Language and Multilingual Societies

[Music] when it comes to language you sense society each Society has a lot of different choices in terms of what language will be used in that society and when that language will be used and there's questions such as how many languages is the society going to support how many languages does the society want people to learn and so on so in this session we're going to take a look at some of these choices that societies have when it comes to language use we'll start this session by taking a look at what it means to be a multilingual or a bilingual society so what are the implications at the Society level for having multiple language groups within that overall group or overall society then we'll take a look at language policy and language policy choices that societies have to manage these multiple languages finally we'll take a look at individual choices within a multilingual society so if you are an individual functioning in a multilingual society what are some of the choices you have when it comes to language use so let's get started on this topic [Music] one of the first things that societies have to consider when they're putting together their language choices for that particular society is which layers of a language they're going to support or encourage the use of so if we take a look at a pyramid that shows us different layers of language societies have to decide okay are they going to support the learning and use of a global language are they going to support the learning and use of just a national language or a regional language are they going to support the use of a creole or a pidgin and then are they going to encourage individual users to use their video lex and socio x and ethnics and things like that so this is one of the first choices that societies have is which layer or layers of language are they going to support the use of here are some examples of choices that societies might make when it comes to which layer of language they encourage the use of English is a really good example of this because as a global language English the use of English and the learning of English is being encouraged in a lot of societies because of its usefulness for economic purposes trade purposes and so on so we see that top layer of language being encouraged in a lot of different societies then we'll see really interesting debates in some societies about the place or the official nough so to speak that a Creole should be given so in the Caribbean for example there's a lot of different Creoles in use so they're very rich and interesting and fun languages but there are some policies in some countries where okay we don't want to encourage the use of the creole and in other countries they're like yes this Creole is part of our heritage so let's encourage its use and its growth so Creoles are another interesting layer in that pyramid of layers of languages where there's a lot of debate at the social level of a society level about its use and who should learn it or not learn [Music] we dig into this a little bit deeper we can see that societies or countries have some choices to make so is there going to be a national language so one language that goes right across a country or right across a society is there going to be a series of regional languages so people here speak this language people here speak this one and so on and then are there going to be local language is so just much smaller groups of population speak this specific language and then another small group speaks another specific language so we can break it into these types of layers as well national regional and local here are some examples about the regional variation that we can get in terms of language use in society so we can have a country that says ok this this is our national language everyone is going to learn this language but that same country could then say ok in this region we're going to allow people to use this specific language so they can teach and learn this this language that's of relevance to the heritage or the history of that particular region this is an example of some choices that a society might make they might say ok nationally here's what we're gonna do but regionally here's what we're also going to do there are more decisions that societies or countries need to make when it comes to language use and these decisions all focus around which language or languages will be used for which aspects of that societies functioning so here are some examples so society needs to decide which language will legislation be written in more languages which language or languages will the Parliament take place in so members of parliament will debate in this language versus this language or multiple languages which languages will judiciary proceedings take place in which languages will government services be offered in an interesting one which languages will be used on banknotes and coins and corresponding to that which Lang reduce will be used in the financial system and the banking system so these are all really practical decisions that societies and countries need to make when it comes to language use yeah it doesn't stop there there's even more decisions that need to be made on called day-to-day basis so which languages will be used for the media so will they have will the society have media broadcast in one language or multiple languages and if yes which languages are those going to be which languages will be used for transportation so if you've got a national or social wide transportation system which language will it be in which language will the military use are they going to communicate in one language or multiple languages and finally which language will healthcare services be offered in so when people need to access healthcare which languages do they need to be able to speak and which languages do providers speak societies also have choices when it comes to language and education so the country or society needs to decide which language or languages are going to be used for educating their children so the first choice is just to have one language so in this case that the education system is monolingual education students learn every subject in that single language the second choice is to have bilingual education so students learn there their schooling so they learn all their subject matter in two languages now there's a few different ways that this can work so students can have certain days of the week in one language and other days of the week in the other language or they can have mornings in one language and afternoons in the other language or they can have certain subject matter in one language and then other subject matter in the other language so there's a few variations on this you also hear bilingual education called immersion