Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach

by Kristine Horner, Jean-Jacques Weber

Introducing Multilingualism is a brand new, comprehensive and user-friendly introduction to the dynamic field of multilingualism. Adopting a compelling social and critical approach, Jean-Jacques Weber and Kristine Horner guide readers through the established theories about multilingualism. The book covers language as a social construct, language contact and variation, language and identity and the differences between individual and societal multilingualism. The authors also provide an alternative approach to studying multilingualism, introducing innovative concepts such as flexible multilingualism and literacy bridge in order to encourage students to critically question dominant discourses on topics such as integration, heritage and language testing. This highly practical textbook incorporates a wide range of engaging activities and encourages students to think critically about important social and educational issues. Throughout, the theoretical content is explored through a wide range of case studies from around the world. Clearly argued and widely applicable, this book is essential reading for undergraduate students and postgraduate students new to studying multilingualism.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Anne]

Since I'm not a linguist myself, I think that for a layman this book is a good introduction to multilingualism from a sociolinguistic point of view. Weber and Horner rail against a monolithic view of language learning, which is interesting precisely because it is so far removed from the way institutional language learning mostly operates pretty much everywhere in the world.

Weber and Horner show pretty convincingly that the distinction between language/dialect/slang is socio-politically determined and thus rather arbitrary. Not only do they break down those barriers, but they also argue that a language is not a clear-cut system, but rather a living thing, with fuzzy boundaries, which can't be categorised as easily as people generally think. While I think this is an interesting idea, I would have liked to see their attempt at a different definition. It also would have been great to see a discussion on why there is such a disconnect in the first place between public opinion and academic views on multilingualism, but I guess that goes beyond the scope of this book.

I think that the faults of Introducing Multilingualism are not specific to the book itself, but things that are always problematic in introductory texts. The examples are interesting, but are cut off short in order to keep the text concise. I would have loved to have seen more in-depth cases and languages, and more concrete linguistic data derived from research, rather than simply the conclusions of that research. Also, Weber and Horner steer the reader quite clearly to a certain point of view, and while I mostly agree with them, I was a bit surprised that a textbook for students was not as neutral as I'd expected.

All in all, this book is perfect as an introductory text but it definitely left me very hungry for more.

[Eveline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books hopes not to be Euro-centric. It tends to take linguistic reality and ethnography as a key point for discourse analysis. The book is easy to read for people interested in sociolinguistics, philosophy, sociology, history and linguistics, but maybe more difficult for other readers. Still, the book is set up as a book to be used in educational contexts, although it can also be read individually, for fun. It tends to be critical and indeed it criticizes plenty of language policies, ideologies and education systems all over the world, but the questions and discussion material are often too guided towards one (of the many) answers. This may make the reader more lazy, which is not the aim of this book. Moreover: each chapter ends with a thematic bibliography and the book ends with an overview of themes that have to do with sociolinguistics and multilingualism, but is not taken into account in the rest of the book. Further reading is constantly offered.
In short: insightful, enlightened, helpful.