Language Acquisition in Pluralistic Societies

Abstract

Language behavior in pluralistic societies, segmented by ‘fluid’ language identities, is marked by features—such as hybridization in speech, grassroots ‘folk’ bilingualism, and switching of codes—arising from contact situations. Speakers in such pluralistic speech communities in their everyday life reality are not generally conscious of operating across language ‘boundaries’.

This study aims at understanding the acquisition of selection mechanisms by which a child designs the message for specific communicative tasks and discriminates one set of speech habits from the other amid the diversified speech patterns in many multilingual surroundings in the Indian subcontinent.