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Abstract
The bi/plurilingual person is a unique speaker–hearer who should be studied as such and not always in comparison with the monolingual. As such, unilingual linguistic models and perspectives based on the idea that bilingualism is a duplication of competences in two languages (or more) are unsuitable to describe plural practices in multilingual societies. This is a criticism we formulated over the years (Lüdi & Py, Citation1986, Citation2003). The contribution discusses the relevance of alternative models, concepts and theoretical frameworks in the study of multi/plurilingualism and their potential in language studies and the understanding of second and third-language acquisition. We also discuss how these models and concepts find their way into classroom practice and language policies.
Notes
1. Where they are observable, we have collectively termed such effects translinguistic marks («marques transcodiques») See Lüdi (1987).
2. A study carried out in Bienne some years ago showed that bilingual inhabitants of that city, which is officially bilingual, learnt the other language not at school but in other circumstances (professional settings, sports clubs, within the neighbourhood, etc.) Elmiger and Conrad (2005).
3. We have spoken about monolingual identity as including the ordinary representations of the language.
4. See also Reichler-Béguelin (1993).
5. As in Beacco's (Citation2004) rule: ‘Educational linguistic politics in European institutions is founded on multilingualism (…). Multilingualism is to be considered as having two aspects: a conception of the speaker as being fundamentally plural; and a value, insomuchas it is one of the cornerstones of the acceptance of difference, education which is definitively intercultural at its core. Below these headlines lies one of the possible foundations for a European sense of belonging (…). If Europeans do not have a common language to identify with, to perceive their “belonging” within one space, they dispose – effectively or potentially – of the same multilingual competence (compétence plurilingue), ebbing away in thousand of different repertoires, which is the true common vector of a shared “linguistic identity” which does not fall back upon itself’.
6. Such is, in any case, the opinion of the European Union authorities for whom the preservation of heritage is a declared objective (see the declaration of the Council of Cannes, 26–27 July 1995). For its part, the Council of Europe adopted the European charter of regional or minority languages in 1992 to promote and support less widely spoken languages.
7. Berrendonner (Citation1983) characterises the grammar of all languages as polylectal.
8. This term appears quite often in specialised literature, but to our knowledge it has no meaning which is widely converged upon. Cf. Boulea and Jeanneret (Citation2007) for a propedeutic reflection on the concepts of competence and resources. ‘The notion is often used in conversational analysis, dating from classic works (e.g. Jefferson, 1974), returning to the fact that linguistic elements, signs and actions are used to accomplish or structure activities (establishing lists, organising turns, starting or finishing a conversation): they therefore constitute resources for the organisation of interaction. The notion of resource seems to have some interest here as it focalises the actor's point of view (it is speakers who serve as resources) and foregrounds the potentiality of these resources, not stable form-function couplings (as often associated with the notion of function). The idea is always that the significance of resources is local, depending on sequential placement (see also Goodwin, 1986). Since the seminal work of Ochs, Schegloff, and Thompson (1996) in interactional linguistics, the notion is very often summoned within this line of work to return the linguistic system (lexicon, morphology, syntax as well as prosody) to a resource which acts on and structures social interaction’. (Simona Pekarek Doehler, personal communication).
9. This notion was introduced into linguistics by Gentilhomme (1985).
10. This principle must be discussed, as the notions of authenticity and problem are far from evident.
11. ‘The use of Italian in the ethnic community – especially within family structures – reveals an interesting case of how a “transplanted” language can come to fulfil a basic practical need to express a new psycholinguistic experience. The Canadian version of Italian (and its dialects) constitutes a case of what linguists commonly refer to as an “ethnic dialect”, or ethnolect, of the mother tongue. This can be defined generally to be a version of the language of origin which, primarily as a consequence of the frequent borrowing and adoption of words from the culturally dominant language, has come to characterise the speech habits of the immigrant community’ (Danesi, 1984, pp. 110–113).