Bilingualism in the cosmopolis

Many citles are multilingual Islands that have either a relatively monolingual Hinterland, or one that consists of several relatively monolingual zones. Such a city can be seen as a cosmopolis. In some cases a cosmopolis may maintain its cosmopolitan nature over centuries. Within a cosmopolis, virtually all individuals habitually move between languages within their personal repertoires. In the cosmopolis, ethnic groups may occupy separate geographic and economic sectors and may preserve a sense of ethnicity within a complex whole. Bilingualism in the cosmopolis is characterized byflexibility and change, at an individual level, societally, and historically. This has consequences for several areas of the theory of bilingualism. In such cities, the link between language and ethnicity is likely to be complex, and children learn the social complexities of multilingual lifefrom an early age. This presents challenges to -the Language Rights movement, -the SIL approach to literacy, - the one-parent-one-child recommendation of the Standard literature, - the practice of speech-language therapy

Ethnic group · Linguistics · Literacy · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy

• Private language planning

  Ingrid Piller•Sociolinguistic Studies•2001

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