The plurilingual social actor. Language, citizenship and education

Abstract

The paper critically discusses key theoretical concepts and definitions attached to the notion of a ‘plurilingual social actor’, and assesses their impact and implications for European language policies and for the development of plurilingualism and citizenship in schools.

Keywords:

• pluringual social actor
• repertoire
• plurilingual competence
• plural identity
• Council of Europe
• language policy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Fredia Woolf (Boston) and our anonymous assessors for their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. It is not our intention here to offer an elaborate conception of the social actor. Let us simply justify our preference of theoretical models of reference regarding the term ‘plurilingual social actor’. Without entering into a hot sociological debate (which has become ideological and political) for which we are by no means qualified, let us say that our affinity lies rather with Giddens (1984) than with Bourdieu (both attempt to link the actor or individual agent and social structures). Of particular interest to us is the importance, the former attaches to the definition and roles of different types of reflexivity in the relationship between the individual and social structure. Within an educational perspective, and without necessarily adhering to Giddens’ political position, his model of the social agent seems more dynamic and more ‘positive’ in terms of the possibilities for individual development and social change. De Singly (2006) points out that Giddens has not been widely acclaimed in France and explicit references to his thought are few and far between within the field of sociology here, but this does not mean, of course, that his influence is not perceptible.

2. We maintain in theory, that in European societies, and more broadly speaking in contemporary ‘western’ societies, all socialisation is also a process of individualisation. In particular, education systems defend educational plans and projects aimed at educating and producing responsible and autonomous individuals and not conformists, identical to one another. But this process of individualisation functions only when an interactive relationship is established with social entities and environments.

3. In order to lighten our terminology, ‘socialisation’ will often, in the following parts of this article, be used as referring de facto to ‘socialisation/individualisation’.

4. Communities (affiliation communities – those to which we belong – or reference communities – those we aspire to belong to). ‘Community’ here may refer to different types of grouping: national or regional, ethnic or religious, professional, scientific, etc.

5. Our translation into English of the French text defining «répertoire» as an «Ensemble d'unités linguistiques et de lois d'assemblage de ces unités (phonologiques, morpho-syntaxiques, lexico-sémantiques) dont dispose le sujet pour décoder la parole. Cette notion fait référence à la connaissance plus ou moins consciente que le sujet a de sa langue».

6. Our translation from the French: Le bilinguisme c'est «la faculté de recourir à deux ou plusieurs langues et le bilingue est la personne qui se sert régulièrement de deux langues dans la vie de tous les jours».

7. If we bring to mind certain International movements like ATTAC International (Association pour la Taxation des Transactions pour l'Aide aux Citoyens), which make a claim to world citizenship.

8. But the opposite, is of course also possible!

9. The Guide for the development of language education policies in Europe (Beacco & Byram, 2007) suggests many other lines along which to pursue this work. It is worth noting in particular the diversified approaches which may be grouped under the generic name of ‘language awareness’ (cf. Candelier, 2003a; De Pietro, 2005) and those mentioned by both Cavalli (2005) and Moore (2006), and, in a slightly different perspective, Gajo (2001).

10. Without making any hasty amalgamations or over-generalising, it is nonetheless useful to bring to mind theories of identity and the continual and on-going process of identification, these being influenced and determined by narrativity, the reflection, the relationship to ‘otherness’. The reference to Ricoeur's work, then, and his analyses (Ricoeur, 1990) may be disproportionate, but is certainly illuminating.

11. Some of these are discussed in publications, such as Billiez (1998), Castellotti (2001), Castellotti et al. (2008), Cavalli (2005), Mochet et al. (2005), Moore (2006), Perregaux et al. (2003), Prudent, Tupin, and Wharton (2005) and Simon and Sabatier (2003) amongst others.