Raphael Berthele

22Multilingual communication

Abstract: Verbal communication involving more than one language is widespread, both historically and geographically. This chapter provides an overview of multilingual ‘regimes’ of communication, covering different phenomena such as lingua franca communication or receptive multilingualism. The chapter discusses the consequences of multilingual language use as an institutionalized pattern for individual speakers’ linguistic repertoires (e.g., learner varieties in a second language) as well as the consequences of individual multilingualism for collective patterns (e.g., language change due to language contact). Furthermore, research on the consequences that bi- and multilingualism can have on cognition is discussed, covering issues such as the potential impact of bilingualism on intelligence, on cognitive control, and the assumed influence of using a particular language on speakers’ ‘views of the world’. This latter topic is an important part in the ideological underpinnings of current language policies. Thus, in the concluding sections of the chapter, ideological and evaluative components of multilingual language policies are discussed.

Keywords: multilingualism, bilingualism, language policy, language contact, language ideologies, cognition

1Basic concepts, frameworks and scope of the chapter

In the present chapter, the term multilingual communication is used as a cover term for communication involving the use of two or more languages or linguistic varieties. Correspondingly, multilingualism is used as a term covering both the collective and individual usage of two or more languages. Multilingual communication can therefore refer to institutional settings in which multilingualism is a characteristic of the collective verbal behavior without necessarily involving individual multilingualism of all actors involved.

1.1Multilingual communication regimes

Settings where multilingual communication is a part of the makeup can vary considerably. The different regimes can involve widespread individual multilingualism or on the contrary they can entail large-scale individual monolingualism. In the latter case, intergroup communication crucially depends on the multilingual proficiency of a few (e.g., translators and interpreters). The distinction between the individual repertoires and the collective or institutional status of more than one language is crucial, since the term multilingualism is deceitfully ambiguous with respect to the two levels of analysis.

In institutionally multilingual settings, there are different regimes involving individual multilingualism of varying degrees (Grin 2004; Spolsky 2004). On one extreme, one language can be selected for communication among linguistically heterogeneous participants. Typically, lingua franca regimes (as in the international scientific domain with English) belong to this category: They involve the learning of the lingua franca by speakers of other languages. If the lingua franca is a mixed or artificial language (e.g., Esperanto), all participants in the communicative processes have to learn the language to some extent. Regimes involving only one common language are often perceived as a threat to diversity on the institutional level (House 2003a), since they involve the usage of only one strong and dominant language by speakers of various languages.

At the other extreme of the scale, all languages that are considered legitimate in a given context can be used for communication. A prime example is the European Union with currently 23 official languages that theoretically share the same status (see section 3.2). The translation and interpretation apparatus grows exponentially with the number of translation directions needed. Finally, an alternative that does not require individuals to develop language production skills in several languages is the regime of receptive multilingualism (ten Thije & Zeevaert 2007) which allows for massive asymmetries in comprehension and production in the participants. Some examples are inter-Scandinavian communication (Braunmüller 2002, 2007), Romance intercomprehension (Blanche-Benveniste & Valli 1997), mutual comprehension in communication between speakers of Turkish and Kazakh (Massakowa & Rehbein forthcoming) or at the Dutch-German border (Beerkens 2010). This type of regime bears the potential to allow for linguistic diversity on the collective/ institutional level without excessive needs for investments in the development of translation, interpretation and productive foreign language proficiency.

However superficial and incomplete this overview of possible regimes may be, it illustrates that multilingual communication as an overarching term covers very different arrangements and relates to very different cognitive and linguistic configurations. Probably the only common denominator to virtually all instances of multilingual communication is a certain asymmetry of proficiency or skills of the different actors in the codes that are used. This asymmetry is often referred to as ‘exolingual mode’ (Lüdi & Py 2003), as opposed to endolingual communication among speakers with very similar linguistic repertoires. In the extreme cases of receptive multilingualism, individuals may possess comprehension skills in the language of their interlocutors while completely lacking the ability to produce even the most basic oral or written utterances and texts in these languages.

