27.229, Review: Applied Ling; Lang Acq; Socioling: Horner, de Saint-Georges, Weber (2014)

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Subject: 27.229, Review: Applied Ling; Lang Acq; Socioling: Horner, de Saint-Georges, Weber (2014)

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Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2016 16:47:04
From: Machteld Meulleman [machteld.meulleman at univ-reims.fr]
Subject: Multilingualism and Mobility in Europe

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-2742.html

AUTHOR: Kristine  Horner
AUTHOR: Ingrid  de Saint-Georges
EDITOR: Jean-Jacques  Weber
TITLE: Multilingualism and Mobility in Europe
SUBTITLE: Policies and Practices
SERIES TITLE: Series: Sprache, Mehrsprachigkeit und sozialer Wandel. Language. Multilinguism and Social Change. Langue, multilinguisme et changement social - Volume 21
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Machteld Claire Meulleman, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

“Multilingualism and Mobility in Europe: Policies and Practices”, edited by
Kristine Horner, Ingrid de Saint-Georges and Jean-Jacques Weber, is a
collection of thirteen papers written by different authors. Most of the
contributions were presented at a workshop on “Multilingualism and Mobility in
Europe” that took place at the University of Luxembourg in July 2013. The
book’s main aim is to explore how individuals experience and produce
multilingual language policies and practices in a variety of different
European contexts which are currently undergoing social, political and
economic transformations. The volume includes an introduction, the first part
consisting of six papers devoted to educational settings, the second part
counting seven contributions devoted to additional (i.e. non-educational)
settings, notes on contributors and an index.

The introductory chapter, authored by Kristine Horder, sets out the book’s
twofold sociolinguistic objective: (1) contribute to the understanding of the
interface between language policies and practices in educational and
additional settings and (2) explore the way social, political and economic
processes are impacting the lives of real people with respect to their
cognitive, social and spatial mobility through the valorization and
stigmatization of their multilingual repertoires (Introduction:
Multilingualism and mobility in European context, by Kristine Horner. pp.
9-14). Before giving a brief description of each of the individual papers in
this book, the author points out that all of them discuss original qualitative
data and take into account the particularities of the socio-historical
contexts of the different European states and territories under scope, ranging
from cities or regions in Germany, France (including its overseas territory,
La Réunion) and Luxembourg to Moldova and Hungary. In addition, all
contributions situate their findings in relation to paradigms in cognate
disciplines among which are educational studies, psychology, sociology and
cultural geography. In her conclusion, the first editor notes the growing
importance of such interdisciplinary studies in order to obtain a more
holistic understanding of the ways people are experiencing diverse forms of
multilingualism and mobility.

Part I

Part I is entitled “Multilingualism and Mobility in Educational Sites”. It
consists of six chapters covering language policies in practices in
pre-school, primary and secondary education settings.

In the opening chapter of Part One, Carol Pfaff discusses some key findings
from her multiple studies on the geographical, social and cognitive mobility
of children of Turkish descent in Berlin conducted over a period of 35 years.
(Chapter 1: Multilingualism and mobility: Reflections on sociolinguistic
studies of Turkish/German children and adolescents in Berlin 1978-2013, pp.
17-42.). With respect to their geographical mobility, most of these children
live in ethnic enclaves of Turks in Berlin, go to school with a high
proportion of pupils with migration background and seldom move within the
city, three factors which tend to result in the maintenance of their Turkish
L1, on the one hand, and poor language proficiency in their German L2, on the
other. However, due to changing educational policies, the increasingly strong
proficiency in German and the development in English are positively affecting
the social mobility of these children even though there is not yet full parity
of representation compared with children without Turkish migration background.
Finally, the study of these children’s cognitive mobility, which is their
ability to shift appropriately within their linguistic repertoires, is still
in progress as the author’s preliminary results still have to be compared with
similar studies in other Northwestern European countries. 

