Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rmmm20

Dominant language constellations: a new

perspective on multilingualism
edited by Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin, Cham, Springer, 2021, pp.
xix + 282, ISBN 978-3-030-52335-0 (hbk): €145.99, ISBN 978-3-030-52338-1
(pbk): €103.99

Daniel Quintero García

To cite this article: Daniel Quintero García (2023) Dominant language constellations: a new
perspective on multilingualism, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 44:6,
541-542, DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2021.1993550

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.1993550

Published online: 28 Oct 2021.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 104

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmmm20
JOURNAL OF MULTILINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
2023, VOL. 44, NO. 6, 541–545

BOOK REVIEWS

Dominant language constellations: a new perspective on multilingualism, edited by

Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin, Cham, Springer, 2021, pp. xix + 282, ISBN 978-3-030-
52335-0 (hbk): €145.99, ISBN 978-3-030-52338-1 (pbk): €103.99

This collection examines the diverse aspects of multilingualism from the point of view of a so-called
new ‘normative’. The dominant-language-constellation perspective (hereafter DLC) reflects a heur-
istic approach that departs from the common ‘language repertoire’ model, focussing rather on the
emergent and functional languages in the individual, the community and the region. A DLC is thus
a ‘set of languages that together carry out all the functions of the human language, thus enabling
individuals and groups to persist in a multilingual environment’ (26).
Part 1 of the book deals with current theoretical developments. DLC is presented as a more
effective framework to explain the new multilingual practices arising from diasporas and gloca-
lisation. Aronin discusses the necessity of rethinking the analytical parameters of our communi-
cative practices and proposes full functionality, immediacy (not proficiency) and authenticity as
the preliminary factors to determine if a language figures in a DLC. In a historical review of Viet-
namese, Lo Bianco argues that the notion of ‘script cluster’ (not only spoken languages) should be
added to DLC in order to attain the proper triangulation of individual agency, scholarly social
activism and national/institutional language planning. He argues that traditional research has
become chaotic due to the superdiversity of the twenty-first century, and the diaspora in particu-
lar, and suggests that DLC can help organise multilingualism studies more effectively. Fernández-
Berkes and Flynn claim that DLC provides a solid base for evaluating the initial stage of language
learning in the context of multilingual syntactic acquisition. Taking Chomskyan Universal Gram-
mar as the basis of their proposal, they review five well-established language-acquisition models
in the context of trilingual acquisition, and conclude that temporal sequencing of language ‘loses
its validity as the fundament to model syntactic development in language acquisition’ (70), while
DLC is validated as an interpretative framework. The section ends with Banda’s practical
interpretation of census, media and home-language usage in the complex context of local,
regional and colonial languages in Zambia. He explains how different reasons for multilinguality
(economic, religious, cultural, inter-ethnic marriages) might constitute a DLC, and reiterates that
multilingualism is the African norm.
Part 2 concentrates on institutional expressions of DLC. Björklund, Björklund and Sjöholm
explore its utility as an interpretative tool for analysis of language at societal and individual levels
in Finland. Patterns emerge in the national curricula and in individuals who belong to either the
dominant endogenous Finnish group or the non-dominant endogenous Swedish one. DLC
works well in this research since it clearly identifies practical linguistic clusters that would not be
traceable with other models. In the next chapter, Slavkov profiles the language background of Cana-
dian elementary schools. Monolingual preconceptions abound, alongside the lack of recognition of
simultaneous bilingualism. The author concludes that the DLC framework is beneficial not only
because it involves large populations, but also because it helps sensitise society to the reality of syn-
chronic-functional (as opposed to non-chronological-nativist) multilingualism. Concluding this
section, Coetzee-Van Rooy describes a five-year longitudinal study of a large group of multilingual
South African students. She argues that language repertoires and DLC ought to be strongly related
since the former provides essential information for the latter. Her work provides a coherent and
empirically driven language-repertoire survey, illustrating a DLC that is composed of three
languages. She also shows how factors such as family, education, broadcasting, friends and self-
542 BOOK REVIEWS

learning are associated with a specific language in two main groups of urban speakers of Zulu,
Southern Sotho and English.
The third section provides accounts of personal and group experience with DLC. The first chap-
ter analyses the factors that trigger changes in the Sri Lankan author’s personal DLC, from child-
hood to adulthood. Kannangara claims that personal, societal and geographical factors are
significant in the formation of a DLC, which explains why Sinhala, her native language, is not
the strongest language in her DLC. Next, Karpava investigates the individual and social factors
that lead to DLC in three Russian-speaking immigrant groups in Cyprus: two of adult women
and one of university students. This study reinterprets traditional terms such as language attrition,
maintenance and transmission through a DLC lens. It is suggested that exogamous marriages with
locals bring Greek into a DLC, whereas temporality and endogamous marriage involve bilingualism
in Russian and English only. The next chapter commends the efficacy of DLC in cross-linguistic
influence through a reinterpretation of a previous quantitative study of Croatian, Italian and Eng-
lish in the Istrian Peninsula. The author suggests that the coordinated application of both the DLC
framework and the concept of retrodiction improves methodology and results. The framework
foregrounds linguistic value, the unity of the linguistic clusters and a more ‘qualitative perspective
to the quantitative data’ (226). The attitudes, emotions and identity of a Moroccan-born adult male
living in Spain is examined in the last chapter. Nightingale tackles the reality of globalisation and
twenty-first-century immigration. Spanish, Arabic and Darija are the main clusters here, with
French, English, Catalan and Chat Arabic prevalent in family, society and the workplace.
This book introduces the framework and practical applications of DLC in explaining the com-
plex and diverse forms of twenty-first-century multilingualism. It is well structured and moves from
the theoretical to social activism, from qualitative to quantitative, and from additive human groups
to subtractive ones. It is comprehensive, covering social context and interaction in the family,
friendships, work, education and online communication. The book covers different regions of
the world, although some important areas (South America and Australasia, for example) remain
unexplored, and suggest further research. There is no mention of how geopolitical factors may
affect the triggering of changes in individual and community DLCs by transnational languages,
for which see Quintero (2021).
There is continuing value in the use of traditional concepts – including intergenerational
language transmission, as well as maintenance, attrition and shift – which have demonstrated
their viability, particularly in the explanation of qualitative data. It is notable that, in the last chap-
ter, Nightingale refers to DLC and ‘emotional and identificatory values’ (251) when communication
occurs between a father and his offspring: the reader presumes this means ‘mother tongue’. The
introduction of new terminology in multilingualism is welcome but perilous.

Reference
Quintero García, D. 2021. “Societal Asymmetry among Queensland’s Japanese and Spanish Speaking Migrants: A
Macroscopic Perspective.” Language Research Bulletin (ICU, Tokyo) 36. Forthcoming.

Daniel Quintero García

International Christian University, Tokyo
quintero@icu.ac.jp
© 2021 Daniel Quintero García
https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.1993550