Multilingualism and language

learning:

The case of Greek-Albanian children

learning English as a third language.

Georgia Andreou1

&

Fotini Anastassiou2

1Professor of Linguistics, andreou@uth.gr

2PhD Candidate in Applied Linguistics, fanastassiou@gmail.com

University of Thessaly

The importance of multilingualism has been

acknowledged in the past years and nowadays

more and more research is being conducted on

the acquisition and learning of a third language

(L3). This is mainly because of the vast mobility of

populations between countries and mixed

marriages (Barnes 2005).

Since multilinguals are far more compared to

monolinguals in the world (Tucker 1998) it is just

as important to investigate the way bilinguals use

their languages while still in the process of

learning their third language.

A child’s ability to communicate in a number of languages represents a complex and multifaceted phenomenon not only because it involves the naturalistic acquisition of more than one grammatical system, but also because language learning and use do not occur in a vacuum.

This project deals with a specific type of multilingualism, namely trilingualism, where development of L1 and L2 has progressed while L3 is still ongoing through learning in a school context.

Nowadays, the more widely accepted view of trilingualism accepts as multilingual speakers those who have obtained some level on each of their languages on a gradient scale; from passive/receptive understanding capabilities to the so-called idealized balanced multilingual.

From this point of view, effective communication in each of the multilingual speaker’s languages determines functional multilingualism, independently of the age- appropriate accepted monolingual patterns (e.g. Cruz Ferreira, 2006; Tokuhama-Espinoza, 2001, 2003).

Trilingualism can adequately apply to the case of adults learning two foreign languages naturalistically or in a school context simultaneously or successively, early childhood bilinguals who attempt mastery of a third language as older children or adults, as well as children who grow up exposed to three languages from birth or from a very early age.

However, the former definition is rather restrictive and can only apply to those children who have managed a native – like proficiency of all of their languages. This type of mastery though is quite rare and almost idealistic.

The present research focuses on children who have acquired their L1 and L2 and are currently learning their L3. Specifically, this research surveys the language interaction of children who come from an Albanian background and they were born and raised in Greece. They have learnt Albanian from their family, Greek from their family and their social and school environment and they are currently learning English at school.

As Jessner & Cenoz (2007: 155) have pointed out, when we use the term L1 and L2 to refer to the relationship of these languages in a bilingual system, L1 is taken as not only the first chronologically learnt language but also as the dominant one.

L1 is this way given all of the qualities of the mother tongue. This way, “it is implicitly assumed that the level of proficiency in L2 must necessarily be lower than in L1”.

However, when a speaker acquires a third

language the chronological order of the

languages learnt does not always correspond to

the frequency of use or the levels of competence

in the trilingual’s languages. Language

proficiency usually changes over time and skills

can vary and alter within time according to

sociolinguistic contexts (Hufeisen, 1998, 169-

170).

Therefore, in this research, L3 English is used to

define the third consecutive language that these

children came in contact with so far.

The interest in learning English as a third language has attracted attention in the recent years since in the European Union it is the main language of communication among its citizens. In 2001 Eurostat found that 90 percent of pupils in secondary schools in the European Union learn English (Pilos, 2001), and according to “The Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe” (2012) it is confirmed that English is by far the most taught foreign language in nearly all European countries. In this sense, English is in many cases a second and not a foreign language and it is in contact with other languages since many European countries are bilingual or multilingual.

English is also learnt as a third language in many cases in the European context. For instance, the case of immigrants from non-European countries who learn the official language of the country they have settled in and they also study English at school.

Research into trilingualism also looks at bilingual children’s acquisition of the third language through schooling. Studies of this kind have been carried out with linguistic minority children in the United States (e.g., Klein, 1997; Thomas, 1988), Canada (Bild & Swain, 1989; Genesee, 1998), Belgium (Jaspaert & Lemmens, 1990), and the Basque Country (Cenoz, 1998; Cenoz & Lindsay, 1996; Valencia & Cenoz, 1992) among others.

