Multilingualism and Mobility in Europe

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KRISTINE HORNER

Introduction: Multilingualism and mobility in European context

1 Language policies and practices in contemporary Europe

Given the historical trajectories and present-day configurations of multilingualism in Europe as a whole and the ways that multilingualism currently is being managed and experienced in different European states and territories, the European context provides a fruitful location to explore questions situated at the cutting edge of sociolinguistic inquiry, in particular research on language policies and practices. Ricento (2000, 208) maintains that it is agency or “the role(s) of individuals and collectivities in the processes of language use, attitudes and ultimately policies” that distinguishes recent studies on language policy from earlier work in the field. Moreover, Shohamy (2006) encourages us to explore the interface between policy and practice as well as the multiple devices or “mechanisms” that function to implement language policy. The objective of this volume is to contribute to our understanding of the interface between language policy mechanisms and practices in educational and additional sites, as well as the ways that individuals experience multilingualism and mobility in the context of Europeanization and globalisation.

Against this backdrop, we are spotlighting the interface between multilingualism and mobility because this interface raises questions and yields findings that have the potential to forge new directions in sociolinguistics. By placing the emphasis on the identity and power relations between social actors, this volume responds to Bauman’s (1998) call for exploring how global processes are impacting on the lives of real people in diverse ways, particularly in relation to various aspects of mobility. The contributors study the language policies and practices that shape and are shaped by these social, political and economic processes. The interface between the conceptual axes of multilingualism and mobility prompts contributors to grapple with forms of cognitive, social and spatial mobility in relation to linguistic practices and policies, as well as the valorisation and stigmatisation of multilingual repertoires. Interactions, identities and ideologies are the sociolinguistic lenses ← 9 | 10 → through which rich qualitative data is analyzed and related to the broader research context. While many of the chapters are focused on sites in France, Germany and Luxembourg, other chapters take us to La Réunion, Hungary and Moldova and therewith broaden the scope of inquiry. The contributors are sensitive to particularities of countries and regions due to their specific socio-historical contexts; yet, the volume as a whole reveals certain points of intersection across research sites.

2 Perspectives on multilingualism and mobility

Each chapter of the book explores how individuals are experiencing multilingualism and mobility in relation to social, political and economic change. Inspired in large part by pioneering work in sociolinguistics (e.g. Gumperz/ Hymes 1972), contributors take a fine-grained approach to the study of multilingual repertoires and language in social context. In this way, the chapters in this volume also resonate with more recent studies within the ambit of the sociolinguistics of globalization (e.g. Blommaert 2010) and similar approaches that call for recognition of language as resource and encourage creative forms of language use. At the same time, the contributions in this volume grapple with the fact that social actors often encounter multiple constraints or even barriers when trying to make full use of their multilingual repertoires in certain contexts. As a result, we gain insights into the varying and sometimes conflicting perceptions of multilingualism that impact on the lives of real people. The chapters are informed by interdisciplinary impulses which in particular draw on cognate work in educational studies, psychology, sociology and cultural geography. In this way, the concept of mobility is also explored from multiple perspectives including cognitive, social and spatial ones.

Building on early and contemporary research on language in society as well as research in related fields, the following chapters provide fresh insights on key issues in sociolinguistics and language policy via discussion of original data from multiple sites. The book is divided into two main parts: educational sites and additional sites. The chapters in part one investigate educational sites and cover pre-school, primary and secondary education. The chapters in part two offer a wide range of additional sites, encompassing the study of language policies at the level of the state, diverse multilingual practices in families and also the complex interface between multilingualism and space.

