| Description |
The concept of multilingualism has been and continues to be widely and controversially discussed. The debate begins with the question of how multilingualism is defined (is it enough to know just a few words in another language, or do you have to have a quasi-perfect proficiency of the language; do you have to learn a language from birth, or can you also acquire it as a foreign language as an adult?) and continues in the discussion of the possible consequences of multilingualism. These consequences can be on very different levels and range from e.g. political and supra-individual (e.g. multilingual states with multilingual official documents) to linguistic (influence of the respective spoken languages on each other) up to individual cognitive consequences. The latter in particular attracted and still attracts special research attention. Despite that, there is currently no consensus, but we can name several shifts in interpretation. Previously there was a time when the disadvantages of multilingualism were particularly emphasized (among other things, the possibly delayed or incomplete acquisition of language), the view shifted to the positive interpretation with a focus on possible cognitive advantages, such as a delay in the symptoms of aging through multilingualism. But the discussion does not seem to be over, too many questions remain unanswered.
As seen, the construct of multilingualism raises many questions, which will be explored in this lecture in the first part of the semester. The focus will first be on theoretical insights into multilingualism research in general. In the second part of the lecture, individual multilingual constellations will be looked at and examined in depth. These will include contact situations with at least one Slavic language represented. Overall, both historical contacts in their diversity (such as the Latin influence on Polish, the Church Slavonic influence on Russian, or the complex language situation in Poland-Lithuania with Ruthenian) and current contact situations will be looked at. In the latter case, we will consider language contact situations as an effect of migration (such as Slavic-speaking migration to Switzerland, Germany, or England) as well as regional multilingual situations in their specificity and conflict potential (such as in the Balkans or in successor states of the USSR). Overall, the supra-individual and the individual perspective will alternate. In the latter case, we will have a closer look at well-described linguistic consequences, such as code-switching, code-mixing, or structural borrowing. They will be presented theoretically and illustrated with Slavic examples. As an outlook, there will be an excursus into the idea of planned languages (e.g. Slovio). |
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