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<DIV><SPAN class=312220518-28102004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Which
is why, following the Council of Europe, it makes more sense to speak about
plurilingual proficiency than to use the term bilingual.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=312220518-28102004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Bernard</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
[mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu] <B>On Behalf Of
</B>hsmr@gol.com<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, October 28, 2004 2:44
PM<BR><B>To:</B> lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B>
MP-Lingualism - It's not what you
think.<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>MonoPlus-Lingualism<BR><BR>Reluctant to employ the
word bilingualism in any context that does not include equal ability in two or
more languages, of which one is one's mother tongue (mother tongue employed in
its strictest sense), and equally dissatisfied with the term multilingualism
used in the bilingual context that I have just defined, I have decided to coin
a new term -- mono-plus lingualism (mp-lingualism) for short.<BR><BR>Quite
frankly I am tired of being told that I live in a bilingual world, when the
majority of those who claim to be bilingual can barely hold a comfortable
conversation in their second tongue. Indeed, anyone who can say hello and
good-bye in more than one tongue, nowadays, calls himself bilingual. The term
is simply no longer meaningful. Even my own definition of bilingualism breaks
down, when one considers David Balosa's and my discussion about wardrobes and
language carefully. <BR><BR>MP-lingualism captures the notion that there are
many degrees of language acquisition and use, and that one cannot meaningfully
compare across language communties until one has first defined what level and
type of acquisition is being compared. <BR><BR>For example, is a nation that
can read in two languages, but can only speak in one bilingual? is a nation
that can barely tell you how to find your way to the next street corner in the
local, wide-area language, and barely knows what is written on the back or
front of his own t-shirt in the same wide-area language, bilingual? Is a
nation in which everyone can tell you how to get to the next street corner in
the wide-area language, but forces you to say the same thing in four different
ways in that same language, before communication is finally achieved,
bilingual? Only poorly so.<BR><BR>Is the world becoming more mp-lingual? Yes.
Is it bringing the world closer together? Probably not. People feel close when
communication is easy, and they know what to expect. This is rarely the case
in multiethnic urban settings, where everyone speaks a different language, and
few can speak the wide-community language very well.<BR><BR>Human beings are
creatures of habit, and in the absence of habit there is anarchy. Language is
a part of that habit, and if the habit is not developed, maintained and well
understood by most, it becomes useless as a means of healthy social
interaction.<BR><BR>R. A. Stegemann<BR>EARTH's Manager and HKLNA-Project
Director<BR>EARTH - East Asian Research and Translation in Hong
Kong<BR>http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/<BR>Tel/Fax: 852 2630 0349<?/fontfamily></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>