Background information:
Many have questioned how the brain of multilingual students functions. Is it possible to be completely concentrated in one language, or does knowing various languages affect the way one thinks? In order to answer this question, research was conducted by looking at a text by A. Suresh Canagarajah about shuttling between languages, interviewing a first year Emory student, reading a scholarly article by Walter J.B. van Heuven, and learning about dialects through Vershawn Ashanti Young’s article written in Black English. Through the lens of Canagarajah’s article, this essay will show that people who are multilingual always have the languages that they know affect each other. Xiaochen’s interview, Young’s article and van Heuven’s research will extend Canagarajah’s reasoning by showing how it is affected in a student’s daily life, in dialects and in the brain. Before analyzing this theory, background information will be given on each text type, in order to help further understand the argument discussed in this essay.
Canagurajah’s A Rhetoric of Shuttling between Languages:
This text discusses how bilinguals should be regarded as having integrated knowledge on both languages instead of having mastered two languages separately without any affiliation or effects on each other. Canagarajah shows this by conducting research and specifically looking at three texts written by Professor K. Sivatamby. Text 1 was written in Tamil to a Sri Lankan audience in 1992, text 2 was written in English in 1984 and is also addressed to a Sri Lankan audience, and text 3 was written in English in 1990 to an international audience. What was noticeable in the construction of the texts was that text 1 and text 2 had similarities in discourse, even though they were written in different languages. On the other hand, both text 2 and text 3 were written in English and they had a noticeable difference in discourse. This proved that “language doesn’t determine the difference in the texts of multilingual authors, rather the contexts” (page 174). In addition, since text 1 was written later (1992) than text 2 & 3 (1984 & 1990), this showed that Sivatamby specifically chose to write it in a certain manner because he knew how to write to that peculiar audience. What Canagarajah attempts to prove with this finding is that it should correct the perception from teachers that multilingual writers are always conditioned by their native language or culture.
Interview:
In a seven minute long interview, Xiaochen Chen, originally from Sydney, Australia, talks about her experiences in high school and college by being multilingual. She draws from her Japanese, English, French and Chinese linguistic knowledge to help us understand how it has affected her everyday life and as well as her academics.
Van Heuven’s scholarly article Language Conflict in the Bilingual Brain:
In this article, research is conducted to show how a target language functions at a given time. Through scientific experiments and processed data, the text shows how bilingual individuals face language conflict at times when they think they are not activating their non target language.
Young’s article Should Writers Use They Own English:
Vershawn Ashanti Young’s article focuses on sub dialects of English. More specifically, Young uses Black English (dialect of standard English) to try to convey to the audience that one should regard dialects as having a shared common language instead of approaching it as different ones.
Code switching and its effects between dialects and languages:
Canagarajah’s article focuses heavily on the idea of shuttling between languages. He states “a bilingual person’s competence is not simply two discrete monolingual competencies added together; instead, bilingual competence integrates knowledge of two languages and is thus qualitatively different from monolingual competence” (page 158). While reading Young’s article, he heavily discusses the idea of code switching, and said that it is not translating from one dialect to another, but more like the blending of the two languages and making them coexist (page 67). Young extends the concept of shuffling between languages and brings it to the level of dialects. While Canagarajah would agree with his concept of movement between these dialects, he could question whether there is a significant change in process of thought since the dialects are based on a shared common language.
Canagarajah also continues this idea of shuffling between languages by looking at grammar. He mentions: “We must keep in mind that not every textual or linguistic difference is an error. Many of the presumed errors can be choices made by authors from a range of different options in order to achieve their communicative purpose” (page 176). In Young’s article, he discusses how graduate students have the right to make their own grammatical rules in order to not adhere to the Standard English language ideology. He states: “I don’t believe the writin problems of graduate students is due to lack of standard English; they problems likely come from learnin new theories and new ways of thinkin” (page 66). Young again extends Canagarajah’s idea of shuffling between languages when looking at grammar.
