learners may benefit from accumulated syntactic knowledge in the L1 and L2 as far as the acquisition of L3 English is concerned. The authors confirm that the Cumulative Enhancement Model proposed by Flynn, Foley and Vinnitskaya (2004) is supported by their findings. In line with the multilingual perspective adopted in the present book, Laia Arnaus-Gil provides evidence of the positive effect of trilingualism in simultaneous multilingual children (i.e., acquisition of three languages simultaneously from birth) in chapter 6. The author compares the acquisition of the Spanish copulas verbs SER and ESTAR in children with different linguistic profiles: Spanish monolinguals, Spanish-German bilinguals and Spanish-German-Catalan trilinguals. Two traditional explanations which account for cross-linguistic influence, language processing and grammar internal properties are provided and tested. The author presents very interesting results and concludes that further research is needed. Cross-linguistic interaction is the focus of chapter 7. More specifically, Ylva Falk deals with lexical transfer in the Swedish context by adopting a neurolinguistic approach. This study deals with the role of background languages in the lexical development of multilinguals. The extent to which content and function words are processed differently in various languages is also examined by the author and interesting conclusions derive from such analysis. Håkan Ringbom in chapter 8 presents a completely different learning and teaching context, that of a football club. The author deals with multilingualism in the Swedish-speaking Aland Islands. In so doing, Ringbom explores the linguistic barriers that football players face in dayto-day communication since the diversity of languages in a team is extensive. The importance of language teaching methodology and its implications is also discussed by considering the multilingual setting involved. Finally, the author concludes that a good atmosphere and an acceptable language proficiency in the target language are the key for individual success and complete integration.

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Another setting that accounts for multilingual teaching practices is provided in chapter 9 written by Eva Maria Fernández-Ammann, Amina Kropp and Johannes Müller-Lance. Taking into account Mannheim, a rich sociolinguistic context in Germany, the authors propose a comprehensive multilingual programme to be included in L3 teacher training. The authors reject the monolingual bias existing in the L3 classroom and suggest that future teachers should be prepared in order to raise the metalinguistic awareness of their multilingual students and create a constructive environment where all languages and cultures are valued. Finally, the last set of chapters analyse multilingual language learning in instructional settings of Southern countries like those of Spain, Tunisia and Andorra. Studies in this section of the volume deal with early pragmatic awareness (chapter 10), internal and external factors affecting third language pronunciation (chapters 11 and 12), and vocabulary acquisition (chapter 13). In line with the second set of chapters of the volume, the last chapter in this section is devoted to present a proposal for fostering multilingualism in a specific multilingual setting (chapter 14). Chapter 10 provides valuable insights into multilingual development in the classroom since very few studies have focused on early L3 pragmatic awareness. Pilar Safont and Laura Portolés examine the pragmatic awareness of 48 consecutive L3 learners of English in three languages, namely those of Catalan, Spanish and English. In testing their pragmatic skills the authors focused on identifying appropriate request moves by means of an original audio-visual pragmatic comprehension test. Results confirm the enhanced pragmatic awareness of multilinguals and they also point to the peculiarities of early multilingual pragmatic systems that may be best explained from a dynamic view of multilingualism (Herdina and Jessner 2002; Jessner 2008). Teenagers are involved in the following two chapters and last part of this section. These contributions deal with the paramount role of internal and external factors in the process of language acquisition. In chapter 11, Amira Massabi examines foreign language anxiety in the English classroom. Although this affective factor has been widely investigated, the research carried out to date has adopted a monolingual perspective. This paper tries to explore the effect of the multilingual background of the learners on anxiety. The participants are 100 high-school students whose L1 is Tunisian Arabic, L2 French and L3 English. Different instruments are employed in order to measure their anxiety levels with reference to their L3 oral and aural skills. The results reported that participants suffered from anxiety despite their condition of multilingual learners. Their experience as language learners did not reduce their anxiety in the L3

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classroom. The author suggests the importance of creating a nonthreatening environment in order to facilitate language learning in multilingual contexts. Chapter 12 examines the phonetic behaviour of a multilingual group of students in Catalonia (Spain). Similar to the context of the study by Safont and Portolés, this paper was conducted in a high-school where Catalan, Spanish and English coexist together as languages of instruction. Additionally, the presence of migrant languages, such as Romanian and Arabic, is very high due to the increasingly social migrations throughout the world. Josefina Carrera-Sabaté explores the realizations of stressed Catalan vowels by L1 Catalan students and L1 Romanian students. Her results point out the existing cross-linguistic interaction among language systems and the influence of the L1 on the production of vowels. Additionally, the author also examines social factors, such as gender, age, education level of parents, and language use, among others. This study highlights the importance of the contextual factors in language acquisition processes. The study by Judith Fusté-Fargas in chapter 13 aims to investigate the acquisition of L3 English vocabulary by 48 primary education learners in the context of Catalonia (Spain). The author focuses on vocabulary retrieval after a long period of no exposure to the input and checks the effect of primed lexicon and repetitive tasks on multilingual acquisition. The results suggest that repetition of vocabulary along courses is the best way to acquire L3 lexicon. The author also reports the influence of metalinguistic awareness and cross-linguistic influence on the process of L3 vocabulary acquisition, especially when dealing with cognates. The multilingual proficiency proposed by Herdina and Jessner (2002) is taken into account in her analyses. In the last chapter of the volume, Carolina Bastida, Josep Díaz-Torrent and Miquel Nicolau present a proposal for multilingual education at the university level. These authors consider findings from a survey that was previously carried out. In this survey, the authors collected data from the university members in order to draw some conclusions about their beliefs and language practices. The diversity of linguistic profiles and the coexistence of various languages in this academic institution is a controversial issue when it comes to deciding the planning of coherent language policies. The authors conclude that higher education institutions should provide opportunities for students in order to expand their linguistic repertoire and promote the minority (Catalan) and the international foreign language (English).

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On the whole, the studies included in this volume all consider multilingual participants by referring to all their languages and they analyse grammatical choices (Chapter 5 and 6), cross-linguistic influence (Chapters 3, 7 and 13), spelling difficulties (Chapter 4), early pragmatic awareness (Chapter 10) and internal and external factors affecting L3 oral production (Chapters 11 and 12). Additionally, pedagogical implications deriving from current research are discussed. Some chapters deal with current proposals for fostering multilingualism in multilingual settings. Here, the classroom goes beyond the walls of schools (Chapter 9) and academic centres (Chapter 14) to include other language teaching and acquisition practices (Chapter 2) , like that of football players (Chapter 8). Each single chapter in the volume has contributed to current debates on multilingual language use and learning. The number and variety of languages, the range of educational and sociolinguistic settings and the different ages of the participants involved in the analyses make the volume especially attractive. Chapters included may be interesting for curriculum planners and developers as well as researchers, teachers and students interested in the field of multilingualism. Last but not least, we hope that this book will open new avenues for further research on multilingual acquisition and learning in educational settings.

Works cited Alcón, Eva, and Pilar Safont. 2013. English and multilingualism. In Encyclopaedia of Applied Linguistics, ed. Carol Chappelle, 3883-3888. New York: Wiley and Sons. Cenoz, Jasone, and Durk Gorter. 2011. A holistic approach to multilingual education. The Modern Language Journal 95 (ii):339-343. Flynn, Suzanne, Claire Foley, and Inna Vinnitskaya. 2004. The Cumulative-Enhancement Model for language acquisition: Comparing adults’ and children’s patterns of development. International Journal of Multilingualism 1 (1):3–17. Gorter, Durk, Victoria Zenitz, and Jasone Cenoz. 2014. Minority Languages and Multilingual Education. Berlin: Springer. Herdina, Philip, and Ulrike Jessner. 2002. A Dynamic model of Multilingualism: Perspectives of change in psycholinguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jessner, Ulrike. 2008. A DST model of multilingualism and the role of metalinguistic awareness. Second language development as a dynamic process. Special issue of Modern Language Journal 92(2):210-283.

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—. 2013. Dynamics of Multilingualism. In The Encyclopaedia of Applied Linguistics, ed. Carol Chapelle, 1798-1805. Wiley: Blackwell. Portolés, Laura, and Sofía Martín-Laguna. 2012. Code switching in classroom discourse: A multilingual approach. In Discourse and language learning across l2 instructional Settings, ed. Eva Alcón, and Pilar Safont, 295-317. New York: Rodopi (Utrecht collection in Language and Communication 24). Portolés, Laura, and Pilar Safont. 2014. Translanguaging and formulaic speech in the L3 classroom. In Communication, Cognition and Cybernetics, ed. Ana Díaz Galán, María del Carmen Fumero Pérez, María del Pilar Lojendio Quintero, Sally Burguess, Eulalia Sosa Acevedo, and Antonio Cano Ginés, 407-420. La Laguna: Universidad de la Laguna. Safont, Pilar. 2013a. Pragmatic Competence in Multilingual Contexts. In The Encyclopaedia of Applied Linguistics, ed. Carol Chappelle, 45104516. Wiley: Blackwell.

Acknowledgements As members of the LAELA (Lingüística Aplicada a l’Ensenyament de la Llengua Anglesa) research group and UEM (Multilingual Education Unit) at Universitat Jaume I (Castelló, Spain), we would like to acknowledge that this volume has been conducted within the framework of a research project funded by Fundació Universitat Jaume I and Caixa Castelló-Bancaixa (P1.1B2011-15) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, co-funded by FEDER (FFI2012-38145). We would also like to thank all the contributors for their enthusiastic interest and patience and for their thoughtful contributions in the volume.

CHAPTER ONE CURRENT MULTILINGUALISM AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN MULTILINGUALISM RESEARCH LARISSA ARONIN

Introduction The increasing number of publications on historical multilingualism (see for example, Braunmüller and Ferraresi 2003; Rindler-Schjerve and Vetter 2007; Léglu 2010; Trotter 2000; Picard 2003) present fascinating accounts of multilingualism which flourished in various parts of the world both in ancient times and more recently. There is no doubt that in previous epochs there were people and communities using multiple languages. The Volga region of Russia supplies earlier examples of individual and communal multilingualism. Before Russians settled there, various Turkic tribes, such as Tatar, Kalmyk and Chuvash inhabited this territory, where they still live and speak their languages. Here, in the 18th century, the Empress Catherine the Great invited foreigners to farm the Russian lands. Almost immediately afterwards the Germans arrived and founded colonies in the lower Volga river area. There, the Germans were allowed to maintain their language and culture, and this is how one more multilingual community in Russia began; they were later known as the Volga Germans. The Empress herself, whose rule is considered the golden age of Russia, was born in Stettin, Prussia. She received home education there: along with dancing, history, geography and religion she was taught French and English. Upon her arrival in Russia in order to marry the Tsar Peter III in 1744, she - German by birth and French by upbringing- became ardently Orthodox, striving to learn Russia’s history and its traditions. She eagerly began learning Russian and her mother in-law, the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna was moved to tears by how young Catherine diligently

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studied Russian at night, and had driven herself to exhaustion (Pavlenko N. 2003:20). She was not only a multilingual, an adult motivated learner, an immigrant acquiring the language of her host country, which in fact became her country in many senses. Catherine’s personality was constantly and deeply affected by the languages and cultures that shaped her multilingual identity. Upon ascending the throne, Catherine continued to actively exploit all her languages; she spoke and thought in German, ruled and loved in Russian. This “enlightened despot޵, as she was called because of her philosophical writings and internal politics, was a long-time correspondent of Voltaire, Diderot and other French thinkers, and an amateur opera librettist in addition. In this context, Catherine the Great of Russia is an example of successful individual multilingualism and multiliteracy. Her life and the story of the Volga German community demonstrate (and it comes as no surprise) that in previous epochs there were people and communities using multiple languages. No doubt, multilingualism has existed throughout the whole of human history. But does this mean that we should, perhaps, manage today’s multilingual reality as if we were living in the time of Catherine the Great? This chapter is an attempt to contribute to answering this question. The aim is to further conceptualize current multilingualism as differing from multilingualism of the past. The questions which I am attempting to answer in the following sections are as follows: are people of the world now experiencing the same sort of multilingualism as in the past, or is the current variety a novel and distinct development in the life of human races? And if we are experiencing a different type of language arrangement globally, what are the most important characteristics of current multilingualism? To this end I shall first point to distinctions between what is called “current multilingualism” and “historical multilingualism” (Aronin and Singleton 2008, 2012), and then discuss the complex interaction between the two current global trends of multilingualism. Finally I shall briefly overview the properties and developments characterizing multilingualism today, along with the research describing these properties and developments.

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Is the current variety of multilingualism a novel and distinct development? The most possible answer to this question would be yes. All the current global developments seem to show that humans live under a new linguistic dispensation in which the use of multiple languages is distinct from the forms, patterns, and nature of multilingualism arrangements of the past. As human society moves ahead, constantly developing its social and economic structure (as, for example, from feudalism to enlightenment, and then to modernity), changes in basic social institutions naturally occur. Modern visions of family, marriage and childhood have changed as have current practices, gender roles and behaviours in ways that would surprise our ancestors. Whole areas of life, such as medicine, transportation and banking have changed drastically. The most recent shifts have led humankind to what is variously called post modernity (Habermas 1981; Lyotard 1984), or late modernity (Giddens 1990, 1991; Beck 1992) or even liquid modernity (Bauman 2000). Whatever the term, the distinctive character of the contemporary human condition is obvious. It is also obvious that it has resulted in drastic changes in technology, and altered ideologies, and perceptions. Inevitably, language use has changed with the rest. Social practices of language use and acquisition are carried out by language users in a variety of contexts. Emphasizing the changes, it is important to say that the basic components of multilingualism, defined by John Edwards (Edwards 1994) as “speaker, setting and language, - and which Aronin and Singleton (2012) now refer to as “user, environment and language,” exist and interact now as well as they did in the past, and will do in the future (see figure 1-1). Fig.1-1. The three components of multilingualism.

