Multilingualism: A socio-linguistic and acquisitional approach

Document Type : .

Author
Ali Reza Gholi Famian
Payame Noor University
10.30465/lsi.2026.54504.1842
Abstract
Abstract
Multilingualism, which refers to the ability of an individual or a society to use two or more languages in various communication situations, is one of the important consequences of globalization and the expansion of contact between linguistic communities. This phenomenon is not simply an individual knowledge or skill, but also has widespread effects on the community level in the areas of education, identity, and culture. For this reason, it has become one of the main focuses of sociolinguistics in recent years. In this context, the present article introduces and reviews the book “Multilingualism: A sociolinguistic and acquisitional approach,” which aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the theoretical, social, and practical dimensions of this phenomenon in the contemporary world. The book is organized into four parts and fourteen chapters, covering a wide range of topics related to multilingualism. The book's opening chapters introduce the theoretical foundations of multilingualism, the distinction between individual and social multilingualism, and some common and incorrect notions about bilingualism, emphasizing the continuum view of language competence. Concepts such as language contact, code-switching, borrowing, translanguaging, and the roles of English in a multilingual world are then discussed and examined. The book further explores the social and practical dimensions of multilingualism in areas such as language policies, multiple identities, education, migration and asylum, new media, pop music, and linguistic perspectives in the public sphere. The final part is devoted to research methodology in multilingualism, introducing quantitative and qualitative approaches and emphasizing the importance of Internet data and linguistic corpora in contemporary analyses.
Keywords: multilingualism, teaching, globalization, identity.
Keywords
multilingualism
teaching
globalization
identity
English
Subjects
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Language and Linguistics
Volume 21, Issue 42
August 2026
Pages 385-402