Sustainable Multilingualism / Darnioji daugiakalbystė

EDITORIAL

Vilma Bijeikienė — 2024-12-31

The 25th volume of “Sustainable Multilingualism” enters the world when Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) is celebrating the 35th anniversary of its reestablishment in 1989 – the reestablishment that brought the fresh air in the Lithuanian HE through the Liberal Arts model of US Universities. This makes it a worthy occasion to revisit how the historical pathways of VMU and its present-day life are intertwined with a rich multicultural and multilingual tradition and potential.

The spirit of VMU multilingualism can be traced back to the year 1922, when established as the University of Lithuania in Kaunas, then the temporary capital of the young Lithuanian state, it was the first university where studies started to be delivered through the medium of the Lithuanian language. It was the major hub where the seminal scholars of the Lithuanian language such as Kazimieras Būga, Jonas Jablonskis, Juozas Balčikonis, Balys Sruoga, etc., elaborated and entrenched the Lithuanian academic discourse, coined academic terminology and contributed to deep-rooting the modern Lithuanian identity. At the same time the plurilingual and pluricultural profile of the university community thrived through the contributions of numerous international polymaths such as the Swiss linguist Alfred Senn and philosopher Joseph Ehret who exemplified their true cosmopolitan disposition infused with Lithuanian identity until it all was disrupted by the soviet occupation.

Since its reestablishment after the soviet closure, the openness to the international community and plurilingual aspirations have been cherished at VMU model of Liberal arts. Starting with the strong focus on English as the indispensable lingua academica and the philology studies, the university has gradually developed an ecosystem for language learning and pluricultural awareness by offering over 30 languages to all university community and the general public.

Since 2019 attention to multi- and plurilingualism in Europe has gained additional momentum with the introduction of the European University Alliances. This EU initiative and its focus on promoting multilingual campuses has its roots in the President of France Emmanuel Macron’s speech of 2017 where the French President among other visionary ideas for the competitiveness of the European Universities reiterated the long-living aim of the European linguistic hygiene, the 2+1 language formula: “I believe we should create European Universities – a network of universities across Europe with programs that have all their students study abroad and take classes in at least two languages”[1].

This rapidly growing initiative currently counts 64 alliances, involving 560 European institutions, which has three times surpassed the French President’s initial projection. All of the alliances have to a greater or lesser extent languages in their foreground either as strategic policy goals, study offers or other initiatives. In 2020 VMU together with other 6 partners from Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain created Transform4Europe Alliance[2], which grew to embrace new partners from Slovenia, France, Portugal and an associated partner Mariupol University from Ukraine in 2023. Its Multilingual Campus Strategy has been agreed among the Alliance partners as a token of appreciation of its rich multilingual and multicultural potential and above all as a strong commitment to its fulfilment. As an example of its practical implementation and a motivational act, a trilingual slow reading essay Practicing Utopia by the Polish practitioner of ideas Krzysztof Czyzewski has been offered to the alliance community and can be of interest to the reader of Sustainable Multilingualism as well.

The 25th volume of Sustainable Multilingualism features three of our traditional sections, namely the issues in Society, Identity and Language Maintenance, the focus on the Multilingual Practices in Language Policy Implementation, and the issues in Language Use and Education in Multilingual and Multicultural Settings.

In the first section, the articles of Gribauskienė and Flih analyse the maintenance of the heritage languages among the children of the Lithuanian and the Arab diasporas vis-à-vis the major languages of their residence countries such as English, Norwegian or French. The article of Awal dwells into the preservation of endangered languages by examining the relevant risk factors, socio-cultural effects and complexities. The manifestations and functions of multilingualism in Lithuanian children’s folklore are analysed by Anglickienė and Macijauskaitė-Bonda, while the article by Lazer-Pankiv and Korolova brings the societal bilingualism through the use of Latin in the Renaissance period into our attention. The second section features two articles on linguistic landscapes with the one by Váradi, Hires-László, and Máté focusing on a schoolscape of Transcarpathian Hungarian College, and the other one by Mishra analysing the dynamics of shop signs in India. The third section presents the article by López-Medina and Pérez Agustín who look for the solutions in preprimary education in the context of the increasingly linguistically diverse students and students with special educational needs. The two final coauthored articles bring the reader to the Turkish context. Aksakallı et al. analyse doctoral students challenges in writing literature reviews, while Özçelik et al. carry out an investigation into the advantages and issues encountered by Turkish universities in the implementation of EMI studies.

