Multilingualism and the Glorious Pathway to Equity and Justice

1.   Multilingualism and the Glorious Pathway to Equity and Justice

Author: Marina Siskos, BA English Language and Literature, Aristotle University/Thessaloniki, Greece

Job Title: Teacher of English (TESOL), EN<>EL Certified Translator

 

Justice can transcend all but communication. The discussion touches upon an oft-neglected interlocking between communication, justice and equity, delving into the revolutionary, yet imperceptible, means to integrating the cardinal virtues of multilingualism.

At times, multilingualism in the West is a misnomer for foreign language (or dialect) tolerance, with the latter failing to capture the quintessence of both justice and fairness. Yet, language is one of the scarce and integral means that establish equal opportunity and fair treatment.

The significance of the research into the interplay between living multilingualism and the realization of equity and justice is prevalent within the working reality of any Teacher of English performing in a multilingual learners’ background. The same emergence applies to the translators’ reality, whose job description is the elimination of language obstacle, by preserving the uniqueness of each working language and the facilitation of intercultural communication.

Existent research into the consequences of multilingualism in view of the practical dimension of fairness and equality among the speakers can be furthered.

Research questions that guided the present paper are the following:

·        What is the meaning of justice?

·        What is the meaning of multilingualism?

·        How is multilingualism prevalently conceptualized?

·        What are the benefits of multilingual societies?

·        Are there genuinely multilingual societies, and what is their success in establishing fairness and equality withing its members?

The key findings of the paper are summarized to the following observations:

·        Language change is a diachronic constant.

·        The importance of negotiating differences, through utilizing any language resources is increasingly evident.

·        Communication to the service of justice does not require homogeneity.

·        Multilingualism, beyond being a living reality, with its earlies testaments recorded in the Bible, also extends the conceptualization spectrum of the meaning of “multilingual”.

Key words: multilingualism, understanding, justice, equity, equality, community, opportunities

One central entity underlying both language and justice, is that of inclusion. Inclusion can exist independently of language- or, at least by means of a spoken or even sign language, yet it does require communication.

Every human endowed with the communicative capacity and the linguistic apparatus setting this apparatus in motion is expected to direct language towards inclusion and establishment of justice in every communicative act: though this is well-accepted, it is not the case.

Humans are probably primed for justice, just as we are hardwired to develop language, both distinctive of our species. Prime does not equal fully developed or acquired. Both communication and justice -the perception and realization of it can be taught, practiced, honed.

Justice, a generic entity, often ascribed to the transcendental and the abstract, is a theme classified for the moral and philosophical discussions. Interestingly, it is an earthly, practical virtue with tangible dimensions.

Social justice, as Deranty informs (2015), is the kind of justice that is to be achieved when the social arrangement makes it possible for everyone to receive their due […]. In Rowal’s famous statement, social justice is “the adequate repartition of benefits and burdens arising from social cooperation” (Rawls, 1999, 4).

The individual consciousness comprises the collective consciousness and it is to nobody’s wonder that the two entities, the individual and the collective one, are characterized by terms deriving from the same pool of definitions: a resistant-to-change, or conservative person or society, a respectful, a deeply religious, a liberal or a witty one -all adjectives successfully ascribe meaning to both the person and the collective soul.

Similarly, the attitude towards multilingualism is a collective concept.  Societies, rather than the individuals with their geographic boundaries, are said to be multilingual, bilingual or, monolingual.

1.   The Meaning of Multilingualism

Regarding the meaning of multilingualism, literature remains inconclusive: according to Hatzidakis’ observations, on the two extremes of the definition spectrum lie the Bloomfield’s and the Haugen’s conceptualization: Bloomfield (2933: 56) concluded that, bilingualism unwaveringly requires the acquisition of  two languages, to a degree that is proportionate to that of the native speaker’s, whereas Haugen (1953: 7) accepted that the onset of bilingualism overlaps with the speaker’s ability to produce complete meaningful utterances in the second language. In the interim distancing the two extremes, a plethora of classifications is developed (Stella-Mazi, 2001).

Monolingual communities are not the norm. According to Horner et al. (2011), around the globe, most people speak more than one language. Indeed, they speak more than one variation of these, languages. In addition, these languages and variations are constantly changing as they intermingle. Even “what we think of as English is itself linguistically heterogeneous in its origins and ongoing formation, as demonstrated by neologisms, the development of world Englishes, and shifting conventions” (Horner et al., 2011).

[…] Multilingualism is an intricate social, psychological and linguistic phenomenon and needs to be understood from a multidimensional aspect (Butler,2012).

Picture yourself a non-native, immersed in a new language. Surrounded by the linguistic code you are hardly, or not familiarized at all: what would your survival kit be? This situation is the common frame of reference in foreign-language settings. Thankfully, English has been the Lingua Franca of modern times. English though, was not always reigning. It was due to the global trade channels, emerging with the British Empires expansion, onsetting in the 16^th century and the flourishing economic power of the U.S. in the 20^th century, that English occupied its present place in the language pantheon (Gregory, 2019).

