Multilingualism, Translanguaging, and Minority Languages in SLA

THE STUDY OF SECOND LANGUAGE acquisition (SLA) has seen important developments in the last decades, including far-reaching reflection processes that question its scope, method, and aims. One of the most influential articles was published by Firth and Wagner (1997) who highlighted the role of the social context. The Douglas Fir Group (DFG) article (2016) also highlights the role of the social context and proposes a new transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. In this commentary, we look at some of the ideas discussed in the DFG article as well as in the articles in this Special Issue regarding new perspectives and critical questions in SLA. Our ideas are obviously shaped by our own social context, which is European, and our type of multilingualism, which involves not only English but also minority languages. The main focus of SLA studies has been on the acquisition of English as a second language. Most research has taken place in English-speaking countries and in many cases with higher education students as learners. As Ortega (2019, this issue) points out, there is considerable social selectivity with respect to what is published in SLA because “grassroots multilingualism and the multilingualism of marginalized and minoritized communities rarely makes it into SLA pages” (p. 32). We agree with Ortega about the limitations of studying SLA with privileged populations but think that these limitations go beyond social inequality. By restricting the study of SLA to specific contexts, the field is missing the richness of factors and processes associated with the linguistic and social characteristics of other languages. There is a trend to generalize findings obtained in English second language (L2) contexts as if they were a universal truth that can be applied to the acquisition of languages that have completely different structures and scripts. There are also huge differences regarding the status and use of languages internationally and in local communities. SLA refers to a second language but “second” seems to be understood as “target language” or “language other than the L1 [first language].” According to Sharwood Smith (1994), SLA usually refers to “any language other than the first language” (p. 7) without taking into consideration the number of other languages known by the learner. This view of SLA shows the focus on the target language rather than on the learner's repertoire and his/her experience with different languages. Studies on third language acquisition (TLA) have shown that, even if SLA and TLA share many characteristics, there are also important differences between them because bilingualism as a characteristic of the learner can influence the acquisition of additional languages (Cenoz, 2013). Studies on TLA have added a new dimension by analyzing the influence of previously acquired languages and the relationship between the L1, L2, and third language (L3), but are also in many cases limited because they do not reach to cover the whole complexity of multilingualism and often apply monolingual biases. Ortega (2019, this issue) highlights the influence of the monolingual bias in SLA associated with the nation state project, and points out that “inadvertently augmenting it and intertwined with it is the second ideology: the native speaker bias (…) which holds that owning a language from birth results in a form of linguistic competence superior to the competencies that may develop through any other means over the life trajectory” (p. 24). In fact, the native speaker is still the reference point for many scholars and language teachers in the context of language acquisition, and it is this idealized perfect speaker that has been at the center of SLA. The L2 learner has traditionally been seen as somebody who aims at becoming a native speaker. The learner is seen as making progress along a never-ending road and as being inferior to the native speaker. The focus is on an unreachable goal rather than on real people. However, second language learners are real people who are not deficient speakers but multilinguals or emergent multilinguals who can be native speakers of other language(s). As Block (2007) already said some years ago, when he referred to bilinguals, they can be seen more as “hyperlingual” rather than semilingual (p. 72, original emphasis) because of the different linguistic resources they have at their disposal. This idea can be extended to all second language learners who can be considered emergent multilinguals. Cenoz and Gorter (2014) propose to focus on the learner as the multilingual speaker who is different from the monolingual speaker because s/he has the experience of using more than one language. The idea is to shift from the imagined perfect monolingual speaker to the real learner. As stated by the DFG (2016), “learners' developmental trajectories mediated by the opportunities and struggles of their multilingual lifeworlds, vary in and outside of the classroom” (p. 26). In a globalized world, even young learners come to the classroom with rich and dynamic trajectories that are influencing their language learning process. For example, when primary schoolchildren in a Basque-medium school in Spain were asked to describe what we call their “linguistic biography,” the differences in the children's multilingual worlds were striking. Even though all children had three