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The three components are the same, but each keeps mutating, thus inducing changes in the resultant type of multilingualism. In other words, the same, but ever-changing elements, each time generate a different kind of multilingualism, that is, different varieties of social practices as they link with language use, in each discrete spacetime. To illustrate this we can consider multilingualism in Africa as it changed with time, and also distinctions in the way multilingualism manifests itself in one and the same city, but in different domains and organizations. The decolonization processes started in African countries in the 40s of the past century and unfolded through the 60s and 70s. Most of the languages that were in circulation before and during these processes did not disappear, but their functions and status in the new historical and political situations were drastically reviewed. For the purpose of defining their country’s new identity as well as for practical purposes African states had to face choosing an official or national language. Various decisions regarding the roles of multiple languages were taken, keeping in mind convenience of the “colonial” or “received” languages (English, French, Portuguese and German) for government and planning, and administration, as well as political and emotional considerations. In many states the language of the former colonial power remains the official language, e.g. English in Kenya, French in Burkina Faso, and English and French in Cameroon and Rwanda. The ex-colonial languages are not associated with any particular ethnic group, and thus can be used as a neutral code in the complex and sensitive African reality, with its potential for conflict between states and tribal groups. The place of tribal and regional languages has undergone and is still undergoing change and the functions of indigenous languages have been reallocated. Thus, the same components of multilingualism bring to life a variety of particular manifestations. Cadier and Mar-Molinero describe the culturally and linguistically diverse situation in the same urban environment, the city of Southampton, where the versions of multilingualism as they develop in real time are somewhat different in the private company of the Southampton Airport, and in a public sector of the health service, the University Hospital of Southampton, NHS Foundation Trust (UHT) due to specific environmental factors and constraints (Cadier and Mar-Molinero 2012). At present, we are witnessing the unfolding of the new contemporary sociolinguistic situation, to which the concept of “new world order” has been applied. Using the term “world order”, Fishman (1998) and other researchers into languages and globalization (e.g. Marais 2003) were

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referring not only to the enormously broadened scope of multilingualism in the world. More significantly, multilingualism in its current form is a systemic phenomenon, because it goes beyond the mere expansion of individuals’ linguistic knowledge, or augmentation of languages, and the growing number of multilinguals and multilingual countries. Because the expression “world order” is associated with particular, and in many cases particularly objectionable political ideologies and regimes, it might be interpreted as having sinister connotations. Accordingly, we (Aronin and Singleton 2008, 2012) use the term “new linguistic dispensation”. As it was stated earlier (Aronin and Singleton 2008, 2012), the new linguistic dispensation is manifested in “those patterns or dispositions of human activity that [achieve and] sustain the elementary or primary goals of social life among mankind as a whole” (Bull 1977:2-20) (Alker, Amin, Biersteker and Inoguchi 2001). The new linguistic dispensation takes into account regularities affecting big and small communities, nations, firms, parties, interest groups, armies, churches, and individuals. The new linguistic dispensation also applies to the evolving status of extant and emergent language varieties. It embraces the current reality of language ideologies and policies, and language education in all its aspects. Fishman (1998) described the shifts in the contemporary sociolinguistic situation as characterised by the two major trends: (1) An unparalleled spread of the use of English as an international language. (2) A remarkable diversification of the languages in use. These two trends are developing simultaneously, and appear to be in contradiction to each other.

What distinguishes “current multilingualism” from “historical multilingualism”? The scope The fact that the new linguistic dispensation relates to, and affects post-modern society as a whole is the crucial point that distinguishes “current multilingualism” from “historical multilingualism”. Multilingualism has developed to a stage where it is no longer just one of the characteristics of society; in many ways it has become an inherent and very salient property of society. Even in places where multilingualism has existed for hundreds of years, traditional patterns of multilingualism now have a different societal basis, even where superficially the same languages (or their “descendants”) continue to be used in the same

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territories. The distinctiveness of current multilingualism relative to “historical multilingualism” lies in the degree to which every facet of life today depends on multilingual social arrangements and individuals, either directly or indirectly (Aronin and Singleton 2008, 2012). Whereas vital societal processes and prominent characteristics of contemporary society are inseparably linked to multilingualism, “historical” multilingualism was largely supplementary to the development and maintenance of earlier societies. In specific professions, crafts or castes, mastery of several languages was much appreciated and even respected. Nonetheless, though it was important for such individuals and groups, multilingualism was not vital for the development and continuation of past societies. Thus, the crucial difference between current and “historical” multilingualism lies in the degree to which multilingualism is or has been integral to the construction of a specific social reality.

Complex interplay between the two trends In order to see another important distinction between the past and present modes of language use, let us go back to the article by Joshua Fishman mentioned above (Fishman 1998). Notably, his recurring assessment of contemporary changes is expressed in the phrase “never before”. This, to my mind, highlights the novelty of what is happening in the current era as opposed to the multilingualism on the same planet in the past. “Never before in human history”, writes Fishman “has one language been spoken (let alone semi-spoken) so widely and by so many”. (Fishman 1998). Indeed, lingua francas always existed, the most powerful ones are still widely used by millions (e.g. Arabic, Swahili, Malay, Spanish, Hausa, Mandarin, Sanskrit, French, Russian to name only some) but not a single language was perceived as exerting so much power and influence and consequently was held responsible for so much worldwide. It is not by chance that today English is not only placed at the top of language hierarchies but is also assigned exceptional status, for instance in De Swaan’s (2001) Galactic Model.

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Fig. 1-2. Hierarchy of world languages by de Swaan (2001) set out in tabular form by Vivian Cook (2013b).

To continue Fishman's “never before” list, another point is the following. It seems that never before has such a strong, wide ranging mutual dependency of these two tendencies been observed. Fig. 1-3. The interplay and mutual dependency of the two global linguistic trends.

Multilingualism: The New Linguistic World Order

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Chapter One

This dependency comprises the whole continuum of implications from unquestionably positive to allegedly extremely negative. On the one hand, no language has ever before given rise to such fervent controversy, or has been positioned so seriously and problematically against other languages. On the other hand, no other language has been involved in such a variety of connections, relations and associations to other languages - which are even identified with reference to English with the help of the term LOTE Languages Other Than English. An engaging example of a seemingly paradoxical interaction is the emergence of professional varieties of English such as Airspeak, Seaspeak, and Simple English which, at first sight might be thought of as regarding only English, that is, relating to the first trend - the spread of English. But these professional and simplified varieties are not only about English, and not even much about English, for they were intended for speakers of other than English languages, LOTE speakers. Today the links between the overwhelming spread and undeniable need for English, and the trend of the advance, spread and acquisition of multiple other languages of the world, are varied and strong. In the sphere of education, for example, the challenge of choice of languages for teaching, and further decisions on including a particular language in the curriculum as a discipline or as a language of instruction, are all too familiar to parents, teachers and educationalists. The aims and arguments for and against a particular choice are especially intricate in bilingual and multilingual environments where minority and heritage languages and English compete for the precious teaching time and inclusion in the curriculum. Considering the options where both English and minority languages can be taught either as a discipline, or as a means of instruction, the choice is difficult indeed. In this regard Spain is the perfect illustration of ongoing efforts to find that optimal configuration of languages (Lasagabaster and Huguet 2007) in educational multilingual programme, the “Enriched Bilingualism programme” implemented by Valencian Autonomous Government in the Valencian educational system (Safont 2007:96), the Basque educational system with its three linguistic models (A, B and D), and Cenoz’s concept of Continua of multilingual education (Cenoz 2009). The practical implementation of attempts to find a beneficial decision is described in the studies explicating and discussing the use of minority languages as languages of instruction, or as disciplines, for example, Basque, as the language of instruction in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC), the teaching of Frisian in the Netherlands and in Malta (Cenoz 2008; Ytsma 2000; Gardner and Zalbide 2005; Arocena, Douwes and Hanenburg 2010; Caruana and Lasagabaster

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2013). The inclusion of English in the school curricula and in tertiary level institutions of many countries is a matter of importance too, especially as third language acquisition has recently entered the mainstream of research, in particular with regard to English (see for example Cenoz and Jessner 2000, 2009; Jessner and Cenoz 2007; Jessner 2008b). In the domains of the sociology of language and language policy, finding the balance between the two trends unfolding simultaneously in specific situations is the constant aim of investigations. Beyond dilemmas of language selection at schools, the uneasy issue of choice persists in society with regard to which languages are to be learnt and used by the citizens of multilingual Europe. A consideration of this type is the European multilingualism formula 2+1. The formula suggests mother tongue, regional language, plus one international language as the optimal configuration for the benefit of Europeans. To recapitulate this section treating the interplay of the trends, we can state the following. When dealing with any practical issue in multilingualism - be it in connection with minority languages in a community, or the choice of school languages - it is so often that interplay of the two trends is implied. Investigations on English with or opposed to other languages are noticeable aspects of current research in multilingualism. It seems safe to claim that such a strong and ongoing interaction of two global sociolinguistic trends in various forms and on a number of levels has never occurred before.

Sets of languages rather than one language as a unit of departure now Finally, the important distinction between current and historical multilingualism lies in the fact that today, as a natural consequence of the increased importance of multilingualism and the interplay of the two trends, language patterns have changed so that sets of languages, rather than single languages, now perform the essential functions of communication, cognition and identity (Aronin 2005). The three distinctions of current multilingualism compared to that of the past discussed in this section are summarized in table 1-1.

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Table 1-1. Qualitative distinctions between Current and Historical Multilingualism. Current multilingualism Scope and significance: at present virtually every facet of human life depends on multilingual social arrangements and multilingual individuals, whether directly or indirectly. Two tendencies, developing simultaneously and appearing to contradict each other: English against/English together with LOTE in various configurations. The tendencies are mutually dependent. Language patterns have changed so significantly that sets of languages, rather than single languages, often perform the essential functions of communication, cognition and identity for individuals and the global community.

Historical multilingualism Multilingualism was largely supplementary to the development and maintenance of earlier societies. No dominant tendencies (at least not yet discovered). No interaction.

One/two languages typically performed essential functions of communication, cognition and identity for individuals and the world.

In addition to the core qualitative distinctions of the current multilingualism versus the “historical”, they are supplemented by numerous distinctions of extent. There are a number of clearly observable differences in the way multilingualism manifests itself in historical and contemporary times in different dimensions. A number of differences of extent were described in earlier publications (Aronin and Singleton 2008, 2012; Aronin, Fishman, Singleton and Ó Laoire 2013) and therefore are not detailed here.

What are the most important characteristics of current multilingualism? The properties and characteristics of current multilingualism were described earlier (Aronin and Hufeisen 2009; Aronin and Singleton 2008, 2012). Figure 1-4 below shows the properties and developmental

Current Multilingualism

11

directions of the new linguistic dispensation as described earlier and the property of super-diversity which is the latest inclusion to this model. Fig. 1-4. The properties and developmental directions of the new linguistic dispensation.

In the following I will briefly describe the specific qualities and developments proposed earlier and then focus on the property of superdiversity. The specific qualities of current multilingualism are: suffusiveness, complexity, and liminality. It is essential to add another core property to this chart - super-diversity. These four qualities (each separately and together) in turn lead to specific developments. Up till now the following developments have been identified: • shifts in norms • extreme malleability • the emergence of new issues of importance • an expansion of affordances • an ambience of awareness “Suffusiveness” in the first place relates to the ubiquity of multilingualism in the contemporary world. Importantly, the ubiquity of multilingualism does not mean that multilingualism is evenly spread throughout the world to the same extent and according to the same pattern.

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In the same way that monolingual communities differ from one another, many multilingual communities in the world are multilingual in their own way. Multilingualism of India, with its thousands of languages and multilingualism in Sweden, multilingualism of African states and the countries of Eastern Europe, each is unique of its kind. Not less significant than the geographical spread and numbers of people using two and more languages in their daily life is that contemporary multilingualism is suffusive in covering most human activities. Commerce and banking, education and science, entertainment and private communication, army and religion - to all of these domains of activity multilingualism has a direct bearing, and it might be not an exaggeration to say that none of these activities is thinkable without multilingualism in some form. One can barely think of an activity not touched by the phenomenon. One of the recent studies carried out by Ringbom (2012) treats multilingual reality in a football club, IFK Mariehamn in the Swedish Åland Islands, a self-governed area between Finland and Sweden. The recent multilingualism research made it possible to see that multilingualism suffuses the world in a variety of forms. The most obvious ones traditionally dealt with in multilingualism research are oral and written communication. Recent and emerging research directions, such as Linguistic Landscape and the Material Culture of Multilingualism, bring to the fore the visible and tangible signs of multilingualism. Material culture makes the property of suffusiveness very apparent. It also allows researchers to study multilingualism in virtually every niche of global human practices - at home and in education, both globally and in tiny local situations. The Material Culture of Multilingualism, a novel research direction in multilingualism, fuses ethnography, sociology and linguistics. By examining language-defined objects such as furniture and home utensils, keepsakes, cosmetics and medications, food and books, researchers can study multilingual language practices and multilingual speakers’ identities in greater precision and depth, and discover new angles of vision (Aronin 2012; Aronin and Ó Laoire 2012a, 2012b). A language-defined object is “a meaningful wholeness of material and verbal components considered as a representation of its user or users, exclusively in relation to its linguistic environment” (Aronin and Ó Laoire 2007; Aronin and Ó Laoire 2012:311). As an example, let us consider an artefact from the Israeli Circassian village of Kfar Kama in the Lower Galilee. There, everyday material objects carry inscriptions in Circassian, Arabic, Russian, Hebrew, English and Turkish. The artefact under consideration, a door in the home of the

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Hatukai family, is literally on the border of the public and private domains, and gives an interested researcher a wealth of insights (see Figures 1-5a and 1-5b). Fig. 1-5a. The Hatukai’s door (adapted from Hatukai 2012)

Fig. 1- 5b. The Hatukai’s door. Bas relief. (adapted from Hatukai 2012).

