Effects of Living in A Multicultural Society to Language Development

A society is a large social grouping that shares a geographical or social territory and is typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Adian notes that multiculturalism underlines the need of acknowledging that each culture is a community of values with its own way of thinking and being. Political and societal sustainability, the key objective of multiculturalism, cannot be easily achieved as some commitments to values are so fundamental that they curtail the probability of consensus (2011). Although society typically has almost the same cultures, it does not rule out the possibility that many people in one society have different cultures. Living in a multicultural society is sometimes confounding. To give a view, for example, it might be difficult for a child who was taught and raised by a family from Sundanese ethnicity to learn Javanese when the family meets another family from Javanese ethnicity in one society. Nevertheless, a child also can be used to using two different languages at the same time because she/he was born, raised and taught to use two languages at the same time in everyday life. Thus, living in a multicultural society has its positive and negative effects on language development. There are two positive effects and three negative effects of living in a multicultural society to language development. The positive effects of living in a multicultural society to language development are being bilingual or multilingual and language acculturation. On the other hand, the negative ones are the difficulties in learning two or more languages at the same time, identity crisis and inferiority complex.

The Positive Effects 

Living in a multicultural society can make an individual become bilingual or multilingual. If a person is learning a second language, it is easy to  focus on learning  and  neglect  the culture of that language. Bilingualism and multilingualism do not in itself imply biculturalism or multiculturalism. Being multicultural means an individual has a better understanding of more than one culture and can easily work in each culture. Since culture and language are related to each other, being multicultural can result in a person to be bilingual and multilingual if the person can adapt and get used to two or more languages. Incorporating cultural studies into language learning offers many benefits beyond learning a second language. According to Carmarthenshire County Council (2021), being bilingual and multilingual leads to positive impacts in education, career, health and life. 

In education, the positive impacts are related to children’s development at school. As stated by Carmarthenshire County Council (2021), “Bilingual children tend to perform better in tasks.” As a result of bilingualism, children are more creative, have high order thinking skills and critical thinking skills, resulting in their competencies, such as writing for academic purposes and problem solving. “Bilingual people find it easier to learn additional languages. Children in Welsh medium education do just as well, if not better, in English as children in English medium education,” (Carmarthenshire County Council, 2021). 

In career, the positive impacts are related to the experience of employers. As stated by Carmarthenshire County Council (2021), “speaking two languages is an extra skill to put on your application form. Bilingual people earn an average of 11% more. Employers need bilingual workforces in Wales, because services need to be offered bilingually.”

In health, the positive impact is related to one’s brain development. As stated by Carmarthenshire County Council (2021), studies show that bilingualism delays the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. An individual's brain is used to remembering and memorizing things. As a result, they will have less risk of dementia.

In life, bilingual and multilingual impacts on how we see other cultures. As stated by Carmarthenshire County Council (2021), “speaking two languages widens your horizons. Being able to speak Welsh gives you access to many aspects of Welsh culture, history and identity. Speaking Welsh can provide a key to a rich community life. Being able to speak Welsh gives you a strong sense of identity and belonging. Being able to switch from one language to the other with confidence gives the individual self-confidence and pride. Speaking many languages can make people more tolerant towards other cultures.”

Living in a multicultural society can also result in creating new languages. By knowing new different accents and dialects in a society, an individual is surrounded by various cultures and languages. “In this society, interlanguage will interfere with the first language because learners tend to choose a language that both parties in a conversation understand and can speak very well,” (Ahmad et al., 2020). In her study, Ahmad et al., (2020) also states that the rise of multiculturalism in our society requires each of us to have a better knowledge of the languages, cultures and communication skills of different ethnic groups. According to Kyppo et al. (2016: 244), the interactive environment could enhance a person’s multilingual skills. If different cultures in a society are accepted equally and not dominantly, a language acculturation can happen. It means that blended cultures create new languages. It happens as a unified language. For example, “in the morphing of the phrase, you all, the blending of different languages appears, in part, responsible for how the phrase emerged as an expression of Southern culture. Ya'll was the result of the blending of the Scottish, Irish, and African American cultures,” (Painter, S., n.d.).

The Negative effects

Living in a multicultural society can result in difficulties in learning two or more languages at the same time. If an individual can maintain and adapt to two or more different languages and they get used to it, they become bilingual or multilingual. Nevertheless, a person can also have difficulties in learning two or more languages at the same time. If they already have difficulties, they will find it difficult to use more than one language in a multicultural society where people have different languages. As stated by Allain, S., (n.d), these difficulties include language fluency delay, mixing languages and the dominance of one language over the other.

