Multilingual Early Language Transmission (MELT) - Mercator ...

3. Multilingual Early Language Transmission
As indicated in chapter 1 we prefer the terms regional & minority languages and majority
language. In this paper we use the term multilingualism and in this chapter will define the
concepts bi-, pluri-, and multi-lingualism. Chapter 3.2 describes the concept early language
learning. Chapter 3.3 presents the definition of MELT. The important stages of bilingual
development from young children are presented in chapter 3.4. Chapter 3.5 presents an
historical overview of Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA) and the need and the
factors to stimulate language acquisition are described.
3.1 Multilingualism in society and individuals
Multilingualism as a social phenomenon is common throughout Europe, and indeed the
whole world. In the twenty-first century, all European citizens live in a multilingual
environment. In their daily lives they come across many different languages. As a
communication tool, languages are useful in communicating with others for trade, tourism,
and international contacts. In its symbolic function, language carries the deepest emotions
and the historical awareness of its speakers. The mother tongue is the language children
acquire first in life. It is also the language that most people know best, use most, and
strongly identify with. All people have the right to learn and use their mother tongue and to
learn a second or third language. In many cases, these rights are still absent, or there are no
adequate provisions. Regional & minority languages are spoken by more than ten percent of
the European population. Particularly for some languages, their situation and future
prospects are critical.
This section describes some definitions of bi-, pluri-, and multilingualism formulated through
experts. They form the basis for overthinking about multilingualism within the MELT project.
Chapter 3.2 presents the concept early language learning. Those definitions and theories are
the basis of the definition of MELT, that will be presented in chapter 3.3.
Most socio- and psycholinguistic researchers define ‘multilingualism’ as the use of three or
more languages. However, this entails defining what a language is, which can be
problematic, according to Kemp (2009: 11). A number of terms are used by different
researchers within the different fields. Kemp (2009) describes the term ‘multilingualism,’
using other definitions from other researchers, that are summarised in the book “The
exploration of multilingualism: development of research on L3, multilingualism and multiple
language acquisition” as follows: (…) “Most researchers now use the term ‘bilingual’ to refer
to the individuals who use two languages, and ‘multilingual’ to refer to individuals who use
three or more languages” (Kemp, 2009: 24).
Edwards (1994) describes a multilingual person as: “A person who has the ability to use three
or more languages, either separately or in various degrees of code-mixing. Different
languages are used for different purposes, competence in each of then varying according to
such factors as register, occupation and education” (Edwards, 1994, in Kemp, 2009: 15).
According to Hall (2001) the term bilingualism and multilingualism “…is currently used to
refer to pupils who live in two languages, who have access to, or need to use, two or more
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