Language Awareness and Identity: Insights via Dominant Language Constellation Approach [45, 1 ed.] 3031370260, 9783031370267

Table of contents :
Foreword: Some Reflections on Dominant Language Constellations at the Doctor’s Office
References
Contents
Contributors
Introduction: Understanding Identity and Language(s) Awareness by Dint of DLC
1 Introduction
2 Language Awareness and Languages Awareness?
3 Identity
4 Multimodal and Multisensorial Representations as Methods and Tools of Research
5 About This Book
References
Part I: DLC, Identity, Awareness, and Language Policy
Dominant Language Constellations and Language Policy and Planning in Two Settings: Perspectives from Tunisia
1 Introduction
2 DLC: A Differentiated Perspective on Multilingual Language Policy and Planning
3 Planning DLCs in Postcolonial Tunisia: A Planning of Paradoxes
4 The Present Study: Database and Methodology
4.1 Dataset A: The General Curriculum (September 2017)
4.2 Dataset B: Opinion Newspaper Articles (2011–2021)
5 Results and Discussion
5.1 The General Curriculum: Rhetorical Structure
5.2 Discursive Construction of the DLC in the General Curriculum
5.3 Discourses, DLC and National Identity in Public Debates
5.3.1 Essentialising DLC-Related National Identity
5.3.2 Victimization
5.4 Consensual Identity: Valorizing the DLC
5.5 Diversity, Territorial Citizenship and Democracy
6 Conclusion
References
Digital DLC Models as Instruments for Raising Awareness and Better Understanding of Current Multilingualism in HEI
1 Introduction
2 A Brief Overview of the Status of Multilingualism in HEI in a Multilingual Country, Switzerland
3 The State of Multilingualism in Educational Technologies for HEI
4 Digital DLC Model Design
4.1 Internal Digital Model of DLC
4.2 External Digital Model of DLC
5 A DLC Profiles Server Prototype
6 Discussion
6.1 People Awareness
6.2 IT Awareness
7 Conclusion
References
Part II: DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Formal Language Education: From Primary to Higher Education
Applying DLC to the Study and Discussion of Early Multicompetence in a Trilingual Minority Context in Northern Italy
1 Introduction
2 DLC and Multi-competence: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Implications
3 Politico-Historical Background
4 Multilingual Repertoires in Monolingual Polities: How Does the Monoglossic Imposition Affect Learning in Multilingual Contexts?
5 Investigating Multilingual Profiles and Competences at the Primary School Level
5.1 The Participants in the Study
5.2 Results of the Empirical Study
6 Final Considerations and Conclusion
References
Dominant Language Constellations in Luxembourg: Clusters of Identities and Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism
1 Introduction
2 Conceptual Framework
2.1 Identity-Based Strategies by Dominant Language Constellations: An Emic Approach of Social Stakeholders
2.2 Characteristics and Levels of Language Constellations (LC): A Holistic Approach
3 Methodology
4 Context
5 Analysis
6 Conclusion
References
Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality of Instructed Educational Settings in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context
1 Introduction
2 The Concept of Language Repertoires or DLC: Context as a Factor
3 Multilinguals Functionalities in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context: DLC Language Identity Representations (the Study)
3.1 The Context and the Rationale for the Present Study
3.2 Description of the Study
3.2.1 Research Questions
3.2.2 The Study Sample
3.2.3 Data Collection Instruments
4 Results
4.1 My Multilingual Profile (Data Presentation)
4.1.1 Background Bio Data
4.1.2 (Explicit) Metaphors: Examples Across Languages (L1 Versus L2 Versus L3)
4.1.3 Visual Metaphors
4.1.4 DLC as a Response to Monolingual Challenges: Constructing Multiple Language Identity(-ties) – Discussion
5 Conclusions and a Way Forward
References
Dominant Language Constellation and Plurilingual Awareness: The Case of Student Language Teachers in Greece
1 Introduction
2 DLC as a Tool for the Development of Plurilingual Awareness
3 Methodology
3.1 Research Questions
3.2 Research Design and Tools
3.3 Student Language Teachers (SLT) Profiles
4 Data Analysis
4.1 Language Portraits and Roads
4.1.1 DLC Patterns in Language Portraits
4.1.2 DLC Patterns in Language Roads
4.1.3 Synthesis
4.2 Interviews
4.2.1 Reflections on Language Portraits and Roads
4.2.2 Repositioning on Multilingualism
5 On the Way to Plurilingual Awareness
6 Conclusion
References
Are Teachers Developing Strategies to Enhance the Use of DLC in the Learning of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in English-Dominant Classrooms?
1 Introduction
2 Towards Multilingual and Multicultural Language Education
3 Using Learners’ Full Language Repertoire vs Dominant Language Constellation in the Foreign Language Teaching and Learning
4 The Study
4.1 Methodology
4.2 Findings and Discussion
5 Conclusions
References
DLC of Consecutive Multilinguals Studying Languages in an Officially Monolingual Environment
1 Introduction
2 Use of Linguistic Autobiographies in Defining DLCs
3 Defining DLCs in Linguistic Repertoires
4 The Study
4.1 Aim of the Study
4.2 Context of the Study
4.3 Sample, Data Collection and Analysis
4.4 Participants’ Linguistic Repertoires
5 Results
5.1 Description of DLC
5.2 Participants’ Explicit and Implicit Criteria for Distinguishing Between DLC and Other Languages in Their Repertoires
5.2.1 Communicative Function
5.2.2 Cognitive Function
5.2.3 Identity Function
5.3 Prospective DLC Languages
6 Conclusion
Appendix
Prompts on What Data Should Be Included in the Linguistic Autobiography
References
Part III: DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Teacher Education and Professional Development
‘Speaking About My Languages Promotes My Language Awareness’: Student Teachers’ Beliefs About Language Awareness and Their Dominant Language Constellations
1 Introduction
2 Theoretical Background
2.1 Teachers’ Beliefs and Teacher Identity
2.2 Plurilingual Awareness: The Link Between Language Awareness and DLC
2.3 (Student) Teachers’ Beliefs About Plurilingual Pedagogies and LA
3 Empirical Study
3.1 The Context: Linguistic Composition of Hamburg
3.2 Context of the Study and Participants
3.3 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 DLC Pattern I
4.2 DLC Pattern II
4.3 DLC Pattern III
5 Conclusions and Perspectives
Appendixes
References
Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Identity and Representations of English as a Foreign Language: Toward a Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation?
1 Introduction
2 Language Education as Political Action
3 Teacher Professional Identity
4 Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellations: A Heuristic Construct
5 The Study
5.1 Data Collection: Context and Participants
5.2 Multimodal Narratives as Data: Analytical Procedures
6 Findings: A ‘Clipping’ Picture of Student Teachers’ Representations of EFL Teaching
6.1 A Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation: The Salient Presence of EFL alongside (Inter)cultural Aims
6.2 An Emergent and Non-dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation: The Multilingual Classroom
6.3 Discussion and Synthesis
7 Implications for Teacher Education
References
The Dynamics of Dominant Language Constellations: Moments of Linguistic ‘Ecological Transition’ as Portrayed by Pre-service Language Teachers
1 Introduction
2 Language Biographies, Dominant Language Constellations, and Moments of Linguistic Ecological Transition: Connecting the Dots
3 Empirical Study
3.1 Context and Participants
3.2 Data Analysis Procedures
4 Analysis of the Corpus
4.1 Moments of Linguistic Ecological Transition Represented by Student Teachers
4.2 Ecological Transitions and DLC Dynamics: Which Ecological Transitions Facilitate and/or Hinder the Transformation of Potential DLC into Real Ones?
5 Synthesis and Perspectives: Towards an Ecological Model of Individual Multilingualism Development
References
‘We Can Do More With It’: Dominant Language Constellations of Teachers in Multilingual Frisian Primary Schools
1 Introduction
2 Language Attitudes, Knowledge and Practical Skills in Frisian Primary Schools
3 Dominant Language Constellations
4 Methodology
4.1 Participants and Procedure
4.2 Materials
4.3 Data Analysis
5 Results
5.1 Dominant Language Constellations
5.2 Towards a Typology of Attitudes, Knowledge, and Practical Skills
5.2.1 Teachers’ Attitudes
5.2.2 Teachers’ Knowledge
5.2.3 Practical skills
6 Discussion and Conclusion
References
Dominant Language Constellations, Identity, and Awareness: a posse ad esse
1 Introduction
2 On the Expansion of the Concept of DLC and Its Fields of Application
3 On Commonalities and Differences Between Concepts Describing Multilingualism
4 Ways Forward
References
Index

Citation preview

Multilingual Education

Larissa Aronin Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer   Editors

Language Awareness and Identity Insights via Dominant Language Constellation Approach

Multilingual Education Volume 45

Series Editors Hintat Cheung, Department of Linguistics & Modern Language, Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong Lixun Wang, Linguistics & Modern Language Studies, Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong Editorial Board Members Feng Anwei, The University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China Kingsley Bolton, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore Tae-Hee Choi, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Ofelia Garcia, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, USA Saran Kaur Gill, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia Mingyue Gu, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong Hartmut Haberland, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark Andy Kirkpatrick, Department of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia David C. S. Li, Department of Chinese & Biling. Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Low Ee-Ling, National Institute of Education, Singapore, Singapore Tony Liddicoat, Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Ricardo Nolasco, University of the Philippines at Diliman, Manila, Philippines Merrill Swain, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Li Wei, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK Zhichang Xu, Monash University, Clayton, Australia Virginia Yip Choy Yin, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong Gu Yueguo, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

The book series Multilingual Education publishes top quality monographs and edited volumes containing empirical research on multilingual language acquisition, language contact and the respective roles of languages in contexts where the languages are not cognate and where the scripts are often different, in order to be able to better understand the processes and issues involved and to inform governments and language policy makers. The volumes in this series are aimed primarily at researchers in education, especially multilingual education and other related fields, and those who are involved in the education of (language) teachers. Others who will be interested include key stakeholders and policy makers in the field of language policy and education. The editors welcome proposals and ideas for books that fit the series.

Larissa Aronin • Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer Editors

Language Awareness and Identity Insights via Dominant Language Constellation Approach

Editors Larissa Aronin Oranim Academic College of Education Tivon, Israel

Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer Universität Hamburg Berlin, Germany

ISSN 2213-3208     ISSN 2213-3216 (electronic) Multilingual Education ISBN 978-3-031-37026-7    ISBN 978-3-031-37027-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword: Some Reflections on Dominant Language Constellations at the Doctor’s Office

As the deadline for submitting this foreword to the editors of the book was fast approaching, one day I was riding my bicycle along the beautiful Rideau Canal on my way to the University of Ottawa and was trying to organize my thoughts on what a foreword to an edited book should look like. The objective is usually not to offer a full introduction to the volume by explaining in-depth the key concepts or by providing a summary of the different chapters. This was already nicely done by the editors of the volume and the different chapter contributors themselves. The writer of the foreword, I thought, has an easier job in being offered a privileged opportunity to provide some general context and set the stage for the reader. Oftentimes this involves sharing personal or professional anecdotes or experiences that may be relevant to the book and, hopefully, to the reader. This is what I decided to try to do. The concept of a Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) is intriguing in a number of ways. It speaks to me as I can relate it to numerous personal experiences that I often reminisce about. For example, when I think of the DLC construct, I sometimes also think of… appendicitis! I am already worried that this foreword may not be going too well and the editors may ask me to do major revisions or may reject it, but nonetheless, let me explain. About six months ago, I had a pain in the lower right of my abdomen while I was temporarily in the beautiful Austrian capital, Vienna. I had had concerns about appendicitis in the past, and thought it was important to see a doctor right away. Vienna has a relatively large expatriate community due to the high number of international organizations that have headquarters or offices in the city and there are some international companies as well. Some contacts from this expat community told me I did not have much to worry about because Austria has an excellent health-­ care system with a very high proportion of medical staff in relation to the general population, nicely maintained facilities, and a caring approach to patients. I went to a local community clinic which had a doctor that could see me right away without an appointment and I was truly impressed by how short the wait was. If I compare this to the Ottawa context that I am familiar with, and where I had previously spent many hours on multiple occasions waiting to get seen by a doctor,

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so far the Austrian experience did seem much better. I had also heard that most doctors in Austria can serve you in German or English, and that nurses or other staff at medical facilities can also often accommodate patients who do not speak German. In fact, I do speak a little bit of German (perhaps around the A1 level or even a bit higher). I think German should be considered one of the languages in my DLC because around the time that this story took place I was using this language on a daily basis, ordering food at cafes, buying groceries, or exchanging casual greetings with people at a local dog park. So I could function in German to some degree but also drew heavily on the other resource languages in my DLC: English, Bulgarian, and occasionally French. When I entered the doctor’s office, I had planned a polite greeting in German and a respectful question as to whether it would be okay to speak English to them.1 This was a pure formality in my mind, a way of showing respect to the country’s national language, but I thought there would be no issue in continuing in English after the greeting. To my surprise, the doctor said that they could hear that I was already able to speak some German and thus they would talk to me in German and I should try to speak back in German but switch to English, if absolutely needed. The doctor summarized their approach by stating that they were not okay if people spoke only English but if people tried to speak a mixture of German and English, that was fine. Thus, I live trying to use less English. On the one hand, I thought that this was quite neat. It reminded me of various language teaching and language use strategies inspired by the plurilingualism, translanguaging, and cross-linguistic pedagogy literature (see, for example, Ballinger et al., 2017, 2020; Coste et al., 1997, 2009; Garcia, 2009a, b; Garcia et al., 2017; Lüdi & Py, 2009). It also reminded me of some of my own work on the topic of linguistic risk-taking, the idea that speaking a new language involves some degree of anxiety or discomfort but once we push ourselves out of our comfort zone and take linguistic risks in authentic real-life situations, we achieve an increased level of competence and confidence in that language, as well as a feeling of accomplishment and pleasure (e.g., Slavkov, 2020, in press; Slavkov & Séror, 2019). Finally, I am very aware of the issues around English as a global language, a language whose power is increasing in many countries and domains, and a language that may pose threat to other, smaller languages. On the other hand, I felt pressured and cornered by this doctor’s ‘language policy’ which I was not in a very good position to challenge, considering my abdominal pain and the power dynamics of doctor-patient interactions. We proceeded with the medical exam. I smiled and nodded throughout the process but I really didn’t understand much of what the doctor said, other than I needed to take a blood test and go for an ultrasound on the second floor of the clinic, and then come back to the doctor’s office to discuss further. I felt uncomfortable and anxious as my priority was to fully understand what the medical situation was and if I potentially needed a surgery. I did not even know the word for surgery with my A1 level German.  In an effort to not disclose the doctor’s gender, as it is irrelevant to this discussion, I will use third-­ person plural pronouns to refer to them. 1

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I wondered how much this doctor knew about plurilingualism, language and identity, the role of language in doctor-patient power relationships, language awareness, and the concept of the DLC. I wondered if the doctor had applied this language policy to me because they themselves did not speak English well enough, or because they somehow took it upon themselves to send a message to patients that you need to learn to speak German when you live in Austria. I wonder if they thought I was a migrant who needed some pressure to integrate into Austrian society and values. I wondered if the doctor might have been influenced by anti-immigrant discourses which are not uncommon in Austria (and in many other countries around the world) and by statistical data and newspaper headlines indicating that more than 50% of students in Viennese schools speak languages other than German and that this is a reason for concern (for further discussion, see Kerschhofer-Puhalo & Slavkov, 2022; Jessner & Mayr-Keiler, 2017; among others). Of course, these are just speculative musings, and we truly can never know why things went this way during this doctor-patient interaction. As soon as I left the doctor’s office to go to the lab on another floor of the clinic for bloodwork and then to get the ultrasound done, I pulled out my phone and called my wife who speaks German fluently. I told her I needed her to come urgently and help interpret for me at the clinic. She left an important work meeting, hopped on a taxi, and was with me just after I had completed the ultrasound procedure and was ready to walk back into the doctor’s office. The doctor was a bit confused by the arrival of this third person, and when we explained that I had now brought my personal interpreter, the doctor laughed and said this was not really necessary and we continued mostly in English. It was ironic that the arrival of my wife, a native English speaker who was also fluent in German, changed the dynamics of the situation like this and the doctor did not insist on speaking German anymore. Somehow the use of English became more legitimate now. By contrast, when I was there alone earlier  – I am a non-native speaker of English but with a high proficiency in this language and a very limited proficiency in German – the doctor insisted that I use German. This somehow did not seem consistent with a focus on the patient’s health but more with a focus on a particular language ideology and possibly with the patient’s perceived background and status in the eyes of the doctor. Reflecting on this episode through a DLC lens, more questions come to mind. Did the doctor know that a person’s DLC contains a subset of the languages of their larger repertoire and that not all of them can or need to be used evenly, in all situations, and with equal proficiency? In fact, the DLC presupposes that a multilingual individual would use different languages in different daily situations or domains. For example, under a DLC approach, I could legitimately use German at the grocery store, German at the dog park, Bulgarian, English, and a bit of French in the home environment, and English at the doctor’s office. Various sociolinguistic factors, language proficiency, personality traits, and situational variables may all play a role in an individual’s choice to draw on a given language from their DLC in different settings and at different times. Pressuring people to use a given language in their DLC

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at a moment and in a context that they do not feel is right may lead to negative experiences, and even be counterproductive. Such monolingualizing pressures to use only the country’s national language in all contexts may have negative effects on social and linguistic diversity and be harmful to a person’s emotional well-being. For instance, I have now hardened up and learned to be more forceful about using English and simply not try to speak German in high-stakes situations, instead of politely asking for permission to use English and drawing on my multilingual DLC resources. Abstracting from my personal anecdote, I want to now orient to the present edited volume. This book offers an interpretive framework for the above experiences and much more. It talks about the role of the DLC in language awareness, identity, and multilingualism in general. It also brings up the role of multimodal and multisensorial representations as methods and tools of research (Aronin & MeloPfeifer, this volume). It shows that DLC theory is applicable to a variety of topics: political and social issues, democracy, language and ideology, language policy, the digital world, globalization, school language policy, childhood multilingualism, and so on. If a reader not fully familiar with the DLC construct wonders what DLC is about, I offer some (non-exhaustive) ideas to set the stage for the upcoming introduction and volume chapters: • DLC is about multilingualism as a lived phenomenon. A DLC lens describes multilingual individuals and focuses on the languages they have acquired in their diverse life-paths. It offers an opportunity to reflect on the individual experiences and environments (e.g., family, social, political, educational) that shape up a person’s linguistic make-up in unique and complex ways and equips that person with the language constellations that they need to draw on in their daily lives. • DLC as a concept is accessible to researchers, theoreticians, language teachers, and non-experts with different backgrounds and life experiences. The concept is theoretically sound and at the same time not highly technical; thus, it can be used and discussed in various contexts and with various people. It is not reserved just for applied linguistics experts but can be explained to teachers, students, politicians, and “lay” people in general. • DLC is about awareness raising. By being applicable to a wide range of audiences, DLC can contribute to awareness raising and reflection on one’s own individual language constellation or the constellations of others. Such heightened awareness may have a broader impact on accepting, nurturing, and offering equal opportunities to multilinguals, rather than treating them from the perspective of a (parallel) monolingualism approach.

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• DLC makes a theoretical contribution in fine-tuning our understanding of the broader language repertoire. The language repertoire is a helpful and well-known concept that is widely used in various research and pedagogical approaches to multilingualism. It has become indispensable to the conceptualization of multilingualism in current research. Yet, DLC theory offers an interesting caveat in our understanding of the language repertoire. The DLC is a narrower concept that focuses on an important subset of an individual’s languages and the interactions between these languages in an individual’s daily life (cf. Blommaert & Backus, 2013, for an illustration of the broadness of the language repertoire). • DLC is about visualizations. As you are about to find out in the introduction and the remaining chapters of this volume, the DLC adds an appealing multisensory dimension to describing multilingualism through the constellation map visualizations and clay modeling that it employs. Seeing and thinking of outer space and viewing your languages as planets in constellations is a creative and powerful way of enriching our perspectives, and again, this is accessible to not only researchers but also to a variety of people in other domains. In terms of creativity and importance of this visual method, I see it as complementary to the language portrait approach (Busch, 2012, 2018) that has become so influential in the field. • DLC is about digitalization and AI. As Aronin and Melo-Pfeifer point out in the introduction of this volume, DLC offers an interesting potential in analyzing and developing digital identities and tools, which have become an indispensable part of our twenty-first century reality. • DLC is transformative. DLC research is transformative in nature like other modern theories and pedagogical approaches to multilingualism, including plurilingualism, translanguaging, and cross-linguistic pedagogies. A DLC lens allows us to focus on understanding and validating uneven language proficiencies, distance ourselves from the detrimental effects of the powerful notion of a native speaker (for discussion, see Slavkov et al., 2022; among others), celebrate an individual’s languages as they are, without focusing on which ones are more useful or prestigious, and ultimately transform people’s stances about multilingualism. With the above points in mind, I want to return to my personal anecdote about the doctor’s visit at the community clinic in Vienna. Perhaps a better previous understanding of multilingualism and DLCs not only by the doctor but also by those who set up the institutional structures and policies of the clinic might have created the pre-conditions for a more palatable experience. This would have helped not only me but also potentially a high number of migrant or other non-German speaking

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visitors that the clinic may serve. A patient-centered approach considering an individual’s DLC may contribute to a more empathetic and less prescriptive or forceful language policy. This could in turn create the right conditions for the patient to feel comfortable and encouraged to speak the host country’s language rather than pressured or forced to do so. Continuing to reminisce about my own experience, I realize I was in a doctor-­ patient power relationship that made me feel both insecure about my A1 language use and worried about my health. In this context, and in many other non-medical contexts that involve societal power structures, we can see the potential for direct positive impact of advanced multilingual theories and practices such as the DLC.  This could offer not only improved healthcare, but also more harmonious human interactions based on mutual respect, understanding, equity, and (linguistic) inclusion. Rather than being pressured to speak German and add anxiety to my physical discomfort, I could have found in a more pleasant and equitable way that I did not need appendicitis surgery at that time. Now, on to the rest of the volume. Happy reading! University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON, Canada

Nikolay Slavkov

References Aronin, L., & E. Vetter (Eds.). (2021). Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition. Springer. Ballinger, S., Lyster, R., Sterzuk, A., & Genesee, F. (2017). Context-appropriate crosslinguistic pedagogy: Considering the role of language status in immersion education. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 5(1), 30–57. Ballinger, S., Lau, S., & Quevillon Lacasse, C. (2020). Cross-linguistic pedagogy: Harnessing transfer in the classroom. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 76(4), 265. Blommaert, J., & Ad Backus. (2013). Superdiverse repertoires and the individual. In I. de Saint-­ Georges & J.-J. Weber (Eds.), Multilingualism and multimodality: Current challenges for educational studies (pp. 11–32). Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­94-­6209-­266-­2_2 Busch, B. (2012). The linguistic repertoire revisited. Applied Linguistics, 33(5), 503–523. https:// doi.org/10.1093/applin/ams056 Busch, B. (2018). The language portrait in multilingualism research: Theoretical and methodological considerations. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, 236. https://www. academia.edu/35988562/WP236_Busch_2018_The_language_portrait_in_multilingualism_ research_Theoretical_and_methodological_considerations Coste, D., Moore, D., & Zarate, G. (1997). Compétence plurilingue et pluriculturelle. Vers un cadre européen commun de référence pour l’enseignement et l’apprentissage des langues vivantes: Etudes préparatoires [Plurilingual and pluricultural competence. Toward a common European reference framework for teaching and learning living languages: Preparatory studies]. Editions du Conseil de l’Europe. Coste, D., Moore, D., & Zarate, G. (2009). Plurilingual and pluricultural competence. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Retrieved from www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/ publications_en.asp?toprint=yes&-­40

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García, O. (2009a). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Basil/Blackwell. García, O. (2009b). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Wiley. García, O., Ibarra Johnson, S., & Seltzer, J. (2017). The translanguaging classroom: Leveraging student bilingualism for learning. Caslon. Jessner, U., & Mayr-Keiler, K. (2017). Why context matters: Social inclusion and multilingualism in an Austrian school setting. Social Inclusion, 5(4), 87–97. Kerschhofer-Puhalo, N., & Slavkov, N. (2022). Questioning the questions: Institutional and individual perspectives on children’s language repertoires. In N.  Slavkov, S.  Melo-Pfeifer, & N. Kerschhofer-Puhalo (Eds.), The changing face of the “Native Speaker”: Perspectives from multilingualism and globalization (pp. 315-346). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.151 5/9781501512353-­013 Lo Bianco, J., & Aronin, L. (Eds.). (2020). Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­52336-­7 Lüdi, G., & Py, B. (2009). To be or not to be… a plurilingual speaker. International Journal of Multilingualism, 6(2), 154–167. Slavkov, N. (2020). Where the magic happens: Fostering language learning, bilingualism and multilingualism through linguistic risk-taking. In T. Tinnefeld (Ed.), The magic of language: Productivity in linguistics and language teaching (pp. 47–69). Saarland University of Applied Sciences Press. Slavkov, N. (in press). Linguistic risk-taking: A new pedagogical approach and a research program. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics. Slavkov, N., & Séror, J. (2019). The development of the linguistic risk-taking initiative at the University of Ottawa. Canadian Modern Language Review, 75(3), 254–272. Slavkov, N., Melo-Pfeifer, S., & Kerschhofer-Puhalo, N. (2022). The changing face of the “Native Speaker”: Perspectives from multilingualism and globalization. De Gruyter Mouton. https:// doi.org/10.1515/9781501512353

Contents

Introduction: Understanding Identity and Language(s) Awareness by Dint of DLC������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Larissa Aronin and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer Part I DLC, Identity, Awareness, and Language Policy Dominant Language Constellations and Language Policy and Planning in Two Settings: Perspectives from Tunisia����������������������������   21 Fethi Helal Digital DLC Models as Instruments for Raising Awareness and Better Understanding of Current Multilingualism in HEI������������������   45 Laurent Moccozet and Maya Böckh Part II DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Formal Language Education: From Primary to Higher Education Applying DLC to the Study and Discussion of Early Multicompetence in a Trilingual Minority Context in Northern Italy��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   69 Barbara Hofer Dominant Language Constellations in Luxembourg: Clusters of Identities and Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 Sofia Stratilaki-Klein Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality of Instructed Educational Settings in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context��������������������������������������������������  107 Danuta Gabryś-Barker

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Dominant Language Constellation and Plurilingual Awareness: The Case of Student Language Teachers in Greece��������������������������������������  131 Maria Iakovou, Sofia Tsioli, and Marina Vihou Are Teachers Developing Strategies to Enhance the Use of DLC in the Learning of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in English-Dominant Classrooms? ����������������������������������������������������������������  155 Jorge Pinto DLC of Consecutive Multilinguals Studying Languages in an Officially Monolingual Environment����������������������������������������������������  173 Stela Letica Krevelj and Nives Kovačić Part III DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Teacher Education and Professional Development ‘Speaking About My Languages Promotes My Language Awareness’: Student Teachers’ Beliefs About Language Awareness and Their Dominant Language Constellations��������������������������  197 Lisa Marie Brinkmann Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Identity and Representations of English as a Foreign Language: Toward a Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation?��������������������������������������������������������������  219 Ana Sofia Pinho The Dynamics of Dominant Language Constellations: Moments of Linguistic ‘Ecological Transition’ as Portrayed by Pre-service Language Teachers ����������������������������������������������������������������  247 Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer ‘We Can Do More With It’: Dominant Language Constellations of Teachers in Multilingual Frisian Primary Schools����������������������������������  263 Suzanne V. Dekker, Linde M. Kootstra, Hanneke Loerts, and Joana Duarte Dominant Language Constellations, Identity, and Awareness: a posse ad esse ����������������������������������������������������������������������  285 Larissa Aronin and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  293

Contributors

Larissa  Aronin  International School, Oranim Academic College of Education, Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel Maya Böckh  Computer Science Center, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Lisa Marie Brinkmann  Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Suzanne V. Dekker  University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Joana Duarte  University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Danuta Gabryś-Barker  University of Silesia, Institute of Linguistics, Sosnowiec, Poland Fethi Helal  Department of English, University of Manouba, Manouba, Tunisia Barbara  Hofer  Fakultät für Bildungswissenschaften, Freie Universität Bozen, Bozen, Italy Maria  Iakovou  Faculty of Greek Philology & Center of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece Linde M. Kootstra  NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands Nives Kovačić  University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia Stela  Letica  Krevelj  University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia Hanneke Loerts  University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Sílvia  Melo-Pfeifer  Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany xv

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Laurent  Moccozet  Computer Science Center, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Ana  Sofia  Pinho  UIDEF, Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal Jorge Pinto  School of Arts and Humanities – Centre of Linguistics, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal Sofia Stratilaki-Klein  Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France Université du Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg Sofia  Tsioli  Center of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece Marina Vihou  Faculty of French Language and Literature & Center of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Introduction: Understanding Identity and Language(s) Awareness by Dint of DLC Larissa Aronin and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

Abstract  Dominant Language Constellation  approach, as a new research field, calls for new conceptual tools, for reviewing established theoretical stances, and for methodological innovations. In this introductory chapter, we relate Dominant Language Constellations to the concepts of Language(s) Awareness and (multilingual) Identity, and we explain how it contributes to the visual and material turn in applied language studies. We claim that the Dominant Language Constellation framework brings new lenses to analyse language(s) awareness and identity, particularly in the fields of foreign language learning and teaching. Keywords  Multilingual identity · Language awareness · Languages awareness · Metalinguistic awareness · Multilinguality · DLC · Representation · Multimodality

1 Introduction The concept of Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) is a comparatively new way of accounting for the current language practices under the global condition of extreme diversity of users and multilingual settings. The two previously published edited volumes based on the theoretical premises of DLC, focused on other from this volume’s concepts. The first one (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020) introduced DLC as a new perspective on multilingualism and the volume that followed (Aronin & Vetter, 2021) focused on education and language teaching through the lens of DLC. The present volume continues their message. Although both the 2021 and the present volumes largely refer to educational contexts, the focus of the latter is on L. Aronin (*) International School, Oranim Academic College of Education, Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel e-mail: [email protected] S. Melo-Pfeifer Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_1

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describing and understanding language awareness and the identity of multilingual learners, users, and teachers by employing the theoretical underpinnings, tools, and methods of DLC approach. It is important to note here the use of the terms ‘plurilingual’ and ‘multilingual’ in this volume. The differences in terminology when referring to individual multilingualism are explained by the existence of distinctive research schools. The authors from the francophone research schools in compliance with those working in the framework of UN cultural organizations use the term ‘plurilingual’ while others stick to the tradition of ‘multilingualism’ and ‘multilingual’ in reference to individuals using several languages. Furthermore, researchers preferring the terms plurilingualism to refer to the linguistic resources of individuals usually use ‘multilingualism’ to refer to the societal coexistence of languages. The volume brings together scholars from different research schools and we consider such a cooperative dialogue on DLC, identity, and awareness beneficial. The concepts of language awareness and identity were selected as a focus of this volume for several reasons. Due to the global transformations, ‘identity’ of contemporary humans and our perceptions of identity have changed significantly. No wonder that ‘identity’ as well as ‘awareness’, which has also become prominent in various areas of knowledge, are in the front lines of current research. Both concepts have undergone conceptual changes and challenges because of the ‘new linguistic dispensation’ (Aronin & Singleton, 2012), which refers to the diversification of linguistic contacts, exchanges, and individual repertoires nowadays. In the following, we briefly overview the key notions of this volume, namely, DLC, language awareness, and identity in their contemporary representations, and as they are involved in the shift from monolingual paradigm to a multilingual vision. We then present the 14 chapters that constitute this volume, underlying their unique contributions to the development of DLC, both as a theoretical approach to multilingualism and as a heuristic tool to better apprehend language awareness and identity.

2 Language Awareness and Languages Awareness? The concept of language awareness has a well-established history in the field of applied language studies even though it is difficult to define and to separate from other concepts dealing with how people relate to and think of language(s). The volumes ‘Linguistic Awareness in Multilinguals: English as a Third Language’ (Jessner, 2006) and ‘The Routledge Handbook of Language Awareness’ (Garrett & Cots, 2018) make the complexity of the field very clear. Despite, or perhaps because of, that complexity, we acknowledge that ‘language awareness’ is a productive concept used to understand language teaching and teachers, language learning and learners, and a very diverse range of social phenomena related to language(s) and language use, namely in multilingual contexts. Following this, the present volume also adopts this tripartite structure (see Sect. 5 of this introduction). If we take both constitutive notions ‘language’ and ‘awareness’ separately, we would already have enough trouble defining them, as ‘language’, for instance, is

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apprehended very differently from linguistic, sociolinguistic, language policies, and education perspectives, to name just a few. Nowadays, the notion of language and what a language is became a battlefield in post-colonial and raciolinguistic theories, theories on translanguaging and code-switching, and in the different positionalities assumed by descriptive linguistics and linguistics of ‘use’ (privileging the perspective of the individual rather than that of the researcher). Awareness as well can be understood in different ways, as ‘awakening to’ (or, in the French tradition, ‘éveil aux langues’, Candelier et al., 2007) or ‘perspectives about’ languages, encompassing knowledge about language(s) and linguistic phenomena, attitudes and beliefs towards (multiple) languages and speakers, and the ability to reflect about these issues, in language learning, teaching, and use. Additionally, language awareness can also be coupled with adjectives such as ‘critical’ (Fairclough, 1992), making language awareness embrace a more ideological and ethical perspective, related to language (in)equalities and social justice agendas. This very brief description of the field ‘language awareness’ gives a hint of how difficult it might be to define the concept and its fields of application but it relates only very loosely with the concept of DLC. So, what happens when we decline ‘language’ in the plural form, as suggested in the title of this section, in order to better suit the DLC research field and make it advance theoretically and empirically? In this volume, we use the traditional ‘language awareness’ term in order to situate the reader in a familiar research field and paradigm and also because the authors use the term within the same lines. With that, it is our intention to clarify here the meaning and the necessity of the term ‘languages awareness’, as an additional stance to its original form. When we were preparing this volume for publication, the publishing editors asked us to clarify the term: language awareness or languages awareness? The fact is that the emergent term in the plural form was coming to the fore. Dealing with a cluster of languages in the field of DLC, we tend to say ‘languages awareness’, because, after all, the awareness that we are talking about refers to the fact of using of a set of languages as a unit. The novel point in such a view on language awareness is the attention to a constellation of one’s languages as well as the awareness of multiple languages in particular settings. Such a view does not negate the concepts of language awareness, in general, and metalinguistic or crosslinguistic awareness, more specifically, in any way, rather ‘languages awareness’ is a variant of the concept of linguistic awareness that implies a different emphasis. Languages awareness thus more convincingly articulates with the multilingual paradigm we embrace in the field of DLC. The already existing terms with awareness take both wider and narrow perspectives, some referring only to language learning, others to interaction between language systems. Crosslinguistic awareness (XLA) is ‘(tacit and explicit) awareness of the interaction between language systems’ (Jessner, 2019, pp.  223–224). Metalinguistic awareness (MLA) refers to language learning and compensatory strategies, language management and language monitoring, (new) word formation and use (creativity) and organization of multilingual lexicon. The existence of shades or facets of awareness are invoked when Jessner (2019, p. 230) concludes that ‘from a research perspective, this means that, only if we move away from a

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simplistic picture of language learning by taking the hyper complexity of the multilingual mind into consideration, will we be able to make progress in understanding how language learning takes place’. While the ‘metalinguistic awareness’ concept, pertinent and important to multilingualism, emphasises the multilingual’s identity and inner workings of their capacities, the suggested additional variant of the concept, ‘awareness of languages’ (or languages awareness) is directed towards the understanding of social settings in which an individual’s DLC is ‘working’. This concept is tied with individual DLCs and is an emergent quality of a multilingual language user (Jessner, 2019). This, that is, awareness of languages of one’s DLC, in its turn, is expected to increase one’s social and linguistic powers by enhancing individuals’ abilities to act upon the contexts they live in. Awareness of languages by a group of language users is also important as it situates a particular group with common DLCs in a wider multilingual context (see e.g., Aronin & Moccozet, 2021; Krevelj, 2020). Both metalinguistic awareness and awareness of languages contribute to language learning and social behaviour. ‘Awareness of languages’ is a tool for navigation in the multilingual world in a particular local setting with a particular DLC. DLC establishes boundaries for awareness development because different multilingual environments provide individuals with different affordances and constraints for developing their multilingualism, reflecting the exigencies of practical life. The contributions of this volume demonstrate how DLC mirrors social rhythms and timings in a variety of social and educational contexts. By encouraging and controlling language awareness tied to particular DLCs, it becomes possible to adapt to real-life social and linguistic needs of individuals and communities.

3 Identity Identity is neither a simple nor a stable concept, being apprehended differently across research fields and according to different underlying epistemological stances, such as the post-modern and the socioconstructivist approaches. In language education, identity is studied in its multiple facets. This broad field of research covers (language) learner identity and racialized identities in language learning (Anya, 2018), language and multilingual identity, English teacher identity (Ellis, 2016; Yazan & Lindahl, 2020), the identity of multilingual teachers and learners, and native-speaker and non-native speaker teacher identity (Cheung et  al., 2015; Martínez Agudo, 2017). Rather than seeing identity as a range of stable characteristics and labels externally attributed or imposed to an individual or a community, identity is nowadays attached to self-identification and self-determination. Identity is therefore fluid and identity traits might be claimed or denied differently by the individual according to the (communicative) situation. Additionally, ‘multilingual identity’ does not refer to a personal or group identification with a language or a set of languages (national, regional,…) and/or dialects and registers, but rather to the articulation of identity through action, which is mediated by languages, and through linguistic participation (Ayres-Bennett & Fisher, 2022).

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This volume deals with identities of multilingual learners and teachers, mostly of pre-service teachers. The frames through which these identities are examined in this book include not only classroom research but also language policy and social data science, making visible the productivity of interdisciplinary perspectives (Ayres-­ Bennett & Fisher, 2022). The identity of a multilingual user is one of the products yielded by the social and language policies, both as expected ideal and also as a de-facto result which might be quite different from the expected (Helal, chapter “Dominant Language Constellations and Language Policy and Planning in Two Settings: Perspectives from Tunisia”, in this volume). Similar to the notions of language/languages awareness, the concept of identity is undergoing transformation. The twentieth century and especially recent decades on the twenty-first century witnessed a substantial rethinking of what identity is. In this volume, the already widespread shift of interest to multilingual identity (as opposed to monolingual and bilingual) is specified and refined towards the understanding of an identity of a multilingual user and learner who navigates his/her life with several languages working together as a unit. The DLC construct helps to unveil a highly complex identity that maintains and operates a cluster of several languages and associates with them cultures, discourses, and traditions. This is what the contributions to this volume show from a variety of angles and in a range of settings in different continents and countries, such as Tunisia and Croatia, Poland, Greece and Portugal. The contributions, each in its own way, touch upon one or several routs in which the transformation of identity and of our understanding of this concept go: expansion, digitalization, and identifying new cohorts of multilingual learners and teachers that are different from the ‘traditional’ ones. The expansion of the concept of identity has taken place in many fields of knowledge including sociology, education, and multilingualism. Historians found out that in the past, individuals were mostly defined by the race, ethnicity, religion, profession, gender, and class they belonged to. In the medieval world, everyone was a member of a community with a fixed role to play and people did not see themselves as independent from society (Bedos-Rezak, 2000). Awareness of individuality, personal freedom, and a focus on personal identity arrived much later. Modern global tendencies celebrate personal identity as consisting of multiple facets, namely that of individual multilingualism. The concept of ‘multilinguality’ aims to cover this multiplicity of characteristics, capacities, and affordances of a multilingual user-­learner (see more on multilinguality in Aronin, 2022, Chapter 9; Gabryś-Barker, 2005, 2019, and chapter “Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality of Instructed Educational Settings in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context”, in this volume). New discourses have brought a range of person’s characteristics, including professional, economic, and leisure interests, formerly considered unworthy of public and academic attention, to the spotlight. Moreover, scientific advances helped to realize the tight interconnections between body, cognition, and material world (see e.g., Jasanoff, 2018; Malafouris, 2013), thus persuading researchers to see identity as a complex blend of corporal, material, mental, and emotional features. As Malafouris (2016, p.  298) puts it ‘instead of simply reproducing ourselves, we rather extend

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ourselves and we construct new cognitive and material ecologies for growing and instituting our minds. We create things which in turn create us’ (Malafouris, 2016, p. 298). In reference to multilingual identity, this exciting connectivity, this fusion of corporal, material, and cognitive resources proliferates at least threefold since each language of a DLC carries along with it its culture, its materialities, and potentially unique bodily images. Whether these converge or exist separately is an exciting question to be researched. For the time being, as far as we know, the research that might shed light on this question is quite scarce. Still, there is neurobiological evidence which shows that, in multilinguals, ‘there are shared corticosubcortical modules between several languages as well as language-specific modules’ (Martín-Fernández et al., 2022, p. 16). The study acknowledges the vital importance of individualizing on a case-by-case basis (2022, p.  17). In applied linguistics research, Gabryś-Barker (2021, and chapter “Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality of Instructed Educational Settings in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context”, in this volume) investigates the awareness of one’s multilinguality, the role of reflection on one’s DLC languages, one’s verbal behavior and multilingual language processing as well as multilingual thinking, multilingual dreaming, and metaphoric perceptions, to analyse multilingual identity. Additionally, as language identity is intersectional (Block & Corona, 2016), we should acknowledge that awareness of one’s multilinguality might interconnect with awareness of one’s perception of race, gender, sexual orientation, social status and belonging to a nation, religious orientation, and other factors. As technology gained ground in human society, most of us added digital identity to the complex combination of personal identity facets. Digital identity consists of information that represents a person (or a group such as an organization) in computer systems. Notably, digital identity connects with global multilingualism even more than the traditional one, since it originates and is built and maintained in largely English dominant internet. Nevertheless, digital identity often takes other languages than English into its purview. In ORCID, for example, the names of authors can be written in different languages and alphabets, therefore allowing for inserting names used by the author in different settings and corresponding languages. An individual’s digital identity comprises official data but also the information ‘of choice’ by a person. In addition to official data, such a digital identity includes temporary identity representations created for a variety of reasons such as a game character, or a learner taking a role in second or foreign language method online. Multilingual individuals have more options to represent themselves, complementing, negotiating, and enriching their personal identity. To recap on the complexity and intricacy of multilingual identity, the current interest in it necessarily includes the cognitive, psychological, cultural, physical, bodily, and material resources, as well as relevant digital skills in addition to linguistic skills/abilities in several languages – all tightly knitted together in multilinguals’ lives. Group multilingual identities have also undergone changes in relation to educational goals. The already close link between technology and multilingualism (Apps and devices for translation, minority languages conservation, and teaching and learning, to name but a few), turned into a functional fusion of the two. Technology use in

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education goes beyond the simply subservient role; technology and teaching and learning additional languages are becoming increasingly intertwined; new questions arise and require innovative solutions that would have been unthinkable only a little while ago. One of the outcomes of this change, also impacted by other global developments of recent times, is the formation and singling out new groups of multilingual learners that did not exist or were not sufficiently identified earlier (Aronin & Coetze van Rooy, 2022; Brinkmann, chapter “‘Speaking About My Languages Promotes My Language Awareness’: Student Teacher Beliefs About Language Awareness and Their Dominant Language Constellations”, in this volume). The awareness of this process on the part of teachers and policy-makers has become a necessity.

4 Multimodal and Multisensorial Representations as Methods and Tools of Research Complexity, multimodality, and further diversification of multilingual identities, both collective and individual, call for new methods of research and new angles of view both on the novel and traditional issues. In an attempt to answer at least some of these important queries, the contributions to this volume offer exploratory and experimental studies, discussions, and technological alternatives for understanding multilingual identities and boosting language awareness through the DLC approach. The ‘capacity’ of a DLC is characterized by the richness of aspects that define a DLC as a multimodal entity with several different modes of activity or occurrence. It expands from just a linguistic phenomenon to social, physiological, cultural, and materially grounded one, thus representing the interconnectedness of cognition, body, language, and material world. The DLC approach explicates and illuminates the complexity, multifacetedness, and the super-diversity of multilinguals’ identities, their constant flow and dynamics. The issue of identity becomes indeed important and also hard to research. With that, it is with the help of DLC theory and the propitious feature of DLC – the propensity of DLC for being visualised and modelled – that it is possible to diminish some of the difficulties attached to the study of multilingual identities. The propensity of DLC for being visualised and modelled is variously employed in pedagogy and language teaching with different cohorts of language learners and users, both young and adult. The representations of multilingualism take the form of DLC-maps (Kannangara, 2020; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020; Nightingale, 2020), drawn, sketched or produced from different materials, images and replicas (Ibrahim, 2022), drawings (Melo-Pfeifer, 2021; Melo-Pfeifer & Chik, 2022; Prasad, 2015; Tabaro Soares et al., 2020), figures, maps and graphs (this volume; also D’warte & Sommerville, 2014). More precisely, various DLC representations in visual and tangible form are advantageous both for language users and for those who professionally deal with languages in society, including teachers, educationalists, and policy-makers (see DLC dedicated site https://www.dominant-­language-­constellations.com/). Representations boost cognition and enhance awareness.

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Due to the extreme complexity of multilingual identities and the ever more complex global environment with its superdiverse populations and learner cohorts, there is a growing and urgent need to revise the ways we represent them, what can be achieved through multimodal and multisensorial representations. A ‘visual turn’ (Kalaja & Pitkänen-Huhta, 2018) and even a ‘material’ and a ‘sensorial’ turn in the representation of identity and multilingualism thus match the need to understand multilingualism as lived, experienced and embodied, and identity as claimed by individuals (Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2019), thus going beyond ‘lingualism’ (Block, 2014) in the way multilingualism and identity are researched. Dealing with representations as novel methods of boosting awareness and negotiating identities of multilingual teachers and learners, it is important to realize that there are various kinds of representations of various things, from representations of an entire multilingual identity to representation of current cognitive and emotional state of a multilingual learner with regard to his/her languages. Today, representations are created to identify and explain patterns that underlie ideas, events, and processes, especially those that are difficult to observe directly. This is exactly the case of education processes. Representations serve as analytical tools and are therefore essential for researchers and educational practitioners. They also boost cognition. In such a capacity, representations are important for learners acquiring several languages, as they provide mental shortcuts as well as creative means to express multilingual and multicultural selves. Those representations enhance language(s) awareness through images, models, and other modalities. For this reason, representations have acquired greater significance in education. This volume contains several DLC representations that combine or go beyond verbal resources: disparate, novel, exciting and fresh, visual and tangible, as well as computer-­generated models (“Digital DLC Models as Instruments for Raising Awareness and Better Understanding of Current Multilingualism in HEI’’; “Dominant Language Constellation and Plurilingual Awareness: The Case of Student Language Teachers in Greece’’; “The Dynamics of Dominant Language Constellations: Moments of Linguistic ‘Ecological Transition’ as Portrayed by Pre-­service Language Teachers’’, this volume). We consider the construction of typologies (Dekker et al., chapter “‘We Can Do More with It’: Dominant Language Constellations of Teachers in Multilingual Frisian Primary Schools”, in this volume) as a kind of representation too, because the creation of a typology involves finding and classifying facts with the help of senses and logic. Identity research in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and multilingualism traditionally obtains evidence from largely verbal-textual sources, such as questionnaires and interviews. But historical findings give us an additional direction for thought and enable us to see how bodily presence of an individual became increasingly exchanged for its representation, and how identity concept developed into the one we see it now. In the twelfth century in Europe (1181; 1153), for example, visual or written representations were not very common and individuals preferred personal presence to communicate (Bedos-Rezak, 2000). Even those who were literate rarely resorted to mediated, indirect communication. It is only gradually and exclusively for particular nobility figures and those they gave such permission and in the rare circumstances that the representation of an identity of authoritative

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figures became substituted by the texts and seals. Those who had to use materialities as a kind or representation of their identity, those represented felt the need to explain their absence in person and prove somehow that the text substitutes his own identity. Bedos-Rezak (2000, p. 1489) testifies that “Bernard of Clairvaux” (d. 1153) sought to reassure his correspondents about the authenticity and representativeness of two letters to which he was unable to affix his seal. In one letter, he wrote: “I do not have my seal handy, but the reader will recognize the style because I myself have dictated the letter” (Bernard of Clairvaux as cited in Bedos-Rezak ‘Ep. 330; Bernard’s letters are quoted and discussed in Auguste Dumas, ‘La diplomatique et la forme des actes’ Le moyen age 42 (1932): 21 n. 1.). Thinking of multilingual education in terms of contemporary language practices, languages awareness, identity, and newly emerging methods of multilingualism research, we notice significant differences with the past. Medieval identity was mostly a group belonging identity, and personal identity was to a large extent derived from the group one. Secondly, identity was very much connected to personal bodily presence rather than to its representation. Dissimilar to this, we recognize today the value of personal complex identity which goes beyond brain and body constraints and includes its external material extensions. We also use multimodal methods of and tools for representation with the help of DLC, accommodating an unlimited range of representations, with various modalities and materialities, including their mixture and blending in different proportions.

5 About This Book The volume is divided into three parts. The first part, titled ‘DLC, Identity, Awareness, and Language Policy’ is dedicated to the analysis of language policy through the lens of DLC approach. It is symbolic, perhaps, that the two language policy contributions of this part are so different in their approach, settings they describe and even in the area of research. But both work towards to the same outcome of improving the language policy in the discussed contexts. The first part opens with a significant work by Fethi Helal, chapter “Dominant Language Constellations and Language Policy and Planning in Two Settings: Perspectives from Tunisia”. The author employs a discourse-historical approach in which he investigates the discursive strategies employed by three parties in the contemporary postcolonial Tunisia: (1) Tunisian school curriculum designers, (2) cultural/social elites, and (3) opinion newspaper articles debating issues of language and national identity (2011–2021). The author repudiates the country elite’s reductive language ideology coming out of monolingual views. Instead, he calls for adopting a language policy anchored on sociolinguistic facts rather than ideological categories. Methodologically, the chapter analyses several essential analytical categories within a perspective on language policy and planning as text, discourse and performance. Helal seconds and employs Lo Bianco’s understanding that DLC represents a kind of settled historical outcome of processes of language planning and

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policy (Lo Bianco, 2020, p. 47). The intense and passionate discussion of socio-­ political educational and economic situation in Maghreb that have led to socio-­ linguistic realities and language ideologies brings home clearer understanding of factors influencing language policy in other parts of the world. Laurent Moccozet and Maya Böckh approach DLC and language policy issue from the perspective of Information Technology (IT) and social data science perspective. They demonstrate “Digital DLC Models as Instruments for Raising Awareness and Better Understanding of Current Multilingualism in HEI”. The authors concern themselves with the linguistically diverse teachers and students having different skills and proficiency levels in various combinations of languages. The authors are specialists in social data science whose input is still uncommon but so welcome for multilingualism studies. Moccozet and Böckh put forward a DLC-­ digital-­based instrument that enables analyses of linguistic diversity among the university population as well as boosts the IT awareness. The chapter analyses the situation of languages and educational technologies in the higher education sector in Switzerland with the aim to adapt educational services for all the students in an institution. The authors demonstrate the IT possibilities for other universities offering multilingual concrete products. Among the latter are the detailed explication of a prototype server and of how to establish such a server using different available technologies, the algorithms of digital modeling of individual and group DLC, and their visualisation in 3D.  According to the authors, also secondary schools’ and social establishments’ authorities, administration, teachers and students can benefit from understanding their own and each other’s language clusters as units that complement and interact with each other, thus eventually leading to implementation of more multilingual language policies. Part II, called ‘DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Formal Language Education: From Primary to Higher Education’, contains six contributions each variously applying DLC to specific educational issues. The settings include trilingual minority contexts in Northern Italy/Tirol, Luxemburg, Poland, Croatia, Greece, and Portugal and a range of learners’ ages and competencies in their languages. Barbara Hofer sets up the tone with chapter “Applying DLC to the Study and Discussion of Early Multicompetence in a Trilingual Minority Context in Northern Italy”. In her study of multicompetence of young multilinguals at the primary school level, Hofer shows the impact of the multilingual context of South Tyrol with three distinct linguistic communities in close contact, on individual learner-users, their identity, and multilingual competence. The author gives a detailed examination of multilingual profiles at this multilingual setting for the minority and describes a prototypical language constellation. This characteristic of the large majority of autochthonous German-speaking pupils in South Tyrol would contain the national language German (dialect and standard German) and Italian, as dominant or core languages, and English and Ladin, as more peripheral codes. This chapter empirically supports the existence of cases under the new linguistic dispensation when the same territory hosts a number of DLCs: South Tyrol belongs to geographical areas where multiple codes are used to perform daily functions. The chapter clearly leads the reader to derive that the need to selectively and recurrently activate specific

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languages results in very specific DLCs. This, according to the author, increases the child’s agency and action radius in and across the languages. Sofia Stratilaki-Klein takes readers to the social-philosophic realm in order to contemplate DLC with regard to identity construction, representations of language identity, and social life. In her chapter, “Dominant Language Constellations in Luxembourg: Clusters of Identities and Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism”, the author seeks to understand the various meanings and values that engage DLC in the construction of highly changeable plurilingual identity. She maintains that representations of plurilingualism not only reflect social reality, but also indicate a process in development, reconfiguration and reformulation towards a dynamic act of creation of personal plural and reflexive identity via DLC. Inspired by the vivid multilingual settings and complex language practices of Luxemburg, Stratilaki-Klein claims that social representations about DLC are situated in discourse, in verbal interaction as well as in language uses. DLCs are described as meeting points between speakers and languages as modes of interpretation of the social environment, allowing individuals to regulate their reciprocal interactions and adapt their behavior to the situational demands of multilingual society. Following theoretical analyses and discussing two cases of plurilingual identity, the author suggests seeing DLC as made up of diversified linguistic resources and identity strategies of belonging and singularization that allows one to recognize and assert oneself as a social actor. She introduces the notion of ‘Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism’. Notably, this section contains two contributions focusing on mostly monolingual environments which is a novel scholarly interest in multilingual studies proving one more time that linguistic realities are much more complex than we used to think. The following two studies examine the formal instruction settings with similar language school subjects, with participants being modern languages students in higher educational establishments, who thus become multilinguals due to their professional preparations. The contributions by Danuta Gabryś-Barker, dealing with mostly monolingual environments of the Polish region of Silesia, and by Stela Letica Krevelj and Nives Kovačić, from Croatian Zagreb, reveal the particular mechanics behind the mono-bi- and multilingual arrangements of the new linguistic dispensation. They also empirically testify to the concomitant existence and interaction of global mono-bi- and multilingual arrangements (Aronin, 2022, p. 50). Investigating chapter “Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality of Instructed Educational Settings in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context”, Danuta Gabryś-Barker uses original methods. Answering the question of whether, and if so to what an extent, students’ language repertoires ‘turn into’ their DLCs, thus contributing to these speakers’ language identities, the author resorts to analyses not only of visualizations but also of personal metaphors. The author believes that the uniqueness of the individual subjects’ perceptions of their multiple identities is expressed by identity metaphors and DLC visualisations. The study is based on the earlier investigations by the author (Gabryś-Barker, 2014, 2019) which makes it even more reliable and consistent. In addition, in this

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contribution the concept of multilinguality received further development. The implications reported in the study go beyond teacher training of multilinguals. Stela Letica Krevelj and Nives Kovačić examined “DLC of Consecutive Multilinguals Studying Languages in an Officially Monolingual Environment”. The focus of this study is on a description of DLCs of specific group of consecutive multilinguals, university students who share the same L1 Croatian and major in two foreign languages in an officially monolingual environment. Studying multilingual behavior is especially challenging but the researchers overcame the difficulties by employing emic and etic perspectives on the individual use of one’s crucial languages. The authors used written linguistic biographies in the form of narratives to provide subjective perspective on language learning experiences. The contribution of the authors to the DLC theory and practice is the suggestion of an addition to the DLC model in the form of prospective DLC languages, that is, languages that were excluded from the DLCs due to their insufficient proficiency or immediacy of use but have certain importance in the eyes of speakers. The idea of prospective DLC languages is suggested to be used as a methodological tool in describing characteristics of a multilingual population. Drawing on latest research on the relation between DLC and linguistic repertoire, the authors add further ideas with respect to distinguishing between the two. They conclude that the DLC of the multilingual students in an officially monolingual community was ‘mapped largely according to their educational community’ and the constellation and configuration DLC ‘seem to be determined, and possibly to a greater extent than of other profiles of multilingual users, by affective factors which in turn determine which languages perform cognitive and identity functions in their DLC’. Maria Iakovou, Sofia Tsioli and Marina Vihou co-author the chapter titled “Dominant Language Constellation and Plurilingual Awareness: The Case of Student Language Teachers in Greece”. They have a lot to say on how to transform the largely monolingual academic reality of foreign language teaching that have come to a sharp contrast with the present-day multilingualism and the needs of individuals and communities. The study follows identity trajectories from an unconscious multiple monoglossy towards an awareness of plurilingual self. Fourteen students from two Language Faculties of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens were involved in a participatory action research in which DLC concept was used as an analytical tool. Researchers designed a workable gradual process of transforming students’ identity in order to create a space of plurilingual awareness for them. Methodology of the study included the visual representations of ‘language portrait’ accompanied by short texts and ‘roads’, an outstandingly promising tool for multilingualism research created by the Iakovou, Tsioli and Vihou specifically for this study. This tool was used as prompts for the elicitation of participants’ language repertoires and was not used for a visual analysis. Researchers identified distinct combinations of sets of languages, the ‘patterns’ that make up the sum of languages of the participants’ portraits, and individual roads. The distinctive combinations of sets of languages, that is DLCs, were represented in illustrative and informative plots, one more novel form of DLC representation. Further thematic analysis was based on the DLC and language repertoires patterns. The study rich by implications regarding the role various circles and domains

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of social environment demonstrates how SLT plurilingual awareness evolve through guided reflection about their DLCs. “Are Teachers Developing Strategies to Enhance the Use of DLC in the Learning of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in English-­Dominant Classrooms?”, asks Jorge Pinto. The participants of the study are 16 teachers of Portuguese as a foreign language. The focus of research and implications for teachers of languages other than English nor few other common international languages are hard to overestimate. The author calls for applying a multilingual teaching methodology to teaching Portuguese as a modern language and using the DLC approach to foster learners’ multilingual awareness. The analysis of teachers’ practices, their beliefs on multilingual teaching, and their students’ awareness on the DLC revealed a common DLC for the group of students and teachers that participated in the investigation. An informative result of the study is in that English as a lingua franca did not decrease the opportunities to use the classroom’s DLC for learning and teaching, being rather limited to few specific situations. The study yielded findings that are valuable to teachers of other languages too. Among the findings is the need for more knowledge among the teachers about multilingual teaching. This, in the view of the author, would deter monolingual teaching tradition in favour of multilingual and multicultural language education. Part III is dedicated to teacher education and professional development and is titled ‘DLC-Identity-Awareness Triade in Teacher Education and Professional Development’. Three of the four contributions deal with the pre-service teachers’ awareness and professional identity as seen with the help of their DLC. One contribution is concerned with the primary school teachers. Lisa Marie Brinkmann discusses student teachers’ beliefs, as those expressed in the following statement: ‘Speaking about my languages promotes my language awareness’. Since student teacher beliefs have a priming effect on their future encounters with students at school, the author set to gain insight into Spanish language student teachers’ DLC and their beliefs about language awareness. The qualitative empirical study features five Spanish language student teachers from Hamburg, who were asked to visualise and describe their DLC and to explain how they view LA as enhancing learning in the Spanish language classroom. The main result bringing special value to this study is the existence and description by the researcher of three patterns of DLC. They were found to differ in whether they included heritage languages in the core DLC or consisted of the majority language and/or foreign languages. The author then crisscrossed the description of Spanish student teachers’ individual DLC and their beliefs about the implementation of activities focusing on language awareness. Brinkmann concludes that the analysis of DLCs is conducive to appreciating teachers’ beliefs about LA and its role in fostering language learning. The practical outcome of this exploratory study is the hypothesis that the self-assessment of student-teachers’ individual DLCs and their experiences with languages might influence what teaching and learning strategies teachers will value and promote in the future.

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“Pre-­service Teachers’ Professional Identity and Representations of English as a Foreign Language: Toward a Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation?” is the title of Ana Sofia Pinho’s chapter. The author analyses English student teachers’ representations of EFL teaching and their professional identity in the context of Master Program of Teaching English in Primary School at the University of Lisbon. The methodology of the study consists of the analysis of student teachers’ visual representations of EFL teaching and themselves as teachers and the use of the corpus of 39 drawings and corresponding written explanations. This methodology is based in the claim that the process of narrative positioning displays teacher-­students’ situated subjectivities. Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation (DLTC) is used as a tool supporting identification of salient representations of EFL teaching. The author brings to readers’ attention the evidence of different student-teachers’ subjectivities in the making and their fluid professional identity. Pinho employs a critical pedagogy perspective with the purpose of suggesting ethical and political implications for teacher education. The author plays with the intended semantic meaning of the word ‘dominant’ in the DLC notion, moving it to denote dominating and pressing instead and this time hinting to teaching of colonial languages as prearranged in by curricula management. She calls for designing teacher education environments that would afford student teachers’ critical multilingual language awareness and a perspective of EFL as political action. Chapter “The Dynamics of Dominant Language Constellations: Moments of Linguistic ‘Ecological Transition’ as Portrayed by Pre-­service Foreign Language Teachers” is written by Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer. The chapter builds on creative and workable fusing of the Bronfenbrenner theories of human development, DLC approach, and the previous distinction of the author between ‘latent DLC’ and ‘real DLC’ and carries on to the theoretical anchoring of the significant moments of linguistic ecological transition that are important to explain internal changes in an individual’s DLC across their lifespan. Viewing the student-teachers as social actors, in order to research their socio-linguistic development as well as their own perception of it, the author argues that to move from latent to actual DLC (and the other way around), individuals have to go through significant changes in their linguistic identities (multilingualities). Participants in the study are 20 German-speaking students who study French and teaching French at the University of Hamburg. Through the multimodal analysis of visual linguistic autobiographies, and the content analysis of the texts student-teachers produced about them, Melo-Pfeifer describes, analyses, and classifies the moments of ecological transition student teaches go through. The researcher found out three crucial moments contributing to the constitution and transformation of students’ DLC: learning the majority language (German), language learning as part of the school curriculum (mainly French and English, for the present cohort of students), and being exposed to a heritage language (namely by having a migrant background). A reader will also find possible answers to burning questions such as which ecological transitions are perceived as facilitating and which are hindering for rendering potential DLCs into actual ones. The optimistic message of all the contributions of the third part is well formulated in the title of the chapter written by Suzanne V. Dekker, Linde M. Koostra,

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Hanneke Loerts and Joana Duarte: “We Can Do More With It: Dominant Language Constellations of Teachers in Multilingual Frisian Primary Schools”. The study examines the self-reported DLCs of primary in-service schoolteachers in the province of Fryslân, in the Netherlands. In particular, through the DLC approach, the researchers studied the patterns of the reported individual and collective DLCs and the prevalent attitudes towards them. The theoretical core of the study is at the same time a very practical one and includes several essential findings. One of them is the creative and productive categorization of the DLCs into three levels depending on teachers’ views of their pupils’ languages: acknowledged, semi-integrated, and included. Methodologically thorough, with informative quotes from the teachers, tables and DLC-maps, the study invites readers for further thinking and comparisons. This is especially true about the synoptic typology of teachers’ DLCs, attitudes, knowledge, and practical skills, which is predicated on the three types of teachers according to their positive attitude to multilingual education: tolerant, welcoming, and inclusive. Drawing on the intersection of analytic categories such as language repertoire, translanguaging, visuality, and narratives, this volume particularly emphasises the connections between DLCs, language awareness, and multilingual identity. The contributions highlight, from different contextual perspectives and considering different educational actors, how the DLC paradigm renews perspectives on multilingual development in formal learning environments, and on pre- and in-service language teacher development.

References Anya, U. (2018). Racialized identities in second language learning. Routledge. Aronin, L. (2022). An advanced guide to multilingualism. Edinburgh University Press. https:// edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-­an-­advanced-­guide-­to-­multilingualism.html Aronin, L., & Coetze van Rooy, S. (2022). Emerging trends in multilingual learning and teaching: Beyond edges and borders. AILA Review, 35(1), 155–171. Aronin, L., & Singleton, D. (2012). Multilingualism. John Benjamins. Aronin, L., & Moccozet, L. (2021). Dominant language constellations: Towards online computer-­ assisted modelling. International Journal of Multilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/1479071 8.2021.1941975 Aronin, L., & Vetter, E. (Eds.). (2021). Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition. Springer. Ayres-Bennett, W., & Fisher, L. (2022). Towards interdisciplinarity in multilingual identity research: Differing perspectives and common ground. In W.  Ayres-Bennett & L.  Fisher (Eds.), Multilingualism and identity. Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp.  1–18). Cambridge University Press. Bedos-Rezak, B. M. (2000). Medieval identity: A sign and a concept. The American Historical Review, 105(5), 1489–1533. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/105.5.1489 Block, D. (2014). Moving beyond “lingualism”: Multilingual embodiment and multimodality in SLA. In S. May (Ed.), The multilingual turn (pp. 54–77). Routledge. Block, D., & Corona, V. (2016). Intersectionality in language and identity research. In S. Preece (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and identity (pp. 507–522). Routledge.

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Candelier, M. (coord.), Camilleri-Grima, A., Castellotti, V., De Pietro, J.-F., Lörincz, I., Meissner, F.-J., Schröder-Sura, A., & Noguerol, A. (2007). Framework of reference for pluralistic approaches to languages and cultures. Conseil de l’Europe. Cheung, Y. L., Ben Said, S., & Park, K. (Eds.). (2015). Advances and current trends in language teacher identity research. Routledge. D’warte, J., & Sommerville, M. (2014). Language mapping: Researching marginalized students’ everyday language and literacy practices. In S. Gannon & W. Sawyer (Eds.), Contemporary issues of equity in education (pp. 55–58). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Ellis, E. (2016). The plurilingual TESOL teacher. De Gruyter. Fairclough, N. (Ed.). (1992). Critical language awareness. Longman. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2005). Aspects of multilingual storage, processing and retrieval. Wydawnictwo Universitetu Śląskiego. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2014). Face to face with one’s thoughts: On thinking multilingually. In M.  Pawlak & L.  Aronin (Eds.), Essential topics in applied linguistics and multilingualism. Studies in Honor of David Singleton (pp. 185–204). Springer. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2019). Applied linguistics and multilingualism. In D. Singleton & L. Aronin (Eds.), Twelve lectures on multilingualism (pp. 35–64). Multilingual Matters. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2021, December 2). Challenges of multilingual education in a (largely) monolingual context. Plenary presentation at the Winter Roundtable on Multilingual Education. Universitat Jaume I Castelló, Spain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlpJjXXLytg Garrett, P., & Cots, J.  M. (Eds.). (2018). The Routledge handbook of language awareness. Routledge. Ibrahim, N.  C. (2022). Visual and artefactual approaches in engaging teachers with multilingualism: Creating DLCs in pre-service teacher education. Languages, 7(2), 152. https://doi. org/10.3390/languages7020152 Jasanoff, A. (2018). The biological mind: How brain, body, and environment collaborate to make us who we are. Basic Books. Jessner, U. (2006). Linguistic awareness in multilinguals: English as a third language. Edinburgh University Press. Jessner, U. (2019). Metalinguistic awareness and multilingual development. Language Contact, 45  in the series Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science [HSK]. De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi. org/10.1515/9783110435351 Kalaja, P., & Melo-Pfeifer, S. (Eds.). (2019). Visualising multilingual lives. More than words. Multilingual Matters. Kalaja, P., & Pitkänen-Huhta, A. (2018). ALR special issue: Visual methods in applied language studies. Applied Linguistics Review, 9(2–3), 157–176. https://doi.org/10.1515/ applirev-­2017-­0005 Kannangara, S. (2020). The evolution of personal dominant language constellations based on the amount of usage of the languages. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A perspective on present-day multilingualism. Educational Linguistics (Vol. 47, 169–186). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­52336-­7_9 Krevelj, S. (2020). Studying crosslinguistic interaction in multilingual production through the dominant language constellation. In J.  Lo Bianco & L.  Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A perspective on present-day multilingualism. Educational Linguistics (Vol. 47, 211–229). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­52336-­7_11 Lo Bianco, J. (2020). A meeting of concepts and praxis: Multilingualism, language policy and the dominant language constellation. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 35–56). Springer. Lo Bianco, J., & Aronin, L. (Eds.). (2020). Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­52336-­7 Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind: A theory of material engagement. MIT-Press.

