Monolingualism and Bilingualism: Lessons from Canada and Spain (Also Pub As Vol 2, No 1 of Current Issues in Language and Society)

218 Pages·1996·0.7 MB·English

by  Sue Wright

Monolingualism and Bilingualism : Lessons
title:
From Canada and Spain
author: Wright, Sue
publisher: Multilingual Matters
isbn10 | asin: 1853593540
print isbn13: 9781853593543
ebook isbn13: 9780585171722
language: English
Bilingualism--Canada, Multiculturalism--
Canada, Ethnicity--Canada, Bilingualism--
subject
Spain, Pluralism (Social sciences)--Spain,
Ethnicity--Spain.
publication date: 1996
lcc: P115.5.C3M66 1996eb
ddc: 404/.2
Bilingualism--Canada, Multiculturalism--
Canada, Ethnicity--Canada, Bilingualism--
subject:
Spain, Pluralism (Social sciences)--Spain,
Ethnicity--Spain.
Page iii
Monolingualism and Bilingualism
Lessons from Canada and Spain
Edited by Sue Wright
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon · Philadelphia · Adelaide
Page iv
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Monolingualism and Bilingualism: Lessons from Canada and Spain
Edited by Sue Wright
Also published as Vol. 2, No. 1 of Current Issues in Language and Society
Includes bibliographical references
1. Bilingualism-Canada. 2. Multiculturalism-Canada. 3. Ethnicity-
Canada. 4. Bilingualism-Spain. 5. Pluralism (Social sciences)-
Spain. 6. Ethnicity-Spain.
I. Wright, Sue
P115.5.C3M66 1996
404'.2-dc20 96-11906
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1-85359-354-0 (hbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, Avon
BS21 7SJ.
USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007, USA.
Australia: P.O. Box 6025, 95 Gilles Street, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
Copyright © 1996 Sue Wright and the authors of individual articles.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or
by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Short Run Press.
Page v
Contents
Foreword 1
Julian Edge
Monolingualism, Bilingualism and Identity: Lessons and 5
Insights from Recent Canadian Experience
John Edwards
Debate 39
Monolingualism, Bilingualism, Cultural Pluralism and 59
National Identity: Twenty Years of Language Planning in
Contemporary Spain
Charlotte Hoffmann
Debate 91
Page 1
Foreword
Julian Edge
Language Studies Unit, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET
The idea for this number of Current Issues in Language and Society
began with a recollection of the opening sentence of Suzanne
Romaine's book, Bilingualism: 'It would certainly be odd to encounter
a book with the title, Monolingualism'. The next sentence reads:
However, it is precisely a monolingual perspective which modern
linguistic theory takes as its starting point in dealing with basic analytical
problems such as the construction of grammars and the nature of
competence. (Romaine, 1989: 1)
One does not need to take issue with this statement in order to assert
that an equally possible second sentence might have been:
This is because modern linguistic theory is so embedded in a monolingual
perspective that the very fact that the monolingual is merely one
perspective goes mostly unremarked. That which is taken for granted
becomes invisible, and the consequent biases and distortions go unnoticed.
In part, these distortions arise from the equivalence of modern in the
above quotation with western, and thus with what Pennycook (1994:
104) calls 'a very particular European cultural form'. He continues:
. . . an almost unquestioned premise of Western linguistics has been that
monolingualism is the norm both for communities of speakers and for
individuals, with bi-or multilingualism taken as an exception and often
stigmatised through its connections to minority groups, the Third World,
and English as a Second Language learners. (Pennycook, 1994: 136)
There is an urgent need at the heart of linguistic theorising to take
account of biand multilingual perspectives. One approach would be to
turn the techniques of linguistic inquiry back upon the monolingual
premise from which they have evolvedin other words, to write the
book called Monolingualism. One can discern various possible
outlines for such a book by looking down the Contents page and
substituting 'Monolingualism' for 'Bilingualism'. Thus, from a
multilingual set of background assumptions, one would expect a
chapter on: 'The Monolingual Brain', with sub-headings such as,
'Types of monolingualism', 'Neuro-anatomical organisation in
monolinguals', and 'Monolinguals and intelligence'.
For the time being, however, it is in various contexts of applied
linguistic theory that one sees more signs of movement. Kachru
(1994: 796), for example, writes of the need:
