UDC 81’272
Wang Yutao
EI «Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno»
Scientific supervisor – M. A. Lokhnitskaya, Candidate of Philology,
Associate Professor of the Department of Translation and Intercultural Communication, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno
APPROACHES TO DEFINING THE TERMS “BILINGUAL”, ”MULTILINGUAL” AND “PLURILINGUAL”
With the progress of society, the process of globalization is accelerating and exchanges between countries are becoming more and more frequent. Communication between different countries needs to rely on the language as a medium. The demand for foreign language proficiency is constantly growing both in China and internationally. Linguistic diversity is a fundamental component of Chinese culture and intercultural dialogue.
Under the background of globalization, any international exchanges and interests need corresponding language support, which is of great significance for countries that join the new pattern of world economy.
The words ‘bilingual’, ‘multilingual’ and ‘plurilingual’ are of frequent usage in present-day scientific writings and official reports on language education. The rapid pace of globalization and international communication increases the confusion of these concepts. This paper attempts to reveal the differences in the meaning of these terms.
The study of bilingualism and multilingualism has a very long history. For example, in Europe, social language contacts with detailed historical records can be traced back to the 17th century. However, bilingualism and multilingualism became the focus of scientific research in the 20th century, especially since the 1870s. The following will be a summary and collation of bilingual / multilingual concepts.
Word prefix bi- means ‘two or double’. Word prefixes multi- and pluri- mean ‘several or many’. The root lingu means ‘language’ or ‘relating to languages’. As the name implies, bilingual means ‘two languages’, multilingual and plurilingual means ‘three or more languages’.
Bilingualism is a very complex linguistic, cultural and social phenomenon, and its definition varies greatly depending on the perspective. Although many linguists, sociologists, political scientists, educationalists and psychologists have tried to give a comprehensive definition of bilingualism, no definition has so far been universally recognized.
German linguist Fischer has said that 50 years of bilingual studies have failed to give a universal definition of ‘bilingualism’ (Huang, 2009). British linguist Colin Baker also pointed out that it is quite difficult to distinguish who is bilingual and who is non-bilingual. A founder and one of the most important representatives of American structuralist linguistics, Leonard Bloomfield, in 1933, from the point of view of ‘ability’, put forward that bilingualism refers to mastering two or more languages like a native speaker (Baker, 1993). Baker believes that Bloomfield’s view is too extreme (Baker, 1993). Mastering two or more languages like a native speaker is too demanding, and the proposed standard is nearly to the maximum. In addition, the author believes that the concept of ‘mastering languages like a native speaker’ is vague. Brunfield’s intention is to show that a second language can be mastered as well as a mother tongue, but in the bilingual population, many people have different degrees of mastery of the mother tongue, some are ‘balanced bilingual’ and some are ‘semilingual or double semilingual’. In this case ‘mastering a language like a native speaker’ reflects a low degree of mastery (Huang, 2009).
When examining ‘bilingualism’ from the perspective of ‘language use’, Baker focused on the concepts of ‘balanced bilingualism’ and ‘semilingualism or double semilingualism’. ‘Balanced bilingualism’ refers to a highly developed mastery of both languages. There is no doubt that this is an ideal bilingual situation, but in fact few people can achieve this in all situations. For example, some people use both languages at work and at home. Some people use two different languages in spoken and written languages respectively. Because written and spoken languages have different types of writing and styles, the actual mastery of the two languages is also uneven. ‘Balanced bilingualism’ refers to the ability to have roughly the same mastery of both languages (Baker, 1993). In the eyes of the vast majority of researchers ‘balanced bilingualism’ implies a good ability to roughly match the two languages, Baker notes (Baker, 1993). When the mastery of both languages is not even, we call it a ‘semilingualism or double semilingualism’ (Baker, 1993).
From the point of view of function, Uriel Weinreich, a famous sociolinguist, points out that ‘the practice of exchanging two languages in turn is called bilingualism’ (Weinreich,1977). We cannot get further explanation from Weinreich regarding how to understand the use of rotation exchange, and what the frequency of language exchange is. Putting ‘function’ not ‘capability’ into consideration is obviously not accurate and comprehensive.
