The Extraordinary Ordinary: Re-Engineering Multilingualism as a Natural Category

Autor/in	Berthele, Raphael
Titel	The Extraordinary Ordinary: Re-Engineering Multilingualism as a Natural Category
Quelle	In: Language Learning, 71 (2021), S.80-120 (41 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Berthele, Raphael)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0023-8333
DOI	10.1111/lang.12407
Schlagwörter	Multilingualism; Bilingualism; Language Research; Transfer of Training; Systems Approach; Code Switching (Language); Psycholinguistics; Second Language Learning; Schemata (Cognition); Language Variation + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Mehrsprachigkeit; Multilingualismus; Bilingualismus; Sprachforschung; Training; Transfer; Ausbildung; Systemischer Ansatz; Psycholinguistik; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Cognition; Schema; Kognition; Sprachenvielfalt
Abstract	This article addresses different ways scholars conceptualize the multilingual repertoire. Formal and functional approaches investigate crosslinguistic influence across clearly demarcated languages, while dynamic systems theory and translanguaging approaches question countability and boundedness of languages. Problems with both perspectives are discussed, and a unified approach that relies on the idea of languages as natural categories is presented as a form of conceptual reengineering. It embraces the possibility and the meaningfulness of the identification of languages in the repertoire while also accounting for their continuous, graded nature and the lack of clear boundaries of language categories. The proposal accounts for seemingly inconsistent findings on the effects of bi- and multilingualism on cognition and on language learning. Multilingualism as a field of inquiry is the investigation of an ordinary phenomenon; what is special about multilingualism is that multilingual speakers may have an extraordinary amount of language and linguistic variability at their disposal. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01