LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:12 December 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Language Choice in Communication in a Multilingual Setting:
A Case Study of a Cross Section of First Year Students of
the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Richard T. Torto, M.Phil., B.A. (Hons.), Dip. Ed.

Abstract

A group of people living and working together in close proximity enforced by an institution like the university communicate with one another both formally and informally. Language is the means of communicating information and it is also the channel of establishing and maintaining relationship with other people. Language is also a medium of meaningful interaction among individuals in a social context (Gregory, 1978). The University of Cape Coast community is multilingual. The population is made up of students and workers drawn from the heterogeneous ethnic regions of Ghana. The linguistic situation is such that many different languages co-exist and individuals speak more than one language. The current study revealed that due to the multilingual nature of the University of Cape Coast various language choices are made in communication. The choice of language also involved a switch from one language to another or the mixing of languages.

Keywords: Multilingualism, language choice, indigenous languages, communication

Introduction

Contrary to what is often believed, most of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual. Monolingualism is characteristic only of a minority of the world’s populace and Tucker (1999) posits that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers globally. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Owing to easy access to information via the Internet, exposure to multiple languages is assuming rapid frequency, and giving rise to the need for people to acquire more and more languages. Each of the world’s nations has groups of individuals living within its borders who use other languages in addition to the national language to function in their everyday lives.

Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood. This first language (L1), sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue, is acquired without formal education. In linguistics, first language acquisition is closely related to the concept of a “native speaker”. According to a view widely held by linguists, a native speaker of a given language has in some respects a level of skill which a second language learner can hardly reliably accomplish. In recent years, linguistic research has focused attention on the use of widely known world languages such as English as lingua franca, or the shared common language of professional and commercial communities. In lingua franca situations, most speakers of the common language are functionally multilingual. A further possibility is that a child may become naturally multilingual by having a mother and father with separate languages being brought up in a third language environment. An example of this may be an English-speaking father married to a French-speaking mother with the family living in Hong Kong, where the community language (and primary language of education) is Cantonese. If the child goes to a Cantonese medium school from a young age, it is probable that the child could become multilingual.

In another way, when a change in a conversation demands a change in the language employed, we have an instance of metaphorical code switching (ibid). The switch from one language to another in communication is often quite subconscious; interlocutors may not be conscious that they have switched from one code to another code. Another kind of language choice is the mixing of languages in communication which occurs when words, phrases or large units of one language are used while a speaker is basically using another language (Fasold, 1984). In code-mixing, interlocutors employ both languages simultaneously in such a way that they change from one language to the other in the process of a single utterance. According to Wardhaugh (1986) two speakers who have access to two languages as they communicate, either by code-switching or code-mixing, are employing a third code.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Richard T. Torto, M.Phil., B.A. (Hons.), Dip. Ed.
Department of Communication Studies
University of Cape Coast
Cape Coast
Ghana
rchrdtorto@yahoo.co.uk
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