A visitor sees humorous stickers in Hebrew on the door: a no-smoking sign and a Hebrew sticker asking: Who is there? There is also a copper relief on the same door which bears embossed print in Russian. The bas relief portrays the glory of a Circassian warrior. The war between Circassians and Russians was lost by the former more than two hundred years ago, but a language-defined object renders the sustained feeling, the memory of the community, and presents the cumulative linguistic assets, traditions and mentality of the community. This is how the material culture of multilingualism conveys individual voices and informs us about the beliefs, values, and sensibilities of the members of the multilingual Circassian community in Israel (more on material culture of multilingualism see in Aronin 2012). The suffusiveness of multilingualism became far more evident with the global development dubbed Ambience of awareness. Today the world is clearly more aware of languages and language issues to a greater extent than it used to be (Hawkins 1999; Jessner 2006, 2008a; Svalberg 2009;

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Pinho and Andrade 2009). In particular, the awareness of languages and the range of their roles in individuals’ life trajectories and in communities is reflected in the language nominations, “language appellations that are assigned to various languages according to their perceived role and value for an individual or a community” (Aronin, Ó Laoire and Singleton 2011:187). Naming or designating a language as an “official”, “international”, “heritage”, “minority language”, or as a “mother tongue”, we overtly or covertly evaluate it as to its status in a given community, or globally, as well as its emotional or practical proximity to a person. In the past decade the normative mindset dominated by global changes, has led to new educational projects. Discussions and documents on multilingualism emanating from the European Union and other international bodies have similarly increased significantly (see e.g. European Commission 2005, 2009, 2011; The European Parliament 2009). The next property of current multilingualism was dubbed “liminality” to refer to the fact that many societal processes and phenomena, both global and local that were previously considered negligible or hardly perceived at all, have become discernible or noticeable. The point of the concept of liminality in multilingualism is that the importance of such phenomena emerges gradually. The new linguistic dispensation increases liminality intensively, and there are numerous examples from all the areas of multilingualism (Aronin and Singleton 2012). The development of a shift in norms illustrates the property of liminality. One of the most celebrated changes in norms is that the so-called monolingual norm has given way to the bilingual and multilingual norms, largely as a cumulative result of studies in bilingualism and multilingualism. It is well known now that the holistic view on bi- and multilingualism, concepts of language modes and multi-competence played an important role in this (cf. Cook 1992, 1993 and 2006, 2007; Grosjean 1985, 1992 and 2008, 2010). Without doubt, the concept of translanguaging also represents an important shift in norms, especially in relation to informal education practices (cf. Garcia 2009, 2013; Canagarajah 2011). With the shift in norms, new hot issues have appeared in multilingualism scholarship. A number of topics have moved centre-stage in discussions in recent decades, sometimes replacing those previously regarded as important, at times receiving the much more extensive treatment. Some of new issues of importance in addition those already mentioned above, include:

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- Tri- and Multilingual Early Development (De Houwer 2005; Barnes 2006; Barron-Hauwaert 2003; Maneva 2004; Montanari 2009, 2013; Safont 2013). - Third Language Acquisition (cf. Jessner 2008b; Hufeisen 2001, 2005, 2010; Neuner 2004). - Psycholinguistic Research on Crosslinguistic Influence (cf. De Angelis 2007; De Angelis and Dewaele 2009, 2011; Cenoz, Hufeisen and Jessner 2001, 2003; Gabrys-Barker 2012; Ringbom 2007). - Minority languages (Cenoz 2009; Cenoz and Gorter 2005, 2008; Harris and Cummins 2013; Edwards 2010; Oflazer 2003). - Multilingual Identity (in various dimensions and angles Wieszbicka 1999; Lin 2007; Riley 2010; Walker 2006). - Multilingual Education and Educating of Multilinguals (Hufeisen and Jessner 2009; Hornberger 2009; Hufeisen and Marx 2003; Garcia 2009, 2013; Kramsch 2008). - CLIL (cf. Lasagabaster and de Zarobe 2010). - Emotions and Multilingualism (cf. Dewaele 2007, 2010a; Pavlenko 2005). - Diversity and Super-diversity (Blommaert 2009, 2010; Aronin and Singleton 2010; Cadier and Mar-Molinero 2012; Extra 2013) - Affordances (Singleton and Aronin 2007; Aronin and Singleton 2010; Dewaele 2010; Visser 2012, 2014). The above mentioned and other new developments in the research on current multilingualism are highly relevant to another core property of the new linguistic dispensation: its complexity. Complexity is probably the most outstanding characteristic of current multilingualism, accounting for its nature. The essential difference between bilingualism and multilingualism, including the distinction between SLA versus TLA is the degree of complexity. Bilingualism is complex, but not to the same extent as multilingualism. For multilingualism, complexity is not just one facet, it is the inherent key quality which determines learning, and teaching, as well as educational and social outcomes (Herdina and Jessner 2002, Larsen-Freeman 2002, 2006). Recent research in multilingualism drawing on the complexity approach yielded a number of fresh understandings of multilingualism in connection with education and language acquisition. Some of these are presented in the table below (see table 1-2).

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Table 1-2. Current views on multilingualism compatible with the complexity approach and their implications for the practice of multilingualism. Complexity Current views on concepts multilingualism

Implications

multiple agents

Multilingual approach to planning, predicting, locating and considering essential factors. Importance of considering multiple factors. Accepting trilinguals and multilinguals as fully proficient speakers, setting realistic aims for multilingual learners in accordance with their real linguistic and communicative need. Understanding that the needs of tri-and multilinguals differ from those of bilinguals in designing life-long education and various forms of community education. Understanding that the needs of tri-and multilinguals differ from those of bilinguals in methods and techniques of teaching, curricula planning, and learning styles.

emergent qualities

emergent qualities

Multilingualism is considerably more complex than bilingualism, having myriad components influencing language use. A bilingual is not the sum of two monolinguals and a multilingual is not the sum of multiple monolinguals although there are many similarities even with monolinguals.

Second, third, and subsequent language acquisition processes do not exactly replicate the processes operative in previous language acquisition.

Current Multilingualism

Complexity Current views on concepts multilingualism

Implications

emergent qualities

Understanding that the needs of multilinguals are different from those of bilinguals in modes of learning and input.

emergent qualities

The acquisition and use of more than two languages are not only quantitatively but also qualitatively different from bilingualism. Trilingual education is not merely a matter of the mechanical addition of one or more languages to a curriculum. It also entails complexification.

17

Trilingual education presents more and different challenges than bilingual education. Undifferentiated, timeconsuming language teaching/learning should be discarded.

The most recent addition to the model of current multilingualism is the property of super-diversity. Indeed, the variety of relationships among languages, users and contexts is fascinating, and seems endless. Diversity is seen in individual stylistic differences, in sociolinguistic affiliations, in language education, life trajectories and the resulting patterns of language use (e.g. Extra 2013). Diversity is the result of the interplay of these factors, and yields further diversification. Blommaert (2010) draws our attention to the volatility of language itineraries in the lives of increasing numbers of people, describing what he called “truncated multilingualism”. Recent social and legal perspectives on diversity often include a moral dimension - bearing on attitudes towards race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and of course, languages. In such approaches to diversity the degree of acknowledgment and acceptance of the fact of variety is in the spotlight. Global diversity is not just a matter of differences. Those differences carry a special meaning for contemporary society. While variations in the paradigms of linguistic practices are mostly celebrated, and tangible efforts are made to integrate diversity into education, on the practical level this very often presents a problem. Complex and elusive interdependence between multiple social and linguistic factors poses challenges for teaching and communication in the classroom and in the street as diversity flourishes.

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To reflect this, the concept of super-diversity was recently introduced by Vertovec (2007). It has been described as “a tremendous increase in the categories of migrants, not only in terms of nationality, ethnicity, language, and religion, but also in terms of motives, patterns and itineraries of migration, processes of insertion onto the labour and housing markets of the host societies, and so on” (Blommaert and Rampton 2011:2). South African philosopher Cilliers (2010) provided us with the important idea of necessity of diversity: “Diversity is not a problem to be solved, it is the precondition for the existence of any interesting behaviour” (2010:3). He further explains: “Sameness does not generate meaning. The richness of the system is a function of the differences it contains” (page 4). To be able to fulfil its role and cope with a challenging environment, diverse resources are needed (italics - L.A.). Thus, the property of diversity “justifies” and provides explanations for the nature of current multilingualism.

Conclusions The chapter advanced and clarified some statements put forward previously, and treated the model of current multilingualism in more depth. Contemporary multilingualism is suffusive, not only in its scope and geographical breadth, but also in covering most human activities. Multilingualism suffuses the world in a variety of forms, of which only the most obvious ones, oral and written communication, were dealt with in traditional multilingualism research. Recent and emerging research directions, such as the material culture of multilingualism, bring to the fore the visible and tangible signs of multilingualism and connect the current social practices with the use of languages. The chapter has presented a brief overview of the characteristics of current multilingualism as opposed to the multilingualism of the past. The three main distinctions of the current multilingualism are specified: (1) the fact that the new linguistic dispensation relates to and affects the post-modern society as a whole; (2) the intensive and multifarious interaction between the two main trends of current language dispensation. The complex interplay between the two trends is dynamic and includes the perceptions and treatment of English with, and in opposition to other languages. It seems that no language has ever before given rise to such fervent controversy or has been positioned so seriously and problematically against other languages. In addition, it appears that never before was there such a strong and wide-ranging mutual dependency of the

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two tendencies, the spread of English and the diversification of languages other than English. (3) Typically, a set of several languages as a unit, rather than one single language performs the essential functions of communication, information and cognition for contemporary humankind. Finally, super-diversity, the core property of current multilingualism, has been added to the model of the new linguistic dispensation. It is marked by a number of recent specific developments and distinctive properties, namely, complexity, suffusiveness, liminality and, notably, super-diversity. Introducing the property of super-diversity into the conceptual model of current multilingualism allows for further philosophical conceptualization of the subject. Recent research mirrors the current changes, providing a more accurate portrayal of multilingual reality and potentially equips educators to enhance their capacity to adapt to and manage in the new condition. It is hoped that understanding current multilingualism will boost multilingual practices and multilingual development in the classroom.

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Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Grosjean, François. 1985. The bilingual as a competent but specific speaker-hearer. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6(6):467-477. —. 1992. Another view if bilingualism. In Cognitive processing in bilinguals, ed. Richard Jackson Harris, 51-62. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers. —. 2008. Studying bilinguals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 2010. Bilingual: Life and reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 1981. Modernity versus Postmodernity (Trans. by Seyla Ben-Habib). In New German Critique 22, ed. Victor E. Taylor, and Charles E. Winquist, 3-14. Harris, John, and Jim Cummins. 2013. Issues in all-Irish education: Strengthening the case for comparative immersion. In Current Multilingualism: A New Linguistic Dispensation (series Contributions to Sociology of Language), ed. David Singleton, Joshua A. Fishman, Larissa Aronin, and Muiris Ó Laoire, 69-97. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Hatukai, Luisianne. 2012. Material items of Circassian culture in KfarKama village. Unpublished presentation. Kiriat Tivon: Oranim Academic College of Education. Hawkins, Eric. 1999. Foreign language study and language awareness. Language Awareness 8(3-4):124-142. Herdina, Philip, and Ulrike Jessner. 2002. A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism: Perspectives of Change in Psycholinguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hornberger, Nancy. 2009. Multilingual education policy and practice: Ten certainties (grounded in indigenous experience). Language Teaching 42(2):197-211. Hufeisen, Britta. 2001. Deutsch als Tertiärsprache. In Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Ein internationals Handbuch, ed. Gerhard Helbig, Lutz Götze, Gert Henrici, and Hans-Jürgen Krumm, 648-653. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. —. 2005. Multilingualism: Linguistic Models and Related Issues. In Introductory Readings in L3, ed. Britta Hufeisen, and Robert J. Fouser, 31-45. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.

