Second language acquisition

3. MULTILINGUALISM

- The word Mulilingualism may be used to refer to the linguistic skills of any individual who is able to
use various different languages in some interlinguistic communicative situations;
- It may also be used to refer to the linguistic situation of a country where ever al different languages
coexist. In Italy there are few different languages (French and German near alpine boundaries).
- In recent research it seems to be widely accepted that it is best to view multilingualism on a
continuum ranging from full competence in language A to full competence in language n;

Defining multilingualism
More recently researchers who study bilingual and multilingual communities around the world have argued
for a broad definition that views bilingualism and multilingualism as a common human condition that
makes it possible for an individual to function, at some level, in more than one language. The key to this
broad and inclusive definition of bilingualism is “more than one”.
Multilingual competence is a process made of steps, there is no final level (continuum).
From the perspective of this framework, a bilingual individual is not necessarily an a bilingual (someone
with native competence in two languages) but a bilingual of a specific type who, along with other bilinguals
of many different types, can be classified along a continuum. Some bilinguals possess very high levels of
proficiency in both languages in the written and oral modes.
Others display varying proficiencies in comprehension and/or speaking skills depending on the immediate
area of experience in which they are called upon to use their two languages (ex. If your work is answering
emails, you are excellent in writing but you may be bad at speaking);
According to their perspective, one admits into the company of bilingual individuals who can, to whatever
degree, comprehend or produce written or spoken utterances in more than one language. Thus, persons
able to read in a second language but unable to function in the spoken language are considered to be
bilinguals of a certain type and placed at one end of the continuum.
Such persons are said to have receptive competence in a second language and to be “more bilingual” than
monolinguals who have neither receptive nor productive abilities in a language other than their L1.

Europeisms
- The interest for multilingualism in Europe spread out with Leopardi. He claims that if some words
are similar, it is a sign that language puts in common different languages.
- Leopardi invented the term “europeisms” referring to those items that appeared to be common
among the European languages, especially in politics and philosophy.
- He proposed the compilation of a “European universal Dictionary” that could include those terms
meaning very specific and common to almost all European languages.
- This shows that the attention to languages and their common features date back in time. People,
especially in Europe, have been exposed to multilingualism for centuries.
- Most of the European languages are actually related, they belong to three different families:
Germanic, Italic and Slavic languages. For example: analysis, genius, sentimental are europeisms.

Linguistically speaking
Italian “acido”: confix “-ac” of Indo-European origin, in Greek “-akē” (point). The same affix appears,
denoting a sense of something pungent or acute, in “aceto”, “acuminato”, “acre”, “acuire”.
è There is a connection among languages we’ve always been into multilingualism.
SAE: Standard Average European
SAE is a concept introduced in 1939 by Benjamin Whorf to group the modern Indo-European languages of
Europe. Whorf observed that there languages were characterized by a number of similarities including
syntax and grammar, vocabulary and its use as well as the relationship between contrasting words and
their origins, idioms and word order which all made them stand out from many other language groups
around the world which do not share there similarities.
His point was to argue that the disproportionate degree of knowledge of SAE languages biased linguists
towards considering grammatical forms to be highly natural or even universal, when in fact they were only
peculiar to the SAE languages group.
Alexander Gode, who was instrumental in the development of Interlingua, characterized it as “Standard
Average European”. The Romance, Germanic and Slavic control languages of Interlingua are reflective of
the language groups most often included in the SAE Sprachbund.

EUROVERSALS
According to Martin Haspelmath, the SAE languages form a Sprachbund, that is a specific linguistic area in
which we can find some similarities, sometimes called “euroversals” by analogy with linguistic universal:
- Basic sentence structure: Subject – Verb – Object;
- Use of prepositions/cases (ex. German);
- Use of “have” and “be” as auxiliary verbs;
- Presence of definite and indefinite articles;
- Agreement / concord between Subject and Verb.

Why are these speculations important?

Multilingualism is present in every country of the world, and it has existed since the beginning of language
in human history. This may better explain why there have been much interest in the observation of
language other than their mother tongue.
Multilingualism is important for social and practical reasons, as well as academic ones, but its distribution is
quite unequal.
Those who grow up in a multilingual environment acquire multilingualism competence (the compound
state of a mind with two or more grammars) in the natural course of using two or more languages from
childhood. While there are interesting similarities between L1 and L2 acquisition, the two processes cannot
be equated, nor can multilingualism be assumed to involve simply the same knowledge and skills as
monolingualism, except in more than one language.