[1] President Macron’s speech on new initiative for Europe, posted on 26 September 2017.

https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2017/09/26/president-macron-gives-speech-on-new-initiative-for-europe

[2] Saarland University, University of Alicante, Estonian Academy of Arts, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, University of Primorska, University of Trieste, Jean Monnet University, University of Silesia in Katowice, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Vytautas Magnus University, Mariupol State University . More on Transform4Europe Alliance: https://transform4europe.eu/

UNLOCKING MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOMS: PREPRIMARY TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVES ON INCLUSIVE PEDAGOGY IN SPAIN

Beatriz López-Medina — 2024-11-30

This study addresses the challenges faced by pre-primary teachers (specialists and non-specialists in additional languages) in multilingual settings, with a specific focus on attention to diversity. Nowadays, schools are becoming more diverse both linguistically (Robinson-Jones, Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2022) and through the inclusion of special educational needs (SEN) students (Ramberg & Watkins, 2020). This study aims to identify the teachers’ needs in these contexts and to bring to light emergent topics on multilingualism and diversity. Ten focus groups were conducted for this purpose, and participants (pre-primary teachers) were asked to reflect on their competencies to address groups of young learners in multilingual settings. The participants originate from five different locations in Spain, characterized by different linguistic and social realities. The discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim, and the software MAXQDA was used to facilitate the content analysis of the obtained data. Information was gathered from two perspectives: specialists and non-specialist teachers of additional languages. The findings reveal the complexity of adopting and incorporating the tailored approaches required by the increasingly linguistically diverse students and by those with special educational needs. Several key findings emerged, including the difficulties of the teachers when adapting to changing educational contexts, the lack of guidelines to facilitate teaching in multilingual contexts, and the teachers’ concern about diverse students. The results of this research underscore the importance of providing pre-primary teachers in multilingual contexts with multifaceted support (specific legal framework, training sessions, and classroom assistants, among others) to facilitate the inclusiveness of diverse young learners. The research, embedded in a national research project on pre-primary teachers’ competencies in multilingual contexts, contributes insights into teaching strategies in diverse multilingual settings.

EVALUATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW WRITING BY NOVICE ACADEMIC WRITERS: ENHANCING KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS

Canan Aksakallı — 2024-11-30

An evaluative and critical literature review in scholarly writing, which plays an important part in a scientific report, illustrates how the existing studies contributed to the relevant field and enables researchers to identify the gaps or niches that their research can fill. However, writing evaluative and critical literature reviews is challenging for non-native speakers of English (NNES). Literature reviews are frequently descriptive summaries of previous research. Beyond simply summarizing source materials, NNES academic writers, inclusive of novice academic writers, should be aware of the ways of developing evaluative and critical literature reviews by making connections between the research findings and interpretations of published studies, showing their inconsistencies, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. This study aimed to explore NNES doctoral students’ knowledge and awareness of evaluative literature review writing and enhance their knowledge with an implementation focusing on the conventions and norms of literature review writing. The study adopted an embedded quasi-experimental design. 20 Turkish doctoral students from different educational science departments participated in the study. The quantitative analysis of the literature review tasks submitted by the participants during the pre- and post-intervention phases and the themes gathered from the semi-structured interviews revealed that NNES students had several challenges when they wrote literature reviews. The supportive implementation, which aimed at evaluative and critical literature review writing, positively affected students’ skills, increasing their awareness about the characteristics of effective literature reviews and improving their evaluation and critical thinking skills. The results also offered insights into graduate students’ strengths and weaknesses in evaluative and critical literature review writing.