In Xiaochen’s case, her everyday life consists majorly of switching between English and Chinese. For instance, in a question asked to her about the difficulties she faces with communicating with her family in Chinese, she said its not a problem but at times she will have a moment of miscommunication due to translation. An example she describes is when at school there would be humorous moments but it would be only funny in English and when trying to explain it to her parents, the translation would not be the same (especially when referring to irony or a language pun). While Canagarajah’s example shows that when focusing on communicating to a specific cultural group, the language structure changes, Xiaochen’s examples proves this to be true, through her humorous experience not being conveyed and understood when translating it from English to Chinese.
Furthermore, the idea of knowing many languages and being able to shuffle between them has helped Xiaochen with her studies. She mentions about how knowing one language can help learning another and saves a lot more time and effort. She brings this from experience from basing her French off of her English.
Culture and language:
At the end of Canagarajah’s text, the audience understands that through the linguistic experiments, he shows that language functions differently depending on the cultural context it is used in. Young extends this idea and is quoted “Instead of prescribing how folks should write or speak, I say we teach language descriptively. This mean we should, for instance, teach how language functions within and from various cultural perspectives” (page 65). Furthermore, Xiaochen was asked how knowing these languages have helped her connect with others. She furthered both Canagarajah and Young’s concept by answering that she thinks it does not relate to the language aspect itself but more the cultural aspect. Through learning new languages, she is able to learn about the different cultures associated to them, and therefore she can spark conversations with others.
Language Conflict in relation to shuttling between languages:
Van Heuven heavily discusses the concept of language conflict in his article. He says that this is inevitable, that the brain automatically does this even if one is not aware of it. Xiaochen’s example in her interview is disproved by this research. She states that when she is speaking in Chinese, she is fully immersed in the language. Van Heuven’s proves that “behavioral studies, however, have shown that the non target language is activated and that cross-language effects appear even in situations and tasks that are purely monolingual” (page 2706).
Canagarajah’s article approaches language conflict from a different perspective. In one of his example texts, the author writes in English but addresses a Tamil audience. A topic for further research could be how far does language conflict exist when one is thinking about writing to a different cultural audience. There was a noticeable difference in the sentence structure and tone when Sivantamby directed this to different audiences, so does language conflict also occur when it is direction towards various social groups?
Conclusions and further research:
In conclusion, the shuffling between languages occurs automatically in every multilingual person. Van Heuven’s scholary article shows that language conflict occurs with everyone. He states that even when one person is focusing in a target language, the non target language is also activated during that moment. Canagarajah’s research shows that when one focuses in a particular language, the cultural aspects of a different language and audience can also be present during this time. He shows that not only does language affect the way one communicates but it also changes when writing to a specific audience. Young furthers Canagarajah’s arguments by relating it to Black English. He discusses that dialects should be viewed as sharing a common language and not as two seperate entities. However, this idea could be questioned, since Canagarjah’s examples are based off of two completely different languages (English and Tamil) and dialects are subdomains from one specific language. Furthermore, Xiaochen’s interview extends both Canagarajah and Young’s ideas, by looking at her day to day experiences through her linguistic knowledge of Chinese, English, Japanese and French. She shows that she uses shuffling in her daily life, and thus sometimes has translation difficulties. On the other hand, because she has extensive knowledge on various languages, she shows that through language shuffling, she is able to pick up new languages faster. Further research could be conducted by seeing how language conflict affects different dialects, for example if at a given time someone is focusing in a target dialect, would the non target dialect also be activated too?
