IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i14p8004-d596290.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Teaching and Learning Multiple Varieties of a Foreign Language for Sustainable Multilingual Education

Author

Listed:
  • Hao Xu

    (National Research Centre for Foreign Language Education, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089, China)

  • Zhibin Shan

    (Faculty of French and Francophone Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089, China
    Laboratory STIH (Sens, Texte, Informatique, Histoire), Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Sorbonne University, 75005 Paris, France)

Abstract

In multilingual education for sustainable personal development, compared with that of multiple languages, the teaching and learning of multiple varieties of a language has been underexplored as a special and important form of multilingualism. In this article, we examine the linguistic, psychological, and social characteristics of multiple variety learning, as compared with multiple language learning. Linguistically, acquisition of language varieties is a process of assimilating variants from a new variety into an earlier variety, which serves as a prototype system. Such assimilation is a psychological project of form-meaning interface development, which may follow the patterns of structural multiplication, conceptual involution, conceptual evolution, or/and conceptual transfer. When multiple language varieties are actually used in social contexts, multilingual individuals’ selected language practices may be supported by their combined linguistic resources from multiple varieties rather than depend on a single variety despite its dominance in a given situation. These characteristics carry pedagogical implications for sustainable multilingual education, particularly for the teaching and learning of foreign languages that have multiple varieties.

Suggested Citation

  • Hao Xu & Zhibin Shan, 2021. "Teaching and Learning Multiple Varieties of a Foreign Language for Sustainable Multilingual Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-9, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:14:p:8004-:d:596290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/14/8004/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/14/8004/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:14:p:8004-:d:596290. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.