Trilingualism

This article seeks to develop the research agenda of multilingualism and multicompetence by bringing together three research fields and their related methodologies: bilingualism, third language acquisition and language learner strategies. After a brief introduction to each area, it describes a study to explore whether bilingual adolescent students learning French in two London schools outperform their monolingual peers in reading and listening comprehension. The significant difference in bilinguals students’ listening comprehension test scores leads to in-depth analysis of qualitative data of three case study students in order to identify the differential features involved in the interaction of the languages. It appears that their greater use of oral/aural strategies is developed through the home environment; code-switching in the parental input fostering the development of the strategies. The article concludes with implications for pedagogy and for research.

This study reports on the result of ethno-linguistic research which aims to investigate whether an emerging form of code-switching among three languages, namely Cantonese, English and Putonghua, exists in Hong Kong. This study follows the research method of Sung (2010) which the author recorded his experiences as a ‘purist’ in Hong Kong: during a three-day experiment - the author employed only Cantonese, English and Putonghua, respectively. Field notes and reflective diaries were used to record the incidents of communication breakdowns resulted from the use of pure-code instead of mixed codes. Because of the recent change in language policy in which Putonghua has placed more important roles in language teaching in Hong Kong, Putonghua has been added into the current study intentionally because Sung (2010) only included Cantonese and English, which largely ignored the fact the Putonghua has become an important part in the linguistic environment of Hong Kong. The difficulties of using only pure-Cantonese, pure-English and pure-Putonghua in Hong Kong will be discussed. Also, I suggest that there exists the code-switching among Cantonese, English and Putonghua in Hong Kong because of the increasing contact with China and the new policy of using Putonghua as the Medium of Instruction (PMI) in some primary schools. Moreover, the present study suggests that the use of pure-code in these languages may hinder communication in Hong Kong. Further studies are needed on code-switching among the three languages within the younger generation of Hongkongers, especially those who attend PMI schools.

Trilingualism is a powerful fact of life in many parts of the world, including most autonomous regions inhabited by minority ethnic groups in China. Although much research has been conducted on the language attitudes of stakeholders from minority ethnic groups, the attitudinal object is usually an individual language (e.g. the ethnic language, the national language, or a foreign language). Few empirical studies have investigated 'trilingualism' as an attitudinal object. Aiming to narrow this gap, the present study examined the attitudes toward trilingualism of students from four Chinese universities and the influence of selected sociobiographical variables on their attitudes. An exploratory factor analysis showed the 'trilingualism attitudes' scale, developed for use in the present study and possibly beyond, to be unidimentional, with sufficient reliability (Cronbach alpha =.83). On this scale, the participants (N=310) achieved a mean score of 4.52 (out of five), reflecting very favourable attitudes toward trilingualism. Furthermore, regression analyses identified 'attitudes toward non-ethnic languages (viz. Putonghua and English)', 'attitudes toward the ethnic language (viz. Mongolian)', and gender as statistically significant predictors for attitudes toward trilingualism, respectively explaining 20%, 5.5%, and 1.3% of the trilingualism attitudes variance. Policy and research implications were also discussed.

This article falls in line with research carried out on Spanish as a heritage language in multilingual contexts. More specifically, it deals with beliefs about the maintenance of Spanish as a heritage language in Australia, in families whose native languages are other than the vehicular and official language of that given social context, and in turn, their native languages –both the father’s and the mother’s– are different between them. This research focuses specifically on the situation of Spanish in relation with the other heritage language (of each case) and English as a vehicular  language.