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Malafouris, L. (2016). Material engagement and the embodied mind. In T. Wynn & F. L. Coolidge (Eds.), Cognitive models in Palaeolithic archaeology (pp. 69–82). Oxford University Press. Martínez Agudo, J. (Ed.). (2017). Native and non-native teachers in English language classroom. De Gruyter. Martín-Fernández, J., Gabarrós, A., & Fernandez-Coello, A. (2022). Intraoperative brain mapping in multilingual patients: What do we know and where are we going? Brain Sciences, 12, 560. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12050560 Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2021). Exploiting foreign language student-teachers’ visual language biographies to challenge the monolingual mind-set in foreign language education. International Journal of Multilingualism, 18(4), 601–618. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2021.1945067 Melo-Pfeifer, S., & Chik, A. (2022). Multimodal linguistic biographies of prospective foreign language teachers in Germany: Reconstructing beliefs about languages and multilingual language learning in initial teacher education. International Journal of Multilingualism, 19(4), 499–522. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2020.1753748 Nightingale, R. (2020). A dominant language constellations perspective on language use and the affective domain: A case study of a Moroccan immigrant living in the Valencian community. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A perspective on present-­ day multilingualism. Springer. Educational Linguistics (Vol. 47, 231–259). Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­52336-­7_12 Prasad, G. (2015). Beyond the mirror towards a plurilingual prism: Exploring the creation of plurilingual “identity texts” in English and French classrooms in Toronto and Montpellier. Intercultural Education, 26(6), 497–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2015.1109775 Tabaro Soares, C., Duarte, J., & Günther-van der Meij, M. (2020). ‘Red is the colour of the heart’: Making young children’s multilingualism visible through language portraits. Language and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2020.1833911 Yazan, B., & Lindahl, K. (Eds.). (2020). Language teacher identity in TESOL. Routledge.

Part I

DLC, Identity, Awareness, and Language Policy

Dominant Language Constellations and Language Policy and Planning in Two Settings: Perspectives from Tunisia Fethi Helal

Abstract  This chapter combines a perspective on language policy and planning (LPP) as text, discourse and performance with the sociolinguistic account of multilingualism known as DLC, or dominant language constellations (DLC). Drawing on analytical categories developed within the discourse-historical approach of LPP, the chapter investigates the discursive strategies employed by Tunisian school curriculum designers and cultural/social élites to refer to the DLC, or aspects of it, in the General Curriculum (2017) and opinion newspaper articles debating issues of language and national identity (2011–2021). The analysis is grounded within a post Arab-Spring context characterized, inter alia, by a protracted postcolonial language conflict, democratic failure, the upsurge of populism and an acute socioeconomic and educational crisis. The findings indicated that both texts, the official/legal and public, base the DLCs (and therefore national identity) on compartmentalized, hierarchical and parallel linguistic categories as well as a monolingual worldview whose defining discursive features are denial, erasure and ideological mystification of the DLCs. The chapter ends by discussing the heuristic power of the DLC concept to repudiate élites’ essentialist and reductive language ideologies and to act as a framework for adopting a language policy anchored in sociolinguistic facts rather than ideological categories. Keywords  DLC · Language policy and planning · National identity · Multilingualism · Official text · Critical discourse analysis · Language ideology · Language awareness

F. Helal (*) Department of English, University of Manouba, Manouba, Tunisia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_2

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1 Introduction This chapter combines a perspective on LPP as text, discourse and performance (Lo Bianco, 2008) with the heuristic and analytical power of an approach to multilingualism known as DLC or dominant language constellations (Aronin, 2016, 2020). The global superdiverse multilingual and multimodal semiotic transformations in the communicative practices of late modern societies have been amply documented. Studies conducted from the lens of translanguaging (for example, Canagarajah, 2013; García & Wei, 2014) have demonstrated the way these linguistic and semiotic practices intermingle and intermesh in educational settings (Lin & Lo, 2017), linguistic landscapes (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015), graffiti (Pennycook, 2010), rap and hip-­ hop music (Bach-Baoueb, 2020), as well as digital communication (Daoudi, 2011). Such studies have challenged the  approaches which treat languages as bounded, self-contained and enumerable entities with some writers castigating them as ideological constructs associated with nineteenth century European nation-states (Pennycook, 2016), an invention (Makoni & Pennycook, 2005), a modernist fiction (Bauman et al., 2003) or a myth (Harris, 2013). These studies have described the integrated, overlapping, fluid and dynamic nature of the real-life communicative practices of individuals, communities and institutions as well as the diverse multimodal resources available to these parties favouring an approach which focuses on speakers’ linguistic repertoires (Busch, 2012), small-niched repertoires (Blommaert, 2009), translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013), translanguaging (García & Wei, 2014) and recently dominant language constellations or DLCs (Aronin, 2016) rather than such familiar sociolinguistic concepts as standard languages, foreign language, native speakers, bilingualism and code-switching. Although the concepts of language repertoire, DLC and translanguaging are mutually constitutive, they differ in some respects. While language repertoire comprises the totality of languages, codes, registers, genres and skills possessed by an individual or a community, DLC encompasses the most salient and working languages or skills of the speaker’s repertoire (Aronin, 2020). DLC is the modelling of an individual or community’s language repertoire. It is ‘the active usage of an empirically verifiable cluster of languages’ (Lo Bianco and Aronin, 2020: 3). Translanguaging, on the other hand, refers to the deployment of ‘one’s idiolect, that is, one’s linguistic repertoire, without regard for socially and politically defined language names and labels’. Translanguaging goes ‘beyond the boundaries of named languages and language varieties’ to emphasize the everyday informal practices of individuals and communities (Wei, 2018, p. 19). Postcolonial societies such as in the Maghreb are multilingual and undergoing deep socio-political and post-colonial language change. These changes are characterised by ongoing language conflicts, secular-religious strife, unachieved de-­ colonial Arabization, multilingual policy failure coupled with economic dependence and an educational crisis (Helal,  2019a, b, 2022; Kabel, 2018). Kabel (2018, pp. 488–489), for example, describes public education in these countries as suffering from ‘a dismal state of decrepitude, grist to the neoliberal mill of international

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organizations and non-governmental organizations. It is embedded in a highly stratified educational market (and its correlative linguistic market).’ It features the symbolic dominance of European languages; namely, French and English, which ‘cater to the needs of privileged classes.’ Thus, rather than ‘serving as a lever for social mobility, public education generally reproduces marginality’. Within these societies, where elements of the DLC can be labelled, ranked, numbered, chastised or extolled on the basis of a variety of criteria and qualities, the translanguaging movement may fail to address not only the ‘politics of representation’ (Blommaert, 1999, p. 431) of named languages, but also the structures of hierarchy, authority, and domination that characterize DLCs. Although translanguaging studies have provided considerable insights into our understanding of the nature of language, community, identity, and the heteroglossic practices of real-life communication, such studies might lead to the impression that named languages could be dissolved in favour of such constructs as metrolingualism (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2014), transglossia (Dovchin et  al., 2018), and transidiomatic practices (Jacquemet, 2005), to name just a few of such proliferating neologisms. Lo Bianco (2020) points out that current accounts of multilingualism, such as translanguaging, seem ‘to insist on limitless inclusion of new forms of communication diversity, with no apparent rules for determining boundaries’ (p. 263). He argues that in policy settings, DLC is a tractable concept which could function as a heuristic for a differentiated analysis and description of general multilingualism (Lo Bianco, 2020, p. 37). DLC is a notion that allows scholars of language in society to better interact with policymakers. This is an aspiration that might be hard to realise with more ‘person-centred’ descriptions of multilingualism such as translanguaging. Although the daily language use in Tunisia is characterised by considerable degree of language mixing, named languages are imbued with considerable symbolic capital and socio-political power. Saraceni and Jacob (2019, p. 6) argued this point unequivocally when they stated that ‘while the notion of translanguaging helps us describe language behaviours in more adequate ways and can also usefully inform pedagogical practice, the political as well as practical consequences and potential benefits of nationally-defined languages must also be seriously considered within a sociolinguistics of globalization.’ Similarly, Wee (2016, p. 335) warns that seemingly ‘defunct’ concepts or ‘zombies’ like named languages, nation-states, identity and speech communities which ‘may appear to be zombies from a primarily theoretical perspective are in fact still very much alive and kicking when we bring in social intervention’, that is, LPP. He goes on to argues that such idea does not preclude, of course, challenging ‘certain traditional ideas about language and, if possible, rendered defunct. But it is important to be sensitive to the possibility of opposition and resistance, especially if traditional ideas are still vital because individuals and communities have stakes in them’ (p. 335). As an approach to multilingualism, DLC shares with the translanguaging movement the view of overcoming the monolingual bias that has dominated applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. It attempts to describe the concrete integrated patterns emerging from real-life communication. However, the concept of DLC focuses on the role and function played by the operative and salient languages within a certain community. It restricts the

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focus to the languages (typically three or four) that serve most immediately and fully the communication needs of individuals and communities. The organization of this chapter is as follows. First, it outlines the perspective on LPP taken in the present study and clarifies its relationship with the concept of DLC. It will then provide an overview of postcolonial language policies in Tunisia from the perspective of DLC.  The chapter will then outline the methodology employed to analyse the way DLCs are deployed in official text and public discourse. These two dimensions of LPP are substantiated by two modes of LPP activity: (a) the General Curriculum (GC, The Ministry of Education, 2017) as official text; and (b) public debates on language-related national identity (2011–2021). Therefore, the chapter extends the analytical and practical power of the concept of DLC to examine its shifting conceptualisations and roles on moving from the official to the public as well as the discursive and rhetorical.

2 DLC: A Differentiated Perspective on Multilingual Language Policy and Planning Despite the ubiquity of multilingualism in Tunisia, the analytical and applied affordances of the DLC concept have not been previously explored. Aronin (2020) developed the concept of DLC as an additional perspective on, and as a unit of analysis in, multilingualism. Lo Bianco (2020, p. 39) argues that the concept of DLC departs ‘from undifferentiated accounts of linguistic pluralism to precise accounts of domains, settings or contexts, that are characterized by identifiable clusters of languages.’ As a model, DLC ‘delimits, specifies, and systematises the data regarding how multi-linguals and groups deal with multiple languages concurrently’ (Aronin, 2020, p. 19). DLCs provide concrete manifestations not only of how the resources of multilingualism are distributed across settings and communities, but also a lens through which issues of equity and access to such resources can be assessed. DLC studies both the synchronic, contemporary stabilized-for-now linguistic dispensation, and the historically evolving translingual practices of individuals and social groups (Aronin & Singleton, 2008). The current Tunisian linguistic dispensation has emerged from an extant hypothetical Libyc-Berber, Punico-Latin and secondarily Greek substrate and post-Arabization superstrates comprising Turkish, Spanish, Italian, French and English. According to Baccouche and Mejri (2004, p.  321), the traces of the earlier substrates ‘sont toujours perceptibles dans l’anthroponymie dont on peut citer les exemples suivants: du punique, Carthage, Utique, Binzart, Gabes, Gafsa, Qerqna, etc. du latin, Hergla, Ra:des, Lamta, etc.; du grec, Qli: bya, Qurbus, Misti:r, Hergla Na:bel, etc.’ The current linguistic dispensation has also been the result of the colonial, postcolonial and decolonial education policies, political choices, power relations, population mobility and the current global trends and flows (Appadurai, 1996). Aronin (2020, p. 25) draws on Braudel’s (1958) historiographical concepts of longue durée (long-term) and courte durée

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(évenement) in order to capture the synchronic as well as diachronic dimensions of DLC.  While courte durée refers to ‘the time people can see, feel and control’, longue-durée attempts to encapsulate the slow-moving processes ‘of social, political and economic systems’ which ‘are beyond the reach of individuals’ (Blommaert, 1999, p. 4). Aronin (2020, pp. 22–25) further enhances the longue durée concept by the overlapping notion of Complexity/Dynamic systems (Larsen-Freeman, 2016) in order to understand the complexity of multilingualism. Both approaches, Braudel’s historiography and Complexity/Dynamic theory, are attempts to ground the DLC concept within the ‘overlapping, intertwining and conflictual temporalities’, (Blommaert, 1999, p. 4) of late modern societies. Lo Bianco (2020, p. 47) suggests that DLCs represent a kind of settled historical outcome of processes of LPP.  As an academic activity, LPP emerged during the 1950s–60s as an allegedly principled scientific intervention in the practical language problems faced by the newly independent multilingual African and Asian nations. LPP was defined as ‘as a rational and technical process’ and an ‘organized pursuit of solutions to language problems, typically at the national level’ (Fishman, 1973, pp.  23–24). The bulk of LPP activity consisted of selection, codification, implementation and elaboration of norms for new languages to serve the administrative, economic, security, and national unification and modernization objectives of the newly independent nation-states (Haugen, 1966). Scholars (e.g. Cooper, 1989) expanded LPP activity to status planning, corpus planning and acquisition planning. While status planning is concerned with the official or juridical standing of a language in relation to other languages, corpus-planning deals with the standardisation of language forms through such activities as the creation of dictionaries and grammars. Acquisition planning aims to influence the learning of a language by specific groups and communities usually through education. In his intellectual history of LPP, Ricento (2000, p. 198) points out that the early phase of LPP was characterized by a view that ‘linguistic diversity presented obstacles for national development, while linguistic homogeneity was associated with modernization.’ For this reason, a major European language (usually French or English) should be used for formal and specialized domains relegating therefore local (indigenous) languages to other functions. With the failure of socioeconomic ‘take-off’ in these countries, classical LPP theory came under disrepute. It was attacked for its treatment of LPP as a neutral and technical problem-solving activity, its indifference to structural socioeconomic asymmetries and inequalities as well as its marginalization of indigenous forms of communication and therefore of local identities (Ricento, 2000). In an incisive earlier critique, Luke et  al. (1990) contended that LPP had been overly concerned with maintaining a ‘veneer of scientific objectivity’, and had ‘tended to avoid directly addressing larger social and political matters within which language change, use and development, and indeed LP itself, are embedded’ (p. 27). Luke et al.’s point is that by viewing LPP as an essentially rational and technocratic process, classical LP had failed to address the specific interests served by those particular policies as well as the ‘relationship between language, discourse, ideology and social organization’ (p. 27).

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Influenced by Ball’s (1993, p. 44) formulation of policy as text and discourse, recent LPP scholarship (Barakos & Unger, 2016; Johnson, 2013; Lo Bianco, 2008; Spolsky, 2012) has shifted from the analysis of state and institutional top-down policies to the investigation of the situated practices of individual social actors, and their agency to comply with, or resist, these policies. This shift has launched what Johnson (2016, p. 14) called the fourth wave of LPP studies. Spolsky (2012), for example, proposed three inter-related modalities through which LPP takes place. The first refers to language practices, that is, habits of using language. The second component encompasses the values, beliefs and ideologies about language shared by members of the speech community. The third is language management, traditionally language planning, that is, the deliberate intervention in LP via regulations and laws. A more discourse-oriented approach to LPP has been advocated by Lo Bianco, the most notable practitioner in this emerging fourth wave. Lo Bianco (2004, p. 743) has suggested that in addition to corpus and status planning, LPP needs to recognize discourse planning in order ‘to understand the constitution of language problems as a performative practice, engaging both traditional notions of rhetoric and persuasive talk, but also the actual accomplishment of goals of LP through ideological structuring’ (Lo Bianco, 2004, p. 751). In a later formulation, Lo Bianco (2008, p. 157) proposes a model of LP comprising three activities: (a) the textual (e.g. laws, reports, authorisations), (b) the discursive (e.g. public speeches, radio debates), (c) the performative involving the modelling and enactment of communicative behaviours and practices by powerful individuals or institutions (for a validation of Lo Bianco’s categories, see Fitzsimmons-Doolan, 2019). The performative dimension will not be covered here, so the present paper will be limited to the investigation of DLC in two LP activities: (a) official text exemplified by the Tunisian General Curriculum (GC 2017); (b) policy as public discourse substantiated here by Opinion Newspaper Articles (ONAs) debating mainstream DLC-­ inflected national identity (2011–2021).

3 Planning DLCs in Postcolonial Tunisia: A Planning of Paradoxes There is a wide agreement in the literature that since independence, the linguistic policy in Tunisia has been shaped by the elites who fought for independence from France (1881–1956), particularly, Bourguiba (1903–2000), first President of independent Tunisia (1956–1987). Bourguiba and the members of the Neo-Destour Party were former graduates of the bilingual school system (Sadiki College, Carnot School) and French universities. Since the early days of independence, the debate centred on the status of French and Arabic and the overall sociocultural orientation of the country. In the Francophone summit organized in Canada on May 11, 1968 Bourguiba (1903–2000) proudly made the following statement with regard to the LP that his government opted for:

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La Tunisie ne renie rien de son passé dont la langue arabe est l’expression. Mais elle sait bien aussi que c’est grâce à la maîtrise d’une langue comme le français qu’elle participe pleinement à la culture et à la vie du monde moderne. (Bourguiba, 1968) In this passage, Bourguiba speaks of the adoption of a bilingual/bicultural system of education which seems to attribute two irreconcilable functions to two named languages: Arabic and French. Arabic, certainly in its standard form, named fuṣḥā, is viewed as the language of the Arab-Muslim cultural tradition, the language of authenticity. Arabic is not only the language of the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings (Hadith), it is also the language of the ‘golden age’ of Arab Muslim literary and scientific tradition (turath). Bourguiba does not negate this past, which finds its expression in Arabic. Arabic is therefore perceived as the language of the past, the Arab-Muslim heritage. French, on the other hand, is predicated as the language of modernity. It is the vehicle of ‘today’s world technology’, ‘the culture and the life of the modern world’ and therefore communication with the rest of the world. At no point, however, did Bourguiba refer to Berber, the language of the Berber-speaking community or Tunisian Arabic, named dārija, the language of daily communication, despite his very well-known high command of this variety. From a DLC perspective, postcolonial LP in Tunisia/Maghreb has been built on disaggregating the DLCs by attributing divergent ideological functions to each variety. It is a paradoxical LPP which associates the national language with the past, tradition and religion, devitalizes the ‘indigenous’ languages, TA and Berber, and embraces French, the ex-colonial language, as the language of modernity, as if modernity could be expressed only in the ex-colonial language. Deconstructing the official LPP vocabulary after independence, Jerad (2004, p. 428) argues that this policy, which rests on the ‘fallacious discursive categories of authenticity and modernity’, has prioritized the ex-colonial language, labelling it as the ‘langue étrangère privilégiée’ or ‘langue véhiculaire des sciences et des techniques’, and Arabic, the national official language, synonymously associated in Bourguiba’s speech with classical Arabic. Neither of these two languages (French and Classical Arabic), however, is the native language of the Tunisian people. According to her, this policy, which is based on ‘ideological categories’ rather than linguistic facts (p. 437), has ‘nurtured self-hatred’ and resulted in a lingering and chronic identity crisis which is present today in Tunisian public discourse (Helal, 2019a, b). In a demographic study, Bouhdiba (2011) distinguished three major phases with regard to the linguistic policy adopted by Tunisia after independence: (a) the bilingual (Arabic-French) era (1956–1972); (b) the Arabization movement (1973–1990), and (c) the maintenance of Arabic and the progressive return of French (1991–2011). English has been taught as a separate subject since the 1960s. Its needs are felt at later levels; namely, at the graduate career when advanced students need this language to access quality research, seek international visibility and promotion by publishing their research in English-only journals (Labassi, 2009). In recent years, following the Arab Spring there have been periodical calls by officials and the public at large to replace French by English as the medium of instruction of science, technology, finance and economics. On October 26, 2016, the Tunisian Minister of

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Education, Néji Jalloul, declared that the next reform of the education system would make English the second official language in schools, instead of French. This declaration, which sparked a media hype, antagonized the Francophiles, appeased the Francophobes and alerted the sceptics. Nevertheless, these controversies may be revealing of the use of the elements of the DLC to do politics by proxy ‘enable[ing] ideological brokers to do politics through language, in the sense that talk about language becomes talk about the extra-linguistic world’ (Suleiman, 2013, p. 5).

4 The Present Study: Database and Methodology The methodology concerns specifically the way the data were collected as well as the analytical procedures employed. The two datasets analysed in this study are: (a) the General Curriculum (2017); (b) opinion articles debating language identity issues (2011–2021).

4.1 Dataset A: The General Curriculum (September 2017) The field of curriculum studies has not been part of the educational tradition in France and French-speaking countries (Forquin, 1995). Curricular issues have been tackled mostly, though indirectly, by historians and educational sociologists (e.g. Bouhdiba, 2011). However, in the past few years, a reflection around the concept of curriculum as a plan of action about the vision and mission of school, its outcomes, content and evaluation has been developed. This is in contrast with English-speaking countries where curriculum studies are a major sector of the educational sciences (Priestley & Sinnema, 2014). In Tunisia, the introduction of the present curriculum-­ based program has been instigated by the perceived problems associated with the previously adopted competency-based approach (Ammar, 2017) and the failure to institute a comprehensive educational reform, which was started by previous Minister of Education Néji Jalloul (2015–2017) and published in The White Book (The Ministry of Education, 2016). Especially alarming were the results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which indicated that Tunisia was among the five lowest performing nations among the 70 participating countries in 2015 in the three areas evaluated (mathematics, reading and science). The results of Tunisia compared with the average for the OECD countries are shown in Table 1. The Tunisian educational system suffers also from other upheavals such as the high number of dropouts, specifically in the interior regions (more than 100 thousand pupils per year). At the university level, half the number of students fail their first year and one third their second. This is jeopardized by the higher levels of unemployment rates among graduates, especially in the natural sciences, humanities and management (43–56%). Moreover, Tunisian universities are poorly ranked in the major international ranking systems such as the Shanghai Jiao Tong University

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Table 1  PISA scores results 2015 Tunisia OECD average

Science 386 493

Reading 361 493

Mathematics 367 490

Source: PISA 2015 Results in Focus (OECD, 2018)

Ranking (2021). It was within this context that the GC was drafted by the Commission Nationale du Curriculum Général Tunisien under the supervision of the Direction Générale des Programmes de la Formation Continue and in collaboration with the French Centre International d’Études Pédagogiques (CIEP). Although this version has not been adopted immediately, according to an official from the Ministry of Education (personal communication), the GC is the basis of all current discussions of developing common frameworks of reference for: teaching competencies, inspectors, training, curricular elaboration, students’ textbooks and teaching aids, standards of evaluation, and languages.

4.2 Dataset B: Opinion Newspaper Articles (2011–2021) The texts analysed in this study are opinion articles published in the national press in Arabic and French. All articles were accessed online from the turess.com (Tunisie Press). This site collects and publishes news and articles from 45 Tunisian newspapers. It algorithmically categorizes and updates them according to their order of importance. Since the process of categorizing these articles is automatically generated, the topics are not selected according to their political or intellectual positions. The website may therefore be representative of the spectrum of opinions and ideological orientations shared by all Tunisian ‘cultural elites.’ Articles were searched using keywords in French and their equivalents in Arabic: langue et tunisianité, langue et éducation, langue et identité nationale. The major selection criteria were that at least one of these words should appear contiguously or non-contiguously in the articles. The author further read each article to make sure that it was related to language issues. The completed corpus comprised 98 articles in French and Arabic. The method of analysis employed to analyse the corpus of newspaper texts is derived from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), particularly the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) developed by Reisigl and Wodak (2015). The DHA assumes that a nation is a mental construct, ‘an imagined community’ (Anderson, 1983), where discourse contributes to its creation, perpetuation, transformation or change. Wodak et al. (2009, p. 187) identified four major topical clusters of national identity: (1) the construction of a homo nationalis, (2) the narration and construction of a shared national past, present and future, (3) appeal to a shared national language and culture, and (4) the construction of a ‘national body’. In all these processes, it is evident that language as both medium and object plays a central role. This can be illustrated by identifying the nomination, predication, argumentation,

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perspectivation, intensification and mitigation strategies employed by social actors to construct DLCs in discourse. DHA emphasizes analysis of texts within their situational, institutional and social context. As a form of social practice, discourse is dialectically shaped by, and shaping of ‘objects of knowledge, situations and social roles as well as identities and interpersonal relations between different social groups and those who interact with them’ (Wodak et al., 2009, p. 8). Especially important is the notion of discourse strategy, which Reisigl and Wodak (2015, p. 33) define as ‘a more or less accurate and more or less intentional plan of practices (including discursive practices) adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological or linguistic aim’. As this study constitutes a foray into the investigation of Tunisian nationalist identity from CDA-DLC-LPP perspectives, the analysis focuses primarily on the ways of naming and describing employed by Tunisian social/cultural élites to construct the DLC or aspects of it in public discourse (see Helal, for further details, 2019b, p. 420).

5 Results and Discussion This section outlines the rhetorical structure of the French-medium 34-page GC and describes the discourse strategies employed to nominate and predicate the DLCs in this document.

5.1 The General Curriculum: Rhetorical Structure 1. Emphasizing the importance of education in independent Tunisia as a lever for social mobility. 2. Valorising public education for training Tunisian citizens and strengthening their Arab-Islamic belonging and openness to world cultures. 3. Detailing the deficiencies of public education (inequity, decline in literacy standards) 4. Emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift i.e. from the fragmentation of knowledge to systemic and holistic understanding. 5. Defining the meaning of ‘curriculum’ 6. Specifying the outline of the curriculum 7. Aligning the curriculum with the objectives of the Constitution (2014):

(a) Consolidation of the Arab-Muslim identity and openness to universal human values. (b) Developing multiple intelligences, critical thinking, effective communication (c) Ensuring the mastery of Arabic language, as the national language, and the learning of, at least, two other foreign languages.

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8. Specifying the principles of public education (equity, quality, good governance). 9. Defining and detailing the mission of public education (educate, instruct, cultivate and socialize). 10. Defining graduates’ profile (building a balanced personality, respect of human rights and republican values, enhancing confidence, motivation, developing reflective and entrepreneurial skills). 11. Specifying the domains of learning:

(a) Languages and communication, (b) Training for citizenship (c) Cultures and worldviews (d) Scientific, technical and methodical reasoning.

1 2. Specifying the pedagogical orientation: learner-centred approaches 13. School itinerary

(a) Basic education: pre-school, primary and foundation (age 16, compulsory) (b) Secondary school (4 years- Baccalaureate)

1 4. Evaluation systems (summative, formative, diagnostic, placement) 15. Future action: developing common frameworks of reference for: teaching competencies, inspectors, training, curricular elaboration, students’ textbooks and teaching aids, standards of evaluation, and languages. 16. Reference: the Tunisian Constitution (Articles 39, 42, 43, 47, 48).

5.2 Discursive Construction of the DLC in the General Curriculum Apart from its technical and pedagogical aspects, the GC seems to be driven by four major objectives: (a) integrating global/western culture without compromising deeply-held Arab-Islamic beliefs, (b) bridging the gap between education and the job market, (c) adopting learner-centred approaches which go beyond the instrumentalist aspects of education to embrace the values of citizenship, freedom, and (d) emphasizing interdisciplinary and complex thinking. As it is the case in France and countries influenced by it, the organization, content and style of the document seem to reflect the tension between an ‘encyclopaedic ideal aiming at rationality, universality and fairness and the new requirements for flexibility, individuality and usefulness’ (Forquin, 1995, p. 202). The emphasis on the lack of connection between educational curricular and the job market seems to be motivated by the growing dissatisfaction with the liberal arts educational model which produced too many graduates who turned out to be unemployable. The emphasis on entrepreneurialism and flexibility seems be related to the influence of the discourse and vocabulary of such

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neoliberal-oriented international organizations as the Paris-based OECD and the World Bank (WB). To focus on the DLCs now more directly, the word language is mentioned 14 times. Arabic, certainly in its standard/fuṣḥā variety, is construed as the national official language (7 times). It is the only named language. The document stresses that the national language has to be learnt first along with ‘at least two foreign languages’ (4 times). The dominant discourse is that Arabic should occupy the most elevated position in the curriculum. As a generic term, Arabic is a continuum of forms: Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) which linguists associate with the nineteenth century pan-Arab nationalism (Suleiman, 2013), and the colloquial forms, the language of everyday communication, known as dārija. Due to the diglossic situation, MSA, the literate variety used across Arabic-speaking countries in literature, the administration, mass media and education, is not the home language of Tunisian students. It is learned through formal education like any other ‘foreign language’. A recent WB policy approach paper (World Bank, 2021) ascribed the poor literacy standards in the Arab world to the lack of exposition to SA/fuṣḥā during the pre-school years, the abrupt transition between home language and school language, the poor teaching methods which emphasise grammatical accuracy and rote learning rather than playfulness and inquiry (pp. 77–78). These problems are probably too complicated and too contentious for a policy document as the GC to mention. However, references associated with other vital elements of the DLC, either as independent subjects or vehicles of instruction, are not named: ‘two foreign languages’ and ‘les langues et les langages mathématiques, informatiques, artistiques, scientifiques, corporels et sociaux.’ Notwithstanding the fact that Tunisian policy documents do not name the second or third languages of the country, the expression ‘foreign languages’ however, may be taken as a cover term for ‘French’, as it is the most dominant language in education, and to a lesser extent English, the global language of science and technology. This can be seen as an open stance taken by the authorities towards the learning of other languages, despite the indefiniteness and ambiguity of the expression and the silence on the definition of the institutional, disciplinary and professional functions of ‘these two foreign languages.’ French is presently the medium of instruction of the sciences at high school and university levels. It is the language of elite disciplines such as medicine, business and engineering. Despite complaints about decline in proficiency standards and endangered status, French has been appropriated in literature, poetry, songs and daily communication. It has become part and parcel of the DLC and a ‘surviving’ component of national identity (Daoud, 2011). Therefore, from a DLC perspective its foreignness is questionable, if not untenable. The status of the colloquial language or dārija is also obfuscated. Dārija is the lingua materna of all Tunisians. It is the language of daily communication, the language of storytelling, fiction, poetry, humour, anger and all the other mundane language activities. According to Brahim (1994, p.10) dārija, the language variety employed in families, theatre, folktales, the street and the workplace, paradoxically and very often ‘passes over in silence’

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when debating multilingualism in Tunisia. Boussofara-Omar (2006, p. 635) noted the negative and stigmatic references to the diglossic situation by Arab intellectuals and researchers both in the Arab world and in the diaspora. She found that these élites continue to associate diglossia with crisis (azma), cause (qadiyya) and clash (ṣrāʿ) rather than a linguistic resource, part and parcel of the DLCs in Arabic-­ speaking countries. Using Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Matrix Language Frame Model, Boussofara-Omar (2006) deconstructs Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a ‘third language’ between fuṣḥā and the dialect. She argues that ‘what is being conventionalized are patterns of switching between the two varieties of Arabic (fuṣḥā and MSA) where the dialect serves as the matrix variety’ (p. 634). The emphasis on SA seems to be inextricably related to the official nation-state ideology. Such emphasis seems to placate potential dissidents who may consider that the mission of education in Arab Muslim societies is to instil among students a monolithic version of national identity to become pious and obedient Muslims. In these societies, supranational solidarity, based on language and religion, seems to override territorial belonging, civic and political bonding. Boussofara-Omar (2006, p. 629) argues that although the Arab world is politically and economically divided, the exaltation of, and allegiance to, fuṣḥā ‘continues to be constructed as allegiance to the unity of the Arab world, to its glorious Golden Age and magnificent heritage’ (p. 629). Kchaou (2020), on the other hand, maintains that because modern nation-­ states define citizens/citizenship based on ‘bonds of confidence, commitment, trust and cooperation’ (p. 8), heavy references to ‘abstract entities, like the Arabic Nation or the Islamic Oumma, hinders the development of a political culture’ (p. 8). As the references appended to the GC indicate, the emphasis on cross-border ethno-­ linguistic and religious belonging, which are derived from the Constitutional preamble (2014), may not only undermine the values which the GC purports to achieve (e.g. citizenship, individual liberties, democracy, the rule of law, equity), but it may end up by perpetuating the same educational crisis, identity politics struggles and socioeconomic inequalities. The emphasis on the foreignness of vital aspects of the DLC, French and English, indicates that the curriculum seems to be epistemologically and ontologically informed by what Holquist (2014) calls the doctrine of linguistic monism. This doctrine seems to conceive ‘the world as consisting of geographically dispersed common languages each of which has a unique separate identity of its own that is both stable and unitary’ (p. 8). One fundamental feature of linguistic monism is the ‘ideology of denial’, that is, the erasure (Irvine & Gal, 2000) of multilingualism and therefore of the DLC. It is an ideology, which ‘opposes the reality of change’ viewing ‘each of the distinct common languages it recognizes as a solid entity’ (Holquist, 2014, p.  8). Contemporary sociolinguists have questioned such categories as national language, diglossia, code switching, bilingualism and enumerable languages more generally. These constructs have been viewed as products of a particular set of events in Western intellectual history, such as national ethno-cultural uniqueness, which seems to still underpin the theoretical thinking about DLCs in Tunisian official educational discourse. Pennycook (2010) argues for the

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problematisation of ‘the very notions’ underlying our assumptions about languages, and ‘the ways we name and describe languages as separate entities.’ He considers that ‘bi- and multilingualism are based on 20th century epistemologies that can no longer be used to describe the use of languages in a globalizing world’ (p. 121). A more realistic explanation of the reasons underlying the ways of naming and describing the DLCs requires an assessment of the profoundly ideological and political role assigned to DLC categories in Tunisia/Maghreb. The general curriculum refers to the ‘consolidation’ of the Muslim-Arab identity, citizenship, universal human values, scientific/technological advancement, employment and economic advancement. Such discourse has been the stock in trade of the political rhetoric of power elites since independence. However, Arabic is not the language of instruction of the scientific tracks and elite disciplines at advanced levels especially after the bifurcation of the educational system starting from high school and university levels. Besides, given the bloated public employment sector, Arabic is not the language of employment and social mobility in the larger private sector and presently offshore companies. Demonstrable high proficiency levels in French and increasingly English are required to access highly paid jobs. Boutieri (2014) reports a similar case scenario in Morocco. In her analysis of an elite media debate on the use or non-­ use of dārija or fuṣḥā as languages of instruction in Moroccan schools, she found such discussion misleading because neither dārija nor fuṣḥā will lead to the eventual integration of students into the job market, which is locally dominated by French and English. Boutieri’s study confirms once again the deployment of named aspects of the DLC in the Maghreb as a means of ideological mystification in order to legitimate power, social domination and ‘élite closure’ (Myers-Scotton, 1993).

5.3 Discourses, DLC and National Identity in Public Debates The discourse analysis of the opinion press articles indicated three representations of tunisianité or national identity (see Helal, 2019b, for a detailed discourse analysis). One of these, which can be labelled essentialist (about 23. 44%) claims a direct ethno-linguistic connection to imagined pre-Arabo-Islamic Berbero-Punico-Latino origins going back to the foundation of Carthage (814–146 BC). A second dominant trend in the data (about 58.16%) views tunisianité in assimilationist / accommodationist terms, that is, Tunisia as primarily an Arab-Muslim country, yet it denies nothing of its pre-Arab/Muslim multi-lingual and multicultural influences. A third minor trend grounds national identity within a civic and democratic model, which prioritizes territorial identity, individual liberties, diversity and socioeconomic security demoting therefore DLC-ethno-linguistic attributes. For reasons of space, these three versions of national identity are briefly analysed below with some extracts from the data.

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5.3.1 Essentialising DLC-Related National Identity First for tunisianizers, Arabic certainly in its fuṣḥā variety is not the native language of any Arab country. It is learnt at school like any other foreign language. These distinctions recall the notions used by Italy’s preeminent national poet, Dante Alighieri in his fourteenth century treatise On Eloquence in the Vernacular (Dante, 1996). In this work, Dante’s uses the terms locutio prima to refer to the primary language of identity and home, and locutio secondaria to refer to high or elevated language, essentially Latin. Applying these to how tunisianizers seem to understand language fuṣḥā is not locutio prima but rather it is locutio secondaria. In other words, it is not the language of ordinary citizens/citizenship: 1. L’arabe littéraire n’est pas notre langue, car c’est une langue dans laquelle nous ne nous exprimons presque jamais, sauf si vraiment on est obligé à le faire. In fact, detailed readings of the corpus of texts show that the elements of Arabism and Islamism are consistently and systematically problematized and explicitly dissimilated. While the Arabs, as an ethno-linguistic group, are stigmatized for their political and civilizational decline, the representations of Arabic language (Arabization) cluster around two major negative referential strategies: dysfunctionalization and devitalization. French and English, the other components of the DLC, are mentioned only for comparative reasons (topos of comparison) in order to delegitimize the role of fuṣḥā to serve as the language of modernization: 2. Par ailleurs, la situation de l’arabe littéral dans le monde s’avère fondamentalement différente de celle des autres grandes langues internationales. Son aire d’extension géographique est limitée et son caractère diglossique nuit à son expansion… In this passage, literary Arabic is stigmatized on three grounds: (a) its limited geographical expansion and spread; (b) its diglossic character, and (c) its ‘archaic’ status compared to the ‘big international languages’ (French and English). The logical consequence is that Tunisians should opt for these ‘big’ languages as vehicles of modernity, education and economic development. The vernacular or dārija is the language of identification and ethno-linguistic vitality. Indeed, in this group of texts the Tunisian vernacular is glorified and vindicated. Despite its lack of a literate tradition, dārija is regarded as a source of pride and identification. It is given different nativized names: tounsi, the language of our Berber-Punico ancestors, Maghrebi, our mother language, tounsi, the Tunisian language, etc. The essentialist trend treats this variety as a direct descendent of Punico-Berber, a language variety anterior to Arabic: 3. La langue de nos premiers ancêtres; Dārija n’est qu’une survivance de la langue punique de nos ancêtres punico-berbères. 4. Le maghrébi est une langue vivante… la langue maternelle de plus de 100 millions de locuteurs. Dārija is nominated in terms of its ethnic belonging (Punico-Berber), bounded territory (jus soli, Maghreb), longevity (more than 2000 years old), genetic distinction

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from its nearest cognates (Arabic), and jus sanguinis (dārija as mother tongue of 100 million Maghrebi speakers). As primary speech forms, mother tongues are not learnt at school; they are directly, effortlessly and naturally ‘picked up’ from parents as innatist linguists claim (Chomsky, 1986). Blommaert (1999) observes that ‘the sheer acceptance of the existence of languages is based on naming and labelling procedures, and whether a language name was available there would be a language’ (p. 427). Other passages invoke scientific evidence to prove the Punico-Berber origin of Tunisian dārija: 5. L’idée fausse c’est de considérer que la langue tunisienne est arabe. Si le premier article de la constitution stipule que la Tunisie est un pays dont la langue est l’arabe, cela est dicté beaucoup plus par des raisons politiques, … d’une part, et d’autre part, notre ignorance des langues orientales anciennes... The extract mobilizes ‘science’ to prove dārija’s ancestry, attributing the belief of its dialectal relamtionship to Arabic to mere ignorance of ancient oriental languages. It is on this basis that the extract challenges the first article of the Tunisian constitution, which declares Arabic the official language of the country. For the nationalist, looking for origin in the remote past is a search for authenticity. It is a critical move because it provides evidence of historical longevity and future persistence (Anderson, 1983). 5.3.2 Victimization Despite its longevity, functionalization and identity differentiation, texts belonging to this trend consider that dārija has been scapegoated and victimized. Victimization is a common referential strategy in the texts belonging to this group. Dārija is represented as a victim of politics, ideology and history. Although dārija enjoys ethno-­ linguistic vitality, the postcolonial political and intellectual elites declared fuṣḥā as the official language of the country. For this group of tunisianizers, this is a paradox: 6. Le Maghribi est à la fois majoritaire dans le corps social et minorée par les institutions culturelles et étatiques maghrébines. 7. La langue de nos premiers ancêtres, victime d’une politique de mépris, voire d’ostracisme. Although the agents who are responsible for the denigration of the vernacular are backgrounded, the texts blame intellectuals (historians, in particular) for favouring ideology over science. The vernacular is synonymous with Tunisia’s cultural and political autonomy. It is the language of the masses. It is the language of liberation unlike fuṣḥā, which is the oppressive language of the political and religious elites. Politically, if the post-independent Maghreb countries had institutionalized dārija as the national language in education and administration, it would have taken its rightful position in all walks of life. Instead, these countries favoured an Arabization policy ‘for which no one knows an effective anchoring.’ Such a policy paved the

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way to a real ‘battle of tongues’, that is, to an antagonistic Arabic-French bilingualism, which is still responsible for the societal rift in Maghreb societies: 8. Ainsi donc, les indépendances des pays du Maghreb, au lieu de sonner l’heure de l’émancipation des langues natives, dont la langue dārija; ont minoré ces langues au profit d’une arabisation dont personne ne parvient à déterminer l’ancrage effectif. 9. Dans l’administration, au lieu de la Dārija, on va recourir à un bilinguisme arabo-français. Dans l’école et dans l’université, ce vide laissé par la dimension locale de la langue va donner lieu, non pas à une conjonction ou une juxtaposition des deux langues, mais plutôt à une guerre des langues. Both extracts employ the rhetoric of blame repudiating post-colonial elites’ LP. While the first extract employs the metaphor of imprisoned dārija, the second resort to the trope of war to describe the LP followed by Maghreb political élites which confronts French with Arabic and therefore Francophiles against Francophobes to the detriment of the national language. Both extracts therefore seem to represent dārija as a neutral language variety liberated from the relics of colonialism, religious functionalisation and pan-Islamic and pan-Arab political ideologies.

5.4 Consensual Identity: Valorizing the DLC In this dominant trend, tunisianité is predicated on assimilationist and accommodationist grounds. According to this view, Tunisia is primarily an Arab-Muslim nation but it is open to other languages, cultures and global flows. This model, which enjoys high levels of consensus among Tunisian political elites, has been enshrined in the two constitutions, both the abrogated (1959) and the current one (2014). While the essentialist trend reconstructs dārija as a direct descendent of Punico-­ Berber, the more consensual interpretation constructs dārija as a variety which has assimilated diverse Indo-European, Mediterranean (Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Maltese) and Semitic (Punic, Arabic, Hebrew) tongues: 10. Parlons en effet de la langue! Notre cher dialecte maternel, si succulent, si riche, si délicieux à nos oreilles et si cher à nos cœurs, est un subtil et magnifique amalgame de divers parlers méditerranéens dans lesquels est tout naturellement venue s’insérer et se lover la belle langue arabe. What this extract shares with all other texts belonging to this group is a recognition of the multilingual and multicultural character of Tunisia. The vitality of the Tunisian language is defined by its capacity to adapt and fashion itself according to the new coming together of different languages and accents (Punic, Latin, Greek, Arabic, etc.). The Tunisian dialect is aestheticized: ‘succulent, rich and delicious on eyes and hearts’. Its ‘Mediterranean amalgam’ naturally makes it completely

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harmonious with its multidimensional settings. The following extract further locates the vitality of Tunisian Arabic in music, culture and storytelling: 11. Notre dialecte tunisien porte en lui son chant typique. C’est ce qui fait le mystère et le charme de notre musique et de notre chanson. 12. Il y a une langue qui nous est commune, notre bon vieux dialectal. Le dialectal de Laroui, de préférence, si clair, si affiné, si raffiné, et qui parvenait à sa cible de quelque patelin qu’elle fût. The existence of art, oral culture and folklore bestows recognition, authenticity and legitimacy to the national variety. Laroui (1898–1971), the very famous and influential storyteller, becomes an icon of the eloquence and the unfathomable expressive power of Tunisian Arabic. Rorty (1998, p. 4) argues that nations rely on artists, national heroes and intellectuals ‘to create images of, and to tell stories about, the national past. Competition for political leadership is in part a competition between differing stories about a nation’s self-identity, and between differing symbols of its greatness.’ For this group reducing Tunisian national identity to the dual components of Arabism and Islamism betrays the country’s long and multilingual/multicultural history. This rhetoric is repeatedly emphasized in the majority of the opinion articles: 13. Comme chacun le sait ou devrait le savoir, la Tunisie est le résultat de toutes les influences de toutes les cultures qui ont traversé son histoire et son territoire. Tunisia cannot be tethered to any specific cultural, historical or ethnic belonging. There is a reiterated emphasis on the pluricentricity, multidimensionality, but the cohesiveness and singularity of this identity. It stands above all binaries and dichotomies. Its identity and destiny have been fashioned by all the cultural and civilizational waves both of western and eastern provenance. The Tunisian Islamic exception is also defined by its Ijtihad and teleological interpretation of the Qur’an and Hadith. Its version of Islam is predicated on enlightenment and reformism. Ikwani, Salafi and Jihadi Islams are anathema. According to Béatrice Hibou (2009, p. 14), such triumphalist reformism has been le ‘grand récit politique de la Tunisie contemporaine’. However, absent from such ‘grand narrative’ are the contradictions, ambivalences and the paradoxes associated with its LPP, inter alia, as it has been shown above.

5.5 Diversity, Territorial Citizenship and Democracy A small subset of texts (20 texts in all) foreground territorial belonging and citizenship and stress the changing nature of the linguistic, ethnic and religious attributes. These texts present therefore an attempt to transform national identity: 14. Le facteur identitaire le plus solide ou constant d’un citoyen est le facteur territorial; l’appartenance à la même terre. Qu’on le veuille ou pas, les éléments ethnique, linguistique et religieux ont été tout au long de l’histoire et dans presque toutes les nations, sujets à des variations.

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15. La Tunisie n’est pas une, elle est multiple. La citoyenneté en est le meilleur attribut. Parce qu’elle ne saurait être que conviviale et partagée. Elle est par essence relationnelle, communicative. Elle récuse l’autarcie et le solipsisme. This passage foregrounds territorial belonging over DLCs’ attributes. Delegating Tunisian territorial integrity to such abstract entities as pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamic umma weakens allegiance to the territorial nation-state and renders political action vacuous. These texts therefore connect in a chain of equivalence (Laclau & Mouffe, 2014, p. 115) the signifiers of diversity, democracy and tunisianité and bring them into a common whole. In a democratic society, this diversity, ignored and marginalized in the essentialist and consensus versions, presupposes tolerance to, and respect of, cultural and linguistic diversity. The second extract above dislodges the traditional connection between language, race, religion and national identity, and foregrounds the notions of diversity, pluralism, and citizenship. Although constituting a minor trend, this subset of texts situates national identity beyond the primordialist assumptions of racial, linguistic, religious and historical references. The argument is that these primordial feelings do not command universal assent. In other words, they are neither sufficient nor necessary to establish strong national bonds. The logical conclusion is that societies should be predicated on difference, diversity and communication across boundaries of faith, language and race. These texts therefore frame national identity within a democratic, cosmopolitan and legalistic system. Here tunisianité seems to be related to an attempt to overcome defeatist readings of Arab-Muslim societies which frame Arab politics within Gellner’s (1994) prediction about the inevitable triumph of political Islam. For Gellner concepts of democracy, pluralism, openness, diversity, citizenship and respect of difference in these societies are anathema. Perhaps, it is deeply ironical that the democratic experience, in the Arab-Muslim country where it has the best chance of success, has been ended following President Kais Saied’s decision to invoke Article (80) of the constitution on July 25, 2021. This article, which authorizes the President to protect the institutions of the state should they be threatened by an ‘imminent danger’, has led to the suspension of the elected parliament and the dismissal of the Islamist-Ennahda led coalition government plunging the country into a political limbo where the prospects for democracy and social justice look very bleak. Within such circumstances, it is unlikely that any explicit language education policy will be formulated because ideology will continue to operate as the ‘default’ policy (cf. Lo Bianco, 2004, p. 750).

6 Conclusion This study has analysed the official and discursive aspects of the DLC within two LPP activities: the GC and public discourse. The analysis has been grounded within a post-Arab spring context characterized, inter alia, by language conflict, multilingual policy failure, economic crisis and democratic collapse. Analysis of the ways

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the DLC were framed in the GC and public debates indicated the preponderance of the discourses of denial, erasure, and linguistic mystification. These discourses, which have been prevalent in the official discourse of power élites in the Tunisia since independence, were related to the legitimation of power, symbolic domination and élite closure more than to claims of citizenship, pedagogy, social mobility and economic development and the other values upheld by the GC. The emphasis on Arabization and the mystification of the economic and educational roles of other aspects of the DLCs may stand in stark contradiction with the performative aspect of the DLC in the linguistic landscape (Ben-Said, 2021) or in language teaching pedagogy (Bach Baoueb & Toumi, 2012). The results emanating from these studies have indicated considerable degrees of linguistic interdependence, dynamism and an overall resistance to, and subversion of the supremacist (only Arab-Muslim or exclusively tuniso-tunisian) mainstream national identity. Unless there is an initiation of an open and profound democratic debate on DLCs, their domain, institutional and community concentration and allocation, the entry of English as an indispensable component of the DLC may trigger a much deeper language conflict. Indeed, there are signs that this is already happening. Some Arabizers, for example, see no need for French in an English-only educationally and economically dominated world. Some Francophiles, on the other hand, consider that the rampant Islamisation of society, the decline in literacy standards as well as the de facto privatisation of the educational system have been the logical results of the Arabization of the educational system starting from the 1970s. Some other Francophones consider English as a fetish of economic globalization, American imperialism and consumerism and therefore inferior to French which they consider the authentic vehicle of culture and the enlightenment philosophy associated with the French humanist tradition and its Revolution (1789). Unless the resources afforded by the DLCs are seen from the vintage point of a resource rather than a problem (Ruiz, 1984), it is very likely that the DLCs will continue to be politically and ideologically instrumentalized for reasons which serve neither the educational and economic interests of Tunisians nor their aspirations for dignity, democracy and justice.

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Digital DLC Models as Instruments for Raising Awareness and Better Understanding of Current Multilingualism in HEI Laurent Moccozet and Maya Böckh

Abstract  With globalisation, the stakeholders of the higher education sector are getting increasingly mobile, which results in the linguistic diversity in the institutions. This situation imposes on university administrations and authorities the need to accommodate student and teacher populations with diverse and heterogeneous language skills. The issue of multilingualism in education concerns not only learning and acquisition of additional languages but entails the challenges of use of several languages in educational institutions both for daily communication and for learning/teaching various disciplines. The latter option is currently very underdeveloped, probably due to scarcity of digital instruments that would enable analyses of this diversity in the university population. Most of today’s multilingual digital technologies erroneously assume that their users are only able to use one of the many languages they practice at any given time. ICT systems can build on the DLC concept to represent the multilingual skills of teachers and learners in a digitally compact and manageable way. The concept of Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) includes only the most expedient languages for a person and allows them to be seen as one unit consisting of languages working together, not as separate languages. The DLC is sufficiently concise and structured to build a digital representation of it. It would make it possible, for example, to adapt language learning and practice to the language skills of each student, but also to adapt educational services for all students and improve the reception of foreign students in an institution. To this end, the first part of the chapter will be devoted to analyze the situation in the higher education sector, with the example of Switzerland, as well as in the educational technologies used there, and to identify and delimit the needs. The second part of the chapter will present the design of digital models of individual and group DLC and their visualisation in 3D. To make it concrete, we will describe the realisation of a prototype of a DLC profile server, and we will show what it is possible to understand and

L. Moccozet (*) · M. Böckh Computer Science Center, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_3

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deduce thanks to the digital models. We will outline how university authorities, administration, teachers and students can benefit from understanding their own and each other’s language clusters as units that complement and interact with each other. Keywords  3D visualization · Multilingualism in HEI · Educational technologies (EdTech) · DLC · Modelling · Identity of multilinguals

1 Introduction With globalisation most people have to use at least two languages for their studies, communication and work. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in the higher education sector where teachers and students are increasingly mobile, which greatly increases the linguistic diversity in institutions, but raises the issue of accommodating (de Wit & Altbach, 2021). Daily communication and interaction requires at least a working knowledge of several languages and a familiarity with the corresponding cultures. Multilingual language practices don’t mean simply using many languages. What characterizes multilingualism today is precisely which language skills are mobilized and how they are mastered and applied in particular contexts (Aronin & Vetter, 2021). Today, not a single language but a set of languages is a prerequisite for individual and communal existence (Aronin, 2019). Such sets include the most important languages that enable individuals or groups to function in a given time and setting are termed Dominant Language Constellations (DLCs). DLC is a subset of one’s language repertoire. It is the set of languages that are regarded as being of primary importance for a person. It behaves as a whole and allows people to meet all their needs in a multilingual environment (Aronin, 2019). This notion also applies to communities and groups of people (Aronin & Vetter, 2021; Bianco & Aronin, 2020). DLC is therefore a compact notion to represent multilingual identity. The DLC has a special place in higher education, as it is a space in which students use their DLC to learn, but also develop their DLC. In this chapter, we describe how we propose to combine the DLC approach with the power of educational technology to produce, analyse, and use students’ sociolinguistic profiles in Higher Education Insitutions (HEI). We argue that digital modeling can contribute to the awareness necessary for the higher education sector to take into account and monitor the state of multilingual competencies of the student population to improve communication between international students and the host country and to improve teaching and learning processes at the university. We also consider that each multilingual person have their unique identity which is well visualized and tangibilized via personal DLCs and their modelling. The introduction of a DLC visualization model, through the normalization of the representation it imposes, offers a powerful tool for exploring and comparing identities between individuals, even if this normalization introduces a certain abstraction in the expression of this identity. We will begin by briefly discussing the situation of multilingualism in HEI by illustrating it with the situation in a multilingual country,

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Switzerland. This overview will allow us to motivate and delineate the need to provide tools for the awareness of students’ multilingual abilities. We will then study the state of educational technologies with respect to multilingualism. This will allow us to show that there is an equal need to develop digital tools for technology awareness. We will then present how we propose to define a digital model of sociolinguistic profile based on the DLC. We then describe how we have developed a prototype digital server of sociolinguistic profiles. We conclude by explaining how such a digital system can be used in HEI.

2 A Brief Overview of the Status of Multilingualism in HEI in a Multilingual Country, Switzerland Our aim is not to give an extensive study of multilingualism in HEI, but to take as an example the situation in Switzerland, a country that identifies itself as multilingual. ‘Switzerland has four language regions: German, French, Italian and Romansh. … Non-national languages are also gaining in importance. The two most widely spoken non-national languages are English and Portuguese. Multilingualism is an essential part of Switzerland’s identity.’1 We will identify and motivate the needs that the models we present in this chapter can meet by outlining the situation in this country. Yanaprasart (2020) in her analysis of the language policies of three French-­ speaking universities argues that, while the place of multilingualism in higher education is no longer in question today, there are varying conceptions of multilingual education: ‘For some, it is above all a question of guaranteeing access to a common language, which, together with the ‘local’ language, would allow scientific progress in a globalised world. For others, it is, on the contrary, to put in touch different cultures and languages passing through the establishment of scientific knowledge. Many intermediate positions exist.’ She indicates that disciplines have a determining influence on languages. We foresee that to achieve linguistic objectives, the ability to monitor the language skills of students at different scales would help at all levels of the institution: university, faculty, and degree. Gajo and Berthoud (2018) seek to understand the role of multilingualism in the process of knowledge construction. They analyze three teaching scenarios involving multilingualism in Swiss universities. They propose the ‘didactic regime’, ‘which represents the way participants articulate language/multilingual resources and (more or less) collaborative formats in order to build up the subject knowledge.’ It is negociated with the teachers or imposed by the authorities. For optimal negotiations, it would be useful that not only the leaders of the institution who

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define its language policy, but also the teachers, be aware of the multilingual skills of the student population within their scope of influence. Meyer et al. (2013) investigate the perception of multilingualism in HEI by students at a German-speaking Swiss university. They found out that even in contexts that claim to be sensitive to multilingualism, ‘it seems that plurilingualism in individuals is still primarily viewed as a way to cope in different discrete and dispersed monolingual settings in society, each of these separate settings being perceived in isolation from other settings and involving the use of just one language at a time (Meyer et al., 2013).’ This observation leads us to develop, in HEI, ways to represent and showcase students’ multilingual competencies as an organized whole to break out of this compartmentalized vision. To conclude with the students’ point of view, the study carried out by Becker (2021), asked students of a French-German bilingual university in Switzerland to express their language skills by completing the body shape silhouette of the language portrait. The author notes that ‘all students … stated that the language portraits helped them express their linguistic repertoire better than they would have without the visual illustrations (Becker, 2021).’ She concludes that visual representations can offer a reflecting practice. This leads us to identify that students have difficulties in apprehending the richness of their linguistic repertoire and that a tool that would allow visualization would contribute to this awareness. To conclude this overview, all stakeholders in HEI could benefit from a tool that presents a visualization of students’ overall language skills. It should inform the competences at different levels of granularity: individual and group: class, faculty, university.

3 The State of Multilingualism in Educational Technologies for HEI From a general point of view, the field of Information Technology (IT) has been interested in language-related issues for a long time and has devoted a lot of effort to them. A dedicated field, Natural Language Processing (NLP),2 has been created around these issues. Recent advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with methods such as Deep Learning (DL), have led to spectacular advances in the field of NLP, particularly in terms of performance and quality of results (Lauriola et  al., 2022). NLP covers several types of applications, such as Machine Translation (MT), which enables the automatic translation of content from one language to another (Basmatkar et  al., 2019; Dabre et  al., 2020,). This sector has also benefited from the latest advances. The results show that there are many methods and tools that can translate content expressed in the original language into other languages. Without going into  https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/natural-language-processing

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the quality of the results, it is easy to see that these automatic translations can be applied to produce, for example, pedagogical content in various languages for the education sector. However, these technologies have their biases. One of them is diversity (Thomas et al., 2001). In practice these technologies are available mainly for a few of the many languages that exist (Doddapaneni et al., 2021; Hu, 2020; Joshi et al., 2020). As outlined by Joshi et al. (2020), ‘language technologies contribute to promoting multilingualism and linguistic diversity around the world. However, only a very small number of the over 7000 languages of the world are represented in the rapidly evolving language technologies and applications.’ If we focus at the situation of IT in education (educational technologies or edtech), we observe that there are few developments outside of tools for learning a foreign language. Truly multilingual initiatives remain sparse and provide mostly ad hoc solutions. Regarding language learning, some initiatives take advantage of the fact that educational platforms are for the most part initially developed in English and are therefore of obvious interest for learning English as an L2. We can mention the work of Meurant (2009) that runs on the LMS Moodle3 platform to teach digital literacy in English to Korean students through practice. The default language of the Moodle interface is forced to English for the students. They are thus engaged with the target language not only with the content, but also with the meta-activities of interaction and production with the platform. A close approach uses Moodle to enrich the learning of English as a foreign language in a flipped classroom (Jeong, 2017). Another experiment for teaching basic French to Malaysian students (Ali & Jaafar, 2010) use the features of an LMS to let students express themselves in ways other than those traditionally available in the classroom. Since LMSs are de facto teaching platforms, many research works for language teaching are using them (Gundu et al., 2017). Unfortunately, they don’t have specific functionalities for language learning or learning with multiple languages. Therefore teachers have to organize the resources and activities on the platform using only the standard options, which require considerable work that often cannot be generalized or reused. A review of literature analysing Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) for second and foreign language learning (Zhang & Zou, 2020) surveys the state-of-the-art technologies being used to enhance language learning. The authors raise ‘the importance of designing TELL activities and materials that are suitable for learners’ language proficiency levels.’ Addressing this challenge requires finding workable ways to represent the multilingual profile of students. Another review (Slavuj et al., 2017) focuses on adaptive learning for languages. The authors claim that ‘a learner model is often emphasised as the most important component of adaptive instruction. Its task is to store data regarding each learner’s properties’. Which leads us to improve the learner’s language skills digital profile. Among the initiatives that claim to be multilingual, there are two approaches. The most common one is to use an existing educational platform, of the LMS type

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and to build a course with its out of the box functionalities. It needs to cope with rather poor functionalities in the linguistic domain. Another approach is to develop software that allows the integration of linguistic functionalities that facilitate multilingualism. In the first category, we note the initiative proposed by Le Pichon et al. (2021) to provide a multilingual mathematics learning environment for refugee students. This exploratory research aims at implementing a web-based multilingual learning platform. It offers contents in different languages simultaneously, including the students’ languages. A similar approach is proposed, focusing on a multilingual web-based argumentative writing instruction model called the Multilingual Scientific Essay (Arroyo González et al., 2021). Students have to write an original argumentative essay on their own and in collaboration using at least two languages (their native and their first foreign languages). The pedagogical resources are provided into several languages through the Moodle platform. The European project Information Literacy Online is a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) that teaches the basics of information literacy to undergraduate students in six European languages (Libbrecht et al., 2021). It is supported with the open-source MOOC platform: OpenEdX.4 The goal is to build a multilingual MOOC which requires defining an authoring workflow, which includes the translation task. The authors have yet to evaluate their platform, but they already foresee that ‘the translation to the five other languages is a challenging task as it is not clear that examples and/or cultural concepts can at all be translated.” In the second category, we would like to mention the development work of the EMMA (European Multiple MOOC Aggregator) platform (Kerr et al., 2018). The article notes that among the courses offered on MOOC platforms, English is very much present as a lingua franca, but also that among the national initiatives aiming at offering alternatives to English, they are limited to the national language of the country. The authors consider that multilingual access is made possible ‘if the platform and signposting language, as well as video and text course content, are translated into a language that the learners understand’. The platform is based on a ad hoc machine translation system that uses English as a pivot language: all European languages offered on the platform are translated into English, and then English is used to translate into the other languages. A similar work (Borrell & Oliver, 2008) aims at developing a learning platform by integrating a machine translation system (Apertium5) into an LMS (Moodle). A user evaluation shows that users who are used to communicating in several languages appreciate the tools integrated in the LMS. Another example is the development of Multilingual Learning Management System (MLMS), which consists of developing a standard LMS enhanced with multilingual functionalities (Khaimook, 2010). In this case, it offers a simple language switch button that allows anyone to control the language used at any time in the LMS, whether to display, add or modify content. The storage system is defined to hold LMS resources in multiple languages simultaneously.

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More ambitious initiatives attempt to connect external resources to facilitate the automatic production of multilingual educational content. Conde et al. (2020) propose to use Wikipedia’s multilingual data to automatically translate electronics textbooks. But this kind of works remain prototypes that are not available in production and the quality of the results remains to be evaluated. Other technology-supported approaches to multilingual learning are developing in the context of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). CLIL pursues two aims: teaching a subject and improving language skills. This combined approach ‘has many apparent benefits, including improving students’ language proficiency and preparing them for functioning in a multilingual environment’ (Paliwoda-­ Pękosz & Stal, 2015). This type of education can assist students in the simultaneous learning of multiple languages and disciplines, as proposed by Virvou et al. (2012). Paliwoda-Pękosz and Stal have a similar objective: providing a digital environment to deliver IT subjects in Polish and English for non-native speakers (2015). They relied on the basic functionality of a basic LMS platform (Moodle). To conclude this survey, we find it interesting to study the standard multilingual capabilities that can be found in a typical teaching platform used in HEI. A particularly interesting type of platform is the Learning Management System (LMS). These platforms are widely adopted and used in HEIs where they often represent the core environment of available educational technologies. Although many other digital tools have emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic, LMSs are still widely used today. Amongst all the LMS available we particularly identify Moodle. It is an open source platform that occupies a very large share of the LMS market (47.2% on Jan 14, 2022).6 Moodle also often stands out from the rest of the LMS market in many comparative studies (Al-Ajlan & Zedan, 2008; Aydin & Tirkes, 2010; Kumar et al., 2011). In the examples mentioned above, we have seen that this platform is used a lot either to support courses or as a basis for developing more specialized platforms. In most universities, the available Moodle version is a standard version that can be extended by different plugins. Moodle is used in many contexts: distance learning, hybrid learning and even face-to-face teaching. In the last situation, Moodle is used mainly as a digital communication medium from the teacher to the students: for example as a file repository for course materials. Part of Moodle’s success also comes from the pedagogical model on which its implementation has been organized: social constructivism.7 Moodle separates two aspects in the way it handles languages. On the one hand the interface and on the other hand the pedagogical content produced with the platform.8 By default, the platform is able to handle the interface in several languages. The multilingual management of the contents requires the installation of an additional plugin. The management of languages is very centralized and controlled by the administrator. The default language of the interface is English. It is possible to add language packs, which are translations of

 https://stats.moodle.org/ & https://webtechsurvey.com/technology/moodle  https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Philosophy 8  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mgtA5rdpYI 6 7

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the interface texts. The administrator chooses in advance which language packs are installed.9 Moodle currently offers 100 versions of languages, of which just under 20 are full translations of the interface. For packs that are not fully translated, the interface switches to the English version for the untranslated parts. The administrator determines the choice of the default interface language for users: either the platform automatically detects the language used by the browser used to consult the platform, or a language is selected as the default language. Users can then choose a default language in their user profile from all the pre-installed languages. The multilingual management of content produced with the platform requires the installation of an additional plugin: the multi-language content filter plugin.10 This plugin only allows to indicate the language used for a content or a part of a content. It must first be written in the considered language. It enables resources to be edited in several languages. When a user accesses multilingual content, only the content indicated as their default language is displayed. It can be pointed out that there is a huge potential in what IT can bring as multilingual resources and support to HEI. However, we can see that in daily practice, educational technologies remain very limited. Our hypothesis here is that, at the root, educational technologies have taken on the same vision of multilingual competences that is still widely held in the educational sector, as a succession of disconnected situations of single language use. The example of Moodle shows that LMS-type platforms, if they have basic multilingual capabilities, consider that students speak one language at a time and that they must change their default language choice in their profile to switch from one language to another. We can see that here, a global representation of the student’s linguistic profile would allow to consider the entirety of their competencesand to adapt the online educational services by taking into account the all of the languages with whichthey are able to interact. In conclusion, we can see that just as it is necessary to make people aware of the diversity of multilingual skills, it is equally important to make technologies aware of them. By technology awareness, we mean that any component of educational technology, such as LMSs, should be able to be informed and retrieve data that expresses the multilingual identity of the students who use it. We will show in the rest of this chapter that the model of representation of multilingual competences based on which we are going to propose can fulfil this double mission.

4 Digital DLC Model Design From the previous two sections, we have established that there are potentially two complementary needs. The first is to make people, stakeholders in HEI, aware of the multilingual identity of students to define or negotiate interactions and practices that

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Fig. 1  Dual DLC computer model to address IT and people awareness

take it into account and develop it. The second need identified is to be able to make educational digital applications and services aware of this identity and to adapt their behavior to take it into account and to support it. The DLC has the characteristics of being both compact, complete, and sufficient to characterize a person’s multilingual identity in his or her current activities including those related to their studies (Aronin, 2021), making it a good candidate as the basis for a digital model. DLC computer-assisted modelling was proposed with the purpose of creating a manageable tool for identifying and analysing individual’s linguistic knowledge, skills and needs (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021). A computer model of data generally consists of two strongly associated parts which are themselves sub-models. The first is the internal model that defines the digital representation of the concept in the form of a set of properties and the way in which they are organized and associated with each other to allow their exploitation with IT tools. It is this part of the model that can ensure IT awareness by allowing services and digital applications to consult the model’s data thanks to a service known as the Application Programming Interface (API). The second is the external model or user model. It is the representation that will allow the user to be effectively informed. Often the internal model is not appropriate or not directly adapted to a good presentation of the modeled concept. The external model allows the internal model to be translated into a humanly understandable form. This representation can be visual. Figure 1 illustrates exactly this situation for the approach we will take to define a digital model of the DLC.  The combination of the two sub-models that make up the model will ensure IT awareness and stakeholder awareness.