EMI DYNAMICS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES AT TERTIARY LEVEL IN TÜRKİYE

Arzu Ekoç Özçelik — 2024-11-30

The unprecedented adoption of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) in higher education on a global scale has brought about challenges as well as opportunities for students, which necessitates a careful consideration of factors impacting their perceptions and experiences. Recognizing this critical need, our study attaches significant importance to delve into the attitudes of tertiary-level students towards EMI and aims to evaluate the attitudes and language-related challenges encountered by students in full EMI undergraduate programs. Data were collected from 278 undergraduate students in various full EMI programs at a Turkish public university. Utilizing the culturally and linguistically adapted form of Yeh's (2014) EMI questionnaire, the study focused on students' backgrounds, motivations, and attitudes towards EMI courses, challenges, learning strategies, and beliefs about EMI policies. The findings indicate generally positive attitudes towards EMI. Students perceive EMI as beneficial to their academic and professional development, viewing it as an opportunity to enhance their English proficiency. Nevertheless, challenges arise from coping with specialized terms, heavy learning load, and lecturers’ accents. These results offer valuable insights into the experiences of undergraduate students in full EMI programs at a state university, highlighting both the positive facets and challenges they encounter in settings where English is used as a vehicle for academic growth.

SCHOOLSCAPING IN A MULTILINGUAL AREA: AN EXAMPLE OF A HUNGARIAN COLLEGE IN WESTERN UKRAINE

Krisztián Váradi — 2024-11-30

Transcarpathia is one of the westernmost counties of Ukraine with a century-long multilingual tradition. The biggest minority group in the region is formed by Hungarians whose main educational and cultural centre is the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education. The linguistic landscape of the region has been analysed several times, but the same cannot be said about schoolscape studies. Therefore, the present paper aimed to solve this research gap and investigate how a minority higher education institution can implement current educational and language policies in its linguistic landscape. The study employed a qualitative approach to show the symbolic significance of the languages used in an educational setting. Altogether 394 pictures were taken in the corridors of the main building of the Transcarpathian Hungarian College, in the Philology Campus, in several classrooms, and in the near environment of the institution. The pictures were divided into eight distinct categories, ranging from bottom-up to top-down initiatives: decorations, symbolic inscriptions, advertisements, instructions related to crises, names of rooms, educational documents, library signage, and other signs and announcements. In addition, the official website and the social networking sites of the Transcarpathian Hungarian College were analysed briefly as part of a virtual schoolscape analysis. Based on the results, the Rákóczi College follows a strong bilingual tradition by making everything available in at least two languages (Ukrainian and Hungarian), but the bottom-up domain is also subject to monolingualism. Furthermore, the online schoolscape of the institution is multilingual because everything is published in three languages (Ukrainian, Hungarian, and English). The research can be further expanded with the help of the aforementioned qualitative approach of schoolscaping in other Transcarpathian Hungarian educational institutions to get a deeper insight into the applied multilingual practices in a war-torn country.

THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF URBAN VELLORE: A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE DISTRIBUTION, CHOICE, AND IMPLICATIONS IN THE COMMERCIAL SPACE THROUGH SHOP SIGNS