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—. 2010. Theoretische Fundierung multiplen Sprachenlernens-Factorenmodell 2.0. Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache 36:191-198. Hufeisen, Britta, and Ulrike Jessner. 2009. Learning and teaching multiple languages. In Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning, ed. Karlfried Knapp, and Barbara Seidlhofer, 109-137. Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter. Hufeisen, Britta, and Nicole Marx. 2003. Multilingualism: Theory, Research Methods and Didactics. In New Visions in Foreign and Second Language Education, ed. Gerd Bräuer, and Karen Sanders, 178-203. San Diego: LARC Press. Jessner, Ulrike. 2006. Linguistic Awareness in Multilinguals: English as a Third Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. —. 2008a. Language awareness in multilinguals. In Knowledge about Language, ed. Jasone Cenoz, 357-369. New York: Springer. [Also in Handbook of Language and Education vol. 5, ed. Nancy H. Hornberger] —. 2008b. Teaching third languages: Findings, trends and challenges. Language Teaching 41(1):15-56. —. 2013. Complexity in Multilingual Systems. Encyclopaedia of Applied Linguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. Jessner, Ulrike, and Jasone Cenoz. 2007. Teaching English as a Third Language. In International Handbook of English Language Teaching 15, ed. Jim Cummins, and Chris Davison, 155-167. Berlin: Springer. Kramsch, Claire J. 2008. Ecological perspectives on foreign language education. Language Teaching 41(3):389-408. Larsen-Freeman, Diane. 2002. Language acquisition and language use from a chaos/complexity theory perspective. In Language acquisition and language socialization, Ecological perspectives, ed. Claire Kramsch, 33-46. London: Continuum. —. 2006. The Emergence of Complexity, Fluency, and Accuracy in the oral and written production of five Chinese learners of English. Applied Linguistics 27(4):590-619. Lasagabaster, David, and Ángel Huguet Canalís. 2007. Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts: Language Use and Attitudes, 90-113. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Lasagabaster, David, and Yolanda Ruiz de Zarobe. ed. 2010. CLIL in Spain: Implementation, Results and Teacher Training. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Léglu, Catherine. 2010. Multilingualism and mother tongue in medieval French, Occitan, and Catalan narratives. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press.

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Lin, Angel. 2007. Problematizing Identity: Everyday Struggles In Language, Culture and Education. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Maneva, Blagovesta. 2004. ‘Maman, je suis polyglotte’[Mommy, I’m a polyglot]: a case study of multilingual language acquisition from 0 to 5 years. The International Journal of Multilingualism 1(1): 109-122. Maurais, Jacques. 2003. Towards a new linguistic world order. In Languages in a Globalizing World, ed. Jacques Maurais, and Michael A. Morris, 13-36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montanari, Simona. 2009. Multi-word combinations and the emergence of differentiated ordering patterns in early trilingual development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(4):503-519. —. 2013. Productive trilingualism in infancy: What makes it possible? World Journal of the English Language 1:62-77. Neuner, Gerhard. 2004. The concept of plurilingualism and tertiary language didactics. In The Plurilingualism project: Tertiary Language Learning - German after English, ed. Britta Hufeisen and Gerhard Neuner, 13-34. European Centre for Modern languages, Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. Oflazer, Kemal. ed. 2003. Language Engineering for Lesser-studied Languages. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Pavlenko, Nikolai Ivanovich. 2003. Catherine the Great. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardia. [ɉɚɜɥɟɧɤɨ, ɇ.ɂ. 2003. ȿɤɚɬɟɪɢɧɚ ȼɟɥɢɤɚɹ. ɋɟɪɢɹ ɀɁɅ. Ɇɨɫɤɜɚ: Ɇɨɥɨɞɚɹ Ƚɜɚɪɞɢɹ] Pavlenko, Aneta. 2005. Emotions and Multilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Picard, Jean-Michel. 2003. The French language in medieval Ireland. In The Languages of Ireland, ed. Michael Cronin, and Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, 57-77. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Pinho, Ana Sofia, and Ana Isabel Andrade. 2009. Plurilingual awareness and intercomprehension in the professional knowledge and identity development of language student teachers. International Journal of Multilingualism 6(3):313-329. Rindler-Schjerve, Rosita, and Eva Vetter. 2007. Linguistic diversity in Habsburg Austria as a model for modern European language policy. In Receptive Multilingualism: Linguistic analyses, language policies and didactic concepts, ed. Jan D. ten Thije, and Ludger Zeevaert, 49-70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Riley, Philip. 2010. Reflections on identity, modernity and the European language portfolio. In Language Learner Autonomy: Policy,

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Curriculum, Classroom. A Festschrift in Honour of David Little, ed. Breffni O'Rourke, and Lorna Carson, 373-385. Bern: Peter Lang. Ringbom, Hakan. 2007. Cross-linguistic Similarity in Foreign Language Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. —. 2012. Multilingualism in a Football Team: The case of IFK Marienhamn. In Cross-linguistic Influences in Multilingual Language Acquisition, ed. Danuta GabryĞ-Barker, 185-197. Heidelberg: Springer. Safont, Pilar. 2013. Early stages of trilingual pragmatic development. A longitudinal study of requests in Catalan, Spanish and English. Journal of pragmatics http: //dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.01.007 —. 2007. Language use and language attitudes in the Valencian community. In Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts: Language Use and Attitudes, ed. David Lasagabaster, and Ángel Huguet Canalís, 90-113. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Singleton, David, and Larissa Aronin. 2007. Multiple language learning in the light of the theory of affordances. Innovation in Language Teaching and Learning 1(1):83-96. Svalberg, Agneta Marie-Louise. 2009. Engagement with language: interrogating a construct. Language Awareness 18(3-4):242-258. The European Parliament. 2009. Multilingualism: an asset for Europe and a shared commitment. European parliament resolution of 24 March 2009 on Multilingualism (2008/2225 (INI)). Trotter, David. 2000. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: Brewer. Vertovek, Steven. 2007. Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(6):1024-1045. Visser, Marianna. 2012. Linguistic (dis)similarity, affordances and the development of second and third language proficiency: Continua of multilingual learning and teaching at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Paper presented at the conference Multilingualism in Society, the World of Work, and Politics. New Challenges for Teaching at Institutes of Higher Education/Universities. University of Freiburg. April 18-20, 2012 —. 2014 African languages in multilingual literacy development in subSahara Africa: A profile of affordances and variability in the South African educational context. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Third Language Acquisition and Multilingualism. Uppsala, Sweden, June 12-14. Walker, Ute. 2006. The Role of Bi/multilingual selves among Multilingual Migrants on Aotearoa/New Zealand: Implications for Language

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Learning and Teaching. In Multilingualism in Educational Settings, ed. Muiris Ó Laoire, 1-19. Hohengehren: Schneider Verlag. Wieszbicka, Anne. 1999. Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ytsma, Jehannes. 2000. Trilingual Primary Education in Friesland. In English in Europe: The Acquisition of a Third Language, ed. Jasone Cenoz, and Ulrike Jessner, 222-235. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

PART I: LEARNING AND USING MULTIPLE LANGUAGES IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING SETTINGS

CHAPTER TWO IMMIGRATION LANGUAGE POLICY PRACTICES AND POPULATION CENSUSES IN ENGLISHDOMINANT COUNTRIES: MONOLINGUAL OR MULTILINGUAL FOCUS? SANJA ŠKIFIû AND ANTONIO OŠTARIû

Introduction National language policies are at the centre of current sociolinguistic investigation. Countries with a considerable number of minority communities, and especially those with major immigration inflows, represent the most interesting sites for language policy analyses. This paper offers such an analysis of language-related data obtained from questionnaire forms of population censuses in four English-dominant countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The discussion opens with an outline of advantages and disadvantages of using such data in language policy analyses. It is then followed by the presentation of the United Nations suggestions for devising census language questions. The central part of the paper includes a comparison of selected types of language data, namely those of (i) the number and wording of language questions in questionnaires, (ii) the provision of help in completing questionnaires in languages other than English, and (iii) the language policies of the four countries. This part of the paper also provides an analysis of the educational implications deriving from language policies and population censuses. The concluding remarks summarise our results and link these ones to the issue of language ideologies.

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Advantages and disadvantages of using census data in language policy analyses In the “Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses: Revision 2”, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) outlined a number of essential roles for population censuses, and the language data thus obtained are relevant for most of them. One of the roles concerns the usage of accurate data in research and analysis. This type of information is particularly helpful because of the possibility of using it to investigate different areas/social groups “with no/minimum sampling errors” (UNDESA 2008:5). This can be regarded as a major advantage of using census data to investigate different linguistic issues. However, unlike other information gathered in censuses, the possibility of error is closely related to inadequate wording of language questions. Although language policies have been analysed by using various data as corpus material, it seems that the information gathered from population censuses concerning questions on language can be extremely useful. For one thing, unlike other types of data, questions concerning the language component in census data are not restricted by “sample size and lack of comparability” (Castonguay 1998:36), as they “provide a geographical and temporal coverage of language” (Lieberson 1966:262). It is practically impossible to carry out such a widespread coverage by smaller groups of language scholars. The benefit of comparability is assured in situations where countries design the language part of their censuses in accordance with the general recommendations of the United Nations. Another essential role of censuses, as outlined by UNDESA (2008:5), is the usage of census data in public administration for various purposes, among which “distribution and allocation of government funds and representation nationwide” should be mentioned. What is more, “census does much more than simply reflect social reality; rather, it plays a key role in the construction of that reality” (Kertzer and Arel 2004:2), and this is reflected in the fact that “numbers produced through census or censuslike categorisation can have important political consequences” (Kertzer and Arel 2004:35). Census data is often used as a starting point in decisions related to the institutional and public acknowledgment of minority languages. Using census data in research on language policies also brings to attention most recent views on multiculturalism and multilingualism. Focusing primarily on the notion of multiculturalism, Duvieusart-Déry (2010:17) recognises the importance of using such data to investigate “the

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relationship between the implementation of multiculturalist policies and the institutional delineation of groups and boundaries”. Along the same lines, censuses provide excellent sources from which it is possible to extract the linguistic component from the multiculturalist policies (i.e., the issue of multilingualism) and, consequently, analyse its relationship with the creation and implementation of language policies in countries under investigation. Furthermore, since examinations of different language policies are sociolinguistic in nature, researchers have to take into consideration the various variables, or “markers of identity” (Kertzer and Arel 2004:35) which can be used to account for different language policies. Population censuses cover many such variables (e.g. sex, nationality, ethnicity, religion, place of residence, education, employment, etc.) and therefore represent an extremely valuable site with language questions that can be correlated with such extralinguistic variables to account for differences in various language policies. Census is considered one of the most important institutional processes for collecting information precisely because it allows for an in-depth investigation of a range of variables associated with identities. The many advantages of using census data in language policy analyses might present them as ideal, flawless material. However, there is an issue connected with reliability that stands out as the basic disadvantage of using such data. Although both the structure and the wording of questions represent basic concerns for all types of similar data collection, poorly devised, ambiguous and opaque language questions might result in inaccurate representation of the countries’ linguistic situation. For example, the issue of using the “mother tongue” expression is closely associated with nationalist policies and with the fact that it can be interpreted in numerous ways, sometimes even in “diametrically opposed ways” (Arel 2004:99). The drawback of using what seems to be a vague notion can be attested by diachronic analyses of specific countries’ censuses. Lieberson (1966:268) notes the same problem with the “mother tongue” expression in Canada when comparing the 1931 and 1941 Censuses. In the former, the “mother tongue” was defined as “the language learned in childhood and still spoken by the person”, while the latter allows for a language to pass as the mother tongue if the respondent understands it. In other words, expressions that are defined differently at different periods (or those which are not even defined precisely) might be used as valuable data in analysing the ways in which language policies change over time.

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Regardless of the drawbacks of using census data, the presented advantages not only outnumber the disadvantages, but can be considered more convincing in presenting census data as valid material for language policy analyses.

United Nations framework for devising language questions in censuses While the process of devising the questionnaire structure in most countries which carry out population censuses on a regular basis includes reference to the UNDESA recommendations, the analysis of the data is preceded by discussion on those parts of the document which position the language component in relation to other parts of the census questionnaire. In the discussion on the questionnaire, UNDESA (2008) emphasises the need to carefully organise both the wording of specific questions and their arrangement. Our subsequent analysis will, therefore, make specific reference to these issues. In the section on questionnaire preparation, UNDESA (2008:44) also notes that the most usual methods for dealing with the language question in countries in which two or more languages are used include: (a) a single, multilingual questionnaire; or (b) one version of the questionnaire for each major language; or (c) translations printed in the enumerators’ manual of the questionnaire in the various languages. This facet of the censuses chosen for our analysis will also be explored. The most important part of the document is presented in the sixth chapter, as it discusses the topics investigated in censuses. The choice of the topics should depend on priority of national needs, importance of international comparability, suitability of topics and available resources (UNDESA 2008). The two basic types are core and additional topics. Within the core topics a distinction is made between the topics collected directly and the derived ones, which are collected on the basis of the former type. In the list of the topics language appears within the “demographic and social characteristics” section. This section includes sex, age and marital status as the core topics, and religion, language, ethnicity, and indigenous peoples as additional topics (UNDESA 2008). Since language is an additional topic, a country may as well choose not to include it in its census. However, it may include one, two or all three of the following types of language data: “(a) Mother tongue, defined as the language usually spoken in the individual’s home in his or her early childhood; (b) Usual language,

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Chapter Two defined as the language currently spoken, or most often spoken, by the individual in his or her present home; (c) Ability to speak one or more designated languages” (UNDESA 2008:138).