4.1 Internal Digital Model of DLC We summarize here the main characteristics of the internal model (Moccozet et al., 2021); Since a DLC describes the characteristics of learning, fluency, skills of an individual, as well as his/her personal socio-linguistic experience for a set of languages (usually three), listing and organising the information is the first task. It can be observed that within a DLC, the same pattern is repeated several times

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(respective to the number of languages in the DLC), but it is also an overall experience, unique for each individual. Various kinds of data (e.g., proficiency, time and settings of use, personal experience in use of languages under various conditions for participants of different age and origin) can be collected. To create a DLC model we need several kinds of information: data that characterizes an individual, such as age, country of origin; personal experience and levels of mastery and skills for each of the languages in their DLC. For example, the individual’s proficiency in each of the languages and the frequency of use. We can therefore identify three interconnected components which serve as bricks that will make up the internal DLC model. These components are defined as profiles. Here, the term profile is to be taken under a technical connotation and represents the collection of information that represents an entity to be represented digitally: a language, a person: 1. Individual/learner profile: describes general personal data: age, gender, order of acquisition of his/her languages 2. Language profile: describes language status globally and locally.11 3. Language practice profile: This one is essential in the DLC model as it connects learner, language and social settings and describe the data related to learner’s language practices: This profile can include the data on proficiency, attachment, list of skills mastered by an individual, language attitudes and other data describing language practices. This approach makes it possible to make a model as complete with necessary details as possible. In fact, any new information that might be relevant to describe and study the DLC can be added by integrating it into one of the three components listed above (see Fig. 2). Since practices or experiences with each languages are interrelated within the unit of DLC, they are linked together in a diagram and the important factors such as the order of learning, or the linguistic distance between the languages is included. The order of learning is identified in relation to all the languages of the DLC. It can therefore be associated with each practice: each practice will be assigned a number. On the other hand, the assessment of linguistic distance for an individual will associate each practice with the other practices of the DLC. It is therefore necessary to add respective connections between the practices of a DLC to associate the linguistic distances with each of them. Figure 2 schematically represents the DLC profile of an individual constructed by interconnecting the three components. The DLCs of a population can thus be collected in a databank by aggregating property values of the components for all individuals. To allow comparisons between individuals, it is necessary to standardize or normalize the values of the component properties. For example, we propose to quantify the subjectively-defined language distance to a numerical scale between 0 and 10 that allows us to determine a degree

 DLC has the advantage of being non-hierarchical and expressing the status of languages without privileging ‘big’ languages over ‘small’ ones. 11

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Fig. 2  Simplified diagram of the organisation of an individual’s DLC profile based on instances of the 3 components of the internal DLC model

of differentiation between two languages (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021). A value of 0 and 1 represents languages considered to be very close, while a value of 9 or 10 represents languages considered to be very distant. This approach loses part of the personal dimension of the DLC, but this abstraction is necessary to be able to align the DLCs of individuals to be able to group them or compare them. By amassing individual DLCs (outlined in red in Fig.  3), whose data will be gathered in a database, a DLC cluster for a group of students is created (outlined in orange in Fig. 3). A server accumulates information characteristic of the population of individuals (or a sub-population of these individuals, for example by setting age or nationality criteria). When averaging the language characteristics of the set of persons, we can get approximate linguistic and sociolinguistic data for a group of people, in other words, typical DLC social characteristics of the population under examination, such as a class, a group of international students. The DLC cluster informs us about the overall language skills of the population. This DLC cluster informs us about the commonly shared language skills of a certain population group.

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Fig. 3  From individual DLCs to group DLC

4.2 External Digital Model of DLC The external model is closely associated with the internal one and is built from its data. It provides a human-friendly representation of the numerical model. To define the user model that will be used to communicate the profiles to the stakeholders, it seems interesting to draw inspiration from the tools developed and recognized by experts in the sociolinguistic field. We have therefore listed a maximum of tools that are currently used to collect, present and study linguistic profiles. We have thus identified the following ways of representation that are used for both complete linguistic repertoires and DLCs: • • • • • • • • • • •

Visualized language distance measure (Nelson et al., 2021) 24 hours language chart (Prasad, 2018) Time cracking chart (Prasad, 2018) Linguistic biography (Melo-Pfeifer & Chik, 2020) Language portrait (Becker, 2021; Coffey, 2015; Prasad, 2018) Mediagram (Lexander & Androutsopoulos, 2021) Language passeport (De Backer et al., 2020) (Family/community) language map (D’warte, 2014; Prasad, 2018) Social spaces (Purkarthofer, 2019) DLC map (Aronin, 2021) DLC play dough model (Aronin, 2021)

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Fig. 4  Play dough DLC models (a) and virtual 3D replicas (b with sphere colour = the language, sphere radius = proficiency in the language and connector length = linguistic distance between two languages)

All these representations have common characteristics in presenting the profile in the form of story-telling which are performed in different modes ranging from text and numbers to drawing. We quickly notice that among all these models, the play dough model is the one that has a number of benefits: is visual and interactive, its reading is intuitive, it presents a pattern that allows to standardize the representation for everyone, it presents a level of abstraction that allows to easily build it from the values of the data that compose the DLC, its representation in 3D corresponds better than the others in 2D to the multidimensionality of the DLC. Figure 4 illustrates how it is possible to display a 3D virtual replica of a play dough DLC model. In the following section, we describe how it is possible to develop in practice an environment that implements the model we just described.

5 A DLC Profiles Server Prototype A DLC prototype server has been established using different available technologies: • Neo4J, a graph database, to store the profiles data. • Node.JS, for the backend, to process information and be able to interact with the database. The API is developed with the Express framework. • Three.js, a Javascript 3D library and 3d force graph a web component to represent a graph data structure in a 3-dimensional space, to display 3D visualisation. The goal of the server is, as depicted in Fig. 5, to let students upload and manage their DLC profile and authorize external educational and administrative systems to query the server data, either to extract individual information, specific to a student, or to extract information for a cluster of students, associated to the university, or a

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Fig. 5  Usage context of a DLC profiles server

faculty, or to a course. These systems will then be able to adapt their linguistic behaviour to the individual or collective skills of the students during their interactions with them. The visualization user interface allows different stakeholders to define query criteria to interact with the 3D graph visualization of the selected individual and group clusters. With the graph database, we can define entities such as Person and Language as well as relationships between entities such as ‘Person knows Language’ or ‘Person says Language A is *this* far from Language B’. This database should be located on an Internet-accessible server, wherein all interaction would be limited by the forced usage of an Application Programming Interface (API), which should allow users to potentially retrieve valuable raw and pre-processed data. The database was created using an online questionnaire. For the prototype, we have decide to collect only three measures regarding the practice component: which language, proficiency in each of them and language distance between the languages of DLC as described below. About 50 people from various backgrounds filled in the form and the data was used to populate the database with an initial test population. These people represent 25 different nationalities and are divided into 52% male, 43% female, 2% non-binary (and 2% who refused to indicate their gender). It turned out that the 50 participants speak a total of 23 languages,12 with an average of 2.85 –to 5 languages spoken per person. It goes without saying that such a server in operation should provide all the functionalities allowing the protection of personal data and the control of authorisations  Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Basque, Belarussian, Bengali, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Nauruan, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Scots, Spanish, Urdu. 12

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to communicate data to third party services. In the prototype server developed here, data is collected directly in an anonymised way by assigning an id to each profile without collecting first and last names. The visualization interface is separated in 3 main sections (Fig. 6), which are: 1. the aside – which is used to navigate the platform, 2. the data pane – which is used to set the scope for the visualization and to obtain some feedback as to exactly what is shown, 3. and finally the actual graphs pane – which is used to display the DLC graph(s) Two types of visualizations are available. The first one allows for self-awareness: it allows you to consult your own profile and compare it to those of the group. The second one allows group awareness: it allows to consult group profiles at different scales of the represented population, consolidated from the data of the individual profiles (Fig. 5). The cube that appears in the visualizations of individual DLCs is added to represent the person who owns the DLC. In a context where each individual no longer consults only his or her DLC, but also the DLCs of other users, it is important to add a representation of each individual to avoid ambiguities and to associate each DLC with its owner. One of the key functionalities of this program is the ability to do on the fly comparisons between a selected person and others from the whole group population as illustrated in Fig. 7. The comparison process is automated and draws three other DLCs to compare the selected DLC to: (a) The first one bears many similarities to the provided DLC, (b) the second intersects with the provided DLC, but tries to be as different as possible from it, (c) and the third one is a randomly selected DLC, to make the comparisons more meaningful.

Fig. 6  Configuration of the visualization frontend and presentation of an individual DLC profile

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Fig. 7  The DLC comparison tool, with to the top left the selected DLC, to the top right the most similar DLC, to the bottom left the most dissimilar DLC and to the bottom right a random DLC

Fig. 8  DLC cluster visualisation representing a sample population (here, the population of the 50 people who have been entered into the server database)

This type of comparative visualization allows individuals to compare their linguistic identity to that of other individuals in a group. A group DLC can be visualized in a similar way to an individual DLC as in Fig. 8, which shows the group DLC for the whole population of the server’s database. Each language is represented by a sphere whose radius corresponds to the average proficiency of the speakers or to the number of speakers of the language in the population concerned. The length of the links between the spheres corresponds to the average distance as estimated by all the speakers of the corresponding language pair. Figure  5 shows the visualisation of the characteristics of the entire

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Fig. 9.  A sub-group DLC limited to the 3 languages, Hindi, French and Arabic and related languages

population in the database. The DLC cluster thus provides information on the language profile of a population. In Fig.  5, the size of the spheres is related to the number of speakers of the language. It is also possible to visualize a sub-graph of the whole population, for example by selecting 3 languages. The DLC presented is limited to the 3 selected languages and to all those with which there are individual DLCs that include one of these 3 languages. In Fig. 9, the example presented allows to focus the visualization on the 3 languages Hindi, French and Arabic. A full demo of the visualization front-end features is available.13

6 Discussion 6.1 People Awareness The aggregation of individual DLCs allows the development of the notion of group DLC. In combination with the selection and filtering capabilities of the databases, it is then possible to explore the sociolinguistic profile of groups at different scales: age, gender, nationality, faculty, degree, and class. The visual model of presentation of the DLC allows the development of interactive 3D visualization techniques. These techniques cannot only be used to visualize but also to explore the profiles trough interactions: rotation, zoom, display of values, among others.

13

 https://youtu.be/ircgrC4ATkg

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The whole provide tools that address the different levels of awareness required for people. The first level is the self-awareness: to make each student realize his/her own skills, but also to be able to position themselves in relation to the others, in the groups of which they are a member. The visualization presented in Fig. 7 aims to situate an individual in relation to other individuals in the same group by highlighting diversity and similarities. The other level of awareness is at the population level. It is aimed rather at the decision-making stakeholders of the institution: rectorate for the institution, deanery for the faculty, director of studies for the degrees and teachers for the classes. Group DLCs can make them aware of the sociolinguistic profile of the populations they are concerned with.

6.2 IT Awareness If we go back to the example of the LMS and its limits given in the introduction. At the University of Geneva, 38% of the students are coming from abroad. ‘With more than a third of its student body from abroad and close to 700 visiting students and researchers each year, the University of Geneva is a truly international and multilingual institution.14’ The current version of Moodle available only offers five languages: Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish. By connecting Moodle to a DLC profile server trough the available API, it would be possible to automatically install all versions of languages spoken by the student population, at least those that are available. Alternatively, if a student’s native language version is not available, it would be possible to choose another of the available languages from their DLC. Alternatively, if the student’s mother tongue version is not complete, it would be possible to supplement it with a version of another of the languages in their DLC rather than systematically switching to the English version. We can imagine a similar operation for the information portal of the university which is available in French and English. Other examples of the use of the server are proposed from the case of the University of Geneva (Moccozet et al., 2021) and show that many services could benefit from the data it can provide to improve the consideration of the multilingual skills of students.

7 Conclusion We have shown that it would be useful to develop a tool to make the various stakeholders in the HEI aware of students’ language skills. We have also established that such a tool would be equally necessary to enable educational technologies to be aware of these capabilities and to be able to better support them. The proposed

14

 https://www.unige.ch/tandems/en/

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digital DLC model in the form of a sociolinguistic profile addresses both of these goals. The prototype server developed illustrates the potential that can be derived from it. Regarding the model, it will be necessary to evaluate which information is necessary to integrate. It would also be interesting to confront it with stakeholders to see concretely how it could be integrated at different scales: institution, faculties and departments, degrees and classes. It would also be interesting to see how it could be used to improve the working and research conditions of teachers and researchers. Among the further developments that can be considered for the server: • allowing the DLC to be built directly in 3D, like a virtual construction game. • take into account the notion of time which would allow to keep a history and to visualize it. • define other ways of visualization. • propose more complex selection criteria. • add the possibility to extend the properties that can be integrated in a DLC. The transition from the play dough model to the virtual 3D model makes the representation lose its tangibility. It would be interesting to be able to return to a tangible model by building a replica of the visual model to 3D print. In relation to the uses that could be made of the profile server, it would be interesting to develop new services or adapt existing ones and to evaluate their capacity to improve the consideration and development of students’ multilingual skills. It would also be interesting to list the population of universities and to study their characteristics at different levels: institution, faculty, degree and class.

References Al-Ajlan, A., & Zedan, H. (2008). Why moodle. In 2008 12th IEEE international workshop on future trends of distributed computing systems (pp. 58–64). Ali, M. N., & Jaafar, M. J. (2010). Transforming Moodle as a reflective tool in learning French language. International Journal of Academic Research, 2(3), 238–240. Aronin, L. (2019). What is multilingualism? In D. Singleton & L. Aronin (Eds.), Twelve lectures in multilingualism (pp. 3–34). Multilingual Matters. Aronin, L. (2021). Dominant language constellations in education: Patterns and Visualisations. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 19–41). Springer International Publishing. Aronin, L., & Moccozet, L. (2021). Dominant language constellations: Towards online computer-­ assisted modelling. International Journal of Multilingualism, 0(0), 1–21. Aronin, L., & Vetter, E. (2021). Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition. Springer. Arroyo González, R., Fernández-Lancho, E., & Maldonado Jurado, J. A. (2021). Learning effect in a multilingual web-based argumentative writing instruction model, called ECM, on metacognition, rhetorical moves, and self-efficacy for scientific purposes. Mathematics, 9(17), 2119. Aydin, C. C., & Tirkes, G. (2010). Open source learning management systems in e-learning and Moodle. In IEEE EDUCON 2010 conference (pp. 593–600).

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Part II

DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Formal Language Education: From Primary to Higher Education

Applying DLC to the Study and Discussion of Early Multicompetence in a Trilingual Minority Context in Northern Italy Barbara Hofer

Abstract  Children rarely enter school as ‘pure’ monolinguals. They typically have knowledge of either a dialect form of a standard variety or speak a second or heritage language at home. As such, they operate on the basis of specific linguistic repertoires and language constellations which result in distinct multilingual proficiencies and account for much interindividual variability. This chapter surveys how DLC as a fairly new concept in multilingualism research bears on the notion of multicompetence and how the DLC framework can contribute to recent discourses on (early) multilingualism and multilingual competence. To this effect, the DLC model is discussed against the complex socio-political background of the minority language context of South Tyrol and its monoglossic classroom bias. It will be argued that DLC as a new innovative data-collection method can be a useful tool to investigate sociolinguistic idiosyncracies in societies where multiple codes are used to negotiate meaning and subject positions. The chapter further reports findings from recent research which examines how different language constellations and resource funds as exhibited by emergent multilingual primary schoolers with varying linguistic experience and expertise affect their multilingual awareness and agency. The theoretical considerations underpinning the current contribution are grounded on a dynamic multilingual perspectivation. Keywords  Identity · Dominant Language Constellation · Multicompetence · Multilingual socialization · Monoglossic educational practice

B. Hofer (*) Fakultät für Bildungswissenschaften, Freie Universität Bozen, Bozen, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_4

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1 Introduction In contact zones wherein daily interactions and meaning negotiations involve several languages, linguistic repertoires and practices typically diverge from those found in monoglossic areas. This is true of communities where for various historical reasons several languages coexist, and it applies to contexts and phenomena resulting from globalization and recent migratory movements. The new linguistic dispensation (NLD) introduced by Aronin and Singleton (2012) captures the essence of these new multilingual realities and the multilingual identities that inhabit them. NLD denotes – and embraces – the suffusion of all modern life with multilingual and multimodal ways of (inter-)acting in the world. In so doing, it shines a spotlight on novel and profoundly transformational global realities and the sociopolitical and linguistic repercussions resulting from these in all domains of life from the microto the macro-level. Pursuing a new line of inquiry and acting on the call for contemporary perspectives on research into multilingualism, Aronin (2016) proposes the Dominant Language Constellation model, short DLC, as a holistic framework for the study of these new realities. The present chapter investigates how the construct of DLC can be applied to the investigation of early multilingual competence and identity in complex multilingual minority contexts like South Tyrol. First, I provide a critical analysis of the persistent monoglossic tradition of the German school system in South Tyrol. Starting from that I then build my line of argumentation in favour of a multicompetence-informed perspective and classroom approach. Upon entering the educational system most children in South Tyrol will already have come into contact with a second or even third code. Depending on their home language background (typically German/dialect, Italian, Ladin, heritage, or bi- or trilingual) and their experiences with additional languages (as gained through contact with family members, peers and neighbours, or through television, radio, social networking sites, schooling, etc.) children may possess quite distinct DLCs, even if the languages in their repertoires are the same. Not surprisingly, differential linguistic configurations and patterns of usage – as are linked to the availability or absence of specific affordances – also result in distinct multilingual competencies. In fact, even teaching ‘the very same set of languages’ may – in different ecologies of affordances such as subsist in minority settings – yield rather ‘different results’ (Aronin & O’Laoire, 2004, p.  25). In addition, as I explain below, complex psychosocial processes driving children’s perceived needs (cf. Herdina & Jessner, 2002) and willingness to invest will predispose growth patterns and the developmental direction of the system and either result in overall performance increment or decrement. In support of the above, the study reported in this chapter found different manifestations and degrees of multicompetence in South Tyrolean student populations with similar linguistic repertoires but different DLCs and life ecologies (cf. Aronin, 2019, p. 216). By way of introduction, the ensuing first offers some conceptual clarifications relative to the notions of DLC and multicompetence. This is followed by a discussion of the practical relevance and applicability of the DLC model in

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multicompetence research and a more fundamental debate on the new linguistic dispensation in complex eco-linguistic systems. An outline of the South Tyrol context together with selective findings from my own research into young learners’ multilingual competence is provided thereafter.

2 DLC and Multi-competence: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Implications The DLC model is a new approach to the study of complex multilingual phenomena (Aronin & Singleton, 2012, p. 69). As specified in Aronin and Jessner (2014), DLC ‘carries out the functions of systematizing, organizing, specifying and collecting the data regarding how multilinguals deal with multiple languages in parallel, and how societal multilingualism occurs in real places and communities’ (p. 66). Construed as complex systems and microcosms reflective of the larger sociocultural context in which multilinguals are nested, DLCs focalize ‘whole sets of languages as units’ rather than single languages in isolation. An instantiation of the individual’s most expedient or essential codes (Aronin, 2016, p. 196), DLCs provide a snapshot of learner-users’ core languages which include their most frequently used languages, i.e., those which they routinely deploy to perform their everyday functions. More broadly, DLCs are also reflective of the wider community of speakers and the socio-linguistic and ethnic profile of an entire collectivity (Aronin & Singleton, 2012, p. 70). Starting from the precept that communities who share territorial and social characteristics can differ substantively along ethnic and linguistic lines, a DLC approach to collecting, systematising and specifying data can therefore offer valuable insights into the socio/ethno-linguistic make-up of a given social group and the linguistic resources of communities of speakers in contact areas and/or minority contexts. It is understood that while identical DLCs ‘can co-exist in the same physical space’, it is increasingly ‘common under the new linguistic dispensation […] to have a number of DLCs’ (Aronin, 2016, p. 200) in geographical areas where multiple codes are utilised to perform daily functions. How this connects to the trilingual context of South Tyrol and how it impacts individual learner-users, their identity and multilingual competence, is the primary focus of this contribution. Multilingual competence, most recently defined as ‘the overall system of a mind or a community that uses more than one language’ (Cook, 2016) and seen as involving ‘the whole mind of the speaker’ (Cook, 2013, p.  3768), rather than just one language or other, champions the rationale for a multilingual positionality and garners attention for the uniqueness of the multilingual mind and competency (Hofer, 2017; Hofer & Jessner, 2019a). From a multicompetence perspective, multilingual speakers are fully functional users who deploy their languages as suits their respective situated and communicative needs. In defense of the multicompetence view, Cook sets forth that ‘the description of linguistic competence has been misleadingly

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based on monolinguals, like a description of juggling based on a person who can throw one ball in the air and catch it, rather than on a description of a person who can handle two or more balls at the same time’ (Cook, 1996, p. 67), to which he adds that any definition of language competence is explanatorily inadequate and incomplete if it does not account for the faculty of the human mind to juggle more languages. Over the past years consensus has been growing to the effect that multi-competence  – in comparison to monolingual competence  – presents augmented affordance provision and enhanced multilingual and multimodal agency (Allgäuer-Hackl, 2017; Schwieter et al., 2020). Important points of commonality can be identified between the multicompetence and DLC framework: Sharing a concern for a multilingual perspective on language use and competency, they both emphasise the added value of being multilingual and the distinctive nature of individual multilingualism, their main interest not with proficiencies attained but with functionality and maximal agentiveness. In so doing, they both espouse a conceptual shift from deficit- to resource-orientation and construct the multilingual speaker as an idiosyncratic user of languages in her/his own right instead of a deficient and ever lacking approximation to the (implicitly unilingual) native speaker and their unquestioned superiority. Far from resource-orientedness bi- and multilingualism in South Tyrol is (still) widely framed as a (social) problem in need of an educational solution. While one might perhaps be inclined to extenuate the historically grown monoglossic preoccupation with normative linguistic behaviour on the grounds that it is rooted in political power struggles and fears of assimilation, we cannot ignore the fact that the problematization of multilingualism comes with a rejection of everything not compliant with the monolingual norm and, by implication, a denial of the legitimacy of multilingual competences (cf. Slavkov et al., 2022; Wijnands et al., 2021, p. 320) and, ultimately, of the multilingual speaker. We might even go as far as saying that the fixation with monoglossic normativity constitutes a replication  – at the local level – of nationalist-ideological tendencies of uniformity and homogeneity. Based on the foregoing, it is therefore true to say, that if the debate on multilingualism in the region is to be moved forward, a more informed understanding of what it means to be multilingual and multi-competent needs to be developed at all levels. The DLC framework seems to be a viable starting point for nudging the discussion in the right direction. Firstly, because DLC relinquishes the monoglossic tradition of elevating unilingual practices to the status of ‘the most natural default for human communication’ (Ortega, 2014, p. 48), thus challenging monolingualism and nativeness as (sole) points of reference. Secondly, because DLC conceives of pupils’ inner and outer ecologies as conjoined and interdependent, and of their DLCs as configured and actualized with/in the wider social arena and shaped by the collective reality (which in South Tyrol has historically been tainted by politico-­ ideological tensions as I will explicate next) and the given linguistic environment. The graphical capture and visualization of pupils’ multiple linguistic profiles (and/ or identities) proposed by the DLC framework promises to add much-needed momentum to the scholarly quest for greater visibility and valorisation of multilingual biographies and proficiencies. Following in the tradition of holistic

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practice-based conceptualisations of language competence, the DLC framework highlights that the agents partaking in the new linguistic apportionment operate on very different principles from those socialized into the old order of monolingual and monocultural maxims. As such, it can make an important contribution towards reconfiguring multilingualism and repositioning the multilingual speaker within a holistic pluralist framework wherein multilingual competences are appraised in more positive terms as is currently the case in South Tyrol (particularly in the German school system). At the formal educational  – and individual  – level such reappraisal implicates acknowledgment of the uniqueness of learners’ multilingual profiles and (dominant) language constellations. At the wider community level, taking stock of the full range of DLCs can give prominence to the heterogeneity and the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of its members. With speakers’ linguistic needs and functions brought to the fore, the focus can then shift from monolingual proficiency and native-speaker attainment as the absolute educational targets to a stronger emphasis on functionality and agency (Aronin & Singleton, 2012, p. 31).

3 Politico-Historical Background South Tyrol is the northernmost province of Italy bordering on Austria and Switzerland. It has a population of approximately 500,000. Though officially trilingual – according to the 2001 census, 69.15% of the population speak German, i.e., a variant thereof, 26, 47% are speakers of Italian, and 4, 37% are Ladin speakers – the school system quite paradoxically abides by a rigid monolingual tradition. The brief historical retrospective that follows is an attempt at elucidating some of the complexities that have conduced to this unilingual polity. When in the aftermath of WWI the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 decreed that the Tyrolean territories south of the Brenner pass were to be assigned to Italy, the formerly Austro-Hungarian province of South Tyrol came to form part of a nation-­ state it did not identify with. The ensuing Italianisation programme, imposed by the Fascist regime in the 1920s and leading up to WWII, was to deprive South Tyrol not only of its national, but worse still, its linguistic and cultural identity. Under the fascist dictatorship German schools, newspapers, and public offices were shut down and the use of the German language in public places was forbidden. By the end of 1929 all teaching in German was prohibited (Alber, 2012, p. 401). The transmission of literacy skills to German-speaking children largely depended on secret underground, so-called ‘catacomb’ schools. It was only in the 1940s that South Tyroleans were permitted to use their language again (Ghirardo, 2009, p.  58; see also Steininger, 2003, pp.  48ff.). After the war, the peace treaty of 1946 ‘confirmed South Tyrol as part of Italy, but it provided for an international anchoring of minority rights, ensuring that the German-speaking population would be given special provisions’ (Alber, 2012, p.  402). When autonomy was granted to the province (with the promulgation of the first Autonomy Statute in 1948) and separate administrative divisions were set up for the different linguistic groups, the (language)

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situation was however far from the ‘parification’ laid down in the Paris Agreement (Alcock, 2001, p. 9). For instance, while it was mandatory to teach Italian L2 in all German schools, no such obligation to teach German existed for Italian schools. Moreover, it was only in 1989 that language parity was obtained with regards to court proceedings and the police (Alcock, 2001, p. 16). Following years of civil unrest and violent activism, a second (revised) autonomy statute was agreed upon in 1972. Article 19 of the Autonomy Statute famously stipulates that ‚In der Provinz Bozen wird der Unterricht in den Kindergärten, Grund- und Sekundarschulen in der Muttersprache der Schüler, das heißt in italienischer oder deutscher Sprache, von Lehrkräften erteilt, für welche die betreffende Sprache ebenfalls Muttersprache ist.‘[In the province of Bozen, teaching at the kindergarten, primary and secondary level is delivered in the children’s mother tongue, that is, in Italian or German, by teachers for whom the respective language is equally the mother tongue (my translation)]. While Art. 19 guarantees the language rights and thus contributes to safeguarding the linguistic and cultural identity of the German-speaking community in South Tyrol its stringent interpretation and application has led to a strong monolingual (German) bias. Resultantly efforts to promote bi- or multilingual educational programmes or implement early second and/or foreign language teaching in German schools are often viewed skeptically and perceived as a dilution of German-language school policies and a threat to the German (i.e., South Tyrolean) identity and language. An argument frequently put forward by authorities and political stakeholders is that as minority language speakers, South Tyrolean pupils need first and foremost to be supported in the development of their first language. Multilingual education, so the contention, cannot guarantee attainment of high competence in L1 because the efforts that go into L2/Ln acquisition undermine young learners’ development of L1. Egger articulates this mood when he notes that ‚Jeder Versuch einer Änderung der Rechtslage auf diesem Gebiet, etwa die Vorverlegung des Zweits-­ prachenunterrichts auf den Kindergarten oder die Einführung der zweisprachigen Schule wird von der deutschen Sprachgruppe als Bedrohung angesehen.‘[Any attempt to change the applicable law by moving language learning forward or by implementing bilingual education is perceived as a threat by the German-speaking community] (Egger, 1982, p. 172; my translation). It is important to say, however, that, these days, the fears that Egger pinpoints are much less a concern amongst the general public than amongst those at the political helm (cf. Ghirardo, 2009, p. 64). With high attainment in German a declared educational priority, a rigid German-­ oriented regime has been put in place in the German school system, its practical implementation often indiscriminately applied to native- and non-native speaking children (notably German-Italian bilinguals and other-language background children) alike. Due to this monoglossic myopia, students with mixed-language biographies are widely framed as incomplete and wanting, their single language proficiencies evaluated against a monolingual benchmark which invariably confers a mark of insufficiency. Languages other than the instructional language and/or bior multilingual family backgrounds are rarely viewed as resources for learning. Instead, there is a strong tendency to problematize pupils’ multilingual heritage as

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causative for linguistic inadequacy and poor overall academic performance. Indeed, there is little understanding that multilingual repertoires result in multilingual competencies, and that students who habitually use multiple languages in their everyday lives do not typically develop native-like competences in (all of) them but use languages differently from monolingual speakers (Cook, 2016). Moreover, there is a complete disregard that multilingual language constellations are dynamic and very much dependent on initial conditions, perceived needs, situated practices, and affordances. Constancy and (relative) stability may be a feature of some multilingual systems, but others will be governed by (continuous and varyingly strong) flux and reorganisation. Summing up, the monolingual habitus bespeaks a want of appreciation for the (linguistic and cognitive) benefits that can derive from having multiple languages (cf. Hofer, 2017) despite empirical evidence that the multilingually socialized learner-user has more resources at her/his disposal and their linguistic and cultural repertoires are richer and more varied than those of monolingually raised or educated children. Cook (2009, in Aronin, 2016, p.  207) is unequivocal when he observes that, in comparison, the monolingual is linguistically and culturally deprived.

4 Multilingual Repertoires in Monolingual Polities: How Does the Monoglossic Imposition Affect Learning in Multilingual Contexts? A complex ethno-linguistic system with three distinct linguistic communities in close contact South Tyrol, it has been noted, effectively operates on a policy of ‘separation under the same roof’ (Gobbo, 2018, p.  160). The segregation of languages is particularly visible in the education system with schools divided along linguistic lines such that different school boards and educational authorities cater to one linguistic group only, and the German-, Italian-, and Ladin-speaking communities each follow their own language education policies. It is worth noting that the numerically smallest community, the Ladins stand out for their high language effort and eagerness to acquire a rich multilingualism (Gobbo, 2018, p. 162). Based on a plurilingual parity model, the Ladin school system is grounded on the principle of ‘teaching language parity’ (Alber, 2012, p. 408). Ladin children are formally introduced to all three local languages when they are first admitted to nursery school (though some will have been in contact with the entire range of these languages before entering the educational system), and accordingly grow up to perceive multilingualism as the communicative norm. A model of inclusive multilingual learning the Ladin system is widely commended. In much the same way, the Italian schoolboard has long set the course for the implementation of multilingual education in Italian-language schools in the region (Ghirardo, 2009, pp.  69ff.; see also Gramegna, 2019; Hofer, 2015). With a view to promoting

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multilingualism at all levels special educational programmes (with various forms of immersion and CLIL) have been put in place from kindergarten to upper secondary school. The German education system is at this juncture the only system to remain lodged in a monoglossic habitus and committed to principles of linguistic uniformity and separation. While second and foreign language teaching in German-­ language schools typically aims at knowledge building in the single languages with the main foci on structural accuracy and the segregation of languages in the classroom, the life realities of most multilingual users are not naturally grounded in principles of language separation and linguistic purity. Indeed, multilingual agency requires the deployment of very specific skills and strategies which are neither valued nor for that matter trained in traditional classrooms. To all intents and purposes, German-language classrooms in South Tyrol are (some more, some less) strictly regimented spaces anchored for the most part in monoglossic normativity. On a provocative note, we might even venture that they are exclusive in the sense that they exhibit prescriptive and protectionist tendencies. Critiquing the monoglossic stamp of mainstream education, Ortega (2014, p. 37) makes the point that when ‘an impossible idealized native speaker competence is elevated to benchmark and arbiter of learning, the monolingual speaker norm’ casts a deficit light on those individuals who with ‘their forever lesser rather than perfect monolingual ability’ (ibid.) do not live up to these norm expectations. Sure enough, the deficit approach can have serious consequences, first because an exaggerated insistence on monolingual ways of doing and norm compliance will undermine pupils’ motivation, self-esteem and academic progress. Second, because it disadvantages what is a steadily growing multilingual segment of the student population, that is, children with multilingual biographies who operate on multilingual principles and develop multilingual competences and identities. But let us briefly consider the situation of the German language in the region. With over 69% of South Tyroleans speaking German as their first language, German – i.e., a local variant of German – is the dominant code in South Tyrol. As is characteristic of sociolinguistic contexts of diglossia, standard German is mainly used in formal settings, educational contexts, and the media, while everyday dealings are widely conducted in dialect. Horizontally, dialect variants result from different diatopic ecologies. Vertically, differences can be identified on the basis of social and generational parameters as become manifest in diastratic variation. The local varieties with their more or less salient morpho-syntactic and lexico-semantic peculiarities can diverge considerably from the standard German taught in schools. For the autochtonous German-speaking children entering the schooling system, this comes with important consequences as they essentially find themselves having to learn new linguistic structures and patterns of the German language. More challenging still, for Italian and other-language background children, the subsisting diglossic situation means that they are left to grapple with the intricacies of two varieties of the same language: the standard variety employed in school, and the dialect(s) endemic to the area. Noting that life in complex multilingual realities brings forth

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complex language profiles and proficiencies both, at the individual and at the wider community level, may at this point be stating the obvious. In order to gain a better understanding of the special skills and abilities that multilingual children develop, the study reported here set out to explore early multi-competence understood as the accumulation of children’s multilingual agency and reflexive cross-language faculties. Selected findings from this research are presented in the next section.

5 Investigating Multilingual Profiles and Competences at the Primary School Level Socialized as they are into a complex linguistic and cultural reality, the children participating in the study inhabit different sociocultural and educational spaces and engage in distinct linguistic practices, their life ecologies ranging from rather monolingual to very multilingual. In consequence, they have developed very specific multilingual repertoires and competences, which are shaped by a whole range of endogenous and exogenous determinants as constituted by their respective microand macro-contexts and their subjective (psycho-)linguistic and inter-cultural experiences. It is important to point out that while all the children in the current research attend German-language primary schools their respective in- and out-of-school contexts differ considerably in terms of socio-demographic and linguistic structure. Depending on where in South Tyrol the children live, their linguistic repertoires comprise the local and curricular languages (including German dialect, standard German, Italian, Ladin, and English) and/or additional  – mostly heritage  – languages in differing measure. From these repertoires idiosyncratic DLCs and multi-­ competences crystallise on the basis of children’s specific language use patterns and the affordances that are available to them. The representation below (Fig. 1) shows a prototypical language constellation – with German dialect, standard German and Italian (the national language) as the dominant or core languages, and English and Ladin as the more peripheral codes – as can be considered characteristic of the large majority of autochthonous German-­ speaking pupils in South Tyrol. German dialect and standard German – the former typically spoken in the family, and the latter used in school – occupy a prominent role in all school children’s life. Likewise, Italian L2 – taught for 4–5 h per week – plays a central (though clearly demographics-contingent) role. Reversely, English occupies (for most but not all children, as we shall see) a more peripheral position. English is – if we do not think of dialect as a separate code but on a continuum with standard German – children’s third language. Introduced in 4th grade and taught for 2 h per week, input for L3 English is significantly lower than for L2 Italian. In addition to Italian and English, South Tyrolean children may – through television, radio, or friends and relatives – come into contact with Ladin, the third official language

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peripheral language 2 Ladin

peripheral language1 English

DLC with German dialect & standard German & Italian

Fig. 1  Prototypical dynamic language constellation of a German-speaking child in South Tyrol

in South Tyrol. In the DLC prototype (Fig. 1) below, children’s core languages are represented as one, indexing the close relationship between them. The tooth system and the arrows underscore the dynamic cross-language interactions within the system which, importantly, allow for new skills and abilities to emerge from extant knowledge and experiences (see Hofer, 2023). For obvious reasons, different DLCs and crosslinguistic dynamics must be anticipated for pupils with Italian as L1, for native Ladin-speaking, for bi- or trilingually socialised children, and for children with migrant histories, as their linguistic competencies are likely to be at variance with those of monolingually socialised children with German-language background (only) (see vignettes below). With respect to the current study, distinctive DLCs and multilingual competences are also expected for two groups of pupils enrolled in multilingual programmes. Benefitting from a multilingual didactic approach and higher and more intensive contact times with their second and third language from grade 1, their linguistic experiences differ along several lines from those of our study participants in the mainstream programmes (see below). The following first presents an outline and discussion of the study. The aim is to draw attention to the range of skills (including in particular meta- and crosslinguistic skills) that young multilinguals develop, and to investigate how a DLC perspective can be fruitfully applied to the study of early multi-competence. Finally, conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future research are offered.

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5.1 The Participants in the Study The children in this study were recruited from 10 German-language schools in rural and urban areas with varying percentages of Italian speakers in the immediate out-­ of-­school context and varyingly heterogeneous year-group composition. Different initial conditions are further constituted by the respective educational parameters with most children (n = 175) placed in mainstream programmes and two cohorts (n  =  34) receiving multilingual education (Hofer, 2023). Based on the specific learning-­related and socio-demographic contexts and assumed degrees of multilingualism as determined by their specific life realities, participants were allocated to one of 5 groups and positioned on a continuum ranging from relatively monolingual to highly multilingual. As already mentioned, groups differ with regards to their respective sociolinguistic and educational realities: while some children are nested in remote periphery locations where they rarely encounter Italian (or other languages) outside of school, others are immersed in larger, centrally located towns with a high concentration of Italian and/or other-language speakers and benefit from elevated contact times. Equally, as indicated, classroom composition differs considerably from school to school with some year groups being relatively homogeneous (i.e., monoglossic German-speaking), and others decidedly more heterogenous and heteroglossic. 209 children in total participated in the study. Their approximate age at the time was 10. All the children were in their 5th and final year. Most children’s DLCs included German dialect (=the language of everyday communication) and standard German (=the language of schooling), and L2 Italian (=the national language). However, while all the children in the study spoke German, not all of them spoke it as their first language. Indeed, for some children Italian was the stronger language. Paying testament to the range and diversity of South Tyrolean primary schoolers’ multilingual resources the ensuing vignettes trace the linguistic profiles of three of our young study participants as evinced from background questionnaires and individual interviews. The accounts attest to South Tyrolean children’s increasingly multilingual life worlds and gain us a glimpse of their distinct life histories, language learning experiences, and multilingual identities. Tina (Fig. 2 below) lives in a remote mountain village only a few miles from the Swiss border. She is – with varying frequency and intensity – exposed to five language (varietie) s: She speaks German dialect at home and uses standard German in school, where she also studies L2 Italian. Outside of school she rarely uses Italian (according to the 2011 Census only 2.18% of people in her village are speakers of L1 Italian). For Tina, exposure to L2 Italian is thus confined to the Italian language arts class (i.e., 4 hours of formal teaching per week). In addition to Italian, Tina has been studying English L3 for 2 hours since grade 4. A friend of Tina’s speaks some Romansch at home because Romansch – one of the four national languages in Switzerland alongside German, Italian and French – is her mother’s first language. Tina says that when the two speak to each other, she can understand large stretches of conversation because Romansch sounds like Italian. I am astonished to find that despite the manifestly reduced contact with L2 Italian and her young age, Tina is nevertheless able to successfully transfer her L2 knowledge to decode meaning in a language entirely unknown to her.

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German dialect & standard German & Italian

Fig. 2  Tina’s DLC

English German dialect & standard German & Italian

Fig. 3  Marco’s DLC Marco (Fig. 3) too attends a German-language primary school. Unlike Tina’s school, his school is located in the capital where he encounters Italian on a day-to-day basis, not only in but also outside of school. At home he speaks Italian and German as one parent is a native speaker of Italian and the other a native speaker of German. His family has travelled widely which is why Marco spent his early childhood in Australia. Marco remembers using English with his friends back in Australia and has very fond memories of those years. Both his English and his Italian are highly developed. Demonstrably at ease in all three languages Marco flexibly switches from one to another (as requested to do in the interview), e­ ffortlessly

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English Pakistani & German dialect & standard German & Italian

Fig. 4  Muhammed’s DLC gliding in and out of codes, and pride resonating in his words as he recounts episodes from his early experiences abroad. Early multi-competence fantabulous, I enter in my fieldnotes.

Tina and Marco’s DLCs are mapped out in the following. Next, Muhammed’s profile (Fig. 4) differs from those of Tina and Marco in that he has heritage language background. His family is of Pakistani origin. While Pakistani is the main language, Italian and German are also used at home (unfortunately, it is not clear to what the degree these languages are drawn upon in family conversations). Muhammed has lived in South Tyrol ever since he was born so he speaks German dialect and standard German, the vehicular language in school. Muhammed has a foreign (Pakistani) accent when he speaks German and struggles somewhat with the standard variety. Muhammed’s Italian is less developed than his German even though many of the daily functions in his town are conducted in Italian (according to the 2011 Census over 70% of the population in his town speak Italian). English, which he studies as L3 in school, is Muhammed’s fourth language. A visual representation of Muhammed’s DLC is provided below.

As noted earlier, it is thinkable that the children in the vignettes have also at some point come into (marginal) contact with Ladin. Ladin would then likely be a peripheral code in their repertoires as none of them speak or study the language.

5.2 Results of the Empirical Study To highlight the special skills and abilities that bi- and multilingually socialized children like Tina, Marco and Muhammed bring to the classroom and show what young emergent multilinguals are in fact capable of doing with their languages, the current study explored how skilled young learners are at deploying their linguistic resources in tasks which require them to operate across multiple codes. To this end children were administered a comprehensive test battery inclusive of a multilingual procedure (The Multilingual Competence Test or MCT) and single language tests

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together with several questionnaires. In addition, a subsample of 42 pupils participated in individual oral interviews during which they supplied details regarding their language learning experiences, their language attitudes, and the strategies used in the multilingual competence test (MCT), amongst others. Devised especially for the purposes of this research, the MCT (Hofer & Jessner, 2019a, b) requires pupils to work across a range of familiar and unknown languages (including the curricular languages German, Italian and English, plus Spanish, Ladin, French, Dutch, Swedish and Danish as novel codes). The procedure comprises a linguistic and a metacognitive-reflexive component: the former focuses on concrete multilingual operations such as translating, identifying and correcting errors across languages, and some L2 text production, the latter elicits verbalisations of children’s meta- and cross-language cognitions during task completion and grant us an insight into pupils’ knowledge of linguistic rules, their grasp of typological overlap and the strategies employed during multilingual task resolution. It was hypothesized that the 5 groups would perform differently because even though they share similar linguistic constellations, they nevertheless differ from each other in the sense that their languages carry different weightings and perform different functions in their day-to-day dealings. As anticipated, the statistical data revealed significant performance differences between the 5 cohorts both, for the MCT and for the single language tests. Performance differences also emerged for those children who speak German plus Italian or another language at home, and those who do not speak any German at home. What the study thus shows is that children in high-contact areas develop different multilingual competences from those in low-contact settings. In fact, the children in the high-contact settings were found to perform significantly more successfully on the MCT and on the Italian and English measure and they showed enhanced levels of flexibility at manipulating their (meta-)linguistic and meta-cognitive resources. A particularly stark multilingual advantage emerged for the children in the multilingual programmes whose special linguistic, interactional and cultural experiences, it would appear, afford them plenty of opportunities to develop a rich and multifarious skillset. From these findings can be derived that the need to adapt to the given sociolinguistic conditions in one’s environment together with the need to selectively and recurrently activate specific languages results in very specific DLCs and increases the child’s agency and action radius in and across these (and possibly other) languages. For a detailed discussion of the results, the reader is directed to Hofer (2023). What interests us here is the finding that children with very similar linguistic constellations behave rather differently when operating with multiple languages. In order to understand how these differences come about and how each child’s specific multilingual experiences contribute to shaping their distinctive DLCs and multicompetences, we need to look at the role that the single languages play in the children’s repertoire, how much these languages are used for which functions, and what their symbolic meaning and emotional underpinnings are. Studying children’s DLCs rather than their repertoires may be a good starting point. With that said, to arrive at a more sharply contoured reflection of young learners’ multilingual competences, it will be necessary to include an explicit focus on the mental procedures and ­ affective/

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motivational dynamics underpinning the construction and expansion of multi-­ competence. Indeed, since DLCs do not in themselves tell us much about abilities, learner subjectivities, or for that matter the special competences that emerge from the interplay of multiple linguistic systems in the mind, it seems important that, in order to obtain a truly holistic picture of the multi-competent learner-user, the DLC framework be extended with a view to integrating the complex psycholinguistic dynamics driving multi-competence building. This added focus on psycholinguistic processes will allow us to take account of the oscillations and weight shifts and the fluidity, which are characteristic of developing dominant/dynamic LCs. It is indicative that in high-contact zones such as South Tyrol hybrid practices are widespread with languages in use typically flowing into and permeating each other. A DLC framework for South Tyrol should therefore reserve apposite conceptual space for (1) the linguistic peculiarities which emerge from children’s multilingual practices, and for (2) the dynamic – i.e., synergistic and interferential – interactions between the languages implicated. On this premise, multilingual competence can then be theorized as an emergent property of the dominant/dynamic LC, viz., a special multilingual resourcefulness and agency which emerges and dynamically evolves from each individual child’s specific LC.

6 Final Considerations and Conclusion This chapter has discussed perspectives on multiple language competence as prevalent in the unilingual-oriented education system of South Tyrol. It has proposed a focal expansion of the DLC framework by situating individual dominant/dynamic LCs within a broad context at the interface of socio-political and cognitive-­ psychological forces. Encouraging alternative readings of linguistic competence – as mark individuals’ interactions in the postmodern era of the new linguistic dispensation – the extended framework, it has been argued, can help deconstruct the monoglossic myth through advocacy of a pluralistic outlook and the call for a radical reconfiguration of linguistic competence. While the current contribution merely reports on a post-hoc attempt at interpreting extant research data through the prism of DLC, future investigations should start out with a similar research design expressly aimed at applying DLC to multi-­ competence building in young children. Ideally, such research will aim to integrate children’s emic narratives so as to obtain as fine-grained and dynamic an account as possible of how young learners construct their multilingual skills repertoire and identity. To gain access to pupils’ perspectives, researchers should consider including personal narrations and/or multimodal methods (Ibrahim, 2016; Melo-Pfeifer, 2015) aimed at eliciting children’s subjective perceptions of the pragmatic functions and emotional value of their languages and how these latter relate to one another on a scale from complementary/symbiotic to collisional/interferential. Doing so may generate greater awareness and appreciation of the uniqueness of the multilingual mind and user. Visualising pupils’ dominant/dynamic LC will allow for their core

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and peripheral language configurations (and by extension their multilingual proficiencies and identities) to become more tangible, the additional focus on psycholinguistic processes highlighting the dynamics of mental routines (notably meta- and crosslinguistic activity and needs-based motivational drivers) and changing growth patterns across space-time. Taking inventory of dominant/dynamic LCs in classrooms and schools will help increase understanding of what linguistic competence in children with multiple languages is and entails, and it will be a first step towards valuing their multilingual competences – including their partial proficiencies and heritage languages. Finally, the application of a DLC framework holds potential for the provision of tailored educational solutions for children in multilingual life ecologies, as it draws attention to the specific nature of (their) multicompetence and the special needs accruing therefrom.

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Dominant Language Constellations in Luxembourg: Clusters of Identities and Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism Sofia Stratilaki-Klein

Abstract  The double dimension, enunciative and contextual, of identity construction is of growing interest in research in multilingual studies. The Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) can be identified as a framework for understanding the plurilingual identity of an individual, while they unfold and are constructed in the language narratives as a complex discursive operation comprising three fundamental levels: hyper-, meso- and hypo-ordered level of Language Constellations (LC). This analytical approach allows us to specify the role of social representations in the way individuals conceive plurilingualism and their plurilingual and pluricultural competence. In this study, we consider DLC as meeting points between speakers and languages, as spaces of implementation of strategies of appropriation of self-representation and construction of knowledge, that allow to recognize and assert oneself as a social actor: we call them Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism (NofRP). We deal with the following question: How do certain representations (both in terms of language identity and social life) help individuals build a plural and reflexive self whose dynamics are manifested through language constellations? The conclusions allow us to say that representations of plurilingualism reflect social reality, but they also indicate a process in development, that of a dynamic act of creation of DLC. Keywords  DLC · Identity construction · Plurilingual and pluricultural competence · Network of representations of plurilingualism · Clusters of emic and self-representations

S. Stratilaki-Klein (*) Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France Université du Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_5

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1 Introduction According to Eric Erikson (1979), identity construction is not only a result of past experiences but also an ongoing procedure which is future-oriented and developed through stages. Individuals create then specific personality traits which are always transformed and changed during their life because of new lived experiences. In this sense, every speaker in the contemporary world has multiple resources that he or she combines to build a language path. This allows him/her to become aware not only of his/her plurilingualism, but also of the processes he or she uses to become plurilingual. In other words, language uses and identity based on a sociocultural perspective on human action is viewed as socially constituted and a dynamic product of individuals’ lived experiences. In today’s globalizing society, the communication processes between people tend to change rapidly, and individuals are aware of this new reality. Especially in multilingual communities with high levels of migrants, individuals must cope with those complex communicative situations in their daily life. Lo Bianco and Aronin (2020, p. 2) define multilingualism as ‘the organized and unorganized language practices with three and more languages and the handling of more than two languages by some or all members of a society, as well as the implications of these practices and this handling for the society and its members.’ In Luxembourg, this reality is vivid, and people try to interact with different languages every day and adapt their behavior to the situational demands of this multilingual society. In our study, we admit that the identity construction of each person in such environments is always changing as well as the development of his plurilingual competence (i.e., Coste et al., 1997, 2009). The definition of plurilingual and pluricultural competence is relatively complex and calls for a multiplicity of points of view and approaches. It can be presented as a dynamic framework built over the long term. To understand this framework, the first step is perhaps situated in holistic and transversal approaches which put life stories in perspective, making appear their relativity, their historical formation itself within the lines of rupture or continuity, their subjectivity of interpretation and their objectivity of situations, their lights and their shadows. According to Lo Bianco and Aronin (2020, p. 18), the Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) can be identified as a framework for understanding the plurilingual identity of an individual: ‘The DLC approach has arisen to reflect a critical and sometimes overlooked dimension of the global transformations in the use and acquisition of languages that have led to the distinctive nature of today’s multilingualism: the clusters of vehicle languages that individuals adopt, which serve their immediate needs, reflect their social environments demo-linguistics and which can be deployed according to the exigencies of practical life in a variety of domains.’1

 According to Lo Bianco and Aronin (2020, p. 5), ‘A Dominant Language Constellation is a group of one’s most important languages, functioning as an entire unit and enabling an individual to meet all their needs in a multilingual environment (Aronin 2006).’ 1

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In our study, we deal with the following question: How do certain representations help individuals build a plural and reflexive identity whose dynamics are manifested through language constellations (LC)? We define LC as follows: Language Constellations are constituted of clusters of representations and strategies, that is to say of images related to the languages which try to value the collective identity of individuals, while creating a new personal one. To answer this question, we will show that social representations of plurilingualism in Luxembourg are both complex and dynamic because of the personal experience of speakers (due to their biography made of different LC), their geographical mobility and the learning and use of several languages. We consider that social representations about DLC are situated in discourse and that they imply a dynamic that we can find in verbal interaction as well as in language uses. This approach will allow us, on the one hand, to specify the role of social representations in the way individuals conceive plurilingualism in general, and their plurilingual competence, in particular. On the other hand, it will allow us to define DLC as meeting points between speakers and languages, and as places of implementation of strategies of appropriation and construction of knowledge. We are well aware that many answers to this question can be found in the specialized literature. We do not pretend to establish, in this study, an exhaustive inventory, but only intend to outline some of the possible answers about the dynamics of DLC. In the following chapters, we will present our theoretical framework (Sect. 2) on DLC described as modes of interpretation of the social environment, allowing individuals to act and communicate and groups to regulate their reciprocal interactions. We will then present our methodology (Sect. 3) and context of study (Sect. 4) in Luxembourg. We will focus the analysis on two examples of plurilingual identity showing by this comparative study that representations of languages in a plurilingual environment are complex, because they result from a set of personal, symbolic and social characteristics which, far from being opposed, combine in a particular configuration, an identity base for each individual, evolving and reconfiguring itself through time and in a specific context (Sect. 5). Finally, we will conclude with a discussion (Sect. 6) on DLC made up of plural and diversified resources and identity strategies of belonging and singularization that allows one to recognize and assert oneself as a social actor: we call them Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism (NofRP).

2 Conceptual Framework Language has a constitutive role in the identity of a person. The work of Tajfel and Turner (1979) shows that there are links between language and identity, namely that individual characteristics allow language to be seen as a symbolic aspect of identity and social characteristics allow identity to be conceived as a process aspect of negotiation or definition of social reality. Lüdi (1987) takes up the idea of acts of identity by pointing out that we identify our interlocutors on the basis of traces of their

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identity in the way they are and age in social interaction. In this perspective, we consider in our study language behaviours as acts of identity through which speakers reveal their personal identity and social aspirations. The experiences we make and integrate constitute organized resources that structure our perception of the surrounding world and give shape to our grasp of the present and the future. Lo Blanco and Aronin (2020, p. 22) argue that ‘A DLC is a unit of communication that transcends individual languages, it is therefore a cluster or a whole, and so, without depleting its composite parts, meaning the languages that comprise it, the DLC operates as a unit of communication, an integrated entity, both cognitively and sociologically’. In this sense, plurilingual identity is not only the organization of the various elements of identity but the construction of an interlacing of lines that would represent relationships that should be understood as a whole. In our theoretical framework, we place ourselves in the shared current of sociologists and psychologists (De Rosa, 1988) who consider plurilingual identity as the product of a dynamic process. Therefore, we consider identity as the structured set of identials that allow the individual to define himself in an interaction situation and to act as a social actor. In the following chapter, we distinguish two elements, that define the structure of identity. On the one hand, we focus on the identity-based strategies of DLC used by social interlocuters (Sect.2.1), as we argue that the collective identity is produced and takes its meaning within the constellations of individual identities. On the other hand, we analyse the characteristics and levels of construction that define LC (Sect. 2.2.). We hope that this two-part structure of the theoretical framework will make it easier to read and understand our methodology and study.

2.1 Identity-Based Strategies by Dominant Language Constellations: An Emic Approach of Social Stakeholders The notion of identity is understood as a set of dispositions taken by the actors to reach a given goal. As Aronin (2020, p.  35) points out: ‘People always use languages for a reason which lies in the particular activity they are involved in’. Called by some French-speaking authors (Baudouin, 2010; Marc, 2006; Pepin, 2007, among others) as ‘marqueurs d’identité’ or identials in English-speaking literature (Wenger, 1998) identity elements fall into two categories: on the one hand, the attributes that define an individual’s personal identity, i.e. what is unique about him as a speaker, and on the other hand, those that define his social identity, i.e. the status he shares with other members of a social group. We consider that personal identity, the one by which the plurilingual individual defines his or her DLC, perceives himself or herself to be unique and different from all others, is itself partly shaped by the personality and language traits that the environment attributes to the individual and that are internalized by the individual (status and power of languages, linguistic and social competences, etc.). Some personality traits can indeed play the role of social attributes mobilizing the whole social identity and allowing identification with a

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social group defined by these same attributes (native- or non-native speaker, for instance, see Slavkov et al., 2021). Stratilaki (2011) demonstrates that this organization of different identity elements, whose combination of languages defines a plurilingual speaker, is not a simple sum of the whole; on the contrary, it is a relatively stable structure over time. In other words, individuals generally have a feeling of identity continuity, and are recognized by others despite the passage of time, but this continuity is endowed with a certain placiticity that allows it to change some of the elements that make it up or to integrate others according to the changes that follow one another, but above all to organize them according to situations. In fact, each of these identity markers is of variable relevance depending on the situations of DLC in which the plurilingual speaker find himself. In a way, the situation calls for one of the elements of identity. The other elements become secondary and are organized around and according to what appears from this pole. In this sense, DCL appears as a kind of ‘toolbox’, each tool being an element of identity that the subject chooses according to its adequacy to the situation in which he/she is. Some languages, such as the mother tongue, for instance, are more frequently called upon than others to play this role of organizing pole of the plurilingual identity (Norton, 2013). On a more daily basis, and in a practical way, ‘non-native languages’ (according to De Angelis, 2007) often constitute organizing poles that mobilize the whole identity in our relationships with others. According to this point of view, identity strategies of DLC’s use vary in their forms and are defined by three elements: (a) the social actors of a situation or interaction (b) the situation in which the actors are involved and (c) the goals pursued by the actors. In other words, these elements are necessary for an identity strategy process to take place so as the plurilingual actor can choose which language or languages of the cluster will be dominant in his repertoire. Having clarified this, we can now ask ourselves what form the subject’s identity takes in the constellation of languages. In a review of the specific literature on identity, Deschamps and Moliner (2008) propose several frameworks for building social identity. The first factor, which cannot be ignored, is the personality of the subject who is involved in an interaction. Above all, they give a unified image of the features that make up the identity of the plurilingual actor and that appear at first glance to be very different. This shows that the repertoire of a plurilingual speaker is not a fragmented constellation of languages; on the contrary, it is capable of bringing all languages together to contribute to a better understanding of the constructions of competence by the social actor. But even if languages are placed dynamically in DLC as united, their acquisition always implies a double process of strategy implementation for the plurilingual actor: separation and fusion (Py, 2000). Indeed, the plurilingual learner will seek, during acquisition, to identify the specificity, the novelty while linking the mechanisms perceived in L3/Ln to mechanisms known in L1/L2. The fact that typologically close languages favour the process of fusion does not prevent the process of separation, which is a necessary strategy for any acquisition process. In DLC, it is a question of managing the distance between the languages. A language, foreign or close, can appear as more or less distant in a given environment, but it will be in contact with the other languages of the repertory in order to provide a learning

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opportunity (see the concept of proximal zone of development proposed a long time ago by Vygotsky, 1934). In other words, the role of DLC is to bring together what appeared to be fragmented in the plurilingual repertoire. Recognizing this space of contact does not, however, mean denying all forms of tension between various languages in LC. These tensions are very present in the organization of social representations and in the functioning of institutions, including the school. Lo Bianco underlines (2020, p. 47), that ‘DLC emerges in interaction with societal language resources and their hierarchies and roles, the rewards or benefits individual languages afford or deny. It follows that any DLC is an outcome of what the analytical unit (a person, a family, an ethnic minority group, or an institution or a whole society), needs, chooses, prefers, or prioritizes as the order of available and necessary resources for their various exigencies, as they perceive them and to the extent that they have agency and ability to affect their choices’. This argument is supported also by Gajo (2019, p. 163), who points out: ‘Languages rub up against each other and alternate in multilingual repertoires and/or situations’. This process of dominance at various depths involves a reconstruction, generally a posteriori, of life experiences, bringing to light a capital of biographical trajectory. Distancing oneself and reflecting on the changing dimensions of one’s identity offers a space for redefining oneself and the other. Coste et al. (1997) have shown that the plurilingual competence in a LC is built over time with periods of latency or reactivation of the various linguistic resources according to identity references, cultural patterns and variable interlocutors. Duration does not guarantee a linear development of this competence, just as it does not contribute to the systematic valorisation of all its forms. According to the authors, plurilingual competence is made up of different resources and strategies, social and linguistic, of various strata and of nodes of relations to multiple spheres of belonging, the cut never being radical, none being really excluded nor all being simultaneously visible in a particular context and in a given communication situation. Thanks to this complexity, the notion of plurilingual (and pluricultural) competence articulates both the social and the individual, singularity and plurality, linguistic and cultural, communication and cultural mediation. In the Council of Europe’s reference study, Coste, Moore and Zarate (1997, p. 30) point out that ‘pluricultural and plurilingual competence never has the opportunity to be displayed in all its diversity and completeness; it is only partially displayed, depending on the particularities of a given market. A description which does not take into account these successive identity variations, but which seeks to identify all the competences virtually available, would in fact hide the strategic dimension on which the plurilingual plays’. In our study, we share this point of view by defining LC as following: taking into consideration LC in defining identity allow us to value a set of resources in terms of individual learning trajectories, paths of cultural experience (symbolic, imaginary, chosen or desired) and dynamics of language contact, contextually mobilized and invested, in their diversity (see also, among others, Coste, 2004; Moore & Castellotti, 2008; Castellotti et al., 2009). This definition could be extended, but that is not the purpose of this chapter. What counts here are the shifts that such a conception

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operates in the representations that cross and structure the individual’s plurilingual identity. It is possible to characterize, very schematically, these displacements by three different levels of categorization intervening in the manner of the “three musketeers” in the construction of identity representations: –– The plurilingual and pluricultural competence as an organizing principle of identity variations in a DLC. Identity representations allow plurilinguals to develop and maintain knowledge about themselves and others, about the different discourse communities to which they belong. The images that individuals present of themselves in discourse, even if they are very similar in terms of the selection of facets, nevertheless vary from one person to another. These images correspond, certainly, to the multiple character of the self, but the representation of the self must be structured in a DLC to prevent it from dissolving into an infinite number of fragmented, eminently polymorphic skills. One way of looking at this structuring is to understand plurilingual competence as an organizing principle of identity variations, as a heuristic framework that makes it possible to account for both the stability of the self and its fluidity, to combine past experience with the present and the future, by highlighting the specific (or singular) place of the self in social and symbolic relationships with others. The point here is to consider the fact that, depending on the context, the issues at stake and the interactions, it is not the same skills and aspects of the self that appear to be salient or useful, and which will therefore be activated, filtered or expressed by the individuum according to his or her representations of LC, identity goals and linguistic trajectory. –– The plurilingual and pluricultural competence as a polyphonic and emic representation of the self. The individual, through his or her  belonging to different groups with different DLC, acquires a social and discursive identity, he or she elaborates and manages knowledge about himself or herself and about others. And it is often the representations that we share with others, but of which we have singled out certain aspects, that make us both individual and collective beings. As we have stated, social interactions and new experiences are likely to make these representations evolve, self-representations produced by an individual about himself, and social representations shared by a group as a whole and relating to an object in the world. The plurilingual learner in particular has a variety of language capital (linguistic, symbolic and cultural) and resources that he or she manages according to situations, tasks and multiple social networks. The notion of plurilingual competence makes it possible to understand how the individuum can be a member of both a particular group – a group of belonging and reference – and several different discourse communities, while being able to operate in diverse languages and cultures (family, peer group, school, sports associations, etc.). This polyphony of the self is translated, in the discourse, by means of communication pertaining to various languages and varied modes of code-alternation according to variations, affective values and sociolinguistic norms in a DLC (such as to fill a lexical gap, to affirm a distinction and a “plus”, to show or hide this or that facet of oneself).

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–– The plurilingual and pluricultural competence as a quest and strategy for identity mobility. In the analysis (Sect. 4), we argue that it makes sense to approach plurilingual competence in a holistic and emic way and to opt for a diachronic and dynamic conception of this competence as a place of identity construction, of (re)configuration of identity spaces and of conjugation of language resources in a LC. In other words, a place where the linguistic components ‘already there’ or ‘under construction’ are composite and distinct, in contact with each other in a single competence (without amalgamating or merging) and in different forms of language use and learning. This dynamic conception of competence makes it possible, above all, to understand that the plurilingual individuum can present himself in different facets, as a bilingual or plurilingual speaker, elaborate complex identity strategies (in constant adjustment), choose to modulate, regulate or displace the boundaries of common knowledge in order to reconstruct his own representations and position himself within a category, while maintaining a sense of continuity and coherence of self. In this perspective, plurilingual competence makes it possible to distinguish different profiles of learners, dynamic and evolving, to hierarchize them or to structure them in spheres of identity, where the ‘ideal or perfect’ bilingual is only one case among others. It presents itself as a moving framework, crystallizing a labile resource that allows the student to change and manage his or her language biography throughout life. In this framework, the notions of evolution, individual trajectory and the value of time are central. Some components of plurilingual competence may, at a given moment, become a priority and others a little less so. In other words, a reference language (other than the mother tongue) may become a matrix language for learning a third or fourth language at school. As such, plurilingual competence is built on the individuum’s ability to interpret the social and discursive context and to adapt to it by mobilizing and reconfiguring his or her linguistic and cultural resources in situ. Thus, instead of defining the individual on the basis of the objective traits that characterize him from a point of view from outside, we propose to apprehend him on the basis of the representations that he makes of himself and of others, thus from a point of view within the lines of his or her interpretation. Erving Goffman (1987, p. 271) concludes Ways of Talking by writing, ‘Our actions must take into account the mind of another, that is, his ability to read our feelings, thoughts, and intentions into our words and gestures. This limits what we can say and do; but it also allows us to make as many allusions to the world as others can grasp’. We will try to summarize the main lines of these reflections in the following Sect. (2.2), in which we claim the necessity of a holistic approach in order to understand the idea that DLC are born of social interaction, as much as they structure it in part.

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2.2 Characteristics and Levels of Language Constellations (LC): A Holistic Approach Based on the idea that every individual is characterized, on the one hand, by traits of a social nature that indicate his or her membership in groups or categories and, on the other hand, by traits of a personal nature, more idiosyncratic attributes of the individual, we propose to distinguish three referential levels that constitute, in a way, the frameworks for the construction of DLC.  The first is the hyper-ordered level, where the subject conceives of himself as a social actor and makes comparisons through assimilations and differentiations (real or symbolic) between himself and others. The second level is called intermediate or meso, where the subject, categorizing himself as a member of a group, makes inter-group comparisons. And the third level is called hypo-ordered, where the subject, conceiving himself as a singular, unique and distinct person, makes comparisons between himself and others, within the one group to which he belongs. Let us analyse specifically the three levels of LC. To do so, we argue in Stratilaki (2011) that the varying degrees of involvement of social representations in the construction of DLC can be dealt with by means of the three following operational dimensions (Fig. 1), which, as shown in the diagram below, interlock with each other (see also Coste, 2003). These comparisons lead to variable findings. For example, within-group comparison may produce stronger or weaker contrast effects, it may lead the subject to perceive himself as very different from members of his own group (strong differentiation) or as very similar (weak differentiation). In the same way, intergroup comparison will lead to varying differentiation effects in relation to group members. However, the boundaries can be shifting, evolving or symbolic (among others) between the groups and, therefore, it remains difficult to establish in multilingual contexts (such as Luxembourg). In our study, we claim that it is necessary to consider the plural profiles and identities of plurilingual actors (Stratilaki-Klein et al., 2020). In this respect, the imaginary, considered as a creative space and a discursive process, is a characteristic that plays a fundamental role in the analysis of LC, allowing plurilingual actors to go beyond practices of dominant languages in a social group, to conceive new ways of

Hyper-ordered level of Language Constellations Intermediate or meso level of Language Constellations Hypo-ordered level of Language Constellations

Fig. 1  Levels of Language Constellations (LC)

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learning, using and interacting with languages. As Coste (2003, p. 76) points out: ‘Posed as plural, heterogeneous, unbalanced, insofar as the varieties it gathers and manages are multiple, of unequal degrees of development and mastery, of distinct external and internal sociolinguistic status (i.e., languages perceived as dominant or dominated), plurilingual competence is also evolving and dynamic. In his or her individual trajectory and social history, the plurilingual subject sees the weighting, the modes of balance/unbalance between the various resources from which this plural competence draws and all together one.’ These theoretical orientations emphasize that plurilingual competence is, in general, both plural and complex, insofar as the knowledge it gathers and manages is multiple. Because of this imbalance of power between LC, the configuration of this competence evolves, is enriched by new components, completes or transforms others. According to the individuals’ trajectory, the configuration of this competence evolves, is enriched with new components, completes or transforms certain others, and allows some others to wither away. Taking these three levels of analysis into account allows us, in our opinion, to go beyond a static conception of discourse as the result or trace of a succession of statements, to look at the dynamic processes of its construction, where the plurilingual speaker interacts with others, argues and makes explicit his or her discourse, manifests and (co-)constructs his or her representations of dominant languages. This observation, even if it is probably not very original, invites us to rethink the way we approach and describe discourse production. In particular, it requires the construction of analytical tools and observables that allow a multidimensional approach to the language practices of plurilingual learners. In this sense, it seems relevant not only to recognize the different types of discourse, but also to analyse the different referential, interactional and communicative dimensions that define DLC as well as their mode of articulation. By relying on such criteria of analysis, we can perceive both the identity and communicative stakes that are linked to the construction of plurilingual competence and account for the actional purposes that underlie the language practices of plurilingual learners. ‘To speak of plurilingual and pluricultural competence is to be interested in the communication competence of social actors who are able to operate in different languages and cultures, to play the roles of intermediaries, linguistic and cultural mediators, and to manage and reshape this plural competence in the course of their personal trajectory’. With these words, Coste, Moore and Zarate (1997, p. 9) open their study entitled Plurilingual and Pluricultural Competence with a perspective of respect for linguistic and cultural pluralism and diversification in language teaching/learning. In Sect. 2.1, we characterized, in a role similar to that of the three ‘musketeers’, three levels in the analysis of plurilingual and pluricultural competence… but perhaps they are four, as in the novel, since it is necessary to add to them D’Artagnan, the most precious guardian, the value of time, which can be named as follows: the plurilingual and pluricultural competence as guarantor of duration and continuity of LC. To posit that the skills that make up plurilingual competence are at once plural, distinct and complex, in contact with each other, managed by a competence (according to the famous expression ‘One for all! All for one!’), is not only to take a diachronic look at the configuration and evolution of its components,

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but above all to consider the individual, at a given moment of his life, as a locus of language contact characterized in an idiosyncratic way by two dimensions, the first one consisting of social identity (synchronic), the second one of personal identity (diachronic). In this study, by focusing on the individual, by reintroducing his or her point of view at the centre of the analysis, we aim shifting the general to the particular, by redefining the relationships that languages and cultures have within an individual and by drawing the contours of subject’s plural identities. We argue that the development of plurilingual and pluricultural competence requires of the individual, above all, the acceptance of heterogeneity and dissymmetry, reflexivity on his or her biography and awareness (linguistic, normative, ethno- and sociolinguistic, in the sense of Dabène, 1994) of his or her plurilingualism, of his or her capital and of the potential linguistic, cultural and symbolic values that his or her resources embody in the long term (Aronin & Singleton, 2008).

