Unit 4 Personal Multilingualism or Plurilingualism

Step 1 Defining Plurilingualism

As well as referring to the characteristics of a given society - state, region, city, multilingualism is also used to describe the attributes of individuals who can speak or use more than one language.   This may also be referred to as bilingualism - usually to describe someone who grows up understanding two languages - or plurilingualism, which is a term coined by the Council of Europe to distinguish this individual multilingualism from societal multilingualism.  In this unit we will explore this question further.  For clarity’s sake we will refer to personal multilingualism as plurilingualism You should, however, remember that both terms can be used.

Activity 1 - Revision

First check Unit 1, STEP 2  to review what we have already said about this.

Plurilingualism is not a new phenomenon as throughout history many people all over the world have spoken or used several languages. You almost certainly know plurilingual individuals, or may be one yourself.