languages in the curriculum (Basque, Spanish, and English) there were important differences regarding the use of Basque and Spanish outside school and in some cases extremely rich trajectories that involved African languages at home or French as the language of instruction before immigrant children moved to Europe. These rich trajectories and learners’ everyday contact with three languages at school can potentially have an important effect on their language learning. Many adult learners also have rich trajectories in their linguistic biographies because in their lives they have experienced different situations inside and outside the classroom. This is the reality of multilingualism that we find in our classrooms nowadays. As Larsen–Freeman (2018) explains, many people grow up with two or more languages, use them for different purposes, and lead transnational lives adding the languages they need to speak in their everyday life. Traditionally, these trajectories have been ignored by SLA studies, but they can influence language learning at least at two levels. As the DFG (2016) says, “in learning multiple languages another factor that mediates processes and outcomes and creates variability is knowledge of a previous language or languages” (p. 30), and this has been seen in studies that look at the influence of previous language knowledge on learning additional languages (see for example Aronin & Hufeisen, 2009; Safont Jordà, 2017). The second level is linked to emotion and affect. LaScotte & Tarone (2019, this issue) report the importance of emotion and affect in L2 use in their study. The DFG (2016) identifies emotion also as one of the fundamental themes: “Emotion and affect matter at all levels” because “language learning is an emotionally driven process at multiple levels of experience” (p. 36). An important point here is that emotions are not the same for all languages. It is not the same to learn a minority language such as Basque or Welsh that was spoken in the learner's family one or two generations ago and was replaced by the majority language or to learn a foreign language that is not related to the learner's identity. This emotional part of language learning as experienced by the learner is overlooked when the focus is on the ideal native speaker of the target language. Traditionally, SLA has analyzed two main types of speakers: L2 learners who need to speak the language of the host country and foreign language learners who learn a language of international communication at school (and also in visits to countries where the target language is spoken). The mobility of population groups and technologization, along with the recognition of linguistic rights in some areas, have extended the typology of the second language learner and have also resulted in more complex types of learners. Nowadays, there can be a speaker of a minority language who learns more than one majority language or an early bilingual who moves to another country and learns additional languages, and the same person is in contact with speakers of other languages in different parts of the world for specific purposes. In areas where minority languages are promoted, a speaker of a majority language can learn a minority language at school apart from other languages along his/her life span. The monolingual native speaker as a reference for language learning is still widespread across the world (DFG, 2016; Li Wei, 2018). However, a multilingual speaker needs to speak different languages for different functions and cannot possibly have the idealized native speaker of each of their languages as a point of reference. A multilingual learner has a life trajectory and has acquired linguistic and semiotic resources when using different languages. When multilingual learners (or emergent multilingual learners) learn an additional language, they are adjusting their repertoire to accommodate for that language. The new language can share features with some of the languages in the whole linguistic repertoire. But these are not only grammatical or linguistic features, there is also an emotional dimension that can shape the learning process. As Kramsch (2014) pointed out, the traditional goal of SLA was a standard variety. This goal has been defined as communicative competence (Canale & Swain, 1980; Hymes, 1974). Communicative competence was an important step compared to the Chomskyan concept of competence because it has a social dimension. However, it still has limitations because it looks at one language at the time and not at multiple languages. The DFG (2016) uses the term competence in the case of multilingual speakers referring to the holistic sum of their multiple-language capacities. Hall (2019, this issue) considers that the term competence is not the most appropriate because it carries “an ideology of homogeneity, permanence, and universality” (p. 86) and because it can create confusion if it refers to different phenomena (see also Hall 2016, 2018). Instead, she proposes “the term repertoire to refer to the totality of an individual's language knowledge, defining it as ‘conventionalized constellations of semiotic resources for taking action’” (p. 86). We agree with the use of this term because, as explained in her article, it captures the heterogeneous nature of multiple-language capacities and learner trajectories. Even if ‘repertoire’ offers a better concept than ‘competence’ it might still be necessary