Language Awareness and Multilingualism: A Historical Overview

Abstract

In this encyclopedia entry, language awareness and multilingualism will be reviewed from a historical perspective, and current research trends will be highlighted. There is not a direct relationship between both movements from the beginning; rather there have been parallel (independent) developments. With the world becoming increasingly interconnected, multilingualism and diversity have turned into an everyday experience in various domains of life. While the field of language awareness initially concentrated on English L1 teaching, its scope and principles nowadays are much broader, including a wide variety of languages and contexts, such as L2 and L3 learning; bi-, tri-, and multilingual education; content- and language-integrated learning; and computer-/mobile-assisted learning. An examination of the articles published in the Language Awareness journal and the International Journal of Multilingualism between 2010 and the beginning of 2015 revealed that both language awareness and multilingualism encompass a wide range of topics and languages. On the whole, however, the primary focus still seems to be on English and language education, with communication in other languages and in the workplace remaining relatively unexplored. Although there are a number of well-designed small-scale studies, larger comparative studies that include and compare different settings and languages are needed. Altogether, it appears that the fields of language awareness and multilingualism can be fruitfully combined, with language awareness playing an important role in the development of multilingualism. In that regard, critical awareness of the role of politics is crucial since political decisions influence language use and the official status of languages as well as a person’s (multilingual) identity.