Marx, Nicole

English

TU Darmstadt: TUjournals

HOFFMANN, CHARLOTTE & YTSMA, JEHANNES (Ed.) (2004). Trilingualism in Family, School and
Community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters (= Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 43). 242 pp. ISBN
1853596930. $89,95.
With compilations of readings it is often difficult to determine the common denominator of the various articles,
and the title of the present volume alleviates this dilemma only slightly. The editors characterize the articles
as being "sociolinguistically oriented", which provides a somewhat clearer, but still fairly wide, range of issues
to be discussed. The reader is curious to discover what is awaiting him or her in the eleven contributions
which form the body of the volume.
Divided into three sections, the book offers papers on theoretical aspects of trilingualism—more specifically, a
model used to account for individual tri- or multilingualism—, on contextual (societal and familial) aspects of
trilingualism, and finally on policy issues involved in multilingual educational and societal contexts.
Altogether, the papers present a rather colourful picture of various national and societal contexts in which
more than two languages are acquired and/or learned.
The volume opens with an introduction by the editors, the first part of which is dedicated to relevant issues,
such as a discussion of terminology use in sociolinguistic research, the increasing internationalisation and
accompanying it, the dominance of English in many areas of life, and the differentiation of trilingualism from
bilingualism studies. Each contribution is then briefly reviewed before the first section begins.
The first chapter, by Larissa Aronin and Muiris Ó Laoire, is in effect a section in itself, although the second
chapter is included in Part 1, titled "Contexts of Trilingualism". In their contribution, the authors specify and
expand the notion of "multilinguality" which they have discussed previously in other contexts. In this view,
multilinguality is a personal characteristic and involves an individual's store of all his or her interlanguages, as
well as metalinguistic awareness, language learning strategies and even emotional factors such as opinions,
preferences and knowledge about languages, their use and the learning of them. Thus, multilinguality is also
defined as an individual's linguistic identity. Confusing to the reader in this context is the use of
"multilinguality" to define other situations; however, given the difficulties that the linguistic research
community often seems to have in defining basic terms such as "multilingual" or "third language acquisition",
this should not be taken as serious criticism. Most interesting—although this is less a "study" as described by
the authors than a discussion—is perhaps the authors' explanation of nine characteristics which an individual
multilingual system may possess at any given point in time. These characteristics have been referred to in
other publications by the same authors and correlate in many ways with the Dynamic Model of
Multilingualism, proposed by Philip Herdina and Ulrike Jessner (also mentioned by Aronin and Ó Laoire). The
authors characterize their own model as reflecting the characteristics of a "bionic system", making no mention
of its earlier name "Ecological Model of Multilinguality". This was the main irritation with which I was left after
reading the article; however, this will not be a problem for readers who are not intimately familiar with the
authors' work. In general, the paper is an interesting discussion of various characteristics of linguistic systems
and can be recommended for researchers and students who are unfamiliar with the wider scope of
multilingualism (or multilinguality).
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The second chapter, by Elite Olshtain and Frieda Nissim-Amatai, fits better into the second section of the
volume. It reports on the results of a questionnaire and interview study in Israel among a group of minority
language (Circassian) schoolchildren and a smaller group of their teachers. The most interesting concept
presented here is that of a "multilingual standard", which is common to contexts where many languages are
acquired and learned at a young age, and differs from the "monolingual standard", the standard by which
monolingual speakers judge their language competencies. The multilingual perception, by contrast, is more
open and flexible, allowing for partial competencies and the use of specific languages for specific purposes
without a 'reduction' in the self-perception of being multilingual: multilingualism is the ability to use each
language according to the way in which one needs to use it. Policy makers, teachers, parents and learners
could all benefit from a careful consideration of this standard. Since the paper deals much more extensively
with this issue and with the attitudes of schoolchildren towards their languages and the situation in which
they use the various codes, a more appropriate title would refer to multilingual standards rather than
the—provocative but somewhat misleading—question of "Being Trilingual or Multilingual: Is There a Price to
Pay?".
Next, Patricia Lamarre and Diane Dagenais present the results of an interview study among trilingual
Canadian adolescents in two Canadian cities. The results show that students view their own multilingualism
positively, namely as a resource that allows them access to wider social circles, later to improved employment
possibilities, and more extensive knowledge; but they also judge their individual languages according to their
market value in their particular location and situation. The results offer an insight into similarities between
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adolescents in a French-speaking and an English-speaking environment, but as with the previous paper, the
title of this third chapter is somewhat misleading: the subject is here less "language practices" and could more
accurately be described as "opinions about languages spoken and multilingualism".
The fourth chapter discusses a fascinating socio-linguistic phenomenon dubbed "language crossing" (originally
from Rampton, 1995). In this practice, speakers of one code change over to another one—a code of a
community of which they are not an accepted member—for specific purposes, generally without
communicative competence in the second language. This phenomenon is especially common among young
