Week 14: BilingualismMultilingualism

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Week 14Bilingualism/Multilingualism
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The Multilingual Norm

• In America, the dominant language ideology is
  that monolingualism is the norm
• However, throughout the world, more people are
  multilingual than monolingual

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Monolingualism

• Individual monolingualism refers to a persons
  status as knowing only one language
• Societal monolingualism refers to linguistic
  homogeneity within a population, where there are
  speakers of only one language.

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Multilingual Nations

• societal multilingualism, where more than one
  language is spoken in a society, is not the same
  as individual multilingualism, where a person
  speaks/understands more than one language.
• Bilingualism is a common form of multilingualism,
  in which two languages are used, whether on the
  individual or societal level.

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Fun Fact

• The US is a multilingual nation
• The 2000 census categorized all the responses
  about languages spoken at home into 380 language
  categories, including 120 Native American
  languages.

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Legal Equality?

• Many countries in the world have official
  multilingualism as part of their constitution.
• Legal equality is not the same as there being no
  linguistic stereotypes. And official
  multilingualism doesnt imply that all of the
  languages are legally equal.
• linguistic stereotypes ideas about what a
  language is good for and what its speakers are
  like

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• A multilingual nation can mean almost anything
• a country with two official languages
• a country with many imported languages like the
  US
• a country like India, with hundreds of indigenous
  languages spoken by large populations

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Linguistic barriers

• Use of languages that are not known by the whole
  populace can create a linguistic barrier that
  prevents individuals or populations from
  participation in education, govt, economic
  advancement.
• Example In Estonia, nationalists are trying to
  create linguistic barriers for non-Estonian
  speakers.

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Language Planning

• Language planning includes all government
  activities having to do with language (including
  revitalization, standardization, schooling, laws,
  and picking a national language).

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Multilingual National Policy

• Why might you need to legislate language use in
  the media in a multilingual nation?
• Spitulnik gives the example of Zambia. In Zambia,
  state policy of pluralism says that 7 languages
  (Bemba, Kaonde, Lozi, Lunda, Luvale, Nyanja, and
  Tonga) represent the 73 tribes of Zambia.
  English is also used as a neutral national
  language.

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Ideologies of language use

• Language ideologies are ways of thinking about
  language what language means, what role it
  plays in society.
• Ideas about language can influence whether it is
  considered suitable for different uses, like
  radio broadcasting, newspaper printing, public
  speaking, joking among friends, etc.

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Policy vs. language value hierarchy

• Spitulnik pg. 170
• English
  (international lang)
• Bemba, Nyanja (urban lingua
  francas)
• Bemba, Nyanja, Lozi, Tonga (big four)
• Kaonde, Lunda, Luvale (small NW langs)
• Other languages and dialects (not on radio)
• The big four languages (Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga
  and Lozi) have much more radio air time than the
  smaller Northwestern languages

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Lingua Franca

• Bemba and Nyanja are urban lingua francas in
  Zambia. A lingua franca is a language that is
  spoken by most people in an area as a first or
  second language and therefore can be used to
  communicate across speakers of many languages.

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Linguistic division of labor

• A linguistic division of labor happens when
  language attitudes say that certain languages are
  more suitable for certain uses, such as types of
  radio programming (Spitulnik, pg. 174)
• What kind of programming is associated with
  different languages (what is each language
  considered good for)?
• International news? Local/national news? Hip
  urban programming?

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Multilingual Policy
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Review

• linguistic inferiority principle - The speech of
  a socially subordinate group will always be
  interpreted as inadequate by comparison with the
  socially dominant group.

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Language and Empires

• Different empires have had different approaches
  to managing language in conquered territories
• Over time, these language policies affected
  language change, language shift, and the relative
  status of colonial vs. indigenous languages.

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Colonial powers

• Can cultivate a local elite and offer advantages
  to learning the colonial language
• Can piggyback on an established elite by
  valorizing one language/dialect over others
• Can try to force the entire population to shift
  languages, e.g. by passing language laws and
  restricting access to education, publishing,
  media or through reeducation
• Can encourage bilingualism and/or language shift
  actively or passively

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Powerful Language

• standard language adopted, prescriptive norm
• literary language the language used in writing
  (Latin)
• liturgical language the language used for
  religious or ritual purposes (Old Church
  Slavonic)
• hegemonic language variety/language to which
  others are compared, and which is expected to be
  used, even though if this is not done
  prescriptively. e.g. American English (not
  British) is hegemonic in the U.S., but a certain
  dialect of American English is also hegemonic.

