MULTILINGUALISM AND IT’S

MODES
An Essay On Multilingualism: It’s Prospects And Credence

TANYA PANT
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“What you see and hear is a situation in which languages are less like
apples — neat and discrete — and more like oatmeal. It's always
been oatmeal in India, and all the varieties of oatmeal continue to
merge, despite political pressures to name them as if they were
marbles.”
- Michael Erard, Babel No More: The Search for the
World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners[1]
It is befittingly expressed that languages are divergent and displaced,
not methodical and immaculate assimilated with various language
codes. Michael Erard mentioned amalgamation of languages in India
and it is worth pointing out the fact that nomenclature has been done
and still continues despite any political intervention to cultivate and
sustain multiculturism. Now, the catch is ‘multiculturism’, has umbrella
terms - Pluralism, Multiracialism, Ethnic Mosaic, has bounds of
connotations enclosed in the lexicon of philosophy, sociology and in
vernacular use. It is a complex and coordinated arrangement where
different set of habits, psyche and principles are valued and
sanctioned, of the people belonging to different cultures.
Nonetheless, there is an indissoluble consanguinity enclosed in
language and culture. Language pertains different contexts and
perceptions, language of a particular culture anchors different sense
and meaning, consequently it resonates that particular culture, hence
language epitomize culture.
‘‘In the broader context, learning a language helps in learning
different parts of the world, including their social behaviours and
customs. So, the language might be observed as a product of
thoughts, and social and cultural behaviours of a community.
Besides, the language has been used for providing education since
long ago. It is always encouraged to use the local languages as the
medium of educational instruction for the sake of proper learning.
It is very common that the pupil face difficulties in pursuing
education in a foreign language not only for linguistic obstacles but

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also for cultural and social differences even though all of these are,
however, interrelated to each other. Therefore, it can be said that
providing educational instructions in local languages is important
for the sake of providing better education and it stands on top of
the factor of preserving culture. So, both language and culture are
important in the educational environment. In this present days of
globalization, it is very common that most of the students pursue
their initial school and college education in their home country
using their native language when a large number of students
conduct their higher education in foreign language. Though this has
so many positive impacts in terms of sharing culture, experience,
knowledge, and languages but the students, unavoidably, faces
difficulties due to their diverse cultural and lingual differences. So,
there are huge scopes of working in this area to address, identify
and find solutions to remove these barriers.’’[2] language plays
crucial semblance in order to get familiar with a particular culture, in
order to preserve it and to guard it so the culture would not lose it’s
essence. Societal behaviours and rituals requires understanding of
context at various levels, and the context can only be grasped if
someone has proper knowledge of that particular language,
otherwise the essence will be lost in the course of translation. Jokes
and sometimes the punch lines of the particular culture would not
make sense in the translated version because the native has this
conventional background of the saying that it would only be a barrier
to those who does not have the knowledge of that particular culture.
It is unavoidingly certain that language acts as a root for
comprehending traditions and values of the culture.
The aspect or notion of a language is to identify a restricted panoramic
word and categorise it to make it easier for people to get the proper
meaning out of it. For instance there is a word, it does not have any
category, the word would be restricted means the reader does not
have any access to its core meaning and origination as well, it will

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hinder the usage of the word, because we do not have the context and
category to put it into. Language unleashes that context to so the
fallacy would be avoided and the reader would be able to connect the
word. There is also the existence of ‘connection’ and ‘corelation’ in the
segment of multilingualism. In the field of literature, there is this
notion where most readers has conveyed that a linkage can be seen
while reading the work of any era, it means every era is connected
there is some linkage and some inspiration so to say. The linkage can
not be only seen in the aspect of reading and sensing, it can also be
seen in the language, if we dissect the language of the text, it has some
repetitive components that also appeared in the preceding times.
Multilingualism provides a deep idea of ‘reciprocity’ among languages,
it is also bringing up the idea of ‘Tradition’ given by one of the high
modernist writer of twentieth century, T.S. Eliot. He stated that one
must consider the teachings of the past to follow up it’s current
writing, same goes with languages, it is also a fact that languages are
constantly evolving and changing to the convenience of the people,
but a true linguist would also consider it’s historicity and dimensions
to visualize the linkage it provides to make the complete meaning out
of it .

‘‘With discursive mutilingualism, the characteristics of bilingual and

multilingual interactions in groups or dyads are in the foreground.
This dimension can neither be placed in the dimension of
“institution,” where it sometimes was placed, nor in the dimension
of individual multilingualism. In contrast with the latter dimension,
these analyses do not entail the competences or abilities of an
individual but examine multilingual practice along with the
construction of sense in dialogue. One thinks of the numerous
globally documented studies on codeswitching, of conversations
between native speakers and nonnative speakers, of the use of
lingue franche, ethnolects, and the like. They are not easy to force

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into one of the three dimensions. One has to consider that in this
dimension, the data come from mostly informal contexts. Even
though these contexts can be macro socially embedded, in the end
the phenomenon cannot be adequately described in any of the other
dimensions. The discursive dimension today displays an
independent, now established point of view (in written and oral
forms), which justifies an independent dimension of observation in
addition to the other three. It puts interaction at the center and
follows the common development of sense and form. The results and
the degree of development of this approach suggest the need to
make allowances for their qualitatively different view via an explicit
nomination in the definition, as is proposed in the aforementioned
definition.’’[3]