The second chapter, written in French, explores the evolution of gesturing in
bilingual children in connection with the language practices in their families
(Chapter 2: Le rôle de la gestualité dans l’acquisition du langage des enfants
d’origine turque scolarisés en maternelle, en France, by Büsra Hamurcu, pp.
43-61). Breaking away from a monolingual norm in research on gesturing, the
author proposes a longitudinal case study of two French-Turkish bilingual
children in a French “maternelle” in Alsace. Showing how gesturing is linked
both to the children’s multilingual repertoires and their feeling of either
comfort or insecurity at school, the author argues that teachers in
monolingual pre-schools should be made more aware of the specific situation of
bilingual language acquisition and support a harmonious bilingual acquisition,
allowing the children to express themselves in their two languages by
including nursery rhymes or other activities in their mother tongue.

In the wake of the introduction of the Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages in European language education, the third chapter, written in
French, aims to analyze how two of its key notions, namely “plurilingual
repertoire” and “plurilingual competence”, are introduced in the official
curricula for the teaching of standard Chinese as a foreign language in France
(Chapter 3: L’enseignement du chinois standard en France: Politiques
linguistiques et les enjeux éducatifs, by Yan-Zhen Chen, pp. 63-82.). After a
brief introduction about the kind of Chinese taught in France, the author
offers a detailed description of the different contexts of the current
teaching of Chinese in France, pointing out its presence from primary school
to university level as either first, second or third foreign language. Through
a quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis of the official programs and
teaching guidelines for different levels, the author reveals the absence of
the notions of “plurilingual repertoire” and “plurilingual competence” (except
in secondary (“lycée”) programs which are not language specific) thus
reflecting an additive vision of language teaching, despite official
discourses explicitly promoting plurilingualism in a European context. Showing
that the vision on Chinese teaching is still binary (L1-L2) and does not take
into account other languages, the author claims that there currently is no
real willingness to change the approach of foreign language teaching in France
and calls for more “bridging” between the different languages of the
repertoire of the pupils, 50 percent of whom have already learned other
languages before learning Chinese.

Based on a case study in a bilingual class in an “école maternelle” in Alsace,
France, the fourth chapter offers a critical approach to the one teacher/one
language policy implemented in the bilingual education model in French-German
programs in Alsace (Chapter 4: Early bilingual education in Alsace: The one
language/one teacher policy in question, by Christine Hélot and Valérie
Fialais, pp. 83-102.). Arguing that both this strict language policy,
inherited from Ronjat’s one language/one person family policy, and the choice
for German rather than Alsatian (a recognized national minority language in
France) reflect an additive immersion model, aiming merely at improving
proficiency in German L2, this particular bilingual program tends to ignore
the rich multilingual repertoires of both children and teachers and instead of
supporting multilingual education it actually reinforces monoglossic
representations of bilingualism. Therefore, against parents’ discourses
bringing to the fore their fear of language-mixing and code-switching, the
authors argue for a more integrative approach to bilingual pedagogy allowing
for cross-linguistic transfer and metacognitive strategies in order to develop
a harmonious bilingual bicultural identity in young pre-school learners.

Chapter 5, authored by Tímea Kádas Pickel, addresses the complex links between
multilingual literacy acquisition and identity construction (Chapter 5: “Je
suis qui je suis / Meet the other side of me”. Identité et littératie
multilingue/multimodale: Analyse d’un projet photographique réalisé par des
élèves nouvellement arrivés en France, pp. 103-122.). In particular, the
article analyses a multimodal multi-literacy pedagogical project called “Meet
the other side of me” that is intended for young newly arrived immigrant
pupils in a French secondary school in Mulhouse and based on the empowerment
methodologies of both the production of « identity texts » (Cummins & Early
2011) and photographic self-portraits (Wang & Burris 1997). Through the
analysis of the bilingual text production of 7 pupils and of their discourse
about their experience, the author provides a convincing example of how
encouraging the pupils to draw on their full multilingual repertoires and
personal experiences enables them to engage in their language learning process
and in a positive reconstruction of their multilingual self.

