Submitted to The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics
Receptive Multilingualism
Daria Bahtina & Jan D. ten Thije
Utrecht University
Emails:
D.Bathina@uu.nl
J.D.tenThije@uu.nl (corresponding author)
Word count 2377
Reference word count: 785
December 2010
1.
Concepts of receptive multilingualism
Receptive multilingualism refers to language constellations in which interlocutors use their
own language while speaking to each other. Previously, this mode has been widely applied, yet it was
neglected in the last two centuries both by language users and scholars as a consequence of Europe’s
political developments. Linguistic constellations in the 19th century have been transformed into
monolingualism determined by nation state formation. Contrastingly, Middle Ages could be
characterized by various kinds of multilingual constellations, including receptive multilingualism.
Mainly due to areas and countries where receptive multilingualism still flourished, recent research
demonstrated increasing interest in the processes behind this type of multilingual communication.
This paper first discusses the theoretical concept of this phenomenon and then describes historical
developments, linguistic and mental characteristics as well as current applications.
The first academic discovery of phenomena dates back to 1952 when Voegelin and Harris
reported the intelligibility among American Indian dialects due to close genetic relationship. The
informants were claimed to have inherent comprehension from another dialect that enabled certain
degree of understanding. Similar studies on mutual intelligibility among other languages have been
carried out in 1950s and 1960s (e.g. Wolff, 1964).
In Europe, intelligibility of closely related languages has been discussed from the perspective of
Scandinavian situation by introducing the notion of semicommunication (Haugen, 1981). The author
claims that intelligibility occurs both on the surface level as well as on the level of mental processes of
understanding. On the surface level, similarity can occur in linguistic forms, such as syntax, lexicon or
morphology, and thus reaching understanding would require little education and/ or practice in that
other language. Yet, this definition implies incomplete mode of communication in which only ‘halfunderstanding’ was reached and was described as ‘… semi-communication, the trickle of messages
through a rather high level of ‘code-noise’ (ibid.: 153).
The concept has been transformed from ‘semi/ or half-communication’ in the direction of
‘successful’ language mode, bringing along other alternatives, such as polyglot dialogue, plurilingual
communication, intercompréhension and receptive multilingualism. In polyglot dialogue interlocutors
have at least some passive knowledge in the language of the other and communicate in one of the
shared languages or in their mother tongue (Posner, 1991). The idea of plurilingual communication has
been applied to the situation in Switzerland in order to account for potential intelligibility between
state languages (Lüdi, 2007). Next, intercompréhension can be defined as a mode where receptive skills
are activated in the language of the interlocutor (generally, a typologically related language), which
allows both interlocutors to use their mother tongue and be understood by others (Grin, 2008).
Receptive multilingualism has been addressed in a number of studies (Braunmüller, 2007; Zeevaert,
2004; ten Thije & Zeevaert, 2007) where it largely overlaps with the notions mentioned above, yet has
some distinctive features. Similarly to the previously discussed modes, receptive multilingualism
presupposes that the interactants speak their respective mother tongue or dialect and have enough
knowledge in the language or dialect of their interlocutor. According to Braunmüller (2007), receptive
multilingualism has been a widely practiced mode of communication in Europe, purpose-based and
used mainly in face-to-face interactions, such as trading and negotiations. Historical perspective
shows that linguistic forms (i.e. grammatical and stylistic correctness) had a limited value since the
interactive goal could be reached without ‘perfect’ language use.
To elaborate on the definition, theory on receptive multilingualism draws attention to
constellations in which genetically unrelated languages can be used in the same mode, which triggers
the distinction between inherent receptive multilingualism and acquired (Verschik, to appear). The
former relies on language features that are available to interlocutors prior to any language learning
whereas the latter presupposes some acquired knowledge and thus allows constellations between less
related languages. The distinction between inherent and acquired receptive multilingualism can be
compared to a dichotomy of languages that are mutually intelligible and those that are not (Zeevaert,
2004). Having demonstrated this conceptual similarity, it could be argued that notions of inherent and
acquired receptive multilingualism can account for constellations previously referred to as
semicommunication avoiding potential negative connotations of ‘half-understanding’ as well as
combinations of typologically distant languages.