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Language and government

• official language legal language. English only
  movements want to make English the official
  language of the U.S.
• administrative language language used by a
  country for internal business. English is the
  administrative language of the United States.

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Historical Example Inca Empire vs. Spanish
Colonialism

• In the Andes, the Incas promoted Southern
  Peruvian Quechua as an administrative/contact
  language, but encouraged peoples to maintain
  their linguistic diversity
• After the Spanish arrived, the Spanish colonial
  power encouraged all indigenous peoples to learn
  or even shift to Southern Peruvian Quechua as the
  representative indigenous language. Learning
  Spanish was also emphasized as an important part
  of converting to Christianity.

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Multilingualism and society
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Diglossia

• Diglossia in a situation where two languages
  (or varieties) are used, each language (or
  variety) is systematically employed in certain
  domains
• high variety prestige language (public
  language) in a diglossic situation.
• low variety non-prestige (home language)
  language in a diglossic context

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High vs. Low Language

• High Language Low Language
• Public Private
• Prestige Non-prestige
• school, government home, bar
• literary tradition often
  unwritten
• signals high status signals intimacy

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Example Paraguay

• Spanish and Guaraní
• Spanish is official language used in formal
  situations and associated with urban life
• Guaraní is national language strongly
  associated with national pride, but also with
  ruralness and lack of sophistication.

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Example Swiss German

• High language is High German
• used in schools, govt
• Low language is Swiss German
• until recently not written
• Swiss German is used in ads for products like
  cheese
• High German in ads for cars and technology.

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Lingua Franca

• A language that is used interacting with speakers
  of different codes (languages). All the
  participants are expected to know the lingua
  franca, but it may be (and often is) no ones
  first language.

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Language policy

• Tanzania Swahili is the lingua franca and is
  used in education to encourage widespread
  literacy
• Kenya English is the lingua franca and is used
  in education to select a small part of the
  population to go on and become educated

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Bilingual communities

• In bilingual (or multilingual) communities,
  speakers develop strategies for the use of their
  languages
• They may restrict each language to particular
  contexts, participants, or topics.
• Bilingualism can be stable or unstable
• stable bilingualism the relationship between
  the languages is not changing OR
• unstable bilingualism the relationship between
  the languages is changing, usually due to
  language shift

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Situational language choice

• In each interaction or situation, a bilingual has
  a choice of languages
• context, participants, topics and goals all
  influence these decisions

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Code switching and borrowing

• When bilingual speakers converse, they frequently
  integrate linguistic material from both of their
  languages within the same discourse segment.
  Code-switching involves speaking one language,
  then another, usually across sentences or
  clauses. Intrasentential codeswitching refers to
  changing languages in the middle of a sentence.
• Borrowing borrowing involves adapting words to
  fit the language you are speaking, including
  sounds and grammar, making the borrowed word part
  of your language

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Examples

• code switching
• Lets go, lets go. Poshli!
• Switching between English and Russian across
  sentences.
• borrowing
• Ja ljublju koka-kolu. (I like Coca-Cola)
• Modification of Coca-Cola to fit with Russian
  grammar. Koka-kola has also become integrated
  into mainstream Russian.

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Code mixing

• Code mixing is a linguistic process that
  incorporates material from a second language into
  a base language, adding morphological markers of
  the base to introduced elements.
• In other words, you take a word from another
  language, but treat it like it is from your
  language. However, unlike with borrowing, it
  does not become part of the base language.

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Examples

• code switching
• Lets go. Poshli!
• borrowing
• Ja ljublju koka-kolu. (I like Coca-Cola)
• code mixing
• Well, I guess wed better be poshli-ing
• Nado pisat grenty (You have to write grants).