Moreover, Hoffmann and Stavans (2007) point out that most of the research on trilingualism focuses on individuals who acquire or learn a third language in a school context (Cenoz & Genesee, 1998; Cenoz, Hufeisen, & Jessner, 2001) or immigrant minorities who learn a third language in social contexts (Baetens-Beardsmore, 1993). Also, the majority of these studies look into the development of a third language consecutively to the development of one or two other languages, just like our study presented below.

The aim of the present study was to investigate

the vocabulary interaction of the three

languages of bilingual primary school children

who are learning their L3 English in a school

context. Specifically, this study aimed to explore

cross- linguistic influence as far as code

switching and code mixing is concerned, as well

as the source language or default supplier of

cross-linguistic influence (either Greek or

Albanian, whether L1 or L2) while speaking their

L3 English.

Methodology

2.1. Participants

Fifty bilingual children, whose L1 and L2 were either Greek or Albanian and who were learning their L3, English, were interviewed as part of the methodology for a PhD research. Our subjects fall into a particular category of trilinguals, namely children who acquired their two systems almost simultaneously, that is, children who had contact with two linguistic systems from birth and developed them as first language and then they learnt their third language at school.

All of the children came from an immigrant background and were selected according to their bilingualism and their level in their L3, English. More particularly, participants were all “A1 level” learners of English that their L1 and L2 were either Greek or Albanian. In order to define the participants’ level in English (L3) they were asked to narrate a picture story. According to their produced “text” their level in English was then estimated as “A1” according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Out of the 50 children who took part in this research only 6 of them were found to use all of their three languages while narrating the picture story.

According to Hoffman (2001: 16) “our understanding of trilingual competence would benefit from more trilingual data (i.e. data evidencing the presence of all three linguistic systems in the same utterance) or, if this is genuinely not obtainable, more data from trilinguals which might point towards an explanation of why most non-monolingual speech of trilinguals seems to be influenced bi-directionally rather than tri-directionally”.

Therefore, this project will present the findings of the narrations of these 6 children who used both of their L1 and L2 (either Albanian or Greek) while narrating the picture story in their L3, English.

During the evaluation of their level in English it was found that there were two groups according to their A1 Level; therefore they were separated in “A1 higher level” and “A1 lower level”. Specifically, 1 child was an A1 Higher level speaker of English and 5 children were lower level speakers of English. The participants’ age ranged between 10 and 12 years old.

Their three languages were Albanian either as an L1 or an L2, Greek either as an L1 or an L2, and English (L3). This group consisted of 5 girls and 1 boy. All of them were children of Albanian immigrants and they were born in Greece. First of all, we collected data regarding our learners through questionnaires. The aim of this questionnaire was to elicit demographic data about the participants (age, sex, class they attended), as well as information on their three languages (which one were their L1 and their L2 and the years they had been using their languages, how many years they had been learning their L3).

2.2 Instruments We followed Cenoz’s (2001) method which aimed to

investigate trilingual children’s speech production and specifically cross- linguistic influence. Cenoz provided the bilingual participants with wordless picture stories. She asked the children to narrate the two stories in their L3 (English) that they were learning at school. We too used the same wordless story book with Cenoz: “The boy, the dog and the frog” by Mercer Mayer. This is a commonly used series of story books for language studies.

Before the children started narrating they were told that they could use whichever language they wanted while narrating in their L3. Specifically, they were told: “the languages you speak are all yours, you can use them if you feel you need to”. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed and all cases of cross-linguistic influence were identified. We also used a bilingual interpreter (Greek, Albanian) to help us with the Albanian transfer lapses.

Our aim was to identify the language (L1 or L2) that the

participants would use every time they needed help while

narrating in their L3, as well as the code switching and code

mixing instances.

Largely, the basic definition of code mixing refers to the mixing

of various linguistic units (morphemes, words, modifiers,

phrases, clauses and sentences) primarily from two

participating grammatical systems within a sentence. In other

words, code mixing is intrasentential and is constrained by

grammatical principles and may be motivated by social

psychological motivations.

Code switching refers to the mixing of various linguistic

units (words, phrases, clauses and sentences) primarily

from two participating grammatical systems across

sentence boundaries within a speech event. In other

words, code switching is intersentential and may be

subject to some discourse principles. It is motivated by

social and psychological motivations.