Baker judges whether a person is ‘bilingual’ from the perspectives of ‘ability’ and ‘use’, which can also be interpreted as ‘degree’ and ‘function’ (Baker, 1993). Whether a person is ‘bilingual’ or not depends on the ability, first of all, but Baker does not give a clear answer concerning the degree of the ability which can be called ‘bilingual’. Baker just points out that the criteria for the ability set too broadly will make the answer too inclusive, and the criteria set too narrowly will make the answer too limited. He believes that when a person has a minimal degree of second language ability, this can be put in the category of ‘minimal bilingualism’ or ‘incipient bilingualism’. For example, a tourist who knows a few words of a foreign language or a business person who knows a few greetings in a foreign language. And ‘maximal bilingualism’ can be measured by Bloomfield’s definition of bilingualism (Baker, 1993). Here, maximal bilingualism can be understood as ‘mastering two or more languages as well as native speakers can express them’.
In Merriam-Webster’s dictionary the word multilingual is defined as the ability to speak and understand several languages and apply or express with several languages (Merriam-Webster, 2021).
Etymologically, the roots of the word multilingual come from Latin. If you happen to prefer Greek, use the synonym polyglot, in which poly- has the same meaning as multi-, and —glot means the same as -lingual. The best way to become multilingual is probably to be born in a bilingual (two-language) household; learning those first two seems to give the mind the kind of exercise that makes later language-learning easy.
The term multilingualism is used to refer “exclusively to the presence of several languages in a given space, independently of those who use them”, whereas the term plurilingualism is used to refer to an individual’s “ability to use languages to varying degrees and for distinct purposes” (Mbulungeni,2007). At the same time, in the classroom of multilingual education, students should meet the needs of learning to use multiple languages.
Plurilingualism is an even more recent term and its use is still being developed and refined. The main distinction between multilingualism and plurilingualism is that a multilingual approach is about having different languages coexist alongside each other, but separately, within individuals or societies, with the ultimate aim of achieving the idealised competency of the native speaker in each of them. In contrast, a plurilingual approach emphasises the development of effective communication skills which draw on all of our linguistic and cultural experiences in an interactive way (Mbulungeni, 2007). The term plurilingualism is frequently defined as ‘individual multilingualism’ and plurilingualism is a fundamental principle of language education policies of the Council of Europe (Lokhnitskaya, 2019).
Plurilingualism is a life-long activity, a process of learning languages of home, society and other peoples, it acknowledges the partial nature of the knowledge anyone can have of one language, be it their mother tongue or not. Therefore, plurilingualism removes the ideal of the native speaker as the ultimate achievement and replaces it with the aim of an effective pluralistic communicator who draws on his / her varied repertoire of linguistic and cultural knowledge in a flexible, creative and individual way (Mbulungeni,2007).
Every person, who has competence in more than two languages and can switch between using multiple languages depending on the situation for ease of communication, is a plurilingual.
Plurilingual is made up of pluri- and —lingual (Merriam-Webster, 2021). If it is accepted that plurilingualism thus defined is a competence individuals have as speakers, who are fundamentally rather than exceptionally plurilingual, education systems and all other training authorities should:
1) make all speakers aware of their own repertoire, including the “mother tongue”, and of the repertoires of other speakers and groups;
2) demonstrate the intrinsic equal dignity of all those varieties in that they are appropriate to the functions each speaker gives them;
3) promote the development of the repertoires of speakers by increasing competences, levels of proficiency and the number of varieties known;
4) promote the development of plurilingual competence of speakers by developing the transversal competences of which it is composed.
We should be aware of the actual impact of the definition of bilingual and multilingual on people and the importance of the definition of bilingual and multilingual in bilingual and multilingual teaching.
In the 21st century, our traditional understanding of bilingual and multilingual education was undermined because scholars around the world questioned some of them. Bilingual education has traditionally been defined as the use of two languages in education, but at other times, especially when educating a prioritized language, it is only intended to improve the understanding and development of the language competence of the dominant language.