1.2History

Archeological evidence strongly suggests that cultural and linguistic diversity rather than homogeneity are the default human condition, even in alleged isolated contexts (on multicultural Japan see e.g., Denoon & McCormack 2001). Both early and contemporary contact linguistics (Schuchardt & Spitzer 1922: 132; Matras 2009) provide convincing evidence for ubiquitous contact phenomena in virtually all languages and thus the more or less mixed nature of most human languages. Since the locus of language contact is the bi- or multilingual individual (Weinreich 1953), traces of language contact and language mixing are evidence for individual multilingualism and hence for multilingual communication. Such contact settings can be relatively stable over time, they can also be caused by continuous migration flows, by catastrophic events (wars, natural disasters, etc.) involving rapid shifts of language and culture.

In medieval Europe, multilingual practices have been reported from many different contexts (Von Moos 2008; Kleinhenz & Busby 2010), one of the most important and well-documented of which is probably the so called “School of Toledo” (Pym 1994), where seminal works from Greek and other authors were translated into Latin and Romance from the 12th century onwards. Multilingual institutions and states were and are by no means exceptional (see Rindler-Schjerve 2007 on the Habsburgian monarchy), and similar questions and problems had to be addressed in the past as those that are discussed in present-day national and supranational institutions. In the political, economic and scientific realms, a tendency towards lingua franca regimes can be observed: Greek as the language of science in Classical Antiquity, Latin in the European Middle Ages, Arabic in medieval Asia, Northern Africa and South-Western Europe, classical Chinese in East Asia, Low German as the trade language in the Hanseatic League, etc.

1.3Scope of this chapter

In the following discussion of cognitive, social and institutional (‘applied’) issues that are related to multilingual communication, the point of departure is the multilingual individual. Our main goal is to articulate the scholarly investigation of individual multilingual repertoires (2.1) with more general issues from the cognitive (2.2) and social domains (3).

A number of important problems and disciplines directly related to multilingual communication can only be touched upon in a superficial manner. Due to space restrictions, I am unable to provide in-depth discussions of economic, historical and social change, globalization and creolization, and their impact on the language markets (see e.g., Blommaert 2010). Furthermore, the tension between multilingualism and monolingualism in (European) nation-building will only be alluded to and not discussed in detail, as is the case for the related field of studies of language ideologies (Kroskrity 2000; May 2001).

2Cognitive and linguistic aspects

The reference point of this chapter is the multilingual individual and her/his patterns of verbal behavior. Cognition, linguistic repertoires and language usage are inseparable. Communicative competence can best be modeled in an approach integrating the cognitive and social constraints on verbal usage patterns. In this section, we distinguish between three types of cognitive aspects of multilingual communication: 1. consequences for the individuals’ usage patterns of language, 2. consequences for ‘languages’ in the sense of emerging collective verbal usage patterns, and 3. consequences of multilingualism on non-linguistic cognition.

2.1Linguistic aspects of multilingual communication

2.1.1Emergence of learner languages

Multilingual communication typically entails the unbalanced distribution of proficiency among the language users engaged in the communicative practices. Thus, the dynamics of the emergence of second (M. H. Long & Doughty 2004) and additional (de Angelis 2007) language learning processes are relevant factors shaping the respective linguistic repertoires as well as the practices themselves. Learner languages are generally understood as relatively ephemeral but nevertheless systematic systems (‘interlanguages’, see Selinker 1992). Their internal logic can be modeled by taking into account the dominant (or native) language, the language to be learnt/ acquired, general principles of the emergence of linguistic systems (cf. Klein & Perdue 1997) and factors such as time and type of exposure, among others. Despite their dynamic nature, learner languages have been observed to stagnate at typical points in the development (‘fossilization’). Potential reasons for such stagnation vary from the absence of normative pressure on the individuals over lack of learning opportunities to outright conscious refusal to learn a particular aspect of the target language. In contemporary approaches, this assumed absence of development is reframed as an attractor state (de Bot, Lowie & Verspoor 2007) within a complex system. Learner languages exhibit to differing degrees features such as overgeneralization, regularization, and simplification of grammatical aspects of the target language.

