35.1596, Review: Multilingualism and Pluricentricity: Hajek, Norrby, Kretzenbacher, Schüpbach (eds.) (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1596. Wed May 29 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1596, Review: Multilingualism and Pluricentricity: Hajek, Norrby, Kretzenbacher, Schüpbach (eds.) (2023)

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Date: 29-May-2024
From: Stephanie Connor [stephanie.connor at liverpool.ac.uk]
Subject: Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics: Hajek, Norrby, Kretzenbacher, Schüpbach (eds.) (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.3653

EDITOR: John Hajek
EDITOR: Catrin Norrby
EDITOR: Heinz L. Kretzenbacher
EDITOR: Doris Schüpbach
TITLE: Multilingualism and Pluricentricity
SUBTITLE: A Tale of Many Cities
SERIES TITLE: Language and Social Life
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Stephanie Connor

SUMMARY

The study of urban multilingualism examines the coexistence of
multiple languages in urban settings. Broadly, researchers focus on
how these languages interact, and the different social, cultural, and
linguistic implications that arise. Increased linguistic diversity in
urban areas largely resulting from globalisation and migration have
prompted much research on multilingualism in the city. A recently
published (2024) volume which captures research on multilingual cities
around the world is Multilingualism and Pluricentricity: A Tale of
Many Cities, edited by John Hajek, Catrin Norrby, Heinz L.
Kretzenbacher and Doris Scüpbach. This is the 20th volume in the
series Language and Social Life which is edited by David Britain and
Crispin Thurlow and published by De Gruyter Mouton. The series covers
a wide range of expertise on topics such as variationist
sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and social semiotics, and
enables a space for contributions from researchers who view language
as a powerful tool for identity formation, community building and the
managing of relationships. The Multilingualism and Pluricentricity
volume is the first in the series to focus solely on multilingualism
in urban contexts, providing a contemporary collection of literature
on multilingual cities around the world today. The title of the volume
itself personally captured my attention as it implies a metaphorical
journey between cities to explore a tapestry of urban, multilingual
language practices. The book enables the reader to discover language
practices from different corners of the globe, revealing communication
patterns within various cities from a range of different perspectives.

The notion of urban multilingualism is at the forefront of this
collection of research and is expanded on by the editors in the
informative introductory chapter from a current perspective. The
editors frame the wide recognition of urban multilingualism in the
field of sociolinguistics as they reference previous edited research
volumes on the topic such as Mar-Molinero (2020) and Carson & King
(2016), while highlighting some of the earlier, influential works such
as Labov (1966) on community speech patterns in New York City, and
Trudgill (1974) investigation of Norwich English. The editors then
bring to light some of the foundations which lay beneath this vast
array of research on urban multilingualism, such as the increased
globalisation processes and transnational movements which have had a
large impact on the way that communities and individuals use language
in urban contexts. In this chapter the editors also refer to the rise
of the internet and its effects on transnational connectedness and
diverse communication patterns in the context of the city. Although
some useful and relevant studies are cited here such as Blommaert &
Rampton (2011), Blommaert (2013), and Dyers (2015), some additional
references to the large amount of scholarly work on multilingual
language practices in online settings would be beneficial (e.g.
Androutsopoulos, 2013; Georgalou, 2019).

As made explicit in the title of the volume, another type of
linguistic diversity which is central to this book is pluricentricity.
A pluricentric language is described by the editors as a language
which has “official status as the standard variety in more than one
nation or centre” (p8), and is described as a term which tends to
overlap and intersect with multilingualism. The editors provide a
detailed explanation of pluricentricity as they discuss the concept of
power relationships between languages and language varieties, while
presenting pluricentricity as an evolving field of research which is
referred to explicitly in at least three of the book’s chapters.
Limitations of this concept are however brought to the readers’
attention by the editors such as the association of nation equating to
nation-state. Other terms deemed more appropriate are therefore
highlighted such as ‘multi-standard language’ proposed by Auer (2021)
whereby a language has more than one standard language.