Language policy and population censuses in Englishdominant countries The central part of this paper deals with the analysis of the data on language parts of population censuses in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The analysis focuses on the selected countries because, unlike other English-dominant countries, they are characterised by related colonial histories and massive immigrant inflows. Before the presentation and the analysis of language data related to censuses, a brief overview of the most prominent features of the countries’ language policies will be provided. All analysed questionnaires were retrieved from websites of statistics offices in corresponding countries. Previous lack of such an easily available source for collecting the data material might partially account for the fact that similar research was scarce prior to the last two decades. Taking into account the aforementioned recommendations for devising the language part of census questionnaires, our research will provide an insight into the coverage of different types of language data in the censuses of these countries. We will particularly refer to (i) the number of language questions within the questionnaire, (ii) the wording of language questions, (iii) provision of open answer boxes, (iv) (non)existence of a rationale regarding the specific structure of the language part of the questionnaire, (v) (non)existence of possibility to fill in questionnaires in language(s) other than English, and (vi) (non)existence of provision of help in filling in questionnaires in languages other than English. The data are interpreted in relation to the concept of language ideology. The term “ideology” may be used to refer to a neutral concept defined broadly as a self-explanatory and socially independent system of ideas, as well as a concept bearing negative connotations and defined as a system devised to change or distort reality (cf. Woolard 1998:5-9). In this paper, the term is used to refer to a system of shared beliefs and judgements concerning values of different language varieties (cf. the definition of the term “standard language ideology” in Milroy 1999:173). According to this view, language ideology is never self-explanatory, but deeply intertwined with socio-historical contexts in which such ideologies arise. Therefore, in this paper the focus is placed on that strand of language ideology which emerges in contexts of language contact and

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conflict (Woolard 1998). English-dominant countries, characterised by massive immigrant inflows, represent ideal candidates for this type of analysis, as efforts to maintain one’s language (identified as minority in particular countries) and promote different facets of its status are most clearly evident precisely in such contexts. Language policies in the analysed English-dominant countries have a variety of implications for the different approaches to the development and promotion of bilingual education. Among other things, such implications include important considerations about the relationship between students’ identity and anxiety related to language learning. Namely, besides the “competence-based anxiety”, researchers have recently started to focus on “identity-based anxiety” related to students’ concerns about “maintaining his or her relationship with particular groups” (Stroud and Wee 2012:181). Recent research on bilingual education programmes has suggested that carefully prepared programmes, developed on the basis of additive bilingual ideology, can have positive effects on cultivation and promotion of multilingualism (May, Hill and Tiakiwai 2004). Furthermore, the same researchers argue that, contrary to widespread negative attitudes towards bilingual programmes, their detailed analysis has shown that students who attend well-structured additive bilingual programmes for a certain number of years, in communities where the school and wider social environment are benevolent towards bilingual education, achieve superior or equal academic results to their monolingual peers, while students who attend English-only submersion programmes, often show educational underachievement (May, Hill and Tiakiwai 2004). Multilingual development in the classroom is important for the benefit of the whole community, but especially for its minority members. Cummins (1986) summarises conclusions of previous research by stating that “for dominant minorities, the extent to which students’ language and culture are incorporated into the school program constitutes a significant predictor of academic success.”

For members of different minorities it appears to be much more than a benefit – for them it is a necessity. Moreover, in the discussion on changes towards diversity in the educational environment, Corson (1998:13) summarises “the needs that minority cultural and class groups develop: the need to have their sociocultural values recognized; the need to live within social arrangements that are not hostile to those values; the need to have their

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Chapter Two languages or their language varieties valued and supported, and their discourse norms recognized”.

In order to achieve this, it is crucial to understand the role of different participants in the educational process. Gibbons (1992) emphasises the role of involvement of minority communities, especially of minoritylanguage parents who actively participate in decision-making. There is also an additional dimension in relation to multilingual education that has to be taken into account, which refers to the notion of power. Delpit (1997:583-584) argues that “issues of power are enacted in classrooms”, and that “these issues include: the power of the teacher over the students; the power of the publishers of textbooks and of the developers of the curriculum to determine the view of the world presented; the power of the state in enforcing compulsory schooling; and the power of an individual or group to determine another’s intelligence or ‘normalcy’”.

The notion of power can be associated with the notion of language ideology, analysed in this paper as reflective of situations of language contact and conflict. Multilingual educational environments represent the prime site for such situations, and the data retrieved from population censuses may be used to analyse them. More on educational implications of particular language policies will be said in the following subsections on specific countries.

Language policy and population census in the U.S. Standard American English is usually described as “primarily white, upper-middle class, and middle American” (Lippi-Green 2004:294). In comparison to ethnic and racial issues, the questions relating to language policies in the multilingual U.S. appear to be of secondary importance. This is primarily due to the fact that the dominant status of English has never had to be specially emphasised, regardless of the increasing numbers of immigrants. Prior to the 1980s, there was practically no official language policy to be identified in the U.S. (Crawford 2000; Schiffman 2006). Such a lack of policy leads to what may be termed as silent or covert monolingual ideology. However, it does not only imply that no special institutional care was provided for the English language in that period. Lack of elaborated language policy is also evident in the absence of explicit prohibition of discrimination on minority language grounds, or what Del Valle (2003:328) identifies as “the almost complete absence of

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such wording in U.S. domestic civil rights law”. This does not mean that such discrimination is permitted, but the absence of explicit legislation makes it difficult for plaintiffs to prove that they were discriminated on language grounds (Del Valle 2003). Starting from the 1980s, there has been an increasing number of voices, who, in fear especially of the growing Hispanic communities, deemed it crucial to move away from the “no-policy” language policy in terms of providing substantial recognition of English and greater insistence on assimilation of immigrants. However, considering the 1990 Census data, according to which only 6% of the population did not speak any English (Wiley 2004), it seems that the silent or covert monolingual U.S. ideology is extremely successful. The decennial census questionnaire in the U.S. has only ten questions and none of them with regard to language. However, since 2005 there has been another part of the census programme, the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS data are collected continuously throughout the year and throughout the decade from a relatively small sample of the population. The questions in the ACS questionnaire refer to detailed information on the characteristics of population and housing. Since the ACS is conducted on an ongoing basis, it provides more current data than the decennial census (U.S. Census Bureau 2011, 2012). The official website of the U.S. Census Bureau offers a detailed diachronic overview of language questions in U.S. decennial censuses from 1790 to 2000, which vary from no language-related questions to three questions that are used in the present-day ACS (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). One of the purposes of collecting information on languages in the U.S. is for the determination of voting rights. Information about languages spoken at home and English-speaking ability is used to determine bilingual election requirements under the Voting Rights Act (U.S. Department of Justice 2011). In the context of changes in the U.S. language policy which emerged in the 1980s, the number and structure of language questions in 1980, 1990 and 2000 censuses point to some significant differences in comparison to previous numbers and structures of language questions. Firstly, prior to the 1980 Census, the maximum number of questions was two. Secondly, unlike the period between 1890 and 1920, when language questions in U.S. censuses made reference to competence in English (mainly to the speaking skill), the language questions in the period between 1930 and 1970 mainly addressed foreigners and languages other than English (except for the 1950 Census). This pattern ended with the 1980 Census, in the period of struggles for a more explicit language

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policy, in which language questions did not make reference only to English. The most recent U.S. census was conducted in 2010 and it contained the following three language questions: a) Does this person speak a language other than English at home? b) What is this language? c) How well does this person speak English? (U.S. Census Bureau 2012). The presented data on the language part of the U.S. Census allow for several conclusions. First, the fact that the number of language questions is fairly substantial (especially in comparison to the number of language questions in other countries) might be misleading. Namely, a greater number of language questions should point to greater acknowledgment of minority speakers. Furthermore, the UNDESA framework for designing the language part states that three different types of language data can be collected. The three questions in the U.S. Census do not include reference to all three types of language data, but only to the usual language and English as the designated language. The number of questions is in line with the UNDESA recommendations to include at least two language questions (one concerning the mother tongue, main or usual language, and the other concerning designated languages). Explicit reference to the mother tongue concept is not made. There is no explicit mention of the term “usual language” either, but this is what the first question basically refers to. The Census follows the UNDESA suggestions for providing an open answer box, which points to the recognition of even the smallest language groups (as the absence of an open answer box and presence of a selected set of chosen minority languages might disprove). The rationale for the structure of the language part is not presented in the Census itself, but is available in other documents (see U.S. Census Bureau 2008). The focus of the use of language data reflects a major concern for the social welfare of minority speakers – starting from provision of conditions which would enable individuals who have difficulties with English to exercise their voting rights, to allocation of grants for their educational need. The fact that Census forms are available not only in English, but in Spanish as well, proves that the fastest growing language community in the U.S. has been recognised. In relation to multilingual accessibility, the U.S. provide help in an impressive number of languages – as many as 51 of them for the decennial census and 11 for the ACS.

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Although there was no explicit language policy in the U.S. before the 1980s, some attempts were made in the late 1960s to encourage bilingual education. In that period programmes in ethnic languages were mostly developed by religious institutions (Wong Fillmore 2004). However, the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 is considered a transitional means to aid immigrants assimilate to English, so it was only in the 1980s that the reauthorisation of the Bilingual Education Act made more significant funding available for bilingual education programmes, such as structured immersion and dual-language programmes (García 1997). However, it seems that the English monolingualism in the U.S. is very present in the educational system. As García (2002:43) points out, in the case of New York City, “developmental bilingual education programs for bilingual ethnolinguistic minorities who speak LOTEs at home or for English monolingual students who would want to become bilingual are almost non-existent in the city”.

This is the situation that can be identified in many other cities across the U.S., and it is a reflection of strong assimilationist practices. In this sense, it is possible to identify “a belief that other languages are useful only if they serve a pragmatic, instrumental function” (Skilton-Sylvester 2003:9). Such a belief is supported by the data collected by researchers who are interested in monitoring immigrant students’ academic success and relating it to different models of language exposure in classrooms. Coelho presents a list of findings reported by Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier in a study carried out on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education. One such finding is particularly indicative of the U.S. assimilationist practices. Namely, it is reported, among other things, that “L2Ls receiving ESL support can make dramatic gains during the first year or two, but this is misleading. Students are usually then fully integrated into mainstream classrooms with no additional support, where they typically fall behind their English-speaking peers – and the gaps increase dramatically as they progress through the years of schooling” (Coelho 2012:134).

Another aspect of the U.S. bilingual education is its diverse practices on personal, local and state level. May, Hill, and Tiakiwai (2004:62-64) argue that “a highly effective anti-bilingual education campaign that promoted a combination of popular misunderstandings about bilingualism”, together with “directly misleading ‘research evidence’”, caused the withdrawal of many bilingual education programmes by state legislation;

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such a situation occurred in California after the enactment of Proposition 227 in 1998, and in Arizona in 2000 (Travis and Villa 2011). Other examples include the state of Massachusetts, where bilingual education was mandated by state law for more than three decades, or bilingual education in Asian schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, mandated by the Supreme Court ruling and later agreements (Skilton-Sylvester 2003:13); however, this is not an exhaustive list.

Language policy and population census in Canada In discussions on how detailed the language part of population censuses in different countries actually is, Canada is often emphasised as one of the few countries in which the basic three types of language questions appear. This alone represents a significant clue to the importance of language policy in what is today known as a historically significant immigration country. Arel (2004) notes that the coverage of all three types of language questions in Canadian population censuses was first recorded in 1971. Prior to that and starting from 1931, Canadian censuses covered the issue of the mother tongue and ability to speak English or French (Castonguay 1998). The part concerning the official language was covered by questions: “Can you speak English? French?” (Lieberson 1966:264), although a more detailed question was introduced in 1988 “asking whether the respondent could speak English or French well enough to conduct a ‘fairly long’conversation ‘on different topics’” (Castonguay 1998:56). The 1971 inclusion of the “home language” question was the outcome of the dissatisfaction of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism with the use of only the mother tongue data (Castonguay 1998). It is connected to the Official Languages Act passed in 1969 which made English and French official languages of the federal government and which resulted in “shifting the battle between the English and French groups from the ethnic origin to the language question” (Kertzer and Arel 2004:16). Because of the English-French situation in Quebec and the constant concern over slow assimilation of immigrants to the Francophone community, the 1971 inclusion of the “home language” element was extremely important. The importance is evident in the fact that “since 1977, most of these second-generation immigrants have adopted French, rather than English, as the language they use the most with others of their generation” (Arel 2004:108).

In relation to the duality between English and French in Canada and other ethnic groups (the 1991 Census reporting Chinese, Italian and

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German to be the largest), English is at an advantage primarily because the assimilation processes most often include language shifts to English, not French. This is revealed both in general attitudes of Canadians towards the two languages and in analyses of such attitudes in specific Canadian provinces. Namely, greater inclination towards English in assimilation processes is reflected in the fact that large numbers of Canadian speakers of French demonstrate bilingualism and a wish to learn English (Daveluy 2008). At the same time, analyses of specific Canadian provinces reveal that the maintenance of French in Canada is largely due to a large number of Francophones in Quebec (Castonguay 1998). It should be noted that Arel (2004:97) identifies the three types of language questions as “the language first learned by the respondent; the language most commonly used by the respondent at the time of the census; and the knowledge of particular official language(s)”.