Other dimensions that have been reflected on in relation to the use of this mode are awareness
of intelligibility, experience in how to apply this knowledge in multilingual communication, attitudes
towards languages involved and availability of agreement to apply this mode. Haugen constructed the
concept semi-communication on the premises that interlocutors highly depend on their experience,
meaning that speakers have to learn to understand the language of the other (Haugen, 1981).
Similarly, Braunmüller (2007) in his studies emphasizes that awareness of the interactants concerning
languages mutual intelligibility plays an important role. Next, ideological factors affect attitudes which
in their turn can either enhance or block comprehension between communities and languages within
constellation. Finally, application of this mode might depend on institutional language policy (Beerkens,
2010) or explicit personal agreement of social actors, or a shared communicative history (e.g.
‘discursive interculture’ in Ribbert & ten Thije, 2007).
Lingua receptiva (LaRa), in contrast to previous research, has been introduced by Rehbein, ten
Thije and Verschik (to appear) in order to emphasize the receptive component. According to the
definition, ‘lingua receptiva is the ensemble of those linguistic, mental, interactional as well as intercultural
competencies which are creatively activated when interlocutors listen to linguistic actions in their
‘passive’ language or variety’ (ibid.). To enhance understanding of lingua receptiva, this concept can
be compared to lingua franca since both function as vehicular languages. The important distinction is
that in case of lingua franca the languages are non-native, whereas in case of lingua receptiva the
status of the language is not defining. In LaRa, interlocutors speak their L1 or any other language they
are comfortable with.
2.
Communicative constellations of receptive multilingualism
The occurrences of receptive multilingualism appear to be manifold. In the late Middle Ages
and Early Modern Times the situation in Europe and Scandinavia could be labeled as complex and
diglossic. Braunmüller (2007) gives an overview of pan-Scandinavian movement that propagated
receptive multilingualism. A similar development took place in Europe when face-to-face trading
interactions maintained the idea of successful communication with partial competencies in several
languages. Rindler-Schjerve and Vetter (2007) documented the language-political situation in the
Habsburg Empire with receptive multilingualism being the official ideology. Upon the disintegration
of the empire, Europe was gradually absorbed in the idea of nation state ideologies that replaced
‘imperfect’ multilingualism with monolingualism in all social institutions.
Currently, European language situation is being shaped by various processes such as
globalization, decolonization, migration and overall mobility. This post-national situation challenges
the nation-bound concepts of language and leads to various potentially conflict multilingual
constellations. As a consequence, more attention is being drawn to various models of multilingual
communication. Commission of European Communities promotes the maintenance of the 23 official
languages in Europe so that all European citizens learn at least two languages in addition to their
mother tongue (2003). Receptive multilingualism could be a way to achieve that goal and High Level
Group (2007) suggests research into various institutional settings.
Recently, studies have focused on receptive multilingualism in border regions (Beerkens,
2010; Sağın-Şimşek & König 2011), institutional discourse (e.g. Ribbert & ten Thije, 2007), media (e.g.
Nábělková, 2008), educational settings (e.g. Zeevaert, 2004), sales talk (e.g. Verschik to appear),
business communication (e.g. Lüdi, 2007) and in cross-generational and family discourse (e.g.
Herkenrath, to appear). The focus of these studies is often placed on the concepts of awareness,
experiences, attitudes and mutual agreement to use this mode that has been mentioned above.