Sneha Mishra — 2024-11-30

The current study explores the language distribution on commercial shop signs in the linguistic landscape (LL) of urban Vellore, a city in the Tamil Nadu state of India. The study aims to contribute to the understanding of the LL in urban Vellore by focusing on the analysis of shop signs in the commercial space. A previous survey of the linguistic situation of the region highlights the presence of several Indian and foreign languages in the verbal repertoire of the inhabitants, yet the visual representation of the shop signs render prominence to bilingual signs with English and Tamil occupying maximum space. The study utilizes the conceptual frameworks of Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) and Social Representation Theory (SRT) to explore the dynamics of shop signs. The study analyzed the total of 250 shop signs from 5 sample areas and interviewed 25 sign producers and 15 sign readers to understand the motivation and implication of language choices on the name boards of shops. The study found that English enjoys the highest visibility and dominance among all languages, while Tamil is salient next to English on the shop signs. The shop owners' language choices on shop names are driven by a desire to accommodate customers from different linguistic backgrounds, to project their cultural identity, and to align with the values of globalization and modernity. The study concludes that there is a dialectical relationship between the city and the inhabitants, as they develop and accommodate one another in response to the city along with its language policies, identity issues, and expectations. The LL of Vellore's shop signs is a reflection of the cultural, linguistic, and economic landscape of the city, and provides a window into the complexities of language use in multilingual urban environments.

MIGRANT IDENTITY: MAINTENANCE OF LITHUANIANNESS, LANGUAGE ATTITUDES AND LANGUAGE POLICY IN LITHUANIAN DIASPORA

Skirmantė Gribauskienė — 2024-11-30

Ethnic, linguistic identity, heritage language maintenance and transmission, language attitudes and policies remain important topics in nowadays globalized world. The main purpose of this study, which is a part of a large-scale research on Lithuanian heritage language, was to analyze the linguistic and ethnic identity development within Lithuanian diaspora. The article investigates the linguistic attitudes, language practices and language policies within the Lithuanian diaspora in Ireland and Norway, paying extra attention to the younger (K2) generation of Lithuanian migrants. A specialized sociolinguistic questionnaire was developed for this study. A total of 74 first-generation Lithuanian emigrants based in Ireland (n = 18) and Norway (n = 56) participated in the online survey. All participants had children aged 4–17. The data from the questionnaire survey are also illustrated with examples from 5 semi-structured interviews. The study revealed that emigrants from both countries maintain a strong connection with their country of origin. Almost half of the respondents claim that their children visit Lithuania at least once a year, while more than a third of respondents' children visit Lithuania twice a year or more often. A third of participants are planning to return to Lithuania. Most of the respondents enroll their children to Lithuanian Saturday schools. However, the younger generation seem to differ from their parents in their language attitudes and practices: Lithuanian children based in Ireland tend to feel a stronger connection with the majority language (English) than Lithuanian. Meanwhile, children in Norway are multilinguals, having more than two languages in their everyday repertoire. To summarize, the study demonstrated the main language attitudes and practices of Lithuanians abroad and also highlighted some differences between the first and the second generation of Lithuanian migrants. The results from this study might provide interesting insights for future studies in the fields of sociology, sociolinguistics, and diaspora studies.

PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG ALGERIAN-ARABIC SPEAKERS IN FRANCE

Zahia Flih — 2024-11-30

For a very long time, France’s language policy has considered French as the only language of the republic, ignoring any other languages spoken across the country. In such a situation, immigrant minorities are most likely to experience significant challenges in preserving their heritage language. This paper addresses language maintenance and shift among the Algerian minority group in France, which represents the largest immigrant group with 12.7% of the total number of foreigners living in the country. It seeks to compare three generations by examining their language proficiency, language use, and language attitude in order to gauge the degree to which each generation is maintaining the heritage language. It also seeks to determine whether participants’ language proficiency and use are associated with their length of residence in the host country, age at immigration, and language attitudes. To reach these goals, a questionnaire was administered to the target population, together with interviews recorded with a smaller group in each generation. Based on the questionnaire data from 187 participants, the Kruskal-Wallis test revealed significant differences between the three generations in their self-reported proficiency and use of Arabic and French languages, which may be an indication of a gradual shift towards French. The interviews conducted with 11 participants suggested that the reasons behind such a shift are related to: prior exposure to the French language before migration, lack of exposure to the Arabic language, and experiences of discrimination and marginalization. The correlation between the extralinguistic variables and language proficiency has shown no relationship between participants’ length of residence and their level of proficiency in the Arabic language. However, age at immigration and attitude have positively and significantly correlated to participants’ Arabic language proficiency.

ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: A SYSTEMATIC QUALITATIVE STUDY OF SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPACTS AND REVITALISATION

Abdul Awal — 2024-11-30

This study investigates endangered language preservation through three research questions: risk factors for endangerment, socio-cultural effects of language loss, and complexities in preservation and revitalisation. A qualitative systematic review underscores the cultural, historical and intellectual importance of endangered languages. It identifies globalisation, urbanisation, and dominant languages as key accelerators of linguistic endangerment. The findings indicate significant sociocultural consequences of language loss, notably the decline of cultural identity and heritage. The study concludes that community involvement, technological advancements, and supportive government policies are crucial to successful preservation, ensuring that at-risk languages are maintained and revitalised for future generations.

MULTILINGUALISM IN LITHUANIAN CHILDREN’S FOLKLORE

Laimutė Anglickienė — 2024-11-30

Multilingualism and multiculturalism have always been phenomena present in folklore. Since the last decades of the 20th century, due to changes in lifestyle influenced by factors such as globalization, intense migration, development of social media, and information technologies, manifestations of multilingualism and multiculturalism have become even more noticeable and, in consequence, are becoming an important feature of contemporary folkloric creation. Focusing on a few genres, namely, counting-out rhymes, games, horror stories and horror verses, this article presents and discusses manifestations of multilingualism in Lithuanian children’s folklore. The following are the main research questions that the present study aims to investigate: How does multilingualism manifest in children’s folklore and what functions does it perform? How do children adopt and transmit folklore, i.e. how do they adopt and creatively reinterpret texts and plots, namely, forms and contents from other languages? Which foreign languages have major impact on Lithuanian children’s folklore? The methodology of the research consists of analytical descriptive and comparative analyses. The research has shown that Lithuanian children’s folklore is dynamic and open to other languages and cultures. Children are attracted by linguistic play and feel comfortable with texts containing foreign or unknown words. In Lithuanian folklore, two major influences can be traced: Russian influence, particularly from World War II until the beginning of the 21st century, and influence from English-speaking countries, beginning in the 1990s and continuing to the present. Children translate folklore, sometimes word for word, adapt foreign texts, plots, traditions, take over certain genres, or integrate separate words or phrases from other languages into Lithuanian folklore.

ERRORS IN LATIN INSCRIPTIONS ON RENAISSANCE WORKS OF FINE ART

Olesia Lazer-Pankiv — 2024-11-30

Ever wider spread of the Latin language in Europe during the Renaissance period resulted in de facto bilingual society. Latin grew into a cultural code to understanding the ancient high culture heritage though in everyday life people kept using local dialects. Classical Latin was also used as the language of education and by the 15th century, most of the aristocratic elites had achieved a high-level proficiency in Latin. The desire to become a part of the elite class pushed artists, their customers, friends or relatives to place Latin inscriptions on works of fine art. Occasionally they even hired experts to create the text for the inscriptions. However, they were not always well-educated humanists and connoisseurs of the classical Latin, therefore the inscriptions contain numerous errors both in the original, custom-made texts and in quotations from ancient works. The analysis of the Latin inscriptions on paintings, frescoes and engravings of the Renaissance period shows that the most common errors are phonetic and orthographic. This reflects the peculiarities of the pronunciation of Latin letters and letter combinations in this period: use of digraphs (ae, ое), alternation of letters е-а, o-e, o-u, а-о, replacement of y with i, simplification in writing doubled consonants, interchange of ti and ci, parallel use of letters k and c, substitution of Greek aspirates with single-grapheme counterparts etc. Fewer are the errors of the morphological (declension) and syntactic (use of syntactic constructions, agreement, etc.) levels. Even rarer are the lexical deviations from the norms of classical Latin: most of the vocabulary of the inscriptions comes from the classical period. The desire to avoid incorrect use of certain forms often led to hypercorrection. In some cases, the errors were made because the artists did not understand the meaning of the inscription.