In the second half of the 20th century Lieberson (1966:267) identified the first type of questions as the informants’ “mother tongue” or “the language first learned or used by the respondent”. The second type completely corresponds to Arel’s identification. However, according to Lieberson, the third group of questions would refer to “all languages which the individual knows”. In retrospect, a conclusion may be drawn that, in comparison to the mid-twentieth-century analysis, the beginning of the 21st century has witnessed a greater emphasis placed on the knowledge of official language(s). Although Canada nowadays hosts numerous ethnic minorities, a clearcut relationship with the linguistic component is not at all easy to identify. Thus, the number of members of ethnic minorities is significantly greater than the number of persons who claim they speak a language other than English or French (Castonguay 1998). Such disproportion reveals that, at least on the basis of responses to the language question and in relation to different social variables, Canada’s identity still remains split between English and French. As Castonguay (1998:39) points out: “multiple responses to the mother-tongue question are thus much less frequent than for ethnic origin and essentially bear witness, as an intermediary stage, to intergenerational language shift to English”.

That language shift is chiefly related to the English language, as the data show: “as census follows census, French mother-tongue counts […] fall lower and lower than corresponding counts for French ethnic origin” (Castonguay 1998:38). A similar decrease in French counts is identified in

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questions about home language as well. The 1991 Census included the following question: “What is the language that this person first learned at home in childhood and still understands? If this person no longer understands the first language learned, indicate the second language learned” (Castonguay 1998:40).

Such an elaboration of the mother tongue concept further worked to the advantage of the English counts as it registered language loss of the Francophone population. From 1901 to 1971, the structure of the language question concerning the two official languages was unfavourable for individuals who were bilingual in both English and French since the wording of the question was such that it required a choice between the two languages in the “mother tongue” category. Greater data reliability was achieved in the 1976 Census which provided the option of listing two languages in the same category (Extra and Ya÷mur 2004). The most recent census in Canada was conducted in 2011 and there were as many as four language questions on the questionnaire: a)

Can this person speak English or French well enough to conduct a conversation? b) What language does this person speak most often at home? c) Does this person speak any other languages on a regular basis at home? d) What is the language that this person first learned at home in childhood and still understands? (Statistics Canada 2011). On the basis of the number of questions provided for language issues, we may conclude that Canada, as an immigration country, clearly pays attention to its language policy. Not only is the language part in accordance with the UNDESA suggestions of providing at least two questions, but it also makes reference to all three types – the mother tongue, usual language and designated languages (English or French). Although no explicit reference is made to these terms, the structure of the questions reveals implicit reference. Clearly, explicit mention of these terms is avoided because of the ambiguities confirmed in previous censuses in which, for example, the term “mother tongue” was used. The fact that Canada takes special care of the wording of questions is evident in the differentiation between the second and the third question. In the Canadian context, it is particularly interesting to note the wording of

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questions, but, even more, the answers provided. The structure of the answers, all of which include explicit reference to both English and French, reveals the basic driving force behind the Canadian language policy – a comparative investigation of the strength of Anglophone and Francophone groups. In comparison, this makes the issues of immigrant minority language speakers secondary. On the other hand, similar to the case with the U.S. Census, questions concerning the usual language and the mother tongue are provided with an open answer box. However, unlike the U.S. Census open answer box, in the Canadian one it appears only after the explicit mention of both English and French (for the “other” subcategory). When comparing the structure of the language questions in the two questionnaires, we might conclude that the separation of official languages from minority languages in the presentation of questions in the Canadian Census is more questionable than the one in the U.S. Census. Unlike the U.S. Census, the Canadian variation provides a rationale for the language questions on the Census form. The rationale is very straightforward and states that the data collected by the questions are used to provide for language services in official languages for minority language speakers. There is also no other language in which the Census form could be completed except in English or French. Census questions are translated into 31 languages, which is a significantly smaller number than the number of languages in which help is offered in the U.S. Census. As far as developing Canada’s multilingual education is concerned, French immersion programs are often cited as a major success. Cummins (1986:104) discusses their efficiency by emphasising that “in spite of the home/school language switch, students’ first language (English) skills develop as well as those of students whose instruction has been totally through English”.

Although the educational implications of Canada’s language policy predominantly reflect the central issue related to Anglophone and Francophone groups, there have also been attempts to include other languages in education. This became evident in the 1970s with the development of heritage language bilingual education programmes and heritage language lessons (García 1997). Some provinces have made an effort to collect data concerning immigrant students’ background and use such valuable information to create a more suitable multilingual classroom. The purpose is to improve the students’ academic performance. For example, Coelho (2012:144) reports on such attempts by the Toronto District School Board gathering objective and subjective information,

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where one of the objective pieces of information was the students’ first language. More importantly, “subjective data are gathered through census-type surveys in which students are asked to identify their backgrounds in terms of country of birth, languages, ethnocultural identity, and sexual orientation. This information is linked anonymously to school achievement data and postal code, which is then linked to national census information such as median income and levels of education among adults”.

Such procedures show how the data concerning language issues can effectively be correlated with other information collected via censuses in order to provide a better understanding of immigrant students’ academic performance, but also to devise the methods to improve it.

Language policy and population census in Australia For the well-known historical reasons, Australia represents a major immigration country. The immigrant character of Australia is evident, among other things, in its multilingual nature. According to the 2006 Census data, there were 400 languages in use at home in Australia (Djité 2011). The most prominent features of Australian language policy indirectly demonstrate the pressing need to respond to social (especially economic) requirements of numerous minority communities. The National Policy on Languages, adopted in 1987, represents an attempt to explicitly frame that need through language considerations. Despite the recognition of English as the leading language, in the document “it was framed as one language among many others” (Moore 2000:27). Other languages predominantly refer to the so-called “community languages” (cf. Clyne 1991; Clyne, Grey and Kipp 2004; Lo Bianco 1990). Australian language ideology is closely linked to broader ideologies concerning various Australian government policies towards the acceptance of immigrants. Taking into consideration the historical and current perspective, Australian language ideology could be defined as a changing one–ranging from assimilationist to multiculturalist and multilingual. Until the 1970s, Australia's policy towards accepting immigrants was rather restrictive. The restriction is usually interpreted in the context of Australia's British legacy and a long-lasting “white Australia policy”. In the context of language policy, the period is usually described as the “laissez-faire phase” (Lo Bianco 1990:55). Such a policy can be correlated with the census language questions of the period. In the 1921 Census, the population was asked whether they could read and write, and in 1933 they

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were asked whether they could read and write a foreign language if unable to read and write English. Between 1933 and 1976 no language questions were asked. However, in the 1976 Census they were asked to list all languages regularly used. The structure of the language part of the question corresponded to the “multicultural phase” (Lo Bianco 1990:56). The 1980s were the years when the Australian language education policy started moving away from the predominant focus on European languages towards, what Lo Bianco and Slaughter (2009:16) describe as, “a strong advocacy of selected Asian foreign languages”. Because the economic factor contributed considerably to such a shift in language education policy, the trend has persisted till today, with only slight changes in preferences for particular Asian languages. In 1981, a question was asked about the ability to speak English. Since 1986 two separate questions have been asked–about the language used and about the ability to speak English. The National Agenda for Multicultural Australia was drafted in 1999. The language element is deeply embedded within the three main rights of immigrants that the document stipulates (especially in the first two)–cultural identity, social justice, and economic efficiency (Hatoss 2008). The most recent Australian Census was conducted in 2011 and it contained two language questions: a) b)

Does this person speak a language other than English at home? How well does the person speak English? (ABS 2011).

Diachronically speaking, the changing immigrant policies in Australia have been reflected in the structure of language questions in Australian censuses. Synchronically, continuous work on promoting the ideology of multiculturalism and multilingualism is evident in two aspects of the 2011 Census language questions. The Census includes not only one, but two language questions. Their structure is the same as the structure of the questions in the U.S. (although the same content is formally divided into three separate questions in the U.S. form) and, unlike questions in the Canadian Census, they also do not make reference to the issue of mother tongue–only to the usual language and to English as the designated language. Furthermore, it should be noted that the question about the English competence comes as the second one. This may also be used as an argument to support the definition of the Australian language policy and, consequently, language ideology as increasingly multilingual. The same observation can be made about placing the question concerning English as the second one in the U.S. form as well. There is no explicit mention of the

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terms “mother tongue”, “usual language” or “main language”, which are used in the U.S. and in the Canadian Census. Similar to the U.S. there is an open answer box for identification of languages other than English that the person speaks at home. The rationale behind the structure of the language part of the Census focuses on using the data to plan for English teaching programmes. The aim of efficient planning for language teaching programmes illustrates the Australia's acknowledgement of the existence of minority communities and their respective languages. This is clearly evident in attempts to provide space for the communities’ cultures and languages within school curricula (Ozolins 1991). However, what the U.S., Canadian and Australian explanation of the purpose of the collected data on languages have in common is the fact that in none of them the provision for education in minority languages is explicitly stated. All of them focus on different facets of how to improve the linguistic assimilation of minority speakers. These facets range from voting rights, provision of health care, and primarily, higher-quality education in designated (official) language(s). The Australian census form was available in English only. Considering the fact that one fifth of Australians speak a language other than English at home, multilingual help for people non-proficient in English was provided, not in the form of translated questions, but in the form of a call centre for ten most common languages. These languages were not chosen on the basis of the size of immigrant communities but rather on their communication need. However, provision of help was not made available only for speakers of those ten languages, but also for speakers of as many as 100 other languages, in the form of an external interpreting service. This is certainly a step forward in comparison to both the U.S. and Canada, especially if “live” help is taken into consideration, but also in terms of the numbers of languages whose speakers are provided with help. The 1980s developments in Australia’s language policy have significantly changed the linguistic demands in the educational system as attempts were made “to make each school child bilingual” (Marshall and Gonzalez 1990:49). Further development of bilingual education in the following decade was marked by practical reasons as more focus was placed on the teaching of economically important Asian languages (cf. Clyne 2001; Djité 2011; Lo Bianco and Slaughter 2009). However, the focus on economically significant Asian languages has also resulted in a neglect of indigenous languages, which in Australia have been dying out at a steady pace. Further to this, a low educational achievement of indigenous students has been observed. Situated in a gap between ideologies of monolingualism in English and economically-driven

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promotion of Asian languages, indigenous languages are struggling for maintenance and survival, without federal support (Wigglesworth and Lasagabaster 2011).

Language policy and population census in New Zealand Language policy in New Zealand clearly reflects the linguistic profile of its inhabitants: most of them are English monolinguals. This is why multilingualism is not considered a defining marker of New Zealand’s language policy (Clyne 1997). Monolingualism in English is a prevalent characteristic of current New Zealand’s linguistic reality, but it seems that language policy includes increasing government provisions for the maintenance of MƗori as a powerful symbol of national identity. In that context, MƗori serves both as a “symbol of the indigenous ethnic minority, (…) and a symbol of an emerging national and Pacific identity” (Benton 1996:64). According to Starks, Harlow and Bell (2005:14), the results of the 2001 Census reveal that actions aimed at increasing the number of MƗori speakers “are having a positive effect, slowing language shift, turning language attitudes and increasing numbers of younger MƗori speakers”. However, New Zealand’s language policy is still basically concerned with the issues regarding the relationship between the two most frequently used languages – English and MƗori, notwithstanding the increasing number of immigrants. In an elaboration of the elements that New Zealand’s language policy should account for, Peddie (2005) emphasises the need to help migrants to retain their language, as assimilation to English is extremely high. The most recent census in New Zealand was conducted in March 2013. The forms were available for completion in both MƗori and English, and they included only one language question: In which language(s) could you have a conversation about a lot of everyday things? Remember to mark English if you can have a conversation in English. This is the same language question as the one used in the censuses of 2001 and 2006. In the period from 1906 until 1996 there were no questions related to language (Statistics New Zealand 2013). Looking at the structure of the language part of the New Zealand Census questionnaire, it is possible to identify major differences in comparison to the three previously analysed countries. We should note first the remark made to remind individuals not to forget to mark English

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if they can have a conversation in that language. It explicitly points to an overt ideology of English monolingualism. Second, the structure of the only language question seems to be problematic. As it is often the problem with language questions in other censuses, individuals are required to assess their own linguistic competence in terms of the speaking skill. Starks, Harlow and Bell (2005:16) notice an even more serious limitation in the wording of the question and state that “it is possible that an individual will not list the language because they feel that they cannot have a conversation in a language which they do not have an opportunity to speak”.

