Types of multilingualism explored in the Transylvanian school context
Types of multilingualism explored in the Transylvanian school context

Summary/Abstract: Studies concerning multilingualism are abundant and multilingualism gains more and more attention from linguists, politicians, sociologists and psychologists. De-spite the spread of multilingualism, scholarly research in the Eastern-European multilingual context has just recently started to develop. The present research aims at providing insight into a specific multilingual context: the Transylvanian autochthonous minority situation. The paper proposes an exploration of the literature on the term multilingualism and its relations to bilingualism research. Moreover, it will also consider the lay-people’s “definitions” or understanding of the term. The study highlights three overlapping questions around multilingualism: a) how is multilingualism perceived by foreign language learners (students); b) what are the educational stakeholders’ (teachers and principals) views on multilingualism; and finally c) what types of multilingualism do schools promote? In order to answer the questions above, research was conducted in the Transylva-nian school context. Six high schools were contacted where interviews were car-ried out with students, teachers and the school principals. The interviews show that ‘elite’ multilingualism is preferred, being almost equated with English lan-guage knowledge or learning. However, according to different aims in the learn-ers’ future career, several types of multilingualism have been named. So as to say, for learners who want to stay in the country and start working as blue-collar workers, multilingualism in the mother tongue and the majority language will suffice.

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