Multilinguals often have asymmetric proficiency profiles: They are able to understand much more than they can actively produce in the target language, most importantly by applying different types of inferencing strategies (cf. Berthele 2011b). Such strategies are particularly crucial for successful communication in a regime of receptive multilingualism. Participants in multilingual communication tend to adapt their speaking style even in their dominant languages towards so-called teacher or foreigner talk, involving typical patterns of slower speech rate, simplification of syntax and use of high-frequency vocabulary (D. H. Long & Porter 1985; Howard, Ó’Laoire & Singleton 2011).

2.1.2Lingua Franca communication

In Lingua Franca regimes, speakers of the international language are clearly distinct from so called ‘native speakers’ (Davies 2003) of the respective language. Today, obviously, English serves as lingua franca in many areas, contexts and use domains (see next section on global English). Other lingue franche have existed and still exist, e.g., Latin in the European middle ages (cf. Wilton 2012), the ‘original’ Mediterranean lingua franca (Dakhlia 2008), or Swahili in Eastern Africa. In interaction among native and lingua franca speakers of a language, the imbalance in proficiency is often thought to be a source of misunderstandings, giving advantages to the native speakers of the language. This assumption gives rise to debates about linguistic justice (Van Parijs 2002). However, although it is in the very nature of multilingual communication to be exolingual, one must not jump to the conclusion that this necessarily entails an abnormal amount of communicative barriers or misunderstandings. Even mono- and endolingual communication is vulnerable to misunderstandings, and successful mutual comprehension is sometimes regarded as the exception by linguists (Culioli 1991). Moreover, as multilinguals are aware of the specific nature of multilingual communication, they tend to use communication strategies that compensate for these anticipated problems. On the one hand, a commonly applied strategy is to “let it pass” (Firth 1996: 243), i.e. to ignore an item that was unknown or unintelligible to the hearer while hoping things become clearer as the interaction progresses. On the other hand, researchers observed all kinds of interactional devices that ensure that a satisfactory level of comprehension is achieved. As Haegeman (2002) has shown, the speakers in lingua franca exchanges do in fact take into account their interlocutors’ actual or perceived lack of proficiency and adapt their styles accordingly (cf. Bremer 1996). More specifically, studies on lingua franca communication from very different contexts have investigated the use of strategies such as back-channeling (Meierkord 1998), the joint construction of stretches of discourse (Firth 1990), the use of canonical patterns such as summons-answer sequences in telephone conversations (Rasmussen 2000), etc. Many authors claim that the widespread use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) leads to the emergence of new varieties of English (see next section).

2.1.3English as a global language

The role of English as a global language in multilingual communication is manifold. Depending on the norms or ideologies applied, the attitudes vary greatly. In the language policy literature, English is currently considered one or more than one of the following:

I will briefly comment on points 3 to 5 on the previous list, since these are the points immediately related to multilingualism in communication.

English is the most often learnt foreign language in Europe (European Commission 2013) and worldwide (Crystal 2003: 106). English has more nonnative speakers than native speakers.

Global English has been described either in neutral or in dismissive terms (“Globish”) as a simplified variant of native English (whatever the centre of the langue may be, British or American, or any other place where English is a native and legitimate language). Many scholars have attempted to describe features of ELF as a variety and of ELF interaction (e.g., Jenkins 2012; Haegemann 2002; Meierkord 1998; Seidlhofer 2011; Wright 2007). Aspects of pronunciation (e.g., phonological simplification), grammar (e.g., regularization and simplification of morphology), lexis (e.g., lack of metaphor, lexical simplicity), and collocations have been listed as typical features of ELF.

In this perspective, the use of English as a global language in international and transnational settings gives rise to a new bundle of varieties of English, ELF, with their own linguistic attributes and conversational norms. Some scholars claim that ELF could or should be taught in foreign language classrooms (Jenkins 2012). Other scholars have observed, in opposition to the linguistic justice perspective taken by van Parijs 2002, that native speakers of English who are not proficient in ELF run the risk of not making themselves understood in ELF contexts and are therefore disadvantaged (Wright 2009: 105).

