Intercomprehension between Romance Languages and the role of English: a study of multilingual chat rooms

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the role English plays in multilingual chat rooms in Romance Languages. We intend to demonstrate how English, even as forbidden language in this particular setting, is a mediation and a remediation tool. Our conclusions point out that: (1) English is an constructive resource in multilingual communication; (2) it has a positive impact on multilingual education; and (3) it participates in individuals' management of intercomprehension in Romance Languages.

Keywords:

• multilingualism
• plurilingualism
• strategic competence
• EFL
• language attitudes
• language status

Notes

1. This plurilingual competence is hence understood as integrating the plurilingual resources of all interlocutors and being developed and transformed through (inter)action.

2. About this demagogy, U. Ammon states that ‘most countries or language communities also try to promote or spread their own language and would welcome its standings as the world language of science with the accompanying privileges’ (2007, p. 126). See also Vigner (2008) about the ‘politiquement correct’ within linguistic policy discourse in Europe.

3. GALANET (Plateforme pour le développement de l'intercompréhension en Langues Romanes) was a Socrates/Lingua Project, coordinated by Christian Degache of the Université Stendhal, Grenoble 3 (France), which included six other institutions: Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), Università de Cassino (Italy), Université Lumière Lyon 2 (France) and Université de Mons-Hainault (Belgium). For further information and access to the team publications, please visit the website www.galanet.eu. The same research group is currently working in a new project: GALAPRO (for further information and access to the team publications, please visit the website www.galapro.eu).

4. All the episodes are presented as originally produced by the students. The languages are identified as follows: EN (English), FR (French), IT (Italian), PT (Portuguese) and ES (Spanish).

5. We recall the definition provided in Section 1 where it is said that ‘a person can call flexibly upon different parts of this competence to achieve effective communication with a particular interlocutor’.