Similar to the U.S., Canadian and Australian censuses, New Zealand’s Census also does not use expressions such as “mother tongue”, “usual language” or “main language”. Like those three censuses, it has an open answer box in accordance with the UNDESA suggestions. Regardless of the remark about English and the observed limitations, the language part of the Census does present languages other than English. The rationale behind using these language questions is presented in detail. The data are mainly used by different ministries, and there is an explicit mention of using the data to structure policies for the promotion of the MƗori language as an official language of New Zealand and to identify ethnic vitality (Statistics New Zealand 1998). In comparison to the stated objectives of using language questions in the U.S., Canada and Australia, these objectives are clearly more detailed. Although emphasis is placed on language being a crucial element in the maintenance of ethnic minority identity within a dominant culture (in the context of using the language data for identification of ethnic vitality), the New Zealand’s rationale behind language questions does not make explicit mention of using language data to develop educational programmes in minority languages. Multilingual help was provided on leaflets in 27 minority languages and the New Zealand Sign Language, but also in the form of toll-free telephone assistance for speakers of 7 of those 27 languages. This represents the lowest number in comparison to the U.S., Canadian and Australian numbers of languages in which help is provided. If we take into consideration the fact that a language question was absent from New Zealand’s censuses for nine decades, its relatively recent inclusion in the questionnaire testifies to the attempts towards changing New Zealand’s language policy and to an increasing awareness of the need to move towards a more multilingual language ideology. New Zealand’s language policy in the 1980s had a focus primarily on the attempts to increase the use of MƗori. In that period there was a greater

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presence of MƗori in certain preschool centres and schools (García 1997). However, this was not an easy task, especially for teachers working in bilingual educational settings. Else (1997) points out the most difficult aspects: “the lack of quality resources; the need for them to produce their own resources to maintain programmes; the constant demands of school, community and organisations leading to stress and burnout; the lack of opportunities to improve their proficiency in te reo MƗori; the feelings that the pleas for change are ignored”.

Immersion programs, which are considered to be one of the most successful methods of second language acquisition, have also been developed for the purpose of developing the learning of MƗori. However, the success of immersion programs rests basically upon the MƗori. McMurchy-Pilkington (2001:170-172) describes two such initiatives – Te Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa MƗori, and claims that in recent immersion programs “education is largely driven through the initiatives of MƗori; MƗori are responsible for educating their children successfully”. The two mentioned initiatives are extremely important for the creation of positive attitudes towards bilingual development in New Zealand classrooms. Moreover, they represent “acts of resistance to dominant Pakeha ideologies” (Pihama 1997:286). On the other hand, the presence of other languages in New Zealand’s educational system is not significant. Namely, “the schools data show that New Zealanders are not learning languages in large numbers, and that some important languages do not feature in school programmes” (Peddie 2005:39).

May, Hill and Tiakiwai (2004) suggest that, next to MƗori-medium bilingual education programmes, New Zealand educational language policy should also include bilingual programmes in Pasifika and Asian languages. There have been numerous attempts to propose the ways in which the most active participants in bilingual educational settings may facilitate and improve teaching to bilingual children. One of those proposals was put forward by Hall and Bishop (2001:196). In their analysis of teacher roles in the culturally diverse New Zealand context, they advocate for “culturally inclusive pedagogy”. This refers to

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Chapter Two “placing more emphasis upon ensuring that class programmes include topics and examples relevant to all the students in the class, considering the curriculum from the perspectives of different students, and, more fundamentally, changing the teacher-student power relationships to give the learners more opportunities to explore and interpret the curriculum from their individual cultural ways of knowing” (Hall and Bishop 2001:199).

Conclusion The analysis of the presented data points to several conclusions. It is on the basis of specific elements of the language part of presented censuses that the notion of language ideology is utilised. Taking into consideration the suggestions outlined by the United Nations on how to organise the language part of censuses most appropriately, we might conclude that the analysed countries’ censuses largely follow these recommendations. Among the four, Canada is the only country that has included all three types of language questions. However, none of the countries uses the terms “mother tongue” or “usual language” because of possible ambiguities that might lead to results which would not represent the actual situation. In the context of the wording of questions, the instruction on the New Zealand’s Census form to remember to mark English if one can have a conversation in that language is also peculiar in relation to other censuses. Canada’s order of language questions stands out as it first refers to designated languages and only after that to other possible languages. When it comes to the elaboration of purposes for which language data are used, none of the countries makes any explicit reference to creating educational environments in which members of minority communities might be educated in their own mother tongue. The rationale of using the language data from the U.S. Census is largely reflected in attempts to ensure the realisation of minority voting rights, while the main focus in both Canada and Australia is to provide a most suitable environment for linguistic assimilation in terms of achieving a high level of competence in the English language. Regarding the number of languages in which help in filling in the questionnaire is offered, Australia stands out with an interpreting service for as many as 110 languages. Among all the outlined criteria, conclusions concerning different language ideologies are most efficiently drawn from the wording of language questions and the outlined usages of the language data. Although the investigation of criteria such as multilingual accessibility is also relevant, it says very little about the extent to which particular countries

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encourage the assimilation processes. On the basis of the two most important criteria–the structure of language questions and the usages of language data–we may conclude that all analysed countries recognise the existence of increasing numbers of language communities and make attempts to adequately account for them. The recognition of their existence and importance is also evident in the outlined usages of the language data. However, as far as the data on the language part of censuses reveal, the same criteria point to the fact that all the countries have yet to achieve the full status of “cultivators” of the type of ideology that might be termed an “ideology of multilingualism”. This is clearly evident in placing the greatest focus on designated languages in the structure of language questions, but also in the lack of explicit mention of usage of language data in order to secure education of minorities in their own language; in other words, in focusing on provision of optimal conditions for successful assimilation. As far as the educational implications of the countries’ language policies are concerned, in each country it is possible to identify attempts to develop bilingual education in different periods. However, even the educational context implies the dominant view that English is still the most relevant language. As one can see from the provided examples in the four English-dominant countries, academic success of immigrant/minority students and economic efficiency are the two most important questions in discussions on bilingual educational programmes. The latest research shows that bilingual education is cost-effective on a long-term basis–of course, if other significant criteria are satisfied–but that it is also effective in terms of students’ academic success. In addition, the process of devising an adequate census questionnaire in a particular sociolinguistic context is extremely demanding, especially when it comes to structuring some of its parts. Various questions in the census questionnaire correspond to and are relevant for a specific part of reality in a given context. In other words, well-thought structures of questions make possible to gain an insight into the current situation of certain part of a sociolinguistic context and a successful application of collected data in the process of planning for future activities. The structure of language questions concerning language(s) has implications for educational settings. Namely, if more individuals working in multilingual educational settings are included in the process of structuring language questions, it is more likely that answers to such questions will present a more accurate picture of multilingual realities. This, in turn, means that a more successful elaboration of language questions (aided by educators’

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valuable input in concrete multilingual classrooms) might lead to positive developments in language policies in the future. Finally, it is obvious from the Canadian example of the Toronto School District that educational implications of language policies and population censuses can be directly correlated. The data collected by means of population censuses, and in schools, may be used for the development of new bilingual education programmes and for the improvement of the existing ones, with only one aim in mind: in short, to become a society of multilingual, multiliterate, and successful people, where multilingualism and multiliteracy will be considered advantages, rather than obstacles to prosperity.

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Statistics New Zealand. 1998. Preliminary Views on Content - 2001 Census: Chapter 5. http: //www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2001-censusdata/2001-census-preliminary-views-on-content.aspx Accessed 7 January 2012. Statistics New Zealand. 2013. New Zealand 2013 Census. http: //www.census.govt.nz Accessed 5 June 2013. Stroud, Christopher, and Lionel Wee. 2012. Style, Identity and Literacy: English in Singapore. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Travis, Catherine E., and Daniel J. Villa. 2011. Language policy and language contact in New Mexico: The case of Spanish. In Uniformity and Diversity in Language Policy: Global Perspectives, ed. Catrin Norrby, and John Hajek, 126-140. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs). 2008. Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses: Revision 2. http: //unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/docs/PandR_Rev2.p df Accessed 29 March 2011. U.S. Census Bureau. 2008. Questions Planned for the 2010 Census and the American Community Survey. http: //www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/operations_admin/Questions_ Planned_for_the_2010_Census_and_American_Community_Survey.p df Accessed 7 January 2012. —. 2010. Language Use: Historical Language Questions. http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/about/historical.html Accessed 5 November 2011. —. 2011. 2010 Census. http: //2010.census.gov/2010census/ Accessed 5 November 2011. —. 2012. American Community Survey. http: //www.census.gov/acs/www/ Accessed 10 February 2012. U.S. Department of Justice. 2011. Voting Rights Act Amendments of 2006: Determinations under Section 203. http: //www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/sec_203/2011_notice.pdf Accessed 7 December 2011. Wiley, Terrence G. 2004. Language planning, language policy, and the English-only movement. In Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Edward Finegan, and John R. Rickford, 319338. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wigglesworth, Gillian, and David Lasagabaster. 2011. Indigenous languages, bilingual education and English in Australia. In Uniformity and Diversity in Language Policy: Global Perspectives, ed. Catrin Norrby, and John Hajek, 141-156. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

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Wong Fillmore, Lily. 2004. Language in education. In Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Edward Finegan, and John R. Rickford, 339-360. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woolard, Kathryn A. 1998. Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, ed. Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity, 3-47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER THREE CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCES IN CANADIAN LEARNERS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF ITALIAN EMBLEMATIC GESTURES GIULIANA SALVATO

Introduction A recent line of investigation in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies the role of gesture in the development and learning of an additional language (see Gullberg 2006, 2009). Existing literature on the topic suggests that people around the world interpret the form, meaning and function of gesture in distinctive ways, whether gesture occurs in combination with speech or by itself. Cross-linguistic studies have revealed differences in how gesture reflects information about the path and manner of motion in languages with and without the same historical origin. The timing of gesture with respect to speech has also been found to vary across languages as well as the shape of gesture and the distribution of information expressed. When examining these differences in groups of learners, SLA scholars have noted that source languages affect gesture patterns in interactions (e.g., Gullberg 1998; Kellerman and van Hoof 2003; McCafferty and Stam 2008; Negueruela, Lantolf, Rehn Jordan, and Gelabert 2004; Pika, Nicoladis, and Marentette 2006). Efron (1972) described Southern Italian and Jewish immigrants who had integrated into the upper social classes of New York City as resembling each other’s gestural characteristics and the cultural norms of the host community more closely than their respective culture of origin. Similarly, latest studies with multilingual speakers argue for bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in gesture patterns (e.g., from one’s native language to the target language and vice versa), even at the intermediate level of language proficiency (Brown and Gullberg 2008, 2010, 2011).

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The conceptualization and understanding of cultural meanings in gestures are areas of investigation that reveal differences across languages (e.g., Calbris 1990; Kendon 2004; McNeill 1992, 2000, 2005; Morris, Collett, Marsh, and O’Shaughnessy 1979; Ricci Bitti 1992). The question at stake is whether language and culture of origin cause an effect on the interpretation and production of gestures and whether it is possible to acquire culturally-specific gestures. Gullberg (2006) says that little is known about this topic, especially if speakers know multiple languages. Generally, multilinguals’ understanding of cultural meanings encoded in aspects of a target language is likely influenced by the interplay of the different languages that they use. With a focus on verbal language, the literature on word recognition in bilingualism argues that the bilingual mental lexicon is languagenonselective with respect to form and to semantic representations (Dijkstra 2005). Sánchez-Casas and García-Albea (2005) observe that the extent of interconnection between the words of a bilingual’s languages - at the lexical and conceptual levels – does not only depend on variables related to word type (e.g., cognate status, concreteness, and word frequency) but also on the variables that define language users in their level of proficiency, experience, and learning environment. The literature on multilingualism shares the same perspective when it advocates that as a consequence of widening their linguistic system, multilingual speakers develop multicompetence and metalinguistic awareness to a greater extent than monolinguals, which can put them at an advantage in interpretation tasks (Cook 1992; Herdina and Jessner 2002; Jessner 2006; Nation and McLaughlin 1986; Nayak, Hansen, Krueger and McLaughlin 1990; Thomas 1988). These theoretical tenets hint at the possibility that gesture interpretation by speakers of different languages may equally occur through a language-nonselective process. It is commonly believed that people benefit from explanation and teaching of gestures pertaining to a non-native language, especially when the gestural form does not reproduce the referent in obvious ways. Emblematic gestures are one such type as their meaning is defined within specific cultural groups and is often not easily reconstructed from the movement that is entailed in their performance. Unlike other gesture categories, emblems can be rendered into words and form a lexicon in its own right (see Ekman and Friesen 1969). To confirm the significance of gesture explanations, Jungheim (1991) noted that explicit teaching of American emblems to Japanese learners is more effective a methodology than implicit teaching. Later on, Jungheim (2006) investigated the case of the Japanese “hand fan” refusal gesture performed with an open right

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hand, keeping the palm to the left, and moving the hand back and forth in front of the face, as if moving the air around with a fan to make it feel cooler. The author inquired whether language learners and native speakers of Japanese recognize and produce this gesture, and if they perceive it as an easy-to-interpret gesture. Jungheim (2006) found that the native speakers fared better at recognizing the form of the gesture as a refusal, and at producing verbal language that is appropriate to the gesture itself. Even though they said that the gesture was easy to understand, it was difficult for language learners to acquire gesture and verbal language accompanying it. They may have understood the gesture as expressing a negation but they had difficulties in selecting refusal language on the gesture interpretation test. This shows a discrepancy between perception of gestures and ability to interpret them correctly. Similar results to Jungheim’s (2006) but with younger learners emerge from Mohan and Helmer (1988), who used a guessing game to test the ability of English native children and English second language (ESL) children to understand thirty-six emblems and illustrators (i.e., gestures that illustrate the physical characteristics of a referent). The authors concluded that ESL children understood fewer of the gestures than native speakers. Conversely, when Allen (1995) used emblems along with French expressions, she noted that learning gestures simultaneously with French verbal language promoted vocabulary retention and recognition, as well as learning of gestures. In other words, adding a kinesic component to the traditional ways of dealing with new vocabulary (i.e., hearing, writing, reading) enhanced language retention. In their study, Wolfgang and Wolofsky (1991) argue that the ability to interpret gestures is culturally-determined. The authors found that foreignborn new Canadians’ success in decoding and recognizing gestures produced by Canadian-born speakers depended on the dichotomy between contact-oriented cultures (i.e., more gesturally oriented such as Mediterranean cultures) vs. noncontact-oriented cultures (i.e., more verbally oriented such as the Chinese culture), and on how close speakers related to each category. In Salvato (2011), the interpretation difficulty of culturally-based Italian gestures is attenuated when Canadian multilingual speakers can work with target verbal language accompanying the gestures. The greatest degrees of difficulty are associated, instead, with gestures playing a substitutive function with respect to verbal language. A different perspective on gestures in SLA is offered by Nardotto Peltier and McCafferty (2010), who found stages of gesture learning in correlation with proficiency levels. The authors worked with Italian gestures and learners of Italian in the U.S. and noted that beginner learners