The language constellations that have been studies so far list European language families,
such as Romance (Jensen, 1989; Conti & Grin, 2008), Germanic (Haugen, 1981; Braunmüller, 2007;
Zeevaert, 2004) and Slavic languages (Nábělková, 2008), Finno-Ugric (Verschik, to appear), Turkic
languages (Rehbein, Herkenrath & Karakoç, 2009), Indo-Iranian and Semitic languages as well as
some languages which are in close contact with them. Diverse combinations of these languages,
including constellations across language families, can be observed. Constellations of that type benefit
from a mediator which activates common knowledge between the languages, just like Latin does for
European or Persian does for Middle East constellations in historical contexts.
3.
Mental processes of receptive multilingualism
Receptive multilingualism, as the name suggests, treats receptive competencies of the hearer
as one of the two essential dimensions of this mode. Previous research on multilingual communication
mainly concentrates on speaker competencies and activities. Therefore the following section elaborates
on hearer activities, such as accommodation, alignment and the metaphor of ‘inference making
machine’ based on multilingual repertoires.
3.1 Hearer and speaker
On the linguistic surface level, hearer activities list all the processes that actualize and
intensify the hearer's competencies, such as nonverbal and prosodic signals that steer the speaker's
production, formulaic expressions signaling potential misunderstanding, echo questions, and other
linguistic elements. Specific speaker activities within the receptive mode are exemplified by
reformulations, repairs, recapitulations, rephrasing and other types of meta-discourse elements (e.g.
Rehbein & Kameyama, 2003). Other accommodation strategies contain slower and more accentuated
pronunciation (Zeevaert, 2004).
The stages of understanding in receptive multilingualism can be reconstructed by applying
the speaker and hearer plan (Rehbein & Kameyama, 2003). The latter describes mental steps in
hearer’s perception: what can be expected from the speaker (pre-history), utterance, adaptation and
reconstruction of the speaker’s plan (history) and follow-up action (post-history). The speaker and
hearer plan has been adapted to account for accommodation processes (Beerkens, 2010). In terms of
mental activities, accommodation refers to the assessment of interlocutor’s L2 competencies as a
crucial stage in the process of receptive understanding. These three stages clarify the specific structure
of understanding processes in general and unveil a switch between perception in one language and
production in the other, the so called ‘turn-over’ moment. Accommodation can be ascribed to the field
of sociolinguistics (Braunmüller, 2007), whereas alignment is a notion that describes similar processes
from a psycholinguistics perspective. Alignment occurs when interlocutors adapt both linguistically
and conceptually in order to enhance understanding (e.g. Pickering & Garrod, 2004). Adaptation can
take form of phonological, lexical, semantic, syntactic, or pragmatic convergence. In monolingual
speech these processes often are automatic and in multilingual communication alignment could be
used to ensure mutual understanding. Moreover, the turn-over between languages is less complicated
once speaker and hearer use aligned structures (e.g. words or constructions) in their respective
languages.
3.2 Inference making machine
Another type of mental activation relevant for receptive multilingualism is the inference-making
machine. This ‘inference making machine’ is claimed to connect seemingly unconnected utterance by
activating linguistic (Sacks, 1985) and world knowledge (e.g. Singer, 2007). Same processes are
applicable to receptive multilingualism such as the notion of ‘wholistic’ activation in bilinguals
(Grosjean, 2008) or the concept of linguistic repertoires (e.g. Lüdi, 2007). Both theories presuppose
simultaneous application of diverse plurilingual resources within individuals and thus noncompartmentalized (i.e. separate) use of the languages involved. In receptive multilingualism mutual
familiarity of common speech formulae (i.e. idiomatic expressions, ritualized and repetitive side of
language) facilitates understanding between languages and varieties. In addition to linguistic and
world knowledge, inferencing relies on common institutional and discourse-type (i.e. genre)
knowledge. ‘Perceived language distance’ or psychotypology (Kellerman, 1995) can either trigger or
hinder activation of inference making machine since interlocutors tend to have intuitions about the
distance between languages involved. Interlocutors who use typologically close languages might be
more aware of cognates (i.e. words that are recognizable across various languages) or similar syntactic
structures in the multilingual communication and are thus more effective in reaching understanding.
