Multilingual clients’ experience of psychotherapy

The present study focuses on the experiences of 182 multilingual clients who had been exposed to various therapeutic approaches in various countries. An on-line questionnaire was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The analysis of feedback from clients with multilingual therapists showed that clients use or initiate significantly more code-switching (CS) than their therapists, and that it typically occurs when the emotional tone is raised. Gender was unrelated to CS frequency. CS is used strategically when discussing episodes of trauma and shame, creating proximity or distance. CS allows clients to express themselves more fully to the therapist, adding depth and nuance to the therapy. The therapist’s multilingualism promotes empathy and clients’ own multilingualism constitutes an important aspect of their sense of self. Multilingual clients benefit from a therapeutic environment where multilingualism is appreciated, and where they can use CS

Review of Jean Conteh and Gabriela Meier (Eds). (2014), The Multilingual Turn in Languages Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 328 pages.

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Is multilingualism linked to a higher tolerance of ambiguity?

The present study investigates the link between multilingualism and the personality trait Tolerance of Ambiguity (TA) among 2158 mono-, bi- and multilinguals. Monolinguals and bilinguals scored significantly lower on TA compared to multilinguals. A high level of global proficiency of various languages was linked to higher TA scores. A stay abroad of more than three months was also linked to higher TA although the effect levelled off after one year. Growing up in a multilingual family had no effect on TA. These findings show that a high level of multilingualism makes individuals more at ease in dealing with ambiguity, but we acknowledge that a higher level of TA can also strengthen an individual’s inclination to become multilingual

Multilingualism research in Anglophone contexts as a discursive construction of multilingual practice

This article investigates the presence of multilingualism as an academic practice within the field of research in multilingualism by examining the citation practices of research publishing in key English-language journals in the field. It investigates how researchers make use of material published in other languages as a component of their research writing and thus of their conceptualisation of the field of research to determine to what extent multilingualism itself is actually present in multilingual research communicated in English. This article argues that, although some research published in languages other than English may be cited in multilingualism research, multilingualism as a visible research practice is largely absent from the study of multilingualism. This means that research into multilingualism largely constructs multilingualism as a subject to be studied from a perspective that lies outside the phenomenon of multilingualism itself and normalises monolingualism as the standard form of academic practice within the English-speaking world. It can therefore be argued that multilingualism research is a site in which a monolingual habitus predominates and that this represents an epistemological dilemma for the field

Becoming multilingual. Language learning and language policy between attitudes and identity

Many studies on language attitudes have been based on an approach in which languages are examined as an isolated unit; in other words, in these studies the participants are asked about their attitudes towards each of the languages in contact independently, by using what we will label in this chapter as monolingual biased questionnaires. The objective of this paper revolves around the analysis of language attitudes towards trilingualism by means of a holistic questionnaire in two multilingual contexts (the Basque Country and Malta). Our results reveal that the holistic questionnaire can be a useful tool to complement traditional questionnaires and it could lead to further knowledge on languages as a whole, rather than treating them separately. Furthermore, in can be a useful tool in order to enhance language awareness and enable language teachers to reflect both on their own language skills and competence as well as those of their students.peer-reviewe