Besides providing the reader with a detailed summary of the twelve
individual papers that the volume comprises, the editors take the
opportunity in the introductory chapter to present new ideas and
directions in the field, and in doing so highlight current critiques
and debates. The term superdiversity ­­for instance – used frequently
in previous research on multilingualism in the city (e.g., Blommaert,
2013) – is discussed by the editors as a term which has come under
critique in recent years, as they point out its Eurocentric nature due
to it being largely applied to Western settings. Another key point
which is set out by the editors is the book’s diversion of focus from
large, contemporary Western Cities and megacities – as witnessed in
previous studies on urban multilingualism – to a focus on smaller
cities and regional centres.

The volume is separated into three different parts, each made up of
four chapters. The first four chapters form Part One on Multilingual
Policies in Practice. Beginning in Central Europe, in Chapter 1,
Schüpbach & Brohy tell a tale of bilingualism, multilingualism, and
diglossia in two Swiss cities – Fribourg/Freiburg and Biel/Bienne. The
authors assess the cities from a comparative perspective as they focus
on similarities and differences with regards to the history of each
city, the demographics, political situation, and other social and
individual factors. This is achieved through an analysis of official
documents shared on the official websites of both municipal
authorities, as well as media reports, personal observations, and
statistical data from the Federal Statistical Office.

In Chapter 2, we move to Northern Europe as the linguistic landscapes
(LLs) of the cities of Mariehamn and Kotka in Finland are explored by
Nelson & Henricson, focusing on the multilingual tale of local and
national languages. The study aims to determine whether the
geographical placement of each of the two cities and their respective
language history and demography are reflected in their respective
local LLs. A quantitative method of LL research was applied here as
the researchers visited both city centres to take photographs of all
outdoor signs that displayed languages other than the majority
languages of that city, amounting to 631 linguistic signs, coded as
either multilingual or monolingual. Qualitative analysis was also
applied to analyse the signs by domain of use.

Chapter 3 moves to Southeast Asia to Jakarta in Indonesia where Goebel
investigates multilingual diversity as presented on television. A
focus is placed here on the mixing of the national language with
linguistic signs associated with some of Indonesia’s many ethnic
languages, as represented on television as a trend in language
practices in Jakarta. Analysis of transcripts of Indonesian television
broadcasts is carried out using a collection of television broadcast
recordings from 1996-1998 (Goebel, 2010) and 2009 (Goebel, 2015).

Chapter 4 – the final chapter in this part of the volume ­– returns to
Europe to look at the multilingual linguistic landscape (LL) of a
newly emerging multi-ethnic neighbourhood in Padua, Italy. The
research centres around a neighbourhood close to a railway station
where many people of immigrant background have settled and worked in
the last two decades. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches to
data are taken here, as in Chapter 2, with 297 signs photographed for
analysis.

Part Two of the volume focuses on ‘Attitudes and Identities’. We see
again in Chapter 5 an exploration of Italian in the LL; however,
Hajek, Hasnain & Hanson turn the readers’ attention to Australia as
they explore the Italianità of Melbourne’s Little Italy on Lygon
Street in Carlton. Through LL analysis using LinguaSnapp Melbourne,
the researchers propose Lygon Street’s Little Italy as an area which
has transformed from an ethnic enclave where Italians once resided, to
what they describe as a largely commodified “linguistic transclave”
which attracts visitors and tourists.

In Chapter 6 we travel to the US as Kaufman discusses the Mixtec
language in New York with a focus on vitality, discrimination, and
identity. This article mainly draws on qualitative interviews with
five Mixtec speakers, and on some group discussions, as language use
across different social domains such as work, school, religion, and
the home are explored.

In Chapter 7, as we return to Europe, Diskin-Holdaway presents
research from Dublin, Ireland on second language identities among
recently arrived migrants. Taking a discourse-analytical approach, the
researcher draws on interviews with eleven migrants of Polish and
Chinese origin who had moved to Dublin as adults, exploring their
attitudes, beliefs and ideologies towards Dublin English and Irish
English, and tying this is with the notion of pluricentricity.

The final chapter in Part Two from Riehl & Ingrosso focuses on Italian
immigrants in Germany – specifically Munich – as “the northernmost
city of Italy”, investigating the language use and repertoires of
three groups of Italian immigrants which are described as the
“guest-worker generation”, “second and third generation”, and
“newcomers”. A corpus of Munich-specific data is drawn on, consisting
of both written and spoken data, such as radio interviews conducted
with Italian guest-workers in Munich in the 1960s, and recent WhatsApp
chats with young Italian newcomers.

