26.34, Review: Applied Linguistics: Braun, Cline (2014)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-26-34. Sat Jan 03 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.34, Review: Applied Linguistics: Braun, Cline (2014)

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Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 21:49:12
From: Liubov Baladzhaeva [baladjaeva at gmail.com]
Subject: Language Strategies for Trilingual Families

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-623.html

AUTHOR: Andreas  Braun
AUTHOR: Tony  Cline
TITLE: Language Strategies for Trilingual Families
SUBTITLE: Parents' Perspectives
SERIES TITLE: Parents' and Teachers' Guides
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Liubov Baladzhaeva, University of Haifa

Review's Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

While there are now many books about raising bilingual families and raising
bilingual children, tri- and multilingualism in families has been much less
explored. Because of globalization and professional migration it is more and
more frequent that several languages are spoken in one family. 

The book’s goal is twofold. On one hand, the authors try to encompass a
spectrum of trilingual families. On the other hand, they try to present
parents who wish to raise their children trilingual with successful strategies
for doing it. Often the parents who are faced with a task of raising
trilingual children have themselves grown up in a monolingual environment.
Thus, they do not have the necessary experience and parenting models for
raising trilingual children. Also, the task of maintaining three languages and
teaching them to a child may be too daunting and exhausting for parents.

It is important to note that the book is first and foremost concerned with
trilingual families. In such families not all the languages are necessarily
used with the children, who might be raised bilingual or even monolingual.

The book is based mostly on a study of 70 trilingual families in Germany and
the United Kingdom conducted by the authors. Other sources of information
about trilingual families were Internet forums about trilingualism and many
personal accounts of parents expressed in the emails they sent to the authors.

A list of resources on trilingualism is provided at the end of the book.

Chapter 1. Trilingualism and Multilingualism: an Overview.

This chapter provides an introduction to the book. In it the goals of the book
are explained and some background about trilingualism is provided. The authors
emphasize that their book is not just focused on trilingual children, it is
first and foremost a book about trilingual families and it is mostly addressed
to parents in such families. The authors name the central issues they are
going to explore in the book: parents’ strategies and choices and what
influences them, beliefs about and attitudes towards trilingualism, identities
of children and parents in trilingual families. This chapter also introduces
the study on which the book is based. Among the 70 families in the study more
than 40 languages were spoken. The families were divided into three groups, by
means of a “language background” tool developed by the authors. The first
group consisted of monolingual parents who each speak a different native
language. They currently live in a community where a third language is spoken.
The authors define bilingual as someone who speaks two languages from
childhood. Thus, when they talk about “monolingual” parents they mean people
that were raised monolingual, but currently may be functional in two or more
languages. In the second group we find families in which at least one parent
is bilingual from childhood. In this group a community language may be native
to one of the parents, but two additional languages are also spoken in the
family natively. The third group consists of families in which at least one
parents is trilingual from childhood.

Each group is later described in a separate chapter. In each of these chapters
the authors cover the use of language between parents and children, in school,
in extended family and in culture and community. The chapter concludes with
information on attitudes towards multilingualism in society, mainly in
Germany. While the country population has become very diverse, it did not
change the generally positive attitude towards monolingualism and full
assimilation of the minorities. However, the authors say that the main
challenge the trilingual families face is not the hostility of the community,
but practical difficulties of maintaining several languages in daily life.
Thus, the book is mostly concerned with dealing with and overcoming such
difficulties.

Chapter 2. Comparing Bilingual and Trilingual Families.

This chapter presents existing research on bilingualism and trilingualism.
They state that trilingualism is not simply an extension of bilingualism, even
though there are some similarities between the two, but trilingualism is its
own phenomenon which should be studied separately. However, currently there is
not enough research on multilingualism to reach solid conclusions about many
of its aspects. One of the arguments they make is that while there are only
three possible orders for bilingual acquisition, there are 13 possible orders
of acquisition in trilingualism. The question of confusion between languages
is addressed. The authors present the theory that multilingual systems do not
equal to the sum of the languages and discuss the possible cognitive
advantages of bi- and multilingualism. The authors claim that being trilingual
means not just speaking three languages but also having a very complex
linguistic and cultural awareness. They describe bi- and trilingualism as
dynamic processes the development of which is constantly being affected by
environmental factors.

Chapter 3. Monolingual Parents Living Abroad (Group 1).

