Introduction: Polylingual Languaging Around and Among Children and Adolescents  

Oleh:

Jorgensen, J. Normann

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: International Journal of Multilingualism (Full Text) vol. 5 no. 3 (2008), page 161-176.
Topik: polylingualism; languaging; late modern urban youth; polylingual behaviour; norms of language behaviour
Fulltext: 05_03_Jorgensen_02.pdf (335.34KB)

Isi artikel

The uniquely human capacity of using arbitrary signs to transfer concept and experience over great distances in time and place is what we call language. We use language with a purpose, and we use whatever features are at our disposal to achieve our ends, regardless of the fact that some speakers think that certain features should be held together and not used in combination with certain other features. The phenomenon of language is not necessarily a construction, and while all individual languages are constructed, it is not possible to clearly delimit them from each other. The crucial phenomenon is language, not any specific language. While some speakers think languages should be kept apart, others combine three, four, or more different sets of features (i.e. so-called ‘languages’) in their linguistic production. This is characteristic of polylingualism (where multilingualism is characterised by the knowledge of several separate languages). These speakers do not choose their features randomly. Particularly in late-modern urban youth groups the simultaneous use of features from many different sources is frequent.

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