Multilingualism

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Why read this text

You should read this text if you are interested in dealing with multilingualism in the classroom. You probably also have children or young people in your class or people you know who have a first or second language other than yourself. Social and cultural anthropology deals, among other things, with the perception of the "other" - so it does with language. With this in mind, the following text may possibly enrich your perspective on the subject.

Historical Context

The Language Socialization (LS) field is closely related to other learning theories, as language is an integral part of learning and is closely related to cultural practices. The LS is concerned with how language shapes our social relationships, how socialization proceeds through exchange and reproduction processes, and how social identities are shaped by language. It examines how learning and cultural meanings or practices are trained and shared. The beginnings of the LS are the 70s and early 80s.
An important finding of the studies using an LS-approach was that they were able to show a correlation between language use, social background and school. For example, in 1974 Bernstein argued that schools are places of reproduction of social inequalities because students have different language environments at home. He distinguished between the "elaborate code" and the "restricted code". These are two variants of the respective national language and describe different ways of expressing oneself - while the restricted code is used more in acquaintance or family communication, the elaborated code means a detailed and more precise formulation of facts, expressions of feelings and opinions. In general, the elaborated code is socially more highly regarded. Since the school promotes it, it is much more difficult for children from the working class, for example, and thus with a different social and linguistic background, to attend classes. By legitimising only one desired language and negating the differences between home and school, inequalities in the classroom are reproduced. This applies equally to all pupils who speak a mother tongue other than the one predominant at school.

a) Discussion
Almost all education and upbringing is mediated through language. Language is therefore an integral part of learning and is closely linked to cultural practices. Children and adolescents who have grown up with two or more languages other than the "first language" are usual in educational institutions. This opens up opportunities because the idea that every language is considered a valuable resource has now become widespread, but these multilingual competencies are often not used. However, those social actors in education who want to use and promote this resource in a positive sense are often faced with insufficient guidance and support, or opposing ideologies. In fact, hegemonic structures are still prevalent in the education system, distinguishing between "good" and "bad" languages, or conveying presuppositions and values towards members of other language groups. Power structures and inequalities are often systematically created or enforced by language in education and deprive parts of the population of the equal participation in education and opportunities as well as associate language groups with specific attributions and values.

Although children from multilingual families often have a large repertoire of cultural and linguistic skills because they grow up in different contexts, most of these resources are not made use of. This is also shown by a number of studies in the USA about students with Latin American backgrounds and other linguistic minorities. Institutional expectations and reactions to persons of a particular origin often complicate linguistic development and education. Linguistic ideologies form attitudes towards students, which limit the abilities of children from the outset, for example, because they are assigned to the working class and related expectations.
A US-based ethnographic study at a high school on "English as a Second Language Program" (ESL), found out that Latin Americans do not attribute their attendance to special language classes to their language deficits, but rather as an assessment of their background and native language and thus as a sign of their lack of intellectual ability. At the same time, many teachers in these classes show frustration as well as negative attitudes and assumptions that students are not motivated, lazy and ungrateful. This is also reflected in a 2008 study that documents that people with an latin-american background on average remain in such programs twice as long as white or Asian students. Courses that focus on deficits and are as a result labeled (English as a second language) can therefore have some problematic effects on students, as those often cannot build a positive identity with this marker.

b)  Practical Example
The ethnographic method of "discursive shadowing", which is cited here as an example of other important anthropological methods in a study by Creese & Dewilde (2016), can explain structural problems in the everyday life of teachers in general and in the care of foreign and/or multilingual pupils on site, which would normally not be visible. The researcher, in this case a bilingual teacher, wears a microphone and an audio recorder in school for a long period of time (in this case for one year) and records everything that happens while the researcher* follows him/her through participatory observation to different places and situations.
Mohammed, the bilingual accompanying teacher, was in charge of Somali lower-grade students in Ullstad, Norway, who have been in Norway between eight months and five years and had little formal education. Typical situations he was confronted with in his work were that these students fled from a test in mathematics or did not appear because they were afraid to fail or did not understand the tasks. Mohammed discussed these cases with the students, whom he later tried to find in school and eventually found them in the corridor or with the researcher, but never with one of the regular teachers. The latter did not show any interest in understanding the reasons or engaged in problem solving, but rather dealt exclusively with the "normal" students. Attempts to assist the students, such as Muhammad’s inquiry if they are allowed to use a dictionary for the test to understand the questions, were rejected, although this is a legitimate method in bilingual teaching.
This study shows that, despite the appropriate policy to use accompanying teachers to support foreign-language students, the implementation may be inadequate, because on the one hand there are power structures (the gap between the regular teachers and accompanying teachers), the work is disdained and, on the other hand, there is a lack of appropriate instructions and common procedures.

Thinking further

• How the ability to express yourself daily in your first language does affect your identity?
• How does multilingualism manifest in your work and how do you deal with it in class?
• Do you speak any foreign language, which does not follow the pattern of highly accepted prestige languages (French, English, Italian, etc.)?
• Do you speak any words in the mother tongue of your neighbours living close to your home?
• Does one not belong to your society if one does not speak your language?
• Imagine you are arguing with someone about an emotional topic for you. Consider someone is forcing you in such a moment to use your second language you are just learning.

Sources
Bequedan-Lopez, P., Hernandez, S J. (2011). Language Socialization across Educational Settings. In Levinson, B. A. U. / Pollock, M. (Ed.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Education. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. (197-211).
Creese, A., Dewilde, J. (2016). Discursive Shadowing in Linguistic Ethnography. Situated Practices and Circulating Discourses in Multilingual Schools. In Anthropology & Education Quarterly 47 (3). (329-339).
Draxl, A.-K. (2013). Der Wert von Sprachen: Fragen zum Umgang mit Mehrsprachigkeit im schulischen Kontext. In Binder, S., Klien, H., Kössner, E. (Ed.): Wenn KSA zur Schule geht: Kultur- und Sozialanthropolog_innen im Bildungsbereich zwischen Forschung und Praxis. Konferenzbericht: 8. Tage der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie 2013. In Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology., Sondernummer KSA-Tage 2013, 27. 7-11.
https://www.univie.ac.at/alumni.ksa/assa/ausgaben/assa-ksa-tage/ksa-tage-2013/wenn-ksa-zur-schule-geht/ (31.01.2020 16:00).
McCarty, T. L., Warhol, L. (2011). The Anthropology of Language Planning and Policy. In Levinson, B. A. U., Pollock, M. (Ed.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Education. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell (177–190).
Mulsbary, C. (2014). „Will this hell never end? “: Substantiating and Resisting Race-Language Policies in a Multilingual High School. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 45 (4). (337-390).
Ryes, A., Wortham, S. (2011). Linguistic Anthropology of Education. In Levinson, B. A. U., Pollock, M. (Ed.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Education. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell (137–153).

Authors: Christa Markom & Jelena Tosic (Austria)

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