The world is connecting in many complex ways, driven by the globally integrated nature of technological innovation and human mobility across continents. Never before have so many different speakers ...and languages existed side by side in the OECD countries as they do today. This reality has placed multilingualism in the spotlight. Increased migration and transcultural flows across borders in Europe have highlighted the urgency for research on multilingualism in the individual and society. Academic institutions have recognized the necessity for such knowledge and research centers have evolved to meet this challenge (cf. Obermayer et al. 2014). MultiLing - the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan is a research center aimed at academic excellence and financed by the Research Council of Norway through its Center of Excellence scheme. MultiLing is hosted by the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Oslo in Norway. It opened in June of 2013 and is currently in its first five-year period of operation.
The main goal of the Center is to generate state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on individual and societal multilingualism across the lifespan that will address the challenges and potentials multilingualism poses for the individual in the family, school, other institutions, and society in general. Moreover, the Center aims at providing research-based knowledge on multilingualism to central policymakers and stakeholders. Language planning and the standardization of languages are some of the Center’s key research foci and are indeed vital issues today at the top of the agenda for policymakers.
The Center’s vision is to contribute to how society can deal with the challenges of multilingualism through increased knowledge, promoting agency for individuals in society, and a better quality of life, no matter what linguistic and social background.
The interactions of the Celtic-speaking communities of Southern Gaul with the Mediterranean world have intrigued commentators since antiquity. This book combines sociolinguistics and archaeology to ...bring to life the multilingualism and multiple identities of the region from the foundation of the Greek colony of Massalia in 600 BC to the final phases of Roman Imperial power. It builds on the interest generated by the application of modern bilingualism theory to ancient evidence by modelling language contact and community dynamics and adopting an innovative interdisciplinary approach. This produces insights into the entanglements and evolving configurations of a dynamic zone of cultural contact. Key foci of contact-induced change are exposed and new interpretations of cultural phenomena highlight complex origins and influences from the entire Mediterranean koine. Southern Gaul reveals itself to be fertile ground for considering the major themes of multilingualism, ethnolinguistic vitality, multiple identities, colonialism and Mediterraneanization.
In this monograph, Anatoliy V. Kharkhurin presents the results of his empirical investigation into the impact of multilingual practice on an individual's creative potential. Until now, the ...relationship between these two activities has received little attention in the academic community. The book makes an attempt to resuscitate this theme and provides a solid theoretical framework supported by contemporary empirical research conducted in a variety of geographic, linguistic, and sociocultural locations. This study demonstrates that several factors--such as the multilinguals' age of language acquisition, proficiency in these languages and experience with cultural settings in which these languages were acquired--have a positive impact on selective attention and language mediated concept activation mechanisms. Together, these facilitate generative and innovative capacities of creative thinking. This book will be of great interest not only to scholars in the fields of multilingualism and creativity, but also to educators and all those interested in enhancing foreign language learning and fostering creativity.
This comprehensive new work provides extensive evidence for the essential role of language contact as a primary trigger for change. Unique in breadth, it traces the spread of the periphrastic perfect ...across Europe over the last 2,500 years, illustrating at each stage the micro-responses of speakers and communities to macro-historical pressures. Among the key forces claimed to be responsible for normative innovations in both eastern and western Europe is 'roofing' - the superstratal influence of Greek and Latin on languages under the influence of Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism respectively. The author provides a new interpretation of the notion of 'sprachbund', presenting the model of a three-dimensional stratified convergence zone, and applies this model to her analysis of the have and be perfects within the Charlemagne sprachbund. The book also tackles broader theoretical issues, for example, demonstrating that the perfect tense should not be viewed as a universal category.