3 Methodology In this chapter, we specify our methodology of approaching identity through language clusters. The analysis is based on interviews which were conducted with two plurilingual persons who live and work in Luxembourg. The first interviewee’s name is Peter, a 26-year-old independent agent. He was born in Luxembourg where he completed most of his formal education (primary and secondary). He counts Luxembourgish and French as his mother tongues, but has knowledge of several languages, including German, English, Dutch, and Portuguese. He learned most of the languages at school, except for Dutch and Portuguese, which he is currently studying in his spare time. The second interviewee is a lady who was born in Luxembourg. She is married to a Luxembourgish man. Together they have two children, a boy and a girl. The interview was conducted in French, because Sofia feels very comfortable in this language. She grew up in a family that spoke only French for the first 5 years of her life. Afterwards, she was educated in a Luxembourgish school. As a result, a second language was added through schooling, Luxembourgish. She became literate in German at the age of six. During the second year of elementary school, French was added to the school curriculum. After finishing elementary school, Sofia was enrolled in high school. By the second year in high school, English became the fourth language Sofia learned. Through family background and travel, Sofia also has a knowledge of the Portuguese language, learned by her grandmother. The interviews lasted for 30 mins; both interviewees were very open and interested in the themes of the interview. This interview was conducted in accordance with the code of ethics. This implies that the interviewee has given his/her full consent, explaining that he/she agrees that the required testimony may be recorded and used for research. For the purposes of the interview, the interviewee was anonymized. During the entire interview, the interviewee was not forced to answer any questions and could leave the interview at any time. The interviews had been recorded and

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afterwards transcribed. The analysis of the data collected during this interview is based mainly on a thematic analysis. As the ideal of ‘perfect plurilingual speaker’ often determines the way we look at ourselves and at others, reflexivity is in the center of our data. We consider that it elaborates through the drawing of languages as well as explanations or comments about visual representations. It allows the plurilingual individuum to put into words his identity associating within the same repertoire different linguistic components; that is, maintaining relations of complementarity and no longer of reciprocal exclusion in a DLC. In our case, we asked the two persons to design their plurilingual identity, before conducting an interview with each of them. We can clearly see that within the linguistic or imaginary borders between languages, networks and circulations of varying forms can take place by the multiple affiliations that the plurilingual individuum can claim.

4 Context In worldwide migration movements, global networking, and economic as well as political interdependencies, linguistic diversity has continuously increased in many places around the world. As Lo Bianco and Aronin point out (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020, p. 7), ‘language contact is a dynamic and ongoing process. Multilingualism, therefore, is also a dynamic and ever-changing phenomenon’. In a UNESCO position paper on education in multilingual contexts, multilingualism is described as the normal way of life in most societies today (UNESCO, 2003, p. 12). Luxembourg’s language situation is therefore not a special case in this respect as linguistic and cultural super-diversity (Schanen, 2004) has long since taken hold here as well. Luxembourg is a context where identity and language practices are multiple and constantly evolving forming a constellation of different forms. Among the particularities of Luxembourg society, it is worth mentioning the plurality resulting from work-related migration, the multilingual context as well as the international influences in almost all areas of society. These aspects all take on a transnational dimension due to the history, the geographical location, and the small size of the country. To understand the particularity of this context, we propose in this chapter a brief historical overview of language practices in Luxembourg, in which three official languages form together a Dominant Language Constellation. As early as the nineteenth century, Lëtzebuergesch began to emerge as a language, anchored in the consciousness of the inhabitants of Luxembourg and endowed with a clear identity function. At first, the close relationship with German was always emphasized. Lëtzebuergesch originated from the West Moselle dialect of Franzisch, which developed into a language, with a written standard, and which, with the 1984 law on the use of the language, became the official national language of Luxembourg. Lëtzebuergësch thus became one of the official languages of Luxembourg, alongside French and German, the administrative languages. This nomination to the rank of national language had practical consequences. Even if it

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did not lead to an immediate increase in the use of Lëtzebuergesch in the school system, where it is sometimes only an auxiliary language used during lessons, the interest in learning this language has continued to grow, becoming a “fashionable language”. Regular debates and major statements in the Chamber of Deputies are now held in Lëtzebuergesch, and the main radio and television channels focus their programs on the national language. The functioning of the administration of the Luxembourg State is based on a solid balance: French as the written language and Lëtzebuergësch as the oral language (for work and communication). In particular, Lëtzebuergësch is used as a political and legal symbol and is presented as the expression of a Luxembourgish national identity. French, on the other hand, plays a special role as it is the only recognized legal language. German plays an important role at school and then at university, in certain fields such as business engineering. Overall, the weak presence of German in national public life (which is more prevalent in the north and east of the country) is counterbalanced to some extent at the municipal level, both orally and in writing (municipal council publications). All three languages are taught at the basic school, with the number of lessons varying. Note also that a law was passed in July 2018 serving as a legislative framework for the promotion of the Luxembourgish language and culture within society. As Horner and Weber (2008, p.  144) stated: ‘The language situation in Luxembourg is frequently referred to as ‘triglossic’ in reference to the three languages recognized by the 1984 language law: Luxembourgish, French and German. The distinction between spoken and written language has been pivotal to understanding long-­ standing norms and patterns of language use in Luxembourg, with most spoken communication among the native-born taking place in Luxembourgish and written functions carried out primarily in standard French or German.’ Since 2017, a multilingual education program has been offered in all the education and reception services (SEA), aimed at children from 1 to 4 years of age and aimed at early and daily contact with Lëtzebuergësch and French, adapted to the age and rhythm of the toddler. During early education and during the two compulsory years of preschool (cycle 1), teachers speak Lëtzebuergesch with their young pupils as much as possible. The primary concern is to develop the language skills of all children. For children of foreign origin, school is often the first (or main) place of exposure to the Luxembourg language. According to the Ministry of Education: ‘Lëtzebuergesch is an important factor for integration. Through early familiarization with the language, children who have little or no contact with Lëtzebuergesch at home will learn it more quickly. They also acquire a solid basis for literacy in German at the basic school’. However, depending on the composition of the classes, i.e., the proportion of children speaking other languages, teachers sometimes alternate German with Lëtzebuergesch and/or French. In 1991, courses in Portuguese and Italian (respecting the languages of immigration) were introduced in the municipal schools. Since then, these courses, which are parallel to the official curriculum, have been replaced by integrated mother tongue courses in primary education. These courses give children the opportunity to develop their mother tongue while maintaining contact with their culture of origin.

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As Luxembourg is an extremely dynamic country, both economically and demographically, the relationship between the country’s languages depends to a certain extent on the process of negotiation of power of languages, open or hidden, which sometimes leads to competition or even conflict between languages. It is not uncommon for this process to provoke defensive reflexes against French and German, with French often being perceived as too dominant in everyday life, and English and German being quite frequently stigmatized as being (only) the languages of finance. Despite these conflicts, Luxembourgers are aware of the importance of multilingualism, because not only is it an indispensable condition for the economic prosperity of their country (also ensured by employees from different countries), but it also opens up to Luxembourgers, through their mastery of French and German (and, of course, English, which is playing an increasing role in this), an area of communication without barriers, many Luxembourg students continuing their studies in German-, French- or English-speaking countries.

5 Analysis We will now analyse our first interviewee. Peter sees himself as a multilingual person, while he considers two languages as his mother tongues, French and Luxembourgish. At first, he described himself as bilingual, but after some reflection he corrected himself and felt that the term ‘plurilingual’ makes more sense in his case. This is because he was born and has lived most of his life in Luxembourg, a trilingual country and one of the most multicultural nations in Europe. This plurality is reflected in the school system which relies deeply on the learning of foreign languages. As Peter points out, ‘I remember having an English speaker in class as well as Portuguese speakers when I was young and already as a child, I would ask them for words in different languages’. Being surrounded by various languages, and therefore various cultures, can allow, according to Peter, a certain openness to otherness. Being in contact with people who speak other languages, one has: ‘the possibility of learning, even if only through small words, new bits of culture.’ The question of proximity seems to be elementary for maintaining links with a language, especially when the other languages of the repertoire are dominant. It becomes almost obvious to him when he explains that learning Portuguese is easier because it is a language spoken in his family. Since his partner is Portuguese, he is often ‘surrounded’ by the language and the culture that goes with it. Peter added that ‘each language carries an identity. And so, to know or to know several languages opens the doors of cultures in a way and then, I find that it broadens the repertoire of human knowledge’. This thesis is part of cultural and linguistic concept of linguistic worldview (LWV) (Grzegorczykowa, 2015) which suggests that different languages imply categorizations and classifications in a DLC and thus construct a specific worldview. In Peter’s words, ‘the transmission of linguistic and cultural values is done differently in Luxembourgish I find that it could be done also in French […] depending on the language I am working with, my way of resonating,

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of thinking also adapts’. Thus, defining identity seems to be a fundamental aspect in the processes of language learning and use. Each language has its own mode of reasoning which influences the person’s way of thinking. Consequently, Peter considers that there is a difference between a bilingual and a plurilingual person. As each language brings new symbolic and cultural values, the more one speaks, the more one tends to be shaped by various sources in a language constellation”. We notice in Peter’s interview that learning a language can initiate a renegotiation of self-identity, for example by modifying our interpretation and experience of DLC. Peter is bilingual by birth. His two first tongues are Luxembourgish and French, which are also the two main languages of the country. When asked if there are languages that are more or less dominant than others in Luxembourg, the interviewee answered that this is a difficult question, but that in fact, each language should be valued equally. From his answer, we can see that his mother tongues are not a minority language in the country. On the contrary, the second interviewee, Sofia, the Portuguese woman, stated that she has always been aware that her mother tongue is not necessarily considered as an asset in a LC. For example, when she spoked with her family in Portuguese in public spaces, she had the impression that people tended to look down on her, or she heard sometimes people making fun of her language. Peter did note that there may be a difference in valuing dominant and dominated languages, which is ‘at a […] discriminatory level. For those who speak languages other than French, German, or Luxembourgish, this is often part of everyday life.’ He admits that there are therefore linguistic repertoires that are more privileged than others. English, for example, is a language that is increasingly in demand and used, something that Peter emphasised in his interview. In sum, Peter has a vision that can be described as idealistic about the valorisation of languages. He believes that each language has its own virtues and should be valued as such in a LC. When asked if there are any negative aspects to being plurilingual, he replied that he ‘did not really see any’. Except for the fact that one has to stay in regular contact with a language in order not to lose its richness. A parallel that can be drawn here with the language policies of the Luxembourg government, which also idealizes multilingualism. Peter’s discourse is thus similar to the ‘official’ discourses. Nevertheless, the reality is much more complex and nuanced than that. Hierarchies and dominant ideologies do exist in Luxembourg. For a plurilingual competence to be recognized as an asset, certain conditions must be understood. These conditions, in turn, always depend on the social context and the trajectory of the interlocutor himself. As Peter pointed out, the use of languages always depends on the context and necessity in which he finds himself. For example, the languages he uses most in his daily life, whether spoken or thought, are Luxembourgish and French, his two mother tongues. Nevertheless, Peter teaches in German and English, which encourages him to immerse himself in these languages. He says, for example, that he ‘also tries to think in German’ (i.e., linguistic worldview). Each language seems to create its own world and modes of operation. For him, in order to speak a language well, you have to know these elements in some way. On the one hand, Peter changes consciously his language when he is, for example, in the context of his work. He forces himself to think in German so as to be able

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to express himself and ‘teach my lesson better’. On the other hand, the language in which he thinks can change unconsciously, sometimes even by mixing languages together. He even speaks of ‘mood swings’ when he changes from one language to another, underlining the importance of the affective level of LC. That is, Peter has a pragmatic relationship with languages, but he also has an emotional attachment to the languages of his plurilingual identity underling that ‘a language that you don’t like or that doesn’t sound good, you have more difficulty learning it. If one fails to form an affinity with a particular language, learning can become frustrating.’ English holds a special place in Peters’ life. Not only is it a language that Peter uses in his classes, but it is also a language that is present in his private life. As he says, ‘it’s everywhere, all the time, whether it’s in the media, the news, videos I watch on YouTube, songs I listen to’. He also uses English regularly with friends. It seems that, for Peter, this language has a particular importance in the constellation of languages in his repertory. Sofia learned French from birth. From the age of five, she also learned Luxembourgish, which also became her father’s lingua franca. However, most of the learning of the Luxembourgish language was done through schooling. Although Sofia had contact with the Luxembourgish language through her father, French was the predominant language in the family. From the time of schooling, Sofia went from a bilingual to a plurilingual person. She learned to read and write in German. Later, French and English were added. The Portuguese language (the language with her grandmother) was not part of the school’s languages. Based on Sofia’s testimony, the Luxembourg language was learned through language awareness activities. The learning of the German and English language was also based largely on playful exercises, which were connected to reality. For French, Sofia testifies that there are major differences in learning. She explains that learning was based on grammar and written exercises, describing them as ‘drill and practice’. After the interview, Sofia showed the differences explained through books. These are illustrations from Sofia’s daughter’s schoolbooks. The first picture shows a writing exercise that was given to children aged 6–7. This is the first year of learning the German language in Luxembourg. The second picture also shows a writing exercise. This statement is found at the beginning of the textbook for the third grade of elementary school. The pupils in these classes are between 8 and 9 years old. For these learners this is the first school year in which the French language is used in writing. The German textbook is presented in a more playful way than its French counterpart. It should be noted that the French textbook does not have illustrations of the words used in the exercise, which is the case for the German (Figs. 2 and 3). Sofia indicates that she speaks Luxembourgish with her husband and their children. With her father and the rest of the paternal family, the predominant language is also Lëtzebuergesch. This is also the case for the neighbourhood. On her mother’s side, Sofia uses French to communicate with her mother and her cousins. In everyday life, she uses French, especially when she is in stores. For the German language, Sofia indicates that she uses it very rarely as a spoken language in Luxembourg. On the other hand, German is a language that is transmitted through television and radio. In addition, Sofia explains that the German language is also very present in

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Fig. 2  German schoolbook, p. 10

Fig. 3  French schoolbook, p. 25

her reading. During the interview, Sofia describes that she prefers to read books in German than in French. Concerning English, Sofia indicates that she never uses this language. Nevertheless, she has the necessary skills to understand and write in this language. As for Portuguese, she explains that she only uses this language for trips or visits to her family in Portugal. In Luxembourg, she feels that the language is not present in her own daily life. For Sofia, the representations of LC and their speakers are in fact partly due to experiences during childhood and stereotypes that were created afterwards. She says: ‘When I was little, I often went to France to visit my mother’s family and when we went to the butcher’s or the baker’s there were always people chatting with the family and so on. So, I thought it was funny and when I was here in Luxembourg it was not so much the case’. Nevertheless, Sofia has quite precise (stereotyped) images of the languages and the behaviour of the speakers. Thus, she describes the French language (and its speakers) as more nervous and spoken in an accelerated way, while Luxembourgish speakers are calm and even distant. According to Sofia, a German speaker is rather serious and discreet. The Portuguese person is described

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as friendly and helpful, who talks a lot with his hands. An English person is described as cold. An interesting point in Sofia’s testimony about DLC is the fact that even though she spoke the French language from a young age, she described that learning it at school was rather complicated. Therefore, she prefers to read in German than in French. This can also be explained through the positive experience of learning German at school. Although Sofia indicates that plurilingual education is an important element of identity, she uses only one language with her children, Lëtzebuergesch.

6 Conclusion In this study, we wanted to draw attention to a perspective of DLC that we felt was overlooked: the dynamic and strategic approach to identity. I propose that the Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) can be identified as a framework for understanding the plurilingual identity of an individual, beyond an opposition between individual and social determinations, between the primacy of the individual and society. These variables combine without us being able, in the current state of our knowledge, to specify according to which configuration or structure. Alongside this theoretical diversity in the weighting of variables, the methodological diversity is even more striking. As Weber and Horner point out (2018), it is the way that the notion of identity is treated on behalf of each individual that affects the way in which multilingualism and plurilingualism are treated individually. Peter and Sofia seem to form their notion of identity through the co-existence of their Nature-identity (‘we are what we are because of our nature’), Institution-identity (‘we are what we are because of the position we occupy in the society’), Discourse-­ identity (‘we are what we are because of our accomplishments and the way these accomplishments are recognized by the others’) and the Affinity-identity (‘we are what we are because of our experiences within affinity groups’). That is, if individuals consider their identity the parallel of a peach, then they strongly believe that there is a stable, unchanging core self of theirs, regardless the dominance of the languages in a specific constellation, like the stone in the heart of a peach. On the other hand, if they consider their identity as an onion, then there are layers of multiple and changing selves subject to change over time. Based on our study, we claim that once plurilingual competence is seen as a ‘process’ rather than an ‘object’ then plurilingualism can be experienced as a way of building and co-constructing self-identity. Being involved in a variety of different social groups, who are pursuing different social objects, the individual always has access to specific social representations. However, he or she is not obliged to maintain all of them. The multilingual identity of the individual, as we have seen, is the result of a set of personal, family and social characteristics which, far from being in opposition, combine in a particular configuration for each individual. In particular, both interviewees are familiar with the notion of plurilingualism within the family environment and in the school.

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Nevertheless, they have different DLC, even though the same languages, Luxembourgish, French and German, compose their identity. When they started learning English as a foreign language in secondary school, they had already built a deep linguistic proficiency of the three languages. They have clear opinions on how and where to use each one of their languages. They have also acquired not only linguistic proficiency but a belief in what each language represents for them. Sofia mentions, for instance, that Luxembourgish people are not so expressive, and this is why she has found it normal that the vocabulary of the Luxembourgish language is quite limited in the field of words describing emotions in contrast to the vocabulary of the French language which has a wider vocabulary in fields of self-expression. These considerations encourage us to ‘reexamine’ the notion of plurilingual and pluricultural competence by privileging, at the conceptual and methodological levels, an emic perspective on plurilingualism. As we have seen, plurilingual identity is a dynamic process linked to social activities; it seems to be actualized in discourse, where it is (re)configured and (re)formulated according to a social trajectory and an individual history, which are not necessarily organized in a linear manner. The question for the researcher is how to accurately identify and characterize the different ways in which an individuum construct his or her representations of plurilingualism and self-images. The answer seems to be in understanding the various meanings and values that can take DLC in the construction of plurilingual identity. These DLC can combine with each other to form more complex constellations without a hierarchy of languages and skills, with variously permeable shifting and fluctuating boundaries, divergent and varied configurations delimiting themselves in identity spaces that we name Networks of Representations of Plurilingualism (NofRP).

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Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality of Instructed Educational Settings in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context Danuta Gabryś-Barker

Abstract  A clear distinction is often made by researchers between a language repertoire and a dominant language constellation of any multilingually competent language user, the former term referring to all the languages a person knows and the latter describing dominant languages chosen by a person to function in a multilingual context. Functioning in a multilingual environment most naturally impacts the creation of individually structured DLCs, depending on the contextual variables. In some countries, which are mostly monolingual (such as Poland for instance), formal instruction in multiple languages is naturally offered, however, the development of learners’ competence in these languages does not necessarily become as functional in ‘beyond the classroom contexts’ as it would in a multilingual surrounding. This paper focuses on the context of a mostly monolingual country, with the subjects being university modern languages students. By means of personal metaphors and visualizations, I propose to observe whether, and if so to what an extent, their language repertoires ‘turn into’ their DLCs, thus contributing to these speakers’ language identities. Keywords  Identity · Dominant language constellation · Language repertoire · Formal instruction · Metaphor · Visualization

1 Introduction In his discussion of the value of the concept of Dominant Language Constellation (DLC), Slavkov (2021) assesses its role in creating the educational language policies as ‘more explicit and targeted multilingual policies’ as well as how ‘awareness raising of multilingual values can contribute to an even larger proportion of the population having rich and interesting DLCs’ (p. 105). The most recent publication of Aronin and Vetter (2021), continuing the theme of researching multilingualism D. Gabryś-Barker (*) University of Silesia, Institute of Linguistics, Sosnowiec, Poland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_6

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and multilinguality from the first volume (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020), does the above very satisfactorily by demonstrating through numerous empirical studies how the concept of DLC can be implemented in a variety of educational settings to construct multilingual policies in different contexts (global, regional, local). In the present volume, the issues of DLC are raised in the context of language policies, different instances of their functioning within the frames of formal education at different levels and in relation to teacher education and teachers’ professional development. This chapter focuses on the EFL student teachers’ perceptions of their DLC expressed by explicit metaphors (similes) and symbolic visualisations. The data collected for the purposes of the present paper also aimed at awareness raising of the individual language identities of the subjects – which is important not only in their individual language functioning but also as future language teachers. Indeed, it constitutes a critical dimension in their professional development. In this way, the chapter continues the themes of Yoel’s study (2021) in her discussion of trainee students DLCs and Melo-Pfeifer’s (2021) paper in terms of the methodology applied: visualisation. The novelty of the present study lies in its context, as it was carried out in Poland, a largely monolingual country. The Polish educational system offers formal instruction in multiple languages simultaneously at different levels of education, as both secondary and higher education make instruction and developing competence in two foreign languages obligatory. At the same time, the competence developed by Polish students in these multiple languages learnt (studied) does not necessarily become functional in ‘beyond the classroom contexts’ – as the national/ social context is hardly multilingual. Thus, it is interesting to see if the concept of DLC applies here or whether we are just dealing with various language repertoires (LRs) of these language learners (students). Comparing this contribution with previously published studies on DLC, its context can be singled out as different from those discussed in Lo Bianco and Aronin (2020) and Aronin and Vetter (2021). Those studies were to a greater extent carried out in societies and contexts where multilinguality was present and playing an important role as a strategy of inclusion and integration within given groups. As mentioned above, in the present study, the context is a fairly monolingual society and the focus is more on awareness of how multilinguality expressed by individual DLCs contributes to one’s identity and understanding of the globalized world and one’s role in such a society. It may also show whether the constellations of languages constitute similar patterns in individuals, thus representing perhaps a more general pattern for the community in questions (here, university students and future teachers of FLs are treated as a community of practice). However, the question remains whether in such a context we can talk of DLs or just language repertoires. This distinction is clearly made by Aronin (2016) which describes the latter as all the languages known to a multilingual but not necessarily used as it is in the case of DLs (for the distinction see below). Further qualities of DLC as a model were proposed by Aronin speaking at the 2018 ECSPM Symposium:

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• Notwithstanding the diversity and variation in DLCs, the frame of DLC neatly categorises the dynamic, diverse and fuzzy reality in local and global sociolinguistic contexts. • It provides a structure to rely on and a point of departure for research of languages operating in societies at particular time and space. The construct of DLC helps to find similarities and patterns. • DLC as a set embraces the social spectrum of languages. • Along with capturing shades of super-diversity at the same time DLC respects the uniqueness of each multilingual individual, group and learning environment. • A DLC as a unit acquires a new quality (emergent quality), not equal to the sum of qualities of each of the languages comprising it. (https://ecspm.org2018/09)

2 The Concept of Language Repertoires or DLC: Context as a Factor The focus of the present study lies in determining as far as possible whether Polish students of foreign languages can be described as functioning within the limits of their own DLCs or whether language instruction leads just to the development of their language repertoires and not much more than that. Thus, taking into consideration the above, it seems fundamental to specify clearly and in some detail the differences between the two concepts: language repertoires (LR) and Dominant Language Constellation (DLC)  (Aronin & Singleton, 2012). Defining the latter, Aronin (2016) says: The Dominant Language Constellation includes only the most expedient languages for a person, rather than all the languages known to them, as would be the case in language repertoire. Unlike a language repertoire, a DLC comprises the languages which, together, perform the most vital functions of language (p. 196).

In her discussion of the concept of language repertoire, Aronin (2016, 2019a, b) points out that the origin of the concept goes back as far as the sixties in the previous century when Gumperz (1964, pp. 137–138) looked at it from a monolingual perspective, describing language repertoire as a set of linguistic skills. Later on, Schiffmann (1996), followed by Putz (2004), expanded the application of the term to a bilingual context (Aronin, 2016), including a variety of phenomena connected to bilinguals’ language use (such as for example code-switching). In her discussion of the two concepts, Aronin points out that (…) in the notion of language repertoire, whether taking into consideration entire languages or zooming in on various skills in each language, the stress is on the sum of available language varieties and/or skills. Repertoire includes every language or skill that an individual or a group possesses. (…) Dominant Language Constellation differs from the language repertoire, in that the DLC includes not all, but only those languages or skills selected for their prime importance (2016, p. 144)

A very clear illustration of the fundamental differences between LR and DLC was expressed in an earlier study of Aronin and Ó Laoire (2004), which showed that,

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despite the fact that their subjects knew even as many as eight languages, the number of languages necessary to function in a variety of contexts and interactions was much more limited and the usual number mentioned being three functional languages. This was justified elsewhere in the following way: Three languages in a DLC seems a plausible number, also taking into account the following considerations: it is both impossible and excessive to use all the languages and skills in all domains every day. The natural tendency of humans to simplify and shorten an effort, was formulated by Zipf (1949), and is known as Zipf’s Law, or the principle of least effort (Aronin, 2016, p. 151)

Although Polish society is largely monolingual (there is just one official language), foreign language ability is valued very highly, with different languages holding different status and English being generally considered as a must language and lingua franca for quickly developing Polish international contacts, economic benefits or research. Also, other major languages such as German and Russian offer multiple opportunities for their speakers, however, there are historical reasons why these are not as popular. At the same time, growing contacts with Asia result in a greater than ever demand for instruction in Asian languages (for example Chinese and Japanese) and such instruction is more and more available at language schools and Polish universities, always attracting more students than can be accepted. For example, the University of Silesia offers courses in Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi and Korean, which students study enthusiastically. In the context of multilingual societies, the language development of an individual is a longitudinal process of language acquisition often related to the processes of assimilation and integration with society (in the case of immigrants) and/ or development of language functionalities in multinational families and at multinational workplaces. In this study, DLCs function as life impacts what the linguistic needs of these users are. In the case of monolingual societies, languages are mostly learnt by formal instruction, perhaps reinforced these days by the common international mobility of people (tourism, education, work). Does such a context promote the development of DLCs or just language repertoires? Will it be a unique feature of an individual multilingual or can certain patterns be observed within homogenous groups of multilinguals?

3 Multilinguals Functionalities in a (Mostly) Monolingual Context: DLC Language Identity Representations (the Study) 3.1 The Context and the Rationale for the Present Study The present study shows a fairly homogenous group of students of foreign languages at a university language department, with varied levels of multicompetence development. In her discussion on various dimensions of description of

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multicompetence in DLCs, Aronin (2016) proposes a framework embracing the categories of focus, configuration and dynamics. Following the proposed framework, a general profile of the studied group can be offered. All of them have Polish as their native language (L1), whereas English at the advanced level of competence is their L2. They are all studying to become teachers of English as a foreign language and some of them have additional qualifications to teach German. Thus, it is mainly German that is their L3. On completion of the German course, they reach an intermediate level, but at the moment of data collection they were at a lower intermediate level in their L3 German. In some cases, the students learn French in a university course instead and additionally some of them opt to do Chinese and Japanese offered by the university, which they take up out of their own interest. Multilingual education at the University of Silesia, where the study was carried out, embraces the following: • (Formal) Language instruction for all students • Lectures on multilingualism in the MA teaching programme • Courses related to multilingualism research (for example in the School of English) Non-philology departments at the university offer instruction in one foreign language (English, German, French, Russian, Italian, etc.) at the BA level (final level – B1), continued at MA level (final level  – B2). Apart from the major language employed for almost all non-language courses as the language of instruction, philology departments implement one additional foreign language. In the teaching programme, the graduates can gain qualifications to teach two foreign languages at school, attend obligatory courses in multilingualism and research project course (for example in the School of English). The overall purpose of multilingual education is not only language development of students but also the development of their knowledge and reflectivity on multilingualism in general and their own multilinguality in particular. The latter is best exemplified by students’ active involvement in research projects, such as the one reported here and also disseminated in students’ groups and discussed with them. The observations made in the previous studies (Gabryś-Barker, 2014, 2017) show that these learners function mostly in their L1 and the only context in which the use of other languages is activated is the university during their studies, partially in their contact with international students (mostly English is used) and also other international activities run by the university or individually chosen as pastimes. For example, playing computer games is very much the chosen pastime, which uses students’ language competences in a beyond studies’ context. It is interesting to note the different modes in which different languages they know are used. Generally, they communicate in their native language in and beyond university, but also use English for social media and professional (teaching) activities as well as international communication contacts surfaces willingly and quite often. As to the spoken versus written modes of language use, what is interesting is that these students in fact feel much more comfortable in an L2 written mode than in L1. Being acquainted with and experienced in writing certain types of texts in a foreign language (here L2

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English), they seem to be much more comfortable in L2 than with their L1 competences in this respect. When asked about time proportions of different languages’ use, not much variation between individual studies and also individual students was observed. The following average for the two previous studies’ data was shown (Gabryś-Barker, 2014, 2015): 70% for L1, Polish (daily functioning, contacts with family and friends, exposure to media), 30% for both L 2 (lectures and classes, a teaching job, interactions with peers, exposure to media) and L3 (language used solely during practical classes). This may suggest that although the subjects have varied competences in three languages, their functionality can only be observed in two of them (L1, L2). It may also mean that their language functionality is bilingual and so their DLCs embrace just the two languages they choose to use, whereas their language repertoires are more extensive (three languages and in some cases, more). But is this really so if we look at the present study reported here? In the findings of the studies mentioned above, the students’ language activation and purposes for these choices are discussed in two contexts: of conscious language choice (activation of different languages in thinking processes) and a subconscious one (when dreaming). The results can actually shed light on the subjects DLCs and not just the language repertoires exemplified in group profiles. The data is not as rich as in the studies carried out in the context of multilingual societies (Aronin & Vetter, 2021; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020), however, it allows us to make an attempt to assess whether formal language instruction is in some way conducive to creating multilingual language identities expressed in students’ DLCs (for details see Gabryś-Barker, 2014). The major premise of the present study is that language identity expresses the DLC of an individual rather than representing his/her LR as: The focus on identity brings together issues of social context and the construction of one’s identity through negotiation of who we are, how we relate to the outside world and how we position ourselves in relation to others (Pavlenko 2001). Language is the main tool in this construction/negotiation through the acquisition/learning and use of multiple languages (Gabryś-Barker, 2019, p. 341).

Weinreich (1986) describes a person’s identity as ‘the totality of one’s self-­construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future’ (p.  315). Norton (2013, p.  45) looks at identity mostly from the perspective of (…) how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future. Language plays a paramount role in developing one’s identity as it demonstrates a relationship between one’s sense of self and different means of communication, understood in terms of language, a dialect or sociolect, as well as multimodality (in Block, 2014, p. 50).

In relation to the development of one’s multilingual identity, the major distinction has to be made between acquiring a language in its natural context (the case of one’s mother tongue or immigration) and learning it in formal contexts (Gabryś-Barker, 2019). Block (2014) expresses the view that the concept of language identity can

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only be investigated in the natural environment of its use (language acquisition), but not in foreign language learning by means of formal instruction. This article aims to demonstrate on the basis of multiple language users’ perceptions of their own language identities, that even in a foreign language context we can talk of language identities development and of them being the expression of learners’ DLCs and not just LRs. It describes the follow-up study to a pilot project on language identities (Gabryś-Barker, 2019), but this time the focus is on multilingual language identities from the perspective of the concept of DLC. Both studies use metaphors and narratives as data collection instruments, whereas the present study also deploys visualisations. The study exemplifies the shift in research paradigms used in researching multilingualism by combining the power of individual narratives, subjective metaphoric perceptions and symbolic visualisations, which are more and more frequently employed in applied language research (for a clear example, see Kalaja & Melo-­ Pfeifer, 2019).

3.2 Description of the Study 3.2.1 Research Questions The present study entitled My Multilingual Profile focuses on the subjects’ languages and on determining if the languages in their possession can be classified as their DLCs (and not LRs). To this end, the following detailed research questions were formulated: Part 1 aims to describe the language background of the subjects, their LRs or actual DLCs • What are the languages of the subjects and their level of competence in each? • What is the status/role and domain in which each of the languages is used? • Which languages are part of subjects’ multicompetence and verbal functionality (DLCs)? • Is there a pattern of verbal functionality across the group or are the language functionalities described unique to individuals? Part 2 focuses on data collected by means of metaphors and visualisations, that is, subjects’ latent DLCs: • What are the metaphors coined by individual subjects in each of their learnt languages and how do the metaphors for different languages compare across the sample (uniqueness or a pattern)? • What is the scope of visual metaphors describing individual DLCs? This study describes the subjects’ language identities to see if they form certain patterns across this group or whether they are unique to individual. in the context of a small university community of multilingual language students. The purpose is also to see where these languages lead them in their careers, their daily lives and student

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mobility (and otherwise) programs and perhaps, additionally fulfilling some integrative motifs with other cultures or specific groups of people. In the present data analysis, references are also made to the former language identity pilot study conducted with a similar group of multilinguals and in the same context (Gabryś-­ Barker, 2019). 3.2.2 The Study Sample The specific context of the study as well as the general characteristics of the sample were presented in Sect. 3.1. Additionally, following Aronin (2016), it needs to be emphasised that the subjects participating in all the studies described in this chapter can be treated as a community as they are homogenous in terms of: • their language learning history: obligatory formal instruction offered by the educational system from the primary level to higher education, occasional contact with languages thanks to international mobility programs (such as ERASMUS) and pastimes and travel; • their envisioned career: future foreign language teachers at MA level; • the languages acquired/learnt: L1 Polish, L2 English as the studies’ major, German – obligatory minor and a language of one’s choice in some cases (e.g. French, Japanese, Chinese). Forty students participated in this study. They are all future EFL teachers about to graduate, but still in the process of completing their studies by participating in the curricular part (including lectures on multilingualism and research methods) and simultaneously working on their MA theses focusing on empirical projects  – on second/multilingual language acquisition and foreign language learning/teaching. 3.2.3 Data Collection Instruments The choice of tools was determined by the possibilities both metaphoric perceptions and visualisations (in other words: graphic metaphors) supplemented by a narrative comment offer to this type of study. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) assumed, and which has been multiply taken up by numerous examples of research in different disciplines and which is by comparison fairly new to educational and applied language studies, ‘Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought in action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature’ (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 3). In other words, metaphors constitute – unique for us as individuals – a framework for thinking and reflecting our experiences of various kinds, our understanding of the world around us and daily encounters and well as determining the way in which we interact with the world. Although the nature of metaphoric processes is in fact quite complex and culture-specific, a metaphor allows us to see the relationship between an unknown and perhaps an abstract construct (phenomenon) and something

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concrete which is more familiar, visible and thus, easier to describe. Metaphoric perceptions can be either verbal or visual (graphic). The forms of metaphors used in this study are both verbal: an explicit metaphor (a label given by linguists to a simile – Something is like something else) – a direct comparison and non-verbal (symbolic graphic) and non-verbal: presented visualisations of the subjects’ language identity (Gabryś-Barker, 2017). As mentioned earlier, the data collection consisted of two parts. The first part aimed at collecting the relevant bio data of the subjects, including a list of languages of their repertoires, self-reported level of competence in each language (CEFR classification), domains and purposes for the use of each language, and modes of their use (spoken versus written). The second part consisted of the two tasks: –– Coining a metaphor expressing one’s perceptions about a given language (extended by reflective comments); –– A (symbolic) graphic presentation of the hierarchies, roles and interaction for languages (L1, L2, L3, Ln) in the subjects’ perceptions (a visual metaphor, extended by a short reflective comment). The data collection tool was implemented in a form of a home assignment given to a group of students participating in a lecture on multilingualism and MA seminar in SLA/MLA. It was not a face-to-face classroom task to eliminate time pressure and to give the subjects enough time to reflect on their languages and their functionality with more ease and less stress.

4 Results 4.1 My Multilingual Profile (Data Presentation) 4.1.1 Background Bio Data The biographical data collected in the first part of the study was fairly predictable, as it derived from homogenous language choices and language instruction contexts. It describes a group of subjects in terms of their foreign languages, levels of competence in each of them as well as domains in which they are predominantly used. As mentioned earlier, the learning history of the subjects followed a very similar form of instruction (formal context of a FL classroom be it at a regular or private language school, supported by individual tutorials) in the past, but also continued in a similar/same educational environment (university FL teacher training). Also the L1, L2 and L3 naturally are (almost) the same as they constitute a triad of the native language (L1 Polish), language of university instruction (L2 English) and the obligatory second foreign language usually determined by the programme of studies (L3 depending on the studied profile: teaching versus translation), which does not offer the students much choice. It is only the further languages Ln that are voluntarily picked by individuals, thus there is a fairly broad array of them presented here (Table 1).

Level (CEFR) Native C1/C2

Ln: Italian/Spanish/Korean/ Japanese/Hindi/Russian

A1/A2

L3: German/French/Chinese/Arabic B1/A2

Language (which) L1: Polish L2: English

Table 1  Personal language data

Entertainment, hobby, pleasures

Domain (context of use) WHERE Home, daily activities, work, entertainment Studies, work at school, contacts with other students, travelling University classes, travelling

Voluntary, a way of spending free time

Purposes/functions WHY All-purpose Language of studies and work. Social communication Language course participation

Total % of use 60% (50–80%) L2 – 30% (20–40%), L3 – 5% (0–30%) Ln – 5% (0–10%)

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The domains and contexts in which individual languages are used by these students present natural tendencies determined by the monolinguality of the context of these subjects’ functioning. Daily life and family contacts are naturally dominated by the native language, whereas L2 being the major language of study takes the dominant position in university surroundings for study purposes as well as for interacting between themselves and with other foreign students and staff. As all of the students are regular teachers or do temporary teaching jobs, English is also with them during their professional activities. Also, as a language of communication across the world, it has its place in traveling and international context exchanges. Not much of this is shared with the L3 experience of the students, who claim that it is mainly their studied subject so used during language classes and only very occasionally when travelling for educational purposes (e.g. during popular Erasmus exchanges with Germany). Any additional language that was pointed out in the data refers to a voluntary choice made by the subjects either because of the intrinsic pleasantness of it (Italian), or its exotic linguistic form and thus, a novelty learning experience (Japanese, Hindi). Interestingly, attitudes and perceptions of Ln experiences are described as positive and giving pleasure and even being a form of entertainment. If asked whether they consider themselves multilinguals, these students hesitate to give a positive answer, however, clearly from the description above, we can see that it is in fact ‘an unassumed multilinguality’, in which various languages co-exist and take their place in the above-mentioned domains of their use chosen by the students. Thus, they do constitute the subjects’ DLCs. 4.1.2 (Explicit) Metaphors: Examples Across Languages (L1 Versus L2 Versus L3) The interpretation of the data in the present study replicates and confirms the observations of the previous study on metaphoric perceptions of multilingual identities of a similar group of subjects (Gabryś-Barker, 2019). The metaphors coined for each of the languages come from different domains and appeal to different spheres of life as their vehicles. L1 Identity Metaphors L1 identity metaphors (e.g. water, animals, tools, food, music) present something which is seen as natural, indispensable and affective in nature, representing an inherent quality of an individual (his/her persona) (Table 2). Also, as in the previous study (Gabryś-Barker, 2019), the key descriptors derived from the similes show that L1 identity means: • • • •

something cosy and familiar: home, apartment; something safe: a life-buoy; something indispensable: breathing, air, heart-beating; something valuable: a precious ring and something free (freedom): a bird flying freely.

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Table 2  L1 identity metaphors (selection) L1: Polish My L1 identity is like…… A comfortable apartment, where I can move freely and at ease A trip to a place I know so well A duck in water The view from my grandmother’s house A heart-beating, you don’t think about it but you do it. My bread and butter My home, a place in which I can be myself. My hometown A family member who is always here The view from my grandmother’s house A bottle of water. I always carry it with me, and it (water) is a part of me. Tree of eternity Tree with roots. A key to every door Driving a car at very high speed and at the same time trying to be careful not to hurt anyone. A beating heart A brave lion. Being as fit as a fiddle A trip to the place I know so well. A ball of wool that, when released from hands, begins to unfold very quickly. A Lifelong partner A flower in a meadow An open book

Qualities (key descriptors): Affective Cosy and warm Familiar Safe Omnipresent Indispensable Nostalgic A vivid memory Rooted Infinite With multiple possibilities

L2 Identity Metaphors As the examples below demonstrate (Table  3), L2 identity metaphors focus on career and money as connected with the future life of a person, a strong focus on relationships with people and with objects. They can be described as expressing instrumental and integrative motifs and are mostly cognitive in nature, with elements of growing affectivity and positive attitudes. They are also developmental and in this sense indispensable, allowing one to grow as a person and satisfying needs of various types. Not only in L1 metaphor, but also in the case of L2 ones, the previous study pointed to similar interpretations (Gabryś-Barker, 2019). The key descriptors inferred from the data most of all express the dynamic character of the subjects’ L2 identities: • something developmental and at the same time challenging as expressed in the similes of growing tree branches, a hobby, a physical training, an adventure, a garden, being a traveller; • something unstable and changing: a chameleon; • something seen as complementary: a soul-mate, a piano (white and black keys);

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Table 3  L2 identity metaphors (selection) L2: English

Qualities (key descriptors) Cognitive/instrumental/(partly) My L2 identity is like…… affective A toolbox, I can use different items from it to make things Instrumental work better. Changing Chameleon, it changes according to a given situation, I Developmental try to blend it in, to fit a given situation. Offering disguise A hobby, I love to develop my knowledge all the time. Indispensable My favourite dress, make up. Pleasurable A mobile phone, I always have it by my side and use it Friendly each time it is necessary. A garden. You have to take care of it so it develops. Buying myself Round The World Fare A high-maintenance plant. An old friend. I’ve met him a long time ago and we get along like a house on fire. A nice, warm cup of tea My best friend. It is amazing to have it (the language) by my side A long mountain hike on a sunny day Hope that is on the horizon A life belt Putting a mask on A tool that binds me together with my family. Being a child in a mist. My right hand Building blocks Discovering the world A voyage that never seems to end A credit card Exploring the ocean Hitting the jackpot An adventure with new discoveries every day As big as an elephant. A key to my future career The light in my life A Swiss army knife

• something perceived as useful and indispensable but also nice: a toolbox, an all-­ directions ticket, a mobile phone, a cupcake; • something to hide behind: a dress/a makeup, and something of value: a chest of treasures. L3 Identity Metaphors L3 identity metaphors produced by the subjects demonstrate their perceptions of a strong challenge and struggle, a difficult puzzle to solve, but also of the pleasures L3 learning offers. There is a visible degree of negativity and insecurity offered by L3 experience and a significant degree of incompleteness, a not fully surfaced identity as if ‘under construction’ (Table 4).

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Table 4  L3 identity metaphors L3: German/French/Chinese/Arabic My L3 identity is like…… A difficult long journey. A hedgehog, it is nice and cute but I am afraid and discouraged by its needles. An incessant challenge that I have to face every day. A diamond in the rough, it exists but in fact, there are a lot of things to do before it really becomes my language identity. A parachute. It makes me feel safe in all cases (a rescue). Raising a big baby A walk through the narrow streets of a Spanish town An incident with a little hope. A voice assistant (Siri) in my mobile phone. I’ve got it, but I don’t use it My nightmare An intensive but short climbing exercise A sea of grief. Christmas in July The Sun that makes me happy Playing the guitar, the more I practice, the better I play Making a sandwich with soft butter Tomb from an Indiana Jones film Driving a car at night A jump to a cold water A puzzle A dusted book Aplant that someone has stopped watering Schrödinger’s cat A dream come true A struggle to create a new chapter Enjoying and devouring countless quantities of delicious, aromatic tea Looking at one’s childhood photos. An ocean where there is still a lot to discover. A CRAWLING BABY. An appendix Looking for a needle in a haystack A box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get. Building castles in the air

Qualities (key descriptors) Challenging Difficult Presenting obstacles Unexpected Undefined Full of surprises (sometimes) Hopeless Intensive Requiring practice Giving pleasure Unreal

As in the case of the L2 similes, key descriptors of L3 identity emphasise its dynamic character but this time with an element of challenge and difficulty – as L3 identity is seen as: • something difficult happening (occasionally): a long journey, an adventure, climbing a tree; • something challenging: a hedgehog, unusually high tree; • something to work on: a diamond in the rough, an obstacle on the way; • something to cope with: cleaning a shed, daily challenges; • something offering security: a parachute;

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• something illusory/unstable: a ghost, a never-ending story, a (melting) snowdrop; • something of a play/inauthenticity (being an actor): a stage presence. Ln Identity Metaphors Ln identity metaphors using as vehicles the images of the shining sun, a blossoming flower, a sound of mandolin or a taste of chocolate represent all that the subjects consider pleasurable in their life experiences in the context of a voluntary involvement and engagement with Ln learning/use/functioning. Thus, the picture is most positive and giving pleasure (Table 5). The similes coined by the subjects show the specifics of their perceptions of how their languages complement each other or take up specific functions in varied contexts. It is this clearly defined functionality that gives evidence that the languages known to these subjects are not just their language repertoires but dominant language constellations. Although they may take up different characteristic when performed, they are manifestations of these multilinguals’ identity. This was well-exemplified in the earlier study (Gabryś-Barker, 2019) in which the subject commented on the characteristics of individual languages in communicative situations, where: • (…) L1 verbal behaviour is described as automatic, spontaneous, adjusted to a situation but also fast, chaotic, incoherent, resulting from the safety of expression/being understood (…); • (…) L2 verbal expression is often either abundant and upbeat – it can be assumed, this is the case of more confident and extravert multilinguals, when compared with inhibited, fully controlled students who see using L2 like in a stage performance (…) the subjects seem to experience more security outside class and in communication with NSs than in a controlled classroom situation, where they position themselves as learners, subjected to the teacher’s authority and power, traditionally understood (…); • (…) L3 verbal behaviour seems overwhelmingly to focus on form and not content. It is fully monitored and also (extremely) stressful due to lack of language ability/competence (…) As was the case of L2, L3 use seems more natural outside the classroom, as they consider this use to be less stressful (taking the position of a communicator and not being assessed). (Gabryś-Barker, 2019, p. 356).

Table 5  Ln identity metaphors Ln:…. My ln identity is like…… Listening to the sound of the mandolin A rollercoaster of emotions Dancing in the full sun A chocolate box A spring flower bud A mountain expedition Driving with the handbrake on Rays of hot sun pleasantly enveloping on a gloomy day Ballet classes for an astronaut

Qualities (key descriptors) Pleasurable Nice experiences Visually pleasing Tasty Active Requiring effort Uplifting

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It seems that DLCs and their growth in the context of formal instruction are a developmental process in a different way than in a natural immersion environment (e.g. in immigration groups, or study/work abroad periods). In formal instruction, it is a development in which language competence is the result of a learning achievement and attainment and ultimate success are of prime value. In a multilingual context, survival/communicative abilities alone build the DLCs of multilinguals. In other words, success is defined from different perspectives. 4.1.3 Visual Metaphors Visualisations, being symbolic representations of subjects’ DLCs, show even more succinctly how competence in various languages constitutes these multilinguals’ identities. The qualities of these language constellations are expressed in relation to physical qualities graphically demonstrated by size of constituents, strengths, distance between them, roles and domains of use as well as interaction. They express mostly positive language experiences (as is also shown in the verbal metaphors) in the case of more advanced competence in a language versus more negative ones in the case of a lower competence and, resulting from it, insecurity. The vehicles of the visual metaphors show subjects’ DLCs as: –– “Nature drawn as for example forest strata, an oak tree, flowers from a bud to a full blossom)” (Fig. 1); –– “A person (parts of a body) expressing different dimensions of language functioning from affective to cognitive and behavioural (heart, mind, hand)” (Fig. 2); –– “A hierarchy (order, bottom-up) as expressed by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (indispensability of each level – language)” (Fig. 3); –– “Numerical figures (charts, graphs) demonstrating different roles and proportions of use of DLCs in different domains (home, work, university, leisure/culture, travelling/holidays)” (Fig. 4); –– “Completeness/interaction within DLCs (a house, car, climbing a ladder): complementarity of each language within a DLC” (Fig. 5); –– “Prize podium (from 1st to 3rd place: demonstrating the importance of different languages within one’s DLC): perception of the competition between the languages within a DLC (?)” (Fig. 6). Some of the above descriptions are illustrated with the following symbolic drawings (Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6).

Language Repertoires or Individual Dominant Language Constellations: The Reality… Fig. 1 Nature

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German

English

Polish

Fig. 2  A person

English

Polish

German and any other language

Fig. 3  A hierarchy

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My multilingual self L4 French L3 Russian L2 English L1 Polish 0

5

Culture

Holidays

10 Univeristy

Fig. 4  Numerical presentation

Fig. 5 Process/interaction/completeness

Fig. 6  Prize podium

15 Home

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4.1.4 DLC as a Response to Monolingual Challenges: Constructing Multiple Language Identity(-ties) – Discussion The challenges presented by a (largely) monolingual context mean first of all a limited exposure to multiple languages, be it in a classroom setting (input in terms of just a minimal number of hours of instruction) as well as environmental poverty of language presence (stimulus input). Thus, language instruction is perceived by students as just regular courses in their programme of studies, which would mean that their profiles relate more to language possession described as language repertoires (LRs) and a form of what can be called ‘unassumed multilinguality’. Block’s (2014) assumption that formal instructional settings do not allow learners to form multilingual identities would mean that their languages constitute merely language repertoires (linguistic systems detached from emotionality) and not their DLs. However, both the previous study (Gabryś-Barker, 2019) and the present one demonstrate the opposite. As the data shows, the learners exposed mostly to formal settings compared with those functioning in a naturally multilingual context also create unique identities. These identities are vividly expressed by their metaphors and reflective comments on multiple language use. What is more, certain patterns across the groups in both studies emerge to give evidence of the specific roles of each of the languages known and their interaction (irrespective of level of competence in each): being multilingual means a complex way of being (a complex language identity), in which the use of a particular language (…) is (fairly) well-defined. L1 identity is inherent and affective, L2 identity is developmental and fulfils mostly cognitive needs, whereas L3 identity is still “under construction” and presents a multilingual with a (sometimes threatening) challenge (Gabryś-Barker, 2019, p. 357)

On the basis of the data collected in the previous studies (Gabryś-Barker, 2014, 2019) and the study reported here, it can be assumed that the language identity of the subjects clearly demonstrates DLCs rather than LRs through the active functionality of the languages learnt formally, although to different degrees and in different domains. As expressed by Aronin: DLC shows that measuring L2 users and L3 users against L1 users is senseless since the nature of a ‘human language’ consisting of three languages as a unit is characterized by constant and complex interplay between its parts. The nature of the unit ‘human language’ which consists of one language is less complex. A bilingual DLC would be different from a trilingual and multilingual (2016, p. 156).

It is interesting to see which formal criteria influence the composition and structure of individual DLCs in a given community (or group of learners). As concluded by Melo-Pfeifer (2021, p. 204), ‘it is plausible to assume that the linguistic ecology present in the world, and its mirroring in schooling systems, have an impact on individuals’ linguistic biography’, thus also their language identities. In formal instructional settings, the DLCs observed are strongly determined by the educational policies of a given country. As various studies show (Björklund & Björklund, 2021; Gabryś-Barker, 2019; Melo-Pfeifer, 2021; Yoel, 2021) in a European context,

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it is English which constitutes the backbone of DLCs studied. Björklund and Björklund (2021) demonstrate university teachers’ DLCs are fairly stable and determined by the stability of the context in which they function, contrary to Yoel’s findings (2021), which show the fairly dynamic DLCs of post-Soviet immigrant teacher trainees in Israel and their evolving identities. In the present study, naturally the position of L2 English as the leading language is determined by its status of a lingua franca, which has overtaken other languages in all dimensions of one’s life, work and study. This is very much supported by state policies placing English as an obligatory language at most levels of education but also reinforced by multiple language schools and centres of instruction, where other languages become, in most cases, an additional choice for those who have already gained competence in English. At the same time the official requirement of an additional foreign language to be obligatory created a situation in which instruction is carried out in two languages for all students. This leads to a certain degree of transfer of learning and development of multilingual language awareness facilitating the learning of an additional language (Gabryś-Barker & Otwinowska, 2011; Gabryś-­ Barker, 2012). So is it just a crosslinguistic influence that impacts language development? There appears to be more as expressed by verbal and non-verbal perceptions of the subjects, very strongly grounded not only in cognition (e.g. the role of languages, similarities/differences) but also in affectivity (attitude to individual languages, coping potential in learning and self-confidence): (…) these metaphoric perceptions, and also the differences between multilinguals’ complex identities, derive from the (individual’s) present, past and desires for the future. They emerge in the social practice of each language in varied contexts and though unique relationships with other people, each time choosing different positions (Gabryś-Barker, 2019, p. 357).

What is intriguing in the present context is that the subjects point to varying degrees of confidence in functioning in their DLCs, where classroom use is very much inhibited by the power relations felt in response to the teacher’s presence, control and assessment. At the same time, these do not occur beyond the classroom, where the subjects feel much more flexible and open in using their DLCs, even in the case of perceived low language competence. The DLC contributing to the subjects’ identity formation make them take up different roles and positions themselves, the phenomenon naturally observed in immersion contexts. It should also be mentioned that multilingual formal instruction in the case of these subjects means different ages of acquisition of different languages. The L2 is learnt at the early stages of education, whereas additional languages come later, when more adult perceptions of learning additional languages bring about more anxiety in the context of an already formed L1 identity and exposure to different values and the novelty of another language. Here, motivation, desire and commitment (defined as investment in language pursuit) become ways of engaging with the challenges and barriers to multilingual development as ‘a strong desire to join an imagined L2/L3 community may help overcome the above barriers’ (Gabryś-Barker, 2019, p. 157).

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5 Conclusions and a Way Forward Lo Bianco sees the importance of DLCs and researching the concept, calling it the ‘linguistic currency’ of our time’ (Lo Bianco, 2021, p. 16). The concept of DLC and research on it in different contexts, in different combinations of languages and for different purposes is disseminating rapidly and producing interesting results in such areas as: language policies and planning, minority, majority and heritage languages, multiliteracy, language education and teacher training in multilingual classrooms/ contexts, language practices such as code-switching or translanguaging, as well as research on multilingual language identities (Aronin, 2018). The comments made in this chapter focused on the latter. The focus of studying language identities as expressed by the DLCs of the subjects was on verbal perceptions and visual expressions, as it has been the focus of studies presented earlier (Aronin & Vetter, 2021; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020). There are however other avenues to explore. Since the concept of DLC relates to languages and their interaction in communication in various contexts and in the varied domains an individual multilingual is exposed to, it might be assumed that an important communicative aspect would also be the non-verbal communication of multilinguals. Does the DLC of multilinguals affect their gestures and other means of non-verbality (e.g. proxemics, eyes contact)? For example, do gestures transfer across languages or are they just language and person-specific (a gesturing or non-­ gesturing personality)? This was suggested in the earlier study (Gabryś-Barker, 2019), but it requires further investigation. The novelty of the present study is in its context, where subjects are functioning in a society perceived as being largely monolingual Choosing their career as future teachers of foreign languages, the participants aim to develop their multicompetence as a necessary condition to become professionals. Also, in a rapidly developing country like Poland, with extensive foreign contacts and economic and cultural expansion and mobility being currently very popular among Poles, becoming multilingual is perceived as a necessity. It is worth mentioning that being multilingual brings high status in a society for a long time deprived of international contacts and the freedom to travel in its recent history. Thus, knowledge of foreign languages combined with the above factors has vital input in the perceptions of these subjects’ identities as ‘citizens of the world’, a much-used cliché but which genuinely represents their aspiration to DLCs rather than just instrumental language repertoires. The study describes the group DLCs establishing a pattern, both in terms of their language selection and in their contribution to individual DLCs and their functionality within them. At the same time, it points to the uniqueness of the individual subject’s perceptions of their multiple identities as expressed by identity metaphors and DLC visualisations (as has been discussed in some detail earlier). In terms of the implications of the study reported here for teacher training of multilinguals (such as the subjects in my studies), future FL teachers should focus on:

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• activating the practical use of all languages and encouraging cross-linguistic consultations (and translanguaging) in a variety of contexts; • implementing (self-)observion/reflection activities on a regular basis; • participating in research projects; • introducing the concept of DLC (versus LR) in teacher training programmes as a tool for multilingual self and professional development. To this end, the University of Silesia – apart from regular instruction and courses in the programme of studies mentioned earlier – promotes various University-based activities aiming at the development of multilinguality. One such undertaking is forming an international alliance of seven European universities (Transform for Europe (T4E)) as a way to foment conscious multilingualism, among other methods by creating international study programmes and a common multilingual campus located in the participant countries. We believe that such an initiative will lead to the development of a more multilingually aware society and bring about the perception that, as one student wrote, ‘(…) Being multilingual is equal to being self-reliant and fulfilled. (…) It is also being independent and autonomous in different situations (…). I am a happy multilingual who knows herself and knows that my languages are one of the sources of my happiness’ (s. 8, in Gabryś-Barker, 2019, p. 158).

References Aronin, L. (2016). Multicompetence and dominant language constellation. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic multicompetence (pp.  142–163). Cambridge University Press. Aronin, L. (2018, September 26–27). Dominant language constellations in education, language teaching and multilingualism. Paper delivered at ECSPM symposium, Darmstadt. Retrieved on September 20, 2021, at https://ecspm.org2018/09 Aronin, L. (2019a). What is multilingualism? In D. Singleton & L. Aronin (Eds.), Twelve lectures on multilingualism (pp. 3–34). Multilingual Matters. Aronin, L. (2019b). Dominant language constellation as a method of research. In E.  Vetter & U.  Jessner (Eds.), International research on multilingualism breaking with the monolingual perspective (pp. 13–26). Springer. Aronin, L., & Ó Laoire, M. (2004). Exploring multilingualism in cultural contexts: Towards a notion of Multilinguality. In C. Hoffmann & J. Ytsma (Eds.), Trilingualism in family, school and community (pp. 11–29). Multilingual Matters. Aronin, L., & Singleton, D. (2012). Multilingualism. John Benjamins. Aronin, L., & Vetter, E. (Eds.). (2021). Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition. Springer. Björklund, M., & Björklund, S. (2021). Embracing multilingualism in teaching practicum in Finland? DLC as a tool for uncovering individual and institutional multilingualism. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 131–150). Springer. Block, D. (2014). Second language identities. Bloomsbury. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2012). Reflectivity in pre-service teacher education; a survey of theory and practice. University of Silesia Press.

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Gabryś-Barker, D. (2014). Face to face with one’s thoughts: On thinking Multilingually. In M.  Pawlak & L.  Aronin (Eds.), Essential topics in applied linguistics and multilingualism. Studies in Honor of David Singleton (pp. 185–204). Springer. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2015). What the languages of our dreams tell us about our multilinguality. In E.  Piechurska-Kuciel & M.  Szyszka (Eds.), The ecosystem of the foreign language learner (pp. 3–17). Springer. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2017). New approaches to multilingualism research. Focus on metaphors and similes. In D.  Gabryś-Barker, D.  Gałajda, A.  Wojtaszek, & P.  Zakrajewski (Eds.), Multiculturalism, multilingualism and the self: Studies in linguistics and language learning (pp. 77–96). Springer. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2019). Studying bilingual and multilingual language identities: natural settings versus formal instruction. Linguistica Silesiana, 40, 341–359. Gabryś-Barker, D., & Otwinowska, A. (2011). Multilingual learning stories: Threshold, stability and change. International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(4), 367–384. Gumperz, J. (1964). Linguistic and social interaction in two communities. American Anthropologist, 66(6, Part 2), 137–153. Kalaja, P., & Melo-Pfeifer, S. (Eds.). (2019). Visualising multilingual lives: More than words. Multilingual Matters. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago University Press. Lo Bianco, J. (2021). Literacy learning and language education: Dominant language constellations and contemporary multilingualism. In L.  Aronin & E.  Vetter E. (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 1–16). Springer. Lo Bianco, J., & Aronin, L. (2020). Dominant language constellations. A new Perspective on multilingualism. Springer. Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2021). Understanding dominant language constellations through analysis of visual linguistic autobiographies by foreign language student teachers in Germany. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 203–224). Springer. Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning. Multilingual Matters. Pavlenko, A. (2001). ‘In the world of tradition I was unimagined’: Negotiation of identities in cross cultural autobiographies. International Journal of Bilingualism, 5(3), 317–344. Pütz, M. (2004). Linguistic repertoire/Sprachrepertoire. In U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. J. Mattheier, & P.  Trudgill (Eds.), An international handbook of the science of language and society/ Ein Internationales Handbuch zur Wissenschaft von Sprache und Gesellschaft (2nd ed., pp. 226–231). Walter de Gruyter. Schiffmann, H. F. (1996). Linguistic culture and language policy. Routledge. Slavkov, N. (2021). Family language policy and dominant language constellations: A Canadian perspective. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 87–108). Springer. Weinreich, P. (1986). The operationalisation of identity theory in racial and ethnic relations. In J. Rex & D. Mason (Eds.), Theories of race and ethnic relations (pp. 299–320). Cambridge University Press. Yoel, J. (2021). The dominant language constellations of immigrant teacher trainees in Israel: Russian, Hebrew and English. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 151–172). Springer.

Dominant Language Constellation and Plurilingual Awareness: The Case of Student Language Teachers in Greece Maria Iakovou, Sofia Tsioli, and Marina Vihou

Abstract  This study explores the journey from an unconscious multiple monoglossy towards an awareness of the plurilingual self of fourteen students from two Language Faculties of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In particular, through a participatory action research and the use of the Dominant Language Constellation concept as an analytical tool, we aimed to create a space of plurilingual awareness for these students. The awareness process was gradual, involving first a depiction of the patterns of the most expedient languages in their lives and next their encounter with other languages and languages of other people. In this context, the students expanded the locations, the speakers and the uses of the languages they hear or ‘see’ and, consequently, they added new languages to their language repertoires. The findings of this study illustrated that the process of plurilingual awareness can be triggered by getting in contact with languages in the close personal context (inner social circle), as well as in the wider personal context (intermediate social circle) and broader social context (outer social circle). Keywords  DLC · Multilingualism · DLC patterns · Plurilingual awareness · Undergraduate student language teacher

M. Iakovou (*) Faculty of Greek Philology & Center of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected] S. Tsioli Center of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected] M. Vihou Faculty of French Language and Literature & Center of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_7

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1 Introduction In recent years, an exponential increase in interest towards the concept of multilingualism has been witnessed. However, a ‘monolingual habitus in both the academy and society’ (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020, p. 4) continues to affect education policies and practices. Within this framework, the present research is based on a perception of multilingualism as a positive and significant complex phenomenon involving languages in social context. This complex landscape includes speakers’ most ‘expedient languages’ (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020), conceived as ‘Dominant Language Constellations’ (Aronin, 2020; Aronin & Singleton, 2012), that dynamically interact both within the individuals and the society. In order to investigate the consciousness of multilingual perceptions – conceived as plurilingual awareness – the DLC concept will be used as a lens to reveal aspects of multilingualism within a specific academic context in Greece. Greece is a country typically described as monolingual with Greek being its official and national language. However, at the same time, the multilingualism of the Greek territory is unquestionable. The increased need for learning foreign languages meets with the presence of indigenous or historical minority languages (Sella, 2016) and the emergence of immigrants’ and refugees’ languages. Moreover, like most European countries, Greece has recognized – to a certain extent – the need to foster multilingualism, pursued through synergies with the European Union, the Council of Europe and other international organizations. As a result of this, a number of changes have been reflected on educational language policies permeating all educational levels, such as the learning of 3 languages (L1 + 2 more) in compulsory education, the adoption of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages or CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001, 2020) in the teaching and assessing of foreign languages, etc. Still, the persistence in the principle of educating “foreign language teachers with a native-like communicative competence in the language they will be teaching in schools” (Dendrinos, 2012, pp.  48–49) favors monoglossic and monolingual ideas (Garcia & Torres-Guevara, 2009, p.  182). Within this perception, foreign Language Faculties in Greece, as in other European countries, develop monolingual curricula considering the study of languages as ‘separate entities’ (Dendrinos, 2004; Delveroudi, 2004). Nonetheless, such views create artificial boundaries between languages, focusing on a single language each time. As a result, the connection between languages and the social context is not actively promoted and, as such, it is not being taken under consideration in future language teachers’ education. Considering that these largely monolingual academic realities come in sharp contrast with the present-day societal multilingualism (Gorter & Cenoz, 2017, p. 239; Dendrinos, 2013, 2019; Gkaintartzi et al., 2015; Androulakis et al., 2017), there is a need for future teachers’ initiation into a multilingual mindset. This need becomes even more pressing, as Language Faculties’ graduates will be working in schools with students whose previous learning experiences and language knowledge should be taken advantage of (Bernaus et al., 2007, p. 16).

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In this context, the present article is a first attempt to explore the journey of a group of fourteen undergraduate students from the Faculties of French Language and Literature and Greek Philology at the School of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,1 as they move from their expedient languages towards their plurilingual awareness. These students are involved in a participatory action research which lasted one year (November 2020–October 2021). This study was part of a wider collaborative framework aiming to promote a culture of co-­ existence and interaction between individuals, languages and research practices at the Language Faculties of NKUA.

2 DLC as a Tool for the Development of Plurilingual Awareness Nowadays, multilingual societies ascribe different multilingual identities (Hu, 2018) to their members, depending on their social and cultural experiences (Forbes & Rutgers, 2021). Different timespace frames of everyday communication (Blommaert & de Fina, 2016) enhance the fluidity of multilingual identities, which are subject to a lifelong process negotiation (Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001). In this light, languages are approached as open, dynamic systems that intertwine and interact with each other and with the broader social environment. In this way, they form a complex whole in constant negotiation within individuals and societies as described by Larsen-Freeman (2007). Such a consideration of languages responds to our multilingual, contemporary society and is discussed within a significant body of research (Björklund & Björklund, 2021; Aronin, 2020; Björklund et al., 2020; Garcia, 2015; Kramsch, 2009), that informs different educational interventions attempting to convert an unelaborated multilingualism to a conscious plurilingualism. By plurilingualism (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 168; 2007, p. 8; 2020, p. 30), we refer to the speaker’s perceptions – as an individual or member of a community – about her/his language repertoire, including languages that s/he has learned or that s/he is willing to learn and/or languages with which s/he is in contact in her/his environment (Council of Europe, 2007). We understand this as an open approach to languages that focuses on the speaker’s identity as a social actor (Council of Europe, 2001; Piccardo et al., 2019) and responds to contemporary super-diverse societies (Vertovec, 2019). This definition of plurilingualism ‘does not keep languages and  Τhe present research was conducted under the auspices of the Centre of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy (CEM). It is one of the 15 Centres of Excellence of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (henceforth NKUA) and its mission is to create a space for interdisciplinary research on languages, language learning, teaching and assessment, language policies in society and in/for all levels of education. https://cem.uoa.gr. Within CEM operates the first and only Multilingualism Observatory in Greece whose the purpose is to collect data on linguistic diversity and pluri−/multilingualism in Greece and Cyprus. 1

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cultures in strictly separated mental compartments’ (Council of Europe, 2001, p.  168) and expands the speaker’s individual experience of languages from ‘the language of the home to that of society at large and then to the languages of other people’ (ibid.). In this article, these three spaces – inspired from Dunbar’s (2021) graphic representation of friendships  – are visualized as three concentric circles including the inner, the intermediate and the outer social ones (Fig. 1). These circles link the individual language repertoires to different social contexts, and indicate the distance between the individual and her/his languages. More specifically, the inner social circle corresponds to the close personal language milieu, the intermediate refers to the wider personal context of family or acquaintances, and the outer one expands to the broader social environment. This visualization gives us the possibility to approach the presence of an individual’s DLC in connection to the emergence of other languages. The DLC, as defined by Lo Bianco and Aronin (2020), conceives the speakers’ expedient languages – usually 2 to 4 – as sets emerging from “a given environment at a given time” (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020, p. 2; Aronin & Singleton, 2012, p. 74). These sets of languages meet the vital needs of their users and reveal new insights for them within a fluid societal multilingualism. Therefore, the term ‘dominant’ is not conceived in terms of power, but in terms of expediency (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020). In this sense, it creates the space for personal selection of languages with different statuses. These are visualized as constellations of languages that a person knows, speaks, could understand, but also languages that a person could not recognize, though present in her/his wider environment, languages that a person is Inner social circle (family members, close friends, colleagues) Intermediate social circle (relatives, acquaintances, neighbors) Outer social circle (tourists, immigrants, refugees)

Fig. 1  Social circles

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planning to learn, or languages in which a person is emotionally involved (Aronin & Singleton, 2012, p. 62 & 81). The challenge is how to become aware of their presence in the everyday life. Τhe concept of language awareness is ‘a person’s sensitivity to a conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life’ (Garrett & James, 1993, p. 109), and as such, ‘it is not about learning language(s) but it is learning about languages’ (Candelier, 2003). In addition to this, plurilingual awareness is conceived as the journey of a person towards realizing and reconsidering any established views about her/his own multilingualism. It is, in other words, a journey of transition and relocation regarding perceptions which were adopted without prior processing within a particular spatiotemporal context. The first step consists of recognizing ‘languages in the broader society’ (Melo-Pfeifer, 2015, p. 199); the second one refers to the consciousness of the language perceptions that exist within a speaker’s self and the society and the last one includes repositioning and reconsideration of pre-established views. It means that the individual becomes aware of, sees and hears other languages or the languages of others, not just those that top-down policies, such as formal education, impose. Within this perspective, the DLC approach is used in our study not only as a tool to investigate the expedient languages of our sample of undergraduate Student Language Teachers (SLT), but also as a trigger to activate their plurilingual awareness.

