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As the prefixes bi and multi imply, individual bi/multilingualism has traditionally been conceived as the ability to understand or use more than one language. Bloomfield (1933) for instance defined bilingualism as the “native like control of two languages” (p. 56). According to Weinreich’s (1979) definition, bilingualism is “the practice of alternately using two

13_{In the North American tradition, the term multilingualism is commonly used to refer to societal and individual} multilingualism, whereas in Europe it is customary to distinguish between individual plurilingualism and societal

multilingualism (for a recent discussion of this terminological debate see e.g. Marshall & Moore, 2018). My usage

of the term multilingualism follows the anglophone North American tradition and is inspired by Kramsch’s (2009) understanding of the term in particular. In this dissertation, multilingualism refers to an individual capacity, sensibility, and experience that emerges biographically from reciprocal social and intersubjective meaning making processes. I acknowledge that pre-fixes such as bi-, multi-, pluri, etc. are problematic in that they suggest the countability of languages, and are hence subject to the criticism that they reproduce essentialist views of language as clearly-bounded systems, as the present section will detail. It is thus important to note that my usage of the term

multilingualism explicitly does not refer to a multitude of separate language systems residing side by side in the

languages” (p. 1). In short, in early definitions bi/multilingualism is conceived as the alternate monolingual use of single languages, implying that “bilingualism and multilingualism are

additive, that is, speakers are said to ‘add up’ whole autonomous languages” (García & Li Wei,

2014, p. 12, emphasis in original). As such, the monolingual paradigm somewhat ironically manifests itself even in the notion of bi/multilingualism, foregrounding what Grosjean (1989) identified as a “monolingual view of bilingualism” (p. 6) several years ago.

Over the past few decades, this “fractional view on bilingualism” (Grosjean, 1989, p. 4) has been contested, at first giving way to so-called ‘holistic’ views, and more recently bringing about ‘dynamic’ perspectives on the phenomenon of bi/multilingualism, as I will further explain (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017; May, 2014; Cenoz, 2013; Herdina & Jessner, 2002). Grosjean was instrumental in insisting that “the bilingual is an integrated whole who cannot easily be decomposed into two separate parts” (Grosjean, 2010, p. 75). He states:

The bilingual is not the sum of two (or more) complete or incomplete monolinguals; rather, he or she has a unique and specific configuration. The coexistence and constant interaction of the languages in the bilingual have produced a different but complete language system. (Grosjean, 2010, p. 75)

Accordingly, he debunked “balanced bilingualism” – the idea that bilinguals are “equally or completely fluent in the two languages” (Grosjean, 1989, p. 6) – as a myth. Similarly, Vivian Cook (1991) introduced the notion of multi-competence, “the compound state of the mind with two grammars” (p. 112). The concept highlights that this compound “yields more than the sum of its parts, L1 and L2” (Cook, 1992, p. 565), calling to recognize L2 users as speakers in their own right rather than imitation monolinguals. While these earlier works were clearly oriented towards overcoming a “monolingual bias” (Grosjean, 1989, p. 4), the language system remains a central unit of analysis in both Grosjean’s and Cook’s views. More recent proposals – which

beyond monolingualist framings on multilingualism requires a more radical departure from placing the language system at the centre (see Creese & Blackledge, 2015; García & Li Wei, 2014).14

The attempt to abandon discrete languages as the key unit of analysis and theoretical modelling has led to the adoption of feature-based perspectives, which postulate one linguistic

repertoire consisting of mobile semiotic features, instead of treating multilingualism as a series

of accumulated systems. Jørgensen, Karrebæk, Madsen, and Møller (2011) contend:

Speakers use features not languages. Features may be associated with specific languages […]. Such an association may be an important quality of any given feature, and one which speakers may know and use […]. However, what speakers actually use are linguistic features as semiotic resources, not languages, varieties, or lects. (pp. 28- 29)

Similarly, García & Li Wei (2014) posit that bilinguals draw on “one linguistic repertoire with features that have been societally constructed as belonging to two separate languages” (p. 2).15

It is not surprising that the notion of language repertoire has become popular among those who seek to move beyond an additive view on multilingualism (Busch, 2017, 2013, 2012; García & Li Wei, 2014; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2014; Blommaert & Backus, 2013; Blommaert, 2009), because it breaks with two central assumptions of the monolingual paradigm: a) the idea that language is a self-standing system, and b) the equivalence of language, identity, and place. Before I further elaborate on contemporary views on multilingualism, I will briefly expand on this point and consider how the notion of repertoire

14 _{I use ‘dynamic models of multilingualism’ as an umbrella term to include different proposals that point beyond}

an additive view where language systems are conceptualized as clearly-bounded entities, as will become

increasingly clear in the outline that follows. In my understanding, ‘dynamic’ refers not only to dynamics between the language resources acquired and used by individuals, or to the ways in which the language repertoires of individuals continuously change over time, but also to the dynamics involved in the ongoing process of (re)shaping the relation between language and people’s sense of self as well as the related dynamics that come into focus when viewing language practice as positioning within discourses.

15 _{For an elaborate account of the (de)construction of the notion of discrete languages see Makoni & Pennycook}

has recently been adapted in light of ways in which communication has changed in the 21st century.

