Multilingualism is a typical aspect of everyday life for most of the world’s population; it has existed since the beginning of humanity and among individuals of all backgrounds. Nonetheless, it has often been treated as a variant of bilingualism or as a phenomenon unique to individual areas of study. The purpose of this book is to review current knowledge about the acquisition, use and loss of multiple languages using a multidisciplinary perspective, highlighting the common themes and stimulating insights that can emerge when multilingualism is viewed from different but related areas of investigation. The chapters focus on research evidence, showing that multilingualism is a complex phenomenon that involves a myriad of linguistic and extra-linguistic forces and that should be studied in its own right as evidence of human potential and capacity for language. The book is primarily addressed to students and scholars interested in deepening their understanding of the different facets of multilingualism, including the individual and societal circumstances that contribute to it, the cognitive and neural mechanisms that make it possible, and the dynamics involved in the acquisition, use and loss of multiple languages.
This book promotes linguistically responsive foreign language teaching practices in multilingual contexts by facilitating a dialogue between teachers and researchers. It advances a discussion of how to connect the acquisition of subsequent foreign languages with previous language knowledge to create culturally and linguistically inclusive foreign language classrooms, and how to strengthen the connection between research on multilingualism and foreign language teaching practice. The chapters present new approaches to foreign language instruction in multilingual settings, many of them forged in collaboration between foreign language teachers and researchers of multilingualism. The authors report findings of classroom-based research, including case studies and action research on topics such as the functions and applications of translanguaging in the foreign language classroom, the role of learners’ own languages in teaching additional languages, linguistically and culturally inclusive foreign language pedagogies, and teacher and learner attitudes to multilingual teaching approaches.
Childhood multilingualism has become a norm rather than an exception. This is the first handbook to survey state-of-the-art research on the uniqueness of early multilingual development in children growing up with more than two languages in contact. It provides in-depth accounts of the complexity and dynamics of early multilingualism by internationally renowned scholars who have researched typologically different languages in different continents. Chapters are divided into six thematic areas, following the trajectory, environment and conditions underlying the incipient and early stages of multilingual children's language development. The many facets of childhood multilingualism are approached from a range of perspectives, showcasing not only the challenges of multilingual education and child-rearing but also the richness in linguistic and cognitive development of these children from infancy to early schooling. It is essential reading for anyone interested in deepening their understanding of the multiple aspects of multilingualism, seen through the unique prism of children.
This book presents contributions submitted to the 2nd international conference Going Global through Social Sciences and Humanities (GGSSH 2019) held in Tomsk, Russia on 27–28 February 2019. The conference focused on such issues as interdisciplinary pedagogy, language teaching and learning, cultural studies and linguistics, particularly highlighting global academic integration and professional development for research. As such, the event provided a platform for discussions and sharing publication activities, to help Russian academics to take first steps toward global research. Showcasing the ongoing Russian research in focus areas, this book is of interest to a diverse academic audience working in social sciences and humanities, particularly those from the post-Soviet countries.
Storytelling is an ideal avenue for language learners to share their experiences and journeys and find a sense of identity. Everyone who has learned an additional language has a story to tell, but there is a unique type of autoethnographic and linguistic story that can be read in scholarly platforms. Autoethnographic Perspectives on Multilingual Life Stories presents the life stories of multilingual people and their experiences by using autoethnography as a research method. It proposes narrative as an autobiographical research method that provides the technique and opportunity to express how transnationals construct their identities in foreign and new contexts through partial or full life stories. Covering topics such as identity, life stories, and self-discovery, this reference work is ideal for academicians, researchers, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.