people and has been shown to exist in various contexts, here concerning Turkish and Italian youth in an
urban multiethnic community in Germany. The author, Gabrielle Birken-Silverman, based her data on
interviews and language conversational data. The results reveal that language crossings were involved in five
areas: greetings, apologies, thanks, love declarations and personal insults; the "other" language was often
used for dissing (showing disrespect). That lexical and lexical/pragmatic crossing occurs is well-substantiated
by the data provided and by other studies (i.e., the aforementioned study by Rampton 1995). However,
Birken-Silverman also includes grammatical structures in her categorization, which is more difficult to accept:
it involves phrases and words such as "bello"/"bella", "ti amo" and "io"—which, I would argue, could have
been learned as chunks with no understanding of morphosyntactical relations (one way to investigate this
issue could be to offer a new, unknown adjective without an ending to a young person and ask how he or she
would use it to define a male or female). The author then concludes her discussion by stating that "TLA is
directed toward lexical and pragmatic skills, including certain functional registers and certain communicative
patterns mainly related to street culture." (95) I would question, however, considering this type of crossing as
third-language acquisition since the "learners" used fixed lexical items or short phrases in set situations, such
as picking up girls, "dissing" others or talking about food. One could as easily propose that youth discourse is
a different language altogether and that all German youth grow up "bilingually" in this regard; generally, this
is considered a question of register selection and not of language learning. Thus, I would tend to categorize
this study as a study of language crossing, but not of TLA, since "acquisition" is restricted to a few lexical
items and chunks, and the youth had no intention of acquiring even partial competencies in the other
minority language.
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The subsequent chapter, by Hui-Chi Lee, presents an overview of the present language situation in Taiwan
and discusses the results of a questionnaire study among young aboriginals. Background information as well
as data on language attitudes were collected. While the attitude information is interesting and could lead to
questions regarding the language policy of Taiwan—Mandarin is by most counts the clear winner—, the
background information is more difficult to interpret as it is based solely on self-evaluation and
approximations. Youth were asked how well they speak their various languages (a tricky method of
investigation, as self-judgments of language ability depend to a great extent on learner personality), and
language use was rated on a scale of 1 (never) to 3 (usually), which is also rather vague. Somewhat
bothersome is also a certain naiveté on the part of the researcher (he expresses regret that, despite two
hours of native language teaching per week over one year, the students' language ability did not improve
much) as well as the use of blanket statements which do not seem to be supported by the study. Thus, the
concluding statement that the "two main ethnic groups, Chinese and aborigines, now tend to respect one
another's cultures and languages" (116) is difficult to reconcile with the study's findings that Southern Min is
used to make fun of aborigines, and is supported neither by the study, nor is further information provided by
the author.
The final paper in this second section, "Trilingual Input and Children's Language Use in Trilingual Families in
Flanders" by Annick de Houwer, deals with relationships between parental input patterns and the lack of
active trilingual usage by their children. This is an interesting new research approach since studies tend to
focus on the learning advantages brought about by growing up in a trilingual context. The questionnaire study
found that in 93% of the cases in which children spoke all three languages, the parents did not speak Dutch
(the "third" language) at home and both parents spoke both of the home languages—a finding with
implications for parents who raise their children so that they may become bilingual. Unfortunately, the length
and formulation of the questionnaire cannot really provide accurate data; the form involved only a reference
to "language(s) spoken at home" (for parents as well as children) and thus cannot provide information on
productive vs. receptive skills or on the extent of language use. Since "speaking" a language was also left
completely undefined, a child who tended to prefer language X as well as Danish, but was able to understand
(and perhaps produce) communication in language Y could have been seen by the parent as being bilingual,
instead of trilingual—a problem not discussed by the author. More comprehensive research in this direction
could yield truly interesting results and propose new questions for the study of trilingualism in the home.
The third section of the volume deals with language and educational policy and contains papers describing the
language policies of various regions and the reactions to these policies. The opening paper, dealing with the
historical and present-day language policy in the Israeli educational system, describes the Israeli language
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context and reports how Hebrew and Arabic language and non-language teachers feel about the language
policy followed there. The questionnaire survey—distributed among 135 teachers from the Jewish sector and
109 from the Arab sector—focused on the question to what extent language policy, as mandated by the
Ministry of Education in Israel, is known and implemented in the schools by teachers. The findings showed
that Arab teachers are more accepting of the need to learn all official languages, while Jewish-sector teachers
agree with the Israeli language policy in principle, yet wish to maintain the hegemony of Hebrew, the majority
language, and English, the language of wider communication and prestige. The authors, Anat Stavans and
Doon Narkiss, thus seem to deal more with language attitudes and knowledge of the language policy than with
the actual implementation of the policy by teachers. Nonetheless the study provides an interesting perspective
on the Israeli language situation and policy.
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The following chapter, by Carol Benson, focuses on language policies in Guinea-Bissau, a country with 30