ABSTRACT Trilingualism is a powerful fact of life in many parts of the world, including most autonomous regions inhabited by minority ethnic groups in China. Although much research has been conducted on the language attitudes of stakeholders from minority ethnic groups, the attitudinal object is usually an individual language (e.g. the ethnic language, the national language, or a foreign language). Few empirical studies have investigated ‘trilingualism’ as an attitudinal object. Aiming to narrow this gap, the present study examined the attitudes toward trilingualism of students from four Chinese universities and the influence of selected sociobiographical variables on their attitudes. An exploratory factor analysis showed the ‘trilingualism attitudes’ scale, developed for use in the present study and possibly beyond, to be unidimensional, with sufficient reliability (Cronbach alpha = .83). On this scale, the participants (N = 310) achieved a mean score of 4.52 (out of five), reflecting very favourable attitudes toward trilingualism. Furthermore, regression analyses identified ‘attitudes toward non-ethnic languages (viz. Putonghua and English)’, ‘attitudes toward the ethnic language (viz. Mongolian)’, and gender as statistically significant predictors for attitudes toward trilingualism, respectively explaining 20%, 5.5%, and 1.3% of the trilingualism attitudes variance. Policy and research implications were also discussed.

This paper analyses foreign language anxiety in the French L2 and English L3 speech production of 100 Flemish students. The f indings suggest that foreign language anxiety is not a stable personality trait among experienced language learners. The societal as well as the individual contexts were found to determine levels of communicative anxiety. The perception of French as the former prestige language in Flanders and its function as a social marker was found to be linked to the participants’ social class, which was, in turn, linked to levels of anxiety in French — but not in English. This social effect appeared to be a stronger predictor of communicative anxiety in French than three personality variables (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism). Psychoticism, extraversion, and, to a lesser extent, neuroticism did however significantly predict levels of communicative anxiety in English L3 production. Students who scored high on the extraversion and psychoticism scales reported s...

This study examines the effect of prompts and recasts in providing CF for the article errors by Kurdish-Arabic bilinguals who learn English as a third language. 39 lower-intermediate Kurdish-Arabic bilingual learners of English were tested on three tests: pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests. The participants were randomly put into three groups: (1) prompt group (n =15), (2) recast group (n = 14), and (3) no feedback group (n = 10). Each group completed 28 dialogues, which included articles in a Forced Choice Elicitation Task (FCET) as a pre-test. The same test was given to the three groups as post-and delayed post-tests. Between the pre-test and the post-test, the prompt and recast groups took a treatment which involved an interactional activity that aimed the FCET, in which the former took CF in the form of prompts, and the latter took it as recasts for their article errors in L3 English. Results showed that all groups were the same in the pre-test. In addition, both the prompt and recast groups were similar in post-test but were significantly better than the group which did not receive any feedback. In delayed post-test, the prompt group significantly outperformed the other two groups. These findings suggest that prompts are more effective than recasts in providing oral feedback over the long term. The error analysis, on the other hand, revealed that among the four contexts of articles, all students had the highest error rate in the [-def, +spec] context in both pre-and post-tests. These were substitution errors rather than omission errors, which shows that the students fluctuated between definiteness and specificity settings. In delayed post-test, the prompt group significantly made fewer errors than the other two groups.

The proposed app would enable multilingual users to see how much time they spend speaking their different languages Users could compare their own language use to that of others. Meanwhile researchers could use the data to gauge levels of language use and sociolinguistic vitality.

Raising a multilingual family can be both confusing and fulfilling. The authors, all multilingual parents and researchers on multilingualism, aim to provide advice and inspiration for multilingual families across the world. The latest research is used to provide a friendly, accessible guide to raising and nurturing happy multilingual children.

RESUMEN

El objetivo de la presente investigación es explorar y comprender mejor el uso de las lenguas no oficiales en el aula de la escuela pública luxemburguesa. Esta escuela, así como el país, está construida a través de un discurso de multilingüismo y multiculturalismo inherente a su historia y a su actualidad. Este artículo pretende ir más allá explorando cómo profesores plurilingües afrontan la realidad del aula cuando tienen un recién llegado que solo habla portugués. Además, se explora una modificación en el trato hacia la diversidad cuando a lo largo del curso académico se produce un cambio de profesor. A partir de los datos aquí analizados, se puede inferir, entre otros, que un sistema multilingüe no tiene por qué ser un sistema abierto a las lenguas, pudiendo ser también un sistema que interpreta el trilingüismo del país como un sistema monolingüe. Una mayor apertura a las lenguas y una menor compartimentación de las mismas por parte de los profesores serían unas de las claves a considerar para el futuro en un sistema educativo como el luxemburgués.

