According to the article of Canagarajah that we read, multilingualism separates languages, while translingualism goes beyond one single language. Relating to my own experience, I think multilingualism does not mark a separation between languages. On the contrary, I think knowing multiple languages helps in the learning of a new language. I speak Spanish, which has helped me so much in understanding Portuguese.
I have encountered a lot of movies, books and maybe art related to multilingualism, but I would like to start my first blog by sharing my personal experience with multilingualism. I was born and raised in Albania and moved to America at the age of thirteen. Back in my home country, I had a lot of exposure to foreign programs on television. That is how I learned Spanish and Italian. As a child I would watch movies in foreign languages, and after a while I started understanding the language and later on speaking it. I had some exposure to English in school, but I learned it properly when I came to America. I have realized that being multilingual helps me a lot not only in everyday life, but also in school. Some of the classes in which multilingualism has helped me are Anatomy, Biology and English.
According to the article of Canagarajah that we read, multilingualism separates languages, while translingualism goes beyond one single language. Relating to my own experience, I think multilingualism does not mark a separation between languages. On the contrary, I think knowing multiple languages helps in the learning of a new language. I speak Spanish, which has helped me so much in understanding Portuguese.
3 Comments
1/24/2015 08:24:05 am
Hi Doris, I think your background is so interesting. I would love to learn another language because like you said, I think it would help in everyday life as well as school. I think you made a good point that languages are not separate, but rather connected, like Spanish and Portugal. Thanks for sharing!
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1/25/2015 03:17:28 am
You point out that Spanish and Portuguese are similar, which makes sense because they both belong to the romance language family. However, I think that Canagarajah means, when he says multilingualism separates languages, is that the term multilingualism implies the monolingual orientation because it assumes that a multilingual understands each language separately. Canagarajah asserts languages overlap in some way or another, and that the translingual orientation embraces these changes, in order to create new meanings.
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Erica Fischer
1/26/2015 04:46:48 am
I think that it is amazing that you know so many languages! Also that Spanish and Italian were almost self taught by just watching movies as a child. I think that it is fantastic that you are using your mulitlingualism in your education. Knowing more languages and being able to us that in bio, anatomy, and English is great! I agree with you viewpoint that, "I think knowing multiple languages helps in the learning of a new language". I have a lot of friends that speak multiple languages and they tell me that they have a much easier time learning languages that are similar to the ones the already know. I think you made a great point using your own personal experience! Good for you!
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