indigenous languages, a creole (Kiriol) serving as the country's lingua franca (thus the L2), and Portuguese
(the L3, used in government and schools), in which (in 1985) 95% of the population over the age of seven
was primarily orate; only .2% had finished six years of primary school. The language situation is fascinating
from a European standpoint. The author report on the positive results of L2-L3 bilingual schooling as opposed
to L3 submersion, which seems to result in subtractive bilingualism. The fact that the Guinean model does not
recognise the importance of the mother tongue in literacy is regrettable; however, since this is often not
feasible (due to a lack of resources or political will), the author concentrates on the effects and opportunities
for teaching in the L2 or the L3. The author concludes with suggestions for change within the system,
including a possible primary trilingual mode with instruction in the mother tongue.
In the next paper, Felix Etxeberría focuses on a bilingual region, the Basque Country, where school languages
depend on the model used—either primarily Basque or Spanish with the other language learned as a school
subject, the balanced use of both languages, or instruction in Spanish only without any consideration of
Basque. The author offers a survey of previous research in the learning and teaching of English as an early
foreign language within this context, questioning the value of early English programmes. He concludes by
suggesting that English should not be introduced into the schools before the age of 6 because there seems to
be no evidence that this has a positive effect on the learning of English. This is certainly an interesting
hypothesis and should be investigated further in additional studies, for example, studies focusing on the
different language skills as opposed to general test results (as was the case in this study) and in differing
language education models.
Staying in the Basque context and dealing with the question of English as a third language, Jasone Cenoz
looks at attitudes and motivation in the learning of this L3. English is now taught in most schools from the age
of four on, and the study shows that younger learners tend to develop significantly more positive attitudes
towards this L3 than older learners did. This could be an effect of school children becoming generally
disillusioned with school as they age, or also with the teaching methods used in primary vs. secondary school,
since primary school classes tend to focus on the spoken language and to involve playful learning. Among
learners in the same school year, those who received less English instruction also seemed to have more
positive attitudes than those with more English instruction. The authors can only guess at possible
explanations, especially in light of contradictory studies from Barcelona. It would be interesting to see if these
results hold for early vs. later L2 and L3 learning, but as the authors note, "due to the specific and complex
educational and social factors involved in third language learning in bilingual contexts it is more likely that we
would find several optimal ages for the introduction of a third language than a single one" (215).
English as the L3 remains the focal point of the final paper in this volume. Kaj Sjöholm describes the Finnish
language learning context and explains the influence of the media in students' preference for conversational
and American English compared to teachers' preference for British and academic English. The focus of the
paper seems to be the students' preferences for a certain variety of English, their L3; the findings show that
up to the age of 15, students are more affected by the American variety than older students, and that they
also prefer conversational English to academic English. These findings are probably due to the students'
exposure to the mass media outside of school which could amount to 40 to 50 hours per week. Here, the
inclusion of information on the L1 and/or L2 (and L4) could do much to clarify these results. Would students
also prefer conversational language to the academic variety in their L2 or in their L4? If so, then perhaps it is
less the influence of the mass media that is producing these results than the school children's belief about the
importance of learning any foreign language not used in schooling, and what they consider to be of secondary
importance.
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In their introduction to the volume, the editors referred briefly to the problem of cultural and linguistic
tensions associated with multilingual individual life histories or present in multilingual societies; they found it
gratifying that "in three of the contributions which focus on adolescents the young people find new and
original ways of acquiring and making use of their languages and of negotiating their identities" (6). The
reader wonders if the editors are truly surprised at this adaptation and outlook of the adolescents involved
(considering the contexts in which they are acquiring their languages—contexts in which all languages are
afforded a certain positive status), especially since Hoffmann herself had the benefit of growing up bilingually
and raising her own children in a trilingual setting. Hoffmann's own studies are renowned for their in-depth
analysis of trilingual acquisition, and if I missed one research area in this volume, it is a more intensive
investigation of trilingual familial situations—one which Hoffmann, among others, could have provided.
References
Rampton, Ben (1995). Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents. New York: Longman.
NICOLE MARX
(Technische Universität Darmstadt)
Copyright © 2006 Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht
HOFFMANN, CHARLOTTE & YTSMA, JEHANNES (Ed.) (2004). Trilingualism in Family, School and
Community. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters (= Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 43). 242 pp.
ISBN 1853596930. Rezensiert von Nicole Marx.
Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht [Online], 11 (1), 5 pp.
Abrufbar unter http://www.ualberta.ca/~german/ejournal/HoffmannYtsma.htm
[Zurück zur Leitseite]
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Trilingualism in Family, School and Community

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Trilingualism in Family, School and Community

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