3 Methodology 3.1 Research Questions Based on the theoretical considerations outlined in the previous section, the following research questions emerged: (a) What are the most important languages in SLTs’ lives? (b) Which relationships are developed within different social environments and how do students verbalize these relationships? (c) How does SLTs’ plurilingual awareness evolve through guided reflection about their DLCs?

3.2 Research Design and Tools The present study builds on a participatory action research (Gordon, 2008; Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000) which aimed to explore fourteen students’ perceptions on multilingualism through their DLCs. In accordance with our research questions, reflective processes have been adopted in order to create a space for raising their

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plurilingual awareness (Farmer & Prasad, 2014; Prasad, 2013; Catalano et al., 2018; Otwinowska, 2014). Our research is implemented in two phases with different tools. During the first phase, that took place in February 2021, SLTs conceptualized their DLCs through two research tools that represented their language choices. The first one was the ‘language portrait’ (Busch, 2012; Molinié, 2009) (Fig. 2), inspired by the language biography (Krumm, 2011; Molinié, 2009; Prasad, 2014). Although this particular tool is used to demonstrate participants’ language biographies, in the present research it was used as a tool to visualize participants’ DLCs at a particular moment. A short text, up to 75 words, accompanied the human figure and justified the participants’ choices. The second research tool for this phase is the language road (a tool created for the needs of our research, Fig.  3). The participants were invited to mention the languages and the places where they encounter them on an everyday trajectory. Both the language portrait and road are adopted as prompts for the elicitation of participants’ language repertoires and are not used for a visual analysis. Α graph analysis (Brath & Jonker, 2015) is adopted for the data of this phase. During the second phase, that took place 9 months later, in October 2021, the participants were involved in semi-structured interviews (Creswell, 2018). During that phase, conceived as a process of sharing and discussing their own data, the language portrait and the road were used as stimuli for further discussion (Catalano et al., 2018; Farmer & Prasad, 2014). The first and the second axes of the interview

Fig. 2  Language Portrait

Fig. 3  Language Road

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focused on the way students viewed their language portraits and language roads respectively. A third axis focused on the general evaluation and the contribution of this research experience to multilingualism. For the data derived from both the first and second phase, a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) is adopted. The analysis follows the chronological order of the two phases.

3.3 Student Language Teachers (SLT) Profiles The fourteen participating SLTs are undergraduate students of the School of Philosophy of the NKUA. In particular, six of them are fourth-year students of the Faculty of French Language and Literature, while eight of them are third-year students of the Faculty of Greek Philology. Their age ranges from 21 to 34 years. Two of the participants (Panos and Teresa) are graduates of another Faculty and they study at the Faculty of French Language and Literature to obtain their second degree. All participants’ L1 is Greek, while at the time of the study all of them lived in various areas of Athens, except Panos and Teresa who, during the interviews, had moved to other locations. For reasons of research ethics, pseudonyms are used both in the analysis and presentation of our data (Table 1). The fourteen SLTs participated in the study after an invitation that took place within the framework of two courses in their programmes of study that related to a voluntary participation in a research action of the Multilingualism Observatory of the Centre of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy of the NKUA.  Their positive response to this research call indicates their interest in multilingualism. Table 1  Student Language Teachers’ profiles 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Pseudonyms Chara Georgia Korinna Mey Panos Teresa Antonis Dimitra Fouli Marina Menia Sassa Selini Vicky

Age 23 years 22 years 22 years 22 years 34 years 34 years 21 years 21 years 21 years 21 years 21 years 21 years 21 years 21 years

Faculty Faculty of French Language and Literature Faculty of French Language and Literature Faculty of French Language and Literature Faculty of French Language and Literature Faculty of French Language and Literature Faculty of French Language and Literature Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology Faculty of Greek Philology

Year of studies 4th year 4th year 4th year 4th year 4th year 4th year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year 3rd year

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4 Data Analysis 4.1 Language Portraits and Roads The language portraits depicted students’ DLCs that relate to themselves and the immediate family environment (inner social circle). The language roads represent their language repertoires, related to their wider personal context (intermediate social circle) and broader social environment (outer social circle). Participants’ choices were represented through the language portraits and roads. Here are four indicative examples (Figs. 4, 5, 6, and 7). The participants’ sets of languages form distinct combinations for each individual, which are viewed as “patterns”. These patterns make up the sum of languages of the participants’ portraits and roads. The order in which the languages have been placed in the plot area follows the frequency of their appearance. The DLC and language repertoires patterns are presented in separate graphs (Figs. 8 and 9) which further inform our thematic analysis. 4.1.1 DLC Patterns in Language Portraits The dominant pattern, which characterizes participants’ DLCs, includes in priority the Greek and the English language. To these two are added one of the two languages which are part of school life in Greece (French or German). The dominant languages appear in the same plot area, in almost all patterns. These sets of expedient languages are those “they speak well” or whose knowledge is certified. They are formed, in other words, mainly by the languages they learned through their school experience and continue using for the purpose of their studies (Greek, English, French or German). English: Very good knowledge, more familiar with writing thanks to daily use of the internet (level C2).

French: In the process of learning, level B1, unable to talk about anything beyond the basics, difficulty in oral speech.

Fig. 4  Antonis’s Language Portrait

Ancient Greek: Pretty good knowledge thanks to my studies, obviously, there is no oral use.

Greek: mother tongue

Arabic: I don’t speak it at all, but I’m familiar with it because it’s my father's mother tongue. I know very few words.

Latin: Little knowledge thanks to my studies, allowing me to understand a lot of words especially from Romance languages.

Russian: Familiar thanks to music, no learning courses and I can't follow any conversation; I understand some basic words that allow me to understand the general meaning of a text. Slight understanding of other Slavic languages.

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Greek is the language I consider my mother tongue. It is on the feet, at the base of this little figure, because it is my linguistic starting point and the language I learned to speak first.

The last languages are Ancient Greek and Latin. I wanted to add them because, although I don’t use them in everyday communication, I have spent many years studying them and I think they deserve to be part of my language biography.

English is the second language I learned to speak. I consider it equal to Greek because I use it in my everyday life, maybe not for everyday communication but for reading (literature and non-literature), for the internet and for entertainment in general. It is the language I feel comfortable with, as with Greek language.

Spanish is a language I am currently learning. I have not yet mastered it to a satisfactory degree. I’ve started learning it as a challenge because I want to learn another language as well as English and to express myself as in my mother tongue.

Fig. 5  Sassa’s Language Portrait

German, Spanish, English TV

Greek English French Spanish

Greek, English

University Greek and Français

Fig. 6  Teresa’s Language Road

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Greek, English, French, German. University of Athens GreekRussian

Greek, Albanian, Russian, Urdu… and many others that I don’t recognize

Fig. 7  Georgia’s Language Road

The self-perceived good knowledge of these languages is also confirmed by the information provided by participants regarding the starting age and the duration of their learning. Greek is the language I learned since when I was a baby. (Dimitra) English is the language I started learning from a very young age. (Κorinna) Since I was a teenager, I take French lessons. (Georgia) I grew up with German starting from a young age. (Menia)

It seems thus that the presence of English and Greek is the most dominant. Although these languages are common in almost all SLTs’ DLCs, the formation of different surfaces on the graphs illustrates their different presence and significance in each student’s life. They are in fact the languages which are repeated through the same pattern in 13 out of 14 graphs. Along with Greek, which is the fourteen SLTs’ L1, they form a small triangular surface which is repeated in almost all initial DLC patterns. The equilateral lines of this surface visualize the equal presence of Greek and English in the Greek-speaking language environment. The functions served by the English language are primarily instrumental, as regards its presence in everyday life: English is a global language, useful and necessary. (Georgia) English is the second language I learned to speak. I consider it equal to Greek, because I use it in my everyday life, perhaps not in my daily communication, but in my reading of texts. Ι use English for browsing the Web and for entertainment purposes in general. It is the language I feel at ease with up to the point that I express my thoughts in this language, the same way I do with Greek. (Sassa) I now feel that I can communicate in English in exactly the same way I do in my mother tongue. (Marina)

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Fig. 8  DLC patterns on language portraits

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Fig. 9  DLC patterns on Language Roads

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More specifically, in the DLC patterns of the French Faculty students, French is added to the initial surface of Greek-English and expands it to the right, as French is the third language in order of appearance in our sample (Panos, Korinna, Mey, Chara, Georgia). The initial triangular surface of Greek-English for the Greek Faculty students is not necessarily completed by French; this means that their DLC patterns are formed differently. The additional languages appear in other places of the plot area and usually include: (a) languages they were taught at school (such as German for Μarina and Menia; French for Antonis and Vicky); (b) languages that are relevant to their studies (Ancient Greek and Latin for Antonis, Dimitra, Selini, Sassa); (c) languages they love or they connect to their personal experiences (Italian, Spanish, Albanian); (d) geographical varieties of Greek that specify the place of origin (Cretan dialect). For all students of both Faculties, languages not learnt at school, such as Italian and Spanish, are visualized either as isolated lines, detached from the other languages (Fouli, Vicky, Korinna), or, in two cases (Sassa, Marina), in combination with other languages. In this case, they form a new triangular surface which reveals other relations of significance. In any case, the DLC patterns derived from the portraits indicate and highlight the complexity and the uniqueness of these students’ emerging plurilingualism. Although the DLC patterns consist of the same languages, the pattern which represents each SLT is unique (Fig. 8). 4.1.2 DLC Patterns in Language Roads The language road revealed other languages connected to SLTs’ language repertoires. These new languages resulted in the enrichment of the initial DLC sets, thus modifying the initial DLC patterns. The presence of SLTs’ expedient languages is explicit in important locations of their daily life, such as the home, the university, the workplace. Thus, the language roads illustrate that DLCs serve as starting point for SLTs’ encounters with other languages, linked to daily family interactions and communication with fellow students and professors, colleagues or online friends. In particular, the space of the home is expanded through virtual spaces, such as the TV and the Internet, in which DLC patterns reappear (Marina watches Spanish-speaking TV series and Sassa, Dimitra and Vicky watch films and listen to music in English). In the same way, they associate their expedient languages to book reading (Vicky reads English-speaking literature). The space of the “house” includes the residencies of the wider family, where they come anew in contact with language varieties of origin. Their distance, however, seems to become less significant through the language road: Marina recalls that she hears Pontic Greek in the village house of her grandparents. Georgia selects the languages of her house, Greek and Russian, allowing thus a latent family bilingualism to emerge, which was not from the beginning visible in her portrait. Outside the space of the house, DLCs appear in  locations such as the car, when listening to

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music (Teresa listens to Greek and English songs), the cinema (Vicky watches Spanish-speaking movies), the super market (Mey reads the product labels in English, French, Greek), and the café (Μey reads the catalogue in Greek, English). The DLC patterns become open to other languages in two ways: (a) through the mediation of familiar people leading to new language hearings (Sassa listens to Serbian songs recommended by her friend), and (b) through the exposure to new groups related to other locations beyond the known and familiar ones (Selini recognizes her DLC pattern: English, French, German to tourists at the nearby port). The concept of the ‘house’ expands even more and includes ‘the house of the friend’, where Selini hears Albanian and Russian, ‘the house of the neighbor’, where Selini hears Romanian, and is sometimes expanded to the location of the ‘neighborhood’. There, it is even connected with individuals who work in small shops (Sassa hears Russian in the grocery store and recognizes Indian languages, Indonesian and Urdu, as languages of people with migration or refugee backgrounds). The other languages are added through their encounters with the linguistic landscape in the city centre. There, the shop labels, the presence of people at the bus stop or the subway make languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Albanian, Urdu, Russian, Romanian, and other ‘unknown’ languages, visible (Korinna, Mey and Fouli), thus enriching their language experiences (Fig. 9). The new patterns which emerge from the language roads are related to: –– Languages of origin which are linked to migration or refugee experience in the immediate or antecedent family environment of the students (intermediate social circle). Their contact with these languages is limited and is related to a partial understanding of isolated words or phrases (as Arabic stands for Antonis, Russian for Georgia and Pontic Greek for Marina). –– Immigrants’ and refugees’ languages. These are encountered by SLTs in their broader social environment as languages of others (such as Arabic and Albanian for Fouli; Russian for Antonis; Romanian, Urdu, Arabic, Albanian, Russian for Selini; Indian languages, Chinese, Arabic for Sassa, Bulgarian for Korinna; Albanian for Menia; Urdu, Albanian, Russian for Georgia). –– Languages to whom SLTs are emotionally attached and they would like to learn or improve their knowledge thereof. These are languages which are highly valued as foreign languages, such as Spanish, or languages which are stereotypically connected with culture and intellectual cultivation. This is the case of Italian (Teresa, Fouli, Vicky). –– Languages, such as Ancient Greek and Latin, which seem to be connected with their studies or with their work. For example, Dimitra studies Ancient Greek and Panos teaches Ancient Greek and Latin in College. The new expanded patterns that emerged from the SLTs’ language roads indicate a relative opening towards other languages and the languages of others. In isolated cases only, are the differences with the portraits’ patterns significant (Selini, Sassa),

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a fact indicating an attachment of most SLTs to the languages of the self. The different patterns are as many as the number of participants in the research, indicating thus once more that the way they conceptualize their language repertoires is unique, just exactly as unique are the experiences brought by each one of the participants to the encounters with the languages. 4.1.3 Synthesis On the basis of the comparison between the patterns that emerged from the language portraits and the language roads, five conclusions can be drawn. (a) The language constellations that emerged from the language roads are expanded in relation to the constellations of the portraits, with the addition of languages from their wider social environment. This expansion is on the one hand quantitatively expressed through an increase in the number of languages and on the other hand it is also qualitatively expressed through the appearance of these new languages in plot areas which are more or less remote from initial DLC surfaces. (b) The common ground of these patterns is the DLC pattern. The dominant languages, which are connected with the self and the immediate social environment, are also repeated in the patterns linked with the languages of the intermediate and outer social environments. Their reappearance in the language road leads us to think that they function as bridges for the other languages and the languages of others. (c) The transition from the languages of origin, either in the form of another language or in the form of a Greek dialect, did not emerge easily in the patterns of the road. There is a chance that they could exist in other SLTs as well but have been silenced. This observation leads us to the conclusion that the languages of the intermediate circle might be named with considerable difficulty because they could be connected with traumatic experiences of social exclusion or undesirable identities. (d) The languages connected to studies also emerge, even if the languages are dead. (e) The emerging patterns are unique for each SLT, indicating the individual perceptions of societal multilingualism.

4.2 Interviews The interviews gave the opportunity to all participants to verbalize their choices on their language portraits and roads. The aim was a self-reflective return to the data of the first phase so that any possible repositioning in relation to their DLCs and language repertoires in general could be explored.

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4.2.1 Reflections on Language Portraits and Roads The experience of the first phase is considered positive and its value is identified in the way that the languages of the self and those of others are approached. SLT feel that they become more observant and open to the languages of their environment. In this way, they cross the boundaries of their perceptions and their way of thinking changes. I saw a lot of different ways of thinking that helped me to see my own way of thinking, when I was making the portrait, and the road […] It helped me consider the world differently […] It opened my perspectives, my mind […] It helped me not to react to anything different, not to see it as a threat. (Fouli) The research has contributed somehow to have a more open perspective on languages. I started to see them much more openly. Also, I think I started to be a little bit more observant. But yeah, I think I gained mostly like being more observant. (Vicky)

The completion of the language portraits and roads surprises them to such an extent that they come to even reconsider their pre-established conceptions and expectations in relation to the way the study is conducted. It hadn’t crossed my mind… It was something different and unexpected. That is, we all expected some kind of bibliography which we’d have to study or questionnaires. (Georgia) We hadn’t taken the research that seriously. We hadn’t really thought that all this would come out of something so simple. I’d never imagine that through a drawing so many results would come up. (Chara)

Similar to the findings of the first stage of the study, the expedient languages of their lives remain the same, and include those of their educational trajectory. First, definitely after all this procedure of the second phase, I look at everything with a different eye although I only mentioned the languages I’ve been taught, the languages I’ve got a certification in. They still constitute the biggest part of my language portrait. (Menia)

They become aware of the fact that these languages are the certified ones, “the languages of their CVs”. However, their attachment to these languages is conceived as an obstacle in perceiving the languages of their environment. […] we were stuck with the languages of our CVs and not the languages we can understand, either through the languages we have been taught or through the people we come into contact with. It’s also the social media – this whole part I haven’t included in my portrait, even though it’s part of my daily life […] either through friends or other contacts and films. (Menia) Certified languages are just a formal qualification. Actual language use is something else. (Antonis)

In contrast with the language portraits, in the language roads we observed changes. These changes opened up the DLC patterns even more towards the other languages which participants had not reported in the first phase of the study. This obviously happened because the language roads were already more open and more flexible in terms of the language choices they offered.

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It has definitely changed. I give lessons to migrants. I would definitely, definitely choose to add Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Asian languages in general, Georgian and all the languages I hear during the lesson. I’d choose to add the Eptanisian idiom that I hear at home. And this is how I’d enrich it [the road]. (Antonis) I’d definitely add Indonesian, Filipino, Arabic, that language called Lingala, and […] and Albanian, Russian and Turkish… I hadn’t paid that much attention to these languages […] Oh! And Italian, and Panjabi and Arabic I hear in my work. (Chara)

The research also leads them to change their own attitudes towards languages, particularly when they become aware of the fact that they were characterized by a kind of deafness to the languages of others. Their senses function as way to identify those languages that before the study were not perceivable to them, while they also break the stereotype of living in a context where English and Greek dominate. I understood that I just couldn’t hear. (Selini) I look around and I see that there are so many different people, so many different languages, not just Greek and English, as I may consider it before. (Fenia)

At the same time, it is not only the languages that acquire existence for them, but their speakers as well. There is a voice towards the other, the speaker of other languages… he gained a voice in our ears. (Antonis) I mean, I could be on the street and someone else could be walking by me and I couldn’t hear at all… like I was just shutting down… now I’m seeing things differently. … I listen a lot more, I care, I like to listen to the other speakers… (Selini)

The additions are also related to new locations because of SLTs’ relocation to other cities or even countries. An indicative example is that of Teresa who moved to France for studies and became aware of the different multilingualism of the country compared to that of Greece. The road has changed. It has changed because I have a lot more hearings here in France from other languages which I didn’t have in Athens. I heard so many languages, I heard Russian, Danish, many languages. In the context of the theatre classes but here as well, even in the dorm. (Teresa)

The preceding analysis illustrates that the DLCs of SLTs’ inner social circle remain the same as in the previous phase of the research. Likewise, the intermediate circle does not present significant changes. The most significant changes appear in the outer social circle, by the addition of languages and the identification of speakers’ voices in various spaces and moments of their everyday life. For this reason, this phase of the research is considered as a first step towards participants’ plurilingual awareness. 4.2.2 Repositioning on Multilingualism When SLTs are invited to discuss about languages, their pre-established views are conceived under a new perspective and acquire a new content.

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First of all, multilingual speaker is not any more the polyglot one, as Fouli highlights in the following excerpt: I think the image I had of multilingualism before the project was always in my mind as the ability of someone to speak several languages. (Fouli)

On the contrary, everyone may be multilingual, as multilingualism is everywhere and affects all daily communicative practices. Antonis illustrates this point by recognizing the difference that exists between our monolingual perceptions and multilingual all-day practices: And I have the impression that no person is monolingual. From the moment you get out of your house, even in the bus, the labels are in French, the instructions are in German. Even the old lady in the village will just throw some Italian words when speaking. There is no person at the moment right now who is monolingual, even if he thinks so. (Antonis)

Within this framework, the most open-minded definition of multilingualism is provided by Selini who attributes it to all languages of people and environments of her life: Multilingualism is the languages I know, the ones I can potentially learn, the ones I want to learn, the ones I hear, the ones of my friend, my sister, someone I know, the language of a film, the language of a song, all these are a part of me that I can develop later if I want to, but they are still a part of me. (Selini)

At the same time, not every language is recognized as equally important for everyone. Its value depends on personal experiences and different life moments. Vicky arrives at this conclusion after being interviewed about her initial perceptions in her language portrait and road: What I felt in relation to multilingualism through the interviews? It’s not something that everyone experiences in exactly the same way, that is something very subjective and experiential for each one, that each language can be more important for someone. (Vicky)

Participants’ identities, as present and future teachers, are mainly affected by their repositioning about multilingualism. Their new perspective on it operates as a lens for changing their current pedagogic practices to more tolerant ones. Fouli illustrates it with the acknowledgment that all languages are allowed for a communicative act during the teaching process: […] What I am interested in is not to correct her [her student] with the red pen and say that’s wrong; but I try to communicate in many different ways, in any language… Communication is not just one thing. (Fouli)

For this reason, participants realise that they activate several languages during the day to meet with different communicative needs. However, their practices do not refer to separate language entities. Their multilingualism is conceived as an emerging unified language system as Antonis and Dimitra put it in their own words: These languages might be all used in combination within a typical day of mine. There’s no particular time of the day where I will hear a language alone. All of them are entangled and give me a system, a way of communication and not a few languages with bounded borders. (Antonis)

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After all, after this research I would mix up all languages everywhere. I wouldn’t think of them as separate languages. (Dimitra)

In conclusion, multilingualism is not something fixed that depends on certified knowledge and maintained as such during the individual’s life. On the contrary, multilingualism is a fluid process, in constant and continuous development, as illustrated in the following excerpt: Multilingualism is a process… that’s what you keep doing until you really consider yourself multilingual and have a more open perspective. We may be talking about it now, but surely in a year, it will be even more open than it is today. […] Multilingualism is now a continuum – it’s not a sum of languages, it’s a continuum. (Antonis)

This repositioning emerged as the outcome of the research process in which SLTs participated. Their ideas changed when they drew on their everyday lived experiences. As long as this development is reflected in their own words, the research assisted them to move towards their plurilingual awareness.

5 On the Way to Plurilingual Awareness The journey towards SLTs’ plurilingual awareness could be schematically represented by three concentric cycles. The first, inner social circle, corresponds to the family, education and work environment and to languages they consider they know well (L1, certified foreign languages, study languages). In the intermediate circle, which refers to the broader family, acquaintances and neighbors, apart from the dominant languages which normally reappear, we note the appearance of languages whose knowledge is fragmented and is usually limited to oral comprehension. The outer social circle refers to the wider social environment and to languages which they do not speak, but are able to recognize. These are the languages of others which, however, they start connecting with the self. This circle often includes less prestigious languages, the languages of migrants and refugees. In brief, the journey towards the plurilingual awareness evolved in three stages: (a) the recognition of students’ established conceptions regarding their DLCs, (b) the self-reflective consideration of these conceptions and (c) the verbalization of their repositioning. As can be seen in Fig. 10, plurilingual awareness follows a bidirectional pathway, from/to the inner from/to the outer social circle. It feeds and is fed by the language encounters in all three circles. In their journey towards plurilingual awareness, our participants changed their conceptualization of multilingualism, taking distance from the view that ‘my language is only the one I know well’ and they have contact with ‘unknown’ languages. Nevertheless, when they came to the point of recognizing societal multilingualism as a part of their plurilingualism, the filter of monolingualism returned, in that the others were identified as monolinguals: the Pakistani speaks only Urdu, the Chinese only Chinese and so on. In any case, their journey from the concept of separated

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Fig. 10  Plurilingual awareness and social circles

languages and monoglossic ideologies towards plurilingualism and from an established conception of multilingualism towards a more open and flexible consideration is not a spontaneous process.

6 Conclusion Our research had two starting points. On the one hand, we considered the development of awareness as an internal process which can be triggered and developed in time through focused educational interventions. On the other hand, we used the concept of DLC to trigger this process. In this light, the present research was designed and structured in two time periods (with a 9-month interval) and involved the use of different tools. The language portraits and roads as well as the interviews aimed at bringing participants in contact with their own perceptions regarding multilingualism and, next, in their self-reflective and critical consideration. The analysis of the first-stage data revealed participants’ DLCs and their language repertoires as well as the different and unique patterns formed by these languages. SLTs’ most expedient languages include their mother tongue(s) and languages learnt in formal contexts. During the second phase, what emerged was

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the relation between the SLTs’ dominant languages and their language repertoires within the social environment where they developed. The visualization of the DLC patterns captured not only the sets of SLTs’ dominant languages but also the uniqueness of these patterns, notwithstanding the fact that they consisted of more or less the same languages. In addition, the critical consideration of both the DLCs and the SLTs’ language repertoires highlighted the relationship between expedient languages and the social environment, in the sense of locations, people and functions. We also attempted to capture the presence of both the DLCs and other languages and the languages of others in correspondence with specific social circles (inner, intermediate and outer). This highlighted: (a) the presence of DLCs in all three circles, (b) the presence of relatively few languages in the intermediate circle, particularly those of the languages of origin, and (c) the presence of a significant number of languages in the wider social circle. Finally, our initial claim about the connection of the DLC with plurilingual awareness was confirmed by the conclusions that emerged during the interviews. Starting from the consciousness of their perceptions, SLTs seemed to do small transitions from their initial certainties on their DLCs and language repertoires. The greatest transitions were identified in the outer social circle while the slightest in the inner. This leads us to assume that the intervention described in this article was successful in sensitizing the SLTs and to open their way toward plurilingual awareness. At the same time, multilingualism emerged not only as a complex concept but also as an unpredictable reality, in need of constant educational intervention, as established policies and practices have entrenched monolingualism in the individual and collective consciousness. Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to Professor Emerita Bessie Dendrinos, President of the Centre of Excellence for Multilingualism and Language Policy of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, for her trust and constant support. We would also like to thank the students who took part in this research for their time, their commitment and the plurilingual journey. Special thanks to our colleague, Mr. Thomas Theodoros, for his assistance in digitally capturing the DLC patterns. The figures 8 and 9 were made on https://public.flourish.studio/

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Are Teachers Developing Strategies to Enhance the Use of DLC in the Learning of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in English-Dominant Classrooms? Jorge Pinto

Abstract  The interest of foreign students in learning Portuguese has increased in recent years and the language profiles of these learners have also been changing. A few years ago, most learners mastered two languages, but currently they speak three or more languages. Therefore, the classroom context has changed, and the foreign language teaching practices have been adapting to enhance the learners’ previous linguistic knowledge when learning a new target language. Considering a multilingual teaching methodology, the notion of Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) could be used by teachers as a tool to foster learners’ multilingual awareness. This chapter explores, firstly, the concept of DLC approach to the language teaching in a multilingual foreign language classroom, where teachers are expected to implement multilingual practices in order to develop the learners’ language awareness. Secondly, it presents a study with 16 teachers of Portuguese as a Foreign Language to demonstrate what their believes about multilingual teaching are, what practices they carry out in their classes, what use they make of learners’ languages, and, finally, to know if they are aware of the DLC approach. Findings indicate that most teachers believe that the use of the students’ most expedient languages could be highly beneficial in learning Portuguese, but their insufficient knowledge about multilingual teaching and the trend towards a monolingual teaching reduce the use of the DLC approach in classroom.

The author thanks the financial support of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UIDB /00214/2020). J. Pinto (*) School of Arts and Humanities – Centre of Linguistics, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_8

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Keywords  Multilingualism · Multi-competence · Language repertoire · Dominant language constellation · Linguistic identity · Language teaching strategies · Portuguese foreign language

1 Introduction Using several languages has become a reality in European classrooms. The transition from monolingual to multilingual teaching is a challenge for teachers, who, in many cases, do not have formal training and experience to work in multilingual contexts; nevertheless, this step forward is necessary nowadays, considering the learners’ language repertoire and their diverse cultural and family background. Recent research on language education highlights the importance of multilingual teaching (Cenoz & Santos, 2020; Safont Jordá, 2017; Cenoz & Gorter, 2015; Cenoz, 2013; González Piñeiro et  al., 2010; Hornberger, 2009) to facilitate the use of resources across the languages known by the learners and, consequently, to foster the learning of the target language. What is more, a new perspective has recently emerged concerning a person’s languages but that differs from the abovementioned concept of language repertoire – Dominant Language Constellation (DLC). This concept was originally proposed and used by Aronin (2006), and it only includes the most salient languages for a person, rather than all the languages known to him/her (Aronin, 2016; Aronin & Singleton, 2012). Recognizing the importance of the use of the learners’ DLC in the teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language (PFL), the aim of this chapter is to present a study describing the DLCs existing in our classrooms and to understand how the use of DLC is implemented as a methodological tool by the teachers, considering that English as a lingua franca may reduce the opportunity to use the other learners’ expedient languages. Thus, in this chapter, we intend to, firstly, provide a background on language education, namely, by referring to concepts such as multilingualism, multi-­ competence, language repertoire and DLC. Then, we present a study describing the most important languages to our students – which are part of their linguistic identity – and highlighting how teachers perceive their use of the most important learners’ languages in the classroom to improve their learning of Portuguese. The data for the study will be presented in two ways: in the first part of the study, we will analyze the language profiles filled in by PFL learners, and in the second part, I will present the results of a survey applied to the teachers who worked with these learners. In discussing the data, we will highlight how teachers conceive their use of DLC in the classroom, the benefits of DLC approach to the teaching and learning of another foreign language, in this case Portuguese, and how it can improve the learners’ awareness of their most expedient languages. Results show that the constellation of dominant languages remains stable among teachers and learners.

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2 Towards Multilingual and Multicultural Language Education The goals and principles of the Council of Europe reveal the conviction that language learning is not only a necessity but a right of all European citizens. This learning aims to develop the necessary language codes, attitudes, and skills that will enable them to communicate in real life situations. This acquisition should never be seen as momentary, made inside or outside of the classroom, but as something that should happen throughout our life, in order to answer the needs of the world, society, and the changing business sector. All teaching should, thus, focus on the learners’ interests and needs, using methods and materials suitable for the world of work and society in general in the European context. Nowadays, there is a growing linguistic and cultural diversity within the classrooms, due to the important migration of citizens from other European countries and from other continents. Indeed, one of the challenges facing today’s education system is our constantly changing society and the interaction between the global and the local, that is, the coexistence of diversity and globality within the same context. In this globalization society and knowledge, it is important that the individual is trained to have both linguistic competence and the ability to interact culturally, at various levels, in several languages, which will enable them to manage all this linguistic and cultural capital. This construction of a plurilingual and pluricultural1 competence provides the emergence of a linguistic awareness and a form of general knowledge, which allow the individual to develop the know-how, in close relationship with the other and the new. The teaching and learning of languages, more than the acquisition of linguistic codes, allows the transmission of cultural values and their own manifestations. In the current context, the school’s mission is to provide learners with active and reflective knowledge of various foreign languages and their cultures, to prepare them for a world that is increasingly marked by people’s mobility and, consequently, by the crossing of languages and cultures. Therefore, when considering the teaching of a new language, one should take into account not only student’s previous representations, linguistic acquisitions, knowledge, and experiences, but also, and especially, the need to make students aware and take advantage of their plurilingual repertoires. (Oliveira & Ançã, 2009, p. 406)

It is therefore urgent to acquire skills at this level to be able to act and interact with other cultures, whether in our environment or in another particular social environment. According to the Council of Europe (2001, p. 5), in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), the purpose of language study

  The terms ‘plurilingual’ and ‘pluricultural’ will be used in the text when referring to competences. 1

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(…) is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which all linguistic abilities have a place. This implies, of course, that the languages offered in educational institutions should be diversified and students given the opportunity to develop a plurilingual competence.

Hence, in an increasingly heterogeneous society, school is responsible for promoting cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity and adapting its curriculum to different basic cultures. The formation of a world citizen through the acquisition of several new skills (the role of education) implies the tolerance towards differences, knowing how to be in community, avoiding confrontation, rejection, and violence with others. According to Coste (1999), it is possible that the knowledge of a single foreign language and culture does not always make it possible to overcome linguistic and cultural ethnocentrism and may even have an opposite effect; on the other hand, knowledge of several languages and cultures can lead to an overshoot of this attitude, guaranteeing, at the same time, the enrichment of the learning potential. It is in this sense that learning more than one foreign language makes perfect sense. It is not just a matter of guaranteeing learners the ability to communicate in more than two languages, but also of helping them to form their linguistic and cultural identity, based on the principle of alterity; to develop their skills through these same diversified experiences, using other languages and cultures. Therefore, Beacco and Byram (2007, p. 7) argue that (…) it is a question not only of developing or protecting languages but equally of enabling European citizens to develop their linguistic abilities. This means, then, that language teaching must be seen as the development of a unique individual linguistic competence (‘knowing’ languages whichever they may be). This competence needs to be developed not just for utilitarian or professional reasons but also as education for respect for the languages of others and linguistic diversity.

The teaching and learning of different languages to groups of linguistically and culturally heterogeneous learners called into question, on the one hand, the specific and differentiated methodological traditions of L1 and foreign languages teaching (Puren, 1998) as well as their curricular organization of language teaching (James, 1996) and, on the other hand, provided new studies on the specific characteristics of the linguistic knowledge of multilinguals. The Council of Europe itself (op. cit.) refers to this new reality – plurilingual and pluricultural competence – considering that we are not dealing with an overlapping or juxtaposition of distinct competences, but rather with a complex or multicultural competence. The Council of Europe (op. cit., p. 168) also adds in the CEFR that the concept of plurilingual and pluricultural competence tends to: • move away from the supposed balanced dichotomy established by the customary L1/L2 pairing by stressing plurilingualism where bilingualism is just one particular case; • consider that a given individual does not have a collection of distinct and separate competences to communicate depending on the languages he/she knows, but rather a plurilingual and pluricultural competence encompassing the full range of the languages available to him/her;

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Coste (2001) states that multilingual competence should be considered as: –– a complex competence; –– a plural competence, as it collects and combines the components of a repertoire that can be unbalanced and possess partial (sub)competencies; –– an ‘unitary’ competence, which, through transversal skills, precisely allows it to manage in synchrony and in diachrony the referred repertoire, making it evolve and establishing relationships between its different components. The complex linguistic knowledge of multilinguals cannot be considered a simple sum of the partial knowledge of each language (Cook, 1996; Grosjean, 2001; Herdina & Jessner, 2002), but an overall linguistic system in their mind (Cook, 2016). In this sense, the notion of common competence (Cummins, 1978), also re-­ elaborated and expanded by Kecskes and Papp (2000), which advocate for some declarative and procedural knowledge of a transversal nature, entered strongly in the issues of language teaching. In this sense, the contributions of Dabène (1996), Jessner (1999), De Pietro (1999), Turner and Turvey (2002), Candelier (2003), among many others, are very important. They advocate a return to contrastive linguistics from new bases, with an expansion of its object of study (not only linguistic systems but also the representations that learners make of them) and with a change in its objectives. It is not intended to use it as a point of reference for correcting learners’ linguistic uses, but rather to make it an instrument to raise students’ awareness of the relationships they establish between the knowledge of the different linguistic systems they use and that coexist in their mind. What we have just mentioned gives a new perspective to the understanding of the processes through which learners build their knowledge about languages, knowing that it should be a fundamental point of reference for the elaboration of pedagogical grammars and, especially, for the reasoned realization of the didactic transposition processes of scientific content involved in language teaching. In the last twenty years, several studies have sought to explain the L3/Ln acquisition process and to highlight the differences that distinguish it from the L2 one (Cenoz, 2001, 2003; Herdina & Jessner, 2000; Jessner, 1999). Precisely because a learner, who already masters, in addition to his L1, at least one other foreign or second language, has a different knowledge from another learner who starts his learning of a first language after the L1. The former has already further developed his linguistic awareness and acquired learning strategies that facilitate access to an L3. In this regard, Rothman et al. (2011, p. 6) state that ‘[i]n the case of an L3 acquisition, these learners, among other differences, all have more sources for initial state hypotheses than a monolingual L2 learner’. Learning a new target language, under these conditions, implies the establishment of relationships with the knowledge already acquired in other languages and the construction of new knowledge in the new language.

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3 Using Learners’ Full Language Repertoire vs Dominant Language Constellation in the Foreign Language Teaching and Learning Traditionally, language teaching was done using a monolingual approach (Gogolin, 2002). However, some scholars consider that this approach to language teaching can hamper learners’ linguistic development (Canagarajah, 2013; Jaspers, 2018), and several other researchers in recent years have criticized this way of teaching, advocating the beneficial effects that learners’ linguistic repertoires can have on learning a new target language (Cenoz & Gorter, 2014; Cook, 2001; Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Krulatz et al., 2016; Turnbull & Dailey-O’Cain, 2009, among others), considering that many learners, today, have a multilingual competence, are part of a multilingual society, and have different linguistic identities. Hence, language teachers should not ignore learners’ whole linguistic knowledge, but rather ‘openly acknowledge the linguistic identity of students by encouraging students to identify the languages they speak’ (Dressler, 2014, p.  42), and capitalize on it as far as target language learning is concerned. However, on the one hand, teachers’ monolingual beliefs and judgments about the use of other languages than the target one in the classroom influence their teaching practices (Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al., 2020), and on the other hand, many teachers did not receive pedagogical training for multilingual teaching and hence do not have much experience in multilingual classroom contexts, which makes a shift to multilingual pedagogies difficult (De Angelis, 2011). That’s why more focus on multilingualism in both initial and in-service teacher education is needed (De Angelis, 2011; Lundberg, 2019). Nowadays, despite these constraints, many language teachers are working in multilingual classrooms, and they must face these contexts by implementing approaches that meet their students’ language needs. Some pedagogical approaches have been proposed for this target group of learners, such as focus on multilingualism (Cenoz & Gorter, 2014), or pedagogical translanguaging (Cenoz, 2017; Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). These approaches aim at recognizing the importance of the full linguistic repertoire of learners and at using it as a strategy to the learning of new languages, seeking similarities between languages, and thus focusing on the development of learners’ metalinguistic awareness. Moreover, in order to explore learners’ pre-existing linguistic knowledge, a proposal has recently emerged that considers only the most expedient languages for a person  – Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) –, that is, ‘the active part of one’s language repertoire’ (Aronin, 2021, p. 20). Aronin (2006, 2016) and Aronin and Singleton (2012) propose that DLC constitutes the group of a speaker’s most important languages, functioning as an entire unit and covering all his needs in a multilingual context, either at school or in the community. As Lo Bianco (2020: 47) states: (…) any DLC is an outcome of what the analytical unit (a person, a family, an ethnic minority group, or an institution or a whole society), needs, chooses, prefers or prioritizes as the order of available and necessary resources for their various exigencies, as they perceive them and to the extent that they have agency and ability to affect their choices.

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This emerging approach differs from the concept of linguistic repertoire in that it includes all the skills and registers of all the languages acquired by a speaker. As Aronin (2019) argues, the linguistic repertoire encompasses a wide range of language resources that may not be all often used by the speaker, while the ‘DLC constitutes an active, working part of the pool of language repertoire and typically comprises three languages.’ (Aronin, 2020, p. 27). Considering the complexity of present language education, already mentioned above, the DLC approach can respond to this context, as it deals with the use of multiple languages present in a multilingual classroom (DLCs of language teachers and learners).

4 The Study 4.1 Methodology The aim of this study is not to discuss whether the use of DLC is relevant in language teaching, as we have already assumed it to be positive, but whether teachers take the dominant languages present in the classroom into account in their teaching practices. Firstly, we analyzed the language profiles filled in by PFL learners (n = 100) of the 1st semester of the academic year 2020–2021, enrolled in different levels/ classes, at the University of Lisbon. Secondly, teachers (n = 16) completed an online survey (partially based on Szelei et al., 2021, and on Boeckmann et al., 2011) that allowed us to gather information concerning their knowledge about the concept of DLC, DLC approach and multilingual teaching methodology. The survey included 14 questions (13 closed-ended questions and 1 open-ended question). The open-­ ended question sought a more personal and developed answer about teachers’ practices. The teachers were also asked to indicate their dominant languages and how many years of teaching experience they had as a PFL teacher (an average of 16,1 years). All the subjects constitute a non-probabilistic convenience sampling. This study mixes quantitative and qualitative methods; as mentioned by Gass and Mackey (2011), questionnaires, when applied for data collection, can provide quantitative and qualitative knowledge, and there is a complementarity between the two methods. This study considered the following research questions: 1. What are the similarities and differences between teachers’ DLCs and students’ DLCs? 2. What strategies do teachers use to capitalize students’ DLCs in their learning of Portuguese as a Foreign Language? 3. Does English as a lingua franca decrease the opportunities for learners and teachers to use the DLCs of the classroom or is an asset?

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4.2 Findings and Discussion First, we sought to determine the learners’ DLC. In order to better see if there were any differences between the different levels, we selected 2 groups from A1 to B2 levels. Each group consists of 10–13 learners. Table  1 shows us the variety of nationalities present in all groups and the learners’ DLC per group. As we can see, there is a real heterogeneity, as we have in such small groups at least four different nationalities. If we analyse them from the linguistic profile point of view, there are many more languages in contact in each classroom. For example, globally, in addition to Portuguese, we identified 29 more languages, among which Arabic, Dutch, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Tetum, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Wolof… However, considering only the main strongest languages indicated by learners, English, Chinese, French/Spanish and Portuguese (only at B2) are the core of all languages in presence. We can also observe that there is not much difference between the four levels. The only thing worthy of note is that at levels B1 and B2 the predominance of Chinese learners, compared to levels A1 and A2, makes Chinese the most dominant language in these groups, and at B2 Portuguese also appears as one of the dominant languages. So, having knowledge of this linguistic landscape  – the daily reality faced by PFL teachers – the second step was to find out the teachers’ linguistic profile and their strongest languages. With this information, we were able to get the full picture of the DLC in each classroom. As we can see in Fig. 1, teachers speak at least two foreign languages (28%), but the majority speaks three (39%) or more languages (33%). Overall, this group of teachers is multilingual. All groups have two teachers assigned. For example, group A has teachers 1 and 2 (T1 + T2) and group B has teachers 3 and 4 (T3 + T4) and so on. For that reason, we will present the strongest foreign languages of each pair of teachers (see Table 2), as they both work with the same group of learners. Looking at the table, we can see that the teachers’ DLC generally corresponds to the students’ DLC.  Excluding Chinese and somehow Portuguese, there is practically a match in the other dominant languages (at least one) in all groups between

Table 1  Learners’ DLC Levels A1 A2 B1 B2

Groups A B C D E F G H

Number of nationalities 4 6 7 9 5 4 4 7

DLC English, French, Chinese English, French, Chinese English, French, Chinese English, French, Chinese Chinese, English, Spanish Chinese, English, French Chinese, English, Portuguese Chinese, English, Portuguese

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17%

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28%

16% 39%

2 languages

3 languages

4 languages

5 languages

Fig. 1  Number of teachers’ Foreign Languages Table 2  Teachers’ DLC

Teachers T1 + T2 T3 + T4 T5 + T6 T7 + T8 T9+ T10 T11- T12 T13 + T14 T15 + T16

Groups A B C D E F G H

DLC Portuguese, English, French Portuguese, Spanish, English Portuguese, English, Spanish Portuguese, English, French Portuguese, Spanish, English Portuguese, Spanish, English Portuguese, English, French Portuguese, English, Spanish

teachers and learners. English appears to be, overall, the common language for all groups. Considering the importance of knowing the students’ languages, in order to make a portrait of the dominant languages in the classroom and help them develop the target language, we asked teachers what practices they followed to accomplish it. As shown in Table 3, most teachers have the habit of asking their students what languages they speak, thus becoming aware of their linguistic identity; however, when asked if they register that information to have the real knowledge about the dominant languages present in the classroom, we observe a reduction in the frequency of this practice. This leads us to deduce that teachers, despite being interested in knowing which languages students speak, do not use this information to later think about strategies that may take advantage of this linguistic knowledge of students. There is somehow an inconsistency in their behaviour. The same phenomenon was described by Alisaari et al. (2019) in their research. They found that teachers considered important to ask students about their languages; however, they are not so positive concerning the use of different languages for learning.

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Table 3  Teachers’ practices Asking learners about their linguistic profile Recording the languages present in the class to get an overview of the dominant languages spoken by learners Learning some words/structures of learners’ mother tongue Using a lingua franca in the classroom

Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always 0% 6,25% 12,5% 18,75% 62,5% 0% 18,75% 0% 37,5% 43,75%

6,25% 6,25% 25%

37,5%

31,25% 18,75%

31,25% 18,75% 18,75% 6,25%

Table 4  Relevance of the use of the lingua franca To communicate with learners in general To clarify instructions/ explanations To teach Portuguese vocabulary To make it easier for learners to participate (first they explain in lingua franca and then they try to reproduce it in Portuguese)

43% 100% 71% 43%

Considering that the PFL courses are attended by many groups of learners from the same country, for instance China, we asked teachers if they are used to learning lexicon or grammatical aspects of the learners’ mother tongues that they do not know. Through the results, we have found out that teachers demonstrate a general interest in the learners’ mother tongues (those that they already master are here excluded), but that it is not a practice made systematically by the majority. However, knowing some differences and similarities between those languages and Portuguese, and making use of that knowledge as a teaching strategy, can help learners to develop their linguistic competence in the target language. As Swain and Lapkin (2000) argue, the use of an L1 in tasks linguistically complex is a relevant cognitive tool. Concerning the use of a lingua franca in the classroom, 56,25% of the teachers answered that they never or rarely use it as a main language of instruction. The other 43,75% use it on a regular basis. The lingua franca indicated by this last group of teachers (n = 7) is English. They use it for different purposes (see Table 4). The main purposes indicated by the teachers for the use of the lingua franca are essentially related to general communication strategies, as ‘To clarify instructions/ explanations’, and not really to the teaching of the target language, apart from ‘To teach Portuguese vocabulary’. These results are broadly in line with those obtained by Szelei et al. (2021); however, in their study, teachers assign more relevance to the lingua franca and use it to other functions, such as to provide information on administrational issues and schooling and to create learning materials. With the aim of understanding the teachers’ beliefs concerning their ability to promote multilingual teaching, they were asked, first, if they consider that they have personal resources and academic background to do it. 37,5% answered ‘Yes’, 37,5% ‘Some’, and 25% ‘No’. The 75% who answered ‘Yes’ or ‘Some’ (n = 12) indicated afterwards which resources or academic background they think they have (Table 5).

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Table 5  Personal resources and academic background to promote multilingual teaching Linguistic repertoire consisting of three languages or more. Knowledge of different language acquisition and/or second and foreign language learning processes (eg. Acquisition stages/sequence, learning strategies, role of L1 or other previously acquired languages, interlanguage). Knowledge of multilingualism and multilingual competence (definitions, characteristics, forms, a.o.). Knowledge of misconceptions about foreign language learning (eg. Avoiding first language transfer, code-switching and translanguaging). Knowledge of how to capitalize on the multilingual competence of learners (in the classroom) for their interlinguistic development.

75% 66%

58% 66% 75%

Table 6  Teachers’ strategies to capitalize on the learners’ DLC in the classroom Make students aware of the metalinguistic knowledge they already have and offer opportunities for them to use this knowledge in learning PFL. Make productive use of the transfer between dominant learners’ languages in the classroom. Ask learners who speak similar languages to translate the instructions/explanations to each other to better understand what teacher said. Allow students to use electronic devices to translate from Portuguese into their mother tongue or vice versa. Create spaces for learners’ languages, cultures, and traditions, making the dominant languages in the classroom visible.

93,75% 37,7% 37,5% 56,25% 25%

Most of these twelve teachers believe they have the necessary requirements to promote multilingual teaching in their classes, i.e., both the theoretical and the practical knowledge. Moreover, they master three or more languages, which gives them the experience of learning several languages and knowing the cognitive processes that a multilingual person follows when learning a new target language. We will see below if these teachers’ perceptions are in accordance with their practices. Although not all teachers revealed that they had the knowledge to implement multilingual teaching, we sought to know if they (the sixteen) use some strategies to help learners make use of their dominant languages in order to better develop the target language. According to Table 6, only two strategies are used by most teachers – ‘Make students aware of the metalinguistic knowledge they already have and offer opportunities for them to use this knowledge in learning PFL’ and ‘Allow students to use electronic devices to translate from Portuguese into their mother tongue or vice versa’ –, which demonstrate to some extent that learners’ DLC is not used effectively for PFL learning. This reflects data already disclosed by the questionnaire: (1) most teachers do not record systematically the dominant languages of students to use them as a resource later in their practices, so they don’t give it due importance; (2) teachers mainly adopt monolingual teaching (in line with some findings of Lundberg, 2019), since most of them also declare that they refuse to use a lingua franca; and (3), despite the data obtained in Table 5, there is still a lack of training at this level so as to enable teachers to adopt multilingual teaching.

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Despite this, teachers are aware of the importance of metalinguistic knowledge in the mechanisms of recognition of differences and similarities between languages and of its role in the development of learners’ interlanguage. It seems that teachers make some confusion between the use of learner’s DLC as a resource to PFL learning and the use of other languages as a way of communication between students. There is also the idea that the use of languages other than Portuguese reduces the exposure to a greater input in the latter. As in the study of Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al. (2020), it seems that these PFL teachers do not clearly promote multilingual teaching in the classroom. This leads us to consider that the knowledge that teachers say they have is not enough; they also need to understand how to implement multilingual pedagogies and their benefits to multilingual learners (García & Kleyn, 2016). Along with teaching strategies, we wanted to figure out if teachers knew about some teaching materials that promoted multilingual teaching and if the materials they produce themselves have this concern. Regarding the first part of the question, only 18.75% were aware of such materials available on the market, the remaining 81,25% responded that they did not know. In fact, as far as the teaching of PFL is concerned, there are no teaching materials (for instance, students’ books) designed for real multilingual teaching. At the most, there are materials designed specifically for speakers of other mother tongues, such as Spanish. Assuming that teachers produce part of their teaching materials, we asked them if they usually think about exploring these materials by taking advantage of the metalinguistic skills already acquired by their students. Most teachers revealed that they had this intention, as 12,5% answered ‘Always’ and 56,25% ‘Usually’. 25% only sometimes think about making this kind of use of the materials they produce, and the other teachers do it ‘Rarely’ (12,5%) or even ‘Never’ (6,25%). Comparing the percentages in Table 6, with the open answers given below, it seems to us that the materials teachers refer to are mainly materials for learning grammar, which mobilize learners’ metalinguistic knowledge from previously acquired languages, with the aim of increasing their analytical and reflective abilities about the target language, becoming aware of the formal aspects of the language (phonological, morphological and syntactic levels). To have a better perception of what teachers think about the use of students’ DLC linguistic knowledge to the PFL learning, we asked them to give their opinion in an open-ended question. 43,5% think that the use of that knowledge is important, 50% answered that maybe it is important and 6,25% do not attach any importance to it. Teachers had the opportunity to express more openly what they think about this use. We present below some of the participants’ answers, which are in line with previous answers. (T1 – ‘Maybe’) ‘The fact that there is another linguistic knowledge may facilitate the learning of Portuguese FL, as learners have already developed strategies for learning a non-native language. Learners having an L1 typologically distant from Portuguese, but who had learnt a Romance foreign language, may facilitate the teachers’ work.’ (T2 – ‘Yes’) ‘Previous knowledge helps to create bridges that will allow the development and acquisition of different skills.’

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(T3 – ‘Maybe’) ‘If the dominant languages are Romance languages, the learning of Portuguese morphosyntactic features can benefit from it.’ (T5  – ‘Maybe’) ‘Especially in cases of Romance languages, where grammatical structures are similar, resorting to this explicit knowledge can facilitate learners’ understanding and systematization; however, it doesn’t seem productive to me to structure a class based on explicitation-translation.’ (T6 – ‘Maybe’) ‘It is difficult to find groups with homogeneous linguistic competence and similar linguistic background. Unless it is a homogeneous group, I prefer to avoid these types of strategies.’ (T10 – ‘Yes’) ‘By drawing on learners’ previous linguistic knowledge of dominant languages in the classroom, it is possible to avoid failures caused by the knowledge of other different foreign languages in the understanding of Portuguese structures.’ (T11 – ‘Yes’) ‘The use of a lingua franca, for example, may be useful in explaining and/or clarifying issues related to the structure and functioning of the language, especially if it is possible to compare, either similarities or differences, between the lingua franca and Portuguese. However, I believe that this strategy should only be used from time to time.’ (T12 – ‘No’) ‘Learners don’t get a correct and stable learning outcome.’ (T13 – ‘Yes’) ‘The presence in the classroom of learners who speak several languages facilitates learning because they manifest a high linguistic awareness and ability. It is necessary to manage all this knowledge in the class in the best way possible. All of this, for me, is very intuitive, as I do not have theoretical bases (multilingual teaching) to guide my practice’. (T16 – ‘Maybe’) ‘I think it depends on the language level. It is very important at beginning levels and less so at intermediate and advanced levels. However, I think it can be very helpful in grammar explanations or to give instructions and I don’t see it as negative.’ Analysing these answers, we highlight some aspects that are common to some teachers. First, we emphasize the importance given by some teachers to learners’ knowledge of dominant languages typologically close to Portuguese as something that facilitates the learning of the latter. In fact, research suggests that typological similarity is a major factor in the acquisition of new languages (Cenoz, 2001; Hammarberg, 2001; Pinto, 2012). Secondly, the emphasis placed by teachers on the use of the learners’ DLC is essentially for learning grammar and giving instructions. It is also clear that although they are in favour of using these languages in the classroom, they do not consider it to be a continuous pedagogical activity. One teacher also emphasizes the lack of training to promote multilingual teaching. Pulinx et al. (2017) and Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al. (2020) also evidenced this issue in their studies. Finally, only one teacher does not see the use of the learners’ dominant languages as positive for the learning of Portuguese. In the last question of the survey, participants had the opportunity to express their perceptions about multilingual teaching (see Table 7).

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Table 7  Teachers’ perceptions about multilingual teaching Strongly agree 1. Most foreign language curricula should reflect 12,5% the multilingual knowledge of learners. 2. The multilingualism of learners in PFL 6,25% courses is generally considered a problem. 3. The multilingual knowledge of learners is 6,25% ignored in most PFL courses. 4. Many PFL teachers are not prepared to deal 6,25% with linguistic diversity in the classroom. 5. Teaching practices in most classes should 6,25% promote multilingualism.

Agree 37,5%

Disagree 50%

Strongly disagree 0%

25%

31,25%

37,5%

37,5%

37,5%

18,75%

43,75% 43,75%

6,25%

37,5%

12,5%

43,75%

The results in the table show us that there are two opposite sides: (1) the learning side (sentences 2. and 3.) – the relevance of the multilingual knowledge of learners, that teachers consider to be important, and they do not see it as a problem for the learning of Portuguese; (2) the teaching side (sentences 1., 4., and 5.) – the use of this knowledge in foreign language teaching as a resource and a planned strategy. In this case, participants did not seem to be in favour of promoting multilingual teaching, as 43,75% disagreed and 12,5% strongly disagreed with the implementation of these practices in the classroom. This dual perspective is not only observable in Portuguese teachers, but also described by Alisaari et al. (2019) in the Finnish context. In the same vein, opinions are divided on the creation of language curricula that reflect this multilingual character of learners and on the adequate training of teachers to deal with this reality in the classroom. Both sentences obtained equally 50% of responses for each side (agree and disagree), which reveals that there is no consensus among teachers in this matter. If we compare it with Table  6, we can conclude that, on the one hand, teachers do recognize the relevance of the learner’s dominant languages in the learning of Portuguese, but that, on the other hand, they do not see the need to explore them in a methodical and planned way in classroom as a great benefit to the learning of the target language. This contradiction somehow reminds us of the description that Borg (2003, p. 81) does of teachers: ‘active, thinking decision-makers who make instructional choices by drawing on complex, practically-­oriented, personalised, and context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts and beliefs’. In the case of this study, there really is a difference between what teachers say they know about multilingualism and multilingual teaching, what they believe and their practices.

5 Conclusions From the analysis of the students’ linguistic profile and that of the teachers, we can observe that, despite the existence of a high number of languages present in the classroom, the DLCs are almost the same, which leads us to consider that there is a

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common DLC per group, except for Chinese and Portuguese. Only in the B2 level does Portuguese becomes a DLC since students have by then developed good skills at it. Concerning Chinese, and as explained above, since we have many students from China, their language appears as one of the most dominant per classroom, but it is only mastered by these speakers. It should also be noted that all teachers and students speak English, along with one or more foreign languages. Overall, the teachers’ answers to the questionnaire showed that their practices do not meet some of their beliefs concerning multilingual teaching, and do not contain planned strategies that aim to capitalize on learners’ DLCs in the learning of PFL. On the one hand, teachers know which languages are present in the classroom and which ones are most salient to students, thus getting to know their linguistic identity. Nevertheless, they generally do not make use of this information gathered at the beginning of the course. Moreover, teachers recognize the importance of this multilingual knowledge of learners for the learning of the new target language and do not completely ignore the groups’ DLC; however, they do not give it due importance in their teaching practices, not giving great relevance to the use of students’ DLC as a learning tool. As shown, they only make use of these learners’ linguistic knowledge to do grammar work and to explain instructions. There isn’t a real plan to resort to teaching strategies that enhance the use of DLC in learning Portuguese. On the other hand, although most teachers believe that they have the theoretical and the practical knowledge required to promote multilingual teaching, they do not implement it in their classes. As shown, teachers mainly adopt monolingual teaching and the materials they use only mobilize learners’ linguistic knowledge from previous acquired languages during grammar teaching. One of our first predictions was that English as a lingua franca could decrease the opportunities for learners and teachers to use the DLC of the classroom; nevertheless, even the use of this language is not considered by most teachers, and it is used in a few specific situations. Hence, we conclude that English, according to our study and in this particular context, does not reduce the use of the other dominant languages, as it does not play a relevant role in the classroom either. Therefore, in our view, these findings lead us to believe that foreign language teachers, in this case or in many other similar contexts, continue to favour a predominantly monolingual teaching.

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DLC of Consecutive Multilinguals Studying Languages in an Officially Monolingual Environment Stela Letica Krevelj and Nives Kovačić

Abstract  The aim of the chapter was to provide a description of DLCs of a specific group of consecutive multilinguals based on their own narrative account of multiple language learning. The participants were multilinguals majoring in two foreign languages in an officially monolingual environment. The configuration of their DLCs was fairly constant in terms of the type of instruction, opportunities to learn or to be exposed to particular FLs, societal attitudes to languages, but also the domain of language use. The participants were asked to write a detailed linguistic autobiography prior to being exposed to the concept of DLC as we were interested in criteria they use, either implicitly or explicitly, to identify their DLCs, and the way they portray their language experiences and practices with DLC languages, as opposed to other languages in their repertoires. The emic perspective on the criteria of defining most important languages was compared to the etic perspective. We suggested an addition to the DLC model in the form of prospective DLC languages when used as a methodological tool in describing characteristics of a multilingual population. Keywords  Multilingual language majors · Multilingual awareness · Multilingual identity · Linguistic autobiography · Prospective DLC languages · DLC

1 Introduction Linguistic variability that multilingual speakers have at their disposal is one of the key qualities that sets them apart from other speakers and it lies at the heart of all inquiries in the field of multilingualism. When studying multilingual behaviour researchers are faced with a variety of factors, interacting in complex ways, (Aronin & Jessner, 2014) that do not lend themselves easily to traditional methods of analysis. In line with the holistic approach to the study of linguistic practices, researchers S. Letica Krevelj (*) · N. Kovačić University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_9

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(e.g., Larsen-Freeman, 2017, 2018) call for a focus on individual behaviour in relation to social ecology and detailed descriptions of the speakers’ realities. Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) as a mental construct (Aronin, 2016, 2020, 2021) provides us with an opportunity to establish a pattern of multilingual behaviour, which at the same time honours individual variability and uniqueness of a particular DLC in relation to linguistic resources, individual differences and social ecology. As argued by Aronin (2021, p. 290), the pattern emerges from ‘systematic relationships between its component parts’, and can be used as a model in studying multilingual behaviour. From a linguistic perspective, being multilingual does not necessarily imply an effective use of all languages of multilingual repertoire, whatever it may ideally represent. In fact, many studies have shown that multilinguals may behave similarly to monolinguals, for example, in lexical inferencing (e.g. Müller-Lancé, 2003) or in production (e.g., Letica Krevelj, 2014). On the other hand, there are many studies that claim that being multilingual confers advantages in the form of heightened linguistic awareness (see Jessner & Allgäuer-Hackl, 2016), yet the precise role that language awareness plays in multilingual learning and use certainly presents a challenge to research. DLC seems to be a valuable construct when trying to describe linguistic practices of multilingual speakers (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020; Aronin & Vetter, 2021). The use of DLC as a tool allows for the identification of variability and idiosyncrasies in multilinguals’ linguistic repertoires, and also for dealing with the issue of counting languages and their varieties. Counting of languages is a true methodological obstacle in multilingualism research as its empirical operationalization is dependent on theoretical stances and encoded measurement units, rather than natural categories (for more extensive argumentation see Berthele, 2020). The aim of this chapter is to provide a description of DLC of consecutive multilinguals who have acquired numerous languages primarily through formal instruction in an officially monolingual environment. However, defining DLC in the repertoire of this profile of multilinguals is not necessarily easier than when dealing with that of multilinguals living in richer or more diverse linguistic environments. As previously suggested by Gabryś -Barker (2014, p. 187), even language users in an instructed context use their languages ‘in varied ways and configurations’. Their configuration may be very much determined by objective requirements (e.g., study curriculum), but there is also variability that may be determined by the affective aspect, such as attitudes to languages and potential identity shifts. In trying to define DLCs of this profile of multilinguals, the question of the appropriateness of proposed criteria (Aronin, 2020) is examined in the light of emic perspectives derived from experienced multiple language learners themselves. Their accounts of language learning experiences provide an important insight into their metalinguistic, cross-linguistic and multilingual awareness and add to our understanding and identification of their DLC.

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2 Use of Linguistic Autobiographies in Defining DLCs Linguistic narratives provide a subjective perspective on language learning experiences that are often called upon as a necessary aspect in holistic approaches to studies in language acquisition (Gabryś-Barker, 2014; Todeva & Cenoz, 2009). Various studies have used self-reports and narrative data from language learners to capture the functioning of a language learner as a whole (e.g., Kramsch, 2009; Molinié, 2011; Ros i Solé, 2016). There are studies that examine specific aspects of multiple language learning experiences. For example, Gabryś-Barker and Otwinowska (2012) examined the differences in the ways multilingual users perceive their L2 and L3 learning experiences in terms of their motivation, attitudes, learning strategies, and linguistic awareness they exhibit (see also Letica Krevelj, 2018), and Gabryś-Barker (2014) used a short narrative to elicit data on multilingual thinking of multilingual learners who had learned their foreign languages through formal instruction. Visual linguistic autobiographies, as an arts-based approach to methodological research, were also used within the framework of DLC, to test its explanatory potential in Melo-Pfeifer (2021). Melo-Pfeifer defined and compared DLCs of two groups of German student teachers of French and Spanish, respectively, who had a rather similar composition of their DLC. In spite of interesting proposals regarding further differentiation in terms of real and latent DLC of this profile of multilingual speakers, she concluded that visual linguistic autobiographies alone did not provide data rich enough to serve as a necessary ground for precise definition of multilinguals’ DLCs. Besides the lack of factual data such as proficiency in each language or use of individual languages, she also emphasised that chronological representations did not say much about the current state of participants’ multilinguality. However, linguistic autobiography seems to be a good source of data regardless of its limitations as a research approach, which primarily deal with the issue of data analysis (see Pavlenko, 2007). Using DLC as a methodological framework in the analysis of linguistic autobiographies seems to be fit for defining and describing the participants’ DLC. Biographies provide us with facts and numerical data (e.g., proficiency, frequency of use, etc.) needed for the description of the constitution and configuration of DLC. They also provide an insight into a relative significance of languages in multilinguals’ repertoires, but most importantly, they give us an insight into the wholeness of multiple language acquisition and use experience. In other words, with the help of a narrative account the description of the DLC contains also the essence of the meaning the participants attribute to this experience. According to Busch (2006, p. 9), ‘biographic approaches can mediate between the macro level of sociolinguistics interested in the roles and functions of languages in a larger social context and the micro level of the individual angle, the psycholinguistic approach’. In this regard, narrative accounts can capture the individual experience within the broader social context; thereby occupying what Busch terms ‘a

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meso level’ between sociological analysis and a case study. It is for this reason that language biographies can be used to highlight and analyse the relationship between communal or social DLC and the individual realisation of a DLC, which enables an understanding of the psycholinguistic reality of a particular constellation. Busch also stresses the importance of the process of narrating a biography (2006). The notion of selection of what is to be told, that is, the mere choice to talk about a particular language, the amount of text dedicated to each language as well as the structure employed to frame the biography is a crucial part of the narrating process which can signal the constitution and configuration of a participant’s DLC. As repeatedly emphasised and acknowledged in the modelling of DLC (Aronin, 2016; Aronin & Vetter, 2021; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020), the composition and configuration of DLC changes through time. It is important to acknowledge that linguistic autobiographies as a cross-sectional paradigm provide a retrospective view of linguistic development which is a subject to selective memory, and that they do not paint the objective reality at different points on the timeline. Hence, it is only reasonable to assume that DLC as described on the bases of narrative accounts at one point in time could be changed due to different non-linear, unpredictable, and interrelated factors.

3 Defining DLCs in Linguistic Repertoires According to Aronin (2021, p. 284) DLC is ‘an active fraction of one’s linguistic repertoire’ that needs to be determined and isolated from the totality of linguistic skills. It is composed of the most expedient languages which are used regularly and serve different functions in the life of an individual (Aronin, 2016; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020). According to Aronin (2016), there are three languages in a typical DLC of multilinguals, as it is not feasible that an individual is able to use a great number of languages in the totality of the skills in all domains on a daily basis (Aronin, 2016). A number of studies have corroborated the importance of number three when it comes to DLC (Aronin & ÓLaoire, 2004; Coetzee Van Rooy, 2020). According to Aronin (2016), DLC is a group of the most important languages which have different roles in a person’s life, require different skills and carry out all functions of language – communication, cognition, and identity. In relation to the communicative function fulfilled by languages, Aronin (2020) proposes additional tentative criteria. Firstly, the languages have to be immediately available for communication, which is referred to as ‘reasonable immediacy’. The notion implies a certain level of proficiency which does not impede fluent communication. Secondly, there is also a criterion of ‘authentic communication’, which, as indicated by Aronin (2020, p.28), ‘would benefit from further explication’. The DLC languages also have a cognitive function. They partake in cognitive processes of thinking, learning, reasoning, forming representations, and they can be

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manifested, for example, in the form of conscious or unconscious cross-linguistic interactions, metalinguistic, and cross-linguistic awareness. Besides the cognitive function, DLC languages also partake in identity formation. It is assumed that the individual languages of a DLC separately cannot account for the multilingual identity of an individual or a society at a given moment, but that it is through the constellation as a whole that the identity is expressed. What is more, one of the conclusions of Nightingale’s study (2020) on the affective domain of DLC is that it takes all the DLC languages to realise one’s full identity. However, the question of identity needs to be raised in relation to multilinguals learning their languages mainly in formal context. Ros i Solé (2016, p.142) makes the distinction between sophisticated language learners, who, from the philological perspective, view language learning as a process of self-transformation and becoming, and learners ‘whose experience is limited to the regimes of pragmatic, atomised, formal and institutionalised learning’ and who ‘may have missed the world of aesthetic possibility that language learning offers for the development of the self’. When it comes to determining the composition of a DLC, Aronin (2016) highlights the importance of the social environment, more specifically, the societal, political, and historical circumstances of a community. The notion of indexicality, that is, the choice of languages which indicates characteristics of a person or a community, is therefore dependent on both the social context and the personal choice of the speakers to varying degrees. As Aronin (2016, p.  202) claims, the individual choice of the users themselves is a major factor ‘in times of mobility and openness’, and prestige and the instrumental role of a particular language also play an important role in defining the constitution of a DLC. Coetzee-Van Rooy (2020, pp. 141–142) advocates for the use of the language repertoire when studying DLC since it provides ‘an important empirical baseline for the identification and description of the DLC within complex multilingual repertoires’. In her research on DLCs in the language repertoires of multilingual South African students, she uses the criterion of what the participants view as their strongest languages to determine the constitution of their DLCs (Coetzee Van Rooy, 2020).

