30.1768, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Horner, Weber (2017)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-1768. Wed Apr 24 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 30.1768, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Horner, Weber (2017)
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 22:28:52
From: Maria Teresa Martinez-Garcia [mtmg87 at gmail.com]
Subject: Introducing Multilingualism
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36414677
Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-4475.html
AUTHOR: Kristine Horner
AUTHOR: Jean Jacques Weber
TITLE: Introducing Multilingualism
SUBTITLE: A Social Approach, 2nd Edition
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2017
REVIEWER: Maria Teresa Martinez-Garcia, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
SUMMARY
The book “Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach”, by Professors
Kristine Horner and Jean-Jacques Weber present a comprehensive and
user-friendly introduction to the field of multilingualism. The book is
divided into six parts, covering a wide range of topics on multilingualism and
sociolinguistics. In all cases, each chapter is structured such that it
promotes learning and critical thinking. All the chapters use a highly
practical approach, including several activities (such as questions, topics
for discussion, and proposals for group work) asking the reader to apply the
new concepts and to develop their understanding of the issues under
discussion.
Part I (Chapters 1 and 2) is an introduction to the book, including an outline
of the important theoretical and methodological approaches in the study of
multilingualism. This first chapter is clear in motivating the rest of the
book, showing how ethnographic and discourse-analytic approaches can be
combined, discussing the most common beliefs about languages (language
ideologies), and opening new areas for future research.
Part II (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) continues exploring the most common beliefs
about language, particularly focusing on the difficulties of defining what a
language and a dialect are (describing how blurred their boundaries are).
These chapters discuss the fuzziness that exists between and among languages,
and they draw conclusions on the consequences of this fuzziness for both
teaching and research. Moreover, this part of the book relativizing notions
such as ‘language endangerment’ and ‘language revitalization’.
The book continues outlining the basic distinction between individual
multilingualism and societal multilingualism in Part III (Chapters 6, 7 and
8). This part of the book investigates the connections between language and
identity (e.g., looking at multilingual strategies such as code-switching,
translanguaging, stylization and language crossing). However, it also explores
societal multilingualism (e.g., trying to address questions such as why
countries adopt some languages (but not others) as their national or official
language(s), or as the medium of instruction in their education systems.).
Importantly, this section of the book not only focuses on clarifying these
concepts for the reader but also investigates the complex interplay between
them.
After the book describes the basic terminology associated with the field, it
continues exploring educational systems in detail (Part IV, Chapters 9 to 12).
In doing so, this section of the book examines the pros and cons of mother
tongue education programs (e.g., discussing topics such as the ‘fixed’ nature
of some of these programs or presenting the concept of the ‘literacy bridge’
as one way of introducing greater flexibility). The section continues by
drawing a distinction between mother tongue education and heritage language
education, while discussing how both forms of education can be affected by the
same problems of fixedness as the forms. To finish this section, the book also
explores the opportunities and challenges of multilingualism in other
institutional sites, such as the workplace and the family.
The use of (critical) discourse analysis is discussed in Part V (Chapters 13
to 16). This section of the book explores the pros and cons of the official
discourse of ‘integration’ (of immigrants) and how it underpins current
policies on migration, education, and citizenship. Negative media
representations of multilingualism and its use in social media is also
critically unpacked in this part of the book. Finally, multimodal texts
(multilingual signs which combine both verbal and visual elements) are
explored and discussed in relation to multilingualism.
Finally, Part VI (Chapter 17) provides a discussion of further directions in
the study of multilingualism. After reviewing the main concepts described in
the book and outlining the still open questions in the field, the book
discusses topics such as multilingualism and sign language, multilingualism
assessment, multilingualism, and gender, and the interplay between social and
affective factors. These are some of the topics (among others) that the
authors point out as important to investigate to further develop our
understanding of multilingualism.
