General Introduction
From Precis
Claire Kramsch
University of California, Berkeley
Danièle Lévy
University of Macerata, Italy
Geneviève Zarate
INALCO, Paris
Translated by David Divita, University of California, Berkeley
A definition of plurality
This handbook is organized around linguistic and cultural plurality. Following Bourdieu (1977), it defines language as an “instrument of action (or of power)” and aims to reconstruct the complexity of social and linguistic practices that constitute our relationship to the foreign. Plurality here is not defined as the mere coexistence of various languages, but rather as a specific social activity characterized by the circulation of values across borders, the negotiation of identities, and the inversions–indeed, the inventions–of meaning that are often masked by the shared illusion of successful communication.
Plurality is approached in this book:
—as a complex aggregate, rather than as the simplified object of a communicatively oriented language pedagogy primarily concerned with intelligibility
—as a coherent system of relationships whose description cannot be reduced to a series
of mechanical operations
—as a socio-historical construct, observable from many simultaneous, spatio-temporal
points of view, such as that of everyday interactions or that of institutions whose symbolic force cannot be accounted for from one point of view alone
An internationalized space
The field of language didactics (LD) is undergoing transformation.(1) For more than ten years, Europe has constituted a specific geopolitical entity, less and less reducible to the sum of the countries that compose it. The role played by languages in the political, economic and social architecture of this conglomeration can be inferred from a number of texts that call for a common vision of linguistic and cultural diversity. The European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (Council of Europe , 1992), the definition of European citizens’ linguistic competence based on the mastery of three European languages (Livre blanc. Enseigner et apprendre. Vers la société cognitive. European Commission, 1995), the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001) all attest to the role of languages as an official component of European identity. Even if European countries have not all participated in this common project at the same pace, a new model of LD has nevertheless been put in place–the European model. This model has modified the relations between languages and the linguistic, cultural and geographic landscapes with which they are associated, and has directly affected the perception of international space held by each nation-state.
While the fall of the Berlin Wall has modified the geopolitical nature of relationships between European states, their languages and citizens, a new international economic order has ushered in a globalized vision of economic exchanges that is imposing new social and linguistic imperatives. These new imperatives are calling for new ways of conceptualizing the learning of foreign languages. In the future, as the French economist Jacques Attali stated recently, “travel will become a major part of a university education and professional development: one will constantly have to exhibit the qualities of a traveler in order to remain “employable” (…) In total, twenty-five years from now, around fifty million people will live outside of their country of origin or their parents’ country of origin” (Attali 2006). This vision of the future invites a concomitant reconsideration of the history of linguistic exchanges in the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Many of these countries did not wait for today’s globalization to become multilingual and multicultural. Military conquests, religious or ideological proselytism, slavery, colonialism, cultural and commercial exchanges and their own multilingual tribal practices have long diversified their societies. But language teachers trained in metropolitan centers are not necessarily prepared for the globalized space of tomorrow. Teacher trainers themselves need to adjust to the rapid and radical changes brought about by globalization and train young teachers accordingly.
Efforts in Europe to put into place a translingual and transcultural awareness common to all languages are headed in precisely this direction. They advocate making connections between L1 and L2 pedagogies (Roulet 1980), sensitizing learners to metalinguistic activity or language awareness (Hawkins 1987; James & Garrett 1991), and raising the interest of children in early language instruction (Candelier 2003; Perregaux 1994; Moore 2006). All these initiatives strive to make the public conscious of the discourses and social representations linked to language use in multilingual contexts. The concepts of methodological competencies (Écouter pour comprendre, CRAPEL, Université de Nancy 2) and intercomprehension between related languages, focused on the development of reading and listening comprehension in linguistically related languages, have shown their instructional efficiency in the intercomprehension of Romance languages (the EuRom4 method, the Galatea and Galanet programs, the Euromania methods), and between Romance and Germanic languages (the ICE, InterCompréhension Européenne and EuroCom programs).
The Handbook deals with various facets of the debate on plurilingualism and pluriculturalism, (2) and discusses observable situations both within and outside Europe, but it does not prescribe any solutions. Rather, as a collection of current points of view, it makes every effort to leave reflection open. Every featured reflection, divided into chapters, is extended by a “Counterpoint” that, through the intervention of an author from outside the chapter, seeks to initiate dialogue, echo back the positions of the chapter coordinators, put into perspective the possibilities proposed, or introduce a new geographical anchoring. The extension of the Handbook in the form of a partly interactive website (see Conclusion) is yet another manifestation of this on-going reflection.