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do not use or imitate gestures of the target language but observe gesture use in context. More proficient learners start producing target gestures through imitation and only later do they engage in spontaneous uses. As Nardotto Peltier and McCafferty (2010) remarked, language learners may include gestural behaviour in their communicative exchanges in order to identify more closely with the target language community. Advanced learners or learners who spend time in the target language community are probably ready to develop such an interest because their longer experience in using the new language makes them better aware of the significance of nonverbal behaviour in communication. Being a rather unexplored area of investigation, especially with multilinguals enrolled in classes of Italian in Canada, this chapter wants to contribute to the study of gesture perception and learning. The chapter aims to tackle multilingual development in the classroom from a nonverbal point of view. Without expecting learners to adopt native speakers’ nonverbal behaviour, we advocate that class activities oriented towards recognition and interpretation of nonverbal aspects can help the understanding and acceptance of cultural norms that pertain to a target language. We argue that this competence promotes a more complete preparation among language learners and is useful in assisting them during interaction outside the classroom (see multicompetence in Cook 1992, 1995, 2007). We also believe that nonverbal competence makes multilingualism a wider concept than verbal language alone. Language learning in the classroom usually prioritizes the formal aspects that define a language from a verbal point of view whereas nonverbal language is left too often uncommented or underrepresented in the curriculum. The following sections offer an analysis of the interpretations that three-hundred twenty-nine Canadian learners of Italian exhibited when asked to describe the meaning of six Italian emblematic gestures. The chapter aims to investigate whether type of language background and language experiences are significant variables in determining a correct interpretation of Italian emblematic gestures. Typically, classes of Italian at Canadian universities count speakers of different languages, both in number and in type. A recent investigation at the University of Toronto revealed that many students in Ontario are exposed to Italian after studying French and Spanish, whether English represents their first language (L1) or the L1 is a different language (see Faculty of Arts and Science 2005). This fact draws our attention to the influence of background languages on the learning of Italian as an additional language, particularly when those languages share the same origin with Italian. The genetic relationship is one of the factors that can explain the reasons why

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learners interpret a target language aspect the way they do (cf. Jarvis and Pavlenko 2008). In our data, we predicted that French and Spanish would play a role in the interpretation process of the six Italian gestures. Being all Romance languages, French and Spanish are historically related to Italian. French is also an official language in Canada, and both French and Spanish are commonly learned languages in Canada (see Faculty of Arts and Science 2005). Moreover, we expected to be able to identify those factors that prompt a preference for a specific language of a speaker’s linguistic repertoire, in line with research in third language (L3) acquisition (e.g., Dewaele 1998; Williams and Hammarberg 1998). We chose the six gestures of our study after a careful analysis of the most recent collection of Italian emblems (Diadori 1990). We asked the participants in our study to interpret the form of the gestures, find the words that render their meaning, and evaluate their function, first without the help of any Italian verbal language (i.e., at step 1), and then with verbal commentary provided (i.e., at step 2 in the form of sentences; at step 3 in the form of mini-dialogues). In order to carry out this exercise, it is likely that the learners tried to find some equivalence with gestures used in their L1 or in any of their background languages. When they were able to see some similarity between their prior knowledge of gestures and the Italian gestures, they probably used this similarity. However, when they could not relate any target language aspect to previous linguistic knowledge, they may have perceived the contents of our study as redundant or not meaningful enough. Ringbom (2006, 2007) claims that perception of redundancy is typical of learners at the early stages of language learning, and that it is even more apparent when learners are not able to find equivalence at the level of items, for example, at the level of words in verbal languages, or, as in our study, at the level of individual gestures. This assumption is meaningful for us since our participants are beginner learners of Italian. We expected the participants in our study to rely on their prior linguistic and cultural knowledge especially at step 1, when they were asked to interpret the six gestures without receiving any verbal help. Ringbom (2006, 2007) says that establishing equivalence among languages, that is, finding cross-linguistic similarity, can involve items (i.e., the individual gestures of our study vs. other gesture items) or systems (i.e., the system of emblematic gestures vs. the system of other gesture types). The process of finding cross-linguistic similarity can also concern form, on the one hand, and function and meaning, on the other hand (Ringbom 2006, 2007). In our study, item, system, form and meaning, were put together at one time: the six gestures are the items; the

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items assume a form; being emblematic, the six gestures have a meaning, which can be rendered into words, and a communicative function, which can be integrative of or substitutive for speech, depending on whether emblematic gestures accompany or replace speech (Ekman and Friesen 1969; Kendon 2004). On the basis of the literature here reviewed, we formulated three hypotheses: 1. presence of Romance languages in participants’ background facilitates the interpretation of the Italian gestures; 2. number of background languages along with prior knowledge of Italian produce a significant result on the interpretation of the six Italian gestures; 3. learners’ gesture interpretations suggest presence or absence of conceptual equivalence between the participants’ source languages and Italian as the target language. This chapter first describes the participants’ language background. We will see that the majority knows at least two languages, and that Italian is a heritage language for some and a language of which other participants have prior knowledge. The literature in L3 acquisition has found that knowledge of two languages can affect the learning of an additional language (e.g., Cenoz, Hufeisen, and Jessner 2001). The chapter considers then the concept of cross-linguistic similarity (Ringbom 2006, 2007) in order to probe the impact of language background and of language experiences on the interpretation of the gestures of our study. Finally, the chapter offers an evaluation of whether the gestures that we used indicate that the languages recorded in our study share conceptual equivalence (cf. Jarvis and Pavlenko 2008; Pavlenko 2009).

Method Participants All participants were enrolled in an Italian beginners’ class at two universities in Southern Ontario, Canada. The participants’ proficiency level, however, depended on the following language experiences. Participants in the 100 level were absolute beginners of Italian (N=258) and belonged to three different campuses (i.e., Toronto St. George; Toronto Mississauga; Hamilton McMaster). Those in the 101 level had knowledge of Italian either because of their Italian family background or

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because they had some secondary school training in Italian (N=59); and those in the 152 level had four years of high-school training in Italian (N=12). The 101 and 152 level groups belonged to the same campus (i.e., Toronto St. George): Fig. 3-1. Italian language proficiency.

The participants were speakers of thirty-eight different mother tongues, among which there were native speakers of English (N=217), Polish (N=10), Spanish (N=10), Italian (N=8), and speakers with other languages, including Albanian, Arabic, and Mandarin Chinese: Fig. 3-2. Mother Tongues.

The participants with knowledge of only one language formed language class 1 (N=53, 16 per cent); those with knowledge of two languages were assigned to language class 2 (N=112, 34 per cent); those with knowledge of three languages (N=104, 32 per cent) and those with four languages or more (N=60, 18 per cent) made language class 3 and 4

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respectively. This organization of language classes allowed us to streamline the complex language scenario in our study: Fig. 3-3. Number of languages in the participants’ background.

Moreover, seventy-one participants had prior knowledge of Italian (i.e., 22 per cent), whether active or passive, and two-hundred fifty-eight participants did not have any prior knowledge of Italian (i.e., 88 per cent): Fig. 3-4. Prior knowledge of Italian.

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LJĞƐ ŶŽ

Almost 80 per cent of the 329 participants had some Romance language knowledge, specifically: N=109 knew one Romance language; N=104, two Romance languages; N=37, three Romance languages; and N=8, four Romance languages:

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Fig. 3-5. Knowledge of Romance languages.

As for type of Romance language, the distribution of different Romance languages in one of the proficiency levels included in our study (i.e., Toronto St. George 100, N=104) indicates French (N=55) and Spanish (N=30) as the Romance languages that most participants knew, followed by Italian (i.e., the language being studied) (N=18), Portuguese (N=7), Latin (N=6), and Romanian (N=3): Fig. 3-6. Types of Romance languages.

Procedure Data collection took place in three steps (cf. Salvato 2011). This chapter focuses on step 1, when the gestures were represented on paper through sketches and were performed in front of each class by the main

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researcher, a native speaker of Italian. Besides being invited to describe the meaning of the six gestures on the side of each sketch, the participants were asked three questions: “What is your mother tongue and what other languages do you know?”; “Do you find that your language and cultural background help you in interpreting the gestures in the pictures?”; “Do you consider these gestures typically Italian?” Figure 3-7 reproduces the page on which participants expressed their interpretations: Fig. 3-7. The six Italian emblematic gestures at step 1.

Source: Diadori, Pierangela (1990). Senza parole.100 gesti degli italiani. Roma: Bonacci editore.

The meanings of the gestures are: G1=agreement; G2=good food; G3=perfect; G4=money; G5=frustration about oneself or others; G6= disagreement. Salvato (2011:386-7) describes the conceptualization of gesture meanings specific to the cultural group of the Italian native speakers, in this way: Gesture 1 (G1) conveys the meaning of “agreement” by showing two index fingers coming together and tapping repeatedly on their inner side. The Italian verbal expression that defines G1 is andare d’accordo (“to get along”). G2 indicates the meaning of “good food” by rotating the tip of an

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Chapter Three index finger against one’s cheek. The cheek stands for the mouth, the place where food is tasted. The Italian verbal expression that describes G2 is buono (“good”). G3 conveys the meaning of “perfect” by means of thumb and index finger of one hand joining together in a ring and sliding to the outer side as if they were pulling a thread. In Italian, one of the verbal expressions that describe G3 includes the word filo (“thread”, tutto fatto per filo e per segno, literally “everything done by thread and sign”, idiomatic “everything is done perfectly”). G4 conveys the meaning of “money” by acting out the gesture of handling paper money between thumb and index finger of the same hand. The Italian verbal expression used for G4 is soldi (“money”). G5 indicates “frustration” by showing an up-and-down movement of two hands joint in prayer position at the chest level. G5 conceptualizes the verbal meaning of ti prego (literally “I beg you”, idiomatic “do me a favour”). Finally, G6 conveys the meaning of “disagreement” by tapping the tips of two index fingers one against the other. In Italian, the verbal expression that describes G6 is non andare d’accordo (“to not get along”).

Results In order to test whether the participants’ language background, particularly languages related to Italian from a genetic point of view, and the participants’ language experiences (i.e., heritage language, proficiency level, number of languages known), influenced significantly the interpretation of the gestures of our study, we carried out logistic regression analysis. This procedure typically compares one of the classes of an independent variable (i.e., the reference group) to the rest of the classes, and it interprets the odds ratios. Testing such comparisons reveals the significance of our hypotheses. The independent variables in our study are: knowledge of a Romance language; prior knowledge of Italian; the three steps; and the groups of learners distributed in three campuses. Speakers with knowledge of one Romance language, speakers with prior knowledge of Italian, step 3 (i.e., gestures occurring in mini-dialogues), and Toronto St. George 101 (i.e., a proficiency level intermediate between absolute beginners and beginners with four years of high-school training in Italian), were chosen as the reference groups for each independent variable. The dependent variable is a binary one: either the participants provided a correct interpretation of the gestures (i.e., 1) or they provided an incorrect interpretation or no interpretation at all (i.e., 0). In order to take into account that data collected on the same units (i.e., the six gestures) across successive points in time (i.e., three steps) are correlated over time, we used a generalized logistic regression model with random effects. All analysis was carried out using GLIMMIX procedure of the

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SAS software (Allison 2003). Table 3-1 shows the summary of the statistical analysis: Table 3-1. Results of logistic regression. Variables of interest Romance language (ref: Romance language, N=109) Italian language (ref: Italian, N=71) Step of the study (ref: Step 3) Step1 Step 2 Group (ref: St. George 101, N=59) McMaster100(N=41) Mississauga 100 (N=113) St.George152 (N=12) St.George 100 (N=104)

Odds ratio 0.922

95% confidence interval (0.751, 1.132)

0.504

(0.373, 0.682)

0.272 2.173

(0.235, 0.315) (1.889, 2.501)

0.464 0.364 0.658 0.487

(0.302, 0.713) (0.251, 0.529) (0.343, 1.262) (0.334, 0.712)

Table 3-1 indicates that it is not significant to know a Romance language in order to interpret the gestures of our study correctly. On the other hand, prior knowledge of Italian can have a significant effect on the interpretation of the gestures. The participants with no prior knowledge of Italian are less likely to interpret the gestures correctly compared to the participants with prior knowledge of Italian. In table 3-2, knowledge of a Romance language gives a non-significant F(1,5589)=0.60, p=>0.4384, whereas prior knowledge of Italian gives a significant F(1,5589)=19.75, p=