education and then you can even have trend lingual education so children learn their subject matter in three different languages so there are quite a few choices here that societies have and then there's one final choice societies or countries have and that is which other languages will they teach as subjects so societies may choose to introduce core subjects as a particular language as a core subject for example French or Spanish or German or English depending on the country so students study that language as a subject and then countries also can what are called heritage language policies and in this type of policy students learn the language that their family has brought to another country so if their family immigrated to a country with one particular language background students can learn that language either as additional subject matter or at classes offered on Saturdays or the weekend so this would be called a heritage or international language program there are a lot of choices here when it comes to language and education finally a very interesting set of decisions that a society needs to make is which language or languages will be used in the consumer market so for example on storefronts and restaurant fronts which language will the signs be in where languages will be the science being on consumer products which languages will the sign will the labeling be in so you can pick up a food product is the labeling and the product explained in one language two languages and so on and then all consumer goods and instructions and operating manuals that all exist in the consumer market which language will they be in these are all really interesting and very practical language use decisions overriding all of these practical decisions in terms of which language is going to be used on a day to day basis in a society use the idea of a society or country having one having an official language policy so this is a set of legislation that says here's exactly how language will be used in our particular society so this language policy will cover things like education government services health care services transportation and so on and there's a lot of different choices once again that societies have when it comes to these overriding language policies the first choice is simply that there's no policy at all and some countries actually do choose this they have no official language policy in the United States is a classic example of this there's no language policy about what languages will be used when and so on another choice societies or countries have is that they'll have a national language or an official language and these are actually two different things so a national language simply acknowledges that this is the language that most people in our society speaks so we're gonna recognize the status of this language an official language on the other hand means that that language language services need to be provided in that language by the government so there's two different approaches here there's the national language approach that says hey here's the language most people speak and then there's an official language approach which says you know what we're going to consciously support this particular language you know we're going to offer services in this particular language or languages there are still more decisions when it comes to this overriding language policy that societies need to decide upon um the next decision is actually how many languages that society is going to officially support so we've already talked about that Society may choose to have no official language at all okay but if the society does choose to have an official language how many of those languages are going to be deemed official so a society could have just one official language so all government services are just provided in that one language the Society could choose to have two official languages or three official languages and so on so the number of official languages is another decision that needs to be made another approach that a society or a country can take is to have an official language that covers the whole country but then to officially endorse different languages regionally so they can have official regional languages that and so this policy says that within this particular area this is the language that all government services are going to be offered in outside of this area we're going to have another language but in this particular area is we're gonna have an official regional language and so this is another approach that time societies or countries can take there's still two other approaches that can be taken the next approach is to have what's called a lingua franca as an official language and this is an interesting approach a lingua franca is a language that people within a society have learned simply for the purposes of communicating with one another it's not necessarily their first language or it's not their first language but it's a language that everyone has learned so that everyone can unike so if we have a speaker of one language here and a speaker of another language here they're going to use a lingua franca in order to communicate so we we do see some societies where there's a choice of having a lingua franca as the official language because there's so many other languages happening in this society that they have to have this neutral lingua franca as the language that holds everything together a final choice that a society or country has when it comes to official language policy is to actually have a global language as an official language and a society or country might make this choice if that country really depends on global trade for its economic strength so it makes sense for everyone in that country to use that global language because that facilitates the trade that supports that country's economy so that's the final choice that societies have when it comes to making an official language choice let's take a look at some of these choices in action in real societies and real countries around the world I am NOT an expert in any of these countries by any means but I'm just going to point you towards countries that have these different official language choices and large policy choices in place and then you can go and do further research yourself to really dig into how that particular society or country has handled or has made its language choices let's start with an example of a country that has very consciously made the choice not to have any official language and this as I mentioned is the United States you might think that it would be very logical for the United States to have English as its official language it's the language of the country almost everyone speaks it and it's some language that the United States has spread all over the