MP-Lingualism - It's not what you think.

[hsmr at gol.com]

MonoPlus-Lingualism

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

R. A. Stegemann
EARTH's Manager and HKLNA-Project Director
EARTH - East Asian Research and Translation in Hong Kong
http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/earth/
Tel/Fax: 852 2630 0349
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