While the idea of plurilingual competence is widely established theoretically and promoted in European language policies, it is not implemented in educational practice, where separate plurilingualism is still dominant. The idea of languages as autonomous entities is e.g. reflected in the "Common European Framework of Reference for…

This study is an examination of signage and sign-making practices in one elementary (Kindergarten to sixth grade) public school which offers a German Bilingual Program (GBP) for the development of German-English bilingualism. Schools are public spaces in which the visible language choice on signs reveals the circulating discourses around language…

While acquisition of more than one language from birth is a relatively common phenomenon, whether children under two years of age use their languages in a differentiated manner has not yet been established. The current study investigates the pragmatic differentiation of a child who lives in Australia and was acquiring two minority languages,…

With its own national language, Luxembourgish, and three languages of administration, French, German and Luxembourgish, Luxembourg has long been a very multilingual country. The nature of this multilingualism is now changing, due to the rising proportion of migrants in the country, who now make up 43% of the resident population. The changing…

This paper analyses the use of periphrastic "do" in negative declaratives and non-negative questions with inversion by 200 Swiss and 30 German middle-school students of the same age but with different onsets of learning English and consequently a different amount of foreign language instructions. "Do"-support shows evidence of…

In this paper a particular context where receptive multilingualism at work can be observed is discussed. The Swiss armed forces underwent a series of quite dramatic downsizing measures, which lead to a situation with increased amount of mixed groups and linguistically mixed situations regarding the first/native language of officers and the…

The growing mobility of populations in important parts of the world has led, and is continuing to lead, to a lasting change from monolingual to multilingual teams of people working together, and the need for techniques for communication between people of different languages. A frequent stereotype envisages the most convenient solution as the…

This article reports on an inter-generational inter-cultural pilot project carried out in suburban Melbourne which supports the second-language acquisition of younger people and enhances the social inclusion of older people of migrant background. The article begins with an outline of the multilingual context in which the project is based. The…

This paper tries to give answers for successful receptive multilingualism (RM) but also for its failure. It is mainly based on the results of two projects, one on inter-dialectal communication in the Baltic area during the era of the Hanseatic League and the other analyses inter-Scandinavian communication today. The main purpose of this survey is…

The focus of this research is on the nature of lexical cross-linguistic influence (CLI) between non-native languages. Using oral interviews with 157 L1 Italian high-school students studying English and German as non-native languages, the project investigated which kinds of lexis appear to be more susceptible to transfer from German to English and…

This article is concerned with the conditions and stakes of building competence in multiple languages in learners who, due to their language biographies or the educational system, are studying in prestigious institutional school environments, such as the French-German schools of Buc (Versailles), Freiburg (Breisgau) and Saarbrucken (Saarland). In…

The present paper is concerned with the language development of two young children from two different families growing up exposed to three languages. The children live in Switzerland and have been exposed to English, French and Swiss German from infancy. The focus is on the children's production of these languages, and the contextual and affective…

The present article examines the effect of population distribution on L1 (Italian) and L2 (German) acquisition in the multilingual context of South Tyrol, Italy. Population distribution is regarded as a central variable to assess the impact of two factors included in willingness to communicate (WTC) theory: (1) Fear of assimilation to the L2…

This study presents the main findings from a study which investigated Malaysian multilingual students' practical use of three languages with respect to reading, speaking and writing in Bahasa Malaysia (BM), English and German. In addition, two further aspects have been examined: students' motivation to learn a language, and the respondents'…

In German-speaking Central Switzerland, French used to be the only foreign language (FL) taught in primary schools (from Grade 5 onwards). According to the ongoing school reform, a second FL should be introduced in primary schools. Some cantons have now implemented a programme including English as the first FL to be learnt at school (from Grade 3…