If the mix of dominant or native languages of ELF speakers in a given setting is stable over a longer stretch of time, the emergence of new varieties of English is a plausible scenario. Singlish, i.e. colloquial Singapore English (Deterding 2007: 6), could be seen as an example of such a process leading to the formation of a new variety or language. If this formation of new varieties should become a widespread phenomenon, and provided these varieties gain social and political recognition, this would justify at least one component of the so-called “Latin analogy” (Wilton 2012), namely that the success of a global language ultimately entails its fragmentation into ‘daughter languages’ (see also Schreier 2010 on lesser-known varieties of English). There is no doubt that new varieties of English in fact emerge in many places of the world. However, this new form of linguistic diversity is rarely recognized, since it rivals with Eurocentric ideas of what a language (and what a dialect) is, namely an ‘old’ form of speaking and writing, with an important corpus of historical written texts, a history of codification and corpus planning including institutions that are legitimized to set norms, and often a nation as the ‘homeland’ of the language. However, neither do most non-European languages correspond to this stereotype, nor newly emerging varieties in contact with English. It is therefore an open question whether this new form of linguistic diversity will ever be recognized as emerging new languages. For example, Singlish with its estimated several hundred thousand speakers does not have an entry in the database that is one of the main resources for the documentation of linguistic diversity worldwide (ethnologue.org, see Gordon 2005), whereas there is an entry for Cornish that is estimated to have zero native speakers.

In another perspective, related to the communication strategies described in the previous section, English in multilingual contexts is not construed as an emerging language or as triggering the birth of new contact varieties, but rather as a way of interaction in linguistically diverse contexts. Within this last perspective, the main emphasis is not put on the often problematic attempt to identify new (or old, for that matter) varieties of English or ELF, but rather on the dynamic, creative ways multilinguals use linguistic and other cues in multilingual interaction, even if their command of English or any other foreign language is very limited (e.g., Shohamy 2006: 64). The focus on language is thus replaced by a focus on languaging, i.e. on patterns of use of one or several languages (including, e.g., code-switching between languages) in context, inspired by sociocultural theories (cf. Shohamy 2006: 14; cf. also Swain et al. 2010 on the role of languaging in second language education). In this perspective, global English is but one, although an important, component of a multilingual and multimodal repertoire of semiotic tools serving to convey and construct meaning in interaction.

Finally, from the point of view of the emerging field of receptive multilingualism, i.e. the more or less exclusive focus on language comprehension in the perspective of fostering the polyglot dialogue (cf. Posner 1991), English as the most widespread and often best mastered foreign language becomes an important supplier language in comprehension of genealogically related languages such as German, Swedish or Dutch (cf. Peyer et al. 2010).

2.1.4Emergence of collective usage patterns

There are multiple linguistic consequences of multilingual communication on collective usage patterns (‘languages’ or more generally ‘varieties’). The sub-discipline that systematically investigates these consequences, contact linguistics (Thomason 2001; Matras 2009), has provided extensive documentation of various multilingual configurations and their impact on linguistic codes both on the individual and collective levels. Very generally speaking, language contact phenomena can be analyzed using two broad categories, pattern replication and matter replication (Matras 2009). A typical example of matter replication is the borrowing of words from a foreign language. This type of borrowing is so pervasive that it is considered a phenomenon that occurs even in relatively monolingual settings with only casual contact. Pattern replication, on the other hand, involves structural changes in a language that are calqued onto the model of another language (e.g., replicating a language’s word order or other aspects of its grammar, but also changing the meaning of words according to the influencing language’s model). Even in very proficient bilinguals, such converging patterns can be observed (cf. Pavlenko & Jarvis 2002; Backus, Seza Doğruöz & Heine 2011; Berthele 2012).

In contexts of language shift, e.g., when speakers of a minority language shift towards the use of the majority language during adulthood, structural changes in the newly adopted language can be observed and interpreted as influence from the substratum, i.e. the language that is abandoned by the group: Sometimes these changes involve pattern replication alone, sometimes they involve the replication of patterns and of matter at the same time. Many authors have proposed borrowing scales that relate the probability of certain contact phenomena to the intensity of contact or to other ecological features of the multilingual setting (see Thomason 2001).