In this chapter the first group of the trilingual families is described. In
this group both parents were raised monolingual, with different native
languages, and now raise their children in a community where the third
language is spoken. Parents in this group are very motivated to raise their
children trilingual and usually employ the “One Parent One Language” (OPOL)
policy at home, while the community language is acquired at school. The
parents in this group feel strongly about passing their only native language
to their children. Out of the three groups this group had the most success
raising their children trilingual. Families in Germany often raised their
children with four languages, because they preferred to send them to
International schools, even when neither parent spoke English natively.
Extended family is used as a support system for maintaining parents’
languages, since very often the children’s grandparents and other relatives
live in foreign countries and do not speak the language of the community where
the child lives. Communication with grandparents is also motivating parents to
pass their native languages to the children. Many parents in this group also
wish to pass their cultural traditions, in which languages play an important
part.

Chapter 4. One or Both Parents are Bilingual (Group 2).

In this group of families at least one of the parents grew up bilingual. One
of the parents often speaks natively the language of the community where the
family lives. In some cases both parents are bilingual and have the same
language background, while they live in a community where the third language
is spoken. Many parents in this group struggled with maintaining all three
languages. If they wanted to use the OPOL strategy, they often had to drop one
of their languages. Also their languages, even though spoken from childhood,
were not necessarily in balance, and bilinguals preferred to speak only their
strongest language to the children. Having bilingual relatives added to the
challenge of maintaining the weakest language, since the children already had
a common language with their relatives and did not have to learn another
language to communicate with them. Bilingual parents often saw themselves as
belonging to several or mixed cultural traditions. Unlike the first group,
they did not always feel that maintaining a language is essential for
maintaining a culture, so the language was dropped, while they continued with
the cultural traditions.

Chapter 5. One or Both Parents are Trilingual (Group 3).

In this group of families the language landscape is the most complicated. At
least one parent speaks three or more languages from childhood. The other
parent may also speak three or more languages, or be bilingual or in few cases
monolingual. Often these families see English as a global language and choose
to bring up their children speaking only English. Families living in England
were more likely to raise their children monolingual, and usually their
extended family spoke English well enough to communicate with the children.
Families in Germany often preferred to send their children to international
schools, where English and German were acquired, and sometimes one additional
language was acquired at home to some extent, mostly to speak with the
relatives who did not know either English or German. As in the second group,
the parents wanted to pass their cultural traditions to the children, but in
their eyes the traditions were not strongly connected to their home languages
and did not affect their language choices much.

Chapter 6. Trilingual Proficiency in a Multilingual Society.

This chapter focuses on multilingual communities such as Israel, Mauritius and
Luxembourg. In monolingual communities multilinguals are often met with
prejudices and negative attitudes. They might be seen as having low social
status, since often multilinguals are immigrants, sometimes unskilled and
uneducated. However, in multilingual communities speaking several languages is
the norm. Such communities often offer educational support for raising
children multilingually. However, even in multilingual communities people may
speak only some of the languages of the community or be monolingual. Sometimes
only elite groups have access to all the available languages of the community.
Both monolingual and multilingual communities currently are affected by the
status of English as a global language. In monolingual communities English is
often added to the linguistic repertoire, while in multilingual ones it may
replace another language.

Chapter 7. Concluding Words.

This chapter summarizes the issue of trilingual families and raising
trilingual children. It praises the parents who decided to raise their
children trilingual and offers encouragement. The authors acknowledge that
bringing up children with several languages is a very hard job for the
parents, but it is worth it. The offer some examples of famous multilingual
people that may serve as role models. 

EVALUATION

This book shows how complex is the phenomenon of trilingualism and how
different trilingual families can be. It offers an overview of diverse
challenges that different kinds of trilingual families may encounter. 

The book is published in the series “Parents’ and Teachers’ Guides” and it is
mostly a practical guide for parents, not an academic book. It offers some
theoretical background on the issue, however, in a simplified and shortened
form. It is an invaluable manual for trilingual parents; it could help them to
choose strategies and methods for maintaining trilingualism in their children.
The tips that are offered to the parents are practical and helpful.

However, there is an issue of terminology and the view of bilingualism that is
presented in a book. The term “bilingual” refers only to childhood bilinguals.
When parents are described as mono-, bi- or trilinguals the term only refers
to how many languages they learned before puberty. Therefore, often parents
are called “monolinguals” while in fact they may speak several languages
fluently in their daily life. While this understanding of bi- and
multilingualism is common among non-linguists, it is very limited. It does not
take into account that for parents their childhood languages are not
necessarily the dominant ones in their adult lives. In fact, a parent may
choose to speak the language that was only acquired in adulthood to the
children, and the book does not describe such a situation, except for using
English as lingua franca in the family, nor offer any tips for parents like
that. Many multilingual readers who did not acquire their additional languages
in childhood may be offended by being called “monolinguals” in terms of this
book.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Liubov Baladzhaeva is a PhD student at the University of Haifa. She is
interested in multilingualism, language acquisition and attrition.








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