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Social functions of code-mixing

• code mixing can be used to create a sense of
  community among a small group of bilinguals (e.g.
  Hong Kong residents)
• in a diglossic situation, use of some words from
  the High language incorporated into your speech
  can mark you as higher status, more intellectual,
  or less traditional

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Example Language in Hong Kong

• British colony 1842-1997. Elite spoke English.
• Today Cantonese and English are both official
  languages
• Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese control, use
  of Mandarin Chinese has increased

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Code switching in Hong Kong

• Higher education is primarily in English,
  creating an elite who utilize English for many
  purposes and often switch between English and
  Cantonese when words or expressions from English
  dont have common Cantonese counterparts.
• Many people in Hong Kong have the language
  attitude that code-switching is bad and shows a
  lack of loyalty to a Hong Kong identity. Some
  people also find code switching pretentious or
  snobby.
• At the same time, inability to code switch may be
  seen as evidence that you are not educated.

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Codeswitching in Conversation
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Conversational code-switching

• Code-switching is often used for pragmatic
  effects.
• Examples include emphasis, emotional coloring,
  shifting between topics, shifting from narration
  to commentary, separating quoted speech from your
  speech

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Zentella article on Spanglish

• Young Spanglish speakers in a New York
  neighborhood belong to a speech community.
• The meaning of codeswitching is part of a set of
  social norms
• At the same time these codeswitching practices
  are easing the language shift in the community
  from Spanish to English (unstable bilingualism).

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Codeswitching in Spanglish (Zentella article)

• The bilinguals she studied used codeswitching
• To get attention, enhanced speech marking
• For emphasis repeating the same sentence twice
  in two different languages
• Signal boundaries between your speech and quoted
  speech
• Shifting topics or addressing a different person
• Involvement or expression of emotion

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Bilingualism good or bad?

• Many bilinguals in the US evaluate their language
  poorly. Use of code-switching is perceived as
  indicating that you dont know either language
  well.
• In fact, code-switching requires a high level of
  competence in both languages, as well as an
  understanding of cultural rules surrounding
  switching and its meaning.

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Example Language Ideologies in Zakarpattia,
Ukraine

• Area of Ukraine that borders on Poland, Slovakia,
  Hungary and Romania
• Large populations of Romanians, Hungarians and
  Ukrainians
• Lingua franca is Russian

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Shifting ideologies

• Speakers of one Ukrainian dialect go to a
  mechanic who speaks another dialect and who has
  some Romanian customers. They speak Russian
• After the Romanians leave, Ukrainians speaking
  different dialects talk about how annoying it is
  that Romanians dont learn Ukrainian

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• When the Ukrainian dialect speaking customer
  returns home, she talks about the Romanians, and
  then comments on how funny the mechanics
  Ukrainian is.
• Depending on context, different language
  ideologies dictate different types of collusion
  in those ideologies, such as language choice and
  expression of group identity.

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Review Two kinds of bilingualism

• stable bilingualism the relationship and use of
  two languages is stable in the speech community
  (not changing) (Zakarpattia)
• transitional (unstable) bilingualism a stage of
  language shift, as speakers begin to use one
  language more than the other. If the language
  shift is completed, the speech community will be
  monolingual, instead of bilingual (Zentella says
  the community she studied is shifting to English)

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New Languages
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New Languages

• Creoles
• Invented languages such as Bahasa Indonesia
• Revitalized languages such as Hebrew
• Newly recognized languages carved out of
  establish language groups, such as Rusyn and
  Romansch

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Bahasa Indonesia

• 300 languages and dialects are spoken in
  Indonesia, but since independence in 1949, Bahasa
  Indonesia has been the official language
• Bahasa Indonesia is closely related to Malay, but
  is not spoken as a first language by very many
  people, except for ethnic Chinese.
• People preserve their local languages, while
  speaking Bahasa Indonesia as the countrys lingua
  franca and also using Bahasa Indonesia to express
  national pride

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Promotion of Bahasa Indonesia

• Bahasa Indonesia, spoken by very few people as
  their native language, is promoted as
  representing the Indonesian nation
• Govt promotes the use of Bahasa Indonesia to
  represent a united Indonesian nation. Fluency in
  the language is associated with education and
  elite status

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Revival of Hebrew

• Hebrew was revived as part of the push for a
  Jewish state (Israel)
• Revival movement began in 1890, but real gains
  were not seen until 1920s and 30s
• Hebrew was taught in schools in pre-Israel
  Palestine and then children began using it
  outside schools.
• Ironically, revival of Hebrew has led in part to
  a decline in the use of Yiddish.
• communicative, political, religious and literary
  factors

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Hebrew as a Liturgical Language

• A liturgical language is a language used for
  religious purposes.
• Often liturgical languages survive only in
  written form and in religious usages such as
  prayer.
• Examples include Latin used in the Catholic
  Church and old Church Slavonic used in the
  Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

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Hebrew as a Functional Language

• More recently, Hebrew has become a functional
  language .
• A functional language may be used for prayer, but
  it can also be used for everyday usage and
  conversations as a fully functioning language.