. . . to re-evaluate the dominant paradigm in SLA research from a bi-
/multi-
Page 2
lingual perspective. It is especially worth examining the key notions of
native speaker, competence, and fossilisation to show how these 'regimes
of truth' (Foucault, 1972,1980) result from a monolingual bias in SLA
research.
And with reference to one of these issues, competence, Sridhar (1992)
sketches a model of 'composite pragmatic' competence, in which all
the languages a person speaks play complementary roles in meeting
their communicative needs.
It is probably not coincidental that these last two authors come to the
field with an insider's awareness of multilingual beginnings, and only
an outsider's knowledge of the European obsession with one-nation,
one-language perceptions as the basis for awareness of self, along
with the single-minded ability to pursue, in Said's (1993: 362) words:
'Identity, always identity, over and above knowing about others'.
In the field of language planning, issues of bilingualism being
perceived through monolingual filters and resolved by monolingual
responses have, of course, arisen before in CILS seminars. Beheydt
(1994) and Nelde (1994) detail the ways in which the multilingual
reality of Belgium is best seen, Brussels apart, as 'three unilingual
areas . . . in which the communities can independently determine their
own language policies' (Beheydt, 1994: 153), and related issues are
taken up in the ensuing debate. In her editorial to that issue, Wright
(1994: 100) makes the telling point that:
. . . groups struggling for their rights tend to have limited objectives,
usually restricted to acquiring these rights for themselves. It is an academic
perspective to imagine that people fight for rights in the abstract; it is
normally only their own freedom which interests them, not the parallel
rights of other groups.
And we see a clear continuation of related phenomena in the current
issue, where issues of monolingualism, multilingualism and identity
are addressed directly in detailed studies of Canada and Spain. In the
former, John Edwards tracks a steady drift towards functional
monolingualism inside what may be termed the 'two solitudes' of
French-speaking and English-speaking Canada:
In a curious way, recent Canadian experience is supporting the old one-
nation, one-language thesis, in contrast to the multicultural and
multilingual pluralism which so many have been promoting as the scenario
for tolerant, democratic societies.
In Spain, Hoffman highlights an emergent danger, that those regions
where indigenous languages other than Castilian Spanish were long
suppressed are now working to establish equally oppressive
arrangements for their local language in their newly autonomous
regions. At best, what may be evolving is a series of regional
bilingualisms (Catalan/Castilian, Galician/Castilian,
Euskera/Castilian) on a territorial principle which allows only very
restricted language rights to others. Hoffman reports verbatim the
most astonishing positions on bilingualism, underscored again by
European obsessions with purity and identity. There seems no space
here for Bhabha's (1994: 4) vision of ' . . . the possibility of a cultural
hybridity that entertains difference without an
Page 3
assumed or imposed hierarchy'. Hoffman's paper closes with an echo
of Wright's political realism as quoted above, when she says:
I, as a linguist, may well be much more enthusiastic about linguistic
diversity and cultural pluralism than those who take political decisions and
those who have to live with the consequences.
Which sentiment leaves us, perhaps, on that middle ground between
description and intervention, analysis and interpretation, which is the
natural area of operation of readers of this journal.
References
Beheydt, L. (1994) The linguistic situation in the new Belgium.
Current Issues in Language and Society 1 (2), 147-63.
Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1972) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and
Other Writings, 1972-1977. (C. Gordon. 1980. Ed. and Trans.)
Brighton: Harvester.
Kachru, Y. (1994) Monolingual bias in SLA research. TESOL
Quarterly 28 (4), 795-800.
Nelde, P. (1994) Languages in contact and conflict: The Belgian
experience and the European Union. Current Issues in Language and
Society 1 (2), 165-82.
Pennycook, A. (1994) The Cultural Politics of English as an
International Language. Harlow: Longman.
Romaine, S. (1989) Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Said, E. (1993) Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus.
(Page references here to Vintage edition 1994).
Sridhar, S. (1992) The ecology of bilingual competence. World