Finally, in particular contexts, mixed languages can emerge (Matras 2009: 288). Whereas the status of Creole languages as mixed languages is controversial (Mufwene 2006), other cases, such as Michif (Bakker & Papen 1997) or Inner Mbugu (Mous 2003) are commonly regarded of languages that cannot be attributed to one single phylogenetic branch.

2.2Impact of multilingual language use on cognition

2.2.1Intelligence and cognitive control

There is a substantial body of research on the impact of multilingualism on cognition. Whereas early studies (e.g., Saer 1923) suggested a negative impact of bilingualism on cognitive skills and most prominently intelligence, later examination of these studies showed that the results were mere artifacts of lack of methodological rigor and especially lack of control for important factors such as socio-economic background of the participants. After a period of mixed results, Peal and Lambert’s seminal 1962 study ushered in an era of research on the impact of bilingualism on non-verbal and verbal intelligence, creativity (e.g., Hommel, Colzato, Fischer & Christoffels 2011), and cognitive control (e.g., Bialystok 2007). Not all studies show a positive patterning of bilingualism with all these aspects. Indeed, a negative impact is hypothesized in some cases, e.g., convergent thinking or creativity (Hommel, Colzato, Fischer & Christoffels 2011). Overall the effects vary considerably across studies from small to medium-sized effects (cf. Adesope, Lavin, Thompson & Ungerleider 2010 for a meta-analysis). In some studies, bilingualism and multilingualism have been related to the slowing down of the onset of memory problems that are due to Alzheimer type dementia (Chertkow, et al. 2010). To sum up, it seems uncontroversial that bilingualism has no negative impact on cognitive processing overall, and that in some areas such as executive control there seems to be an increase due to bilingualism. Especially in the case of correlations with intelligence the direction of causality between language proficiency and cognition still is an open question. However, as Edwards (2006), points out, the most relevant aspect of bilingualism is the simple fact that bilinguals expand their linguistic repertoire and thus develop a heightened sensitivity to linguistic aspects of communication and culture. Evidence from third language acquisition shows that bilinguals and multilinguals are often able to mobilize language-specific and metalinguistic skills that allow them to add languages to their repertoire with greater ease (de Angelis 2007).

2.2.2Multilingual language use and linguistic relativity

An important question for research on multilingual communication concerns the connection between language and thought, most commonly labeled by the term of linguistic relativity. Ever since the writings Humboldt, Boas, Sapir and most notably Whorf (1956), the idea of language shaping human thought has given rise to intense discussions in the field of psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics (for a recent overview see Pavlenko 2011). Indeed, experimental evidence has been provided for very specific aspects of conceptualization that seem to be influenced by the speakers’ native languages: Spatial frames of reference in language and nonlinguistic tasks (Levinson, Kitaa, Hauna & Rasch 2002) and the impact of count vs. mass noun distinction in languages on object categorization (Imai & Gentner 1997; Lucy 2003) are the textbook examples. However, in other areas, evidence for the impact of linguistic systems on non-verbal cognition is controversial or absent. It is thus not surprising that today many authors adopt a rather diluted version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis, merely claiming that there are effects of particular language features that direct the attention of the speaker towards aspects of construed reality while speaking or planning to speak (e.g., the “thinking for speaking” approach by Slobin (1996)). As Pavlenko (2011: 19) points out, this much weaker and non-deterministic version of linguistic relativity is probably also closer to the initial idea found in Whorf’s and others’ writings, whereas the strong or deterministic version of the hypothesis was an extreme interpretation of the initial idea. At first, authors working on the question of linguistic relativity focused on monolingual speakers, but meanwhile there is a considerable body of research investigating the impact of two or more languages in the repertoire on cognitive categories and associations. Most of these studies seem to show that patterns of categorizations converge to some extent, or that the ‘native’ language patterns fade out, as proficiency in a second language increases (see Athanasopoulos (2009) for color categories, Bassetti (2007) for grammatical gender, Brown and Gullberg (2008) for gestures and spatial concepts).

