Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communication (review)

The Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual communication is the fifth of nine volumes in a series devoted to issues in applied linguistics. According to the series introduction by Karlfried Knapp and Gerd Antos, the 'Handbooks of applied linguistics' series is based on the premise that applied linguistics is 'a specific, problem-oriented way of "doing linguistics" related to the real-life world' (xi). They aim to offer socially accountable, critical, and reflexive understanding of a wide range of problems. A chapter by volume editors Peter Auer and Li Wei ('Introduction: Multilingualism as a problem? Monolingualism as a problem?') introduces twenty-two chapters organized into four parts: 'Becoming bilingual', 'Staying bilingual, 'Acting multilingual', 'Living in a multilingual society'.

A problem-solving approach is obviously of enormous relevance to the topic of multilingualism and multilingual communication. With roughly 6,900 languages in the world, but only about 200 nation-states, bilingualism or multilingualism is present in practically every nation in the world, whether officially recognized or not. In view of the fact that bilingualism and multilingualism are unremarkable and normal realities of everyday life for most of the world, it is surely a huge problem that national policies are radically out of line with the realities of multilingualism. The majority of countries in the world actually operate either de facto or de jure as monolingual in recognizing only one language for use in education. In 'Societal multilingualism: Reality, recognition and response', JOHN EDWARDS writes that only a quarter of all nations recognize more than one language (44).

The predominantly monolingual orientation of mainstream linguistic theory with its concentration on the ideal speaker-listener in a completely homogeneous speech community has also played a role in marginalizing multilingualism. As Romaine (1995:1) noted, 'It would certainly be odd to encounter a book with the title, Monolingualism'. Baetens-Beardsmore (2003:10) reflected similarly on how monolingual thinking in a de facto multilingual world has rendered linguistic diversity problematic:

there is a deep-seated and widespread fear of bilingualism. Moreover, there is an all-pervading tendency to couple the notion of 'problems' to that of bilingualism, a connotation that never comes to mind in discussions on unilingualism.

Editors Peter Auer and Li Wei make a convincing case for a critically reflexive problem-solving approach when they ask whether it would make more sense to regard monolingualism as a problem. They see the marginal role played by research on multilingualism within linguistics until some decades ago as the result of monolingual bias of European thinking on language. What are perceived as problems surrounding multilingualism today are not 'natural' problems inherent to multilingualism itself but largely consequences of the rise and dominance of monolingual national ideologies in the context of European nation-building. The nation-state is the most critical unit of analysis because it is policies pursued within national boundaries that give some languages (and their speakers) the status of majority and others that of minority. Despite a universal need for multilingual/multicultural policy and planning to ensure that members of different language groups within nations have access to and can participate in national affairs without discrimination, as GUUS EXTRA points out ('From minority programmes to multilingual education'), a common referential framework is still lacking. Few connections are made between immigrant minorities and regional minority languages, and there are no standard designations for these languages across nations (176–77). Although some experts insist that there should be no distinction in law between the linguistic rights of autochthonous and allochthonous minorities in human rights treaties, national ethnic minorities still have many more internationally and nationally coded rights than immigrants under current international conventions and laws.

One key arena impacted by the problem perspective is education. As COLIN BAKER emphasizes in 'Becoming bilingual through bilingual education', 'there is no understanding of bilingual education without understanding local and national politics' (142). Although in Europe there has been a certain amount...