Works Cited
Canagarajah, A. Suresh. "Cross-Language Relations in Composition." Project MUSE -. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
"Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies." "Should Writers Use They Own English?" by Vershawn Ashanti Young. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Nijkerk, Margaux. "Student Interview with Xiaochen." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Van Heuven, Walter J.B. "Language Conflict in the Bilingual Brain." Language Conflict in the Bilingual Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Image link:
http://acreelman.blogspot.com/2014/04/oer-and-linguistic-diversity.html
Many have questioned how the brain of multilingual students functions. Is it possible to be completely concentrated in one language, or does knowing various languages affect the way one thinks? In order to answer this question, research was conducted by looking at a text by A. Suresh Canagarajah about shuttling between languages, interviewing a first year Emory student, reading a scholarly article by Walter J.B. van Heuven, and learning about dialects through Vershawn Ashanti Young’s article written in Black English. Through the lens of Canagarajah’s article, this essay will show that people who are multilingual always have the languages that they know affect each other. Xiaochen’s interview, Young’s article and van Heuven’s research will extend Canagarajah’s reasoning by showing how it is affected in a student’s daily life, in dialects and in the brain. Before analyzing this theory, background information will be given on each text type, in order to help further understand the argument discussed in this essay.
Canagurajah’s A Rhetoric of Shuttling between Languages:
This text discusses how bilinguals should be regarded as having integrated knowledge on both languages instead of having mastered two languages separately without any affiliation or effects on each other. Canagarajah shows this by conducting research and specifically looking at three texts written by Professor K. Sivatamby. Text 1 was written in Tamil to a Sri Lankan audience in 1992, text 2 was written in English in 1984 and is also addressed to a Sri Lankan audience, and text 3 was written in English in 1990 to an international audience. What was noticeable in the construction of the texts was that text 1 and text 2 had similarities in discourse, even though they were written in different languages. On the other hand, both text 2 and text 3 were written in English and they had a noticeable difference in discourse. This proved that “language doesn’t determine the difference in the texts of multilingual authors, rather the contexts” (page 174). In addition, since text 1 was written later (1992) than text 2 & 3 (1984 & 1990), this showed that Sivatamby specifically chose to write it in a certain manner because he knew how to write to that peculiar audience. What Canagarajah attempts to prove with this finding is that it should correct the perception from teachers that multilingual writers are always conditioned by their native language or culture.
Interview:
In a seven minute long interview, Xiaochen Chen, originally from Sydney, Australia, talks about her experiences in high school and college by being multilingual. She draws from her Japanese, English, French and Chinese linguistic knowledge to help us understand how it has affected her everyday life and as well as her academics.
Van Heuven’s scholarly article Language Conflict in the Bilingual Brain:
In this article, research is conducted to show how a target language functions at a given time. Through scientific experiments and processed data, the text shows how bilingual individuals face language conflict at times when they think they are not activating their non target language.
Young’s article Should Writers Use They Own English:
Vershawn Ashanti Young’s article focuses on sub dialects of English. More specifically, Young uses Black English (dialect of standard English) to try to convey to the audience that one should regard dialects as having a shared common language instead of approaching it as different ones.
Code switching and its effects between dialects and languages:
Canagarajah’s article focuses heavily on the idea of shuttling between languages. He states “a bilingual person’s competence is not simply two discrete monolingual competencies added together; instead, bilingual competence integrates knowledge of two languages and is thus qualitatively different from monolingual competence” (page 158). While reading Young’s article, he heavily discusses the idea of code switching, and said that it is not translating from one dialect to another, but more like the blending of the two languages and making them coexist (page 67). Young extends the concept of shuffling between languages and brings it to the level of dialects. While Canagarajah would agree with his concept of movement between these dialects, he could question whether there is a significant change in process of thought since the dialects are based on a shared common language.
Canagarajah also continues this idea of shuffling between languages by looking at grammar. He mentions: “We must keep in mind that not every textual or linguistic difference is an error. Many of the presumed errors can be choices made by authors from a range of different options in order to achieve their communicative purpose” (page 176). In Young’s article, he discusses how graduate students have the right to make their own grammatical rules in order to not adhere to the Standard English language ideology. He states: “I don’t believe the writin problems of graduate students is due to lack of standard English; they problems likely come from learnin new theories and new ways of thinkin” (page 66). Young again extends Canagarajah’s idea of shuffling between languages when looking at grammar.
