Factors Promoting Bilingualism
Sociolinguistics
Ms. Maheen
To enable students to
understand the reasons that
promote bilingualism in the
society, more specifically
related to ‘displacement’.
Conditions of displacement
Speakers are likely to become bilingual under certain conditions of displacement.
This displacement can be physical or it can be psychological:
Speakers move, whether voluntarily or involuntarily (migration).
The ruling class changes (wars and colonialism).
Borders change (peace settlements).
Circumstances encourage speakers to learn the territorially dominant language
(incorporation for national integration).
Speakers admire/espouse the characteristics of an attractive group(acculturation).
Education in an L2 is a prerequisite for socio-economic mobility.
Migration
The motivation for most migration has been to find better
jobs, but it can also have other causes, such as to seek
political or religious refuge. In every case, an outcome of
migration has been bilingualism in the mother tongue and the
dominant language of the nation receiving the immigrants.
Changes in Europe
By the end of the twentieth century was a change in the outward appearance
of Europe, thanks to population movements. Europeans had been used to
thinking of their nations as fairly homogeneous, at least in terms of the
native language of most of the citizens. But that has changed for every
single Western European nation. All of them have had an influx of political
and economic refugees from Eastern Europe. In addition, the continental
European nations have taken in many immigrants as persons whom they
thought of initially as temporary “guest workers”.
Forced migration
Forced population movements have also been important in group bilingualism as an
outcome.
› slave trade in the Middle East
› forced movements include the USSR’s policy of sending dissidents
› the tradition of indentured laborers in various parts of the world
The linguistic result of the slave trade and the importation of large numbers of
indentured workers was the development of pidgin and Creole languages; that is, a
special kind of bilingualism resulted, with speakers bilingual in their own L1 and
the newly created language.
Wars and subsequent colonialism
Examples of colonialism, sometimes preceded by war, and some imposition of the
language of the conquerors on the local population, are easy to find. This is how
what we today know as the Romance languages came into being. The Roman
legions conquered parts of Europe, spreading Latin as the language of governance.
At least in continental Western Europe where today Romance languages are
spoken, the local populations were L1 speakers of Celtic languages as well as
many other languages; many must have gone through a stage of bilingualism in
their L1s and Latin before eventually shifting to the varieties of Latin that
developed into the modern-day Romance languages.
Wars and subsequent colonialism
The original L1s were generally lost. Because local conditions varied (e.g.
different varieties of local languages and variation in contact with Latin)
people living in these parts of Europe today do not speak the same
modern version of Latin. Even though they speak closely related varieties,
their languages are different enough
In Western-Europe, the main Romance languages spoken today are
French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, with Romanian in Eastern
Europe.
Change of borders
As part of the settlements in various conflicts, national
borders have changed, sometimes putting a group of people
under a different official language than they previously had
known.
How socio-economic mobility promotes bilingualism
In many parts of the world, speakers are adding a language to their repertoire because of the
instrumental rewards and psychological values that are associated with that language.
the motivation for learning a language for economic advancement as the main example of
instrumental motivation.
But we should keep in mind that people also show instrumental motivations when
immigrants learn a language to meet citizenship requirements or for other reasons.
A second major instrumental reason that English is being learned around the globe is that the
English-speaking US is the source of many recent techno-logical advancements.
How the psychological attractiveness of the “other"
promotes bilingualism
when people become aware of other cultures, they may experience a psychological
displacement in the sense that their L1 is no longer sufficient as the sole medium to
express how they see themselves. For example, they may think of themselves as no
longer just citizens of one nation, but as “world citizens”
Some people learn a second language because of its exotic associations
Some learners of French are not professional chefs, but value that language for its
standing in the culinary world; some learners of German feel there is something to be
gained by reading the German philosophers in the original.
How the psychological attractiveness of the “other"
promotes bilingualism
the main psychological attraction of another
language is its associations with a modernity
This is the cultural pull that today’s youth feel
from English.
They both symbolize openness to change and
even a preference for innovations.
The quest for education and bilingualism
speakers may well add a language through education.
Whatever language is the official medium of instruction in the
schools almost necessarily will be a language in which students
attain some ability.
In most parts of the world, students are required to study a foreign
lan-guage and sometimes certain ones.
Conclusion:
Two major headings under factors promoting bilingualism: proximity and
displacement (physical or psychological).
› Proximity: where people live, what kind of work they do, and whether there are speakers of
second languages in their family circle.
› Physical displacement includes migration as a prime reason for a per-son to become bilingual.
Wars and subsequent colonialism and changes in government also are major factors promoting
bilingualism because of displacement.
› Psychological displacement is difficult to define precisely, but it includes those circumstances
that encourage speakers to view their lives in a new way:
contacts with other ethnic groups or individuals who have different values and goals, or just awareness
of how they live their lives differently.
changes associated with how the world works, especially globalization of the economy
