Monolingualism: The unmarked case

Sociolinguistic Studies, 2008

Some may find it strange to see a special journal issue on monolingualism. After all, is it not bilinguals and multilinguals who present the more interesting questions? It certainly seems so, for research has concentrated on their linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic make-up. The implication of this is that monolingualism is the norm, and that bilingualism and multilingualism constitute abnormal states which merit investigation; even though this idea sits oddly with the belief of most linguists that the majority of the world's population is bi-or multilingual, and that therefore monolingualism may be the exception rather than the norm. There is little systematic investigation of monolingualism: Romaine pointed out in 1995 that she would find it strange to see a book with the title 'Monolingualism'. This special issue of Sociolinguistic Studies carries just such a title, and the papers it includes represent an attempt to explore the phenomenon of monolingualism from a number of different perspectives. In this introduction I will outline why a simple definition of monolingualism is neither easy to establish nor useful, and also why it is important to come to an understanding of it as a particular kind of 'lingualism' (Cruz Ferreira p.c.). I then review ways in which monolingualism has been represented thus far in the literature, outline some possible research questions and end by introducing the contributions to this volume.

2018

While we in composition studies may have grown more sensitive to and welcoming of cultural and linguistic differences in the classroom, we remain far from united in pursuits to combat explicitly in our pedagogies the politics of standardized English. To move toward linguistic justice, we call for unified intention and action across our field to explicitly combat the very monolingualist ideologies so many of us, no matter our good intentions, uphold and perpetuate in our classrooms and institutions. One issue preventing unified approaches in contesting monolingualist ideologies, as we see it, is that we do not forefront in our minds and our practices the material consequences of monolingualist ideology, nor have we come to a holistic consensus on the monolingualism paradigm. With this article, we hope to clarify just what it is we’re rejecting when we contest monolingualism, and, in so doing, be better prepared to combat more explicitly the harms of linguistic hierarchies. During the...

Employability for languages: a handbook, 2016

Abstract: The argument I will develop in this essay is that the foreign students are a latent human resource who can assist with overcoming English monolingualism in the Australian population. Foreign students, properly rewarded, can be a major source of skills transfer. Every one of those students is a walking compendium of language and cultural skills that Australians need to know.

2014

This phenomenological case study applies an inductive method to discover and interpret the common experiences and reactions of Azeri and Kurdish students and teachers to the monolingual educational policy in Iran's multilingual society. Interviews with nine students, seven teachers and two experts provided the explanation and interpretation that participants have given about the monolingual policy in education, their daily life and ideas about ethnic and national identity. Students and teachers as participants were selected for participation from two Kurdish and two Azeri cities in Iran by snowball sampling using deliberate criterion.

For many South Africans English has become symbolic of education, affluence, internationalism and freedom (see e.g. Nomlomo 2004; Sigcau 2004 and Heugh 2007). It is regarded as serving not only the nation in promoting public and cross-cultural communication, but even more so the individual, as the golden key to upward socio-economic mobility. Those who at this point in time have acceptable levels of proficiency in English, certainly do benefit from it. For this reason, the conviction prevails that all South African learners should be allowed equal and sufficient opportunities to attain an enabling level of English proficiency. The reality, however, is that comparatively few South African learners have been afforded such access. A consequence of the above scenario is that whole generations of learners are attempting to make their way through the schooling system without a useful level of proficiency in the medium of instruction (MoI). Ultimately, the low level of English L2 proficiency learners in this situation acquire fails to unlock the door to the desired upward socioeconomic mobility (Alexander 2012; Krugel and Fourie 2014). In addition, there is an ongoing debate about the new forms of English developing in postcolonial contexts as a result of contact with various indigenous languages. The legitimacy of these variant forms and the desirability (or not) of trying to uphold Anglo norms in education through the medium of English (cf. Pennycook 1995), are often contested. This chapter will not engage in the disputes on which Englishes should be endorsed as illustrative of high proficiency and which not. It provides an overview of the development of the Language in Education Policy with special attention to a new dispensation, the implementation of which started after 1994. It also reflects on conditions that have inhibited the de facto implementation of improved forms of maintenance bilingual education. It presents a sociolinguistic profile of the current distribution of South African languages and then gives a developmental history of past and recent South African language-in-education policies (LiEPs). Referring also to the power of English, the chapter discusses attitudes towards English as a MoI in South African schools and weighs arguments for and against mother tongue education (MTE) versus bilingual education as two of the proposed solutions to the problem of selecting MoIs in South Africa. In conclusion, the chapter presents suggestions developed in Perold (2011) for going beyond the idealisations contained in the 1997 Language in Education Policy, to actually achieving its aims of providing enabling education for all.

Current Issues in Language Planning, 2010

International Journal of Multilingual Education, by Aicha Rahal, 2021

Globalization has brought about a phenomenal spread of English. This spread has led to the emergence of the newborn varieties which has created serious challenges to language teaching pedagogy and language education policy. Bangbose (2003) has clearly pointed to this issue, stating "as researchers in world Englishes, we cannot consider our job done if we turn a blind eye to the problems of educational failure or unfavorable language policy outcomes" (as cited in the Council of Europe, 2007, p. 31). It seems that there is a mismatch between the advances that happened in the field of applied linguistics and language education policy. This paper focuses on language education policy in the context of global English because it is considered one of the influential factors in the gap between English lingua franca reality and English as a native language. First, it gives a brief overview of the recent situation with regard to English and shows the recent reality of multilingual English and its multifarious aspect (Rahal, 2018 & 2019). It also discusses the conceptual gap in language education policy. It points to the conceptual gap between the sociolinguistic reality of English and the language education policy that is still oriented towards English as a native language. Then, the paper points to the need for a language policy that includes linguistic diversity.

2011

Educating multilingual students is a great challenge for both teachers and parents in a society in which English is the medium of schooling and of wider communication. Top-down language policies often overpower teachers' individual intentions and practices. In this paper, we point out that language ideologies in 'commonsense' beliefs and political orientations, rather than pedagogical considerations or research evidence, motivate language policies. We particularly discuss the language ideologies of standardization and monolingualism that underlie bilingual education and English-only policies in the U.S. and how these policies conflict with the reality of multilingual students' linguistic and identity practices. We also examine research on bilingual, bidialectal, and plurilingual practices in which multiple languages or varieties within a language co-exist and are used creatively by speakers for significant social and pragmatic functions, and we highlight the critical gap between top-down language policies and such ground-level plurilingualism. Teachers' knowledge of such plurilingual practices by their students and their deeper understanding of and critical perspective toward language policies can empower them to negotiate top-down language polices in their classrooms in order to facilitate language and literacy development among their multilingual students.

Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies 302, 2022

Public discourse in a range of countries has been reported to be characterised by Othering practices that support dichotomies between a national and monolingual "in-group" and multilingual speakers who are constructed as secondary citizens and often associated with special needs, even if they have grown up locally. Less in the focus of analysis is the fact that such patterns are also found in our field, and a closer look at linguistic publications reveals that certain patterns of Othering might be typical or even systemic, rather than exceptional. Exclusionary practices are evident in terminology that continues to reflect a narrow, monolingual view of (ethnic and) linguistic in-groups. Monolingual practices still tend to be canonised as defining the normal, unmarked case, and bilinguals are then assessed against this yardstick in terms of deviations. As a result, they can be erased as native speakers, have their language use analysed through a lens of potential errors and problems, or be excluded from the speaker pool for linguistic analysis. We present examples from different linguistic subdisciplines and discuss language-ideological implications and possible effects on research perspectives and agendas.