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

ecognised as a language or not; in such an area individuals may be monolingual, speaking
only their own variety.
- 'Plurilingualism' refers to the repertoire of varieties of language which many individuals use,
and is therefore the opposite of monolingualism; it includes the language variety referred to
as 'mother tongue' or 'first language' and any number of other languages or varieties. Thus
in some multilingual areas some individuals are monolingual and some are plurilingual.
The Council of Europe policy attaches particular importance to the development of a
plurilingual person with a repertoire of languages and language varieties, because the
development of multilingualism is a lifelong enrichment for a person living in Europe.
In Europe, there is a growing awareness of the value of linguistic diversity and the need to
learn languages. The objective of the Council of Europe and the European Union is that all
Europeans learn to speak at least two other languages in addition to their mother tongue. 84
On basis of the different presented above, we can conclude that the terms multilingualism
and plurilingualism are generally seen as a valuable asset for individuals and that the term
bilingualism is often used for communities/groups. However, in this MELT paper we use
mutlilingualism for individuals (young children, parents, or pre-school teachers) and for
language communities. As the MELT project focuses on minority languages because in daily
life, due to ever-increasing mobility, immigration and international contacts, language skills
are now more important than ever (for multilingual societies and minority communities).
Nevertheless, there are diverging views of multilingualism, and languages learning, and (preschool)
education. Moreover, parents and practitioners are confronted with practical
problems with regard to language contacts during the child’s development.
This not only refers to some of the major languages of Europe, such as English, French,
German, or Spanish, but also to (smaller state languages, immigrant languages, and regional
or) minority languages.
The equality of languages of all kinds is not self-evident. Baker (2006) shows that where
bilingualism involves high-status languages it is viewed positively, as an educational
advantage, and where the languages have low status, bilingualism is (in some school
systems) viewed as an educational handicap, which must be overcome (Baker, 2006: 385).
Cummins (2000) too describes how (bilingualism and) multilingualism are valued differently
by educationalists depending on the social and political status of the languages concerned. 85
As a result of this imbalanced evaluation of multilingualism, the mastery of a minority
language is not always considered (and not by everybody) to be a valuable asset. Often,
practical and political arguments in favour of learning English are revealed. And,
unfortunately, the well-documented arguments of the mother tongue being the best basis
for a good linguistic and cognitive development, and language providing of cultural social
wealth are less widely known.
84 Council conclusions of 12 May 2009 on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training ("ET 2020")
85 Description from the website of Language Rich Europe Multilingualism for stable and prosperous societies. The British Council leads the
Language Rich Europe project, what is co-funded by the European Commission.They work with a wide network of partners and specialists
across 20 European countries, including the European Union’s Network of National Institutes of Culture.
http://languagerichblog.eu/2010/11/23/multilingualism-changing-the-mind-set [July, 2011]
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