3. Results and discussion

According to the questionnaire the children filled in, 2 of the 6 children had as their L1 Albanian and 4 of them had as their L1 Greek. Since all of the participants were born and raised in Greece their families used at home both of these languages during their everyday communication. Their parents have been in Greece from 10 to 20 years so they had a fairly good command of Greek. This might also explain the fact that the rest 44 children that took part in this PhD research did not use Albanian at all every time they needed help while narrating the picture story in their L3, English.

The “texts” that these particular 6 children

produced were analyzed and the

instances that they code mixed and code

switched were identified. Another issue

that was surveyed was the language

dominance one, by trying to trace the

language system among the three ones

involved which surfaced more than the

others.

3.1. Language biography of the participants. Out of the 6 children of this project there was 1 boy and 5

girls. All of the girls were evaluated as “higher A1 level” English language speakers, whereas the boy was a lower one. This finding can not claim anything in particular about the connection of sex and proficiency of the speaker since the number of this group of participants is really small. Therefore, this matter will not be further discussed. Two of the children had as their L1 Albanian and four of them had as their L1 Greek.

All of the six children speak both Albanian and Greek at home. Greek is used every day, whether it is their L1 or L2. Only two children use Albanian every day, one child uses it often and three of the children use it rarely. The children whose L2 is Albanian use it only at home. The children whose L2 is Greek use at home, at school and with their friends.

3.2. Language use and language dominance

findings The produced “texts” of the six children who used all

three languages were between 19 and 25 utterances, and the average number of utterances was 22. Accordingly, the children’s “texts” were between 186 and 264 words, with an average of 213 words.

Out of the 130 total utterances, 37 were in English, 25 utterances were in Albanian and 64 of them were code mixed. Out of these 64 code mixed utterances, 48 of them were English – Greek ones, 32 of them were English – Albanian ones, and 16 utterances were in all of the three languages. As previously mentioned, it is rare to come across with speakers who produce more utterances that are code mixed in three languages. Therefore, our finding is consistent with the so far research

As far as the words produced is concerned, out of the 1275 total words that the six children uttered 633 of them were in English (the target language), 522 of them were in Greek and 120 of them were in Albanian. According to these findings, children produced a rather high number of Greek which is the language that they have stated that they use every day.

However, two of the six children had stated that they used both Albanian and Greek every day. These children in question used more their L2, whether it was Albanian or Greek.

This finding is in line with studies of third language acquisition and L3 use that have shown that L2 in a trilingual system takes up a specific role; L3 learners or users do not rely on their L1 as one would expect, but mainly on their L2, which serves as the “bridge language”.

Tremblay (2006) indicated that L2 exposure may influence the learners’ ability to exploit their knowledge of L2 in order to escape from their lexical deficits in L3, whereas L2 proficiency plays a major role in the frequency with which the L2 intrudes during L3 production (in Jessner 2008).

Our group of children had more exposure in Greek, since it is the official language of Greece as well as the language of every day communication. As far as the proficiency is concerned, all of the children had a native-like level in Greek, since they were born and raised in Greece.

Greek in comparison with Albanian is more advanced, so this explains their tendency to use less Albanian during their narrations every time they had to turn to their other two languages while speaking English (their L3). Their lexical deficits were mainly overcome by using Greek, whether it was their L1 or their L2.

4.Conclusion

The increasing interest on trilingualism and by extension on multilingualism is walking side by side with our era. People immigrate, communicate with other cultures, there are cases that countries have more than one official language and in general we need to speak additional languages apart from our mother tongue in order to be able to adapt to every aspect of our lives. Moreover, the European Union has proposed the “Mother tongue plus one” guideline suggesting that European citizens should learn apart from their mother tongue, one neighbour country’s language and another lingua franca.

Future research on trilingualism/ multilingualism

will give more data on the way languages

interact and how a speaker subconsciously

chooses how he code switches any time he

needs to. We hope that when this PhD research

is presented we will succeed in contributing

some insights too into trilingual speech

production, including its related issues of

language choice, language dominance and

directionality of switches.

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