Part Three of the volume is titled ‘Language Across Time and Space’.
In Chapter 9, Trudgill & Warren present the case of Norwich (UK)
across time. Focusing on three different periods which saw major
linguistic changes in the city ­– the medieval period, the 16th
century, and the present day – the chapter investigates
multilingualism and diversity in Norwich both past and present. The
methods applied here are relative to the different historical periods
under scrutiny. To explore both the medieval period and 16th century,
the researchers examine language contact phenomena in the evolution of
the English language in Norwich and East Anglia more widely, as well
as patterns of migration and settlement during these time periods. For
investigation of the present day, different data sets are analysed
such as the National Census and the School Census, while present-day
migration and linguistic signage in the city are taken into
consideration.

Crossing to East Asia, in Chapter 10, Shinjee & Dovchin present the
multilingual landscape of Ulaanbaatar ­– the capital city of Mongolia.
The focus here is on the post-socialist LL of the city, with the data
deriving from a larger ethnographic research project on language and
culture in Ulaanbaatar.

Chapter 11, written by Bissoonauth & Warren, investigates urban
multilingualism in the Indian Ocean Island country of Mauritius as
they explore linguistic and ethnic diversity in its largest city of
Port-Louis. Here they explore current patterns of language use,
particularly among young people. A range of census data is drawn on,
as well as a database of language use and language attitudes among
secondary school students.

Chapter 12 ­– the final chapter of Part Three ­– takes the reader to
South America and fixates on pluricentricity in Río de la Plata
address, with a focus on Uruguay’s capital city of Montevideo. This
chapter draws on quantitative data from a large-scale survey
containing address usage questions answered by 579 respondents – 367
of whom were from Montevideo and are the focus of the study.

The four editors then provide a conclusion on “Looking Back and
Looking Forward”. They summarise the chapters in terms of the three
thematic parts in which they are situated, and what they represent.
They refer to the introductory chapter as they comment again on
multilingualism and pluricentricity, linguistic landscaping as a
common approach, and thematic sections and avenues for future
research. A “Biographical Notes” section is also provided from Pages
333-336 which provides some brief details about each individual
author. It is positive to see that the authors are of a range of
different stages in their academic careers, including a contribution
from at least one PhD candidate.

EVALUATION

The authors of all twelve chapters are consistent in that they provide
contextual, historical information on the geographical areas wherein
their research is carried out, often linking to histories of
migration. This makes the book appeal not only to those interested in
sociolinguistics and the wider field of linguistics, but also to
scholars in other disciplines such as history and geography. Chapter
8, for instance, provides the reader with an extensive historical and
sociolinguistic background of the Italian community in Munich, from
the presence of 17th Century Italian architects to the current high
number of Italian students and professional workers. They highlight
how language use in Munich’s Italian-speaking community reflects past
and present transmigration, a high professional diversity, and
multilingual repertoires. The history of colonisation and its impact
on multilingualism in post-colonial contexts is also touched upon to
an extent. In Chapter 11, for example, the authors discuss French and
British colonialisation of Mauritius and its effects on the
co-existence of languages there today. The substantial links between
migration and mobility with the development of language practices are
in fact emphasised throughout most chapters of the book, making
migration studies a core component of this volume.

A wide variety of methodologies are applied throughout the book, from
qualitative, ethnographic research and discourse analysis to
quantitative investigation of Census and other numerical data. As
mentioned in the Conclusion chapter, almost half of the book’s
contributions have incorporated a linguistic landscaping approach – a
visual, or perhaps sensory way of exploring the use and role of
language in a particular geographical space, through analysis of
semiotic resources. The LL studies presented in the book vary in their
approaches with a range of quantitative and qualitative analysis,
although more direct contact with sign creators to gather their
perspectives on language choice would have been interesting. In terms
of the mode of communication being assessed, most chapters focus on
offline communication (but see Chapter 1 which analyses language
policy on the official municipal websites of Fribourg/Freiburg and
Biel/Bienne in Switzerland). The lack of online data is somewhat
surprising in the current online-offline climate (Blommaert, 2019),
since digital communication now plays such a prominent role in both
top-down and bottom-up language policy, identity formation, and
communication across space. I believe that many of the chapters within
the book could explore the impact of the digital sphere on the
physical language practices discussed, which could be a potential idea
for future research in some of these areas.

