The Emergence of Multilingual Development
The overriding theme in this Chapter is the development of the multilingual concept from the bilingual perspective. From the Chapter, it is indicated that the construction of several languages commenced from the primary language in the USA to the present context of several languages. The event is associated to several root causes, for instance, the historical context associates this development to the historical context that saw the establishment of North American Free Trade Agreement and consequent increase in the number of Latinos thus necessitating the creation of another language (32). The authors pose that the increased number of immigrants thus influenced the US to allow the immigrants to speak their native languages.
From the book, the justification for the growth of the multilingual state is attributed to several factors. One of the views in support of this development is the civil rights movements and the bilingual education act that saw the amendments of the Elementary Education Act of 1968. This move saw the allocation of funds to support the growth of some foreign languages in the education sector. Another factor was the immigration that necessitated the expansion of the communication space to allow people speaking their local languages to have an opportunity to be able to express their feelings and aspirations (35). In page 37 it is recorded language was viewed as a right and therefore a fundamental human right that each person was entitled to speak a language he/she best understood. Further, for global integration, there was a need to develop a more international combination through the use of several languages that could accommodate different ethnic groups to eloquently and freely communicate with their people and their colleagues from different parts of the world.
Questions
What is the significance of translingualism in the development of other languages?
Why is multilingualism important to societal development and expansion?
Multilingualism erodes the tradition of smaller and immigrant groups. To what extent is this justified?