Like the previous chapter, Chapter 6 is concerned with the under-exploitation
and valorization of pupils’ linguistic repertoires in French language
education policy (Chapter 6: Les collaborations enseignants/assistantes de
maternelles en pré-élémentaire à la Réunion: Un partenariat linguistique à
construire, by Pascale Prax-Dubois, pp.123-146.). In this particular case, the
question is addressed in nursery school education in La Réunion, a
postcolonial context where the lack of ethno-linguistic and social mixity goes
hand in hand with insufficient French language proficiency and low school
success rates. Through a qualitative discourse analysis of both class
interactions and semi-structured interviews of all educational actors (1
bilingual French-Creole and 2 monolingual French teachers and 5 bilingual
French-Creole communal employees who are in charge of the children’s hygiene),
the study shows how both children and teachers experience linguistic and
professional insecurity in the classroom and how punctual interventions in
Creole by the local communal employees foster the children’s language
development and positive self-identity and improve the overall well-being of
the children, teachers and employees. The author emphasizes the need for a
more generalized and official cooperation between teachers and employees and
calls for the implementation of joint training on multilingual education (as
it exists already in the metropolitan Alsace region) for all educational
actors in this overseas territory.

Part II

Part II, entitled “Multilingualism and Mobility in additional sites”, consists
of seven chapters, each dealing with multilingual policies and practices
outside the domain of education. The first two chapters address language
policies in state institutions, the next two family language policy and the
last three the interface between language and space.

The first chapter in this part is devoted to linguistics dynamics in the
Military Academy of Moldova (Chapter 7: Majorized linguistic repertoires in a
nationalizing state, by Anna Weirich, pp. 149-170.). Shifting the perspective
on sociolinguistic relations from the study of “minority languages” to that of
“majorized linguistic repertoires”, the author explores how the process of
“majorization” manifests itself in the social evaluation of individual
linguistic repertoires and institutionalized language policies in this
Moldavan state institution. In the context of this multiethnic state which is
going through a nationalizing process, a “normal linguistic repertoire”
consists of practical knowledge of both Romanian/Moldovan and Russian, while
competences in elaborated registers of standard Romanian and English as a
foreign language are associated with internationalism, career and modernism.
As only the teaching of English is institutionalized in the Academy while no
classes are offered in Russian and Romanian, the Moldovan Military Academy -
officially promoting multilingualism - marginalizes speakers with diverging
linguistic repertoires. Drawing upon a discourse-analytic study of narrative
interviews of students and staff, the author provides new insights on how
representations of “normal linguistic repertoires” unveil “majorization”
processes of the privileged and on the way “majorized linguistic repertoires”
are transformed by geopolitical evolutions.

Chapter 8 explores the recent language testing policy in trilingual
Luxembourg, where since 2009 applicants for Luxembourgish citizenship need to
pass a language test in one of the three officially recognized languages as
well as in oral Luxembourgish (Chapter 8: “Come back next year to be a
Luxembourger”: Perspectives on language testing and citizenship legislation
“from below”, by Joanna Kremer, pp. 171-187.). Based on the idea that language
policies are discursively justified and constructed, the aim of this study is
to analyze a variety of “voices from below” (cf. Shohamy 2009). A close
discourse analysis on data obtained during semi-structured interviews with 27
recent applicants for Luxembourgish citizenship reveals that the applicants
have varying perceptions of the policy of testing of Luxembourgish which do
not necessarily correlate with their succeeding or failing in the test process
and that the participants who justify the testing of Luxembourgish do this in
the discursive framework of “normalization” and “standardization”, while the
discourse used by those participants who contest or question the policy brings
up the topics of exclusion, unfairness and social selection. As such, this
chapter shows how the discourse used by the applicants reveals the different
ways in which the testing of Luxembourgish is experienced individually and how
it is tied up with broader issues such as power, belonging/exclusion and
citizenship.