A conceptual matrix: 8 macro-entries and 51 micro-entries
In the spirit of these new developments the Handbook of plurilingualism and pluriculturalism focuses on second language learning and teaching. It is not a textbook or a prescriptive manual, nor a catalog of simplified, useful practices. It is, rather, a tool that encourages reflection and articulates practices, field observations and analyses in an innovative conceptual framework, adapted to an international environment marked by plurality. It is a generic matrix, designed to engender new ways of looking at language learning as a relation to alterity. It is intended to inform the setting of educational goals, the development of curricula and the training of teachers. This new configuration should also be of interest to politicians who are currently in need of conceptual tools to structure their decisions and are more likely to be open to new ideas in our era of social and cultural change than in a period of geopolitical stability and ideological immobility.
The Handbook invites its reader to travel to different continents–Europe, North American, Australia, Asia—and to take two detours to Africa. Nevertheless, it does not claim to be a world tour of education and linguistic diffusion, nor an encyclopedia of world languages. The globalized vision that underlies it rests on the dynamic changes that are occurring in various countries at various levels and on the corresponding need to continuously recalibrate our approach to language didactics.
The Handbook is organized on two levels. The first level is that of the eight chapters, which function as macro-entries and present a new way of looking at familiar reference points in LD. Each chapter features one conceptual focus chosen for its capacity to generate an interdisciplinary approach to various languages and for its connections with various linguistic and cultural domains: 1) From student to speaker/actor; 2) The self and languages; 3) Mobility and itineraries; 4) Belongings and social connections; 5) Images, discourse and cultural representations; 6) Institutions and power; 7) History, practices and models. The second level consists of micro-entries that function successively as glosses, expansions, case studies and contextualizations of one or more notions within the macro-entry. The Handbook thus contains 51 micro-entries that allow the reader to locate familiar points of reference in LD. They represent either disciplinary fields (for example, psycholinguistics, conversation analysis…), or historical, geographical, national or transnational points of reference, or easily identifiable pedagogical categories (e.g., learner, evaluation, advertising, translation). Each micro-entry is itself organized in three parts: the presentation of one or several notions, a corpus of data which anchor the concept within a field or in practical experience, and a commentary that clarifies the relationship between the notions and the data. The data themselves, clearly set off in a box, are readily accessible to the reader who prefers to enter the work by way of concrete examples.
An interdisciplinary framework
The Handbook focuses on the translingual and transcultural processes at work in language learning and language use. These processes usually tend to elude the academic classifications imposed by school subjects vying with one another for students’ attention, e.g., language, history, geography, civics. The book does not aim to offer reassuring models of cross-cultural tolerance or a peaceful vision of social relations such as those offered by school textbooks. Embracing conflict is the price to pay for liberating language pedagogy from its exclusively school-centered institutional base and opening it up to the real-world. In this Handbook, research on education is drawn upon to analyze learning trajectories that are not limited to schooling, but rather extend over a lifetime.
The observation and identification of the complexity of relationships among languages, cultures and identities are only possible on condition that an interdisciplinary conceptual framework is put forth. By interdisciplinary we mean a framework that draws inspiration from various disciplines, or constructs hybrid disciplines, or borrows and modifies concepts traditionally used in other disciplines. During the seminar in which this Handbook was conceived (2003) and at the subsequent conferences that marked its development (2004, 2005, 2006), relevant domains of previous research in language didactics were identified, and the project’s internal coherence and innovative nature were defined. Researchers from different disciplines were invited to discuss from their point of view the very questions and areas that the Handbook would focus on: the relationships between the individual and the collective in an increasingly fast-paced world, the contacts and conflicts that result from it, their impact on language education and teacher training. Thus, anthropologists, psychologists, historians and geographers, even mathematicians, drew on their own methods to interrogate a common ground, opening up the way, throughout the gestation of the Handbook, to disciplines (e.g.,cognitive science, human and social sciences…) from which notions such as actors, spaces, stories and History were interrogated and then translated into headings of chapters and micro-entries. A list of transverse concepts was generated, which cut across the various chapters: theoretical notions such as complexity, plurality, capital or resources, representation of actions or postures, and pedagogic notions such as imitation, negotiation, interpretation, translation, appropriation, borrowing, rejection. These transverse concepts make it possible to redraw the social, cultural and historical boundaries of language didactics and to redefine its research categories.
