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Bilingualism Multilingualism and Identity

The document discusses bilingualism and identity. It defines bilingualism as the routine use of two or more languages in a community. Individual and social identities are mediated through language. Communities are defined by a shared language that creates a sense of solidarity. Language boundaries often imply social boundaries, though this has not always been true for linguistic minorities. Languages gain legitimacy through reification into written forms and adoption as a group identifier. Bilingualism can arise through economic pressures, administrative policies, prestige, religion, and functional specialization between languages. Accommodation theory holds that individuals adjust speech to integrate socially, though groups only exist in individuals' minds. Identification between groups depends on a shared foundation in language.

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Jannatul Nayma Mou
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65 views13 pages

Bilingualism Multilingualism and Identity

The document discusses bilingualism and identity. It defines bilingualism as the routine use of two or more languages in a community. Individual and social identities are mediated through language. Communities are defined by a shared language that creates a sense of solidarity. Language boundaries often imply social boundaries, though this has not always been true for linguistic minorities. Languages gain legitimacy through reification into written forms and adoption as a group identifier. Bilingualism can arise through economic pressures, administrative policies, prestige, religion, and functional specialization between languages. Accommodation theory holds that individuals adjust speech to integrate socially, though groups only exist in individuals' minds. Identification between groups depends on a shared foundation in language.

Uploaded by

Jannatul Nayma Mou
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Bilingualism, Multilingualism and

Identity

M Jahidul Azad
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Prime University
“Bilingual”: what does it mean?

• ‘In this chapter I use the terms


“bilingualism” and “multilingualism”
interchangeably to refer to the routine
use of two or more languages in a
community’ (Romaine 385)
Defining communities
• Which communities do you belong to?
• At any given time a person’s identity is a
heterogeneous set made up of all the names or
identities, given to and taken up by her. (Tabouret-
Keller 316)
[…] individual identity and social identity are
mediated by language: Language features are the
link which binds individual and social identities
together (317)
Defining communities
• What is crucial […] to most definitions of
community is the sense of perceived
solidarity and interaction based on reference
to a particular language and the
relationships among people who identify
themselves as members of that community.
(Romaine 387)
Language and boundaries
• Language and the identities they carry
with them generally imply a boundary
marking function: The same identity
prevails where and as long as the same
language is spoken. Has this ever been
true? (Tabouret-Keller 319)
Linguistic minorities
• The label “minority” if often simply a
euphemism for non-elite or subordinate
groups, whether they constitute a
numerical majority or minority in
relation to some other group that is
politically and socially dominant
(Romaine 389)
Language legitimacy
Naming a language

reification and totemization of it


• Reification involves some body of doctrine (grammars,
lexicons, a literature)
• Totemization is the adoption of a language as one of the
defining social properties of a group. (Tabouret-Keller
318)
Why are people bilingual?
• Economic necessity
• Civil servants (administrative policies)
• Prestige (language of the educated such as Latin
and Greek)
• Religion

DIGLOSSIA: high and low variety; functional


specialization between languages (Romaine 393)
Accommodation theory
• Convergence and divergence (Giles in Tabouret-
Keller 322)

• Giles’ theory: people adjust their speech style to


be socially integrated into existing groups.
• Le Page’s theory: groups only exist in the minds of
individuals and speech acts are acts of projection
Identification process
(Tabouret-Keller 324)
• Not envisioned in the frame of a dual relationship
between A (groups) and B individuals but:
• Identification between A and B is possible only
insofar as these two have access to and are part of
C (= language as the foundation of human
condition)
Making sense means to depend on words
An English-speaking community?

• There are more speakers of English as a second


language than there are native English speakers

• Diglossia on an international scale

• Bilingual countries were created not to promote


bilingualism, but to guarantee the maintenance
and use of two or more languages in the same
nation (Romaine 398)
Closing debate
• Is linguistic diversity positive or
negative?
• How is it perceived?
Thank you

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