Chapter 9 is an exploratory study examining parents’ representations within
bi- and multi-lingual families in Luxembourg. (Chapter 9: Parents’
representations of the family language policy within bilingual families in
Luxembourg: Choices, motivations, strategies and children’s language
development, by Annie Flore Made Mbe, pp. 189-203). Through ethnographic
interviews with the parents of five mixed marriages with highly diverse
linguistic profiles, it explores first the dynamics of the parent’s language
practices prior to and after the birth of children and second the motivations
and communication strategies the parents put forward for developing their
children’s bi- and multilingual competences. With respect to the first
question, it turns out that mixed couples are strongly emotionally attached to
the language of their first meeting and therefore continue using it even after
learning the partner’s language or after the birth of children. As for the
communication strategies with their children, most parents try to implement
the One-Parent-One-Language approach (Barron-Hauwaert 2004), even if it does
not tend to be strictly applied over time, especially once children develop
their own social networks through schooling or at the birth of siblings. The
main motivations for the intergenerational transmission of their language(s)
are creating and maintaining family cohesion, facilitating school access and
increasing their children’s future employment opportunities. Although the
study is based on a rather small and diverse sample, it reveals convincingly
that family language policies are not fixed entities but changing and dynamic
processes.

Another article exploring family language policy is authored by Angélique
Bouchés-Rémond-Rémont (Chapter 10: Family language policy and the English
language in francophone families in France: A focus on parents’ reasons as
decision-takers, pp. 205-220.) Based on data obtained through informal and
semi-structured interviews conducted via Skype, the author analyses why and
how francophone parents living in France choose to include the use of English
in the family, leading to an additive type of bilingualism, both languages
having a high status in this country known for its monolingual ideology. It is
shown that the reasons underlying these parenting practices result mainly from
the parents’ own positive and negative experiences with language learning and
from their beliefs about extensive learning of foreign languages at school.
This being seen as an unsuccessful method, most parents feel the need for a
reinforcement strategy, recruiting an au-pair or opting for schooling in an
international or immersion school in order to ensure more exposure to English.
However, parents do not only have utilitarian but also integrative
motivations, as they have a specific interest in English.

Chapter 11 offers a geosemiotic analysis of the multilingual practice of
designing shelf labels in an ethnic convenience store (Chapter 11: « Ohne
Glutamat/Without MSG »: Shelf label design in a Thai supermarket, by Stefan
Karl Serwe and Ingrid de Saint-Georges, pp. 221-246). In particular, it
analyses the use of German and Thai on handwritten shelf labels in a small
immigrant-owned convenience store in a small town in the Saar region in
Germany. The examination of the bi- and mono-lingual shelf labels sheds light
on the strategic use of the various semiotic resources by the shopkeeper for
catering to her culturally diverse clientele (cf. Pütz 2003). This constant
transcultural navigation is especially visible in the bilingual labels which
are used to mediate between culinary cultures, to show expert knowledge (on
health, religion and food regulations among others) and to provide product
names in Thai for clients who lack German literacy skills. Monolingual labels
either open up access to unknown products for German clients or restrict
access to Thai clients only. Shelf labelling thus appears to be a much more
complex and multifaceted activity than usually acknowledged.

In the penultimate chapter, Jenny Carl looks into the way people socially
construct and conceptualize space (Low 2009) in the Hungarian city of
Sopron/Ödenburg (Chapter 12: Multilingualism and space: Memories of place in
language biographies of ethnic Germans in Sopron, pp. 247-263.). This city on
the Austro-Hungarian border represents a particular linguistic space as it
underwent two radical linguistic changes within the second half of the 20th
century: if public life in Sopron used to be conducted mostly in German until
1946, the city became predominantly Hungarian-speaking with a small German
minority until the collapse of Communism in 1989, when the presence of German
increased again due to economic opportunities offered by cross-border trade
and tourism. Drawing upon narrative interviews with ethnic Germans living in
Sopron, the author studies German-speakers’ memories of place and “mental
maps” as well as the way they emotionally receive the increasing presence of
German in the city’s linguistic landscape. It is argued that due to social and
economic situation Sopron’s configuration of space is changing from a
nationally defined officially monolingual space to a fragmented multilingual
one to which people adapt reorganizing their social space making use of their
German skills and creating new symbolic meanings for memories and experiences.