Thus, both on the collective and the individual level, multilingual communication is observed to be linked to converging and accommodating patterns of behavior and of thinking. Linguistic and cognitive convergence can be framed as a natural consequence of situations of multilingual interaction that counteracts the tendency of divergence and ‘speciation’ observed in the history of languages. Multilingual communication thus is the site where two opposing tendencies of verbal behavior meet: Divergence that has led to significantly different codes even within so-called language families, and convergence that at least partially leads to more similarity of the codes.

3Social relevance and applied perspectives

The mutual imbrications of the cognitive and linguistic aspects discussed above with social issues are manifold. Most generally, multilingual communication practices give rise to numerous sociologically and legally relevant questions regarding the status of languages, management of linguistic and cultural diversity, and linguistic justice. Moreover, the domain of language learning is concerned, since the nature of multilingual competence and language use call for new pedagogical perspectives on the norms and proficiency levels targeted.

3.1Multilingual communication and social assessments

Wherever different ways of speaking coexist in social interaction, they are subject to social evaluation. Sociolects (ways of speaking associated with particular social strata), dialects and ethnolects (ways of speaking associated with particular areas and ethnicities respectively) as well as learner languages in multilingual communication convey information about the speaker and are thus potentially assessed by participants in the communicative practice. The cognitive and social predispositions vis-à-vis such variation are investigated within different paradigms of language attitude research (Garrett 2010). Depending on the particular research question investigated, scholars have either focused on behavioral and attitudinal response patterns to particular multilingually marked linguistic varieties (Ramirez &Milk 1986; Hughes, Shaunessy & Brice 2006; Berthele 2011a) or on the conversational functions of mixed language use (Gumperz 1982; Auer 1995). From a critical sociolinguistic point of view, research on multilingual communication practices is at the core of the investigation of the relationship between language and social or economic power (see e.g., Duchêne & Heller 2012).

3.2Analyses of language policies

In many areas, in particular in Western Europe, there are important tensions between official declarations of political agencies and actual practices. Whereas the European Union officially celebrates European linguistic and cultural diversity, usage patterns in the European administration clearly converge towards an English as a lingua franca regime. As Koskinen (2000) observed, the expensive and slow translation machinery has mainly a symbolic value and does not serve exclusively communicative goals as such, since people do not trust the quality of the translations and do not have the time to wait for them. Many advocates of linguistic diversity complain about the overwhelming importance English gained in the political, economic, cultural and scientific domains. They often do this by referring to Whorf in a deterministic argument as discussed in section 2.2.2, as e.g., Fishman (1982) or Hagège (2011). In this line of thinking, the diversity of languages equals diversity of ways of conceptualizing reality, which is in turn seen as necessary and valuable for humanity, similarly to biological diversity. However, as has been argued above, research on cognition has not produced convincing evidence for strong effects of linguistic relativity in the deterministic sense, and there is no evidence for increased productivity of creativity in scientific or other institutional text production that would support such claims. Other scholars, such as (House 2003a), argue that lingua franca communication itself is hybrid and multicultural in nature, rather than monolithic and thus homogenizing in a way that supposedly threatens cognitive and cultural diversity. Along the same lines, Blommaert (2010: 195) argues that global English leads to local usage patterns that are again tokens of diversity rather than uniformity. Finally, the Whorfian argument collapses if one tries to combine the case for linguistic diversity in science or other domains with the case for individual bi- or multilingualism, since individual bilingualism weakens the already weak Whorfian effects even further and leads to convergence of cognitive patterns (see 2.2.2). This is not to be seen as an argument against linguistic diversity and in favor of global monolingualism, but as a critique of the inconsistent rationales underlying a good portion of the linguistic diversity discourse.