According to Michael Sandel, “to ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize-income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offices and honours. A just society distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard questions begin to arise when we ask what people are due, and why” (Sandel, 2009).

The discussion on multilingualism and justice encapsulates the question of the capitalization of the linguistic benefits. As Alcalde (2015), informs, language “has economic characteristics, such as value, utility, costs and benefits”. Access to the job market requires familiarization with a shared language-that is by default. There are cases, also, where even the sharing of common dialect, or mutual intelligibility turns out to be the case.

Language skills are a source of economic advantage for individuals, and language skills have an impact on the creation of value in the economy as a whole (Alcalde, 2015).

As corroborated by Alcalde (2015), “the more fluent an employee, the higher the wage he can earn”.

After all, it is on the altar of financial prosperity that a recessive, minority language is often sacrificed (Baker, 1993).

Notions about monolingualism and correctness of use tend to lapse into obsolescence, under the translingual perspective: “each new instance of language use brings the need and opportunity to develop new ways of using language, and to draw on a range of language resources. The ability to negotiate differences and to improvise ways to produce meaning across linguistic differences with whatever language resources are available is becoming increasingly necessary, not only to careers and commerce, but to the chances for peace and justice” (Horner et al., 2011).

Yet, communication to the service of justice does not assume language homogeneity. “Myths of unchanging, universal standards for language have often been invoked to simplify the teaching and learning of languages” (Horner et al., 2011). The construct of monolingualism though, is not merely unfounded: it is misleading as “monolingualism teaches language users to assume and demand that others accept as correct and conform to a single set of practices with language and, in multilingual situations, to assume and demand that others accept as correct and conform to multiple discrete sets of practices with languages” (Horner et al., 2011).  

2.   The Distinctive Case of the Tukano Multilinguals

One distinctive case of multilingual community [in the purest existence any  western mind can possibly conceive] is located in the central part of the Northwest Amazon, on the bordering area between Colombia and Brazil (Arhakis, Kondyli, 2004). The Tukano tribesmen get married only to women of different linguistic communities than theirs. The prospective bride should come from a different linguistic community as the Tukano women are considered as “sisters” and the marriage with one equals incest. Thus, the tribesmen choose their future wife among the members of a neighboring, foreign-language speaking women. Following the matrimony , the new brides enter their husbands’ households, resulting in the creation of a multiplicity of spoken languages simultaneously: the husbands’ native language (the Tukano), the various native languages of the incoming wives from the different tribal backgrounds, and the prevalent language of the trade. The children born in the Tukano community are raised in a multilingual setting, where their two parents are native speakers of two different languages, whereas the other women of the tribe are also native speakers of other languages. Every community member  respects and breeds interest for the other members’ native language. The constant transition and switching  among the multiplicity of the spoken languages is the norm in a typical Tukano day. In fact, multilingualism is naturalized to the scale that the Tukano tribespeople don’t know the exact number of the spoken languages. The elimination of any of the used languages is unheard of to the Tukano  members; on the contrary, multilingualism is felt to be a source of power, as it enables the various contacts among people and, majorly, the matrimony between the different linguistic communities (Arhakis, Kondyli, 2004).

According to Sorensen (1967), here then is a large, culturally homogeneous area where multilingualism-and polylingualism in the individual is the cultural norm. Anthropologically, this is a cultural  trait and it is an outstanding cultural trait in the area.

The instance of the linguistic intermarriages is mentioned as a means to extend the conceptualization zone of what meaning is ascribed to multilingualism by westerners.

3.   Epilogue

The core question asks whether multilingualism is one-directional, that is, the expectation is always directed to the foreigner, the non-native, the newcomer. This case describes “situational multilingualism” : “the ability of an individual speaker or a community of speakers to communicate effectively in three or more languages. Contrary to monolingualism, the ability to use only one language. A person who can speak multiple languages is known as a polyglot or a multilingual”.

The perennial multilingualism of Greece (innately a country with many dialects, linguistic homogeneity is not common spread, nor the norm-despite the recent dominance of koini, the main Greek dialect, many different dialects and sociolects are not only encountered, but they are also anticipated in most domestic settings-the workplace, the Greek school, the university, the companies). That is of course within the limits of mutual intelligibility among the different speakers. The reaping of the economic benefits of multilingualism is, of course, attained by inclusion.

Similarly, notions of the “Standard English speaker” and “Standard written English” are bankrupt concepts […]. Respectively, standards of written English are neither uniform nor fixed. What constitutes expected norms-for example, Edited American English-varies over time and from genre to genre. Indeed, these genres themselves change boundaries and intermingle” (Horner, et al., 2011).

To value language diversity, establishing the liberty of communicating using one’s own language or dialect safeguards justice.  

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