MP-lingualism - It's not what you think!

[Joe Lo Bianco]

The point abuot reading what one does not speak has to consider diachrony
as well as here and now.  The French missionaries, and their Portuguese
predecessors, in Vietnam devised romanised forms of Vietnamese over several
centuries as phonology guides to allow them to learn the
language.  Vietnamese at the time was written in an adaptation of Chinese
characters and most writing in Vietnam was undertaken in Chinese (the
language and the characters).  There are many instances in which the system
devised by these people, especially Alexandre de Rhodes,  allowed them to
read it too, but they could not speak it.  We always have variable
proficiencies like this. I can read a lot of French and regularly read Le
Monde but my speaking skill would not get me admitted to the Academie
francaise.  We have variable and multiple and varying proficiencies and
performances. It is important that we do not imagine language proficiency,
or, indeed, language performance, in fixed ways, though of course at
particular points in time they can be indeed be measured and be described
and ranked etc.  The Vietnamese example is instructive here too.  At the
turn of the 20th century Vietnam had "available" to it three languages and
four writing systems, Chinese in Chinese (Chu Han), Vietnamese in
Characters (Chu Nom), and French in French and Vietnamese in roman
orthography, and it was the latter, Quoc Ngu as it came to be called, which
prevailed, because it overcame its initial religious proselytising
associations and linked with political nationalism, and Ho Chi Minh's sense
of facilitated mass literacy.  Since most people only spoke local dialectal
forms, and not the standardised H form, diglossia and trigraphia combined
to make the language that people read not the language they used
ordinarily.  Indeed today, most people who read Tamil do not speak the high
form in which it is written, with lexical choices that are radically unlike
spoken Tamil (Hal is the expert on this).

So we can, and who societies do, often speak very differently from what
they read.




At 07:50 AM 29/10/2004, you wrote:
>Hamo,
>not to steal Anthea's thunder (which I'm sure is
>forthcoming), but here goes...
>
> > Just what do you consider a large proportion of Hong
> > Kongers? Five,  ten, or fifteen percent who one
>might consider trilingual? Ten, twenty,  or thirty
>percent who one might consider bilingual? For this,
>all of  Hong Kong should be considered a trilingual,
>biliterate territory?
>
>If you mean "bilingual" rather than "biliterate", by
>all means. "Bilingual countries" in which all or even
>most of the inhabitants are bilingual are certainly
>the exception rather than the rule. But more
>importantly, I think you're confusing different levels
>of analysis -- individual lg. ABILITIES with larger
>territorial lg. ECOLOGIES. For this reason, some
>prefer to consider that "individuals are bilingual (or
>not), countries are diglossic". Theoretically you
>could have a completely diglossic nation with hardly
>any bilingual individuals in it.
>
> > 3) How is it that a nation can read, what is not
> > spoken? It is quite  easy. One develops a spoken
>form of L2 that employs an L1 phonological  system. In
>Japan it is called katakana-English and written above
>English language text to facilitate pronunciation.
>
>Well, clearly "reading" (like language!) is more about
>comprehension and meaningful use, than mechanical
>pronunciation. With a pronunciation guide, I could
>sound out printed Yoruba or Japanese or whatever, but
>doesn't doesn't mean I speak OR read that language!
>
> > What most Hong Kongers have mastered is a fairly
> > good verbal understanding of the English alphabet.
>
>???
>
> > East  Asian languages are far more graphic than
>their
> > Western counterparts.
>
>PLEASE don't confuse languages with writing systems. I
>thought we were talking about bilingualism here! As
>Anthea pointed out before, the question of literacy is
>quite a different one. Plenty (dare I say millions?)
>of people are bilingual without being literate in ANY
>language.
>
> > As such, one often understands what one cannot speak
>even in one's  native language.
>
>What??
>
> > 4) Your functional definition of bilingualism is
> > exactly what I am  seeking to eschew with
>mp-lingualism. I can tell a lost Hong Konger how  to
>get from one point to the next in his own native
>tongue, but I  hardly consider myself bilingual in
>Cantonese.
>
>You still haven't explained what's wrong with that
>"functional definition of bilingualism." Sounds to me
>like you ARE bilingual in Cantonese (at least
>incipiently so), just not FLUENT.
>
> >  most people who depend on a
> > particular language for their livelihood find
> > themselves highly
> > disadvantaged, if they cannot read what others can.
>
>It totally depends on what sort of society they live
>in. No one's denying that literacy is a distinct
>advantage for many, but it's irrelevant for assessing
>bilingualism per se.
>
> > 6) If defining a multilingual society means that
> > different people speak  different languages, and
>some people speak more than one, then most  societies
>are likely multilingual.
>
>!!Precisely!!
>
>Aurolyn
>
>
>
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Joseph Lo Bianco

Professor of Language and Literacy Education
LLAE, Faculty of Education
The University of Melbourne
3010 VIC   Australia

Tel:    03 8344 8346
Fax:    03 8344 8612
Mob: 0407 798 978
Email: j.lobianco at unimelb.edu.au