3.3Social and discursive framing of mono- and multilingual communication

From an applied point of view, it seems important to pinpoint inconsistencies of national and supra-national language ideologies, to identify potential cultural models tacitly underlying language policy debates, as Geeraerts’ (2003) cultural models. The intensity of the debate on the best regime of multilingual communication appears to be inversely proportional to actually measured linguistic diversity: It is particularly virulent in Western Europe, where linguistic diversity is relatively low, compared to Africa, Asia and the South Pacific (see Gordon 2005). For instance, as Khubchandani (1997) argues, the construal of ‘community’ in South Asia does not involve the idea of one common language, and multilingual communication within communities is thus nothing exceptional. The ‘rediscovery’ of multilingual communication, stereotypically linked to globalization, is thus partly due to ill-informed Eurocentrism. One of the main underlying reasons for this rediscovery of diversity in communicative practices is related to the mechanism that produced the erasure of large portions of European diversity in the 18th and 19th century in the first place: European nationalism, on the one hand, due to its tendency of equating a nation with a culture and a language (Anderson 1983; Berthele 2008), created the ideology that de-legitimized the non-dominant languages in European nations (e.g., Breton and all Patois in France, Sorbian in Germany, etc.), therefore contributing significantly to their precarious status. On the other hand, given the increasing importance of English as a global language from the late 20th century on, it is precisely this same nationalism, sometimes disguised as an intercultural argument for diversity, that provides the rationale for the strive for the maintenance of national and international status of languages other than English in the cultural, scientific and economic realms.

Applied research on multilingual communication provides important insights regarding actual practices, but also the potential of multilingual regimes and the particular communication problems that they imply (for examples see Seidlhofer (2011) on lingue franche, Truchot (2009) on language choice in the corporate world, ten Thije and Zeevaert (2007) on the regime of receptive multilingualism). The deeper our understanding of the nature of these processes, the better informed institutional choices and regulations will be, e.g., regarding the feasibility of receptive multilingualism as a potentially more just regime in multilingual institutions.

3.4Multilingual communication and language pedagogy

Lingua franca communication does not necessarily mean that pragmatic and interactional patterns of the native language cultures are erased, as House (2003b) has shown: It is probably more adequate to think of lingua franca communication as a set of idiosyncratic and hybrid linguistic practices with different degrees of convergence towards an idealized model of the respective language. Therefore, on the pedagogical level, the phantasmal target norm of the ‘native speaker’ in the foreign language classroom will probably gradually be replaced by more realistic and more useful targets such as a proficient speaker of lingua franca English (Seidlhofer 2004) or a proficient ‘comprehender’ of a language based on knowledge in other languages. Moreover, research on multilingual language learning should give answers to the question of when and how multilinguals can benefit from pre-acquired language knowledge and how positive transfer across the languages in the multilingual repertoire can be stimulated. Research on multilingual competence puts particular emphasis on transfer across languages (Jarvis & Pavlenko 2007), metalinguistic awareness skills (Jessner 2008), the influence from other foreign languages on communicating in a third or additional language (de Angelis 2007). All these aspects can potentially enrich foreign language teaching practices in the classroom, but the actual practices and their respective effectiveness still need further investigation.

Finally, the growing importance of computer mediated communication poses new problems regarding the potential and the modalities of multilingual communication via the internet (Dabène 2003). Again, the role of English as the ‘Web’-language could and should be questioned and issues around automatic online translation seem to be of growing importance as the access to online resources becomes more and more widespread.

4Concluding remarks

This chapter is an attempt to outline the manifold results produced by research on multilingual communication. These results pertain to individual usage patterns, to the collective emergence of linguistic phenomena related to multilingualism, and to the social meanings and interpretations of these phenomena. Whereas we have argued that the use of multiple linguistic codes in communication is a normal and ubiquitous way of verbal interaction, the political and scientific framing of patterns of multilingual communication varies considerably across space and time. The methods used in the investigation reflect the vastness of the issues involved, and consequently they range from historiography to ethnography to corpus studies and experimental designs. The scientific challenge for the field is to strive for a tighter integration of the individual/ cognitive and the collective/social levels of analysis. Eventually, better comprehensive frameworks will allow modeling the dynamics of multilingual communication in an increasingly holistic manner.

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