7.2 Sociolinguistic aspects: language in context
The term sociolinguistics is defined very broadly here; it is not just the study
of varieties, but includes all aspects of language in context. Andrea Tyler
refers to Ron Scollon for this, who sees no real distinction between AL and
sociolinguistics. This view is clearly not shared by the majority of the informants,
though there are certainly areas of overlap.
7.2.1 Multilingualism and L3
Multilingualism is en vogue, both in academia and in international organi-
zations. At the European level, multilingualism is seen as one of the ways to
promote a sense of European citizenship. But multilingualism comes in different
guises.
According to Tove Skutnabb-Kangas:
There has been a (positive) trend from seeing multilingualism as a deficit
to seeing it as a resource, both in general and in education. This is part
of a destructive either/or thinking (which has also taken the form of
claiming that one has to choose between learning the mother tongue and
the indigenous/minority culture, and become economically and politi-
cally marginalised), OR learn a dominant language at the cost of the
mother tongue, subtractively–and get a good job.Vivian Cook coined the concept of“multi-competence”that has become
one of the buzzwords in the study of bilingualism and multilingualism. The
main idea is that the bilingual (or trilingual, quadrilingual and so on) is not
two monolinguals in one, or two separate languages in one brain. The
acquisition of a second language leads to a reorganization of the language
system with the different languages influencing each other. For Aneta Pavlenko,
“Vivian Cook is a visionary who made major efforts to bring together mul-
tilingualism, and European and North American SLA efforts, as well as UG
and cognitive linguistics”. In contrast to the traditional perspectives of
interference or transfer as a one-directional process from L1 to L2, the L1 is
as amenable to influences from other languages, in similar ways as the L2 is.
Camilla Bardel thinks the multi-competence trend has brought the notion of
transfer back into the discussion but now not only from L1 into L2 but in
multiple ways between L1/L2/L3/...with all languages affecting the others.
This perspective on multilingualism also implies that the role of the native
speaker changes, as mentioned earlier by Alan Davies. In research on multi-
lingual processing, using monolingual native speakers as a control or reference
group is no longer seen as acceptable. It is better to compare multilinguals at
different stages of their development.
In research on L3 there has been an elaborate discussion on what counts
as thefirst/second/third language. Is it the order of acquisition, the level of
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