ABSTRACT

“Idealised trilingualism and non-official language use in the Luxembourgish school”

The present research aims to explore and better understand the use of non-official languages in the Luxembourgish public school. This school, as the country, is built via a discourse of multilingualism and multiculturalism as inherent to its history and present days. This article pretends to go further and explore how plurilingual teachers confront the reality in their classrooms when they receive a newcomer who speaks only Portuguese. Furthermore, this article explores a modification in the treatment of diversity when a change of teacher takes place during the academic year. From the data here analysed it can be inferred, among others, that a multilingual system is not necessarily a language awareness one, and that it can also be a system where the country’s trilingualism is interpreted as a monolingual system. A language awareness approach and a lesser compartmentalization of languages by the teachers would be key to consider for the future of the Luxembourgish educational system.

L'article lr de la Llei del 24 de febrer de 1984 sobre el règim de llengües diu que "la llengua nacional dels luxemburguesos es el luxemburguès". En realitat, però, el luxemburguès, dialecte germànic oficialitzat com a "llengua" malgrat la manca de consciència lingüística diferencial dels seus parlants, compleix purament una funciô simbòlica: com que Luxemburg es una nació té la seva pròpia llengua. De fet, les funcions socialment importants son fetes per les llengues alemanya i francesa, que son les pròpies de l'educaciô escolar, dels mitjans de comunicació, l'administració municipal i estatal, etc., mentre que la llengua luxemburguesa ocupa l'àmbit d'ús mes popular: la conversa informal en família o al carrer i l'educaciô pre-escolar. Amb tot, els anys darrers el luxemburguès ha accedit, encara que en molt petita proporciô, a diversos àmbits formais: els debats parlamentaris, els tribunals, la ràdio i la televisiô, la premsa escrita... Es pot parlar, doncs, d'una triglòssia luxemburguesa, on la "llengua nacional" és una modalitat B condicionada per dues modalitats A. Quin es, aixi, el futur de la llengua luxemburguesa? Si és innegable que ha fet un cert avanç en el camí de la normalització, no ho es menys que n'és encara molt lluny i que, contraposada a llengües d'un pes molt fort internacionalment (el francès i l'alemany sobretot, però també l'anglès, omnipresent als mitjans de comunicació) o cada vegada mes presents al Gran Ducat per mor de la immigració (portuguès, italià, serbo-croat...), s'enfronta a un esdevenidor incert i insegur.

