Receptive multilingualism in the Swiss Army

Abstract

In this paper a particular context where receptive multilingualism at work can be observed is discussed. The Swiss armed forces underwent a series of quite dramatic downsizing measures, which lead to a situation with increased amount of mixed groups and linguistically mixed situations regarding the first/native language of officers and the first/native languages of the recruits. Although there are some minimal dispositions in the official documents regarding the right of recruits to benefit from instruction in their first language, the actual practices diverge in significant ways from these dispositions. In particular, members of the national minorities are increasingly instructed (partially or fully) in German, which generates feelings of minorization and enlivens the deeply entrenched fears of Germanization in the minority groups. The paper presents questionnaire data from three military training camps that aim to shed new light on the actual practice, the languages chosen both by instructors and recruits, and the perception and attitudes of these practices by the members of the army. Receptive multilingualism turns out to be one of different strategies applied in mixed groups, and its acceptance correlates positively with exposure. The paper also discusses the participants' views of advantages and disadvantages of the regime, and some general conclusions will be drawn regarding the potential of this particular language regime for multilingual high-stake institutional contexts such as the one in the scope of the paper.

The role of language exposure in mediated receptive multilingualism

“…Indeed, language profi ciency tests capture only one aspect of linguistic profi ciency, while there are also extra-linguistic factors that play a role as for example, language exposure (Branets & Backus 2020; see also especially the studies conducted in the frame of the MICReLa project, such as Gooskens et al 2015;Swarte et al 2013;Gooskens & Heeringa 2014;Schüppert & Gooskens 2010, etc.). Th e same suggestion has been made in a series of other RM studies (Gooskens & Swarte 2007;Verschik 2012;Bahtina-Jantsikene 2013;Berthele & Wittlin 2013). Branets et al (2019) discussed diff erent types of exposure to Russian in relation to understanding Ukrainian among Estonian speakers.…”

The MIME vademecum: mobility and inclusion in multilingual Europe

“…Although intercomprehension is widely used and highly valued in informal contexts, it remains less accepted in professional contexts. Fortunately, studies of professional contexts show that the more intercomprehension is used, the better it is accepted (Berthele & Wittlin 2013).…”

Lingua receptiva in Europe: the map and the territory

“…• situational conditions, e.g. in families (Herkenrath 2012), at workplace (Lüdi 2013;Ribbert /ten Thije 2007), in the media (Sloboda/Nábělková 2013), in institutional communication (Berthele/Wittlin 2013) and in brief contacts, e.g. when shopping or using services (especially in border areas -Beerkens 2010), and also in school education (Lambelet/Mauron 2017) and as part of international student exchange (Blees/Mak/ten Thije 2014);…”