The closing chapter of the book focuses on the increasingly heteroglossic
ethnolinguistic environment of inner city districts of Berlin in order to
understand the way individual migrants experience their transnational life
worlds (Chapter 13: Language (hi)stories: Researching migration and
multilingualism in Berlin, by Patrick Stevenson, pp. 265-280). Through the
language biographies of two inhabitants of a single apartment block who are
both Polish first generation migrants, Patrick Stevenson analyzes the way both
persons use their experiences with language as a structural device in creating
“a life” (Linde 1993). Although both inhabitants have the same age, ethnicity
and linguistic repertoire, they present very different migration trajectories
emerging in particular accounts of their linguistic experiences between Polish
and German, a fact illustrating the great sociolinguistic complexity of an
increasingly multilingual urban environment. This detailed biographical
approach allows the author to demonstrate “how reflections on language use can
reveal differentiated historicized layers of experience with language that
would otherwise remain submerged within the synchronic wrapping of the
multilingual migrant” (p.277).

EVALUATION

This book brings together a variety of papers from diverse linguistic
methodologies on various aspects of language policy in different parts of
Europe. Contrary to many other books in the field of multilingual language
policy, it has a rather broad perspective, as in addition to educational
settings, also institutional, business and family settings are considered. As
the introduction promises, it is undoubtedly a solid step forward in the
understanding of the “varying and sometimes conflicting perceptions of
multilingualism that impact on the lives of real people” (cf. Bauman 1998).
Another major plus of this book is that it offers only original case studies
discussing rich qualitative data. 

If the volume is generally well-structured and well-written, it is not without
its weaknesses. First it should be noted that six out of thirteen
contributions deal with educational settings, of which five are devoted to
French school contexts. As it is precisely the variety of settings which makes
this book a valuable contribution, a more balanced attribution of importance
between “educational” and “additional” settings would have been appreciated.
Another minor drawback is that the title is somewhat misleading as almost all
contributions deal with rather stable contexts of “mobility” in that they
study children growing up in bi- or multi-lingual families or schools, adults
living from childhood in multiethnic countries or border regions and economic
migrants who more or less permanently settled in their host country. However,
no attention is paid to individuals dealing with multilingualism in contexts
of temporary mobility such as tourism, seasonal labor or expats which are
increasingly frequent in Europe due to the right of free movement of persons
in the EU. 

These observations, however, do not detract from the overall quality of the
volume. The book remains of great interest to students and scholars both in
sociolinguistics and related fields who have an interest in the interface
between language policy and multilingual practices at any level of society or
in the interface between cognitive, social and spatial mobility.

REFERENCES

Barron-Hauwaert, Suzanne. 2004. Language Strategies for Families: The
One-Parent-One-Language Approach. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge:
Polity Press.

Cummins, Jim/Early, Margaret. 2011. Identity Texts: The Collaborative Creation
of Power in Multilingual Schools. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.

Linde, Charlotte. 1993. Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence. New York,
Oxford: OUP.

Low, Setha. 2009. Towards an anthropological theory of space and place.
Semiotica 175(1). 21-37.

Shohamy, Elana. 2009. Language policy as experiences. Language Problems and
Language Planning 33(2). 185-189.

Wang, Caroline/Burris, Mary Ann. 1997. Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and
use for participatory needs assessment. Health Education & Behaviour 24(3).
369-387.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr. Machteld Meulleman holds a PhD in Comparative Linguistics from Ghent
University (Belgium) and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University
of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France). She also taught an advanced master
seminar on multilingual communication at the Free University of Brussels
(Belgium). Her research interests include multilingual communication and
education practices, especially with regard to intercomprehension.

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