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Why was Hebrew Revived?

• Hebrew is a unique language because it is one of
  the RARE languages that have been revived when it
  had no native speakers. Most people would tell
  you that it is impossible to revive a language
  once it has died.

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Why was Hebrew Revival successful?

• Even when Hebrew was considered a dead
  language, it was used for religious purposes.
  Jews still prayed in Hebrew, and Hebrew was still
  being used to read and write religious texts.
• Hebrew was promoted as a way of identifying as
  Jewish, bringing together different Jewish
  populations. Hebrew unified Jews from all over
  the world who came to live in Israel as part of
  building a Jewish nation.

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Newly Standardized Languages

• Around the world, speakers of established
  languages like Mayan and Tamil are developing new
  written standards
• Goals of these standardization projects include
  increased literacy, self-determination, and
  reduction of language shift to dominant languages
  like Spanish and English
• Standardizing languages also raises them to the
  level of government and literary languages

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Effects of Standardization

• Standardization can legitimize political projects
  such as movements for autonomy, independence, or
  the mobilization around ethnic, linguistic, or
  regional issues
• Why? Because of our model of the nation
  includes linguistic autonomy

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• What are the consequences of promoting newly
  standardized languages?
• The language can gain official status that
  includes funding for schools, cultural
  activities, etc.
• Newspapers and books become available children
  can learn to read and write the language
• Radio programming in the language may become
  available or be expanded

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Tamil

• Spoken natively by 48 million people in India,
  plus a couple million others in Sri Lanka, US,
  Canada etc.
• Tamil is a Dravidian language

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Tamil variation barriers to standardization

• Geographic variation
• Caste variation (Brahmin/non-Brahmin)
• Diglossia (high and low varieties

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Diglossia in Tamil

• High variety is used in media, writing
• Low status variety used in everyday speech also
  used for high solidarity situations such as
  political speeches

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Standardization

• Tamil standardization has two aims
• Reduce variation so that a single standard can be
  used across all Tamil speakers
• Increase literacy through the development of a
  modern standard written Tamil (already underway)

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Romansh

• Romansh is a Rhaeto-Romance language, related to
  Ladin and Friulian. It is in the same large
  language family as French and Italian, and has
  often been considered a dialect of one of these.
  
• Romansh is spoken in Switzerland related
  dialects are spoken in Italy. Switzerlands
  population 70 German, 25 French, 4 Italian,
  1 Romansh

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• 1938 Romansh became a national language of
  Switzerland speakers had some official
  recognition, but had to use German, French or
  Italian for official business.
• 1996 the status of Romansh changed to
  semi-official language meaning that the federal
  govt is required to use Romansh when addressing
  Romansh-speaking citizens also rights to
  schooling in Romansh, etc.

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• A written standard for Romansh, spoken in
  Switzerland, was designed by a linguist (Heinrich
  Schmid) in 1982. This written form is called the
  Rumantsch Grischun
• There can be extensive lexical variation across
  the dialects, for example the word for cup
• French tasse German Tasse Italian Tazza
• Sursilvan scadiola
• Surmeiran cuppegn
• Sutsilvan scariola
• Puter/Vallader cupina

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Rusyn Language and Identity

• Issues of language and identity in the Ukrainian
  National Census

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At issue

• Is Rusyn a nationality and/or a language?
• Or are Rusyns Ukrainians who speak a Ukrainian
  dialect?
• At stake potentially, control over the region.

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Language is never neutral

• language ideologies influence all aspects of
  language choice and language use
• language development and revitalization projects,
  as well as language shift and language death, are
  all social processes that are related to the
  evaluation of languages, their use, and their
  speakers.