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Dominant Language Constellations in Education: Patterns and Visualisations

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Dominant Language Constellations Approach in Education and Language Acquisition

Part of the book series: Educational Linguistics ((EDUL,volume 51))

Abstract

The concept of Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) is complementary to the notion of language repertoire. It denotes the set of a person’s most expedient languages, functioning as an entire unit and enabling an individual to meet all their needs in a multilingual environment. While a language repertoire refers to the totality of linguistic skills in all the languages possessed by an individual or by a community and may include several languages, a Dominant Language Constellation captures only a subset of them (typically but not always three languages) that are deemed to be of prime importance.

Contemporary education necessarily involves constellations of languages organised in context-dependent patterns. This chapter discusses how investigating patterns of Dominant Language Constellations can help alleviate the well-known difficulty of the vast amounts of factors to be reckoned with in multilingual education. The patterns of Dominant Language Constellations easily lend themselves to various kinds of visualiations that enhance scholarly analysis and facilitate multilingual educational practices.

The aims of this chapter are (1) to draw attention to and call for the study of various DLC patterns involved in education in multilingual settings and (2) to describe visualisations of Dominant Language Constellations and their potential for research on language learning and teaching, multilingual education, and identity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Here the term ‘field of view (FoV)’ is metaphorically used following its meanings in optics and biology as referring to the visual angle of a lens and the extent of the observable world.

  2. 2.

    ASL – American Sign Language

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  1. Oranim Academic College of Education, Tivon, Israel

    Larissa Aronin

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  1. Larissa Aronin
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  1. Oranim Academic College of Education, Tivon, Israel

    Larissa Aronin

  2. LehrerInnenbildung and Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna, Wien, Wien, Austria

    Eva Vetter

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Aronin, L. (2021). Dominant Language Constellations in Education: Patterns and Visualisations. In: Aronin, L., Vetter, E. (eds) Dominant Language Constellations Approach in Education and Language Acquisition. Educational Linguistics, vol 51. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70769-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70769-9_2

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