The same applies to written discourse (Wenzel, 2007; Berthele, 2007) when readers show better
performance when reading cognates or homographs and homophones (graphically or acoustically
similar words). To sum up, both hearer and speaker profit from inference-making from all the
resources of the languages involved in communicative situation as well as other languages available
in their linguistic repertoires.
4.
Receptive multilingualism applied
Receptive multilingualism in the globalized world has been acknowledged as a means of
language policy that supports language diversity and maintenance both top-down (High Level
Group, 2007) and bottom-up (Beerkens, 2010). The latter refers to a wide range of communicational
settings where individual interlocutors or groups of people choose receptive multilingualism to
effectively cope with the barriers of multilingual communication. Top-down developments, on the
other hand, denote language policies that have been installed in order to manage linguistic diversity.
Within various European research projects on multilingualism (e.g. LINEE, DYLAN) this mode has
been detected as a potential means for achieving understanding. Furthermore, other projects have
established a set of didactic concepts that either integrate receptive multilingualism in general
language teaching (GalaNet & GalaPro) or develop language-specific strategies that aim for receptive
competencies within those languages (EuroCom). The GalaNet project has developed strategies of
intercomprehension aimed at discovering plurilingualism as well as promoting comprehension skills
among speakers of different languages, specifically among speakers of typologically related
languages. The GalaPro project delivers online courses for teachers based on GalaNet platform in
order to work collaboratively in multilingual (French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese) educational
settings. The EuroCom project provides several frameworks where similarities between typologically
close European languages are being compared in order to be made more accessible in multilingual
communication. Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages have been structured into ‘seven sieves’
that are already available to speakers of those languages. According to EuroCom, Romance languages
comprise the following elements as ‘sieves’: international and pan-Romance vocabulary, sound
correspondence, spelling and pronunciation, syntactic structure, morphosyntactic elements and Latinbased suffixes and prefixes. Another line of applied research focuses on development of learner’s
grammars from a hearer’s perspective, such as ‘Rezeptive Grammatik’ for learners of German (e.g.
Berthele, 2007). All these projects concentrate on acquisition of languages that are related, yet
different. Similarly, receptive knowledge of dialects has led to establishment of didactic materials for
constellations like German and Swiss German (Müller et al., 2009).
To conclude, receptive multilingualism represents an ensemble of multiple competencies that are
applied by the interactants both in speaker and hearer position. Interlocutors in this mode draw on the
inference-making machine, available plurilingual repertoires (between languages that are
typologically close or genetically unrelated). Historically, receptive multilingualism has been and still
is an effective mode in various plurilingual constellations. This mode has therefore been re-discovered
as a means of solving potential communicative problems and is already effectively applied in
educational and other institutional settings.
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Suggested readings:
1.
Berthele, R. (2008). Dialekt-Standard Situationen als embryonale Mehrsprachigkeit.
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(Eds.), Dialektsoziologie / Dialect Sociology / Sociologie du Dialecte. In Sociolinguistica 22 (pp.
87-107). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
2.
Braunmüller, K. (2002). Semicommunication and accomodation: Observations from the
linguistic situation in Scandinavia. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12:1, (pp. 1-23).
3.
Haugen, E. (1962). Semicommunication: The Language Gap in Scandinavian. In Lieberson, S.
(Ed.) (1967) Explorations in Sociolinguistics (pp. 152-69) Bloomington: Indiana University.
4.
Lüdi, G. (2006). Multilingual repertoires and the consequences for linguistic theory. In K.
Bührig & J. D. ten Thije (Eds.)(pp. 11-42). Beyond misunderstanding. Linguistic analyses of
intercultural communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
5.
Zeevaert, L. (2007). Receptive multilingualism and inter-Scandinavian
semicommunication. In J. D. ten Thije, & L. Zeevaert (Eds.). Receptive Multilingualism (pp.
103-135). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.