Muhammad Fajar

Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the ability of an individual speaker or acommunity of speakers to
communicate effectively in three or more languages. Contrast with monolingualism, the
ability to use only one language.
A person who can speak multiple languages is known as apolyglot or a multilingual.
Examples and Observations

"Majesty, the Herr Direttore, he has removed uno balletto that would have occurred at this
place."
(Italian Kapellmeister Bonno in the film Amadeus (1984)an example of
multilingual code switching, quoted by Lukas Bleichenbacher in his thesis
"Multilingualism in the Movies." University of Zurich, 2007).
Multilingualism as the Norm
"We estimate that most of the human language users in the world speak more than one
language, i.e. they are at least bilingual. In quantitative terms, then, monolingualism may
be the exception and multilingualism the norm. . . .
"[I]t is a reasonable assumption that the marginal role research on multingualism has
played withinlinguistics until some decades ago is a result of the monolingual bias of
(particularly) European thinking about language which came into being during a phase of
European history in which the nation states defined themselves not in the least by the one
(standard) language which was chosen to be the symbolic expression of their unity. . . .
"[I]t can be argued that what we perceive as the problems surrounding multilingualism
today are to a large degree a consequence of the monolingualism demanded, fostered and
cherished by the nation states in Europe and their knock-offs around the world."
(Peter Auer and Li Wei, "Introduction: Multilingualism as a Problem? Monolingualism as
a Problem?" Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication. Mouton de
Gruyter, 2007)
Bilingualism and Multilingualism
"Current research . . . begins by emphasizing the quantitative distinction
between multilingualism and bilingualism and the greater complexity and diversity of
the factors involved in acquisition and use where more than two languages are involved
(Cenoz 2000; Hoffmann 2001a; Herdina and Jessner 2002). Thus, it is pointed out that
not only do multilinguals have larger overall linguistic repertoires, but the range of the
language situations in which multilinguals can participate, making appropriate language
choices, is more extensive. Herdina & Jessner (2000b:93) refer to this capacity as 'the
multilingual art of balancing communicative requirements with language resources.' This
wider ability associated with the acquisition of more than two languages has also been
argued to distinguish multilinguals in qualitative terms. One . . . qualitative distinction
seems to lie in the area of strategies. Kemp (2007), for example, reports that multilingual
learners' learning strategies differ from those of monolingual students learning their first
foreign language."
(Larissa Aronin and David Singleton, Multilingualism. John Benjamins, 2012)

Muhammad Fajar

Are Americans Lazily Monolingual?

"The celebrated multilingualism of not just Europe but also the rest of the world may be
exaggerated. The hand-wringing about Americas supposed linguistic weakness is often
accompanied by the claim that monolinguals make up a small worldwide minority. The
Oxford linguist Suzanne Romaine has claimed that bilingualism and multilingualism 'are
a normal and unremarkable necessity of everyday life for the majority of the worlds
population.'
"But the statistics tell a murkier story. Recently, the Stockholm University linguist Mikael
Parkvall sought out data on global bilingualism and ran into problems. The reliable
numbers that do exist cover only 15 percent of the worlds 190-odd countries, and less
than one-third of the worlds population. In those countries, Mr. Parkvall calculated (in a
study not yet published), the average number of languages spoken either natively or nonnatively per person is 1.58. Piecing together the available data for the rest of the world as
best he could, he estimated that 80 percent of people on the planet speak 1.69 languages-not high enough to conclude that the average person is bilingual.
"Multilinguals may outnumber monolinguals, but its not clear by how much. The average
American may be no more monolingual or less multilingual than any other average
person elsewhere on the planet. At the very least, we cant say for sure--not in any
language."
(Michael Erard, "Are We Really Monolingual?" The New York Times Sunday Review,
January 14, 2012)
New Multilingualisms
"[I]n paying attention to the language practices of young people in urban settings, we see
new multilingualisms emerging, as the young people create meanings with their diverse
linguistic repertoires. We see the young people (and their parents and teachers) using their
eclectic array of linguistic resources to create, parody, play, contest, endorse, evaluate,
challenge, tease, disrupt, bargain and otherwise negotiate their social worlds."
(Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese, Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective.
Continuum, 2010)