Unexpected Disadvantages of a Simultaneous Quadrilingual Upbringing, a Case Study

Jerome Dumetz (), Anna Vishnyakova (), Valéria Dumetz-Vishnyakova () and Alexandra Dumetz-Vishnyakova ()
Additional contact information
Jerome Dumetz: Plekhanov University, Moscow, RU; Unicorn University
Anna Vishnyakova: N/A
Valéria Dumetz-Vishnyakova: N/A
Alexandra Dumetz-Vishnyakova: N/A

International Journal of Teaching and Education, 2021, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: At the crossroad between linguistics and cross-cultural communication, multilingualism is frequently presented through its most positive perspective. However, if the long-term benefits outrun the disadvantages, frustration is often the dominant feeling among the speakers during their early years. Based upon meticulous observations and careful collection of examples in a multilingual family, this article is a case study of the difficulties encountered by polyglots growing up with four simultaneous languages: Russian, French, Czech, and English. Using the research framework usually developed for the study of bilingualism, the article reviews not only the psychological and cognitive difficulties encountered by tetraglots, but also the social and linguistic drawbacks they are confronted with. It also examines common multilingual strategies such as code-switching, words creation and language mixing.It concludes that the linguistic development of tetraglots does not differ much from bilingual ones, except for the elongated period before acquiring production speech. Quadrilingual children tend to speak later than not only monolingual children, but also bilingual ones.

Keywords: Multilingualism; tetralingual; tetraglot; quadri-lingual; code switching; borrowings; cognitive development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I29 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://eurrec.org/ijote-article-116884
https://eurrec.org/ijote-article-116884?download=1

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aop:jijote:v:9:y:2021:i:1:p:1-12

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Teaching and Education is currently edited by Jiri Semrad

More articles in International Journal of Teaching and Education from European Research Center
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jiri Rotschedl ().