The multiplicities of multilingual interaction

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how the authors to the papers in this issue understand how communication takes place when interlocutors use different named languages or use different semiotic resources to make meaning. The paper looks at the many ways in which this question is answered, since multilingual interaction takes place at different societal levels, in different social spaces, and with very different interlocutors. It also explores the factors that make multilingual interactions successful. In particular it looks at whether the success depends on the features chosen by the languager, or the willingness of the listener to infer the message. The differences between multilingualism, plurilingualism, and translanguaging are explored. The paper also brings together the factors identified by the authors as making successful interaction possible – an attitude of openness, flexibility and respect toward the language, an ability to shuttle among semiotic features in different scales, and the use of strategies of negotiation.

KEYWORDS:

• Interactions
• multilingualism
• plurilingualism
• translanguaging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ofelia García is a Professor in the Ph.D. programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. GarcÃa has published widely in the areas of bilingualism and bilingual education, the education of emergent bilinguals, sociology of language, and language policy. She is the General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and the co-editor of Language Policy (with H. Kelly-Holmes). Among her best-known books are Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective; and Translanguaging; Language, Bilingualism and Education (with Li Wei), which received the 2015 British Association of Applied Linguistics Award. In 2017 she received the Charles Ferguson Award in Applied Linguistics and the AERA Lifetime Career Award in Bilingual Education. She is a member of the National Academy of Education.

ORCID

Ofelia García http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1405-9965

Notes

1 I have decided to use the term ‘languager’ instead of ‘speaker/hearer’ or even interlocutor, so as not to privilege spoken languages and hearing subjects over signed languages and the Deaf.