Bilingualism, Multilingualism and Identity

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Bilingualism, Multilingualism and Identity

• M. Cristina Caimotto

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Bilingual what does it mean?

• In this chapter I use the terms bilingualism
  and multilingualism interchangeably to refer
  to the routine use of two or more languages in a
  community (Romaine 385)

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Defining communities

• Which communities do you belong to?
• At any given time a persons identity is a
  heterogeneous set made up of all the names or
  identities, given to and taken up by her.
  (Tabouret-Keller 316)
• individual identity and social identity are
  mediated by language Language features are the
  link which binds individual and social identities
  together (317)

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Defining communities

• What is crucial to most definitions of
  community is the sense of perceived solidarity
  and interaction based on reference to a
  particular language and the relationships among
  people who identify themselves as members of that
  community. (Romaine 387)

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Language and boundaries

• Language and the identities they carry with them
  generally imply a boundary marking function The
  same identity prevails where and as long as the
  same language is spoken. Has this ever been true?
  (Tabouret-Keller 319)

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Linguistic minorities

• The label minority if often simply a euphemism
  for non-elite or subordinate groups, whether they
  constitute a numerical majority or minority in
  relation to some other group that is politically
  and socially dominant (Romaine 389)

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Language legitimacy

• Naming a language
• reification and totemization of it
• Reification involves some body of doctrine
  (grammars, lexicons, a literature)
• Totemization is the adoption of a language as one
  of the defining social properties of a group.
  (Tabouret-Keller 318)

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Why are people bilingual?

• Economic necessity
• Civil servants (administrative policies)
• Prestige (language of the educated such as Latin
  and Greek)
• Religion
• DIGLOSSIA high and low variety functional
  specialization between languages (Romaine 393)

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Accomodation theory

• Convergence and divergence (Giles in
  Tabouret-Keller 322)
• Giles theory people adjust their speech style
  to be socially integrated into existing groups.
• Le Pages theory groups only exist in the minds
  of individuals and speech acts are acts of
  projection

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Identification process (Tabouret-Keller 324)

• Not envisioned in the frame of a dual
  relationship between A (groups) and B individuals
  but
• Identification between A and B is possible only
  insofar as these two have access to and are part
  of C ( language as the foundation of human
  condition)
• Making sense means to depend on words

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An English-speaking community?

• There are more speakers of English as a second
  language than there are native English speakers
• Diglossia on an international scale
• Bilingual countries were created not to promote
  bilingualism, but to guarantee the maintenance
  and use of two or more languages in the same
  nation (Romaine 398)

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Closing debate

• Is linguistic diversity positive or negative?
• How is it perceived?

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Thank you

• mariacristina.caimotto_at_unito.it