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Flexible Multilingualism: Rethinking Theories and Concepts

Thursday, 19 July 2018: 15:30-17:20
Location: 717B (MTCC SOUTH BUILDING)
RC25 Language and Society (host committee)

Language: English

The term “multilingualism” has been critically challenged by sociolinguists and applied linguists. They advocate replacing it with terms such as ‘polylingual languaging’, ‘translanguaging’, and ‘metrolingualism’. These concepts are attempts to change the fixed view of what is a language; the oppressive ideology that has been manipulated by institutions and individuals to create particular hierarchical boundaries and to justify as well as impose power over particular individuals or groups. Heterogeneity of voices and discourses are also in line with this reframing.

These concepts of flexible multilingualism are still not without limitations. The studies have emerged from spoken interaction data, and texts or multimodal interaction of online spaces are not represented. Another is that the studies were often concerned with ‘diverse speakers’ in urban spaces, often of the north. Contesting script systems were not discussed either.

This session invites approaches that upgrade the flexible view of “multilingualism”, by deepening our understanding of flexible written “multilingualism”, or by highlighting multilingualism in more specific sociohistorical or sociolinguistic configurations (e.g. postcolonial, less ‘ethno-linguistically diverse’, rural, multiple script systems, etc.). The session welcomes studies discussing on a range of geographical, political, and cultural configurations. It also welcomes studies of policies and practices in regions where more weight is placed on written languages than discussed in those using the Latin alphabet. Discussions on the regions where contest and conflict between the local (or national) language and global languages (namely English) retain a significant force in language or scriptal choice are especially welcome.

Session Organizer:
Rika YAMASHITA, Kanto Gakuin University, Japan
Oral Presentations
Foreign Language As the Medium: How Japanese People See English Language and How This Relates to Globalization
Ichiro OKANO, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan; Ryoko UNO, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
Multilingual Practices Vs. Monolingual Language Regime. Evidences from St. Petersburg’s Linguistic Landscape
Kapitolina FEDOROVA, European University at St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
Postcolonial Bilingualism in Tunisia
Mahmoud DHAOUADI, University of Tunis, Tunisia
Distributed Papers
Emerging Creative Trends in English Communication and the Need for Neologisms
Ashok SACHDEVA, MATA JIJABAI GOVERNMENT GIRLS P. G. COLLEGE INDORE, India