4 The Study 4.1 Aim of the Study The aim of the chapter is to provide a description of DLCs of a specific group of consecutive multilinguals, those majoring in two foreign languages in an officially monolingual environment, based on their own narrative account of multiple language learning. Given that this profile of multilingual users has not yet been examined through the lens of DLC, the chapter also raises some issues about the criteria in defining their DLC along the three functions these languages fulfil in their lives. The existing possible criteria (Aronin, 2020) are examined in the light of emic

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perspectives derived from multilingual learners’ rich accounts of language learning experiences. We were interested in the criteria they spontaneously use, either implicitly or explicitly, to depict their DLCs. As experienced language learners, the participants were expected to possess high levels of linguistic awareness, and we were interested in the extent to which their narrative also reflected the multilingual perspective on their learning, and the prospects of the development of multilingual awareness in this social context. The research questions the study aimed to answer were: 1. What is the configuration and composition of the DLC of this profile of multilingual speakers? Can the languages used by consecutive multilinguals living in an officially monolingual environment be safely classified as DLCs? 2. What are their criteria (variables of importance) in defining the most important languages? Do the proposed emic criteria mirror the etic perspective?

4.2 Context of the Study Croatia is officially a monolingual country and, according to the Census data (Census, 2023) 95% of people living in Croatia have Croatian as their mother tongue. Nevertheless, due to different political and historical reasons, such as a small number of speakers of the Croatian language in the world, and the wealth of different languages that were spoken on the Croatian territory throughout history, societal attitude to learning various languages is extremely positive (Medved Krajnović & Letica, 2009). Language education policy in Croatia has a long history of promoting learning of foreign languages from an early age and at least two foreign languages by the end of secondary school education. Since 2004, the first foreign language is studied from the first grade of primary school (at the age of 6) and the second foreign language can be studied as an elective subject either from the second or fourth grade of primary school. However, throughout the primary and secondary education different languages are taught separately and very much in accordance with a monolingual ideology or One Language at a Time (OLAT) ideology (Wei, 2011, p. 374). As in most European countries, there is also a growing number of grammar schools offering the dual-language instruction model where the content of some of the subjects is taught entirely in a foreign language. This model has been also in high demand as parents believe that the advanced level of knowledge of an additional language (predominantly English, but also German, and French) either gives their offspring an advantage in the job market or prepares them for studies abroad. A great number of languages can be studied at the tertiary level. Students in Humanities can choose to major in more than 20 languages (e.g., Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian) and study other languages as a

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part of their language major program or as an elective. Language major study programs are conducted through the medium of the target language; either from the very beginning or later in the study program; depending on the proficiency requirement at the entrance level (e.g., German studies from the very start of the undergraduate program, Swedish studies in the third year of the undergraduate program). Besides the courses that aim at developing language skills, all language programs also include courses on literature, history, and culture of target language-speaking countries.

4.3 Sample, Data Collection and Analysis The participants were 16 Croatian 5th year double-major university students majoring in English and another language at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. Their second majors were German, French, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, or Swedish and they had studied from four to up to 11 languages in the course of their lives. They were attending an elective course on multilingualism in the period from 2016 to 2018 at their English department. As a part of the course requirement, the participants were asked to write a detailed linguistic autobiography. Prior to doing the assignment they had read and discussed 3–4 selected linguistic autobiographies from Todeva and Cenoz (2009), and they were given prompts (see Appendix) on what type of data could be included in their narrative account. The first nine prompts refer to data claimed necessary to obtain from participants in any study on multilingual behaviour (De Angelis, 2007, p. 12) and additional three prompts were related to data on language acquisition and use that involves a certain amount of holistic reflection on participants’ part, and hence suitable to the narrative task at hand. However, the participants had not been introduced to the concept of DLC. All the participants gave their oral or written consent that their linguistic autobiographies could be used for research purposes. The consent was obtained once the participants had earned the course grade. The data was subjected to qualitative content analysis which involved numerous re-readings. The deductive categories were: –– the way participants structured their linguistic autobiographies (whether they presented each individual language separately, or each as contributing to their present state multilinguality) and –– the way they implicitly or explicitly distinguished between their most important languages and other languages in their linguistic repertoires. By comparing the accounts about the languages that did not make learners’ DLC we also introduced inductive categories related to the variables participants evoked to describe their DLC and non DLC languages, and the functions languages fulfilled in participants’ lives.

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In order to look at the nature of linguistic awareness of this group of multilinguals, we examined the linguistic autobiographies in terms of: –– evidence of the level of metalinguistic awareness defined as ‘the ability to focus attention on language as an object in itself or to think abstractly about language and, consequently, to play with or manipulate language’ (Jessner, 2006, p. 42). –– evidence that present state linguistic knowledge is dependent on previous linguistic knowledge and experience (be that in the form of an explicit statement that they rely on certain languages when learning an additional one, or simply by suggesting that a decision to take up a new language was based on some knowledge about similarities between languages, etc.). Finally, the data were summarised along the categories proposed by Aronin (2016) as possible features of investigation regarding the composition and configuration of a DLC. The categories were only slightly modified to fit the focus of the study.

4.4 Participants’ Linguistic Repertoires The total number of languages elaborated on in the narratives was 101. Besides the languages participants were majoring in, there were 19 other languages they had learned, either in a formal or informal environment: Latin (14), German (11), Italian (9), Spanish (8), French (6), Esperanto (3), Norwegian (2), Slovenian (2), Bulgarian (1), Catalan (1), Chinese (1), Czech (1), Danish (1), Dutch (1), Macedonian (1), Old Church Slavonic (1), Persian (1), Russian (1), Turkish (1). Data on the type of acquisition, age of onset, proficiency, and use of all the languages in the participants’ repertoires is provided in Table  1 below. Due to the methodological limitations, namely, the fact that the participants were given only general guidelines on what should be included in the biographies, data for some of the languages was not specified. Out of 101 languages, 95 were acquired as foreign languages, and 53 languages were learned exclusively in an instructional environment. There were only four languages the participants acquired in an L2 environment; due to having lived in border areas (Italy and Slovenia) or having had a parental heritage language spoken at home. Additional two languages were dialects of Croatian the participants reported being spoken in their native communities. When it comes to age of onset, all the participants started learning at least two languages by the end of primary school (altogether 36 languages). All of them came into contact with a foreign language in early childhood through TV or other media, and four participants reported taking foreign language classes as early as at kindergarten age. The number of languages reported being taken up in high school years is 29, however, the number includes the learning of Latin which is mandatory in the grammar school programs in Croatia (14). A great number of languages the

DLC of Consecutive Multilinguals Studying Languages in an Officially Monolingual… Table 1  Type of acquisition, age of onset, proficiency, and use of all the languages in the participants’ repertoires

Type of acquisition Informal + formal Formal Formal + L2 context Informal Not specified Age of onset By the end of primary school High school University Not specified Proficiency Elementary/beginner Intermediate Advanced Not specified Regular use Yes No Not specified

181 31 Ls 53 Ls 3 Ls 9 Ls 5 Ls 36 Ls 29 Ls 28 Ls 8 Ls 56 Ls 7 Ls 34 Ls 4 Ls 46 Ls 35 Ls 20 Ls

participants took up at the university (28) is not only due to entirely new languages being taken up as study majors, but the participants were also taking advantage of free language courses offered at the institution, courses with native speakers, and learning through language learning applications. The participants had achieved advanced knowledge in 34 languages, and this includes 32 languages the participants were studying at the university. In more than 50% of the languages the participants reported beginner or elementary competence. Forty-six languages were claimed to be used on a regular basis, but the use ranged from a regular use of language for studies or work to merely enjoying music in the target language. In their narratives, as it is obvious from Table 1 above, the participants placed most focus on the way they acquired their languages and proficiency achieved in each. The actual use of languages and the age of onset were not always reported on. Regarding the actual use of languages, we may assume that this reflected the context of learning in which languages were rarely used outside the instructional environment. The age of onset was commonly reported with regards to the first foreign language and languages taken up after the formative years, while the age of onset of other languages was only vaguely placed in the in-between period. While the number of languages with which the participants came into contact seems impressive, an interesting remark we believe reflects well the true reality of foreign language learning in Croatia is given by one of the participants in the study: I would like to emphasize that being multilingual in Croatia is something quite ordinary. An FL is a mandatory subject from grade 1 (primary school) and picking up other languages along the way is something almost everyone does here. Giving up on languages without properly acquiring them is also not unusual. (P2)

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5 Results Before providing the description of the DLC of this profile of multilingual users, it is important to emphasise that we were faced with a question of whether languages learned successively in the educational context and officially monolingual environment could be considered DLCs. Hence, our initial description of participants’ DLC was based on the data provided in relation to their native language and the languages they were majoring in, as those were the languages used on daily basis. Next, we present implicit and explicit criteria participants used to isolate their most important languages, which was deduced from the way they structured their linguistic autobiographies, as well as the learning variables and language functions they evoked to do so.

5.1 Description of DLC The participants’ DLC consisted of three languages  – their L1 Croatian and the languages they were majoring in at the university. All the participants had English as one of their majors, and the second majors were: German (4), Portuguese (3), Russian (3), Swedish (3), French (1), Polish (1), Spanish (1); seven Germanic, five Romance, and four Slavic languages. Table  2 below shows the constitution and configuration of their DLC. Participants’ DLCs were fairly constant in terms of the domain of language use, communicative competence, type of exposure to languages, opportunities to learn or to be exposed to particular FLs, and societal attitudes to languages. Participants’ proficiency in all three languages was advanced even though it can be claimed with certainty that they were most proficient in their L1. While it was expected that the participants would be more proficient in English than in their second major, only three out of 16 participants explicitly claimed so. All language modes were equally represented in each of their DLC languages as both receptive and productive skills were required for successful advancement in their studies. With regards to the age of onset, along with dominant exposure to L1 from birth, all the participants come into contact with English, in either informal or formal contexts, in early childhood (ranging from the age of five to age 11). On the other hand, the mean age of onset for L3 was 15.73 (Median = 18) as only five out of 16 participants had learned their second major language prior to enrolling at university (German (4) and French (1)). The three languages were used on a regular basis. Croatian was by far the most dominant language in their environment, and it was the dominant language in all domains except in their study domain. English was most often used in the studies domain, but the participants reported using it also in everyday life; doing part-time work, socialising with and communicating to English native and non-native speakers. The tendency to use English outside of their study domain was also due to the

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Table 2  Constitution and configuration of DLC Which language? Language status Absolute competence Relative competence Frequency of use Domains of use Language modes Age of onset

Croatian Native language Advanced

English Foreign language

Second major language Foreign language

Most competent in their L1 and fairly similar advanced competence in two foreign languages Regular All domains Studies and work Studies (and work) Advanced reading, writing, listening, and speaking Native language Early childhood Teenage years (5–11 years) Context of first Native Cartoons, video games, Mainly university exposure early language courses courses Type of acquisition Naturalistic Informal+formal (81%) Informal+formal Formal (19%) (56%) Formal (31%) Formal + L2 context (12%) Affordances for Predominantly social Presence in media and Predominantly goal language learning and happening ICT affordances affordances (monolingual environment, family, friends) Language High levels of metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness awareness Multilingual awareness mostly tied to the process acquisition and use of individual languages Identity Multiple language learner identity

presence of English in Croatian media and ICT. It is important to emphasise that none of the second major languages was present in their immediate environment or in media, but the participants seemed to actively seek or create opportunities for using that particular language and they exhibited substantial strategic involvement. Some of the goal affordances (Aronin, 2019; Scarantino, 2003) they mentioned were creating their own communities of practice through conversational exchanges with native speakers (in person and via chat rooms), watching cartoons and films without subtitles, reading online newspapers and picture dictionaries, listening to music, writing short stories, translating and spending a semester on Erasmus in the target language speaking country. The pattern of learning the DLC languages could also be observed. Most participants learned both English and their second major language through a combination of formal and informal exposure (English  =  13/16 (81%); second major language = 9/16 (56%)). Only three participants (19%) referred exclusively to formal learning of English, while the same was true for five participants (31%) in the case of their second language major.

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The factors that initiated or sustained participants’ motivation for learning English were slightly different than those for learning their second language major. With regards to English, the participants were motivated by its presence in media and entertainment, family members who spoke the language, but there was  also exclusively instrumental motivation such as moving to English speaking countries. Referring to their second language major, participants more often mentioned their intrinsic motivation to learn a language that enriches their knowledge on the way that language systems work, but also their affinity for the literature and culture of the target language, which was later sustained by progress in their studies. As most of the participants were true beginners when they formally started learning their second major languages, most of them felt the need to justify their reasons for majoring in a new language, rather than in the language they had previously learned. Their explanations seemed to reflect their newly acquired language aficionado identity, but also a wish for ‘a fresh start’, or as one of the participants (P5) taking up Polish said, ‘I simply wanted to challenge myself with something completely different from Western European languages’. On the other hand, it seems rather peculiar that the participants did not pursue other languages they had had a chance to learn through their formal education. This is particularly obvious in the case of German which was studied by 15 out of 16 participants in the study. Only four of them pursued it as their second major. All the participants possessed extremely high metalinguistic awareness which was expected from experienced language learners. It was obvious from numerous detailed descriptions of characteristics of specific language systems, which were always brought into relation to other languages they knew. In terms of grammar rules, I would describe German as the language with hundred rules and English as the language with hundred exceptions. German always felt more concrete, a language of order. English always seemed more abstract, more unpredictable, kind of fickle. (P8).

In this regard, it is rather impossible to disentangle the concepts of metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness that make the concept of multilingual awareness (Jessner, 2006). Their cross-linguistic awareness was also evidenced in their general statements on the language typology and similarities that existed between particular languages. The same awareness was also obvious from their explanations for taking up particular languages. For example, their later learned languages were most commonly approached with pre-language learning hypotheses, and the comments on the language referred to the newly discovered evidence that had either confirmed or disconfirmed their hypothesis. My first impression of it as a Germanic language was that it was a mixture of English and German. The former manifesting itself more in the grammar and especially syntax and the latter sharing many similar words. (P15 on Swedish).

Other than general statements on crosslinguistic similarities and differences between the languages, there were numerous accounts of different types of crosslinguistic interactions between the languages in their repertoires. They had experienced them both in language acquisition and use. As far as the DLC languages, the majority of

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participants claimed not to rely on their other major (L3) when using English, while Croatian and English did seem to play a role in the acquisition of L3. Hence, participants clearly stated being aware and actively profiting from their metalinguistic and cross-linguistic awareness and previous linguistic knowledge. Only four out of 16 participants referred explicitly to the benefits of knowing multiple languages. Even though all the participants had attended the course on multilingualism where this idea was strongly promoted, it seems that some may be more likely to embrace it than others, and it would be highly interesting to see why this may be the case. However, it is interesting that in contemplating benefits of their multilinguality they were still focused on the benefits related to the process of language acquisition and use (Example a), and only one participant provided concrete observations related to the benefits that knowledge of multiple languages may bring to a multilingual (Example b). Example a) My trilingual mind is something special and unique in its own right. It has its own peculiar irregularities and cross-linguistic concepts, fuzzy logic and, most importantly, its “imperfect brilliance”. Bearing this in mind, it is a lot easier to shed the skin of the constant insecurity that mercilessly burdens my use of foreign languages and just revel in the never-­ ending process of language acquisition. (P11).

Example b) My languages make me more resourceful in negotiation of meaning, more sensitive to pragmatic differences and more skillful in understanding different accents and causes of morphosyntactic errors. (P16).

In summary, the composition of DLC of this profile of participants was determined by the social context, as much as by personal choice (see also Aronin, 2016). Croatian is their native language and English is the language that is resembling the status of a second language in the environment; learned from an early age and instrumental in participants’ professional and private lives. In contrast, the language of their second major (L3) appears to be determined almost exclusively by affectivity, and requires additional effort such as creating opportunities for its use beyond the university context.

5.2 Participants’ Explicit and Implicit Criteria for Distinguishing Between DLC and Other Languages in Their Repertoires The data needed to answer the second research question came from the way participants structured their accounts and portrayed their linguistic knowledge, and the variables they evoked to include or exclude particular languages from their DLCs. All the participants presented their languages in the order in which they had started acquiring them, and all but one portrayed the knowledge of their languages

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in a one-language-one-experience fashion. Seven out of 15 participants dedicated a separate section to each language, while the remaining eight participants sometimes grouped two or more languages under the same section according to criteria such as proficiency or frequency of use. From the narrative structure alone, it was obvious that they saw languages as separate endeavours. The reflections on particular languages ranged from the earliest memories and encounters with languages, initial motivation to learn a particular language, and their learning experiences coupled with emotional reflections. They concentrated on their functioning in one language at the time, and they focused on assessing their knowledge of a particular language in terms of the extent to which they felt they were in control of it. In fact, this is not surprising as in the process of simultaneous or sequential one-language-policy type of learning, they were never asked to reflect on their language knowledge holistically, or on what it truly meant to speak these languages. There was only one participant who structured their biography in terms of the interaction of languages at different points in life, whereby the languages were presented on the timescale interacting with each other. All the participants provided an introduction and/or a conclusion. It is in these parts of the narratives that some of the participants provided a more holistic insight into their multilinguality. Eleven out of 16 participants directly or indirectly suggested which languages were most important in their lives, evoking different variables, but also more conspicuously, constantly reflecting on the problem of defining what it means to know a language. While the theoretical constructs in the field of multilingualism are critical towards the terminology that in any way suggests a negative or deficient aspect of the process of learning a non-native language, the deficiencies brought forth in the participants’ narratives suggests that it is exactly in terms of deficiencies that this profile of multilinguals assesses their linguistic knowledge. Proficiency featured most frequently as the major criteria in defining their most important languages as ten out of 11 participants pointed to their proficiency levels. Six participants referred to it directly, either in terms of exact proficiency levels according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001), Now that I provided a kind of an overview, I would like to divide my languages on active and passive, as well as to organize them accordingly by my level of proficiency (CERF standards): first, active languages – my L1 languages, Croatian and Kajkavian, which cannot be separated one from another as I mix them in my everyday communication, are C2; English, which is my L2 and is one of the majors I study, is stuck between C1 and C2; Russian my L3 and second major is B2+/C1. (P14).

or indirectly referring to their sense of mastery, ability to speak the language: Italian and German are my L4 and L5 respectively and, for example, if somebody asks me how many languages I know, I never mention them, since they continue to experience severe language attrition. (P11).

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Language use was mentioned by five out of 11 participants. They mostly commented on it in terms of a particular language being used on a regular basis, or on its use in comparison to other languages in their linguistic repertoires: In addition to my mother tongue Croatian, I fluently speak English and Polish. Those are the languages I am able to express myself fairly well in and which I can use correctly in most formal and informal situations. (P5).

Hence, it can be claimed that an advanced proficiency level, which presupposes fluency and ability to use a language in both formal and informal domains, as well as regular use were the most important variables that set their DLC languages apart from other languages. However, in the process of data analysis some criteria mentioned by the participants were more obvious when looked at from the perspective of language functions; communicative, cognitive, and identity function (Aronin, 2016). 5.2.1 Communicative Function DLC languages are not determined by the level of proficiency and fluency in a particular language (Aronin, 2016). However, DLC languages of this profile of multilingual speakers had a communicative function in the study domain, which requires a rather high proficiency and is determined by both the domain of use and communicative needs. Aronin (2020) has also raised the question of the nature of this communicative function by introducing an authentic communication as a criterion. This was a criterion often used by the participants themselves in relation to all the languages they had in their linguistic repertoires. …that was (…) the case with Russian, French, Latin and Esperanto, which I have encountered only in a formal, classroom setting and never really developed. (P3).

If we look at a variable on the continuum, one could argue that communication in a foreign language classroom (due to an inherent degree of artificiality) and the communication in a private domain would be somewhere at the extremes. A language studied at the university as a major, on the other hand, was never perceived or depicted as a language limited to a classroom context. We believe that this criterion is worth looking into further, but we would argue that the criterion of authentic communication is met by this profile of multilinguals as it goes far beyond the learning of a language for the purpose of achieving communicative competence. It is important to emphasise that there were other languages in which participants reported basic to advanced proficiency. These were, nevertheless, in most cases excluded from their DLCs by the participants themselves on the account that these were not put to use, mostly due to the lack of a communicative need. Anyway, I consider myself a sequential trilingual person, that is, a fluent user of three languages: Croatian, English and Russian. As far as Italian and German are concerned, they are part of my language repertoire, but, unfortunately, they find themselves at the very verge of falling into disuse and oblivion. (P11).

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In other words, language proficiency, despite it being the participants’ main criteria in defining the knowledge of a language, turned out to be secondary to the actual language use when defining DLCs. 5.2.2 Cognitive Function All languages in the DLC of this profile of multilingual speakers clearly performed a cognitive function. Based on the participants’ accounts it is obvious that there was substantial interaction between languages in their DLC whereby some form of crosslinguistic interaction was explicitly mentioned in 20 out of 32 foreign languages. However, due to the previously mentioned either basic or advanced proficiency in other languages in participants’ linguistic repertoires, these accounts went far beyond the three DLC languages. At least one of the languages in participants’ DLC was always mentioned in terms of an important interplay it had with other languages in a linguistic repertoire on the account of the order of languages, proficiency, or language typology. The interplay of languages was often mentioned as a part of their strategic, but also natural functioning. I tend to combine everything I know in all languages I know to create an optimal environment for myself – all combinations and techniques will eventually work for every language, you only have to know how to combine them. (P14). I feel like every language I come into contact with influences my perspective on other languages and the world, but also, more importantly, it shapes my way of thinking. (P3).

5.2.3 Identity Function Our participants’ motivation to learn various languages did not stem from their identification with a particular language (as may be the case with heritage language learners). The only two explicit references to identity related to a single language were found in relation to dialects of the native language that were spoken in participants’ native environment. One was fully acknowledged and identified as a part of a DLC, while the other one was evoked in terms of the opportunity lost by choice. When I try speaking my dialect, it just does not feel right. I believe that in order for one to master a language one has to surrender a part of one’s identity to the new language and the culture where this language is spoken and to be ready to acquire another layer of identity which is made of that culture. (…) However, unfortunately I have not been open to my dialect and I believe this is the reason I do not use it. (P12).

References to the communities of practice that may be created in a particular language department were also conspicuously missing. Despite the participants being language majors who studied the literature, culture and history of their DLC languages in depth, only ten out of 16 participants provided evidence of emotional attachments to their DLC languages.

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It is not only because of their practical value and potential professional reasons – I am also emotionally attached to both of these languages and to everything they imply: linguistic, literary and cultural treasures of Poland and English-speaking countries. (P5).

References to their multilingual identity reflected the idea that a different identity is created and assumed with each new language in the DLC (as in the case of P12 above) and there were clear signs that learning languages in general is a part of their double major, or multiple language user, identity they had acquired along the way in the language learning process. The finding is most certainly in line with Ros i Solé (2016, p. 139) who argued that additional language learning did not only add to learners’ linguistic repertoire, but also built on the way they perceived themselves and the way they wanted to be perceived by others.

5.3  Prospective DLC Languages Based on the participants’ linguistic autobiographies, we can safely conclude that the three languages (their L1, and two languages they were majoring in) were identified as belonging to their DLC languages by the participants themselves. However, in the narratives of five out of 16 participants, we identified other languages which the participants directly or indirectly classified as their DLC, or where they were questioning their status and hesitantly excluding from their DLCs on the account of insufficient proficiency or use. Hence, given that these languages were not classified as DLC languages of this group of multilinguals we looked at the functions they actually performed in their lives. These languages could be divided in two categories: a) languages in which they had also achieved high proficiency, despite the fact that they did not use them regularly, and b) languages spoken at home or in the community during their childhood. Languages in the first group performed cognitive function together with other languages in their DLC in the form of high metalinguistic and crosslinguistic awareness, but also a communicative function which was limited to a classroom context and clearly different from the other two languages they were majoring in. Instances of reference to these languages confirm the above-mentioned strategic functioning of this profile of multilingual learners. Even though they were not in regular use they seemed to be active in daily functioning of a multilingual language major. Languages in the second group, on the other hand, seemed to perform cognitive and identity functions despite low proficiency and irregular use. In these instances, we attested to great relevance these languages had had in their lives. Italian played a large part in my life and language-learning experience, but my use of it is quite limited and rare, (…) (P1).

They claimed that it was these languages that had had positive effects on their motivation and success in learning additional languages and had affected their academic choices (choice of a language major that is typologically similar). Most importantly,

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it is the emotional engagement that was evident from their descriptions of the significant others (grandparents) that provided input in these languages and identification with these languages in the form of ascribed affective qualities. For example, due to early exposure to the Italian and Bulgarian language, Italian ‘was not considered as a foreign language’ and Bulgarian‘sounded soft and gracious’. In both cases the languages performed cognitive and identity function, yet they were excluded from their DLC on the account of insufficient proficiency. Hence, the four examples singled out above did not exhibit the same pattern identified and described in Sect. 5.1. These additional languages had most certainly at least partly determined their language learning trajectories and current state of DLCs, and did perform two of the three functions. We believe that when using the DLC model as a methodological tool to depict knowledge, rather than use, it would be advisable to consider these languages as prospective constituents of their DLCs. In other words, it is important to allow for their identification through the DLC model so that their role could be taken into consideration when looking into different aspects of multilingual behaviour. We would like to propose that the identification of languages as DLC or non-DLC goes through the filter of functions proposed for the identification of the DLC. A particular function may seem more relevant for a particular research focus than the other, but all functions of DLC languages and those prospective DLC ones could be considered holistically and as a unit. For example, depending on the research focus, languages labelled as prospective languages may be included and considered as a part of the DLC in cases where, for example, their cognitive and identity function may be fully appreciated if found relevant for the research focus. This would truly allow us to recognize the complexity of the interactions across linguistic resources, which apparently is easily discarded by the participants themselves. While this proposal may seem as an addition to the complexity of identification of a DLC, we believe that it may nicely complement the model and deal with the vexing issue of identification and definition of multilinguals as participants in empirical studies. This potential could be also greatly enhanced through the use of the computer-assisted model of DLC (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021) which could clearly distinguish between different functions the languages perform within the DLC.

6 Conclusion We have examined the DLC of participants living in an officially and predominantly monolingual society who share the same L1 and major in two foreign languages. Hence, their DLC is not a societal one, but the one mapped largely according to their educational community. We were interested to see whether the constellation of languages of this profile of multilinguals could be considered a DLC from both etic perspective (Aronin, 2020) and emic perspective drawn from participants’ narrative

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account of their own language learning experience and their present state multilinguality. The data obtained suggested that constellations of this profile of multilingual learners were dependent on objective requirements related to communicative needs (their language study programs). They had a high level of communicative competence in all of their DLC languages. However, the constellation and configuration of their DLC seemed to be determined, and possibly to a greater extent than in the case of other profiles of multilingual users, by affective factors which in turn determined which languages performed cognitive and identity functions in their DLC. Given that the participants had acquired multiple languages in a formal context, their metalinguistic knowledge and awareness was very high. What is more, their cross-linguistic awareness was expressed through numerous references to similarities between the languages they knew and the way they could profit from previous linguistic knowledge. The participants also seemed to assume a very strong multiple language learner identity, but even though they were aware of the benefits each new language system brought to their repertoire, the emphasis was on how close they were to being comfortable with using each language. Hence, their accounts were still very much focused on the difficulties and deficiencies they could identify in their present state linguistic competence. The explicit and implicit criteria they used in identifying their most important languages remained at the level of communicative function (proficiency achieved and apparent communicative need). Based on the findings from this study we can conclude that the concept of DLC has a twofold importance as a methodological tool. Not only does it direct the focus to the active part of the repertoire, but also enables a more holistic view of the set of functions that the languages perform and reveals some nuances that may not be as obvious either to the researcher or the participants themselves. We also proposed an addition to the model of DLC as a methodological tool in the form of prospective DLC languages. These were the languages excluded from the DLCs based on participants’ judgement of either insufficient proficiency or immediacy of use, when compared to other DLC languages, yet participants’ portrayals of those languages implied certain importance that deserved to be taken into consideration. The arguments for including prospective DLC languages into the model lies simply in the fact that these languages do perform at least two out of three functions commonly performed by languages in a DLC. In other words, it is possible to conceptualise the usual variables which are necessary to identify multilinguals (De Angelis, 2007) through the functions languages perform in their lives. In that case it is possible to take prospective languages into consideration (as the part of a DLC) when the research focus is on the function that is performed by the particular prospective DLC language. As it was previously emphasised, the participants were not introduced to the concept of DLC, but we have looked for explicit or implicit criteria they used to describe their most important languages, and to portray their multiple language learning experience. Data missing from these linguistic autobiographies seems to be a detailed synchronic overview of the present state multilinguality and the relevance

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and importance of these languages in relation to one another. Hence, we believe that besides being used as a methodological tool, the DLC model has a great potential in raising awareness of participants’ multilinguality and a set of functions languages have in their lives which go beyond the mere communicative function. In order to provide a more comprehensive picture it would be advisable to ask from the participants to depict their language development on a timeline relative to one another and to try to visually represent their trajectories to the present state of multilinguality. We see the potential in computerised models of DLC to provide us with this perspective.

Appendix  rompts on What Data Should Be Included P in the Linguistic Autobiography Age of acquisition of each non-native language Sequence of acquisition Proficiency and how it is measured or assessed Exposure to native and non-native environments Classroom language of instruction for each non-native language Manner of acquisition (formal/instructed acquisition vs. natural) Contexts of language use Active or passive use of languages Productive and receptive skills for each language Acquisition of particular language structures (grammar, lexicon, pronunciation, pragmatics etc.) Language learning strategies (Are the same strategies used for all languages?) Role of Latin and Greek in language learning experience Role of dialects in language learning experience

References Aronin, L. (2016). Multi-competence and dominant language constellation. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic multicompetence (pp.  142–163). Cambridge University Press. Aronin, L. (2019). Challenges of multilingual education: Streamlining affordances through dominant language constellations. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 58, 235–256. Aronin, L. (2020). Dominant language constellations as an approach for studying multilingual practices. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 19–33). Springer.

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Aronin, L. (2021). Dominant language constellations: Teaching and learning languages in a multilingual world. In K. Raza, C. Coombe, & D. Reynolds (Eds.), Policy development in TESOL and multilingualism: Past, present and the way forward (pp. 287–300). Springer. Aronin, L., & Jessner, U. (2014). Methodology in bi- and multilingual studies: From simplification to complexity. In R.  M. Manchón (Ed.), Research methods and approaches in applied linguistics: Looking back and moving forward (pp. 56–79). Aila Review. https://doi. org/10.1075/aila.27 Aronin, L., & Moccozet, L. (2021). Dominant language constellations: Towards online computer-­ assisted modelling. International Journal of Multilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/1479071 8.2021.1941975 Aronin, L., & Vetter, E. (Eds.). (2021). Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition. Springer. Aronin, L., & ÓLaoire, M. (2004). Exploring multilingualism in cultural contexts: Towards a notion of Multilinguality. In C. Hoffmann & J. Ytsma (Eds.), Trilingualism in family, school and community (pp. 11–29). Multilingual Matters. Berthele, R. (2020). Introduction: What’s special about multilingualism? In R.  Berthele & J. Vanhove (Eds.), Language learning (p. 71). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12436 Busch, B. (2006). Language biographies – Approaches to multilingualism in education and linguistic research. In B.  Busch, A.  Jardine, & A.  Tjoutuku (Eds.), Language biographies for multilingual learning (pp. 5–17). PRAESA. Census. (2023). Of the Republic of Croatia: https://podaci.dzs.hr/en/ Coetzee Van Rooy, S. (2020). Dominant language constellations in the language repertoires of multilingual south African students. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 139–165). Springer. Council of Europe. (2001). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge University Press. De Angelis, G. (2007). Third or additional language acquisition. Multilingual Matters. Gabryś-Barker, D. (2014). Face to face with one’s thoughts: On thinking multilingually. In M.  Pawlak & L.  Aronin (Eds.), Essential topics in applied linguistics and multilingualism (pp. 185–204). Springer International Publishing. Gabryś-Barker, D., & Otwinowska, A. (2012). Multilingual learning stories: Threshold, stability and change. In D. Gabryś-Barker & E. Vetter (Eds.), International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(4), 367-384). https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2012.714381. Jessner, U. (2006). Linguistic awareness in multilinguals: English as a third language. Edinburgh University Press. Jessner, U., & Allgäuer-Hackl, E. (2016). Emerging multilingual awareness in educational contexts: From theory to practice. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 2(2), 157–182. https:// doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.274600 Kramsch, C. J. (2009). The multilingual subject: What foreign language learners say about their experience and why it matters. Oxford University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2017). Complexity theory: The lessons continue. In L.  Ortega & Z.  Han (Eds.), Complexity theory and language development: In celebration of Diane Larsen-Freeman (pp. 11–50). John Benjamins. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2018). Looking ahead: Future directions in, and future research into, second language acquisition. In A. Nerenz (Ed.), Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), 55–72. doi:https:// doi.org/10.1111/flan.12314. Letica Krevelj, S. (2014). Patterns of crosslinguistic consultations during L3 production. Paper presented at the 9th international conference on third language acquisition and multilingualism (pp. 49). Uppsala University. Letica Krevelj, S. (2018). Journey to multilinguality in a monolingual setting: Evidence from linguistic autobiographies. Paper presented at the 11th international conference on third language acquisition and multilingualism (pp. 123). Universidade de Lisboa.

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Lo Bianco, J. (2020). A meeting of concepts and praxis: Multilingualism, language policy and the dominant language constellation. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 35–56). Springer. Lo Bianco, J., & Aronin, L. (Eds.). (2020). Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism. Springer. Medved Krajnović, M., & Letica, S. (2009). Učenje stranih jezika u Hrvatskoj: politika, znanost i javnost. In J. Granić (Ed.), Jezična politika i jezična stvarnost (Language policy and language reality) (pp. 598–607). Hrvatsko društvo za primijenjenu lingvistiku. Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2021). Understanding dominant language constellations through analysis of visual linguistic autobiographies by foreign language student-teachers in Germany. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 203–224). Springer. Molinié, M. (2011). La méthode biographique: De l’écoute de l’apprenant à l’herméneutique du sujet plurilingue [The biographic method: From hearing to the learner to the hermeneutics of the multilingual subject]. In P. Blanchet & P. Chardenet (Eds.), Guide pour la recherche en didactique des langues et des cultures (pp. 144–155). Edition des archives contemporaines. Müller-Lancé, J. (2003). Der Wortschatz romanischer Sprachen im Tertiärsprachenerwerb: Lernerstrategien am Beispiel des Spanischen, Italienischen und Katalanischen. Stauffenburg. Nightingale, R. (2020). A dominant language constellations perspective on language use and the affective domain: A case study of a Moroccan immigrant living in the Valencian community. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A perspective on present-­ day multilingualism (pp. 231–259). Springer. Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188. Ros i Solé, C. (2016). The personal world of the language learner. Springer. Scarantino, A. (2003). Affordances explained. Philosophy of Science, 70(5), 949–961. https://doi. org/10.1086/377380 Todeva, E., & Cenoz, J. (Eds.). (2009). The multiple realities of multilingualism: Personal narratives and researchers’ perspectives. Walter de Gruyter. Wei, L. (2011). Multilinguality, multimodality, and multicompetence: Code-and Modeswitching by minority ethnic children in complementary schools. The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 370–384.

Part III

DLC-Identity-Awareness Triad in Teacher Education and Professional Development

‘Speaking About My Languages Promotes My Language Awareness’: Student Teachers’ Beliefs About Language Awareness and Their Dominant Language Constellations Lisa Marie Brinkmann Abstract  The aim of this contribution is to gain insight into Spanish language student teachers’ Dominant Language Constellations and their beliefs about language awareness. Student teachers’ beliefs are known to pre-structure their future encounters with students at school (Pajares (Rev Educ Res 62(3): 307–332, 1992) https:// doi.org/10.3102/00346543062003307). For this qualitative study, five Spanish language student teachers from Hamburg visualised their Dominant Language Constellations and provided insights into their individual Dominant Language Constellations and their beliefs about language awareness as enhancing learning in the Spanish language classroom through in-depth interviews. The results reveal that three patterns of Dominant Language Constellations can be found, differing in the inclusion of heritage languages in the core Dominant Language Constellations or only the majority language and/or foreign languages. The analysis of Dominant Language Constellations may help to understand teachers’ beliefs about language awareness as fostering foreign language learning. This is because individual Dominant Language Constellations and, in most cases, experiences with their languages might determine what types of teaching and learning strategies they value and how teachers promote them. Keywords  Language teacher education · Student teachers’ beliefs · Student’s teacher identity · Language awareness · DLC maps

L. M. Brinkmann (*) Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_10

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1 Introduction ‘[C]an language awareness be taught? Awareness is a personal, individual sensibility, which develops as a result of greater understanding, empathy, experience of and knowledge about language and languages’ (Young, 2018, p. 35). The development of personal, individual sensibility applies to students, teachers, and especially to student teachers who are in a transition phase, i.e. still learning language and pedagogies while having the perspective of becoming a teacher (Pajares, 1992). For Spanish student teachers in Hamburg, plurilingual1 pedagogies, including language awareness (LA), are an obligatory part of their teacher academic path; furthermore, applying plurilingual pedagogies in their future teaching seems to be(come) crucial as many children speak languages other than German in the multicultural and multilingual city of Hamburg. The student teachers themselves are at least bilingual (Spanish and German), with individual linguistic repertoires ranging from heritage to curricular languages and the majority language. These repertoires can be narrowed down to the concept of Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) by which ‘a group of one’s most expedient languages, functioning as a unit, and enabling an individual to meet all needs in a multilingual environment’ (Aronin, 2021a, p. 20) can be understood. Crisscrossing the description of Spanish student teachers’ individual DLC and their beliefs about the implementation of LA while imagining their future teacher self (using Barkhuizen’s terminology, 2016) is the overarching aim of this contribution. Beliefs in the context of imagining one’s future teacher self usually orient towards the future profession, which I name ‘imagined’ teaching of foreign languages. In this contribution, student teachers’ beliefs (STB) towards plurilingual pedagogies and LA will be presented and then linked, drawing on the state-of-the-­ art. These theoretical sections form the basis of the empirical study with the presentation of its research questions and description of context, participants, and methods. The results and the discussion are presented before I conclude with perspectives for further research.

2 Theoretical Background 2.1 Teachers’ Beliefs and Teacher Identity Knowledge of teachers’ beliefs is central to understanding teachers’ decision-­ making in the classroom (Haukås, 2016; Makarova et  al., 2021; Pajares, 1992). Beliefs are ‘a complex, interrelated system of often tacitly held theories, values and  Plurilingualism refers to interconnecting one’s linguistic repertoires so that they function as a whole. In contrast to multilingualism, it is a ‘phenomenon that transcends language boundaries both in language use […] and in language education’ (Piccardo, 2019, p. 185). 1

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assumptions that the teacher deems to be true, and which serve as cognitive filters that interpret new experiences and guide the teacher’s thoughts and behavior’ (Mohamed, 2006, p. 21). Beliefs possess a cognitive and an affective component and the various beliefs one has may lack internal consistency within the whole belief system. Such nonconsensuality indicates that belief systems are less flexible and less dynamic than knowledge systems. The belief system can be divided into substructures, such as educational beliefs, that interrelate with other substructures and central beliefs in the belief system (Pajares, 1992). Teachers’ beliefs are an expression of teacher identity (Barkhuizen, 2016): ‘identities are constructed in relationships with people and social structures on both micro and macro scales’ (Barkhuizen, 2016, p. 31), meaning that they are dependent on the overarching power relations and one’s close environment. Foreign language teachers’ identity may be understood as a particular sort of plurilingual identity that emerges and changes over time, representing a complex and dynamic phenomenon (Melo-Pfeifer, 2021; Nightingale, 2020). In plurilingual contexts, the concept of DLC addresses individual needs and identity negotiations (Aronin, 2021a). It ‘delimits, specifies and systematizes the data regarding how multilinguals deal with multiple languages concurrently’ (Aronin, 2019, p. 24). For individuals learning or speaking a (foreign) language, or teaching it as I will claim here, negotiating their identity is important for social interactions and the feeling of being legitimate to speak (Norton, 2016), also in the context of power relations (Barkhuizen, 2016). These two important factors in identity negotiation – social interaction and being legitimate to speak – lead to the development of a particular identity related to a specific target language (Byram, 2012). Therefore, to acquire the right to speak, learners – as well as teachers – of a target language ‘are constantly in search of new social and linguistic resources which allow them to resist identities that position them in undesirable ways, produce new identities, and assign alternative meanings to the links between identities and linguistic varieties’ (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004, p. 27). When examining foreign language teachers’ beliefs towards plurilingual pedagogies through the analysis of DLC, these beliefs are understood as a complex system where identity negotiation takes place.

2.2 Plurilingual Awareness: The Link Between Language Awareness and DLC LA, including cultural awareness (Byram, 2012), can be defined following the Association for Language Awareness (n.d.) as ‘explicit knowledge about language, and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, language teaching and language use’. Part of this understanding is that prejudices against the foreign should be addressed, revised, or erased (Makarova et al., 2021; Young, 2018). ‘The traditional model of language teachers’ awareness […] can be extended to include new components that are better suited for multilinguals pedagogy’ (Otwinowska,

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2017, p.  309), which comprises metalinguistic, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and underlying cross-linguistic awareness (Lourenço et  al., 2018; Otwinowska, 2017). Plurilingual awareness from a DLC perspective means to understanding a person’s linguistic repertoire according to and crisscrossing different parameters, such as competence, contexts, and frequency of use. Thus, reflecting on one’s own DLC leads to self-reflection and to recognize that we do not use all the elements of our plurilingual repertoire equally. Such a stance allows a holistic plurilingual analysis of the roles and dynamics of different languages in the individuals’ linguistic biography (Aronin, 2021b; Aronin & Moccozet, 2021; Björklund & Björklund, 2021). In general, an analysis of the dynamics of the plurilingual repertoire relates to metalinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects because the plurilingual repertoire can be understood as a constellation and as operating at different levels. As a result, DLC maps and models, as visualisations of a specific part of individuals’ plurilingual competence, are helpful since an amalgamation of skills, proficiencies, frequency of use of all languages, and beliefs about languages are difficult to undertake. ‘DLC modelling is the process and the result of creating and manipulating external representations of individual or group DLCs in the form of visual and/or tangible replicas’ (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021, p. 5). In general, visualisation is a step to gain awareness (Molinié, 2019). LA ‘is deemed important because language is central to human life; it is needed to build and maintain interpersonal relationships, to help us think and reflect, and to educate and be educated’ (Roehr-Brackin, 2018, pp. 44–45, italics added). Roehr-­ Brackin (2018) makes it clear that LA applies to students (teachers educate students) but also to teachers (teachers are educated). Language is central to human life because it is the medium of communication (social level) and the development of one’s linguistic and cultural identity (psychological level) (Byram, 2012). The development of identity and the negotiation of identities represent an interface for STB, LA, and DLC: They all intermingle and influence one another in a complex, reciprocal way. STB, LA, and DLC can vary according to the context, referring to the domain-specific substructures in the belief system (Barkhuizen, 2016) and to the domain of the DLC such as the work domain, in which DLC are researched (Aronin, 2021b).

2.3 (Student) Teachers’ Beliefs About Plurilingual Pedagogies and LA To my knowledge, teachers’ beliefs about LA have been previously assessed only to a very limited extent because similarly, there are only some studies on beliefs about plurilingualism. The studies examining teachers’ beliefs about plurilingual pedagogies and LA are presented in the following. In Haukås’ (2016) empirical study in Norway, ten L3 teachers interviewed in a focus group discussion perceive plurilingualism as an advantage. Globally, those

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teachers believe that plurilingualism is an asset for them as teachers but not that much for their students (Haukås, 2016). Otwinowska (2017) researches if plurilingualism has an impact on teachers’ plurilingual awareness through a questionnaire study with 222 teachers of English as a foreign language. Participants have different language repertoires: no L3, one L3 lowproficiency, one L3 high proficiency, many L3 low-proficiency (in similar numbers of participants), and many L3 high-proficiency (fewer participants). The results reveal that teachers’ plurilingualism has an impact on their plurilingual awareness and their readiness to engage in plurilingual approaches to teaching (Otwinowska, 2017). In a qualitative study, van den Broek et al. (2018) observed ten teachers, interested in LA, in the English as a foreign language classroom (observation focus: enhancing students’ LA) and interviewed them afterward on LA and, if applicable, on the observed sequences on LA. The results of his study revealed that the participants do not refer to the same dimensions of LA equally, e.g. the power dimension is underrepresented. Their beliefs about the link with other languages, teacher collaboration, student competences, and the curriculum, do not only differ but contrast (van den Broek et al., 2018). Also, Lourenço et al. (2018) conducted an interview study with four teachers and two student teachers in (pre-) primary school on their beliefs about a project aimed at developing LA and the possibilities of its integration into the curriculum. The participants evaluated LA in (pre-) primary school as appropriate, innovative, and pedagogically valuable (Lourenço et al., 2018). Completing the results of these qualitative studies, Portolés and Martí (2020) researched pre-service teachers’ beliefs on plurilingual pedagogies. 121 preschool and primary school teachers of English as an L3 from the Valencian Community (in Spain) answered a pre-post questionnaire on tertiary language teaching before and after a teacher training program. The results reveal that the participants appreciated plurilingual education in general, despite demonstrating monolingual views and little acceptance of migrant languages (Portolés & Martí, 2020). Finally, and crucial for the empirical study we will present later, the authors concluded that ‘Valencian subject teacher trainees’ beliefs are dependent on individual factors, such as their linguistic background’ (Portolés & Martí, 2020, p. 261). In yet another qualitative study, in a context where Frisian is a minority language, Makarova et al. (2021) interviewed eight teachers and three teacher trainers in order to analyse the affective component of educational beliefs. The results pointed toward teachers’ positive beliefs about the value of LA and translanguaging approaches in the context of minority language teaching (Makarova et al., 2021). This literature review suggests that teachers’ beliefs about the role of LA in foreign language learning might differ according to their linguistic repertoires. The examination of student teacher DLCs can hence be analysed in connection to their beliefs. The research questions deduced from the above-presented studies are the following: (i) Which patterns in the student teachers’ DLC can be found in a cohort of German student teachers of Spanish? (ii) What links can be established between those DLC patterns and student teachers’ beliefs about LA (and eventually, plurilingual pedagogies)?

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3 Empirical Study In this chapter, similar to Melo-Pfeifer’s, 2021 study, student teachers’ linguistic backgrounds and beliefs are researched through a DLC lens. Nevertheless, contrary to this author, who used only visual methods to determine the DLC of this target audience, I am using a mixture of data collection instruments (visual representation and interviews) to, following an explorative path, determine the patterns of DLC.

3.1 The Context: Linguistic Composition of Hamburg The city of Hamburg is multicultural and multilingual, as the following data illustrates: • In 2021, 36.7% of the population have a migrant background (Statistisches Amt für Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein, 2022); • The migrants in Hamburg come from approximately 190 different countries in the world. This diversity of emigration countries only allows for assumptions about the linguistic diversity in Hamburg, but precise studies are lacking (Schroedler, 2018); • Androutsopoulos et al. (2013) describe Hamburg as super diverse, where German as the majority language alongside English as a lingua franca coexist with the migration languages Kurdish, Turkish, Portuguese, and the prestige languages Italian and French. These are said to constitute the dominant languages. English is also an integral part of the languages present in Hamburg since it is a touristic city. At the University of Hamburg, 23% of the students have a migration background in 2016, indicating a rising trend (Studierendenwerk Hamburg, 2016). Melo-Pfeifer’s (2021) study revealed that the students at the University of Hamburg in Spanish language education – the same cohort I will deal with in my empirical study – speak at least three languages: Spanish, German (the first language of most of the students); other first languages (heritage languages) such as Portuguese, Turkish, Greek, Polish; and English (first foreign language).

3.2 Context of the Study and Participants The empirical and exploratory study reported in this chapter took place within the scope of the online course ‘Introduction to the Didactics of Spanish’ for Spanish student teachers in the summer semester of 2021 at the University of Hamburg. The course was part of the bachelor programme. Every week, the students were asked to discuss theoretical questions and developed materials based on prepared readings or

‘Speaking About My Languages Promotes My Language Awareness’: Student Teachers’… 203 Table 1  Information on the participants participant (P) Age Future type of schoola DLC

P1 20 Grammar school Appendix 1

P2 22 Special needs education Appendix 2

P3 20 Grammar school Appendix 3

P4 21 Grammar school Appendix 4

P5 40 Primary school Appendix 5

In Hamburg, there are different types of school according to students’ age and according to students’ desired degree (grammar school for advanced level vs. comprehensive school for general and intermediate level). In the realm of inclusion, any school type also comprises teachers of special needs education. Student teachers have to decide at which type of school they want to teach in the future at application process for university a

podcasts in synchronous sessions or discussion forums. 22 student teachers (21 female, 1 male) from the course contributed to an online discussion forum about plurilingual pedagogies. For one of the sections, that originated the empirical study, students had to read a text (De Florio-Hansen, 2003) or listen to a podcast (Usanova et al., 2020) in order to answer the concrete question for discussion ‘What is the relevance behind plurilingual pedagogies in Germany, Europe, and the world?’. The students mentioned different aspects of plurilingual pedagogies in their entries in the online forum and there were six students (all female) who related plurilingual pedagogies to LA. These six students were selected to take part in a narrower investigation of their beliefs about LA and were therefore invited to an interview in September/October 2021. Five participants accepted to take part. Since five from six selected participants accepted the invitation, data from enough participants forming a cohesive sample (Saumure & Given, 2008) was collected  – in this case, the relationship made between plurilingual pedagogies and LA.  Details about the participants can be found in Table 1. Table 1 shows that the connection between plurilingual pedagogies and LA was established for three different school types.

3.3 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis Data was collected in a qualitative study to form a base of in-depth data on STB about LA. According to Pajares (1992), qualitative methodology is an appropriate way to research beliefs. In the setting of the interview study, four successive steps were used to collect data: 1. Visualisation of DLC in the form of a DLC map (a translated version of Björklund & Björklund, 2021) and explanation of it through oral think-aloud protocols: All respondents were first introduced to the DLC map before they started to fill it in and spontaneously think-aloud; the interviewer (author of this chapter) remained silent but nodded to encourage participants in what they were doing;

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2. Narrative phase in the form of semi-structured in-depth interviews: To reveal personal beliefs, in-depth interviews were chosen. The interviewer used a semi-­ structured protocol inspired by van den Broek et  al. (2018), adapted to the research questions while adding follow-up questions on individual beliefs that emerged during or at the end of the interview. 3. Explanation of participants’ individual forum entry of the online discussion: The student teachers were handed a copy of their forum contribution and asked to read it and comment on it; 4. Reflective question on their LA: ‘Did you become (more) aware of your languages whilst visualising your DLC, the questions I asked you during the interview, or in any other moment?’ The interviews took place face-to-face (P1, P5) and via online videoconference (P2, P3, P4), because of constraints caused by the Covid pandemic; all interviews were recorded and transcribed.2 The total length amounted to between 31 and 59 min. The analysis of the data is divided into two parts. To answer the first research question, the different DLC are described and compared. By using descriptive terms of language acquisition and use (e.g. heritage language, majority language, foreign language), different patterns of DLC constitution can be identified. The identification of those patterns is in line with a thorough description of it, referring to the specific DLC map. The relationship between DLC and STB can then be analysed, to answer the second research question. A content analysis of the data collected in the interview permitted an overview of the categories the participants addressed: definition of LA; LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities; other types of awareness; anti-discrimination; LA about one’s linguistic environment. For this contribution, student teachers’ references to LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities were chosen to be analysed because ways or strategies do not only refer to a cognitive understanding of LA but also to a practical understanding and thus permit the examination of student teachers’ imagined teaching. These references were analysed following the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) that points ‘to the particular way in which these themes play out for individuals’ (Smith, 2011, p. 10). Participants’ theoretic assumptions on LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities (cognition), their ideas on how to integrate LA in the classroom (account), and their actual becoming aware of languages (behaviour) can be focused on (Smith & Eatough, 2017). Thus, connections can be found between the DLC maps and their think-aloud protocols as behaviour and the ideas expressed in the in-depth interviews on how to integrate LA into the foreign language classroom. To examine the beliefs about LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities, each transcript was read and annotated repeatedly to ensure global comprehension of the participants and their answers. Then, the transcripts were read and annotated focusing on the second research question. In the last step, the extracts that provide answers to the research question were analysed in terms of participants’ cognition, integration of LA in the classroom, and behaviour.  The transcriptions were done by a student of the department, Sara Andrade.

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4 Results and Discussion It is important to note that the participants described their DLC as dynamic, e.g. P4 describes that in the past, she was in closer contact with Turkish because she watched more series in that language or P3 who spoke less French before starting her semester abroad or P5 who spoke Plattdeutsch, a local language in Northern Germany with her grandmother who died years ago. They understand DLC also as domain-specific, differing in everyday life, school, neighbourhood, university, or profession. In their selfestimated DLC maps (see appendixes), the participants place the languages of their core DLC in the inner circle (up to three). P1, P2, and P4 placed other languages that are also part of the repertoire closer or further away from the core DLC depending on their use. Based on core DLC, three DLC patterns could be established: • DLC pattern I (applies for P1): majority language (German), first foreign language (English), second foreign language (Spanish); • DLC pattern II (applies for P2): local dialect of the majority language (‘Hamburgisch’); • DLC pattern III (applies for P3, P4, P5): majority language (German), heritage language (Greek/Polish/Spanish), most used foreign language (English/Spanish/ French); In the following, the different patterns will be described in detail and related to STB about LA.

4.1 DLC Pattern I P1’s core DLC include German, English, and Spanish. She uses German every day. English is ‘always present’3 and she speaks the language while communicating with English-speaking friends. Spanish is present in both her studies (seminars and learning vocabulary) and her private life (listening to music in Spanish). P1’s third foreign language Italian is out of her core DLC. She spends time in Italy every year and learns the language through her already acquired skills in Spanish because ‘I see the parallels to Spanish, of course, and I also see them to Latin, and so very slowly a vocabulary is building up’. The think-aloud protocol allows the inclusion of Latin in P1’s DLC (it is not part of her DLC map) and the understanding that she does not proactively learn Italian but a passive way using her other repertoires. She also mentions Finnish, a language she is in contact with because she listens to Finnish music, although she cannot speak it. She doesn’t include this language in her DLC. The link between her DLC and her cognition about LA lies in the connection of an individual passion, which, in her case, is music, and in linguistic comparison as a central way of enhancing learning abilities. Additionally, her DLC and the way  If not indicated otherwise, the quotes refer to the participant whose DLC pattern is presented.

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she envisions the integration of LA in the classroom become related through the parallels she mentions in the case of learning Italian. She refers to the ‘cognitive level’, i.e. knowing the structures of language. She complements this ‘level’4 with the ‘social level’ when referring to respecting linguistic diversity, and the ‘affective level’ when exploring the emotions, one has regarding a language. For her, LA at the cognitive level can be developed through integrated didactic approaches to different languages, i.e. explicit crosslinguistic comparison, showing ‘parallels and differences’ e.g. in orthography and pronunciation (P1). The social and affective dimension were addressed when she imagined herself making her students become aware of their own languages. She considers this identification of languages not only as an individual activity but also as a collective endeavour for the whole class, to generate mutual understanding. She further refers to collectivising insights, meaning that plurilingualism can be analysed on a meta-level (e.g. How did you discover your plurilingualism? What does it mean to be plurilingual?) and that everyone in the classroom can get to know the others and their languages. P1 declared that she would use the languages and linguistic backgrounds present in the classroom for teaching the target language, e.g. by encouraging Arabic-speaking students to analyse differences between Spanish and Arabic5 and sharing their insights with the other students. Concerning the beliefs on LA, P1 focuses on LA at the cognitive dimension (e.g. linguistic comparisons) but also refers to the affective dimension and wants to integrate students’ linguistic repertoires into her teaching experiences (i.e. encourage them to identify their own languages). P1’s beliefs parallel the findings by van den Broek et  al. (2018) that the cognitive dimension of LA is overrepresented, contrary to other dimensions such as the power dimension. She thus follows the communicative turn, but just in some traits the principles attached to plurilingual pedagogies. To conclude, P1 describes her DLC and LA development in terms of the ability to establish a crosslinguistic comparison. She believes that other languages might be useful in the learning of a specific target language if a comparison is possible.

4.2 DLC Pattern II P2’s core DLC consist only of the majority language German specified as the local dialect ‘Hamburgisch’ which the participant describes as the language she uses in everyday communication. She adds another specification of the German language namely the German educational language. She uses this language only at university and thus less than Hamburgisch and therefore places it on the edge of the inner circle, i.e. the core DLC. In general, she uses the spatial dimensions in the DLC maps a lot to indicate the frequency of use of her languages. While thinking about where  It is possible that P1 may be referring to the dimensions of LA (cf. James & Garrett, 2014).  P1 does not specify which Arabic and which Spanish is meant.

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to place Spanish in her DLC map, she thinks about the differentiation she made for German and concludes that her proficiency in Spanish is not that good, as she does not master the Spanish educational language. Furthermore, she reflects on what kind of Spanish she speaks, making it clear how difficult it might be to place pluricentric languages in visualisation of DLC: And with Spanish, I would say that it is quasi, there is not the Spanish from Spain but, quasi, the Spanish that you learned at school, which you could say is Spanish. Spanish, which … There is also… no, well, I find that totally difficult. Spanish which is definitely widespread in Spain, perhaps. I don’t know if it’s spoken in Madrid, but it’s definitely what we learned at university. Of course, we also have people who speak Spanish from Latin America or specific regions. It’s also very different there. But the way I learned it I would perhaps write this [she writes down ‘primarily the Spanish which is widespread in Spain’]. But I find that difficult to describe…

P2 is surrounded by different varieties of Spanish but she is not sure which Spanish she is speaking. This is expressed through several pauses, unfinished sentences, and the repetition of the difficulty of naming which Spanish she is learning. Spanish is a language she hardly detaches from the formal learning context: ‘the Spanish that you learned at school’ or ‘what we learned at the university’. This seems to be opposed to her obvious differentiation of German registers as everyday language and as educational language. Her visualisation and description of the DLC map are neither pre-structured, nor chronologically linear because when P2 refers to metalinguistic concepts, i.e. registers and dialects, she modifies the corresponding language(s) as she talks. Another language that is part of her linguistic repertoire, even if she does not place it in her core DLC, is English and the register of everyday communication. It is not that present in her everyday life and is less used than Spanish, but she speaks and understands it and she is often in contact with English. She goes on to the languages that are not part of her linguistic repertoire but that surround her. She mentions more than 11 languages (groups) that are part of her linguistic environment. These languages come from different domains such as her neighbourhood (Turkish, Arabic from Syria), friends (French, Kurdish, Swiss German), and languages on the street (Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Russian, languages from the Asian space). She is in conflict with mentioning all the different languages that surround her on the street because: ‘So it’s a bit unfair now because you don’t want to exclude anyone. That’s why I find it so difficult when you can’t really find an end’. She decides to not include languages from the African and European space separately and refers to ‘languages that I cannot name’. P2’s DLC map is the most differentiated one in terms of named languages and their varieties. This also reflects her beliefs about LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities in the Spanish classroom since ‘there is not just one Spanish’. She explains that within a language, there are more ‘languages’. She refers to dialects and registers, such as ‘youth language, colloquial language, educational language, professional language […] which are not always so easy to separate’ (P2). She also mentions that the students have to learn the different registers in a language in order to communicate adequately. For her, developing LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities means ‘making the students more capable of acting’ and providing ‘food for thoughts’ (P2) in order to sensitise students. By LA, she understands a social

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construct at whose heart lies communication and pragmatics because ‘language is more than just vocabulary and grammar’, it is also learning about languages in general and the origin(s) of a language. The fact that P2’s core DLC consists of fewer languages, but many languages outside of her individual repertoire may be due to her beliefs about what it means to know a language and encouraging LA.  The importance of teaching the origin of language(s) and intralingual diversity shows that her LA generates from cognitive and social demands rather than from individual experiences. Additionally, P2, who understands herself as having monolingual core DLC following her DLC map, did not mention the identification of one’s own, or learning and using languages in an interconnected way. To summarise, P2 offers a maximalist view of language proficiency and use, making her refer to German as the only language that is at the very centre of her DLC.  She seems to think that identifying the languages in the classroom can be uplifting from an affective point of view, but entails the danger of leaving some students excluded.

4.3 DLC Pattern III P3’s core DLC in her DLC map consists of German, Polish, and French. She describes German and Polish as her first languages. She uses German every day. She also uses one of her foreign languages, French, every day because she is currently abroad in France for a semester where she uses the French language a lot. Her second first language is Polish, which she also uses every day when speaking to her parents. In their conversations, she also uses German when it becomes necessary to be more precise about what she wants to say. She states that her competences in German are better than in Polish and that she feels more confident in German than in Polish. She places Spanish out of her DLC because she only uses the language in specific contexts when she is with people who only speak that language or when she has tasks from the university; the same applies to English. A language that is not part of her linguistic repertoire but that surrounds P3 is Italian. Where she is living (Aix-en-Provence, France), there are many Italian students. She cannot understand it very well but would like to learn it, meaning that it can be a language latently integrating her DLC (see distinction by latent and real DLC by Melo-Pfeifer, 2021). P4’s DLC map displays only languages at her core DLC and languages that she places in the outer circle. Her core DLC consists of German, which she uses at university, in everyday conversations e.g. with friends; Greek, which she uses with her parents and friends from Greece and listens to or reads (the Greek news); Spanish, which she uses for her studies and when watching films; and English, for reading, watching films and checking vocabulary or foreign words in other languages. She explains that English has a special position in her DLC because it is the language she does not speak, but uses to connect all her languages, as a kind of language broker or mediator in case of difficulties: ‘For example, if I need a word in Spanish, I look it up first in English and not in Greek and German, so I learn English or Spanish at the same time’. Thus, English appears to have a mediation or remediation

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function, and, at the same time, an active function, since it is used for (trans)languaging. Similar to P3’s description, she uses German in Greek conversations when she cannot express herself otherwise, a bilingual practice that has been widely reported. The languages she does not speak but is in contact with are: Turkish because some Turkish friends and her grandmother speak it; Italian, because she perceives that language a lot in Greece; and French, at the university. She states that she understands a little bit of all these three languages. P5’s core DLC consist of Spanish, German and English. She uses all of them every day but does not specify in which situations. She names French, because she has an aunt in France, Portuguese, because she has friends in Brazil, and the local dialect ‘Plattdeutsch’ because she used to speak it with her grandmother and now uses it to sing lullabies in that language to her daughter. Languages in her surrounding that awaken her interest are African languages (she decides to leave the generic term to include all of them). In contrast to P2, she thinks aloud about the languages that explicitly do not form part of her DLC (e.g. Russian). It is noticeable that there seems to be a link between P3 and P4’s DLC, their experiences due to their individual DLC, and their beliefs about the importance of encouraging LA. Before describing the participants’ beliefs about LA, this link will be analysed to sketch the global context for P3’s and P4’s beliefs. P4 refers to the fact that, in primary school, she was not allowed to speak her first language  – Greek – with another girl who spoke that language, too. P4 saw this prohibition as useless and inefficient. This personal experience and evaluation of the situation are directly linked to the belief: ‘it’s the same in Spanish classes. You can use your native language to learn Spanish and it doesn’t have to be your native language. You can also use English or German’ (P4). This quote shows how P4 connects her languages in/through/with English and consequently the deduced affordance of target language learning in/through/with any other language (being) learnt. In the same vein, P3 talks about her experiences with speaking Polish in kindergarten and narrates the feelings of her mother. She was totally shocked because my kindergarten teacher said I had to go to a German course, that I had to learn German for an extra hour a week and that my mother shouldn’t speak Polish with me at home because then I wouldn’t be able to learn German, and that was really hard for them [her parents] because they thought, well, her own mother, she also lives at home with us and I had lived at home with them before and they could only speak in Polish, but how should that work then? I need someone to be able to communicate with my own family.

P3’s narrative reveals that Polish was the only language of and in her family until she enters an educational institution where German is the only language admitted. From that moment on, the monolingual sphere of Polish and the monolingual sphere of German have come into contact in her DLC but rather in form of the juxtaposition of ‘two solitudes’, to recall the metaphor by Cummins (2008). She continues: ‘That’s why it’s so important for me to show the students that if they are plurilingual, how they can use it’. P3 describes providing strategies, thus getting to know how to manage the contact of two or more linguistic spheres within the DLC, as a didactical consequence (introduced by ‘that’s why’) of her language learning experiences.

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Other strategies for encouraging LA development that all participants share are the processes of becoming aware of and discovering one’s own languages, the use of code-switching and of intercomprehension across languages of the same linguistic family. They mention ways and instruments to manage the identification of one’s own language individually, such as the European language portfolio (P3), or language visual or written biographies (P3, P5). For P5, ‘speaking about my languages promotes my language awareness’ and is thus a central way to encourage LA. The understanding of LA as identifying one’s languages refers to the development of individual efficient LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities and language use. P4 mentions ‘her’ individual strategies, which are: integrating all the languages she speaks (e.g. English as a bridge language described in her DLC), becoming aware of the existence of her languages, but also of their potential for use and their interconnections. For P3, P4, and P5, the need to get involved in LA raising practices seems to arise from personal experiences, namely, from the lack of the right to speak the heritage language. The intralingual diversity also mentioned by P3 can be understood as the abandonment of a standard and a less hierarchized approach to language varieties McLelland (2021). Again, ‘it is not only a matter of which languages or varieties of languages are used and taught but also how much teachers and educators consciously or unconsciously create access to opportunity and to social or power hierarchies through the way they manage language’ (MarMolinero, 2000). For the three participants to whom DLC III applies, code-switching,6 which P3 and P4 use when talking to their parents, is an integral and welcomed process in language learning: the more possibilities you have to acquire something, the easier it is for you to acquire it. Codeswitching for example, so if you just have the possibility to access another code to explain something, then that’s great! Then please do that and don’t feel forced to stay in one code because that’s totally hard and you don’t always get it right (P5).

Code-switching as a strategy to become aware of is evaluated positively (‘a good thing’, P4; ‘great’, P5). P5 actually used code-switching during the interview: ‘The Spanish language or Spanish is more than just, that has a tilde or it has no tilde and ahí hay una coma o no’.7 This behaviour shows how her plurilingual resources influence her beliefs about the role of LA in the foreign language classroom: P5’s plurilingualism seems to enable her code-switching and, at the same time, influence her thinking about code-switching as a learning resource. LA as a way of enhancing learning abilities was also described by the three participants through the strategy of intercomprehension – some use the term, others only describe the phenomenon – as a way to understand others speaking a language of the same language family (P3, P4). Intercomprehension as a reception skill is referred to by P4 and P5 since P4 uses Castilian Spanish to understand Italian, and P5 uses Chilean Spanish to understand Brazilian Portuguese. In addition to  The students used this term, although the quotes reveal that their understanding of code switching relates to the understanding of ‘translanguaging’ (García & Wei, 2014). 7  Translation from Spanish: ‘here, there should be a coma and here, there should not’. 6

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intercomprehension, P4 states that integrating didactic approaches to different languages are an asset: We need to use the languages and our knowledge so that we can learn other languages. That’s what I think is important. And plurilingualism is not just about mastering all the languages perfectly, but the point is that you don’t learn this one language, Spanish, in isolation from all the others, because that only complicates the learning phase.