Bilingual education must respond to people’s language practices and not only to the language established by political states and their schools as autonomous and binding languages. Bilingual education should aim at social justice and strengthen the idea of people using language to communicate and participate in a variety of environments and societies (Ofelia, 1997).
The term multilingual education is often used by scholars and refers to the use of more than two languages in education, which is also an important manifestation of globalization, and the use of only two languages may not meet development needs. Multilingual education is also used differently: it refers to teaching in more than two languages so that students can communicate in at least three languages.
Bilingual and multilingual education is always in a certain social background, but no matter how the social background develops and changes, it is controversial and contradictory. This also leads to the emergence of a phenomenon, that is non-neutral academic research phenomenon (Ofelia,1997).
There is rich connotation behind the phenomenon of bilingual and multilingual education mentioned above. First of all, the phenomenon of bilingual and multilingual education is the inevitable result of the strengthening of international flow and exchange, which has both historical and practical reasons. Historically, many regions of the world have been derived from or influenced by different languages and cultures.
Secondly, the phenomenon of widely spread bilingual and multilingual education has been the result of enhanced trend of internationalization and globalization. In this situation, nowadays many schools all over the world have included more than one language in the curriculum.
Thirdly, the prevalence of bilingual and multilingual education has been promoted by the increasingly innovative computer science and the wide spread of information in English.
With the change of the international situation and enhanced cross-border exchange, the traditional definition of bilingual and multilingual education has been provided with new perspectives. At the same time, with the practice of bilingual and multilingual education becoming more and more active, the global research on this phenomenon is also increasing. The study of cross-language competence has made remarkable progress, which means that multilingual education is becoming more and more important. The emergence of this phenomenon helps to improve the overall language ability of individual learners, but also helps to improve the ability of other languages. In this way, multilingual and bilingual education has been regarded as an important means to cultivate the language ability as well as other cognitive competences by the learners.
Through the above analysis, we have reached the following conclusions. The term plurilingualism is developed with the progress of society and the increasing international communication. Although in teaching or in real life, multilingualism involves the context of more than two languages, it refers to the ability of a person to communicate normally in two or more languages. The main difference in multilingualism and plurilingualism is that multilingualism refers to the coexistence of different languages in a social or educational context, while plurilingualism refers to a person’s ability to use different languages in real life. In other words, multiculturalism emphasizes the abilities of a person to use multiple languages as interpersonal interaction skills in different linguistic and cultural contexts. Plurilingualism is an important personal development goal in language education, which is achieved by learning languages other than their mother tongue.
There is no universally accepted definition of bilingual, but it should be pointed out that the vast majority of bilingual people have different degrees of mastery of the two languages. A bilingual person has a strong language, which is the language the people often use and like to use, and a relatively less amblyopia language. So it’s difficult to find the most accurate and perfect definition of bilingual. We can still interpret multilingualism as the use of three or more languages in a context and the ability to master them. Any person who has competence in more than two languages, can use more than several languages to communicate according to different situations is plurilingual.
Bibliographic list
- Baker, C. (1993). Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon Philadelphia, Adelaide: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
- Huang, C. L. (2009). Shuangyu jiaoxue de Lilun yu Shijian [The theory and practice of bilingual teaching]. Shanghai:Shanghai Century publishing Co., Ltd. Shanghai Translation Publishing House.
- Li, W. (2020). The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism. Beijing: The commercial Press.
- Mbulungeni, M. (2007). Multilingual education in South African universities: Policies, pedagogy and practicality. South Africa: University of Cape Town.
- Merriam-Webster. (2021). Merriam-Webster Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurilingual.
- Ofelia, G. (1997). Bilingual and Multilingual education. New York，USA. The Graduate Center, The City University of New York.
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- Weinreich, U. (1997). Sprachen in Kontakt. Ergebnisse und Problem der Zweisprachigkeitsforschung. Munchen: Beck.
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