world through its globalized trade and so on what it is not an official language of the United States and it's a really interesting issue because it does generate a lot of debate in different political circles so there are arguments for English as an official language in the United States and arguments against it and at different times the arguments bubble to the surface but still no decision has ever been made and so the status quo of no official language in the United States has continued here are some of the arguments that are used on the side of English should be the official language of the United States so the first argument is that English serves as a unifying force in a country that has many many immigrants so many people move to the United States from other countries and with other language backgrounds and so English can serve and does serve as a unifying force so why shouldn't it be the official language the strongest argument perhaps is that English is the language that's used in daily life in the United States so it's the de facto official language so why shouldn't it be the real official language and then finally people argue that if English were the official language this would allow the government to free up more money to support English language education at all levels of the society from kindergarten kids through high school through adult education so these are pretty strong arguments for English as an official language in the United States there are equally strong arguments against having English as an official language in the United States the first one is similar to the argument for and that is that if it is the official language of the United States and the government will have to set aside funds to help with English language education and that will cost more money and that will increase the budget and so on so there the same argument is actually used on both sides of this of this debate however there are other reasons that people fight against English as an official language in the United States and some of these are pretty fundamental the first one is why bother stating the obvious English is the language we use in the United States we don't need to have a piece of legislation that states the obvious it's a pretty good argument another argument is that having an official language would infringe on individual rights so individuals have choices in terms of which languages they use and we don't want to dictate to them you must use this particular language even though everyone uses the language in the first place anyway and another argument this is kind of an interesting one the argument is that having English as an official language in the United States the United States will actually infringe upon the rights of parents because those immigrants will not be allowed to use supposedly will not be allowed to use their languages and they'll be disadvantaged and so on so there's a lot of different ways to frame this argument and it's a really interesting debate but as I mentioned the status quo persists and in the United States there is still no official language Mexico is an example of a country that has made this decision to go with a national language versus an official language so when you look at Mexico you automatically think Spanish so Spanish would be the illogical official language but when you dig a little bit deeper you'll see that there are dozens of indigenous languages in Mexico as well and so Mexico has created a language policy that allows the preservation or encourages the preservation of these indigenous languages so rather than having an official language Spanish and saying okay this is the language that's going to be offered everywhere in all education and services must be offered in this language they've gone with a national language policy and so Spanish is their national language and this acknowledges that Spanish is the most frequently used language in daily life right across the country and then they have special legislation that also allows for the use and the preservation of these dozens of indigenous languages so Mexico has taken a really interesting route in terms of choosing a national language over an official language in order to facilitate the preservation of these indigenous languages that also exist throughout the country India is an interesting example of a society or country that has chosen to have a lingua franca as one of its two official languages so India is home to hundreds and liq I do mean literally hundreds of languages and so trying to find a language policy that holds this massive selection of languages together is really challenging and so they've done something quite interesting so one of their official languages is Hindi and that's the language that is most is the most spoken language of all the hundreds of languages there are the most speakers of Hindi okay so that's one of their official languages but then to glue the country together they've chosen to use a lingua franca English as a second official language so English is a language that speakers of these hundreds of other languages can learn in order to participate in Indian society it was a you know there's historical reasons obviously for that for the choice of English given the colonial background that India has being paired with the United Kingdom so there was already this image language entrenched in the country but it was a very practical reason that made policymakers choose English as an official language in that it is a very neutral lingua franca when you look at the massive mix of other languages that exist in the country so this is a conscious choice that a country is made to have a lingua franca as one of its official languages Taiwan and Chile are two examples of societies that have selected or chosen to have a global language as one of their official languages so in this case it's English both Taiwan and Chile depend heavily upon trade international trade for their economy or in their economic growth so they very strategically decided we're going to have English as an official language because that will then encourage and support the learning of English which will then in turn facilitate the global trade that drives our economy so these are two societies that are examples of selecting a global language as an official language Canada provides an example of a country or society that has chosen to have two official languages representative of the major language groups in that country so in Canada the official languages are English and French in this policy to allow to have these two official languages actually dates way back to the foundation of Canada in 1867 so Canadian bilingualism was entrenched right in the original document that created Canada as a country over the years additional legislation has