The first difficulty is language delay. In most cases, language delay is often confused with language delay. Studies have shown that language delay is not a result of bilingualism. However, when a person tries to learn or master two languages, it may take longer for that person (especially children) to become fluent in that language, and consequently delayed fluency. Monolingual children are generally compared to monolingual age groups without taking into account the fact that they have to learn twice as much vocabulary as their monolingual peers. In extreme cases, some children do not speak at all. However, if a child falls into this category, there is no need to panic. The child should be able to speak in time.

The second difficulty is language mixing. “Language mixing is a ubiquitous phenomenon characterizing bilingual speakers. A frequent context where two languages are mixed is the word-internal level, demonstrating how tightly integrated the two grammars are in the mind of a speaker and how they adapt to each other,” (Alexiadou, A. & Lohndal, T., 2018). It is often seen that people start sentences in one language and end in another. People tend to use easy words for communication and expression. So, if an individual does not have enough words to use in one language, they fill in with words from another language. For example, an English speaker who speaks Italian in the same way can speak English and use Italian grammar.

The third difficulty is the dominance of one language over the other. One language dominates the other because bilingual people sometimes  speak one language more than the other. This is common because one might think that one is easier than the other and thus expose themselves to it even more. Individuals unconsciously find it difficult to choose or remember the language to use when speaking. Thus, they are gradually forgetting their first language or the other language and tend to speak fluently using one language. For immigrants who are mostly bilingual (those who speak their own language and the language of their community), the language of the heritage presents significant challenges. Sometimes they refuse to communicate with their parents or others in their own language. Perhaps it is because the language is less popular in the community.

The difficulties a person has as the impact of bilingualism or multilingualism can lead to further negative impacts, such as identity crisis. Related to language mixing, identity crisis happens when an individual lives in a multicultural society and speaks two or more different languages that they are not too fluent in. Their ability to communicate with a particular language is mixed or even dominated with another language in the society they are living in. As a result, an individual is often confused with what language they should speak. This leads them to questioning their own identity since they use and are exposed to too many languages in daily life. 

Another negative effect as a result of the difficulties a person has as the impact of bilingualism or multiculturalism is inferiority complex. It is related to the identity crisis since the inferiority complex is a result of identity crisis. According to Plumptre, E. (2021), inferiority complex includes feelings of inadequacy or inferiority and these feelings may be the result of an actual physical defect, or they may appear in situations where individuals feel less intelligent than their peers. If individuals cannot keep up with two or more languages at the same time, they might feel less intelligent than others while the others are good at bilingual or multilingual. 

In brief, every individual in a multicultural society has their own ability to be bilingual or multilingual. An individual does not have to be bilingual or multilingual in order to adapt in a multicultural society. An individual can speak two or more languages at the same time as a result of living in a multicultural society. This will result in positive effects, such as being bilingual or multilingual and language acculturation. Being bilingual or multilingual itself also has further positive impacts in education, career, health and life. Nevertheless, if an individual forces themselves to be bilingual or multilingual while they are not able to keep up with two or more languages at the same time, they will find difficulties in learning and speaking the languages. The difficulties an individual has as the impact of bilingualism or multilingualism can lead to further negative impacts, such as identity crisis and inferiority complex.

References:

Adian, D. G., (2011). Reasoning in a multicultural society. Wacana, 13(2), 352-364. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.17510/wjhi.v13i2.28

Ahmad, N. A., Suhaimi, N., Saidin, K. N., Mahda, A. A., Razak, N. A., (2020).

Multilingualism and multiculturalism impact on shaping oral literacy and

communicative competence. TESOL and Technology Studies, 1(1), 42-54.

https://doi.org/10.48185/tts.v1i1.67

Alexiadou, A. & Lohndal, T. (2018). Units of language mixing: a cross-linguistic perspective.

Frontiers in Psychology.  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01719 

Allain, S., (n.d.). Are there any disadvantages to being bilingual? [Web log post]. Retrieved

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https://www.carmarthenshire.gov.wales/home/council-services/education-schools/bil

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Kyppö, A., & Natri, T. (2016). Promoting multilingual communicative competence through

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Plumptre, E. (2021). What is an inferiority complex? [Web log post]. Retrieved from

https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-the-inferiority-complex-5186892