Multilingual acquisition
What happens when learning a third language? When approaching a third language, we need to consider
the differences and the influence between L1, L2, L3, L…n acquisition: on one hand the differences between
L2 and L3 learning; the status of L2 in L3 learning on the other hand.

Example: a monolingual who has Italian as L1, can acquire English as a L2 but it’s learned later, not
simultaneously. A bilingual, instead, can acquire both L1 + L2 as native tongues.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN L2 AND L3 LEARNING

L3 learners are:
- More experienced, because they have already gone through the process of learning a new
language;
- Conscious of the use of more strategies —> metalinguistic awareness.

There are issues of level of competence and linguistic interdependence.

Level of competence: L3 learning does not imply that we’ll not be as good as in L2 (of course, if we start
studying a new language at 60 years old, it won’t be the same as if we start at 30 years old —> the sooner
the better).
Linguistic interdependence: L2 acquisition can potentially influence L3 acquisition.
The status of L2 in L3 learning
Reliance in L3 production not on L1 but on L2: we start making comparisons relying on L2 because it’s a
language in which we have already experienced the process of learning and which is not our native tongue.
The activation of languages other than the native language depends on factors such as:
- Psychotypology: the perceived linguistic distance between languages;
- Recency of use;
- The level of proficiency in L3.

The complexity of multilingual acquisition and use

In contrast with SLA, where we have to deal with two kinds of language acquisition (L1 —> L2 or L1+L2), in
TLA (Third Language Acquisition) we find at least four acquisition orders:
- L1 —> L2 —> L3 : the three languages are learnt consecutively;
- L1 + L2 + L3 : the three languages are learnt simultaneously;
- L1 + L2 —> L3: L1 and L2 are learnt simultaneously before L3 learning;
- L1 —> L2 + L3 : L2 and L3 are learnt simultaneously after L1 acquisition.

The development of a multilingual repertoire:

- Changes over time
- Can be reversible
- Is complex

Multilingual proficiency
The multilingual proficiency is given by multiple factors:
è LS1, LS2, LS3, LSn + CLIN + MULTILINGUALISM FACTOR

- LS = LANGUAGE SYSTEM
- CLIN = CROSS-LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE (transfer, interference, code-switching)
- MULTILINGUALISM FACTOR = all those qualities which develop in a multilingualism speaker/learner
due to the increase in language contact.

The importance of metalinguistic awareness in multilingualism

Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to reflect and talk about the language and the cognitive strategies
that the learner uses to acquire it. It influences further language learning, especially for adults.
In contrast to monolinguals, multilingualism have:
- A different knowledge of their first and second language;
- A different kind of language awareness (which is more)

Metalinguistic knowledge
Jessner defines metalinguistic knowledge as “the ability to focus on linguistic form and to switch focus
between form and meaning” and explain that this knowledge is “made up of a set of skills or abilities that
the multilingual user develops owing to his/her prior linguistic and metacognitive knowledge”.
A strand of research on multilingualism suggests that some of the qualitative differences between
monolingual, bilingual and trilingual acquisition can be ascribed to different levels of metalinguistic
awareness. That is, L3 acquisition generally involves an increased level of metalinguistic awareness, even
higher than in bilingual or L2 acquisition.
Furthermore, the presence of metalinguistic knowledge/awareness in bilingual or L2 acquisition has
beneficial, catalytic effects on trilingual acquisition.
In a similar vein, several researches emphasize the importance of formal instruction because heightened
metalinguistic awareness, derived from exposure to literacy in two languages, gives bilingual learners the
capacity to focus on form and pay attention to the relevant features in the input.
Research question
There still seems to be insufficient ground to explain the role of metalinguistic awareness in
multilingualism.
The main interest in multilingual studies so far has considered the impact of L1 and L2 on L3, and to a lesser
extent the impact of L1, L2 and L3 on each other.
Languages develop in a dynamic interaction with each other, influenced by the variety of factors mentioned
before.
Unlike a number of linguistic and psycholinguistic studies that have suggested idiosyncrasy and
independence of L3 processing from that of L1 and L2, more recent neurolinguistic research has shown that
the same areas of the brain are generally activated during language use in proficient multilinguals. Thus,
the development of the individual multilingual system over time and the variability that might be found
within and across the languages spoken as they evolve in the speakers’s mind should rather be the core
issue for research in multilingualism —> We still need to study how multilingualism processes really work.