been added and their legislations that are refined to further fill out or expand upon this bilingual policy that's been put into place in the country you can see the evolution of bilingualism in Canada through the series of legislation that has been enacted over the years starting way back in 1867 as I mentioned with the British North America Act so this is the piece of legislation that formerly formed Canada so in this legislation both English and French were allowed in federal government transactions record-keeping and laws so it was required that all of these occur in both languages in 1969 we have the official languages Act in which English and French are given official language status for all federal organizations in 1970 we have the formation of the Commissioner of official languages office so this is an office specifically in charge of having bilingual ism in Canada in 1974 we have an interesting piece of legislation the consumer packaging and labeling Act and with this act it was mandated that all consumer packaging have both official languages on it so all the manufacturers had to go back and redo out their labeling to have both the French and the English on it in 1982 we had the Constitution Act and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and this Act reinforced the right of Canadians to speak one of Canada's two official languages English or French in 1988 there were new revisions to the official languages Act so we had the new official languages act in 2003 there was an action plan for official languages and the this was put into place to attempt to revitalize Canadian bilingualism and just to make it a more more widely used policy or just to increase the use of both official languages in all aspects of Canadian life so these are examples of the legislation that Canada has put in place over the years in order to put forward its official bilingualism even within canada's policy of official bilingualism we've got regional variation so right across canada Canada's supposed to be a officially bilingual country with both English and French as the official languages however in Quebec we've got a regional variation going on and so within Quebec French is the official language of that particular province so it's a little bit different than the other regions of Canada so bill 101 introduced this idea that French is the official language of Quebec and so this mandated that government services occur in French that all government discussions debates and so on and government and Parliament sorry all occur in French it also mandated the French be the primary language of Commerce and business so things like signs and labels and catalogs and menus all of this needed to be in French there's also some interesting legislation with respect to education in Quebec so as part of the policy of having French of the official language of Quebec there is a policy that governs the the language of education of children in Quebec so every child should be educated in French with the only exception being if that child's parents or siblings have had English language education elsewhere so if you can prove a history of English language education with your within your family you can have your child educated in English otherwise your child is educated in French another interesting feature of French as the official language in Quebec was the establishment of nakhon sites it appeared that on file says this is an organization in Quebec and it's official government organization whose mandate is to maintain the standards of French language usage and it's very similar in its function to that kind of each file says in France which does exactly the same thing in France so it in Quebec as part of their French as an official language policy they've got this book body that maintains French language usage standards there are language policy variations in other provinces in Canada as well at the provincial level not just in Quebec so some provinces where there's a higher percentage of French speakers along with that english-speaking majority those provinces have mandated that provincial service as well as federal services will occur in both languages so New Brunswick is an example of this New Brunswick at the provincial level he is also an officially bilingual region and you also see interesting language use policies in terms of Aboriginal languages in provinces and territories where there's a high percentage of the population of Aboriginal heritage there is language legislation in place to both preserve and to help those languages grow in terms of use as well so we'll see different Aboriginal language use legislation Manitoba is an example of this the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are also examples of this interestingly in Canada we also see variation in language use right down to the municipal level so we've got policies at the federal level at the provincial level and also down at the municipal level and one of the main policies we see at the municipal level is legislation in place that allows for the teaching and learning of heritage language or languages or international languages so in areas where there's a high percentage of the population with immigrant backgrounds so non English are non French or non Aboriginal language backgrounds there are policies in place that allow the children of those immigrants to learn that their heritage language or their international language so this is a regional variation that we'll see at the municipal level in different regions in Canada and finally an interesting language use policy that we see in place in Canada as you can get there's lots of language use policies in place here another policy we'll see in place is a policy to allow for instruction in English or French for newcomers to Canada whose first language is not either English a French so these are funded at both the federal and the provincial level and they enable immigrants to integrate into Canadian society more rapidly by helping them with language instruction so the more an immigrant can whose first language is not English can actually speak English the more successful he or she will be and integrating into the Canadian labor market and into Canadian society so there's a very significant policy in place to facilitate language instruction in English and French for immigrants into Canada whose first language is not English a final interesting example of a multilingual society in terms of language policy is Switzerland Switzerland actually has four official languages so it has Swiss German it has French Italian and Romansh which is kind of a mix of a few different languages in the region so they've got four official languages so all documentation or labeling and so on happens in those four languages but sort someone has a really