Firstly, the notion of repertoire, which has its origin in John Gumperz’s (1964) notion of verbal repertoire lends itself to moving beyond a monolingual view on multilingualism insofar as it allows to conceptualize language without having to rely on closed language systems as the central referential framework. As elaborated in more detail by Busch (2017, 2012), Gumperz framed the verbal repertoire16 _{as emergent from social practice within speech} communities, hence allowing for a conception that considers how language users’ repertoires develop biographically and dynamically from their communicative encounters with others. As such, the notion of repertoire highlights that all semiotic resources acquired in whatever language are potentially relevant to any context of interaction or interpretation, insofar as they will always impact how the language user will make sense of a given event. This repertoire of resources spans the range of possible ways in which the individual can interpret and act on social reality (see Busch, 2017, 2013; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2014).

Importantly, to the extent that the notion of repertoire allows to take on board how all semiotic resources potentially impact particular instances of language use or a language user’s perception of a specific experience, it can be imagined as multi-layered – a point elaborated in some detail by Busch (2017, 2013). Specifically, she conceptualizes the language repertoire in Bakhtinian terms as a “heteroglossic realm of constraints and potentialities” (2017, p. 356), which means that multiple interpretative lenses come to bear simultaneously on the ways in which language users give meaning to events, themselves, and others. Within this realm, she explains, diverse ways of speaking alternately “come to the fore, then return to the background,

they observe each other, keep their distance from each other, intervene or interweave into something new, but in one form or another they are always there” (2017, p. 356). The language user’s repertoire reflects the co-existence of meanings, or put differently, the synchronism of embodied social realities within which the individual participates or has participated in the past.

Secondly, the concept of repertoire breaks with the equivalence of language, identity, and community, namely to the extent that it is conceived as emergent from, and continuously developed through social practice. As pointed out by Busch (2017, 2012), Gumperz’s (1964) idea about the emergence of verbal repertoires from social practice was grounded on a non- essentialist view of speech communities as principally open to change, yet nonetheless as fairly stable. Current adoptions of the concept of repertoire (e.g. Busch, 2017; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2014, Blommaert & Backus, 2013) take into account that constellations of social participation in today’s world are subject to more rapid and extensive fluctuation, and that it has become a normality that people participate in several social networks simultaneously, including deterritorialized ones (Douglas Fir Group, 2016; Kramsch, 2014; Blommaert, 2013). From this perspective, repertoire is no longer seen as a reservoir containing multiple sets of pre- fabricated tools for appropriate use in predictable contexts. As the Douglas Fir Group (2016) notes, repertoires must be seen as in a constant state of construction, dynamically developing as language learners “navigate their way through their multilingual contexts of perception” (p. 37). It is more importantly complexity rather than the sheer multitude of semiotic resources that defines the repertoires of speakers who engage in the new forms of communication that have become possible (and sometimes inescapable) in today’s world (see Blommaert, 2013).

It follows from this view that models of multilingualism must pay attention to the ways in which the repertoires of individual language users develop biographically and dynamically from their participation in multiple and intersecting spaces of social activity and experience. These models must be sensitive to the increased semiotic, social, spatial, and cultural complexity that characterizes contemporary social constellations.

Accordingly, researchers have paid increased attention to the ways in which language users flexibly draw on the semiotic resources of their repertoires in particular instances of language use, giving rise to dynamic and complex perspectives on bi- and multilingualism. Instead of focusing on speakers’ abilities to apply ready-made meanings within the boundaries of (a number of) fairly stable communities, these models take on board how language users compare, transport, translate, re-interpret, transform, mediate, and play with ways of meaning- making within and across different contexts (see Creese & Blackledge, 2015; García & Li Wei, 2014; May, 2014; Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010; Kramsch, 2009). A myriad terms and concepts have emerged, which accentuate different aspect of, and collectively shape this ‘dynamic’ vision of multilingualism, including but not limited to plurilingualism (CEFR, 2001; Coste, Moore, & Zarate, 1997/2009), polylingualism (Jørgensen, 2008; Møller, 2008),

translanguaging (García, 2011), metrolingualism (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010), flexible

bilingualism (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) and translingual practice (Canagarajah, 2013). They

have in common that, unlike system-based accounts, which look at language and language use against the background of norms and regularity, these concepts foreground the relevance of flexibility and creativity in meaning making practices (e.g. Piccardo, 2017; Canagarajah, 2013; Li-Wei, 2011; Kramsch, 2009). From this perspective, the language user (not language) is

(re)located at the centre. Blackledge, Creese, and Takhi (2014), for instance, characterize flexible bilingualism (Blackledge & Creese, 2010) as

a view of language as a social resource without clear boundaries, which places the speaker at the heart of the interaction. This leads us away from a focus on languages as distinct codes to a focus on the agency of individuals engaging in using, creating, and interpreting signs for communication. (pp. 192-193)

With the language user at the centre, the outlined perspective points beyond the instrumental use of language, bringing to view how “people of different and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language” (Otsuji & Pennycook, 2010, p. 246). Hand in hand with the growing importance assigned to language users’ agency to act through language practice, subject-centered perspectives have gained attention, which illuminate the experiential sides of multilingualism and frame language learning as a lived experience.