The product of an international network of instructor-researchers and instructors
A project like this one constitutes of course a challenge. Such a redrawing of the boundaries of language didactics could not be constructed without bringing together an international team of researchers. A fresh perspective was first created at a seminar held in March 2003 at the INALCO and jointly organized with the Berkeley Language Center at the University of California at Berkeley (United States) and the doctoral program/formation doctorale Politica, educazione, formazione linguistic-culturali at the University of Macerata (Italy). The seminar continued in March 2004 with public workshops held at the Sorbonne Nouvelle through support from the France/Berkeley fund (2004-2005). The initial partners (Berkeley Language Center, INALCO, the University of Macerata) met again, this time in Berkeley, to continue their collaboration for the second phase of the France-Berkeley program through the international conference Teaching Languages in Multilingual, Multicultural Environments. It was there that the overall architecture of the Handbook was definitively adopted. In May 2005, the Société Internationale pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde (SIHFLES) joined the project for a workshop held at INALCO. Following the international conference “Large” and “small” languages and plurilingual and pluricultural language didactics: models and experiments, held at the Sorbonne (July 3-5, 2006), an expanded group, comprised of all the chapter coordinators, met in July 2006 under the auspices of the University of Macerata and adopted the definitive editorial framework. A final seminar, organized by the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and its Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches en Langues Étrangères in February 2007, enabled a collective evaluation of the proposals received. During the meeting, the research team Pluralité des Langues et des Identités en Didactique: Acquisition, Médiations (PLIDAM, JE 2052) was created and reaffiliated with INALCO. Until 2005, Monica Heller of the University of Toronto took part in our collective reflections. May she find here our gratitude for her contribution.
Moreover, the project benefited from discrete funding from the Canadian Embassy in France (Programme France-Canada 2004), from the research team of ERADLEC (subsequently DILTEC) at the University of Paris III, the Plan Pluriannuel “Mise en réseau des universités parisiennes” jointly sponsored by INALCO and Paris III, the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie and the Délégation Générale à la Langue Française et aux Langues de France (DGLFLF), and from partner universities through the individual contribution of researcher-writers. Without having the sound financial logistics of international projects that are federated around a centralized institution, but benefiting from loyal support and gradually accumulating contributions, the Handbook was developed according to a financial logic that conformed to its scholarly intentions: a network of competencies that emerged progressively around a project that itself was in the process of being constructed. The Agence universitaire de la francophonie’s financial support at the time of publication will ensure a primary and important diffusion among the agency’s network.
Based on this support, 90 instructor-researchers, representing 68 institutions, joined the project.
The plurilingual and pluricultural policy of the Handbook
How to organize an international team of researchers who don’t all share the same language without detracting from the quality of the exchanges? While French and English were the dominant languages of the discussions and the circulation of texts, the composition of the Handbook did not escape its own object of study and was itself plurilingual and pluricultural.
Little by little the Handbook constructed a language policy commensurate with its object of study. English and French became the languages of scientific exchange. But texts written in English, Italian and German were translated into French due to the constraints of the editorial market. The reader will find the trace of these texts in the translator’s name which doubles the author’s. The framed texts, where the data appear in all their authenticity, echo back the languages in which they were produced and the sociolinguistic variations that do not necessarily align with a standard language. The plurilingual dimension is thus found operating at this level as well.
While internationally valid research is predicated on international recognition, our international teamwork revealed divergent concepts of research among different team members due to different academic traditions, which we had to clarify and transcend. Indeed, scientific legitimacy itself is the outcome of specific conditions of possibility. For example, Anglo-Saxon research is financed by private or public sources on the basis of competition between researchers or teams of researchers on subjects proposed by private foundations or governmental organizations. Researchers or directors of research teams send detailed project proposals to these sources of financing that outline the objectives, methods of research, anticipated results, methods of evaluation and means of disseminating the results, including a detailed budget and a timeline. Projects are chosen by these funding agencies on the basis of scientific criteria; of course, the prestige of the researchers plays a large role as well. Every year the researchers must submit a review of progress made and, on that basis, ask for a renewal of funds for a maximum length of 2 or 3 years. Research in Europe is approximating these criteria and modalities more and more when it draws from multinational sources of funding. But it is also complemented by national structures that approve laboratories for a period of four years in France and three years in Italy, bringing together senior and junior researchers on collaborative projects established through the initiatives of these members and validated by internal (University) and national authorities. The Handbook draws from this latter structure.
The Handbook was initially constructed as a research project that was not only oriented towards publication but was, as well, an intellectual adventure that left as much time for debates as it did for the production of texts. As such it could have caused misunderstandings and seemed too loosely structured for an Anglo-Saxon culture used to the format of specific calls for proposals. The time spent in discussion enabled us to reveal the reasoning that is often blurred in more tightly formatted scientific exchanges. In debates, the tacit rules of the international circulation of ideas where “texts circulate without their context” (Bourdieu 2002) became clearly visible when a concept was extracted from the immediate historical and social context of which it was the product, and when, in its “host” context, it was subject to distortions that made it difficult to locate the initial argument. We discovered the pitfalls of cross-cultural communication among researchers from different scientific traditions: the deep misunderstandings masked by linguistic false-friends, the wrongly assumed sharing of implicit ideas and the fallacy of common codes of scientific communication. We discovered that the disciplinary fields of “applied linguistics” and “linguistique appliquée” do not coincide; that terms like “multilingualism” and “plurilinguisme” are not equivalent. The boundaries between notion such as foreign language education, methodology, pedagogy, second language acquisition intersect with those of didactique des langues without the possibility of establishing a rigorous cartography between the two languages. The American or Canadian term “multiculturalism” rests on models of societies that are often stripped of their historicity when glossed under the French term multiculturalisme, which, indeed, is blurred even further by the term “pluriculturalisme” used in this text. The Council of Europe has attempted to deal with these terminological ambiguities by distinguishing “plurilingualism” (plurilinguisme), an individual phenomenon, from “multilingualism” (multilinguisme), a societal phenomenon (Cadre européen commun de reference pour les langues/The Common European Framework, Council of Europe, 2001, 1.3 Qu’entend-on par “plurilinguisme”?/What is “plurilingualism”?). But there are many others.