This thesis examines how a two-year-old child handles caregivers' requests for actions in everyday interactions (including ‘directives’, ‘suggestions’, ‘proposals’, ‘entreaties’, etc.). Child research has shown that children at an early age are already able to refuse or reject using a range of multimodal resources, including body actions, gestures, vocalizations and verbal negation (e.g. Beaupoil-Hourdel, Dominique, & Morgenstern, 2015). Using these resources, children may respond to requests in a variety of ways, as identified in previous studies of family interactions, ranging from a swift and embodied compliance all the way to defiance, with various types of compliance and noncompliance-implicative responses in-between (Kent, 2012b, 2012a). The various responses may show children's assertion of agency, rights, display of affective stances and management of participation framework (e.g. Aronsson & Cekaite, 2011; Goodwin, 2006; Goodwin, Cekaite, & Goodwin, 2012). The present study focuses on some resistanceimplicative actions (specifically non-responses and non-responding verbal turns) as well as outright non-compliance. The aim of the present study is to develop an interactional account of how a young child handles imposing situations with the help of verbal and multimodal resources and how different responding actions may lead to different sequential trajectories . Very young children have already acquired skills like joint attention (Kidwell & Zimmerman, 2007; Tomasello, 1995, 1999) and rudimentary forms of turn-taking that are necessary to engage with others in interactions (e.g. Casillas, 2014; Filipi, 2009; Garvey, 1984). My interest is in how a young child's developing mind may be observable through the ways in which they formulate actions in interaction with their caregivers in locally, publicly and morally significant ways (Carpendale & Lewis, 2006; Kidwell, 2013; Wootton, 1997). Ten hours of video recordings are transcribed and analysed in detail from a larger corpus collected biweekly during the child's second and third 12 year interacting with his Italian father, Chinese mother and Filipino Englishspeaking babysitter in a domestic environment. In line with CA (Conversation Analysis) methodology, the analysis relies on participants' orientations to their own and others’ actions, the timing and design of the child and the caregivers’ actions as well as the organization of sequences. It is found that in response to a variety of impositions from the adult, the child may show his inclination towards non-compliance in a number of ways. He may disattend the adult’s request by not giving a response (= ‘nonresponse’); or he may withhold a responsive action during a joint activity or withdraw engagement to avoid perceived upcoming ‘troubles’. Also during caregivers' pursuits, instead of responding, the child may initiate a new course of action by directing his interlocutor's attention away from the current focus (and he may initiate hurriedly to pre-empt further pursuits). This may result in a reversal of the initiator-responder roles, thus momentarily postponing or diverting the sequence. Finally, a closer examination of instances of bald resistance reveals that some no's, in comparison with I don't want, may display a heightened sense of entitlement in dealing with the adults’ impositions. In addition to contributing to studies of requests and directives in adult-child interaction, it is hoped that the thesis may help advance research on children's acquisition of social understanding. Implications for preference organization in interactions, agency, language acquisition, multilingualism and socialization are also discussed.

The State policy of the three of languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan suggests speaking three languages: Kazakh as a state language, Russian as a language of international communication and English as a language of successful integration into global economics. With more than 130 nationalities living in Kazakhstan, most of the population is bilingual (Kazakh and Russian). People's studying of English is motivated by the government programmes on the development at all stages of education. Introduction of trilingualism at the Universities provides opening English departments, systematic work on publishing and translation of University textbooks into English and studying languages based on international standards. All teachers who participated in the survey chose Kazakh as their mother tongue and 87.50% of them are bilingual. The survey results show that 75% of respondents consider themselves trilingual, whereas 25% of them are not sure whether their knowledge of one language matches the level of the others. According to the teachers, the most difficult matter in teaching subjects in English for them is using correct grammar and verb forms in their speech (50%); choosing appropriate methods of teaching (12.5%); finding and selecting necessary study materials (12.5%) and listening and speaking (12.5%). At the same time 12.5% of respondents have no difficulties at all in the process of teaching in English. The best way of improving English, as the teachers think, is reading books in English (37.5%). 25% of teachers suggest practicing English with a native speaker or improving the language skills abroad. 86.36% of students are bilingual and 65.91% of them are trilingual. All students (100%) responded that they like studying in English and 72.73% of them are satisfied with the process and level of teaching in English. 25% students see benefits in gaining and enhancing knowledge with the help of English, which helps them better communicate with foreign people (20.5%). 13.6% of students reported that studying in English is interesting, helpful and just a great experience being a wide source of information and first access to world literature (11.4%). Besides, knowledge of English opens an expanding perspective, opportunities for a future profession and makes it possible to develop into a qualified specialist (11.4%). 9.1% students surveyed that knowing English they can participate in academic exchanges, study medicine in foreign countries and work abroad. English is the key to confidence, self-popularization (6.8%) and enhanced mental activity (2.2%). Teaching and studying in English is challenging for the teachers and students of the University yet offering new skills and opportunities in their career path.