Institutionalism has been pushing multilingualism to perpetuate fixed

strata of language and it’s uses among diverse groups. In the diverse
communities, the feeling of alienation within individual is quite
monotonous, if he has no indication about the language that majority
is speaking. The concept of third language that is known by the
speaker and the individual not only makes it easier but also preaches
how significant language has become in order to communicate in
different social groups. With the knowledge of different languages,
sometimes amalgamation of languages occurs within the aspect of
metalinguistic skills and the speaker is either regarded, ‘‘baffled’’ or he
does not get the language well, but according to research the
phenomena of mid-course displacement of languages is called as
code-switching. Multiple factors affects this phenomenality, the
foremost is change in environment, syntactical extremity means to
communicate better in the different social group, to fit in and to make
oneself understandable. Code switching leans towards social settings,
for instance if an individual is sitting with his close friends, he would
be more comfortable thus his language would be more relaxed,

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authentic and less synthetic. If we talk about cognitive/psychological

countenance of code switching, it is heavily influential and
commanding . Few politicians try to make disingenuous moves with
code switching to direct their ways therefore it has been also regarded
as a tool for manipulation in many ways.

‘‘While language use in political campaigns, interviews, and

speeches has been widely researched, few studies have
examined how these discourse features are used by bi- and
multilingual politicians in the United States. In the following
section we will review the existing research related to the fluid
use of languages within political discourse.The application of two or
more languages within a single interaction is often called
codeswitching, and constitutes an alternation between two or
more languages within the same sentence or (Scotton & Ury
1977). Speakers often switch for just one word, an entire
sentence, or even for longer monologues (Scotton & Ury
1977).Code-switching can be both conscious and unconscious on
the part of the speaker, but it is related to the role that the speaker
wants to portray within a conversation; thus, a code-switch
indicative of a change in roles on the part of the speaker
(Scotton & Ury 1977). In the U.S., many presidents have
engaged in code-switching, most recently Bill Clinton’s use of
German and English during a speech at Brandenburg Gate,
George W. Bush’s consistent integration of Spanish, and Barack
Obama’s exchange of greetings and pleasantries in Indonesia (see
“List of Multilingual Presidents in the United States” n.d.). These
examples of code-switching represent a tradition of it’s use by
presidents as a consensus-building strategy, however to our
knowledge no research has focused on examining how often, in
which context and for what functions it is used in political speech
in the United States.’’[4]

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In sociolinguistics code mixing is another phenomenon which is

separated from code-switching which is conducive of fixed pragmatic,
a bilingual person sometimes hybridize two or more languages in a
speech. There are various types of code switching which includes
Intra-Sentential Mixing, which occurs within a phrase, clause, or
sentence in other terms it is the changing of two languages inside a
single statement. Another one is Intra-lexical code which is a type of
code that exits within a lexicon. Mixing is a type of coding, which can
be identified inside the confines of word limit when it involves a shift
in pronunciation occurs at the phonological level, such as code
switching. Mixing of lexical/linguistic phrases from one language into
a single discourse in other language is known as Extra-Sentential
shifting. It happens for a variety of reasons like influx of western goods
into Indian market, increasing usage of English language in everyday
life as it is intensified within our Indian culture. The choice of language
selection demonstrates bilinguals’ capacity to communicate in various
languages, but there is hindrance also which include listener’s ability
to communicate in the target language as they can be monolingual.
Humans are prone to intermix terms of different languages and may
adapt which allows us to decode what someone is stating and assign a
code to it. Conversational code mixing is more than just intermixing of
two languages. One must have a deep understanding of both the
languages with insights of cultural standards within the society.
utilisation with this regard is necessary to form a familiarity.

Human valuables and resources has been sketched by multilingualism

and the capability to permeate through different languages and
cultures in order to get a good grasp of capitalism and hierarchy.
Society is aware of the rise and fall of several humane prepotency,
which was hailed by particular community in order to prosper their
culture and so the language. The junction between communal
admittance and multilingualism built a juncture often in derogatory

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sense of “competence” and “incompetence”. Knowledge of English

language is the foremost instance of this juncture has always been
associated with intelligence which can never be justified with the
order because language is the medium of effective articulation.
Multilingualism will always propagate the agenda of social justice
which is going to be sententious outside of institutionalization and
academics.

REFERENCES
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/multilingualism

[2] Norwin, Sohana. “Multilingualism and Multiculturalism .”

Shohanasite.Wordpress.Com/2018/04/02/Multilingualism-and-
Multiculturalism, Unkown, 2 Apr. 2018,
https://shohanasite.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/multilingualism-
and-multiculturalism/. Accessed 29 June 2023.

[3] FRANCESCHINI, RITA. “Multilingualism and Multicompetence:

A Conceptual View.” The Modern Language Journal, vol. 95, no. 3,
2011, pp. 344–55.

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[4] Moody, Stephanie, and Zohreh R. Eslami. “Political Discourse,

Code-Switching, and Ideology.” Russian Journal of Linguistics, vol.
24, no. 2, 2020, pp. 325–343, https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-
2020-24-2-325-343.

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