This quote reflects again the interconnectedness of English and her other languages, which she already described in her DLC. In general, the interface of DLC and STB about LA lies in the role of plurilingualism in the student teachers’ lives. P3’s and P4’s examples of educational institutions that excluded their heritage languages appear to be an integral part of their negotiated (teacher) identity. It is noticeable that the two plurilingual student teachers describe their negative view of the ‘monolingual habitus’ of the multilingual school (Gogolin, 1994). This means that they are ‘agentive beings’ (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004) who gained awareness of their DLC which is directly linked to their beliefs about LA as a language learning and teaching strategy, i.e. as a pedagogy to cope with and handle plurilingualism. More than a decade ago, Lüdi and Py (2009) already showed the importance of developing an understanding of individual plurilingualism as being substantially different from monolingualism. In general, the participants to whom the DLC pattern III applies mention several ways of enhancing learning abilities, such as the identification of one’s languages or cross-­ linguistic comparison, among others. This observation joins Portolés and Martí’s (2020) and Otwinowska’s (2017) findings, which demonstrated the connection between teachers’ linguistic background and their beliefs. More specifically, P4’s beliefs displaying an interconnected language learning system where any language can serve learning purposes can be related to a constructivist understanding of language learning (cf. Wolff, 1994) and plurilingualism as a complex, and thus interconnected, dynamic system (cf. Stotz & Cardoso, 2022). Furthermore, P3, P4 and P5’s positive evaluation of code-switching, their own translanguaging practices (as described by P3’s and P4’s communication within their family and P5’s translanguaging practices in the interview setting) and the encouragement of its use as a classroom learning and communication strategy allow the foreign language classroom to become a ‘translanguaging space’ (Wei, 2011). To conclude, the participants to whom pattern III applies show a more integrated vision of their own individual linguistic repertoire which matches an understanding of all languages being useful during the learning process. Participants stressed that not all these languages considered useful to the language learning process need to produce near-native competences.

5 Conclusions and Perspectives Three patterns of DLC were found, that can be differentiated through the ways of inclusion of heritage languages in the core DLC or only the majority language and/ or foreign languages:

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• DLC pattern I: majority language, first foreign language, second foreign language; • DLC pattern II: local dialect of the majority language; • DLC pattern III: majority language, heritage language, most used foreign language. The established patterns show that all of the students display the majority language, as in Melo-Pfeifer (2021). One pattern additionally includes two foreign languages, complying with European language policies that establish the learning of two languages in addition to the mother tongue. Another pattern includes heritage languages next to the majority language and (at least) one foreign language. The participants seem to understand DLC in the same manner as Nightingale (2020, p. 244): ‘DLC is constantly in flux, subject to social, cultural, and temporal changes, the latter of which may be long- or short-term’ because they describe different domains and dynamics. Accordingly, the DLC is just a result of the context and may change during the student teachers’ studies and lives. It is also probable that their awareness of their languages and thus the visualisation of their DLC map will change with time. Finally, the different DLC patterns related to different teaching and learning beliefs seem to support the fact that LA actually is a ‘personal, individual sensibility’ (Young, 2018) and depends on individual linguistic experiences. The methods used in this exploratory study were useful to gain insights into STB and their DLC. By asking the last question about whether the participants became (more) aware of their languages, it can be assumed that the succession of the three parts (visualisation of DLC, in-depth interviews, and the comment on their forum entry) enabled insights into the processes of LA.  The reason behind this is that ‘observing/experimenting with LA may change teachers’ beliefs about this approach and promote the construction of new professional knowledge’ (Lourenço et  al., 2018, p. 4); or in P5’s words: ‘speaking about my languages [which was the core aspect in the interview setting] promotes my language awareness’ (P5). Accordingly, the visualisation of DLC, as a visual method in research on plurilingualism, fosters ‘the awareness of those involved in the studies’ (Kalaja & Pitkänen-Huhta, 2018, p. 168). This methodological reflection invites the use of other thematic focus, such as differentiating DLC according to the domain (every day, university, if applicable school where the teacher students teach or do internships) and the study of participants’ DLC and representations of LA after they enter their professional life. Such a research perspective would allow understanding of how school and the education system may influence STB. The study could also be extended to researching inservice teachers’ beliefs. To conclude, even if the thick description of our qualitative data might seem to induce a straightforward relationship between different DLC patterns and the willingness of student teachers to engage with multilingual pedagogies, we should not forget that this is an exploratory study and further research, with more participants and in other sociolinguistic contexts, could enlarge and add complexity (and even contradiction) to the findings.

Appendixes Appendix 1  P1’s DLC map. (Map after Björklund & Björklund, 2021)

Appendix 2  P2’s DLC map. (Map after Björklund & Björklund, 2021)

Appendix 3  P3’s DLC map. (Map after Björklund & Björklund, 2021)

Appendix 4  P4’s DLC map. (Map after Björklund & Björklund, 2021)

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Appendix 5  P5’s DLC map. (Map after Björklund & Björklund, 2021)

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Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Identity and Representations of English as a Foreign Language: Toward a Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation? Ana Sofia Pinho Abstract  This chapter describes and analyses EFL student teachers’ representations of EFL teaching and their identity as teachers by resorting to visual narratives (drawings) and their corresponding written explanations, collected in the context of a professionalising masters’ degree for teaching. The study follows a narrative perspective of teacher identity: identity construction is a process of narrative positioning whereby student teachers display their situated subjectivities and authoring processes, notably through the visual stories they draw/tell. The use of the research tool Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation (DLTC) supported the identification of salient representations of EFL teaching, situated in a monolingual/intercultural perspective of EFL teaching, but also an emergent DL(T)C, in which multilingualism and awareness thereof stands out. There is evidence of different subjectivities in the making, following student teachers storied and fluid professional identity. The findings suggest the importance of designing teacher education environments that intentionally support student teachers’ critical multilingual language awareness and a perspective of EFL as political action. Keywords  Dominant language constellation · Teacher professional identity · Multimodal narratives · Drawings · English as a foreign language · Representations · Language awareness · Teacher education

1 Introduction The perspective of contemporary multilingualism as a ‘new linguistic dispensation’ (Aronin, 2020; Aronin & Singleton, 2008) involving complex ‘sociolinguistic arrangements, in which constellations of languages are a prerequisite for society’s A. S. Pinho (*) UIDEF, Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_11

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functioning and progress on a world scale’ (p. 12), brings additional demands to teachers, schools, language teaching and teacher education (Pinho, 2008; Pinho & Moreira, 2012). In fact, linguistic (and cultural) diversity in schools and classrooms ‘call[s] into question the language education policies and practices of teachers and schools and their capacity to respond effectively to the challenges of an increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse school population’ (Young, 2018, p. 23). In this panorama, teacher professional identity is a critical issue in initial teacher education, being increasingly necessary that teacher educators take notice of such process to analyse and gain insight into its effects on future teachers’ learning, meaning making, dilemmas and decisions (Beijaard et al., 2004). And additionally, to take into regard the role of curriculum components in identity development (Alsup, 2008; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, 2019). Teacher professional identity may be a contested fact, as it is not an obvious concept, but it surely may provide a way of understanding the interaction between the subjective experience of the world and how different subjectivities are formed. In this scope, teachers’ cognition in language education, particularly beliefs and representations, are pointed out as a driving force to understand future teachers’ language awareness and conceptualizations of language teaching (Borg, 2018; Lauriala & Kukkonen, 2005), but also how they develop their teaching identity regarding multilingualism. It is therefore crucial to study the interplay between such representations and teacher professional identity (Pinho & Andrade, 2009; Pinho, 2008, 2015, 2019). Similarly, new discourses or constructs to discuss and act upon specific concerns in teacher education, like the preparation for linguistic diversity, need to be identified to turn such concerns into research issues. Dominant language constellation (DLC) as a research doorway, due to its conceptual richness (Aronin, 2019, 2020), allows to analyse how multilingualism or linguistic diversity is taking part of future teachers’ pedagogical landscapes. In this chapter, we propose to discuss DLC by adding a pedagogical dimension to it to study pre-service teachers’ professional identity and configurations of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL), as they learn of multilingual and intercultural education and reflect of themselves as language teachers. Against this background, we present a study based on the analysis of a set of visual narratives, and their corresponding written explanations, collected in the context of a Portuguese professionalising masters’ degree for teaching over the period between 2016 and 2021.

2 Language Education as Political Action A dominant discourse regarding linguistic and cultural diversity in society and education is the one that brings to the forefront social, intercultural, and political aims of language teaching (Byram et al., 2017; Pinho, 2008), which to our view may be linked to an activist teacher identity as defined by Sachs (2005), characterised by democratic, transformative, and emancipatory principles. Multilingualism, either as an individual and societal phenomenon, or as pedagogy, requires teachers

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understanding the complexities of multilingual societies and of individuals’ multiple (cultural) identities and complex linguistic repertoires (García, 2017; Young, 2018). But it would also require teachers and schools acknowledging standardised, normative ways of looking at languages in school and in the learning of a given language and being able to overcome pedagogical habitus of marginalising students’ prior knowledge and experiences, in order to adopt more linguistically and culturally inclusive practices and to make of language classrooms enriching intercultural encounters (Young, 2018). Although such inclusive practices are not the sole responsibility of teachers, they are key actors in such desideratum. Teachers’ critical multilingual awareness (García, 2017) and critical cultural awareness (Byram, 2012) are pointed out as a route to act upon teachers’ professional identity and knowledge, and thus to counteract monolingual lenses in favour of a multilingual turn, according to which linguistic diversity is acknowledged and valued as a resource and a right (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014). Consequently, it would encompass the teacher’s conscious attention to and analysis of languages and cultures and their engagement with these, to adapt Byram’s (2012) words. Such socio-political dimension of teacher language awareness reinforces the capacity to critically analyse issues of language and society, communication and power relations, to take intercultural interaction in classrooms and schools as an opportunity to notice students’ linguistic identities, and ultimately of language-as-teaching (Pinho et al., 2011). Subsequently, it would entail teachers being able to develop other linguistic configurations in how they envision and enact classroom pedagogical landscapes. According to Byram (2012), challenging traditions and developing ‘critique-in-action’ (referring to Barnett’s 1997 term) in critical language and cultural awareness is crucial to make citizenship education and inclusive practices more concrete. Young (2018) discusses that linguistic parochialism and silencing can be contested and counteracted with the cultivation of rich linguistic ecologies in schools through teacher language awareness. Accordingly, teachers are asked to notice, value and resort to their pupils’ linguistic repertoire in the classroom and in the learning of another language, while simultaneously fostering pupils’ multilingual awareness. In the field of EFL teaching, there is a strong scholarly pressure that multilingual, decolonised, pluricentric views are adopted and enacted (Macedo, 2019). EFL teachers are asked to critically think and act in educational contexts distinguished by complex linguistic and cultural landscapes, as well as to contest the ‘monolingual habitus’ (Gogolin, 1997), the prevalence of the ‘native-speaker model’ in classroom interaction, and the prevailing idea of the classroom as a homogeneous community, thus trying to find a balance between power relations among languages and counteracting hierarchisation (Pinho & Moreira, 2012; Young, 2018). It is not new that teachers’ cognition, particularly beliefs and representations, are important interpretative tools when discussing teachers’ thinking and action. Borg (2018) mentions that, among others, such cognitions may ‘act as a filter through which teachers interpret new information and experience’, ‘can exert a persistent long-term influence on teachers’ instructional practices’, ‘interact bi-directionally with experience’ and ‘influence how teachers react to educational change’ (p. 75).

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Lauriala and Kukkonen (2005) underline the connection between teachers’ self-­ representation and identity, and the constant negotiation between one’s ideal or ‘ought’ self and individuals’ self-image as teachers, as well as the role of significant others, situational and contextual factors in the identity formation process. Accordingly, it is important to give attention to student teachers’ representations of EFL teaching vis-à-vis multilingualism in education. Regarding how EFL teachers negotiate and enact multilingualism in their classroom, Pitkänen-Huhta and Mäntylä (2021) conclude that participants shared a controversial perception of the multilingual pupil. Even though it was recognised that multilingual learners had greater language awareness when compared to their mainstream peers, teachers seem not to want to draw attention to those pupils’ linguistic repertoires. Still, the authors believe that teachers, despite not fully aware of ‘the potential of multilingualism and the pupils’ linguistic resources in EFL teaching’, ‘used several ways of supporting their multilingual learners, reflecting the principles of translanguaging’ (Pitkänen-Huhta & Mäntylä, 2021, p. 1). Pinho and Moreira (2012) realised EFL teachers in primary education struggled in re-constructing their monolingual teaching orientation even though they acknowledged the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity and were engaged in collaborative professional development in multilingual and intercultural education. Thus, adopting the perspective of language education as ethical-political action in teacher education demands a focus on identity work and on disturbing settled and tacit representations of language and language teaching. Yet, one must not overlook ‘the tensions generated in negotiating what the field purports as [subject] teacher identity and how teachers see themselves professionally’ (Schultz et al., 2018, p. 7). On this last point, Pinho and Andrade (2009) assert that EFL student teachers try to accommodate old and new discourses about language teaching and the teaching profession, seeking to navigate in-between them to shape their identity as teachers, which may cause tensions and dilemmas.

3 Teacher Professional Identity Discourses on teacher identity have reinforced long-standing perspectives of the concept, but also brought new insights into how such phenomenon maybe addressed and further researched (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, 2019; Schultz et al., 2018). Although we may be confronted with competing discourses about teacher professional identity, it is possible to ascertain that post-modern understandings of identity advocate more integrative, and interactive approaches involving identity’s different natures: multiplicity-unity dimension (including the different I-positions existing in the inter-subjective space), discontinuity-­continuity dimension (referring to temporality and how ongoing shifts in I-positions illustrate culturally mediated alignments between past-present-future)

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and social-individual nature (in this case, the interrelatedness between the individual and the social) (as proposed by Akkerman & Meijer, 2011, who try to convey the idea that these dimensions are in a flow). Viewed from this angle, teacher professional identity is dynamic, fluid, multi-­ faceted, but also stable, and influenced by both internal and external factors. Thus, it is important to account for how teachers combine their personal meanings with collective ones about the profession, how affinity and belonging and/or, in contrast, refusal, non-identification and differentiation occur, and ultimately how they re-­ define their professional project as teachers (Pinho, 2008). Indeed, ‘identity is the way that people understand their own individual experience and how they act and identify with various groups’ (Sachs, 2005, p. 8). Identity transitions are dependent on the individual’s interactions with professional contexts and their affordances, such as schools and educational communities, and factors originated at macro levels such as national and international policy discourses (Beijaard, 2019; Schultz et al., 2018). Therefore, ‘it emerges from the relationship between individuals, institutions and organizations in its construction’ (Sachs, 2005, p. 8) and the participation in different discourse communities. The emotional and affective dimension of learning to be(come) a teacher plays a structuring role in shaping identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Schultz et al., 2018), and no longer makes sense to discuss teacher identity without combining it with issues of agency, autonomy and power (Beijaard, 2019), and thus with processes of negotiation, social positioning and ‘active pursuit of professional development and learning in accordance with a teacher’s goals’ (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009, p.  177). There is also a storied and biographical nature in how teachers develop their professional identity, which reinforces the place of lived experience in how learning to teach takes place and the narrative way of understanding such experience, thus involving continuity, interaction and reflection (Alsup, 2008; Beijaard et al., 2004; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Beijaard (2019) underlines the symbiotic dynamics between teacher learning and teacher identity, considering that ‘learning to teach is an identity making process’, going beyond the learning of ‘subject matter, pedagogical content knowledge, theories of teaching and learning, and skills to turn all that into practical action’ to include ‘who they are as teachers, who they believe they are, and who they want to be as teachers’ (p. 1). This same argument is expressed by Alsup (2008), who underlines that teacher education programmes need to go deeper into helping the new teachers develop their identities, and not only ‘to provide knowledge about learning theories and pedagogical approaches’ (p. 4). Nevertheless, the author also recognises the difficulty of addressing identity issues in teacher education components or courses. As Sachs (2005) states, Teacher professional identity is at the core of the teaching profession. It provides a framework for teachers to construct their own ideas of ‘how to be’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to understand’ their work and their place in society. Importantly, teacher identity is not something that is fixed nor is it imposed; rather it is negotiated through experience and the sense that is made of that experience. (p. 15)

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Considering that EFL student teachers navigate in-between discourse communities and language ideologies during teacher education programmes, the narrative perspective of teacher professional identity (Alsup, 2008; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) gathers convergence as an approach to analyse and discuss how student teachers accept, downplay, discard, and/or adapt to discourses of multilingual and intercultural education in EFL teaching. From this perspective, ‘narrative and discourse shape and are shaped by identity’ (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009, p. 181) and temporality and experience are at centre stage. Likewise, teacher discourse is indicative of EFL student teachers’ identity and of how they negotiate and make meaning of competing discourses for their allegiance, i.e., of new, divergent perspectives of EFL teaching, and how they put them ‘together’ around an ambitioned, idealised self-image as a teacher (Alsup, 2008; Pinho, 2008). This means looking at how student teachers narrate themselves and at the subject positions they mobilise in such authoring process. Soreide (2006) reinforces the heuristic value of such perspective, when claiming that ‘to understand identity construction as a process of narrative positioning is useful, because it opens up an understanding of teachers as active agents in their own lives and the construction of teacher identity as a dynamic and changing activity’ (p. 529). Similarly, De Fina et al. (2006) sustain that when teachers build their stories, acts of identity are performed and enacted. From this angle, the concept of ‘positioning’ is useful to understand the interconnection between dominant discourses resulting from historical and sociocultural forces and their influence on teachers’ situated practices, and how teachers position themselves and construct their identities regarding others and dominant discourses. In sum, a narrative approach to professional identity facilitates the access to how EFL teachers organise their experiences and take on new identities, how tensions and dilemmas find symbolic expression, and gaining insight into the how and why professional identities evolve.

4 Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellations: A Heuristic Construct DLC is adopted as a prolific analytical lens through which the study of EFL student teachers’ narrative professional identities may take place. As a concept, DLC allows to capture multilingual practices in their complexity and to analyse individual and societal multilingualism as a dynamic, integrative phenomenon, taking cover of a diversity of contexts and processes. As explained by Aronin (2019, 2020), DLC refers to ‘a group of one’s most expedient languages, functioning as a unit, and enabling an individual to meet all needs in a multilingual environment’ (2019, p. 15), underlining the idea that there are languages that are more salient in an individual’s daily life, even if their language repertoire includes (many) other languages and linguistic varieties. Although complementary, the difference is then that a person’s language repertoire may be comparatively defined as ‘the sum or the storage

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of available language varieties and/or skills, registers, styles, and other language assets accumulated in one’s life’ (Aronin, 2019, p. 15). As such DLC is a form of linguistic practice and social action, usually comprising three languages (Aronin, 2020), whose operatory nature is interdependent of the interactions the person is involved in specific sociolinguistic, changing contexts. But it is worth pointing out that DLC is part of a person’s language repertoire and that both, DLC and language repertoire, are a process and a product, biographical in nature and, therefore, situated and evolving (Aronin, 2020, 2021). Additionally, ‘the dynamics imply that languages from the language repertoire join the DLC when the social or personal environment undergoes changes’ (Aronin, 2019, p. 17). Given its open and dynamic nature as a mental construct and a research mapping resource to make visible the person’s utilitarian languages and the languages of communities or of a territory, DLC has the potential to offer a more ecological, organic, systemic multilingual portrait of contemporary language practices as a result (Aronin, 2019, 2020). As such, DLC as a concept has gained space in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, language education and policy. In educational studies, as way of example, research topics are multiple language acquisition, multilingual education, teaching immigrants, using various languages as a means of instruction (Aronin, 2021). DLC has also made its way into the research field of teacher education. Briefly, DLC has been used to examine student teachers’ language biographies or trajectories and their most expedient languages. For instance, Melo-Pfeifer (2021) resorted to visual linguistic biographies of Spanish and French student teachers, concluding that the depicted DLC are partial and chronological representations of the participants’ narrative identities, and that despite the existing similarities and differences between the groups, it is important to think of them as latent DLC and frame them in the student teachers’ dynamic life stories and learning journeys. Sugrañes (2021) focused on the study of how teachers use DLC as a pedagogical tool to help pupils become aware of their DLC through the creation of story books in English and their subsequent translation into the pupils’ languages. The author realised that the pedagogical use of DLC positively favoured pupils’ motivation and attitudes regarding languages and language learning, but also had a positive effect on the teacher’s plurilingual approach to teaching languages. Sugrañes (2021) supports, therefore, that it is important when the English language classroom is conceived as a translanguaging space, hence allowing pupils to freely and openly use their DLC. Yet, examining student teachers’ images or representations regarding languages and language teaching, and the place of multilingualism as practice and pedagogy in such imagery, seems to be an understudied perspective using DLC (Aronin, 2021; Aronin & Vetter, 2021; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020). On this last point, considering the global demand for English, the status of the language in education systems worldwide, and the sociolinguistic diversity of the English language (Macedo, 2019; Pinho & Moreira, 2012), it is our understanding that DLC may pave the way to the analysis of how student teachers envision and enact linguistic (and cultural) diversity in the EFL classroom landscape, and to discuss how their teacher critical multilingual awareness is emerging. Multilingualism (within a pedagogical

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language-­culture nexus) requires new pedagogical linguistic arrangements, i.e., a notable makeover of linguistic landscapes and ecologies in EFL classroom. In this case, we are interested in analysing EFL teaching and classroom configurations as Dominant Language Teaching Constellations (DLTC) to capture change in the represented language teaching practices in the classroom, its salient specificities and configurations (Aronin, 2019), and in what way EFL student teachers are integrating and displaying a multilingual educational rationale. Consequently, DL(T)C is a route to identify common patterns, on the one hand, and what is unique for each student teacher, on the other hand (Aronin, 2020). Accordingly, from a research viewpoint, one should not disregard to place DL(T)C and student teachers ‘in the context of time and surroundings’ and to bear in mind that ‘each DLC is just a snapshot in time and place’, therefore ‘continuity and seeing events in a long and broad perspective, in time and space, with their past and future, is a helpful approach’ (Aronin, 2020, p.  26, following the Longue Durée approach coined by Fernand Braudel). Such an understanding will, as we see it, converge with the narrative and biographical approach to teacher professional identity adopted in the current study and favour the access to how student teachers develop their multilingual pedagogical awareness, but also their pedagogical multilinguality (Pinho, 2008 refers to plurilinguality in a similar sense).

5 The Study 5.1 Data Collection: Context and Participants The empirical data for this study were collected in the context of a professionalising Master programme of Teaching English in Primary School at the University of Lisbon (Portugal), notably within two subject courses, ‘Didactics, Curriculum and Evaluation in Languages’ (DCEL) and ‘Pluralistic Didactic Approaches’ (PDA). The programme lasts 3 semesters (90 ECTS), and the courses take place in the 1st and 3rd semesters, respectively, being taught by the author (as teacher educator) of this chapter. Both courses adopt an ethical-political approach to language education and EFL teaching, aiming to raise student teachers’ awareness of citizenship, multilingual and intercultural education, and to concur to student teachers’ professional identity development alongside with self-reflection upon their pedagogical multilinguality (converging with many of the principles described in Sects. 2 and 3; see also Pinho, 2008, 2019). There are common teaching strategies pervading both courses, such as reading assignments and thematic group discussions, analysis of case studies (like teaching practices, proposals, or materials), conception of didactic projects in groups or pairs (including the theoretical and pedagogical rationale, and the creation of materials), visual narratives (drawings) and the corresponding written explanations, and meta-learning written narratives.

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Fig. 1  Timespan of data collection

The corpus for this study is made of 39 drawings (plus the written explanations) collected from 2016 to 2021, which correspond to four cohorts of student teachers, totalising 13 student teachers (Fig. 1). Student teachers from cohort 2016/2017 produced four drawings (one at the beginning and another at the end of the courses, D1 to D4), and the remainder cohorts elaborated three visual narratives each during the programme. Language biographies of the student teachers mainly include English, French, German, or Spanish, besides Portuguese, because of school policies and formal language learning trajectories (in a manner similar to Melo-Pfeifer, 2021). Additionally, they were all women and depending on the cohort, participants may or may not have previous teaching experience before enrolling on the Master programme. Different instructions were given to the production of the drawings, according to our pedagogical purpose as teacher educator for each course and the academic journey of the student teachers. On this last point, it is important to clarify that besides DCEL and PDA, student teachers also attend subject courses in general pedagogy and in specific didactics, and that from 1st semester on they have their teaching practicum in local, usually urban, schools. As such, the instructions bore in mind issues of context, temporality, and progression: • Drawing 1: ‘Think of a metaphor that illustrates your view of what it means to be an EFL primary school teacher. Write it down and explain it. Make a drawing depicting your view and metaphor.’ (Beginning of 1st semester). • Drawing 2: ‘Revisit your initial metaphor and drawing. If you still agree with it, explain why. If not, make a new drawing, explain, and justify it.’ (End of 1st semester). • Drawing 3 (cohort 2016/2017): ‘Draw yourself teaching English in primary school. Explain your drawing in detail.’ (Beginning of 2nd semester). • Drawing 4 (cohort 2016/2017) but Drawing 3 for the other cohorts: ‘My class in a three-years’ time. Describe and explain your drawing in detail.’ (End of 2nd semester).

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Ethical procedures were accounted for in the data collection. Student teachers agreed to the participation in the study by signing an informed consent form at the end of the semester, and their names were codified to ensure anonymity (student teacher, plus a number, e.g., ST1). Almost all the written texts were produced in Portuguese and translated into English by the researcher. The research questions formulated for this study are: • RQ1: In what ways do student teachers represent EFL teaching in primary school and themselves as EFL teachers? Specifically, how are Language, Culture, Communication and Aims of EFL teaching represented in the drawings? • RQ2: What DL(T)Cs are in the making when EFL teachers learn about multilingual and intercultural education? • RQ3: In what way are student teachers developing a multilingual language awareness illustrative of language education as political action?

5.2 Multimodal Narratives as Data: Analytical Procedures Considering that the study is developed in a pedagogical context, multimodal narratives, notably drawings (also referred to as visual narratives), were used as both a research tool and a method of fostering self-reflection and raising student teachers’ awareness of EFL teaching, multilingual and intercultural education, and their self-­ image as teachers, ultimately, aiming at social change (Pinho, 2019). As Kalaja and Melo-Pfeifer (2019) state, visual narratives are a powerful approach to ‘multilingualism as lived or as subjectively experienced’, thus allowing to raise awareness and capture each one’s ‘sense of becoming or being multilingual as subjectively experienced, involving positive and negative emotions, attitudes, beliefs, visions and identities’ (p. 1, original emphasis). Furthermore, visual narratives allow student teachers to express themselves more creatively, moving beyond the words-­ single approach to combine it with other symbolic ways of expression, which permits to depict their eduscapes more fully. In fact, Busch (2017) makes it clear that biographical, visual perspectives to the study of multilingualism and identity are a resourceful tool to ‘give voice to the positions excluded to the dominant discourse’ (p. 46). As interpretative and qualitative approaches, they provide access to socially situated first-person experiences and perspectives, to the meaning-making of life trajectories and of how ‘these are shaped by historically determined power relations and subject practices’ (Busch, 2017, p. 51). Therefore, visual narratives, as genres of discourse, give us accounts of situated re-enactments of the past-present-future within negotiation processes of multilingual teacher identity, to adapt Busch’s (2017) words. In the case of teacher education, visual narratives such as drawings work as mediation tools to the development of student teacher’s professionalism and identity. Accordingly, discussing the use of visual narratives in relation to DLC, Aronin (2021) reinforces that such visualisations are useful for the purposes of such study: ‘The process of creating the visual

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Categories 1. Curricular content 2. Communication in the classroom 3. Roles of teacher and student(s) 4. Classroom climate and pedagogical relationship 5. Classroom organisation 6. Methodologies and didactic approaches

representation of one’s own language [teacher] identity is deeply moving, exciting and often eye-opening; it brings along associations and thoughts that might not be coming if not for the process of producing the representation.’ (Aronin, 2021, p. 33). With this being said, the angle adopted in this study is that of DL(T)C containing a common language. In methodological terms, as Aronin (2021) clarifies, ‘any constituent of a DLC pattern can be chosen as a criterion to categorise patterns. The choice depends on the researcher’s needs and interests’ (p. 28). Therefore, considering our research questions, we focus on DL(T)C with EFL as a chosen criterion, i.e., our starting point is the English language as a common denominator in the student teachers’ classroom linguistic configuration. Bearing this in mind, we adopted a predominantly qualitative content analysis (Bardin, 2000) while examining the 39 drawings, with no a priori defined categories. The first step, more descriptive, was to identify what is represented in each drawing, contrasting it with the collected written explanation. We then moved on to the identification of patterns, comparing all the drawings, and the definition of categories and subcategories (Table 1). At this stage, we went through the representations of EFL teaching, as illustrated by the drawings. In this step, we also resorted to quantitative analysis, to define the frequency of patterns per category. In a second step, more interpretative and following the research trends in the analysis of DLC, attention was given to frequent patterns and different patterns in student teachers’ DL(T)C (Aronin, 2021). We tried to unveil the meaning of the results obtained in step 1 vis à vis descriptors such as language, communication, culture and teaching aims. With such analysis we meant to delineate the most salient DL(T)C of the 13 student teachers, seeking to disclose in what ways the student teachers are developing a multilingual language awareness in EFL classroom and walking toward a perspective of language education as political action. Furthermore, considering the importance of temporality in the making of teacher identity, we aimed at understanding not only student teachers’ overall DL(T)C (i.e., a ‘static’ picture of the prevailing DL(T)C at a given point in time and space), but also personal trajectories and how these evolve over time. By adopting a dynamic reconfiguration of student teachers’ DL(T)C, it is possible to trace continuities and discontinuities or, said otherwise, evolutions in the systemic, complex DLTC of the student teachers. Likewise, it is possible to draw student teachers’ I-positioning(s) and authoring processes as they (re)construct their professional identities and,

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eventually, as their DL(T)C is being re-shaped (De Fina et al., 2006). For such purpose, the drawings were selected based on their representativeness: ones provide tendencies and commonalities; other offer singularities in a shared social identity formation process.

6 Findings: A ‘Clipping’ Picture of Student Teachers’ Representations of EFL Teaching As we mentioned in Sects. 2 and 3, student teacher’s representations of EFL teaching are an important construct to gain insight into their pedagogical and didactic mindsets or, in other words, into their epistemology of practice (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Accordingly, we refer to an evolving personal integrated system of knowledge, experience, and values that student teachers consider relevant at a given time. As a result of one’s experience, the observation of peers and contexts, among others, such system may be conscious or unconscious, but it still reflects student teachers’ minded practice and how they conceptualise language teaching (Borg, 2018; Lauriala & Kukkonen, 2005). One of the purposes of this study is to disclose in what ways student teachers represent EFL teaching in primary school and themselves as EFL teachers, and specifically, how they represent Language, Culture, Communication of EFL teaching (RQ1). With that in mind, we examined the results of the categories in Table 1, which emerged from the analysis of all the 39 drawings. To present the results for this research question, two main categories are focal: category 1 – curricular content (n49) and category 2 – communication in the classroom (n15). Category 1 is sub-­ divided in ‘language-culture (n25), ‘transversal competences’ (n9) and ‘values’ (n15). Category 2 comprises ‘monolingual’ (n13), ‘bilingual’ (n1) and ‘multilingual’ (n4) communication or interaction. Student teachers’ representations of EFL teaching display an important connection between the teaching of language and culture in EFL classroom, hence reinforcing the language-culture nexus (Byram, 2012). In the following sections, we try and illustrate such representations of EFL teaching to portray student teachers’ identity and to discuss their DL(T)C.

6.1 A Dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation: The Salient Presence of EFL alongside (Inter) cultural Aims Since we are reporting to a specific foreign language classroom, it is no surprise that English is the dominant language in the language teaching constellation. But what is important to examine is how the student teachers envision the linguistic and

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cultural space of the classroom as a communicative encounter. In this regard, the visual narratives signal the co-existence of two main perspectives: a monolingual/ monocultural, and a monolingual/intercultural one. Considering the results of category 2, we see that out of the 39 drawings, 13 depicted a monolingual classroom, with the exclusive presence of EFL as the means of communication. We may then conclude that the student teachers tend to reveal a monolingual habitus and a linguistic homogenisation of the classroom (Gogolin, 1997), and a narrow language awareness in terms of linguistic diversity (Young, 2018), hence not considering pupils’ potentially plural identities and complex linguistic repertoires. Figure 2 is revealing of this perspective, but also of what Macedo (2019) would refer to as a colonised view of EFL teaching. In Fig. 2, the student teacher assigns herself the role of a gardener that fosters pupils’ willingness to learn a foreign language. This is illustrated by the seeds she plants and that grow to become trees and flowers. There is an important symbolic dimension embodied in the flag, which corresponds to the United Kingdom and therefore to the British English variant or norm, which seems to be the one she expects the pupils to learn (as represented in the tree). Intentionally or not, she chooses to represent EFL not as a pluricentric language. It is then to be concluded that, even if tacitly, the idea of one language, one culture, one nation seems to prevail. Concurrently, within this monolingual/monocultural perspective, the drawings illustrate a sociocultural perspective according to which the purpose of language teaching is the communication with native speakers or in the target country’s language. Accordingly, teaching culture corresponds to the teaching of facts and social practices of the target language-culture-people, such as lifestyles, living conditions, and so on. Culture is reflected in the teaching of historical, geographical, architectural, environmental, demographic, or political aspects linked to the target(s) country(s) (Council of Europe, 2001). From this understanding, student teachers recognise the importance of promoting pupils’ cultural competence as a body of

Fig. 2  Planting the taste for learning EFL (originally in blue) (Student teacher 1)

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Fig. 3  EFL classroom as a cultural journey to the target country and teacher as a tourist guide (originally in black and white) (Student teacher 2)

knowledge about the country, like the one a native speaker would have (Crozet et al., 1999). Figure 3, situated in the theme ‘the cultural dimension of language teaching’, is aligned with the above and represents what could be designated as a monolithic perspective of culture (Pinho, 2019). When explaining her drawing, the student teacher writes: ‘For me, to be a teacher of EFL in the 1st Cycle [primary school] is like being a tourist guide for the children who takes them on a cultural journey in the classroom and who step by step makes them discover a different reality and culture, without leaving the country.’ (ST1, all excepts are translated and were originally in Portuguese). As we can see, this student teacher strongly values the learning of culture, trying to unfold the world to the pupils. However, the set of cultural artifacts or symbols (a double-decker bus; a teacup and tea pot; Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament; a red telephone box) does illustrate a narrow perspective of culture, associating it to Britain and British English. When interpreting this drawing, it seems to make sense to bring to the discussion the idea of culture as a set of practices. In other words, that culture is a collective way of acting and consequently, from the pedagogical point of view, it would correspond to developing pupils’ knowledge ‘about what people from a given cultural group are likely to do and understanding the cultural values placed upon certain ways of acting or upon certain beliefs’ (Crozet et al., 1999, p. 9). As portrayed in Fig. 3, such representation runs the risk of presenting the target culture to pupils as something static and homogeneous, eventually fostering over-generalisations.

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Interestingly, when asked to revise her visual narrative, at the end of the first semester, the student teacher maintains the original drawing (Fig. 4) but decides to add a terrestrial globe and key words she incorporates in her epistemology of practice. Among such key words are human rights, children’s rights, peace, love, friendship, respect, justice, equity, and citizenship. As she explains, ‘the global topics would be the motto for the discovery of that culture and the learning and communicative use of the English language would happen through those topics. […] it is my hope that students learn that, deep down, we are all equal, despite our differences in language, culture, and way of living…’ (our emphasis). Despite keeping the core idea of teaching a ‘single’ culture in EFL, the student teacher envisions other pedagogical layers to her action, realising she needs to adopt democratic values and prepare her pupils to become more critical global citizens. Clearly, the progression between the two drawings discloses a pre-political engagement (Byram et al., 2017) in EFL teaching, but also a process of self-negotiation, whereby the student teacher is trying to reconcile a tacit representation of EFL, strongly rooted in her previous experience as EFL language learner and teacher, with other, new images that learning about education for (global) citizenship, linguistic and cultural diversity presents to her. In this process, she becomes aware of her existing teacher identity, by acknowledging that she would need to evolve

Fig. 4  Cultural journey, tourist guide and global citizenship: in-between discourses (Student teacher 2)

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pedagogically: ‘While reflecting upon my former and future teaching practice, I think that the challenge will be to change my way of thinking and to plan the teaching of linguistic contents having at the core not those linguistic contents per se, but such themes [that are] so relevant and important to students’ global development.’ (student teacher’s meta-learning narrative). This second drawing (Fig. 4) would be placed in the monolingual/intercultural perspective of EFL teaching. Figure 5 also exemplifies such an understanding. In this case, the student teacher explains that ‘As a teacher of English […] I am to bring insight to the pupils about knowledge, different perspectives of life, diverse cultures, the production of opinions, and the ability to convey these personal thoughts’. And she adds: ‘today, our world is so complex, that it is paramount to prepare young learners to learn how to adapt to so many possibilities and transmit them that English is an important tool to open many doors in the entire world. […] besides the usage of the language itself, I need to promote the students’ motivation and desire to work in union and as a team’ (drawing’s written explanation). Although this student teacher also seems to have a monolingual perspective of classroom communication and strongly advocates the status of English as an important tool in the international panorama, when compared to Fig. 4 this drawing reinforces much more the cultural diversity and the development of interpersonal competences. Such cultural diversity is symbolised by the coloured shades in the circle representing the world, and the (inter)personal sphere is exemplified through the human figures hand in hand around the world.

Fig. 5  Preparation for intercultural encounters through EFL (coloured) (Student teacher 3)

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To a certain extent, Figs. 4 and 5 may be understood as emergent steps toward EFL teaching from an intercultural, citizenship education (Byram et al., 2017). This conclusion is consistent with the results of the sub-category ‘values’ (n15) of category 1. The drawings under this sub-category explicitly reveal the valuing of intercultural dialogue, the counteracting of discourses of hatred, the fight against bullying, or the fostering of positive interpersonal ways of being, notably in the classroom. Yet, the critical questioning of the native speaker as a reference guide to conceive EFL teaching or of the (almost) exclusive presence of the English language in the classroom is not a predominant feature of the student teachers’ epistemology of practice.

6.2 An Emergent and Non-dominant Language (Teaching) Constellation: The Multilingual Classroom Despite the dominant epistemology of practice, and consequently DL(T)C, described in the previous section, we can also affirm that a new language teaching constellation is in the making: a multilingual/intercultural one. In this case, while examining all the 39 drawings regarding criteria such as temporality, progression, and complexity, it is possible to identify ecological transitions (to adopt Bronfenbrenner’s perspective; see Melo-Pfeifer, in this volume, to another use of this terminology) in student teachers’ mindsets. Gradually, they reinforce the intercultural dimension of their DL(T)C, which is visible in more complex and elaborated pedagogical discourse, trying to find a balance between a native-speaker-like classroom and a classroom open to cultural diversity in a broader sense. Student teacher 4 is one of such examples. In the first drawing, at the beginning of the programme’s 1st semester (Fig. 6), the student teacher resorts to a mathematical operation (addition) and the metaphor of the Olympics, to explain she is on a mission to bring knowledge (represented by the torchlight) to the pupils (symbolised by the pyre). But she also clarifies that the pupils themselves are a source of inspiration to the teacher when she needs motivation and new knowledge. Briefly and not focusing on all its nuances, this drawing gives centrality to the pedagogical relationship in the teaching and learning process. When asked to envision her classroom in a three-year’s time (end of the last semester of the programme), she represents two main interconnected dimensions of her own expectations regarding her mission as a teacher: a storytelling moment and a set of flags displayed on the classroom walls (Fig. 7). As the student teacher 4 clarifies, ‘I imagine my classroom decorated with flags from other countries (in case of a multicultural class, I’ll take care to select the flags from the pupils’ countries of origin) because I’ll implement the intercultural education in my classes for sure and, if I can, the plurilingual education too. I drew myself in the middle of my pupils telling a story, because I want to be closer to them, more

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Fig. 6  Olympic torchlight and pyre (originally coloured) (drawing 1, beginning of 1st semester) (Student teacher 4)

Fig. 7  EFL classroom as an intercultural encounter (originally coloured) (drawing 3, end of 3rd semester) (Student teacher 4)

involved in their social development. I believe that thanks to the implementation of an intercultural education in my classes and the use of multicultural story books that will be possible’ (drawing’s written explanation). This new image of the EFL teaching indicates the student teacher’s willingness and dispositions to make her classroom more open to cultural and, to some extent, linguistic plurality, although she is still trying to make sense of what that may mean.

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Fig. 8  EFL as a key to the world (drawing 1, beginning of 1st semester; and drawing 2, end of 1st semester) (originally in blue and white) (Student teacher 5)

Fig. 9  A multilingual and intercultural EFL classroom (Drawing 3, end of 3rd semester) (Student teacher 5)

In a similar vein, the three visual narratives of student teacher 5 (Figs. 8 and 9) are illustrative of such emergent language teaching constellation. In this case, the student teacher is much more aware of her idealised identity project as an EFL teacher from an intercultural and multilingual perspective and can represent it in her final drawing (Fig. 9). In her first drawings (Fig. 8), there is a common idea: that teaching EFL should concur to pupils’ development as citizens with an active role in society. She portrays herself as a facilitator, as the key that pedagogically opens the ways to such awareness. The second drawing reiterates such an understanding of her role as an EFL teacher in primary school. By adding a terrestrial globe, she tries to illustrate her own awareness of the connection between EFL teaching and education for global citizenship (Byram et al., 2017): ‘The teacher is the one that prepares their pupils so

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that they know how to live in society and how to work towards the common good of the local and global community; preparing them to be ready to keep track of the world’s evolution and to comply with their duties as global citizens.’ (Student teacher’s meta-narrative). In the long run, at the end of the programme’s last semester, student teacher 5 does not obliterate her initial representation of EFL but re-configures it to become more multilingual (Fig.  9). The different layers of the drawing also translate the complexity of her idealised mission as an EFL teacher and of what she aspires for her classroom. On the three blackboards at the top of the drawing, the student teacher registers the pedagogical guiding principles of EFL in the context of an awareness approach to linguistic and cultural diversity. In her own words, ‘The principles are the respect for oneself and for others, the awareness of (linguistic and cultural) diversity, the encouragement to the learning of other languages and cultures, the ability to revise one’s own traditions in a situation of intercultural interaction, the creation of moments that foster such kind of interaction […] and the valuing of the pupils’ knowledge of other languages in the process of teaching English. At last, I intend that my teaching practice prepares pupils to be active global citizens, who want to make a difference in society.’ (drawing’s written explanation). In this context, four situations are to be highlighted in the classroom learning environment. On the bottom left corner, there is a group of pupils dialoguing with each other using different languages. Some are complimenting themselves (e.g., ‘Hello!’, ‘Salut’, ‘Nihao’…), two others are saying ‘We are the same’ and ‘We learn together.’ In the middle of the drawing, around a round table, there is a group of pupils making their language biography (embodied by the flowers on the table). On the right side, a bookcase with books of different subject matters (e.g., Arts, Maths, Science, Stories, Cultures…) and the teacher saying ‘Today, we are learning Maths…’ and a pupil answering ‘Yes!!’ (which represents interdisciplinary teaching practices), and finally on the bottom right corner, there is the classroom door and two newly arrived pupils, one saying ‘Hello! I’m from India’ and the other ‘Hello! I’m from Japan’, and the teacher responding ‘Hello! Nice to meet you! Come in and join us!’, clearly trying to embrace a welcoming and inclusive environment, in which pupils and their languages are valued and seen as a resource (Young, 2018). Through her drawing, this teacher clearly tries to illustrate her wish to adopt a multilingual habitus (Gogolin, 1997) and a multilingual pedagogical rationale (Conteh & Meier, 2014; May, 2014) in her future EFL teaching practice, which may be part of more inclusive, just language education.

6.3 Discussion and Synthesis This chapter adopts a combination of complex theoretical constructs to try and understand student teachers’ professional learning trajectory in the context of a master’s programme and, specifically, two course units. Through the analysis of the student teachers’ visual representations of EFL teaching and themselves as

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teachers, we aimed to unveil the predominant language (teaching) constellations, and discuss the following questions: What DL(T)Cs are in the making when EFL teachers learn about multilingual and intercultural education? (RQ2), and in what way are student teachers developing a multilingual language awareness illustrative of language education as political action? (RQ3). Regarding RQ2, when student teachers are asked to think of the EFL classroom and themselves as teachers, the findings distinctly display a salient language: EFL. This is not necessarily critical, given that we are referring to a specific foreign language classroom, whose pragmatic and instrumental aims are the development of a communicative competence in such language. What deserves special attention is the fact that the drawings and corresponding written explanations underline a colonised view of the EFL classroom, giving place to British English or American English variants and a monocultural pedagogy (Macedo, 2019; Pinho & Moreira, 2012). Accordingly, such dominant language teaching constellation (Fig.  10) is much aligned with an episodic and additive perspective of curriculum management (Crozet et al., 1999), with the spotlight on the celebration of festivities and sociocultural competences, whereas the development of intercultural, multilingual awareness and competences, as an emergent language teaching constellations, seems to remain punctual (Byram, 2012) (illustrated by the dotted and dashed circles in Fig. 10). Conflictingly, such a narrow perspective of the cultural dimension in the classroom is also dialoguing with educational aims linked to the pupils’ overall development as persons and citizens, but eventually in a simple, romanticised way. The analysis of the drawings from another stance, that of temporality, demonstrates a less simplistic but a much more dynamic, complex, and pendular trajectory in the student teachers’ epistemology of practice and professional identity development (as represented by the two-way arrow in Fig. 10). The discourse of a multilingual and intercultural pedagogy is influential in how the student teachers negotiate their representations of EFL in the making. There is evidence that student teachers try and integrate such discourse (see Student teachers 4 and 5) according to their own ecological transitions and development as teachers-to-be. We believe that student teachers are developing a multilingual (and intercultural) language awareness (RQ3), but each of them tracing their own way according to their personal frameworks and lived experience. García (2017) argues that teachers develop a critical multilingual awareness when there is ‘(1) an awareness of plurilingualism and appreciation of linguistic tolerance, and its merits for democratic citizenship and (2) an awareness of the histories of colonial and imperialistic oppression that has produced the plurilingualism in society’ (p. 268). Byram et al. (2017, p.xxii) consider there are two main types of political action or action in the world, in the scope of language education for intercultural citizenship: (i) a pre-political (individuals engage with others and reflect critically on their own assumptions; or additionally, propose or imagine possible alternatives and changes), and (ii) a political (which includes three layers, that go from individuals engaging with other to get their perspective or advice and propose change or take action to foster change in their society, to getting involved in transnational communities and projects to act as a transnational group). The political dimension of language education would then

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Fig. 10  Dominant and emergent language teaching constellation

require a transformational criticality, which also includes self-reconstruction as a teacher. Accordingly, we conclude that the student teachers’ evolving language awareness may be indicative of an emergent understanding of language education as political action. Many of them show awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity (e.g., student teacher 2, Fig. 4; student teacher 3, Fig. 5), and could be placed in a pre-political engagement (Byram et al., 2017) or in García’s first dimension of multilingual language awareness. Student teacher 5, on the other hand, and her idealised multilingual English class (Fig. 9), draws near to a political engagement, but it does not necessarily translate an ‘awareness of the histories of colonial and imperialistic oppression that has produced the plurilingualism in society’ (García, 2017, p. 268). Clearly, the student teacher ambitions not to marginalise students’ prior knowledge and experiences, but whether or not Fig. 8 represents a decolonised perspective of the language classroom would also need further research, notably in practical terms through actual observation and enactment (Borg, 2018). In sum, we believe that student teachers’ DL(T)C is illustrative of a borderland discourse (Alsup, 2008), in many cases expressing a pendular movement, which means the student teachers are trying to situate themselves in-between a monolingual/monocultural perspective and a multilingual/intercultural one. What the drawings also depict is different I-positions as the student teachers try to author their own professional identity trajectory and to give meaning to their mission as teachers. Such subjectivities or I-positionings may be a result of a natural process of meaning-­ making and negotiation, but also of existing tensions resulting from an “ought” EFL

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teacher identity, an ‘idealised’ teacher identity, and the ‘actual’ self-image (Lauriala & Kukkonen, 2005; Schultz et al., 2018). Evidently, there is a clash between the idea of nativeness and a monolingual habitus, corresponding to functional, instrumental purposes of foreign language education, which the student teachers are somewhat trying to question, and an action-oriented nature in responding to socio-­ cultural issues. As Alsup (2008) explains about such borderland discourse, it is a transformative type of teacher identity discourse, [that] reflects a view of teacher identity that is holistic—inclusive of the intellectual, the corporeal, and the affective aspects of human selfhood. Within borderland discourse there is evidence of contact between disparate personal and professional subjectivities, which can lead to the eventual integration of these multiple subject positions. Such integration through discourse is vital for the developing teacher, who must negotiate conflicting subject positions and ideologies while creating a professional self. (p. 6)

Finally, the student teachers may be taking steps to become language policy makers, at least in how they draw their ought or idealised self as they go along in their learning path. Hence, the findings corroborate Beijaard (2019) when the author claims that teacher learning should be understood as learning an identity as teacher. The study displays the dynamic reconfiguration of the DL(T)C, and that such bits of DL(T)Cs are part of a multi-dimensional teaching repertoire and self-identity as EFL teachers, which need to be equated in a personal and professional learning trajectory and which cannot be dismantled from the linguistic and professional landscapes the (student) teachers live by. With respect to future research developments, it would be important to triangulate the findings with other collected data, such as student teachers’ meta-learning narratives, to identify situational and contextual factors that scaffolded the signalled transitions and thus to gain insight into the visually storied acts of identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, 2019; De Fina et al., 2006; Sachs, 2005). Considering the instructions for the drawings, a more complete analysis would also benefit from the detailed examination of the student teachers’ metaphors as conveyors of meaning (see Gabryś-Barker, in this volume, for a similar approach). Other developments might involve carrying out similar studies in other national contexts and with teachers from other languages.

7 Implications for Teacher Education The findings of the current study reiterate the importance of designing learning environments that support student teachers in the development of a perspective of language education as political action. Consequently, we believe it is adequate to reaffirm a set of axes and principles that may guide teacher education for linguistic and cultural diversity (Fig. 11). Although they are presented in a numerical order, for the sake of clarification, they should be seen as deeply interconnected and as doorways to the development of (student) teachers’ personal and professional identity.

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Fig. 11  Teacher education for linguistic and cultural diversity: axes and principles. (Source: Based on Pinho, 2008, 2015)

Societal and Ethical Axis: Education for Diversity, Dialogue, and the World  These axis and principle seek to underline language teachers’ awareness of the range of their educational actions in a close dialogue with the socio-historical contexts and communities, and the need to become aware of and act against hegemonic, excluding, and oppressive linguistic practices both in communication and the school. Teachers should be offered opportunities to know, understand, get interested in and treasure linguistic and cultural diversity, to interact and collaborate with others, to get transformed by such plurality and interaction. It is paramount to support them to value and manage linguistic and cultural diversity in educational settings and re-­ construct their own plural identities. Ontological Axis: Education for Plurilingual and Intercultural Professional Identity  Teacher identity, which is temporary, unstable, and multiple is central in teacher education. Language teachers should be given the chance to challenge and re-define their images as teachers, identify their mission in collaboration with others, revise their professional projects. Considering that experience is a source for critical reflection and a resource for professional development, language teachers’ linguistic, intercultural and pedagogical biographies are important scaffolds for self- and joint knowledge building in several domains: discovery of their plurilingual nature; disclosure of own possibilities to become linguistic and culturally-­ oriented teachers; critical awareness of dispositions and representations (about oneself, languages, cultures, peoples, language curriculum, teaching practices…), their evolution and influence upon their own communicative and pedagogical actions.

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Epistemological Axis: Education for Professional Learning Awareness  Considering that teacher identity and professional knowledge are profoundly entangled, this axis intends to highlight two dimensions: one, the need to develop teachers’ knowledge for teaching with respect to linguistic and cultural diversity; the other, the need to foster teachers’ awareness of their professional learning. In view of the complexity of the (language) teaching profession, it is important to prepare teachers to the evolving, transient and compositional nature of professional knowledge, and to make them aware of such reality. The contact with other linguistic and communicative milieus or the design of educational situations associated to diversity as a content and a process of teaching/learning, may potentially become scenarios in which language teachers re-discover their mission and gain authorship of their professional learning project. Praxiological Axis: Education for Action and Enactment  This brings to light the relevance of empowering teachers to develop a linguistic and cultural diversity-­ oriented practice. Following more integrated approaches that combine theory and the enactment of practice would support language teachers in developing a context-­ based action in favour of and according to the existing diversity in school, to get engaged in critical pedagogical thinking about the language curriculum and cross-­ curricular planning, and to expand their didactic repertoire based on constructive lessons resulting from decision-making in real-time situations. This would also be vital to identify new implications for practice and get involved in collaborative action within the school community or in transnational communities.

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The Dynamics of Dominant Language Constellations: Moments of Linguistic ‘Ecological Transition’ as Portrayed by Pre-service Language Teachers Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

Abstract  Individual language biographies have been associated to students’ and preservice teachers’ language awareness and willingness to engage in multilingual pedagogies. In this contribution, I analyse student teachers’ language biographies to understand how these social actors perceive their own development throughout the life span. Building on my previous distinction between latent and real Dominant Language Constellation (DLC), I describe how visual and written language autobiographies carry the traces of significant moments of linguistic ecological transitions, following Bronfenbrenner’s theory of human development. I argue that not all languages of the latent DLC integrate the real DLC and that those moments of transition are important to explain internal changes in an individual’s DLC across their lifespan. Focusing on language autobiographies of student teachers of French in Germany, I identify three moments of linguistic ecological transitions that are represented as impacting their DLC: starting to learn particular languages at school, emigrating as an adult (and having to adapt to a new schooling and professional environment), and studying and working abroad for a (limited) period of time. Following a content and multimodal analysis of the written and visual language narratives, I show that: (i) none of these moments has a uniform impact on student teachers’ DLC; and (ii) the sustainable development and maintenance of student teachers’ DLC is not achieved through the juxtaposition of single moments of linguistic transition, but rather through the dynamics and relationships that characterize them. In the conclusion, I advance the idea that the DLC approach contributes to a more holistic, emic, and individual-based explanation of multilingualism as lived, in what could be an innovative model of multilingualism. Keywords  Language biographies · Visual methods · Linguistic ecological transition · Pre-service teachers · Latent DLC · Real DLC · Identity · Multimodality

S. Melo-Pfeifer (*) Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_12

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1 Introduction In this chapter, I draw on the theories of human development by U. Bronfenbrenner (1979) to grasp the dynamics of Dominant Language Constellations (DLC). In a previous contribution (Melo-Pfeifer, 2021), I distinguished between potential (or latent) and real DLC following a tripartite theoretical framework bringing together Dominant Language Constellations (Aronin, 2016), dynamic systems theories (Verspoor et al., 2011), and complexity theory (Larsen-Freeman, 2017), suggesting that plurilingual repertoires of individuals adjust in dynamic and unpredictable ways, leading to changing DLC over time. In Aronin’s definition of DLC, this theoretical construct refers to ‘the constellation of one’s dominant languages, is a group of one’s most important (vehicle) languages, functioning as an entire unit, and enabling an individual to meet all his or her needs in a multilingual environment’ (2016, p.  146). Because linguistic repertoires are dynamic, I claimed that not all languages that a person uses, learns and/or has contact with are immediately or necessarily part of their real DLC (Melo-Pfeifer, 2021). Languages can stay dormant waiting to be awoken by changes in individuals’ linguistic needs, aims and projects. Similarly, languages at the core of the DLC can move to the periphery for the same reasons. The latent DLC might or might not convert into real DLC.  I understand latent DLC as being related, for example, to ‘linguistic socialisation at school, in the family and the professionalisation path’ (Melo-Pfeifer, 2021, p. 210), referring to languages that may have been acquired (with different levels of proficiency) at some point of the language biography (ibidem). Such a viewpoint has a methodological implication: latent DLC can be traced through the analysis of an individual’s language biography. Following that previous contribution, I now argue that to move from latent to actual DLC, individuals have to go through significant changes in their linguistic lives, with implications for their identities and repertoires. I will analyze how pre-­ service language teachers represent and reconstruct ‘moments of linguistic ecological transition’, to understand which moments in the language biography might impact the formation and transformation of individuals’ DLC.  This approach is supported by the notion of ‘ecological transition’ which ‘occurs whenever a person’s position in the ecological environment is altered as the result of a change in role, setting or both’ (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 26). This means that changes in the linguistic setting of the individual, either at the micro-, meso- or exosystem, potentially influence the roles, values, status, and opportunities of using that one language will have in an individual’s life, inhibiting or fostering its inclusion and maintenance in the DLC. In this contribution, I answer the following research questions: which moments of linguistic ecological transition are represented by student teachers when drawing and reflecting about their language biographies? Which ecological transitions are perceived as facilitating or hindering the transformation of potential DLC into actual ones? Following the multimodal analysis of 20 visual language autobiographies and the content analysis of the 20 texts student-teachers produced about them

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(in Summer Semester 2021), I will describe, classify, and analyse the moments of linguistic ecological transition that students represented and how those moments are perceived to impact their DLC.

2 Language Biographies, Dominant Language Constellations, and Moments of Linguistic Ecological Transition: Connecting the Dots The concept of DLC has recently been included in the study of individual and societal multilingualism to highlight important features influencing how individuals cope with linguistic diversity and use languages. DLC ‘reflects contemporary language practices in that it views several languages used habitually by a person or group as one linguistic ‘unit of circulation’ (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021, p. 1). This theoretical perspective underlines the fact that even if individuals have a plurilingual competence made of productive and/or receptive skills in different languages, their skills in those languages might be unbalanced (Aronin, 2019; Marshall & Moore, 2016; Piccardo, 2019), and only a set of languages is used regularly to achieve communicative goals and are actively present in daily lives (Aronin, 2016, 2020). So, while plurilingual competence or language repertoire focuses on the totality of languages and skills an individual possesses, the concept of DLC stresses the fact that not all languages fulfil the same roles and that a distinction is needed between languages that are used regularly from other languages in the repertoire. Understood from this perspective, DLC is a set of selected languages and skills (Aronin, 2016), hence it can be seen as a sub-system of the plurilingual repertoire: ‘Unlike a language repertoire, a DLC comprises the languages which, together, perform the most vital functions of language’ (Aronin, 2019, p. 15). The concept of DLC is in close relation to that of language biography because language biographies mirror language learning and use, meaning that, used as heuristic tools, they allow us to understand how individuals become plurilingual i.e. how, when, and with whom they encountered which languages (Busch, 2017; Melo-­ Pfeifer & Chik, 2020; Molinié, 2006). Indeed, both repertoire and DLC ‘consist of language knowledge and skills, and both are ‘biographical’ since they evolve from one’s personal life trajectories and choices’ (Aronin, 2019, p. 17). Language biographies, as instruments of data collection, allow us to understand the times and places of language learning(s) and use(s), and they give us an account of how individuals position themselves towards those languages, in terms of affection, proficiency, and circumstances and frequency of use. Considering the relationship established in the previous paragraph between the plurilingual repertoire and the DLC, we can affirm that language biographies help to describe and understand the development and functioning of individuals’ plurilingual repertoire, while at the same time hierarchizing the languages that compose it in terms of perceived importance, frequency of use in a particular period of time/life or emotional attachment.

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Those languages reported to be connected to all situations of daily life and fulfilling most frequently a more varied range of communicative functions will be considered to be part of an individual’s DLC. It has been reported that linguistic repertoires are dynamic because they depend upon the dynamics of the language biography (Melo-Pfeifer & Calvo del Olmo, 2021; Molinié, 2006; Ortega, 2019). Language biographies are also dynamic as they depend on the individuals’ life circumstances leading to formal and/or informal contact with different languages. Not all contacts with all languages will be perceived as salient by individuals, as they might perceive those contacts as too sporadic or meaningless. Thus, not all contacts are likely to be reported in a language biography and, among those that are, not all will be given the same relevance. In this contribution, I claim that moments in life and situations of contact with particular languages that are given relevance in a language biography (because of the way individuals perceive them as having transformed their lives) can be called moments of linguistic ecological transition. On this point I follow Bronfenbrenner (1979), who defined ecological transitions in the field of the ecology of human development. The author explains the notion of ‘ecology of human development’ in the following terms: The ecology of human development involves the scientific study of the progressive, mutual accommodation between an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives, as this process is affected by relations between these settings, and by the larger contexts in which the settings are embedded (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 21).

According to Bronfenbrenner, ecological transitions thus occur throughout the life span (idem, p. 26), depending on changes in the relationship between the individual and its environment. Such ecological transitions are conceived as both causes and consequences of developmental processes. Linguistic ecological transitions are then to an individual’s language biography what ecological transitions are to their life story. Moments of (linguistic) ecological transition can take place at the micro(family level), meso- (school level), and exo- or macrosystem levels (migrating to a different country). Bronfenbrenner refers to changes at all these levels as follows: The appearance of a younger sibling is a microsystem phenomenon, entry into school changes exo- into mesosystem, and emigrating to another country (or perhaps just visiting the home of a friend from different socioeconomic or cultural [and I would add linguistic] background) involves crossing macrosystem borders (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 21).

For the scope of this contribution, significant moments of linguistic ecological transition, i.e., moments that individuals perceive as having impacted their language biographies in a meaningful way, include (but are not limited to) starting to learn a new language at school, migrating to another country, marrying an individual from another linguistic background (being part of a mixed-couple), giving birth to a child in mixed couples, and adopting a specific family language policy, or starting a new job with specific linguistic requirements. These examples highlight the fact that,

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when learning or contacting with a new language, an individual is not ‘a tabula rasa on which the environment makes its impact, but is a growing, dynamic entity that progressively moves into and restructures the milieu in which it resides’ (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 21). To answer my research questions, I will explore in this empirical study student teachers’ visual and written language biographies. This will also allow me to make more tangible the connection between individuals’ language biographies, their DLCs and the moments of linguistic ecological transition.

3 Empirical Study 3.1 Context and Participants The corpus for the empirical study is constituted of 20 visual language autobiographies and 20 texts pre-service teachers produced about them, in Summer Semester 2021, at the University of Hamburg. All the participants in the study were bachelor students, enrolled in the course ‘Introduction to teaching and learning of French’, which was taught by the author of this contribution. The course had 14 sessions and was taught online, by engaging in asynchronous communication (discussion forums, most of the time). In the first week, students were asked to draw and explain their linguistic and professional biography, as a way to break the ice and get to know each other better. The instruction provided to the students was ‘I’m giving you a challenge this week: could you make your presentation visually? Who are you? What are your languages and origins? How did you decide to become a French teacher? So... get to work: draw your biographical and professional paths and leave some words of reflection in the discussion forum:)’. Students uploaded their productions individually. All students visually represented at least three languages, meaning that this is a highly multilingual group. In total, students referred to competencies in 15 different languages, the prototypical dominant language constellation comprising German (20 students), English (19) and French (20). Other languages referred to as being learnt at school were Ancient Greek (2 students), Italian (2), Latin (2) and Spanish (9). Other languages referred, that were considered either as a mother tongue or a heritage language were Arabic (2 students), Armenian (1), Czech (1), Dari (1), Rhaeto-Romanic (1), and Russian (1). One language (Norwegian), was referred to, once, as a language one student decided to learn out of curiosity. We can then conclude that the main elements contributing to the constitution of students’ DLC are: learning the majority language (German), language learning as part of the school curriculum (mainly French and English, for the present cohort of students), and having a migrant background (see Brinkmann, in this volume; Melo-­ Pfeifer, 2021; Melo-Pfeifer & Calvo del Olmo, 2021).

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3.2 Data Analysis Procedures In this contribution, I combine the analysis of visual and written language biographies, the former referring to drawn representations of language learning and use paths, resorting to symbols, visual elements, words, etc. (Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2019), and the second referring to a textual reconstruction of that same path. Because ‘different modi of representation offer different affordances to individuals’ (Melo-Pfeifer, 2021, p. 209), in the elicitation task I combined both visual and narrative modi, not in search of contradictions or differences in the narratives, but rather in search of complementarities and saturation of information. Furthermore, eliciting visualizations to understand and give sense to the lived multilingualism and DLC also contributes to ‘enhancing cognition and raising awareness in all stakeholders’ (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021, p. 5). For the analysis of the visual and written narratives, I carried out a content analysis, searching for a visual and written account of moments of linguistic ecological transition, such as those recalled in the literature review. Therefore, parallel to the analysis of linguistic diversity in drawings and texts, I searched for visual and written representations of significant changes in student teachers’ lives that might lead to changes in their DLC, with an open mind about what those moments could be. I started looking for new formal language learning experiences, migration experiences, and changes in marital status and having a child, or job changes, as these are already reported in the literature. Such changes might be visually represented through arrows (indicating directions and sequences of facts) or changes in the use of colours (as already saw in Melo-Pfeifer & Chik, 2020) or textually represented through temporal adverbs or connectors (‘and then’), denoting changes and the beginning of what is perceived by the subject as a new (life) phase. As a result, I was interested in representations of change, leading (or not) to the need to linguistically adapt to it.

4 Analysis of the Corpus 4.1 Moments of Linguistic Ecological Transition Represented by Student Teachers Most the students start their narratives (both visual and written) by referring to growing up monolingually (in German, 13 students) or bilingually1 (7 students) as starting points for the constitution of their plurilingual repertoire and DLC. Image 1 presents a detail from a visual language biography in which the student depicts growing up bilingually.  Named linguistic combinations were: Arabic-French (1 student), Armenian-Russian (1), FrenchArabic (1), German- Czech (1), German-Dari (1), German-French (2). 1

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Image 1  Detail of a student’s language biography (Student HS (Abbreviation of students’ codification to preserve anonymity. The same procedure was applied to all visual and textual narratives), edited to remove the name of the student)

Image 2  Development of a linguistic repertoire associated to schooling progression

It would seem that they consider this biographical given (at the micro-level), upon which they had no influence, as the ground zero of their current linguistic repertoires. Accordingly, I considered the analysis of moments of ecological transition from this point in life on. References to languages learnt at school are often connected to a building, which is identified as primary, middle and/or high secondary school. Changes from one school to another, at the meso level, are associated to starting, stopping or continuing learning a modern language (Image 2)

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In this representation, language learning adds to German as a mother tongue (‘Muttersprache’) and appears successively, from one school to the next, each associated with a school year (3rd, 5th and 8th years), leading to university. This strong connection of languages to different school years is very frequent in our corpus. Students also consistently refer to the first contact with a new curricular language at school as a discovery and transformative moment, influencing their linguistic and even career choices. Some students are very explicit about the role of school in the discovery of their linguistic affinities and passions, whether growing up monolingually (excerpt 1) or bilingually (excerpt 2): Excerpt 1. While I was a little intimidated by the new grammar and unfamiliar words at first, I was quickly captivated by the beautiful sound of the language and can say in retrospect that my passion for the French language developed from that point on (MV, original in German). Excerpt 2. At secondary school, French and Spanish were added as second and third foreign languages respectively. Over the years, I also developed a great enthusiasm for these two languages, so that at the end of my school career I decided to follow my passion and start studying these two languages (JC, bilingual student, original in German).

A different version of this association between language learning and school includes the representation of one or more periods of study abroad, for shorter or longer periods, during or after formal language learning. Such a representation can be understood as a combination of significant transitions at the meso and macro levels. This is the case of 10 visual representations, or 50% of the corpus (Image 3).

Image 3  Combination of language learning at school and sojourning abroad (Student MG)

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In Image 3, the student mentions German as the mother tongue (‘langue maternelle’) and from this point in life she describes the successive learning of English, Spanish and French, even referring to the pluricentricity of Spanish (European and Colombian Spanish) and English (British and American English). The succession of language learning at school, limited to the European version of those languages is complemented by contacts with those languages abroad, either to study or in holiday periods. The author of the drawing explains, in her written narrative: ‘I was very lucky to find a great French teacher who was able to inspire me for the language in the long term and fostered our interests. (...) When I was 13, I took part in an exchange programme and spent a month and a half in La Rochelle’ (MG). As important as studying and working abroad can be, students are not always unanimous on the role it plays in sustaining a DLC.  While for some students, it might play a crucial role in creating and fostering language-learning motivation and in supporting the integration of a language in the DLC (excerpt 3), for others staying abroad is not sufficient to sustain language use and language development, namely when back in Germany the language is not further supported (excerpt 4). Excerpt 3. In grade 8, French became compulsory. To be honest, I wanted to learn Spanish. I never really enjoyed language lessons at school. However, since I was a bit more talented here compared to the other subjects, I focused on languages. My attitude towards languages changed at the end of middle school by a happy coincidence: I was able to spend my summer holidays in France through an exchange programme. In (real) contact with people, I quickly developed a lot of joy in being able to communicate and to get closer to other people through language (LS, original in German). Excerpt 4. I also studied Spanish from grade 8 to 10 and travelled to Colombia for two months after graduating from high school. Since then, however, I unfortunately no longer use it, so that my Spanish is now more than ‘rusty’… (MG, original in German; see Image 3, by the same student).