Why a “Handbook”?
Throughout the gestation of this work, different formats were envisioned. It is clear to everyone that the result is neither a method nor an encyclopedia, but rather more similar to a treatise or a dictionary. The work was eventually conferred the title “Handbook”, first modified by the adjective “bricolé” in homage to the disciplinary bricolage of anthropologists, then “critical” out of its authors’ desires to distance it from all dogmatism or universalism, to take responsibility for it entirely and to claim a specific point of view. It was subsequently deprived of these adjectives in its final denomination. By definition, a Handbook demands of its author(s) a methodic construction, a clear and rigorous identification of its thought, contents and objectives, a conciseness of argumentation and a relationship to the concrete through the empirical. The reader alone will be able to say if these intentions have been respected. Nevertheless, we dissociate ourselves from Littré who defines “Handbook” as a “small manual, a didactic work that explains in a clear and succinct fashion the essence of a subject”. If one indeed finds an essence here, it will be in the debates in language didactics that the Handbook seeks to expand.
To the reader
The layers of writing have shown that parts of the work echo one another. From the introduction to the conclusion, that echo is amplified, consolidating the notions, the themes, the positions, the pedagogical categories, the transverse concepts and the disciplines used and interpellated throughout the work. A linear reading of the Handbook’s contents includes:
—the introduction, which at once situates the book within language didactics and goes beyond it, and which also foregrounds the intellectual, ethical and ideological choices made
—a body of macro-entries or chapters, in which general themes and approaches can be read
—an explicit conclusion that introduces the website where the discussion is to be prolonged
But if one approaches a particular macro-entry in the body of the Handbook–through the need for information, because of thematic interest, or by chance–one will find the same choices:
—a selected point of view in the introduction to the chapter, outlining its possible unfolding in the field of language didactics
—one or more contextualized examples, followed by
—a “counterpoint” that opens onto an alternative, thematic or disciplinary
perspective.
The intent, as well as the design, is meant to be clear, and one will not be surprised to find the same tripartite schema in the construction of the work as a whole as well as in all the micro-entries. There, the conceptual framework introduces the theme of the chapter, which the examples (or data) reinforce, and the commentary expands the discussion to the potential plurality of specific situations.
While this nested construction is the product of authorial design, it is meant to facilitate reading by a certain built-in redundancy of themes and disciplinary approaches. It is also meant to engage the active reader, who, as a student, researcher or practitioner, is ready to decenter himself from his own experience and to move towards other disciplinary and professional sites in order to participate in the ongoing construction of this project.
Translator’s notes
1) Some French terms, untranslatable into English, have been left in their literal translations. In particular, the term didactique des langues, translated by Gisele Holtzer (2000 :174) as « language didactics » (LD) and defined as « foreign language teaching » overlaps but is not quite equivalent to terms like foreign language (FL) education, methodology, pedagogy, second language acquisition (SLA) or applied linguistics. The research field of language didactics is epistemologically and culturally linked to the teaching of French as a Foreign Language (Fle), in the same manner as SLA and applied linguistics are closely linked to the teaching of English as a Second Language, and Fremdsprachendidaktik is associated with the teaching of German as a Second Language (DaF). LD focuses on the teaching of foreign languages in instructional settings and in that respect it overlaps with FL education, FL methodology and FL pedagogy. But it is also concerned with the acquisition of foreign languages in non-instructional settings, e.g., work, travel, leisure, study and any venue in which issues of language, power and identity come into play. In that respect its concerns are close to those of Anglo-Saxon applied linguistics.
2) We have decided to keep the French terms here. In English multilingualism and multiculturalism are both individual and societal phenomena, whereas plurilingualism in French applies to individuals, multilingualism applies to societies.
Reference
Holtzer, Gisèle. 2000. Didactique des langues (language teaching methodology). In M. Byram (Ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning (pp.173-176). London: Routledge.