2.1 Multilingualism and mobility in educational sites

Focused on language acquisition and linguistic resources of children of Turkish descent in Berlin, the opening chapter by Carol Pfaff sketches key findings from multiple studies conducted over a period of 35 years. Her discussion underlines ← 10 | 11 → three sets of transformations impacting on this line of research: demographic fluctuations in Germany and especially in Berlin, changes in policies and perceptions vis-à-vis people of non-German origins in Germany and, finally, shifts in sociolinguistic paradigms and research priorities. This chapter flags up the value of taking a holistic approach to the study of multilingual repertoires and it highlights the ways that forms of cognitive, social and spatial mobility overlap. With a focus on aspects of development among children of Turkish descent in France, Büşra Hamurcu explores the myriad links between gesturing and language acquisition and cogently argues that gesturing constitutes a key aspect of languaging. Highlighting the need to break away from a monolingual norm in research on gesturing, this chapter shows how pre-school children’s use of gesture is linked to multilingual family practices and how gesture is bound up with the children’s multilingual repertoires. The chapters by Hamurcu and Pfaff demonstrate that people make use of their complex multilingual repertoires and aspects of cognitive mobility if they are provided with the opportunity to do so.

The following two chapters discuss language-in-education policy with specific reference to bilingual programmes in France in the context of European and global transformations that are shaping these localized policies. Yan-Zhen Chen focuses on the increased interest in teaching Chinese as a foreign language and reveals tensions inherent to the implementation of the programmes in Chinese sections. Chen explains how the Chinese that is being taught is not necessarily what would be most useful in everyday communication. In other words, the programmes do not correspond to the diverse linguistic practices of Chinese speakers despite official discourses explicitly promoting plurilingualism. In a related vein, Christine Hélot and Valérie Fialais zone in on bilingual French-German programmes in Alsace and demonstrate that these programmes tend to ignore the rich multilingual repertoires of the people participating in them. The one teacher/one language policy implemented in these programmes is rooted in a “monoglossic ideology” that stigmatizes translanguaging. Hélot and Fialais argue that it is only by allowing and encouraging translanguaging that one best enables the development of multilingual repertoires. These chapters reveal how polices that claim to promote bi-/multilingualism can somewhat ironically impede people from using and developing multilingual repertoires due to monolingual norms with their roots in European politics of the long nineteenth century.

French language-in-education policy is explored in relation to issues of empowerment and disempowerment in the final two chapters of this section. Tímea Kádas Pickel underlines the importance of encouraging immigrant children to reconstruct and negotiate identity by means of their multilingual repertoires. Taking a cooperative project with young people in Mulhouse as a convincing example, she shows how various aspects of the project enable participants to “break the silence” by drawing on their full linguistic resources. Kádas Pickel’s research reminds us of the complex links between language and ← 11 | 12 → identity and also that people can and do make productive use of their first language(s) to acquire additional ones. Taking us to the periphery of the French state, the chapter by Pascale Prax-Dubois zones in on the colonial legacy and language-in-education policy in La Réunion. She shows how students and teachers experience degrees of linguistic and professional insecurity and makes the argument that the local “assistantes de maternelle” can play a key role in fostering positive self-identity and language development, and in improving the overall well-being of various social actors in La Réunion. Together, the chapters by Prax-Dubois and Kádas Pickel signal the need for cooperation between teachers, students and other participants in educational settings, and also underline the importance of valorizing diversified linguistic repertoires and the creative use of these resources.

2.2 Multilingualism and mobility in additional sites

Part two begins with two chapters that focus on institutionalized policies of the state and related issues of language and power as well as language and nation. Anna Weirich takes us to Moldova where there has recently been significant social, political and economic change, which is bound up with “majorizing” processes impacting on forms of linguistic valorization and stigmatization. She shows how the Moldovan Military Academy – which on the surface promotes multilingualism – covertly works to marginalize speakers of linguistic repertoires that are regarded as different to those of the majorized core. Joanna Kremer’s chapter explores the recent policy requiring applicants for Luxembourgish nationality to pass a formalized language exam in Luxembourgish, which is not clearly regarded by all as the “majority” language in trilingual Luxembourg. Her analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals that some participants echo dominant discourse that normalizes the policy of testing Luxembourgish, whereas other participants diverge from this perspective and challenge the normalization of this recently implemented policy. These chapters highlight the continued role of the state apparatuses in shaping language policy in the late modern era while they also underline diverse reactions to language policies perpetuated by the state.