interesting twist on their official language policy so even though there are these four official languages their actual language use is very regionalised so there are some Swiss cantons that are almost 100% German speaking and some that are a hundred percent french-speaking and some that are a tie-in speaking so even though across all of Switzerland there are these four official languages the actual use of those languages is very regionalised so it's a really interesting approach to pulling together different regions that have different language bases into one United whole so it's a great example of actually how to do it in how to make it work this is by no means the end of the list of multilingual societies almost every single country in every single society in the world he is actually multilingual but these examples serve to illustrate the different approaches that societies and countries can take when it comes to official languages policy so they can have no official language they can have one official language two or three or four official languages and then they can have this concept of national languages regional languages and then it can have policies in place to preserve aboriginal or indigenous languages and policies in place too for the immigrant population specifically to preserve international languages or heritage language use so this is a really good just summary of the different languages policies that societies can use to keep a multilingual society functioning effectively as a whole unit [Music] so far we've looked at multilingual societies from the perspective of government policy so we've kind of taken a big-picture perspective on it but it's also really interesting to look at multilingual societies from the perspective of an individual within that society because in multilingual societies individuals make very conscious or sometimes unconscious choices about which language they'll use when so individuals may change from one language to another depending upon the context who they're with and the purpose of their communication so individuals in multilingual societies have some really interesting language choices when it comes to which language they'll use when communicating with specific groups of people one of the main things that factors into individual choice of language use in a multilingual Society is this concept of overt prestige versus covert prestige so overt prestige is kind of the status you gain by being able to speak the standard or official version of a language in a society so if you speak that standard very well then you get a lot of status within that society covert prestige actually is a little bit different covert prestige is the status you gain by being able to speak the language that the people around you are using regardless of whether that's the majority language in a society or the high status language in a society so we activate covert prestige when we want to kind of signal to the grouper with hey I belong with this group I'm one of you we use over at prestige while we want to communicate hey I know the standard and I'm well educated I'm very very good at language use and therefore you know this should give me status within the society so as individuals we make this covert or start over at versus covert prestige decision based upon the situation we're in there are three terms that we use to describe how individuals in a multilingual society use language so these terms are code switching code crossing and code-mixing so let's take a look at each of these so first of all code switching code switching is what we do when we consciously select a language based upon the context we're in the subject matter or the topic where the people we're talking with so if I can speak three languages and I'm gonna particularly select to speak this language a for example in this situation but then I moved to another situation and I choose to speak language B so I've just code switched from language a to language B depending upon the situation I'm in so as individuals when we speak multiple languages and when we're in a multilingual society we make very conscious code switching choices based on that overt and covert prestige that's going on as well code crossing is a variation on code switching when I could cross I'm using a language that the people around me are using but I actually don't specifically belong to that group so I'll use myself as an example I learned French and I'm fairly fluent and I won't impose my friendship on you but when I go to Quebec I use French even though I'm not cut back why I don't have any French heritage or a French background so I'm code crossing because I actually don't belong to a french-speaking group but I speak the language and therefore that enables me to go into Quebec and speaks French so in that situation I'm code crossing I speak the language but I don't actually belong to that specific group of language speakers the final term we need to get our heads around is the term code mixing with code mixing I change from one language to another language actually in the middle of a sentence and I may be very conscious of doing this or I may be may do it subconsciously I may not know that I'm flipping back and forth between languages so we used code mixing for a variety of reasons the most frequent reason that we use code mixing is because it's simply easier so if we can't quite think of the word we want in one language we'll substitute a word in another language or if one language has a better word then we'll use that better word so code-mixing is really interesting there's a lot of good Studies on it trying to delve into why people code mechs why they switch back and forth between languages mid-sentence it's a really fun and interesting research area to look at so just take a couple of minutes to think about your own language choices so do you code switch do you code cross and do you code mix and if you do each of these what are the situations in which you do them so when do you code switch when do you code cross and where do you code mix so it's really interesting to think about what you do as an individual with your language choices [Music] [Music]

Channel: Advance Consulting for Education

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Keywords: Advance Consulting for Education, ACE, Teaching English, English as a Second Language, Teaching ESL, ESL, EFL, TEFL, TESL, TESOL, Teaching Tips, Teaching Techniques, Teaching Strategies, Teacher Professional Development, Teacher PD, Professional Development, The PD Exchange, The Professional Development Exchange, www.thepdexchange.ca, Dianne Tyers, www.aceducaiton.ca, multilingual societies, multilingualism, language and society

Id: 7QEdxD0Me4A

Length: 35min 34sec (2134 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 03 2019