In Xiaochen’s case, her everyday life consists majorly of switching between English and Chinese. For instance, in a question asked to her about the difficulties she faces with communicating with her family in Chinese, she said its not a problem but at times she will have a moment of miscommunication due to translation. An example she describes is when at school there would be humorous moments but it would be only funny in English and when trying to explain it to her parents, the translation would not be the same (especially when referring to irony or a language pun). While Canagarajah’s example shows that when focusing on communicating to a specific cultural group, the language structure changes, Xiaochen’s examples proves this to be true, through her humorous experience not being conveyed and understood when translating it from English to Chinese.
Furthermore, the idea of knowing many languages and being able to shuffle between them has helped Xiaochen with her studies. She mentions about how knowing one language can help learning another and saves a lot more time and effort. She brings this from experience from basing her French off of her English.
Culture and language:
At the end of Canagarajah’s text, the audience understands that through the linguistic experiments, he shows that language functions differently depending on the cultural context it is used in. Young extends this idea and is quoted “Instead of prescribing how folks should write or speak, I say we teach language descriptively. This mean we should, for instance, teach how language functions within and from various cultural perspectives” (page 65). Furthermore, Xiaochen was asked how knowing these languages have helped her connect with others. She furthered both Canagarajah and Young’s concept by answering that she thinks it does not relate to the language aspect itself but more the cultural aspect. Through learning new languages, she is able to learn about the different cultures associated to them, and therefore she can spark conversations with others.
Language Conflict in relation to shuttling between languages:
Van Heuven heavily discusses the concept of language conflict in his article. He says that this is inevitable, that the brain automatically does this even if one is not aware of it. Xiaochen’s example in her interview is disproved by this research. She states that when she is speaking in Chinese, she is fully immersed in the language. Van Heuven’s proves that “behavioral studies, however, have shown that the non target language is activated and that cross-language effects appear even in situations and tasks that are purely monolingual” (page 2706).
Canagarajah’s article approaches language conflict from a different perspective. In one of his example texts, the author writes in English but addresses a Tamil audience. A topic for further research could be how far does language conflict exist when one is thinking about writing to a different cultural audience. There was a noticeable difference in the sentence structure and tone when Sivantamby directed this to different audiences, so does language conflict also occur when it is direction towards various social groups?
Conclusions and further research:
In conclusion, the shuffling between languages occurs automatically in every multilingual person. Van Heuven’s scholary article shows that language conflict occurs with everyone. He states that even when one person is focusing in a target language, the non target language is also activated during that moment. Canagarajah’s research shows that when one focuses in a particular language, the cultural aspects of a different language and audience can also be present during this time. He shows that not only does language affect the way one communicates but it also changes when writing to a specific audience. Young furthers Canagarajah’s arguments by relating it to Black English. He discusses that dialects should be viewed as sharing a common language and not as two seperate entities. However, this idea could be questioned, since Canagarjah’s examples are based off of two completely different languages (English and Tamil) and dialects are subdomains from one specific language. Furthermore, Xiaochen’s interview extends both Canagarajah and Young’s ideas, by looking at her day to day experiences through her linguistic knowledge of Chinese, English, Japanese and French. She shows that she uses shuffling in her daily life, and thus sometimes has translation difficulties. On the other hand, because she has extensive knowledge on various languages, she shows that through language shuffling, she is able to pick up new languages faster. Further research could be conducted by seeing how language conflict affects different dialects, for example if at a given time someone is focusing in a target dialect, would the non target dialect also be activated too?
Works Cited
Canagarajah, A. Suresh. "Cross-Language Relations in Composition." Project MUSE -. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
"Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies." "Should Writers Use They Own English?" by Vershawn Ashanti Young. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Nijkerk, Margaux. "Student Interview with Xiaochen." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Van Heuven, Walter J.B. "Language Conflict in the Bilingual Brain." Language Conflict in the Bilingual Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Image link:
http://acreelman.blogspot.com/2014/04/oer-and-linguistic-diversity.html