Shifting to what is often considered to be one of the most “private” sites of language policy, the focus of the next two chapters is on the negotiation of language use in the family. Annie Flore Made Mbe’s chapter discusses how couples living in Luxembourg use languages before and after the birth of their children, in particular how they tend to initially prioritize the language(s) of their initial encounters in the early years. Although in most cases there are attempts to implement the one-parent-one-language strategy due to perceived benefits of this approach, Made Mbe shows how family language policy can and does change once children develop social networks beyond the family sphere. Angélique Bouchés-Rémond-Rémont explores family language policy among ← 12 | 13 → francophone parents residing in France, with specific focus on why and how they have opted to include and prioritize the use of English in their family sphere. Bouchés-Rémond-Rémont shows that the parents’ motivations are linked to personal experiences and utilitarian reasons alike. These chapters both flag up the significance of a multilayered approach to language policy and show that policies propagated at the level of the state do not necessarily coincide with those in the family. At the same time, it appears that these layers of language policy can potentially co-exist harmoniously although this depends on various contextual factors.

The final chapters in part two grapple with the interface between language and space in various ways. Stefan Karl Serwe and Ingrid de Saint-Georges take us to a small immigrant-owned shop in Germany and discuss the multilingual practice of designing shelf labels – with German and Thai handwritten on them – and the significance of this practice for the shopkeeper in catering to her diverse clientele. Their geosemiotic analysis provides insights on the internationalization of local markets, scales of multilingualism and individual geographical mobility through the lens of the shopkeeper’s personal multilingual trajectory and how she navigates everyday transculturality. Jenny Carl examines how ethnic Germans in Sopron/Oedenburg on the Austro-Hungarian border talk about the town and the languages they speak and, in particular, whether they use place names in different languages in their narratives. The focus on place names and mental maps in different languages shows how descriptions of ways of life position the individual not just in a geographical but also a social environment that permits or prohibits them from moving, acting or belonging.

Patrick Stevenson’s closing chapter explores migration and multilingualism though the analysis of language biographies of inhabitants of one apartment building in an inner city district in Berlin. He demonstrates how the biographical perspective allows us to obtain a highly refined and multi-dimensional understanding of multilingual societies marked by various forms of mobility. Indeed, the three final chapters suggest that the interface between language and space can best be understood by means of ethnographic methods in combination with a high degree of researcher reflexivity.

3 Further avenues of exploration

The chapters in this volume contribute to developments in the field of sociolinguistics, on the one hand by means of insights obtained from findings across a range of European sites through the lens of perspectives on multilingualism and mobility and on the other hand, by casting these findings in relation to paradigms in different disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Taken as a whole, the chapters underline the importance of situating the study of language policy and practice in relation to three key points. First, it ← 13 | 14 → is essential to identify the broader social, political and economic transformations that are impacting on language policies and practices, for example migration patterns within Europe and to/from Europe as well as the spread of global English. Second, taking a fine-grained approach to exploring how these transformations are bound up with the ways that individuals experience the relationship between multilingualism and mobility yields valuable insights on the nuances of language policies and practices. Third, the identification of certain disjunctures between language policies and practices enables us to explore issues of power and identity and it can even enable researchers to play a role in empowering participants by providing them with more of a voice.

Future research should continue to consider how paradigms informing sociolinguistic research can be adapted so that we are best equipped to grapple with fluctuations in the European and global contexts. Language policy is a multilayered process and it is therefore necessary to consider events unfolding above and below the level of the state, while bearing in mind the continued importance of the state even if it is being challenged during the late modern period. Insights obtained from the interdisciplinary interface between sociolinguistics, education studies and cultural geography appear to be particularly crucial because educational experiences and spatial configurations constitute key points of orientation in relation to language policies and practices. To this end, it is desirable for researchers in cognate fields with shared goals to work together, so that we can obtain a more holistic understanding of the ways that real people are experiencing diverse forms of multilingualism and mobility in an era marked by significant transformations.

References

Bauman, Zygmunt (1998): Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press

Blommaert, Jan (2010): The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Gumperz, John/Hymes, Dell (eds) (1972): Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. London: Blackwell

Ricento, Thomas (2000): Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4, 2, p. 196-213

Shohamy, Elana (2006): Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. Abingdon: Routledge