EVALUATION
This book is very rich in both theoretical/experimental content and
pedagogical materials, which are presented and discussed by the authors in
each chapter. It is important to highlight how each one of the topics
presented is explained from different points of views (e.g., pointing out both
pros and cons of multilingualism), providing a more detailed perspective on
how multilingualism is understood and perceived by different populations. That
is, this book is not limited to understanding how one group (e.g., citizens of
Europe, in principle more used to being in contact with this phenomenon)
employs and perceives multilingualism but compares them with other groups to
get a broader understanding of current beliefs on this topic. A lot of
variability can be observed in this book, ranging from the samples from which
conclusions are drawn to the different methods and languages tested. That is,
the book includes research ranging from discourse analysis to individualized
interviews and including languages such as Spanish, English, or Mãori). All
this variability provides a broader, more comprehensive perspective on the
phenomenon of multilingualism and on our understanding on this topic.
Another important attribute of this book is the importance given to both
theoretical discussion and pedagogical approaches, two points addressed in
every chapter. The fact that this book includes not only the theory but many
and diverse types of activities for the readers (such as questions, topics for
discussion, and proposals for group work) clearly promotes critical and
creative thinking. In today’s world, we are bombarded with information, coming
from diverse sources and providing different views of the same piece of
information. However, it is not enough to possess information, one must be
able to assess it for its clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth,
breadth, logic and significance (Pesut, Herman, & Herman, 1999). From a
personal perspective, I consider the activities included at the end of each
chapter as an attempt (at least) to promote this critical thinking. After
reading the latest theoretical approaches to each one of the individual topics
discussed in the book, the reader needs to take a step further and discuss,
with his/her own books their own understanding of what they have learned. One
of the aspects that enables these activities to foster critical thinking is
that most of them are open-ended questions (as opposed to multiple-choice
questions, for example), that do not have a specific (or set) answer (Paul &
Elder, 2008). For example, one of the activities asks the reader to look for
more examples of the type of multilingual text described in the chapter. Of
course, there is not a specific answer to this question, but it makes the
reader think about what he/she has learned so that the example chosen matches
the description found in the book.
This book is, without doubts, an excellent compendium of the different models,
methodologies, samples of participants and languages which have been covered
and studied in the vast field of multilingualism. That said, it is rather
difficult to find negative remarks on this extremely precise piece of work.
However, I think that this volume could have benefited from including other
types of activities. While the activities described and reviewed provide the
reader with the key materials to develop their critical and creative thinking,
the reader cannot know for sure whether he/she has understood the theory,
because there is no “wrong answer” to whatever they say/do. For example, how
can the reader know, outside of the classroom, that the examples he has found
are correct? The reader could benefit from having a first set of activities
for which the authors provide detailed answers. It is worth stating, though,
that the authors do provide discussion notes at the very end of the book; and
these provide a guide as to how some of the questions should be addressed. The
authors point out that these are not the “right” answers because the questions
are open-questions for which the authors can only provide hints and
suggestions.
In addition to providing a detailed account of some of the latest findings in
the field, this book represents a useful manual for young scholars and even
the general public who want to widen their understanding of multilingualism.
It is recommended for researchers interested in the field, including those who
are just getting started into research. It not only provides a general
overview of the field, but it discusses potential questions for future
research and it provides a detailed literature review on each of the models,
methodologies, samples of participants and languages that have already been
studied in the literature. This detailed literature review may be a suitable
resource for new researchers that need references necessary to motivate their
own research. This book is a more than appropriate way to get introduced to
the basics of this discipline.
REFERENCES
Paul, R. and Elder, L., 2008. The thinker’s guide to critical and creative
thinking.
Pesut, D.J., Herman, J. and Herman, J., 1999. Clinical reasoning: The art and
science of critical and creative thinking. Albany, NY: Delmar.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Maria Teresa Martinez-Garcia completed her PhD in Linguistics at the
University of Kansas in August 2016. Her dissertation presented a
psycholinguistic approach to understanding bilingual activation, by exploring
how differences in stress placement between English-Spanish identical cognates
affect how adult learners of Spanish use stress as a cue for word recognition.
She continues her research on bilingualism and second language speech
perception and production while working as an assistant professor in the
Spanish and Linguistic departments at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
Her main research interests include bilingualism, second language acquisition,
and speech perception and production.
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