Nonetheless, traditional offline research on urban multilingualism is
expanded upon through the presentation of data from parts of the world
that have not been typically examined in previous scholarly research
of this kind – especially in English. This introduces lesser discussed
locations into academic literature that is published in English and is
brought to the attention of those studying and researching the
relevant topics. This is the case especially in Chapter 10 on the LL
of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, which as the authors state, there has been
very little sociolinguistic research. This is also the case for
languages and language varieties that are potentially hidden in the LL
and hence in urban multilingualism research which are brought to light
in the book. As mentioned by Kaufman in Chapter 6, who discusses the
Mixtec language in New York, research on smaller language communities
in the city are often only described in passing and tend to be
anecdotal, and this study is impactful in drawing attention to Mixtec.
This also has the potential to prompt researchers of linguistically
diverse cities to focus their attention on the languages that are
perhaps hidden in the public sphere.

Although there are a wide variety of countries represented throughout
the volume, including some in the Global South, there is a high
concentration of research which represents language contexts in
Europe. This slightly conflicts with the points made in the
introduction around the euro-centric focus of superdiversity and how
it neglects diversity and language contact in different parts of the
world, particularly the global south (p4). It is however important to
note that some of the parts of Europe in which the research is
situated have not been typically researched in urban multilingualism,
which helps to eliminate any bias.

Overall, the editors and contributors of Multilingualism and
Pluricentricity: A Tale of Many Cities achieve what they intend to.
There is a clear, mutual interest in contemporary, urban
multilingualism, as well as a common process of referring to the past
and the changing dynamics of cities and urban centres over the years
which contribute to their respective language situations today.
Although the different chapters of the volume form together nicely
into different themes (Parts 1, 2 and 3), and to the wider theme of
urban multilingualism and pluricentricity, each chapter has its own
different appeal, and deserves to be widely disseminated among the
research community.

REFERENCES

Androutsopoulos, J. 2013. Networked multilingualism: Some language
practices on Facebook and their implications’. International Journal
of Bilingualism, 19(2). 185–205.

Auer, Peter. 2021. Reflections on linguistic pluricentricity.
Sociolinguistica 35. 29–47.

Blommaert, J. 2019. From groups to actions and back in online-offline
sociolinguistics. Multilingua. 38(4). 485-493.

Blommaert, Jan & Ben Rampton. 2011. Language and superdiversity.
Diversities 13(2). 1–21.

Blommaert, Jan. 2013. Ethnography, superdiversity and linguistic
landscapes: chronicles of complexity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Carson, Lorna & Lid King. 2016. Introduction: multilingualism is lived
here. In Lid King & Lorna Carson (eds.), The multilingual city, 1–16.
Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Dyers, Charlyn. 2015. Multilingualism in Late-Modern Africa: identity,
mobility and multivocality. International Journal of Bilingualism
19(2). 226–35

Georgalou, M. 2019. Place identity construction in Greek neomigrants’
social media discourse. Internet Pragmatics. 2(1), pp.137-163.

Goebel, Zane. 2015. Language and superdiversity: Indonesians
knowledging at home and abroad. New York: Oxford University Press.

Goebel, Zane. 2010. Language, migration and identity: neighbourhood
talk in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Labov, William. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York
City. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Mar-Molinero, Clare (ed.). 2020a. Researching language in superdiverse
urban contexts: exploring methodological and theoretical concepts.
Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Trudgill, Peter. 1974. The social differentiation of English in
Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

The author is a PhD researcher in Sociolinguistics at The University
of Liverpool currently researching online-offline language provisions
and language maintenance of non-English languages in the city of
Liverpool, UK. She gained a MA in Linguistics and a BA in English
Language and Linguistics both at The University of Manchester. Prior
to beginning her PhD project, she worked as Research Assistant on the
UKRI-OWRI-funded Multilingual Manchester project at The University of
Manchester. Her research interests include language policy, language
and identity, digitally mediated communication, and linguistic
landscapes.



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