to insist on the characterization of the repertoire as ‘multilingual’ by calling it “multilingual repertoire” or “multilingual and multimodal repertoire” in order to highlight the nonlinguistic semiotic resources involved. By adding these terms the relationship between languages and semiotic resources becomes more salient. Research on trilingualism has provided evidence about the interaction between languages and their multidirectionality as well as about the use of similar strategies when, for example, writing compositions about different topics in three languages (Cenoz & Gorter, 2011). These findings imply that there are soft boundaries between languages. They also imply the need to adopt a “Focus on Multilingualism” approach when conducting research and teaching languages so that the commonalities shared by different languages are highlighted and multilingual students benefit from their multilingual repertoire. As Ortega (2019, this issue) points out, the L2 is still in many cases the only object of analysis and research is affected by this monolingual bias. Instead, the multilingual repertoire needs to be considered as a whole and has to be activated in order to support language acquisition and metalinguistic reflection. In addition, the concept of multilingual repertoire—as compared to multilingual competence—seems to refer to something that already exists rather than to something that has to be achieved. It highlights what the learner already knows and the dynamic nature of multilingual trajectories. However, it might run into the problem of not being seen as a goal in its own right. Indeed, it is difficult to define a clear goal of language learning because it is not fixed. For that reason, it is not a matter of replacing the idealized monolingual speaker with the idealized multilingual speaker because emergent multilinguals have rich and complex trajectories and repertoires and also different aims when learning additional languages. As the DFG (2016) says, “Language learning is characterized by variability and change. It is a ceaseless moving target” (p. 29). Multilingualism has a social dimension because multilingual speakers learn languages while engaging in language practices in a social context. According to one of the fundamental themes of the DFG (2016), “Language learning is situated and attentionally and socially gated” (p. 27). The importance of context is also highlighted in all the articles in this special issue. The use of language in a social context and the soft boundaries between languages we referred to in the previous section are associated with the concept of translanguaging. This concept was first used as a pedagogical strategy in Wales to reinforce the learning of both Welsh and English. In this case, Welsh as a Celtic language is quite different from English as a Germanic language. Both Welsh and English are used at schools in Wales, and there are different streams depending on the relative use of each language as language of instruction. This situation is to a certain extent similar to that of the Basque Country in Spain where there is a marked linguistic distance between Basque and Spanish and where both languages are used at almost all primary and secondary schools. Even if Basque and Welsh are promoted in education as well as in other sectors of society, they are still minority languages within their own territory. In fact, Welsh and Basque L1 speakers always become fluent in the majority language, but most English L1 and Spanish L1 speakers living in Wales or the Basque Country do not speak the minority language. These situations are very appropriate for discussing language boundaries, translanguaging, and the role of the social context. The concept of languages as separate entities has been questioned in recent years, including the proposal to deconstruct named languages (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007; Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015). However, as Ortega (2019, this issue) says, “languages are often identified and treated by speakers as labeled and separate at the conscious level” (p. 31). For example, people in the Basque Country have a clear concept of when a speaker is using Basque or Spanish, and it is often emphasized how different both languages are. Basque is classified as a non-Indo-European language, and because of its grammar and core vocabulary it is completely incomprehensible for Spanish speakers. However, the two languages have been in contact for centuries and have influenced each other. The direction of this influence is mainly from the majority to the minority language, with Basque having been heavily influenced by Spanish at the phonological, lexical, and syntactic level more than the other way around quite simply because Basque speakers in Spain can also speak Spanish. Because of this influence there are some areas with very soft and weak boundaries between the languages. One example is the influence of Spanish (or French in the North part of the Basque Country) on Basque at the phonetic level, which leads to similarities in the pronunciation of both languages. In the case of vocabulary, there are words of Spanish origin that are widely used in Basque and have become part of the Basque language. In fact, Basque and Spanish are considered completely different in grammar books and people's beliefs, but there are areas in which they get quite close. Of course, when