This section has presented and discussed some moments of linguistic ecological transition. The presentation of the data made it clear how important linguistic environments are in transforming latent into real DLC. It was possible to observe that the same moments of linguistic transition do not have the same influence upon all students in the same way. While some students do not see starting a new language at school as motivating and life-changing, some do refer to formal language learning as having a transformative potential, influencing career choices later in life (such as becoming a French teacher). We could also see that despite its potential advantages, studying and working abroad are important and relevant but not sufficient conditions for students to transform latent DLC into real DLC. In my reading, it appears that students consider that moments of linguistic ecological transition can be reverted and their impact on linguistic competencies erased. This would not mean, following the conceptualisation of DLC, that languages disappear from students’ linguistic repertoires, but that they move into a peripheral dimension of the constellation.

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4.2 Ecological Transitions and DLC Dynamics: Which Ecological Transitions Facilitate and/or Hinder the Transformation of Potential DLC into Real Ones? One linguistic ecological transition mentioned by students that went through the ecological transition of changing country in their lifetime (whether as a child or as an adult) was the contact with new languages and different school traditions. Such significant changes are associated with learning a new majority language to integrate the new school system or to complete studies in the new country, constituting changes at the macro and exo levels. Image 4 reflects these life changes. In this drawing, the student represents her infancy with two languages in the kindergarten (Armenian and Russian), adding French and English in the first school, before migrating to Germany where she had to learn German to complete her Abitur (the exams to finish secondary school which give access to higher education). German acquires a visual predominance in the drawing, represented in association with a specific goal (Abitur) and separated from the other four languages of the repertoire (bottom right corner). At the university, she represents French inside the building to refer to her career choice as a teacher of French and all other languages, including German, are represented outside of the building, alongside the roof, which could be associated with a protecting function. Her home languages form the base vertices of the roof-triangle, with English and German being at the same level in a second-tier. The student reflects upon the transition to Germany in the written text in the following terms (excerpt 5):

Image 4  From a bilingual environment to Germany (IA)

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Excerpt 5. Six years ago, I moved to Germany with my family and started learning German. I attended school for a year and had to take a B2 exam to get into the upper school and be able to do my Abitur (IA, original in German).

The previous excerpt shows that students are aware of the need to adapt to the new surroundings and that they precisely know what kind of linguistic requirements are needed to achieve their goals (B2 proficiency). Adapting to a new environment thus keeps the traces of agentive action and this agency is needed to include a new language at the heart of the DLC. Another student reflecting on the need to learn German as an adult to succeed as a teacher is RE (a bilingual student) who linguistically adapted to the new environment through two strategies: first, by choosing to pursue his career as a teacher of one of his mother tongues (adding it to his other subject, Sports); and secondly, by actively pursuing a C2 proficiency exam in German, to be eligible to be considered a teacher in the new country. We can therefore conclude that students consciously plan their DLC transformation, by establishing professional goals. Planning their professional goals leads them to achieve certain proficiency levels in the new language and to make choices in terms of which languages they could teach. These dimensions are present in the narratives of students that had to learn German as adults. For students who migrated earlier in their lives, the representation of the migratory experience is not described as entailing the same efforts to adapt. Another moment of linguistic ecological transition that is commonly referred to by the participants in our study is the moment of starting a new language at school, even if they are not always positively described. In the following drawing (Image 5), the student reports positive and negative moments of linguistic transitions regarding the same language (English). This drawing reveals that the first contact with English at primary school was not a happy one. Such an unfortunate first encounter with the language is represented through an unhappy and crying smile and the crossing of the flag for the language. In another transition (to the first years of secondary school – ‘5. Klasse’), the representation of the relationship to English changes, being now represented through a happy smile. It can be observed that, from this moment on, English will always be present in the schooling path, even influencing career choice: becoming an English and French teacher. In the written narrative (excerpt 6), the student reflects on her linguistic choices in terms of curiosity, enthusiasm and love: Excerpt 6. But when I got to grammar school, I started learning English and caught fire. When the question arose in the sixth grade whether I wanted to learn French or Spanish, I could not decide! In the end, I started French and my enthusiasm for foreign languages grew and grew. (…) After my Abitur, I thought a lot about what I wanted to do professionally (…). Then I found the opportunity to combine my two interests in the teaching profession. That is why I am now studying English and French to become a teacher (LG, original in German).

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Image 5  Linguistic ecological transitions associated with English (LG, edited to remove the name of the student)

Ecological transitions in life are introduced by discursive features that accentuate the meaning of those changes: ‘but when I got to a grammar school’, ‘In the tenth grade’, ‘After my Abitur’ and ‘Then I found the opportunity’. Each of these moments in the written narrative is associated with a linguistic choice (linguistic ecological transition) and are also visually highlighted by the representation of flags, smileys and school buildings. Again, learning different languages at school, even in a successive and additive way and without referring to connections across these different languages, is experienced positively by the students. Such a positive representation highlights the role of schooling in being and becoming plurilingual, namely in countries like Germany, where German is constructed as the majority language and the country as monolingual, and where not all students would have the possibility to learn/acquire languages otherwise. Such representations support the need to develop holistic approaches to multilingualism in education (Duarte & van der Meij, 2018). Studying and working abroad are also represented very positively in our corpus, even if they do not work alone in sustaining DLC. As referred to in the previous section, what seems to make the contribution of studying and working abroad crucial in transforming latent into real DLC is the combination with curricular paths and the sustained use of the language when the student return home. From this analysis, it seems possible to state that while isolated moments of linguistic transition are important to understand how one particular language enters the latent DLC, it is the sequence of moments and the relationship between them that promote the construction and the sustainability of a DLC.

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5 Synthesis and Perspectives: Towards an Ecological Model of Individual Multilingualism Development In this contribution, I analysed the visual and written language biographies of student teachers of French in Germany. I proposed an approach based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development, stressing that moments of (linguistic) ecological transition do not happen in a vacuum but are defined by the context in which they occur (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In addition, adopting a dynamic perspective, again following Bronfenbrenner, I could show that these moments of linguistic ecological transition alter or have an influence over the very contexts within which they occur, leaving traces of cumulative experiences of contact with languages. I hypothesise that such linguistic contacts could have an impact on student teachers’ willingness to engage in multilingual pedagogies, as such willingness seems to be dependent upon teachers’ linguistic profiles, beliefs and language awareness (Andrews & Lin, 2018; Borg, 2018): in common, these three factors have the fact that they interweave and influence each other across the life span, and all three are anchored in teachers’ biographies. Regarding the first research question, I could identify three major moments of linguistic ecological transition that are consistently reported in student teachers’ visual and written biographies: starting a new language at school, emigrating as an adult, and studying and working abroad. I could also show that those moments, which are reported at the meso, macro and exo levels, are important to transform latent into real DLC and that they do not leave the same traces in the DLC of different individuals. For some students, the first contact with a new language is disheartening, while for others it is an immediately revealing, uplifting moment with the potential to change their lives. I therefore hypothesise that individual moments of transition are important but they should be seen as interplaying with other moments or with the repeated occurrence of moments belonging to the same category (for example, starting different languages at school or migrating several times). As a perspective for further research, I would point out the need to explore how each of these three major moments of linguistic ecological transition influences the development of student teachers’ language awareness and their willingness to engage in multilingual pedagogies. From the empirical analysis it was possible to describe the dynamics of individuals’ DLC by resorting to visual and written language autobiographies and by looking at them through an ecological developmental lens. Because of this approach, the analysis takes on an emic perspective, i.e. from within the group studied. I tried to report student teachers’ perspectives on the linguistic changes affecting their lives, thus providing a subjective account of what it means to be and become plurilingual in the life span (Cenoz & Gorter, 2015). Such an effort is aligned with current studies on individual multilingualism that sees multilingualism as lived, i.e., as subjectively perceived by individuals (Kalaja & Melo-Pfeifer, 2019). Following this perspective and the analysis carried out, I support the idea that the DLC approach contributes to a holistic, emic, and individual-based explanation of multilingualism

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as lived, being a potential new model of multilingualism (Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020). This model, which I would characterize as ecological and individual-centred, could be added to the existing models (Aronin & Moccozet, 2021, p. 3), such as the Factor Model (Hufeisen, 2018), the Dynamic Model of Multilingualism (DMM, Herdina & Jessner, 2002), the Biotic Model of Multilingualism (Aronin & Ó Laoire, 2004), the Role-Function Model (Williams & Hammarberg, 1998), and the Multilingual Processing Model (Meißner, 2003). This study can thus be understood as a contribution to the still small number of specific models of multilingualism.

References Andrews, S., & Lin, A. (2018). Language awareness and teacher development. In P.  Garrett & J. Cots (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of language awareness (pp. 57–74). Routledge. Aronin, L. (2016). Multi-competence and dominant language constellation. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic multicompetence (pp.  142–163). Cambridge University Press. Aronin, L. (2019). Dominant language constellation as a method of research. In E.  Vetter & U. Jessner (Eds.), International research on multilingualism. Breaking with the monolingual perspective (pp. 13–26). Springer. Aronin, L. (2020). Dominant language constellation as an approach for studying multilingual practices. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 19–33). Springer. Aronin, L., & Moccozet, M. (2021). Dominant language constellations: Towards online computer-­ assisted modelling. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.108 0/14790718.2021.1941975 Aronin, L., & Ó Laoire, M. (2004). Exploring multilingualism in cultural contexts: Towards a notion of multilinguality. In C. Hoffmann & J. Ytsma (Eds.), Trilingualism in family, school and community (pp. 11–29). Multilingual Matters. Borg, S. (2018). Teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. In P.  Garrett & J.  Cots (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of language awareness (pp. 75–91). Routledge. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Harvard University Press. Busch, B. (2017). Biographic approaches to research in multilingual settings. Exploring linguistic repertoires. In M. Martin-Jones & D. Martin (Eds.), Researching multilingualism. Critical and ethnographic perspectives (pp. 46–59). Routledge. Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2015). Multilingual education: Between language learning and translanguaging. Cambridge University Press. Duarte, J., & van der Meij, M. (2018). A holistic model for multilingualism in education. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages, 5(2), 24–43. https://doi.org/1 0.21283/2376905X.9.153 Herdina, P., & Jessner, U. (2002). A dynamic model of multilingualism: Perspectives of change in psycholinguistics. Multilingual Matters. Hufeisen, B. (2018). Models of multilingual competence. In A.  Bonnet & P.  Siemund (Eds.), Foreign language education in multilingual classrooms (pp. 173–189). John Benjamins. Kalaja, P., & Melo-Pfeifer, S. (Eds.). (2019). Visualising multilingual lives: More than words. Multilingual Matters. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2017). Complexity theory: The lessons continue. In L. Ortega & Z. H. Han (Eds.), Complexity theory and language development (pp. 11–50). John Benjamins. Lo Bianco, J., & Aronin, L. (Eds.). (2020). Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism. Springer.

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Marshall, S., & Moore, D. (2016). Plurilingualism amid the panoply of lingualisms: Addressing critiques and misconceptions in education. International Journal of Multilingualism, 15, 19–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2016.1253699 Meißner, F.-J. (2003). Eurocomdidact: Learning and teaching plurilingual comprehension. In L.  Zybatow (Ed.), Sprachkompetenz  – Mehrsprachigkeit  – Translation. Akten des 35. Linguistischen Kolloquiums (pp. 33–46). Narr. Melo-Pfeifer, S. (2021). Understanding dominant language constellations through analysis of visual linguistic autobiographies by foreign language student teachers in Germany. In L. Aronin & E. Vetter (Eds.), Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition (pp. 203–224). Springer. Melo-Pfeifer, S., & Calvo Del Olmo, F. (2021). A biografia linguística visual como instrumento de pesquisa multimodal sobre o desenvolvimento da competência plurilingue. Revista X, 17(2), 357–380. Melo-Pfeifer, S., & Chik, A. (2020). Multimodal linguistic biographies of prospective foreign language teachers in Germany: Reconstructing beliefs about languages and multilingual language learning in initial teacher education. International Journal of Multilingualism, 19, 499–522. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2020.1753748 Molinié, M. (Ed.). (2006). Biographie langagière et apprentissage plurilingue [Linguistic biography and multilingual learning] (p. 39). Le Français dans le Monde, Recherches et Applications. Ortega, L. (2019). SLA and the study of equitable multilingualism. The Modern Language Journal, 103, 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.125250026-­7902/19/ Piccardo, E. (2019). ‘We are all (potential) plurilinguals’: Plurilingualism as an overarching, holistic concept. Cahiers de L’ILOB, 10(183–204). https://doi.org/10.18192/olbiwp.v10i0.3825 Verspoor, M., De Bot, K., & Lowie, W. (Eds.). (2011). A dynamic approach to second language development. John Benjamins. Williams, S., & Hammarberg, B. (1998). Language switches in L3 production: Implications for a polyglot speaking model. Applied Linguistics, 19(3), 295–333. https://doi.org/10.1093/ applin/19.3.295

‘We Can Do More With It’: Dominant Language Constellations of Teachers in Multilingual Frisian Primary Schools Suzanne V. Dekker, Linde M. Kootstra, Hanneke Loerts, and Joana Duarte

Abstract  Primary school teachers’ attitudes, knowledge, and practical skills are vital in facilitating pupils’ multilingualism. To improve language teaching and pupils’ learning, it is therefore necessary to examine these constructs. This study aims to gain more insight into the attitudes, knowledge and practical skills of primary school teachers participating in an intervention to foster multilingual education. Within the framework of Dominant Language Constellations (DLC), we highlight the way languages are used and viewed within the bilingual province of Friesland, the Netherlands. Based on 23 semi-structured interviews with in-service teachers and principals, the current study investigates patterns of self-reported DLCs that emerge among primary school teachers in Friesland, as well as to what extent a typology of attitudes, knowledge and practical skills of in-service teachers can be developed. This study shows how DLCs can be applied to the study of attitudes. Our self-­ reported DLCs are categorized into three levels depending on how teachers view pupils’ languages as part of their curriculum: Acknowledged, Semi-Integrated, or Included. Furthermore, we create a typology of inclusive, welcoming or tolerant teachers who show positive attitudes towards multilingualism and the implementation of multilingual education, are knowledgeable regarding various benefits of multilingualism, and reflect on their active use of multilingualism. Keywords  Multilingualism · Language attitudes · Language awareness · Identity · Dominant Language Constellations (DLCs)

S. V. Dekker (*) · H. Loerts · J. Duarte University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] L. M. Kootstra NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_13

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1 Introduction Research has repeatedly indicated that multilingual pupils’ academic performance and socio-affective development improves when their home languages are used at school (e.g. García & Beardsmore, 2009; Sierens & Van Avermaet, 2014). As teachers are vital in facilitating multilingualism for primary school-aged children in educational settings (Haukås, 2016), they must develop the competences required for successful integration of home languages in the classroom, together with positive attitudes towards those languages (Blömeke et  al., 2015). Although teachers are positive about multilingualism in general, they often perceive their pupils’ primary languages as an obstacle for learning the school languages (De Angelis, 2011; Lee & Oxelson, 2006; Pulinx et al., 2015). To address the needs of multilingual pupils, and improve language teaching and pupils’ learning, it is therefore necessary to examine teachers’ attitudes, knowledge, and the practical skills to implement multilingual pedagogies (Barros et al., 2020; Borg, 2015; Cummins, 2000; De Angelis, 2011). The current study was conducted in the bilingual province of Friesland, the Netherlands, where Dutch and Frisian are official languages. Frisian is spoken by approximately 57% of the province’s population, 45% speaks only Dutch, and 10% speaks other languages (Provinsje Fryslân, 2019). Generally, negative attitudes towards the Frisian language prevail (Hilton & Gooskens, 2013). As stated by Duarte and Günther-van der Meij (2018), Friesland is in the process of consolidating the position of Frisian in education. Additionally, the increasing presence of immigrant languages means that schools need to address the increasing linguistic diversity (Mercator, 2017). In this context, schools face three challenges: help pupils improve and achieve a certain proficiency level in Frisian (in many cases not the home language), support the learning of English increasingly early in primary education, and address the varied linguistic background of migrant pupils (Makarova et al., 2021). Against this background, Project 3M (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018) works to implement pedagogies that promote language awareness and develop multilingual competences. The project enlists teachers from schools with four different categories in relation to the sociolinguistic backgrounds of the pupils. The Trilingual schools, with a high percentage of Frisian-speaking pupils, focus on education in Dutch, Frisian and English. The Mostly Dutch category consists of schools wherein the majority of pupils are Dutch-speakers. The Non-Dutch category contains schools where pupils have highly diverse linguistic backgrounds, often including second and third generation migrant children. Finally, migrant schools are specifically for pupils with a refugee or asylum-seeking background; these schools contain exclusively newly arrived pupils. The multilingual pedagogies of the 3M project are often referred to as pedagogical translanguaging (Cenoz & Gorter, 2021). They are part of the Dominant Language Constellation (DLC) Approach to teaching and learning languages which revolves around ‘bringing forth pupils’ constellations through the awareness of the languages they know and actually using them pedagogically for learning’ (Sugrañes, 2021, p. 62). A DLC (Aronin, 2016) represents the core group of language registers

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and varieties utilized to function in a multilingual setting (Aronin, 2020). DLCs are a novel perspective that aims at advancing the understanding of current multilingualism (Bianco & Aronin, 2020), denoting “the set of a person’s or group’s most expedient languages, functioning as an entire unit and enabling an individual or group to meet their needs in a multilingual environment” (Bianco & Aronin, 2020, p. 5). This study aims to gain more insight into the attitudes, knowledge, and practical skills of primary school teachers, and their DLCs. Although DLCs have primarily been used in education to provide an overview of languages based on classroom observations (Sugrañes, 2021), our novel approach to DLCs shows they can be used to visualise teachers’ attitudes towards multilingual education. Our focus lies on the self-reported DLCs of teachers, instead of the observed DLCs of pupils. Based on 23 semi-structured interviews with in-service teachers and principals in the north of the Netherlands, we seek answers to the following research questions: –– What patterns of DLC emerge among primary school teachers in Friesland? –– To what extent can a typology of attitudes, knowledge and practical skills of in-­ service teachers be developed?

2 Language Attitudes, Knowledge and Practical Skills in Frisian Primary Schools Teachers’ beliefs are seen as the basis of their pedagogical actions (Biesta et al., 2015). For example, Friedrich et al. (2015) showed that teachers’ positive beliefs boosted their expectations, which positively affected the academic achievement of pupils. The opposite, negative effect is seen when pupils with a minority background and second-generation migrant pupils perform poorly in countries that hold negative attitudes towards minorities and immigrants (Cummins, 2000). In the Netherlands, Jungbluth (2003) found that teachers have lower expectations of students from lower socio-economic positions and lower their curriculum expectations accordingly, which in turn explains differences in educational achievement. Similarly, Van den Bergh et al. (2010) measured the explicit and implicit ethnically prejudiced attitudes of primary school teachers and how these relate to the achievement scores of their ethnic minority pupils. While teachers’ explicit attitudes did not correlate with students’ achievement scores, the implicit measures explained varying ethnic achievement gaps across classrooms. Furthermore, pupils speaking languages other than the school language at home generally underperform as compared to pupils speaking the majority language (Feskens et  al., 2016; OECD, 2020). Teachers play a crucial role in maintaining and/or overcoming this achievement gap as their expectations, knowledge and attitudes have been found to influence pupils’ achievement (Agirdag et  al., 2013). Given that teachers can act as agents of change (Godley et al., 2006; Ziegler, 2013), it is of paramount importance to study their attitudes and knowledge to eventually align these with the needs of multilingual pupils.

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Research into the use of the Frisian language in education shows that many teachers hold negative attitudes towards the language and its use in class (Ytsma, 2007). Even in trilingual schools teachers often value Dutch and English above Frisian, as they consider these languages more important for pupils’ development (Arocena et al., 2015). Duarte (2020) found more positive attitudes towards the use of Frisian, but negative attitudes towards migrant languages, combined with a lack of knowledge on these languages. Strong negative reactions to a salient migrant accent, Moroccan Arabic, have also been found for pupils (Dekker et  al., 2021). These reactions were mitigated by linguistic background: bi- and multilingual pupils showed weaker negative responses than monolingual pupils (Dekker et al., 2021). As Frisian is becoming more centralized in primary education (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018), these results are important when evaluating the role of minority and migrant languages in education. In various research settings – among which those with a long tradition of immigration – teachers often claim feeling unsuitably prepared for linguistically diverse classrooms (Bravo-Moreno, 2009; Fürstenau, 2016; Horst & Holmen, 2007; Kalekin-Fishman et al., 2002; Schroedler & Fischer, 2020). Multilingual pre-­service teachers are often shown to be knowledgeable about the positive cognitive and affective effects of multilingualism (Barros et al., 2020), but their focus lies more on daily practice than on the long-term effects of inclusive multilingual education (Biesta et al., 2015). In-service teachers, however, claim they do not know how to include languages they do not speak and state they fear that multilingualism is a source of confusion when learning the official language of instruction (De Angelis, 2011). Successful interventions for multilingual education thus need to target both knowledge and practical skills of teachers in multilingual environments, as well as their attitudes (Fürstenau, 2016). In the case of Frisian education, there is a need to combat the achievement gap and support Frisian migrant and minority pupils in their full linguistic repertoire by implementing sustainable multilingual practices. These practices require teachers’ positive attitudes, knowledge regarding multilingualism, and practical plurilingual skills. In this paper we will approach these three facets via DLCs.

3 Dominant Language Constellations DLCs have previously been used to examine the most expedient languages used in multilingual education (Sugrañes, 2021), teacher education (Björklund et al., 2020), and language policies (Slavkov, 2021; Vetter, 2021). Notably, DLCs reflect the most used languages within a given environment, not an overview of someone’s full repertoire. As a system, DLCs can therefore be applied to represent the languages in use in a specific context. Importantly, this indicates that DLCs are a highly versatile concept that is ‘bound to a specific time frame and cultural context and is expressed and realised from one context to another, from one moment to another’ (Nightingale, 2020, p. 239).

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In a broader context, DLCs can describe multilingual language patterns at the societal and individual level (Björklund et  al., 2020). Interviews with four pre-­ service teachers showed how their individual dominant languages are the ones considered most important for communication and identity and spoken by the student teachers themselves (Björklund et al., 2020). Similarly, a recurring pattern of language intertwined with identity within DLCs was reported by Björklund et  al. (2020) and Nightingale (2020). On the other hand, Melo-Pfeifer (2021) showed that DLCs of pre-service teachers in Hamburg were more dependent on school language policies than on the languages present in the classrooms they taught. Although the language policies in Friesland vary per school, our participants joined a project with the common aim of developing multilingual pedagogies. We therefore assume that the schools’ language policies encourage the use of pupils’ home languages, or leave space for teachers to do so. In the context of multilingual education, a comparison of DLCs before and after pedagogical translanguaging lessons have shown a positive effect for both pupils and their teacher (Sugrañes, 2021). In this study, the teacher reported positive attitudes and a willingness to implement plurilingual approaches to languages, which notably did not indicate plurilingual competence. However, after several multilingual lessons, Sugrañes (2021) revealed how pupils’ motivation and attitudes improved, and their negative attitudes towards the minority language Catalan decreased significantly. The effect of multilingual pedagogies is summarized as the observation that ‘[p]upils have relaxed because they have been able to use their DLC freely and openly and have felt that the previous knowledge they take into the classroom is acknowledged, valued and most importantly, used for learning’ (Sugrañes, 2021, p. 83). As the current research sets out to investigate how teachers utilize pupils’ home languages, we will visualize individual DLCs of the most expedient languages in teachers’ personal environment, and collective DLCs of the languages present in the school based on their reflections. We focus on collective DLCs per school as their language policies differ greatly. Note that we are interviewing teachers to identify self-reported DLCs of languages that are welcome and utilized in the classroom. Our focus lies on the socially just process of accepting and welcoming all forms of multilingualism in classrooms, and whether the DLCs of primary schools shift to accommodate other linguistic forms in the multilingual environment. In this, we chose the pattern-oriented visualisation of DLC maps based on work by Aronin (2016, 2021). Such maps visualise three levels of an individual’s DLC. A centre circle includes an individual’s vital languages; a second concentric circle includes the languages in their repertoire; and a third peripheral layer consists of other languages in their environment. We intend to apply this visualisation method to the perceived importance of languages in the teachers’ DLCs with similar layers. The current study thus  applies the framework of DLCs to the study of language attitudes in order to accurately map the perceived importance of pupils’ languages.

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4 Methodology The current qualitative study investigated the DLCs and attitudes, knowledge, and practical skills around multilingual pedagogies of primary school teachers and principals in Fryslân. Research took place within the 3M project, which aimed to develop and implement multilingual pedagogies (Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018). The project consisted of two phases: phase one (development) and phase two (implementation). In phase one (development), multilingual activities were designed and executed, while phase two (implementation) focused only on implementing the previously developed activities. As data collection took place early in the second phase, we compare DLCs from phase one teachers, who have worked with multilingual pedagogies for 2 years, with phase two teachers, who had just started.

4.1 Participants and Procedure Participants were teachers and principals from both phases of the 3M Project, from four distinct categories of schools: (1) Trilingual schools, (2) newly arrived Migrant schools, (3) Non-Dutch schools with a high percentage of multilingual pupils, and (4) Mostly Dutch schools with mostly Dutch-speaking pupils. 12 principals and 23 teachers were asked to participate in this study. Table 1 provides an overview of the 23 total participants in terms of their function, school types, and project phases. Interviews took place in either Dutch or Frisian, and were transcribed verbatim. Participants were reimbursed for their time via previously established project agreements. To ensure the participants’ anonymity, the names in the table are fictitious. Table 1  Overview of participants’ names, functions school types, and duration of interview per project phase Nr. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Project phase 1 (2017–2019)

Name Auke Bente Gemma Hadewich Clara Dieuwke Ineke Joan Edward Fred

Function Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher Principal Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher

Duration of interview 24:42 25:42 21:33 20:12 22:44 22:44 24:52 27:02 26:00 23:17

School type 1 – Trilingual 2 – Migrant 3 – non-Dutch

4 – Mostly Dutch (continued)

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Table 1­ (continued) Nr. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Project phase 2 (2019–2021)

Name Oskar Pleun Sietske Tess Ursula Quinn Rinske Karen Liefke Mynke Nora Vivian Wendy

Function Principal Teacher Principal Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher Principal Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher

Duration of interview 14:41 18:02 12:10 22:06 23:00 16:59 14:34 12:47 12:07 9:00 14:02 28:07 14:02

School type 1 – Trilingual

2 – Migrant 3 – Non-Dutch

4 – Mostly Dutch

4.2 Materials Open-ended questions were posed to explore the participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and practical skills regarding multilingualism in education. The interview guidelines consisted of 21 questions (see Table  2). Interviews were semi-structured (Codó, 2008), and the total number of questions varied per participant as some questions required elaboration, or were specific for only phase one (marked with an asterisk (*) in Table 2) or phase two (marked with two asterisks (**)).

4.3 Data Analysis To answer the first research question, the first and second author created the individual DLCs based on the languages in each teacher’s interview. Collective DLCs were based on all teachers of a school instead of school type to illustrate the high variability of languages in the DLCs per school. A total of 33 DLCs were drawn: 10 collective DLCs (one for each participating school), and 23 individual ones. Data were grouped into three categories based on the range of home language involvement indicated by the teachers: Acknowledged, wherein home languages are rarely used; Semi-integrated, wherein there is some (spontaneous) use of home languages; or Included, which structurally includes home languages as part of the curriculum. For the second research question, data were analysed using theory-driven thematic analysis (Clarke et al., 2017). An iterative system of coding was used, initially based on research by Haukås (2016), De Angelis (2011), Pulinx et al. (2015),

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Table 2  Overview of prepared interview questions Category Knowledge

Attitudes

Question Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Practical Skills

8 9 10 11 12

Background

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Prepared questions How would you describe multilingualism? What do you think is the best way for pupils to learn languages? What advantages and disadvantages do you think are associated with multilingualism? How important or unimportant is multilingualism for you? How important or unimportant is multilingualism for your pupils? Which languages are important at this school (and why)? How do you think the 3M activities affect pupils’ view towards multilingualism? * Which languages are being used in class? Has this changed over the course of the project? * Which languages do pupils use on the playground? How do you handle multilingualism in class? (Examples?) Is there a difference between the multilingualism of Frisian pupils and that of migrant pupils? How multilingual do you consider yourself? Can you tell me how your participation in phase one was? * What expectations did you have of project 3M when you got started? To what extent have these expectations been realised? * What is the main thing you would like to realise within this project? ** To what extent did your knowledge overlap with the information disseminated during 3M? * What would you like to develop further based on your experience with 3M? * How do you plan to use the toolbox activities? ** Can you tell me something about your experiences with the material that was developed in phase 1? *

* Questions for phase 1 schools; ** Questions for phase 2 schools

Barros et al. (2020), and Biesta et al. (2015). In order to ensure the validity of coding, the first and second author became acquainted with the material through multiple readings, and compared notes and intra-rater consistency every three interviews. From these notes the common underlying themes were identified as categories. Subsequently, the data were coded consistent with the initial categories of attitudes, knowledge, and practical skills using Atlas.ti (Atlas.TI 8 Windows). Statements that did not fit into the initial categories were marked either as subcategories or as new themes entirely. An overview of the coding scheme is provided in Table 3 below.

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Table 3  Overview of base category, major themes, and sub-categories belonging to each major theme Category Knowledge

Attitudes

Theme Knowledge of language acquisition Knowledge of multilingualism Reflection Language-specific

Vision

Practical Skills

Explicit attitudes Project 3M Didactics Use of 3M toolbox

Language policy

Sub-categories

Affective Cognitive Frisian English Dutch Other Languages Short term Long term

Guidelines Design Execution Language separation Translanguaging

Total codes 33

% of Codes 8,4

31 21 29 40 18 10 26 28 17 6 8 29 26 10 24 19

7,7 5,3 7,4 10,2 4,6 2,5 6,6 7,1 4,3 1,5 2 7,4 6,6 2,5 6,1 4,8

19

4,8

5 Results 5.1 Dominant Language Constellations Our first research question – ‘What patterns of Dominant Language Constellations emerge among primary school teachers in Friesland?’ – was examined by assessing how teachers reflect on their current linguistic practices based on the languages mentioned in each teacher’s interview. Our analysis resulted in three types of DLCs: Acknowledged, Semi-Integrated, and Inclusive, which we will describe below. Our first category, Acknowledged, includes the DLCs where home languages are not viewed as part of the teachers’ curriculum, if they are mentioned. Based on prior work by Aronin (2021), each DLC contains three levels: the centre circle encompasses the most dominant languages, i.e. the ones most in use. For Nora, the left DLC in Fig. 1, these are Dutch, English and Frisian; for Fred (Fig. 1, on the right), they are Dutch and English. The second concentric circle shows layer two consisting of languages used less often but still identified as an important part of the teachers’ repertoire or their classes. Languages were only added to the second layer if the teacher reported incorporating them in class. This included German for Nora, and Frisian for Fred as it was part of the school curriculum. Finally, the third layer of the

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Fig. 1  Individual DLCs of Nora (left), and Fred (right)

DLC contained other languages listed as being part of the environment. Nora listed Arabic, Tigrinya and Spanish as being actively spoken by pupils, shown at the top in Fig. 1, while Fred stated there were probably no other home languages. From interviews with another teacher at the same school, however, we know that other home languages were present. This also highlights the contextual dependence of our DLCs: either Fred is unaware of the languages in the classroom, or does not consider them part of the environment. The Acknowledged category contained both teachers from phase one and phase 2 of Project 3M. Collective DLCs were drawn based on the grouped interview data of teachers and principals from that specific school. For our Acknowledged category, this includes School 2, shown in Fig. 2. Here, teachers Rinske and Quinn acknowledge the linguistic diversity of the pupils by listing several languages of their pupils. Although they both indicate these languages are underused, Rinske states her willingness to include them: ‘there are so many languages here, why not do more with that’. Our second category of DLCs, Semi-Integrated, involves schools where the home languages are somewhat included, but teachers that indicate not utilising the full linguistic diversity of their classroom. This category is exemplified in Fig. 3. In this category, we see how Mynke (Fig. 3, left) indicates that she tries to integrate some Russian and Arabic in her classes, but also lists Papiamento and Turkish as languages that her pupils speak but are not used. On the right side of Fig. 3 is the collective DLC of Mynke’s school. This includes a teacher – Nora – whose DLC we previously classified in the Acknowledged category. This illustrates that while collectively there is some inclusion of pupils’ primary languages, not all teachers include them in the collective DLC of their classes. Our final category, Included, involves DLCs that show inclusion of home languages based on teachers’ perception. This category contained some teachers and schools from Phase 1, but none from Phase 2. Figure 4 depicts an individual and collective Included DLC. In both cases, teachers indicated they used pupils’ various languages in class, as seen by the many languages in the second layer of the DLCs. Notably, these DLCs are context-dependent: whereas Bente, in Fig. 5 (top-right), includes English as a core language, Auke (Fig. 5, top-left) claims its importance

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Fig. 2  Collective DLC of school 2

Fig. 3  Individual DLC of Mynke (left) and collective DLC of school 3 (right)

stems from it being taught in the school environment, and not because he uses it personally. As Bente considers it a core language and Auke states it is part of the curriculum, the collective DLC includes English as a core language. Furthermore, not all languages in the school are part of the teachers’ active repertoires. Although Spanish was a part of the school’s environment, it was not an active part of either teacher’s individual DLCs. Auke indicates that Spanish is taught in school because ‘I knew someone who speaks Spanish. […] He comes for an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays and teaches Spanish’. This creative solution

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Fig. 4  Individual DLC of Edward (left) and collective DLC of school 4 (right)

Fig. 5  Individual DLC of Auke (top-left) and Bente (top-right), and their collective DLC (below)

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incorporates the pupils’ language into the curriculum and offers all grade 8 pupils (aged 11–12) 2 hours of additional language classes – although not as part of the core curriculum, and only peripherally part of Auke’s personal DLC. Overall, these DLCs vary within schools as they are classroom-dependent, shown in Fig. 5, but also because not all teachers reflect on the use of home languages similarly, as seen in the different classifications of Nora’s and Mynke’s DLCs. Furthermore, there is a difference between project phases as well: whereas the Acknowledged and Semi-Integrated categories contained teachers from both phases, only teachers from the first phase, who worked with multilingual materials for 2 years already, reflected on their practices as Inclusive DLCs.

5.2 Towards a Typology of Attitudes, Knowledge, and Practical Skills The second research question – ‘To what extent can a typology of attitudes of in-­ service teachers be developed?’ – assessed the major themes in attitudes, knowledge and practical skills based on our analysis of the interview data. General findings for each theme will be discussed below before composing a typology based on our findings. 5.2.1 Teachers’ Attitudes Though our questions targeted multilingualism, they were interpreted language-­ specifically. Teachers clearly distinguished between the pupils’ multilingualism, which often involved languages teachers did not speak, and their own multilingualism, mostly including Dutch, Frisian and English. Specifically, Frisian-speaking teachers indicated how the Frisian language was an essential part of their identity. An example of this is presented in the excerpt below. A teacher in a (Non-Dutch school talks about her struggles to write a funeral card for her mother in Dutch compared to the ease of writing one for her father in Frisian: My mother passed away and she wanted the card and the eulogy to be in Dutch. I said I couldn’t do it. If I talk about mem, I can’t do that in Dutch. I gave the eulogy in Frisian but the card had to be in Dutch. We had the greatest difficulty with the text because our emotions were in Frisian. My father said that when he died, we should do it in Frisian. He died a few months ago, and we thought of the right words immediately because Frisian was part of my father. (Mynke, Non-Dutch school)

Here, Mynke discusses how the language is associated with the person. This personal link between identity and multilingualism is also highlighted by Karen, who compares her own multilingualism to that of non-Dutch speaking pupils in her school:

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When I was a pupil, I was the exception. If you spoke a different language, you were special, an outsider. And you don’t feel seen or valued. (Karen, Non-Dutch school)

Through her own negative experience, Karen indicates children who speak languages other than Dutch or Frisian should feel more included, and have their identity positively valued. Similarly, Liefke shows how she positively values the inclusion of home languages by indicating her willingness to include more languages. She states: There are so many different languages here. I think we can do more with it and also use what’s already there. (Liefke, Non-Dutch school)

She indicates an awareness and willingness to implement more pedagogical translanguaging. However, this willingness does not directly translate to knowing how to do so. Although teachers realise it is important to include pupils’ home languages, this is not always reflected in their practices. This directly relates to the second salient code, namely ‘vision’, used for participants’ attitudes towards multilingual education and the project as a whole. Most often participants indicated a short-term vision regarding the implementation of multilingual pedagogies within schools, and indicated a strong need for pedagogical handles: What we wanted is to experience what it’s like. How to teach a different course in Frisian or English or what materials we could use. (Pleun, Mostly Dutch school)

Pleun discusses integrating more Frisian and English into her classes, and indicates a need for multilingual materials to provide her with concrete examples. Although this reflects positive attitudes towards the inclusion of home languages, it also indicates short-term vision on multilingual education as the focus lies on the daily practice instead of what the inclusion of home languages can realise. Quinn goes one step further and states that she wants multilingual practices to be part of her routine: By using these materials, I want to show that it doesn’t have to be difficult. That we can do this during arithmetic classes or reading classes, and that we can just ask: “oh but how do you do this in your language?”. And that we do just that as part of the group process. (Quinn, Migrant school)

She indicates wanting to attain the systematic inclusion of home languages, and specifies that this should not be restricted to language classes only. Finally, long-term goals were mentioned regarding the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to multilingualism, shown by Nora’s comment on how pupils’ languages should be part of every class: That we don’t focus on one language but that we just teach and discuss several languages. And that it’s not one separate course, but that we integrate [multilingualism] in nature classes, in history, in language. (Nora, Non-Dutch school)

The principal of the same school, Karen, adds to that by stating:

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What I want is that next year we don’t just have a lesson in Frisian or English or another language on our weekly planning, but that it says: “multilingualism”. (Karen, Non-­ Dutch school)

Both Nora and Karen are aiming to do away with language separation and break barriers between languages. This sentiment is shared by teachers focussing on short-term attainment as well; the difference lies in the magnitude of their goals. 5.2.2 Teachers’ Knowledge When asked to describe how children best learn languages, most teachers agree that the languages should be used as often as possible, and children should be surrounded with the target language. This is illustrated by a quote from Rinske: Children learn languages by making combinations. They need to know Dutch. But by combining it with their mother tongues and making everything more intertwined they learn the language faster. (Rinske, Migrant school)

The consensus among teachers was that using pupils’ languages was important, and that pupils acquire the language of schooling more efficiently whenever they can use their full linguistic repertoire. Furthermore, Quinn stresses not only the importance of using the home languages but also of making sure that these home languages are well developed: The home language is the most important thing. When you develop language well in your home language you can develop it well in your second language. If your home language is lacking, it’s much harder to learn a second language. (Quinn, Migrant school)

A further theme within the knowledge section concerns multilingualism itself. When asked what they think the advantages and disadvantages of multilingualism are, teachers first and foremost listed affective advantages to multilingualism. Similar to the language-specific attitudes, they consider multilingualism linked to a sense of identity and inclusion: Hearing and speaking your own language can give pupils a sense of security, of belonging. (Joan, Non-Dutch school)

On a larger scale, multilingualism is linked to better cross-cultural communication and mutual understanding: It advances mutual understanding of cultures and linguistic communities. Accepting each other, accepting others. (Edward, Mostly Dutch school)

Aside from affective advantages, several teachers also mention cognitive flexibility as a benefit. For example, Auke mentions improved cognitive function as a result of better exercising the brain: I think both brain hemispheres are better used. You have to continually use them, use all those muscles, and that’s just better. (Auke, Trilingual school)

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Unanimously, participants mentioned positive aspects of multilingualism. The only negative aspect is mentioned by Gemma, who states that a cognitive downside might be that pupils start confusing languages, but she immediately states that this rarely happens: The only disadvantage could be that you start mixing up languages and that you get confused, but children can do that perfectly fine. (Gemma, Migrant school)

5.2.3 Practical skills In this section, we examined how teachers described their didactic skills. Overall, teachers indicate that when they do employ multilingual teaching, it is often aimed at the primary languages of specific children in order to make them feel more included, as summarized by Mynke: My Arabic isn’t great and neither is my Russian, but I do ask the pupils ‘what’s that in Russian?’ or ‘can you count in Arabic? What’s that colour in your language?’ and I try to make it important for them. (Mynke, Non-Dutch school)

The above quote also shows how the goal of including primary languages is inclusion. Although an awareness of the cognitive benefits of multilingualism was shown in the Knowledge section, teachers do not indicate that they utilize linguistic repertoires for cognitive development. As such, the practical skills that teachers reflect on are based on the affective importance, and the observation that language is a part of identity. Another example derives from the difficulties that teachers face in including pupils’ primary languages if there is great linguistic diversity. Below, Hadewich illustrates that she does group children together and let them use a shared language, but also indicates not doing so when there are no shared languages: The population of our school is very multilingual, more than ten different languages in one class. So that’s tricky. Sometimes we have a lot of children from Eritrea, and they can do assignments together using their language. (Hadewich, Migrant school)

Our second salient code, ‘toolbox use’, reflected how teachers used the 3M-toolbox of multilingual activities that was concluded at the end of the first phase. This means great variation between phase one and phase two teachers: whereas phase one teachers developed their own multilingual activities, collected in the online toolbox, phase two teachers only executed these pre-designed lessons. Teachers in phase one therefore describe how they designed their lesson plans, and teachers in phase two indicate their expectations of implementing the activities. In the example below, Edward, a phase 1 teacher, reflects on the specific activities he designed and implemented: I created almost all the material that I tried out. We compared languages, we did memory games and extra activities. I did have an intern, he helped me by finding pictures for the memory game. Oh, and language portraits, we did those twice. (Edward, Mostly Dutch school)

Other teachers from the first phase also indicated having wanted guidelines when they started. Here, Bente, a phase one teacher, highlights that she did design and

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execute a lot of activities, but she felt that there were practical guidelines missing on how to get started: We did a lot of things in English, like games and flashcards. But we missed having guidelines, an overview of what we could do. (Bente, Trilingual school)

This notion of guidelines is something almost all phase two teachers expect as well. Tasked with the implementation of the toolbox, their reflection on using multilingual activities is less descriptive of their practice and more of the guidelines they expect. As Sietske summarises: People have already thought of exercises, thought of things I can use. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel that’s been invented twenty times. I expect some guidelines. (Sietske, Trilingual school)

Similarly, a teacher who already taught one lesson from the toolbox before being interviewed reflects on her need for guidelines, but has a less strict approach to following the lesson plans: It’s a great guideline for lessons. It doesn’t have to be written down entirely but just that there are some ideas, some guidance on how you could [include multilingualism]. I didn’t do entirely like it was written but it was a great guideline to do something. (Rinske, Migrant school)

Finally, the experience from phase 1 teachers is summarised by Dieuwkwe, who states that working with the multilingual materials was enriching and became a regular part of her teaching through consciously seeking moments to implement pedagogical translanguaging or via requests from her pupils. In this, we see that she moves from occasionally welcoming languages into her classroom to the structural inclusion of multilingualism: It really became part of my teaching. Not specifically stand-alone activities, but really coming back to it regularly. And the children often ask if they can use an extra language with something. [The project] has given us a lot. (Dieuwke, Non-Dutch school)

6 Discussion and Conclusion In this paper we set out to examine the self-reported DLC and prevalent attitudes, knowledge and skills towards multilingualism within 3M project schools as evident from interviews with primary school teachers. The first research question focussed on teachers’ self-reported individual and collective DLCs. Based on visualisations by Aronin (2021), we mapped teachers’ view of expedient languages in three categories of DLCs: Acknowledged, in which pupils’ languages are depicted in the periphery of the DLCs, if at all; Semi-Integrated, wherein some languages are used in class; and Included, where the teachers reflect on their attempts to include all languages in their education. Teachers reflect differently on the languages in their classrooms: some claim they are actively part of their teaching, either in the Semi-Integrated or Included

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DLCs. In the category Acknowledged, pupils’ languages are mentioned in passing and placed in the peripheral third layer of the DLC. Both the Semi-Integrated and the Acknowledged categories support the comment by Sugrañes (2021) that teachers’ willingness to include multilingualism is not always accompanied by the required skills. Unsurprisingly, teachers with 2 years experience in designing and implementing multilingual practices were better represented in the Semi-Integrated or Included categories. Teachers that recently joined Project 3M showed SemiIntegrated DLCs by including some primary languages in their teaching, or Acknowledged DLCs while indicating wanting to do more with pupils’ languages. To map the perceived importance of pupils’ languages, our DLCs are based on the reflection of teachers and not on classroom observations. In this, the individual DLCs are more indicative of the teachers’ full repertoire than their active use. Notably, the languages associated with teachers’ identity are at the core of their individual DLCs, similar to Björklund et al. (2020) and Nightingale (2020). As our collective and individual DLCs were based on the same data, we cannot ascertain how they affect each other. Further research should focus on comparing the language policies of the schools to examine to what extent the matrix DLCs affect the individual and collective ones, as shown by Melo-Pfeifer (2021). For our second research question we set out to create a typology of attitudes, knowledge and practical skills of primary school teachers. Our findings support Nightingale (2020) and Björklund et  al. (2020) as well in showing that teachers view language as an important part of identity: where Frisian is a crucial aspect of their own identity, they relate this to the primary languages of their pupils. This is emphasized by the affective importance of multilingualism. We therefore note that positive attitudes regarding the inclusion of pupils’ languages are important for an inclusive school, but not indicative of actual use, which also indicates that positive attitudes do not directly translate into plurilingual skills (Sugrañes, 2021). Furthermore, our findings are similar to Biesta et al. (2015), who showed that teachers focus more on daily situations than the long-term benefits of multilingualism. Our typology therefore has to include a distinction between short-term and long-­ term views regarding multilingualism, where a teacher that welcomes languages in their daily practice is not necessarily breaking barriers between languages for the goal of full inclusion. We then assessed the knowledge of teachers regarding multilingualism. Foremost, teachers discussed multilingualism positively in the context of language acquisition, specifically related to acquiring the language of schooling. Although teachers are knowledgeable about cognitive effects of multilingualism, similar to Barros et al. (2020), the emphasis lies on the affective importance of inclusion. Our typology therefore has to cover the difference between viewing multilingualism as a useful resource to support learning the school language, and including multilingualism throughout the curriculum based on cognitive and affective benefits. Regarding their practical skills, teachers describe actively using languages in their classroom but lacking specific guidelines to do so. The primary languages of non-Dutch and non-Frisian pupils are mostly used for context-specific activities and practices that resemble vocabulary training exercises, e.g. asking ‘What’s this word

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in your language?’. Although this is a step towards further inclusion of languages, this is not indicative of fully utilising the linguistic repertoire for cognitive or personal development. In other words, languages are not yet used pedagogically for learning (Sugrañes, 2021), as the implementation of pedagogical translanguaging is often reflective of a symbolic function of multilingualism wherein home languages are incidentally acknowledged to translate isolated words instead of structurally utilised as logical assets in pupils’ learning process (Duarte, 2020). Our typology therefore has to reflect the difference between tolerating languages but not structurally incorporating them in teaching; proactively welcoming languages by seeking out occasional opportunities for pedagogical translanguaging; and fully doing away with language separation by systematically incorporating multilingualism throughout the curriculum, also in non-linguistic domains. In this, we arrive at three types of teachers: tolerant, welcoming, and inclusive, aligned with our three categories of DLCs. These types are presented in Table 4. Notably, our typology is based on teachers participating in a project surrounding multilingual education, and therefore does not include teachers who believe multilingualism is detrimental. The first type is the tolerant teacher who might acknowledge the existence of pupils’ languages in the periphery of their DLC, if at all. Languages are welcomed only based on the initiative of the pupils, but there is no strategic use of pedagogical translanguaging. Based on our findings, these teachers show some appreciation of multilingualism and knowledge regarding the affective importance for pupils. This category contains the teachers who intend to start including home languages but need pre-designed activities as a starting point. A second type is the welcoming teacher, whose DLC contains pupils’ languages either at second or third layer, indicative of their recognition that they do not fully Table 4  A typology of teachers’ DLCs, attitudes, knowledge and practical skills Type Tolerant

DLCs Acknowledged: Home languages in periphery (if at all). Seen in: Nora, Fred (Fig. 1) Welcoming Semi-Integrated: Home languages included secondary or peripherally Seen in: Mynke (Fig. 3) Inclusive Included: Home languages in core or secondary layer Seen in: Edward (Fig. 4), Auke, Bente (Fig. 5)

Attitudes Mostly positive; short-term (if at all)

Knowledge Affective knowledge (if at all)

Skills Occasional use of home languages (if at all); implementing

Positive; mostly short-term

Multilingualism as resource for learning school languages and/ or identity aspect

Mostly spontaneous use of home languages; structural use in some lessons; mostly implementing

Positive; long-term & short-term

Multilingualism viewed as skill set for all pupils; affective and cognitive importance

Full inclusion in curriculum; designing & implementing

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include all languages. The welcoming teacher sees the need to include home languages for the sake of the pupils and engages with translanguaging activities superficially. Although their attitudes are positive, their goals are often short term. They recognise the importance of including multilingualism, but reflect on their limited skills (e.g being able to follow pre-designed lesson plan; spontaneous use of vocabulary exercises). The notable difference between welcoming and full inclusion is that welcoming languages into the classroom does not indicate multilingualism is a core value of all lessons. The teachers in this category indicate that some home languages are used, but there is space for improvement. Finally, a fully inclusive teacher would have a DLC containing pupils’ languages either at the core or at the second layer. This is combined with the active encouragement of multilingualism throughout education; positive attitude, knowledge regarding multilingualism, and wide skill set to structurally and spontaneously include linguistic diversity throughout the curriculum. Within the interviewed 3M teachers, trilingual school teachers came closest to attaining this situation as they indicated teaching almost exclusively Dutch and Frisian-speaking pupils, languages that are structurally included in the curriculum. However, teachers from schools with more linguistic diversity often fell short of full inclusion. In sum, we showed how teachers’ self-reported DLCs, attitudes, knowledge and practical skills combine into a typology ranging from tolerant to inclusive (see results by Brinkmann, in this volume, on pre-service language teachers). This classification is context-dependent as Frisian teachers can more easily align with the needs of Frisian-speaking pupils than teachers aiming to include migrant languages. Although there is variation within and between schools and project phases, all teachers report positive outlooks regarding multilingualism in education and a willingness to integrate it into their lessons. However, they also report a strong need for accessible multilingual materials and guidelines that provide a place to start. Project 3M attempted to fill that gap by providing teachers with pre-designed materials. Observations from executing these lessons will have to be assessed in a further study to determine whether this helps teachers move from tolerance to more welcoming, or from welcoming to more inclusion.

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Dominant Language Constellations, Identity, and Awareness: a posse ad esse Larissa Aronin and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

Abstract  This chapter summarizes the theoretical novelty and practical implications offered in the volume. Theoretical findings refer to expanding the concepts of language awareness and identity, and their scrutiny from multiple perspectives in their tight connections with each other within the framework of DLC. In particular, the chapter categorizes the terms, concepts, and methods, existing and new strands of DLC research, and points towards additional dimensions of multilingual students’ and teachers’ identity. Keywords  DLC approach · Identity · Language awareness · Translanguaging · Linguistic repertoire · Language practices

1 Introduction The Latin phrase in the title of this short epilogue ⁠– a posse ad esse (from possibility to actuality) ⁠– points to a message to be inferred from the volume. DLC represents both possibility and actuality of certain language practices and identities. More importantly, through the lens of DLC one can trace the various ways of navigation from the former to the latter in the utterly complex and therefore largely unpredictable reality of multilingual education. The volume has exposed a collection of DLCs as they evolve in a variety of diverse social and educational settings  – in a socio-political context of Tunisia/ Magreb (Helal), Croatia (Krevelj & Kovačić) in academic milieu of Higher Education Institutions in Switzerland (Moccozet and Böckh), Germany (Melo-­ Pfeifer; Brinkmann), Poland (Gabryś-Barker), Greece (Iakovou, Tsioli & Vihou), L. Aronin (*) International School, Oranim Academic College of Education, Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel e-mail: [email protected] S. Melo-Pfeifer Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4_14

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Portugal (Pinto; Pinho), the province of Fryslân, the Netherlands (Dekker, Kootstra, Loerts & Duarte), and primary education in Northern Italy (Hofer) and viewed in a wide general context (Stratilaki-Klein). Together they demonstrate how real educational and social settings, charged with concrete language varieties, produce new socio-linguistic emergences, such as teaching practices, DLCs and highly variable extended identities of learners and teachers. In this volume, we have subjected the expanded concepts of language awareness and identity to scrutiny from multiple perspectives in their tight connections with each other within the framework of DLC. To this end, this volume brings together the DLC studies from strikingly different disciplines and theoretical perspectives. There are contributions coming from critical pedagogical perspective (Pinho) and from IT technology realm (Moccozet & Böckh), classroom research (Brinkmann; Dekker, Kootstra, Loerts & Duarte; Pinto) and teacher education (Gabryś-Barker; Krevelj & Kovačić; Melo-Pfeifer; Iakovou, Tsioli & Vihou), socio- philosophic discussions (Helal; Stratilaki-Klein) and applied linguistics studies (Hofer). The DLC approach common to all of them and the commensurability of DLC patterns allow for triangulation of their actualities, ideas, and findings with practical implications. The archetype of a DLC provides a kind of common denominator, some single framework for the studies in multilingualism and multilingual education and from whatever locus one studies a DLC, it is comparable with DLC studies performed from other angles of view. Throughout the volume we can trace the emergence and dynamics of archetypal and yet distinctive DLC patterns. Every time that we define an actual DLC in particular settings and for a particular person and group, we can already discern new possibilities and identities of learners and teachers taking shape. In the province of theoretical novelty regarding the terms, concepts and methods of research, several chapters or the volume in its entirety yielded the following contributions to the theory of DLC and multilingualism. Each point comes with transparent or clearly stated consequences in teaching practices since DLC is ‘a ‘tractable’ concept with immediate and practical implications for language policy and planning’ (Lo Bianco, 2020a, p. 39).

2 On the Expansion of the Concept of DLC and Its Fields of Application The authors creatively continued the already existing strands of DLC research and made valuable additions to the stock of ideas on DLC and multilingual education. The studies of the volume contributed to the issue of profiling of multilingual students (cf. Slavkov, 2020 on profiling in Canadian primary education) in the settings of Croatia (Krevelj & Kovačić) and South Tyrol (Hofer). Empirical studies resulted in the typologies of DLCs in the particular settings (e.g., Dekker, Kootstra, Loerts & Duarte) and adding to the pool of unique DLCs typical for locality or educational

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group (e.g., Brinkmann; Iakovou, Tsioli & Vihou) and prototypical DLCs (Hofer). Revealing the distinct DLC patterns and seemingly minor but extremely meaningful features of each DLC and their analysis might determine the awareness of languages by the users and types of teaching and learning strategies. It can additionally help to understand the individual repertoires beyond the epithet of diverse, which paradoxically tends to hide the diversity from within each repertoire. Stratilaki-Klein in her theoretical quest enriched the DLC theory with different referential, interactional, and communicative dimensions that define DLC. The expansion of DLC concept went in a number of directions. Among them investigation of the role of English in a DLC and DL(T)C  – revealed the salient presence of English alongside (inter)cultural aims (Pinho). Another new direction includes teaching other modern language such as Portuguese in Portugal (Pinto), Spanish in Germany (chapters by Brinkmann and Melo-Pfeifer). This direction lets us perceive the addition of contexts in which the concept of DLC is instrumental to describe and interpret the (socio)linguistic and educative realities, such as social political, linguistic landscape, social discourse, primary education and high education institutions. The added focus is on psycholinguistic processes, situating DLC within broad contexts at the interface of socio-political forces (Helal; also Banda, 2020; Lo Bianco, 2020a, b). A novel strand of DLC research on which publications are still scarce, investigates an issue which can be formulated as ‘multilingualism in monolingual settings’. The studies of this strand in the volume refer both to identity and to the teaching paradigms. While Barbara Hofer deals with monoglossic educational practices in the persistent monoglossic tradition of the German school system in South Tyrol with regard to the primary education, Jorge Pinto testifies to the strong tendency to adopt a multilingual paradigm in language teaching in Portugal. Both authors call for de facto transfer to a multilingual and multicultural language education. The studies by Danuta Gabrys-Barker and Stela Leica Krevelj and Nives Kovačić refer to officially monolingual environment, in a formal educational environment, and to multilingual students at Polish and Croatian universities, respectively. The volume makes tangible the reality of coexistence of monolingual and multilingual paradigms in education and the resulting identity negotiation of multilingual students in such context. It becomes clear that contexts traditionally conceived as monolingual are not incompatible with the educational and societal promotion of multilingualism. It shows the role played by educational systems in promoting the development of multilingual repertoires and the emergence of specific DLC’s patterns. The interplay of mono, bi and multilingual personal perceptions and ideologies as well as educational and teaching arrangements is the result of the New Linguistic Dispensation under which mono-, bi- multi -lingual arrangements coexist, interact and merge (Fig. 1). Investigations of awareness and identity across the volume were undertaken through actions, behaviour and representations of all kinds rather than simply via

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Fig. 1  Under the new linguistic dispensation. (Aronin, 2015, 2022, p. 50) mono-, bi- multi -lingual arrangements coexist, interact and merge

questionnaires or interviews as it was predominant in earlier logocentric research traditions. Along with and in addition to already well-known concepts of awareness, the co-editors also introduce the ‘languages awareness’ concept, particularly in the introduction, with a specific meaning that better fits the DLC view and multilingual contexts, to underline the pattern of a group of languages working in concert, at the same period of time in the same person or same group. Additional dimensions of multilingual students’ and teachers’ identity were examined. Among the findings are a practical step towards the creation of digital multilingual identity profiles (Moccozet & Böckh), the development of teacher multilingual identity and awareness, testifying how, in many cases, student teachers try to situate themselves in-between a monolingual/monocultural perspective and a multilingual/multicultural one (Pinho). Further themes related to students’ and teachers’ identity include the analysis of the correlation between individual and group DLCs (Dekker, Kootstra, Loerts & Duarte), and the power of social reality and personal experiences in forming one’s multilingual identity though reflection on one’s DLC (Stratilaki-Klein). In the methodological realm, this volume is special in terms of novel methods put forward by the authors. Authors present creative combinations of theories and methods from various disciplines, sometimes appropriating them from the realms of political studies, philosophy, linguistics, discourse studies, ethnography and data science. The volume illuminated the expansion of visualizations and representation types and forms – from various physical multimodal and imaginary visualizations, fertilizing them with ‘moments of linguistic ecological transition’ (Melo-Pfeifer) to computer- produced models.

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We conclude that reasonable and justified appropriation and combination of theories, approaches, and methods is instrumental and productive for queries in societal and individual multilingualism and DLC.

3 On Commonalities and Differences Between Concepts Describing Multilingualism Several chapters provided empirical support and brought more clarity into understanding the interplay of the concepts of DLC, translanguaging and language repertoire (e.g., chapters by Helal and Pinho). All the three concepts overcome the monolingual bias and are connected (Table 1). Each concept works in its own way and solves social and educational issues via its own path. Translanguaging and DLC are both forms of linguistic practices. DLC is part of language repertoire. That is, DLC might be seen as a grid/construction supporting translanguaging as it marks the conventional borders of named languages though which translanguaging ‘spills over’.

4 Ways Forward The DLC approach grants a broad and varied pool of knowledge on multilingual education on particular geographical-political settings (see also Aronin & Vetter,  2021; Lo Bianco & Aronin, 2020 and  DLC-dedicated site https://www. dominant-­language-­constellations.com/.) Despite the rich factual material on identity and language awareness studied through the lens of DLC collected in this volume more studies in the above directions are needed. Further topics of research might include the role of schooling in different geopolitical contexts on forging DLC, the role of socioeconomic ideologies and political discourses on the expansion and/or on the reduction of DLCs, and, in a time of forced and voluntary mobilities, the impact of individual DLC on the integration in a new host country and on individuals’ perceptions of the process of integration. As an umbrella theme, the circumstances and the tensions at play in the dynamic constitution of DLC throughout the life span, with periods of expansion and shrinking, would be a timely adding to the DLC approach.

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Table 1  Notions that reflect the multiplicity of languages and the way they are used: Language Repertoire, DLC and translanguaging Concept Criterium of comparison Focus

Relevance and applicability in terms of stages of social awareness of languages (mono-bi- and multi-) Treatment (according to the nature of a concept as researchers see it) Definition in terms of logical category Emphasis

Theoretical perception of structure

Origin in terms of how a phenomenon comes into being

Language Repertoire Relates to the totality of an individual’s or a community’s linguistic skills.

Originated from and remains highly relevant to monolingualism.

Dominant Language Constellation Concerned with the vehicle languages, which stand out as being of prime importance for navigating existing circumstances. Specifically, appropriate to multilingualism.

Translanguaging Concerned with the legitimacy and practicality of use of languages in language practices in education and society. Particularly useful in educational multilingualism settings.

Even if the focus is the description of a plurilingual competence, it still sees each language separately (monoglossic stance).

As a unit. An emergent entity.

As a process encouraging free flow between named languages.

A product. Can be visualized as a list of skills or as a store of assets. Includes languages, skills or registers that are in passive exposure or ‘kept on a backburner’, until there is a need and time to use it actively. It is about resources. ‘Patchworks of resources’(Blommaert & Backus, 2011, p. 23)

A form of linguistic practice. A process and a product. DLC is about active usage, it is a form of social action. It relates to behavior, rather than to resources.

A form of communicative and educational practice. Relates to behavior, language rights, social justice, pedagogy and education.

An open system.

The result of formal and informal language learning experiences.

The outcome of main life-forming events.

An emergent, dynamic and hybrid set of features that users creatively co-construct and negotiate. An emergent process, always on the making. It emerges whenever the conditions are created to acknowledge, capitalise on, and leverage the full range of linguistic and semiotic repertoires.

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References Aronin, L. (2015). Current multilingualism and new developments in multilingual research. In P. Safont-Jordà & L. Portolés (Eds.), Multilingual development in the classroom: Current findings from research (pp. 1–27). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Aronin, L. (2022). An advanced guide to multilingualism. Edinburgh University Press. Aronin, L., & Vetter, E. (Eds.). (2021). Dominant language constellations approach in education and language acquisition. Springer. Banda, F. (2020). Shifting and multi-layered dominant language constellations in dynamic multilingual contexts: African perspective. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism. Springer. Blommaert, J., & Backus, A. (2011). Repertoires revisited: ‘Knowing language’ in superdiversity. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies, 67, 1–26. DLC site https://www.dominant-language-constellations.com/ Lo Bianco, J. (2020a). A meeting of concepts and praxis: Multilingualism, language policy and the dominant language constellation. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 35–56). Springer. Lo Bianco, J. (2020b). Quo Vadis, DLC? In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 261–275). Springer. Lo Bianco, J., & Aronin, L. (Eds.). (2020). Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­52336-­7 Slavkov, N. (2020). Language background profiling at Canadian elementary schools and dominant language constellations. In J. Lo Bianco & L. Aronin (Eds.), Dominant language constellations: A new perspective on multilingualism (pp. 117–138). Springer.

Index

C Clusters of emic and self-representations, 93 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), 29 D DLC approach, 2, 7, 9, 13–15, 46, 71, 88, 135, 156, 161, 259, 264, 286, 289 DLC maps, 7, 15, 56, 200, 203–208, 212, 267 DLC patterns, 138–146, 151, 201, 205–212, 229, 286, 287 Dominant Language Constellations (DLCs), 1–15, 21–40, 45–63, 69–84, 87–105, 107–128, 131–151, 155–169, 173–192, 197–215, 219–243, 247–260, 263–282, 285–290 Drawings, 7, 12, 14, 15, 57, 97, 98, 122, 146, 167, 168, 198, 226–241, 248, 252, 255–257 E Educational technologies (EdTech), 10, 46–52, 62 English as a foreign language, 14, 49, 105, 111, 201, 219–243 F Formal instruction, 11, 108, 110, 113, 114, 122, 125, 126, 174, 175

I Identity, 2, 23, 46, 70, 88, 108, 133, 156, 174, 199, 220, 248, 267, 285 Identity construction, 11, 88, 94, 224 Identity of multilinguals, 2, 4, 5 L Language attitudes, 54, 82, 265–267 Language awareness, 2–4, 7, 13–15, 102, 126, 135, 174, 197–212, 220–222, 228, 229, 231, 239, 259, 264, 286, 289 Language biographies, 74, 94, 136, 139, 176, 225, 227, 238, 248–253, 259 Language ideology, 9, 10, 224 Language policy and planning (LPP), 9, 21–40, 286 Language practices, 1, 9, 11, 26, 46, 54, 88, 96, 98, 127, 225, 249, 285, 290 Language repertoire, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 22, 46, 107–128, 133, 134, 136, 138, 143, 145, 150, 151, 156, 160–161, 177, 187, 201, 224, 225, 249, 289, 290 Languages awareness, 2–5, 7, 9, 13–15, 102, 126, 135, 174, 183, 197–212, 220–222, 228, 229, 231, 239, 240, 259, 264, 286, 288, 289 Language teachers' education, 132, 220 Language teaching strategies, 159, 166, 168, 169 Latent DLC, 14, 113, 175, 225, 248, 255, 258

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Aronin, S. Melo-Pfeifer (eds.), Language Awareness and Identity, Multilingual Education 45, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37027-4

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294 Linguistic autobiography, 14, 175–176, 179, 180, 182, 189, 191, 192 Linguistic ecological transition, 14, 248–259, 288 Linguistic identity, 14, 60, 160, 163, 169, 221 Linguistic repertoire, 12, 22, 48, 56, 70, 77, 101, 160, 161, 165, 174, 176–177, 180–181, 187–189, 198, 200, 201, 206–208, 211, 221, 222, 231, 248, 250, 253, 255, 266, 277, 278, 281 M Metalinguistic awareness (MLA), 3, 4, 115, 160, 180, 184 Metaphor, 6, 11, 37, 108, 113–115, 117–122, 125–127, 209, 227, 235, 241 Modelling, 10, 22, 26, 46, 53, 176, 200 Monoglossic educational practice, 287 Multi-competence, 10, 69–84, 110, 111, 113, 127, 156 Multilingual awareness, 13, 174, 178, 183, 184, 221, 225, 239 Multilingual identity, 4–8, 15, 46, 52, 53, 70, 79, 104, 112, 117, 121, 125, 133, 173–192, 288 Multilingualism, 1, 22, 46, 70, 88, 107, 132, 156, 173, 198, 219, 249, 264, 286 Multilingualism in HEI, 8, 10, 45–63 Multilinguality, 5, 6, 12, 108, 111, 117, 125, 128, 175, 179, 185, 186, 191, 192, 226 Multilingual language majors, 189 Multilingual socialization, 75, 77, 81 Multimodality, 7, 112 Multimodal narratives, 228–230 N National identity, 9, 24, 26, 29, 32–40, 99 Network of representations of plurilingualism, 87–105 O Official text, 24, 26

Index P Plurilingual and pluricultural competence, 88, 92–94, 96, 97, 105, 158 Plurilingual awareness, 8, 12, 13, 131–151, 199–201 Portuguese foreign language, 13, 97, 99, 102, 155–169, 202, 287 Pre-service teachers, 5, 13, 14, 201, 219–243, 247–260, 266, 267 Prospective DLC languages, 12, 173, 189–191 R Real DLC, 14, 208, 248, 255, 258, 259 Representations, 2, 23, 46, 77, 89, 122, 134, 157, 175, 200, 220, 252, 288 S Student teacher' beliefs, 7, 13, 164, 197–212, 265 Student teacher identity, 198–199 T Teacher education, 13, 14, 108, 160, 220, 222–225, 228, 241, 242, 266, 286 Teacher professional identity, 219–243 3D visualization, 61 Translanguaging, 3, 15, 22, 23, 127, 128, 160, 165, 201, 210, 211, 222, 225, 264, 267, 271, 276, 279, 281, 282, 289, 290 U Undergraduate student language teacher (SLT), 135, 137 V Visualization, 11, 46, 48, 58–63, 134, 151, 252, 288 Visual methods, 202, 212