The series Trends in Applied Linguistics meets the challenges of the rapidly growing field of applied linguistics. IN a very broad sense, applied linguistics is understoodby focusing on the application of theoretical linguistics to current problems arising in different contexts of human society. GIven the interdisciplinary character of applied linguistics, the series includes cognitive, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and educational perspectives. THe following topicsare included in the series: Second language acquisition and the acquisition of additional languages Bilingual and multilingual education Language planning and language policy Literacy skills Second/foreign language pedagogy Translation and interpretation Language for specific purposes Discourse analysis Language testing and assessment Child language Language and gender Pragmatics and rhetorics Corpus analysis Critical pedagogies Research methodology in applied linguistics Language and technology
This book explores crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition, drawing insights from a study of young bilingual secondary school students in Germany to unpack the importance of different variables in the acquisition and use of English as an additional language. Lorenz draws on data from a learner corpus of written and spoken picture descriptions toward analyzing sources of crosslinguistic influence in L3 acquisition in bilingual heritage speakers with unbalanced proficiency in heritage versus majority languages as compared with their monolingual German peers. This unique approach allows for a clearer understanding of the extent of influence of access to heritage languages, the impact of being a "balanced" vs "unbalanced" bilingual speaker, and the importance of extra-linguistic variables, such as age, gender, socio-economic status, and type of school. The final two chapters highlight practical considerations for the English language classroom and the implications of the study for future directions for research on third language acquisition. With its detailed overview of L2 and L3 acquisition and contribution toward ongoing debates on the advantages of being bilingual and multilingual, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in applied linguistics, foreign language acquisition, foreign language teaching, and learner corpus research.
Multilingualism has become an increasingly common global phenomenon especially in the last two decades. Therefore, multilingual programmes have now been regarded as a cornerstone of education systems in many countries around the world. Learning multiple languages helps us plug into a globalised world and strengthen links with a multitude of speakers from a diversified reality we live in. Thanks to the researched cases described in the chapters, further developments aimed at fostering multilingual practices in the contemporary world will be enhanced. The chapters included in the present volume, provide an overview of current theory, research and practice in the field. They deal with such prominent research topics as multilingual education, language policies, language contact, identity of multilingual speakers, to name only a few. The selected chapters focus on the numerous and heterogeneous relations between languages. They also incorporate a series of contextualized studies with diverse research designs applied in different settings across the globe. This volume constitutes a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on multilingualism from twelve different countries. It is a thought-provoking collection that provides a series of rich insights into the way multilingualism is practised in international contexts. It is ideally designed for academics, upper-level students, educators, professionals and practitioners seeking linguistic and pedagogical guidance on multilingualism.
This book investigates how learners' motivations and identities are constructed in the process of learning and using multiple languages in Asian contexts. It presents examples of multilingual contexts in different parts of Asia and illustrates various achievements and challenges associated with multilingual education. Drawing on recent theoretical developments regarding learners' motivations and identities in language learning-related research, this book uncovers learners' motivations that underlie their decisions of learning multiple languages in Asian contexts. Through empirical studies, the authors offer conceptual interpretations on emerging concepts such as dual-motivation system, motivation dynamics, motivational transformation episodes, and hierarchies of identities. In addition to being highly relevant to researchers of applied linguistics, this book is a valuable reference for every university and college library that serves a faculty or school of education.
This book presents a new extended framework for the study of early multicompetence. It proposes a concept of multilingual competences as a valuable educational target, and a view of the multilingual learner as a competent language user. The thematic focus is on multilingual skill development in primary schoolers in the trilingual province of South Tyrol, northern Italy. A wide range of topics pertaining to multicompetence building and the special affordances of multilingual pedagogy are explored. Key concepts like language proficiency, native-speakerism, or monolingual classroom bias are subjected to critical analysis.
This innovative collection examines key questions on language diversity and multilingualism running through contemporary debates in psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Reinforcing interdisciplinary conversations on these themes, each chapter is co-authored by two different researchers, often those who have not written together before. The combined effect is a volume showcasing unique and dynamic perspectives on such topics as multilingualism across the lifespan, bilingual acquisition, family language policy, language and ageing, language shift, language and identity, and multilingualism and language impairment. The book builds on Elizabeth Lanza’s pioneering work on multilingualism across the lifespan, bringing together cutting-edge research exploring multilingualism as an evolving phenomenon at landmarks in individuals’, families’, and communities’ lives. Taken together, the book offers a rich portrait of the different facets of multilingualism as a lived reality for individuals, families, and communities. This ground-breaking volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in multilingualism, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics.