communicating, Basque speakers also translanguage using features from their whole linguistic repertoire; at the same time, they usually have a different emotional attachment to each of the languages (see also Mori & Sanuth, 2018, for a different context). The idea of soft boundaries can also be applied to speakers in multilingual contexts. Ortega (2019, this issue) remarks how Peal and Lambert (1962) in the Canadian context excluded some students from their study because it was not possible to classify them as monolingual or bilingual. Even if the researchers considered this necessary for the design of the study in light of its aims, it is a good example of the diversity of multilingualism. In a bilingual context such as that of the Basque Country there is a wide range of variation in the knowledge of Basque and different degrees of fluency, and there would also be a large number of subjects who are neither monolingual nor bilingual. Multilingualism is more complex than a simple dichotomy. The wide use of Spanish as compared to Basque also has implications regarding learners’ communicative need to use Basque. As most people in the Basque Country do not speak Basque and those who speak Basque are bilingual, it can be difficult for Basque L2 learners to engage in Basque-medium interaction outside the classroom. This situation is quite different when learning a majority language and shows the importance of taking the social context into account when analyzing SLA. The concept of translanguaging has been adopted over a short span of time and is widely used in different contexts (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). Today, it often serves as the umbrella term that embraces a wide variety of theoretical and practical examples of fluid use of languages breaking with a strict separation ideology both outside and inside school. The social context is crucial when discussing translanguaging, particularly in communities that involve minority languages. According to Otheguy et al. (2015), translanguaging can be beneficial for minoritized communities and their languages because it “helps to disrupt the socially constructed language hierarchies that are responsible for the suppression of the languages of many minoritized peoples” (p. 283). Li Wei (2018) considers that translanguaging empowers teachers and learners and transforms power relations. Design functional breathing spaces for using the minority language; Develop the need to use the minority languages through translanguaging; Use emergent multilinguals’ resources to reinforce all languages by developing metalinguistic awareness; Enhance language awareness; Link spontaneous translanguaging to pedagogical activities. Language isolation and monolingual ideologies may have been useful for the preservation and revival of minority languages in the past, but today they no longer benefit minoritized communities to the same extent and can even become counterproductive. In turn, the uncritical celebration of translanguaging without considering the specific characteristics of the social context could potentially result in increasing language loss. There have been important changes in the study of SLA in recent years. Monolingual ideologies are pervasive, but contributions such as by the DFG and the articles in this special issue show that there are alternative positions that take note of the complexity of SLA in a globalized world. In this commentary we have looked at some of the issues regarding the multilingual speaker, the multilingual repertoire, and the social context. Even if the discussion of these and other issues is useful there is still a long way to go. One of the key areas to is language can multilingual speakers and their multilingual repertoire be on that have taken the communicative competence of the idealized native speaker can no longer as points of reference. can they be This is an important issue that is still and needs and are used to having communicative and use to the stated have been achieved. Kramsch (2014) considers that the focus no longer be on but on processes such as language or Larsen–Freeman (2018) for language that is by at a learner's progress over time rather than at a Gorter and Cenoz using multilingual in language One is to that students are to the by a (see also 2011). is to use multilingual that adding up obtained in the different languages so as to a level of multilingualism rather than a level of in a specific language. The third might be a translanguaging approach that for the use of different resources from the multilingual repertoire. these other may need to be if new ideas about SLA such as those discussed in this commentary are to be in school contexts. another of the importance of the social context, SLA studies have often been out in North but were discussed as though they applied in the same way to all contexts. as we previously SLA involves the acquisition of different languages, which can be the second or an additional language for the and is associated with emotions and In a similar theoretical and pedagogical such as translanguaging cannot be applied in the same way in different can some minoritized but this is not the case in all contexts. for a and of the implications of translanguaging as related to minority languages and for translanguaging to the social contexts of the communities where the schools are

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