联系我们： 手动添加方式: 微信>添加朋友>企业微信联系人>13262280223 或者 QQ: 1483266981

Module Code: ENGL279
MODULE CODE NO:
ENGL279
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
SUMMER 2024 EXAMINATION
MULTILINGUALSM IN SOCIETY
TIME ALLOWED: 24 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
This exam paper has TWO parts. Please answer all questions in both parts.
Part I is question and answer (20*3=60 marks). There are three questions.
Please write about 250 words for each question.
Part II is data analysis (40 marks). Please write about 650 words in total.
The total word count for all your answers should not substantially exceed
1500 words, including references if any.
Normal Academic Integrity policies apply.
Module Code: ENGL279
Part I Question and Answer (20X3=60 marks)
1. Please explain how to analyze code-switching.
2. Explain with one example how language is used as a proxy for controlling migration.
3. Discuss with one example how language revitalisation may become controversial.
Part II Analysis (40 marks)
Please read the following story and answer the questions at the end. You can answer all
the questions in one short essay or answer the questions one by one. If references are
used, they should be cited properly using a consistent referencing style.
‘Don’t speak to me in our language, when you pick me
up from school’: Language loss and maintenance in
migrant families
Author: Dina Mehmedbegovic
18th December is the UN Day of Migrants. On this day in 1990 UN signed the International
Migrant Convention protecting the rights of migrants and their families. It took another 13
years for the Convention to reach the threshold needed for its implementation –
acceptance by 20 countries. Its main aim is to protect human rights of currently around
250 million people identified as migrants world-wide. Not many are aware of this date and
not many are aware that UNESCO rights of children include a right to education in mother
tongue/home language.
Migration, resettlement and language loss have always been present in my family
narrative. German and Czech were regretfully lost in our family post-second world war at a
very fast rate. A few photographs and fond anecdotes about the way my German great
grandmother, Maria (nee Limberger) Vanek, negotiating language barriers while married to
my Czech great grandfather and living in Croatia, is all that now connects me to that
complex past.
On her photograph from 1903 one can see a bilingual text, in German and Croatian: “I
welcome customers regardless of the weather, on clear or cloudy days …”: a testimony to a
once bilingual and well established German speaking minority in that area, who operated
Module Code: ENGL279
bilingually in their jobs and privately and who lost their language because of its unwanted
link to the horrific period of the Nazi occupation.
My own experience of migration is based on both my personal and professional life in
London. My first employment for the British Refugee Council placed me directly and
without any notice or preparation at the darkest hour of migration. Working with victims
of ethnic cleansing from the Bosnian War, rescued by the UN and Red Cross from the most
notorious post-second world war concentration camps, tortured and starved. Our team of
bilingual caseworkers would be waiting for a charter flight to arrive – Welcome to London,
we would say, and often got a reply: London ! We were told we were going to Germany! I
have family there. Some of these people went through months, years of legal battles to be
transferred and reunited with their families, often refusing to learn English as what they
saw being the only way of protesting against and resisting their forced migration.
During that time we were interpreting for hours without a break horrific details of their
ordeal for Amnesty International and the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague.
Once that process was finished, we were deployed to support these families to resettle in
communities in London and Essex. Those who decided to get on with their newly found
freedom and new life looked to learn English and to send their children to local schools.
Only a few months after their arrival they shared with me that many children say to their
parents: ‘When you pick me up from school, don’t speak to me in our language.’ These
shared episodes were for me ‘critical incidents’. People who had lost their homes were
now fearing loss of language, identity, self and family ties. These episodes made me feel I
wanted to do something to expose factors in education and wider community that make
immigrant children ultimately rob themselves of the only assets they were able to bring
with them: their language and their knowledge embedded in that language.
My first attempt resulted in a bilingual creative writing group – where some of these young
people harnessed their extraordinary experiences and produced a bilingual play:
Naturalised, performed at Royal Court Theatre, London. I was then approached by the
community to help them set up a mother tongue school in South Ockendon, a suburb of
London. This initiative coincided with the arrival of my mother, Vera (nee Salovac)
Mehmedbegovic, to London, who was a retired teacher with 41 years of full-time teaching
experience. She accepted with great enthusiasm leading the school for many years. It was
heart-warming to watch her dedicate her time to planning the work, getting the books,
maps, resources, writing a diary documenting the development of the first such school for
this community. This school became her life and purpose in her own exile.
http://www.bilingualism-matters.ppls.ed.ac.uk/language-loss-maintenance-migrant_xfffe_families/
Accessed on 13 Feb 2024
Module Code: ENGL279
Questions:
1. ‘Don’t speak to me in our language, when you pick me up from school’ – What do
you think makes migrant children say this to their parents
2. Based on the story here, what factors can lead to language loss in migrant families
3. What other measures would you suggest for migrant families to maintain their
language heritage