Societal Multilingualism

Ecology of language: the study of interactions between any given language and its environment

Ecology of language (McArthur)

• English and world languages
• idea of a "world language"
• interaction of the world's languages and communicative technologies
• bilingualism
• size, security, and health of the global linguistic in heritance

Terms

• Complex
• Standard
• Dialect
• Variety
• Accent
• Pidgin
• Creole
• Lingua Franca

Complex: language that has a wide reach in terms of scale, distribution, number and ranges of its varieties, technical and professional applications, number of its users, and its use as a mother tongue or another tongue.

Standard: a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse

Dialect: a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group

Variety: a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety

Accent: a distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class.

Pidgin: a grammatically simplified form of a language, used for communication between people not sharing a common language.

Creole: a mother tongue formed from the contact of two languages through an earlier pidgin stage

Lingua franca: a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.

How do we evaluate the prevalence of language?

How does society influence our perception of languages?

Ideology of assimilation

• common language is necessary for national unity & economic productivity
• common language resolves social differences
• fear that language diversity will lead to political disunity and potential violence
• foreign & minority languages are often seen as problems to overcome rather than resources to be fostered

How are things today? What was your experience with foreign language in schools?