Triki Safa

Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia

Topic (Applied Linguistics): The Role of Multilingualism and teaching English for speakers of other
languages in fostering cultural understanding and global citizenship.

“Language is the talisman that will enforce admiration or beget contempt; that will produce esteem or preclude
friendship; that will bar the door or make portals flight open.” 1 It is evident that of Multilingualism is of a great
importance in fostering cultural understanding and global citizenship. This essay will expose the fact that speaking
many languages is adapting oneself to the different cultures and developing a well-rounded identity.

Language is more than just a means of communication or a tool of reflecting one’s thoughts. It is the very medium
by which a human being attains an awareness of himself and his surroundings. Language shapes human perception
of himself and the world he inhabits, because it serves as an instrument that carries all the data about one’s
background, education, beliefs and prejudices. In fact, language has an important role in constructing our identities
and directing our attitudes towards the others, which makes it central to our experience of being human. It has the
power of both making us express ourselves and articulate our own individuality, and at the same time linking us
together into small or large social groups. Language, therefore, is not something that the individual acquires at a
certain point. It is a whole process in which the individual shapes himself, not only as a unique or an independent
individual, but also as a member of a whole group, who is bound to not only interpret the world according to his
personal worldviews, but also to perceive it in light of others’ ideas.

Knowing a language involves not only knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and phonology. In fact, a speaker who
knows a language, knows much more about that language than what it is found in grammar books. That is to say,
understanding a language does not only imply that the speaker is aware of that language’s grammar rules, but it also
implies that he is cognizant of how his linguistic behavior is conditioned by both social and cultural norms. In fact, if
language learners are to communicate with other individuals from other cultural backgrounds, they will need not
only to understand the cultural factors that influence the behavior of others, but also to identify the deep impact of
their culture on their forms of linguistic expression. Indeed, language and culture are deeply interrelated, as we
cannot understand the one without the knowledge of the other. Sapir and Whorf2 describe the language-culture
relationship as a deterministic one: speakers of diverse languages would experience the world differently, because
language has never been context-free. It has developed around a given socio-historical nexus. For that reason,
difference in thought is generated by difference in language and that speakers of different languages will,
automatically, have different worldviews. Hence, “By having another language, [one] has an alternative vision of
the world.”3 

1*
W.H Sacage, “The Vulgarisms and Improprieties of the English Language: Containing Also Grammatical Errors,
Orthoepical Readings, Tautological Phrases, Aspiration of H Together with a Critical Preface on Stage Pronunciation”
T. S. Porter, 108, Britannia Street, City Road, 1833

 2*Kay, P.; Kempton, W. (1984). "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? » American Anthropologist. 86 (1): 65–
79.  Doi:10.1525/aa.1984.86.1.02a00050. JSTOR 679389
3*
Conceptual representation in bilinguals: the role of language specificity and conceptual change
Athanasopoulos, P. 2015 In: The Cambridge handbook of bilingual processing. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press p. 275-292. 18 p. ISBN: 9781107060586. Electronic ISBN: 9781107447257.

Nevertheless, it is widely held that in multilingual contexts the fact that language and culture are closely intertwined
leads to the creation of an atmosphere of tension among people, since every group of people has its own cultural
norms for conversation and these norms can be completely different and conflict with other cultures’ norms. In fact,
racism, that is the belief that one race is superior to the other has nowadays changed into a cultural racism focusing
on cultural differences which are mainly linguistic in nature. Linguistic racism is deep rooted in history, as many
languages have been looked down upon, abused and even banned. For instance, Hispanics are feeling intimidated
because of their language and they are told to speak only English and to not use their native language. People,
therefore, find themselves torn between many selves. Julia Kristeva reveals that speaking several languages
constitutes a breach in one’s identity and prevents the polyglot from being truly at home in any language. That being
said, knowing multiple languages is a key factor in constructing a healthy identity. In fact, in multilingual societies,
identities are not seen as fixed but rather as fluid, shifting, diversified and culturally constructed, which echoes the
claim of Stuart Hall when he considered identity to be not just a fixed essence, for it is an ever-changing entity
regulated by both cultural and societal norms. In this sense, identity is “not a pre-given entity”4. It is a matter of
being, becoming, and coming into being. Being a multilingual person, therefore, provides us with the opportunity for
self-reinvention. From this perspective, a new citizen model is born; a citizen of hope, a global citizen.

To sum up, multilingualism is a powerful tool to lift the veil that keeps us from more clearly seeing the world as a
whole and finding more sustainable ways of connecting with those who share our common humanity.

  9*"Classical Weimar UNESCO Justification". Justification for UNESCO Heritage Cites. UNESCO. Retrieved 7
June  2012.