xxii
ReLan
Languages of Regional Communication
ReLF
Regional Lingua Franca
RM
Receptive Multilingualism
S
Speaker
Sg.
Singular
TÖMER
Center for Teaching Turkish as a foreign language
UN
Understanding
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.0. Presentation
This chapter introduces the background to the study, the purpose of the study,
the research questions with an overview of the methodology employed in the
study, followed by the significance of the study, and the definition of terms.
1.1. Background to the Study
There is a large amount of “language contact” throughout the globalized
world in which the “estimates vary as to how many languages are spoken” (Wei,
2000: 2). In The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language, Crystal (1987) point out
that a number of approximately 6000 languages were spoken around the world.
However, the most updated figure of the languages is 7,413 primary languages in
reference to language catalogue Ethnologue (Ethnologue, n.d.). Due to the
continuous advancement in technology, the economic-industrial flexibility led by
globalization, expanding global trade, growing international education exchange
and the massive displacement and growing mobilization possibilities of relatively
different language speaking groups caused by migration, languages have densely
been in contact in virtue of the increasing “interrelations between individuals,
groups, institutions and societies who use different languages” (House & Rehbein,
2004: 1).
This fact leads us to investigate the language modes which are used in
multilingual communication. Discussion on the modes of communication
concerning the intercultural, transnational, international as well as intra-national
communication for a few decades (Clyne, 1972; House & Rehbein, 2004) has
been constantly provoked in the globalized world. There are a variety of ways, so
to speak, modes of communication concerning human linguistic verbal exchange.
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In this study, mode of communication is used in the sense of House & Rehbein’s
(2004) mode of multilingual language. House and Rehbein (2004) describe the
characteristics of the multilingual communication as ‘the use of several languages
for the common purposes of participants, multilingual individuals who use
language(s) to realize these purposes, the different language systems which
interact for these purposes and multilingual communication structures, whose
purposes make individuals use several languages’ (p. 1).
Multilingual communication is one of the modes of communication even
though ‘most nation states appear to be monolingual’ as suggested by House and
Rehbein (2004). Within the scope of multilingual communication, there are a
variety of modes of multilingual communication, each of which deviates from the
other(s). As a matter of fact, then, there has been an increasing interest in
communication focusing on the modes of multilingual communication, which are
classified as Lingua Franca (abbreviated henceforth LF) (Barotchi, 2001; House,
2003; Seidlhofer, 2005), Regional Lingua Franca (abbreviated henceforth ReLF),
Languages of Regional Communication (abbreviated henceforth ReLan)
(Janssens, Mamadouh & Mar cz, 2011),
Code-Switching (abbreviated henceforth
CS) (Hymes, 1977; Grosjean, 1982; Hoffmann, 1991) and Receptive
Multilingualism (abbreviated henceforth RM) or Lingua Receptiva (abbreviated
henceforth LaRa) (Zeevaert & ten Thije, 2007) (which will further be discussed in
detail).
From ‘multilingual communication’ point of view, it is necessary to define
above-mentioned language modes in multilingual communications (Rehbein,
2000). Commonly referred and widely discussed multilingual language mode is
Lingua Franca (LF), which is a common instrument in order for ‘the speakers
who do not share a mother tongue’ (Phillipson, 2008). It is safe to state that lingua
franca has been defined in a variety of ways
by various scholars. According to
Barotchi (2001), for instance, lingua franca is “a language which is used
habitually by people whose mother tongues are different in order to facilitate
communication between them”
(UNESCO, 1953: 46).
On the other side, Janssens et
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al. (2011) stress the differences out in terms of narrow and broad definitions of the
phenomenon by stating “in narrow definitions no one speaks the lingua franca as
her and his mother tongue, while in the broader definitions mother tongue
speakers are outnumbered by other users of the language” (p. 71) . As it is obvious
from the definitions, lingua franca is an inevitable result of communication in
many multilingual settings and environments. As a consequence of the
aforementioned definitions, a lingua franca is acknowledged as “contact language
between persons who share neither a common tongue, nor a common (national)
culture, and for whom the lingua franca is the chosen foreign language”
(Hülmbauer et al., 2008:7 as cited in Janssens et al., 2011:71). Historical
sociolinguistically speaking, Greek and Latin were “the natural lingua francas” of
the ancient world (Barotchi, 2001). However, today there is an expanding field of
research concerning English as a lingua franca labelled as ELF by Seidlhofer
(2005) and Jenkins (2007).
Secondly, Regional Lingua Franca (henceforth ReLF) is widely used in
order for ‘local or regional communication’ by t e speakers w o do not s are a
mother tongue. Mesthrie et al. (2000) state that “language contact sometimes
occurs when there is increased social interaction between people from
neighbouring territories who have traditionally spoken different languages” (p.
248). In this sense, region means ‘macro-regions’, territories larger than a state
and a political entity (Janssens et al., 2011:71). As a result of the Soviet influence,
historically speaking, Russian became the ReLF in the Turkic-speaking states in
the Central Asia and the Baltic states. Even after the Soviet implosion, Russian
has preserved its status among the aforementioned countries which are the
members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Thirdly, Languages of Regional Communication (henceforth ReLan)
(Janssens, Mamadouh & Mar cz, 2011) as a specific multilingual language mode
within regional lingua franca has been extensively used for communication
especially in Europe since the Middle Ages. However, the borderline, or to be
more clear, division between ReLF and ReLan appears to be rather complicated.
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