The aim of this chapter is to provide evidence of linguistic awareness as an essential component of multilingual proficiency. The major part of the discussion is based on introspective data taken from bilingual (Italian- German) students of English at university level in the Tyrol study. To explore the multilingual informants' use of certain problem-solving behaviours, think-aloud protocols were used during the process of academic writing. The kind of compensatory strategies that the students chose to overcome the lexical deficits in their third language will be analyzed to find out about other language use and how this use interacts with metalinguistic awareness.

The chapter begins with a review of some international studies on the multilingual lexicon which will be presented as an introduction to the Tyrol study on the use of English as a third language. After providing the theoretical and methodological background of the study, the three main research questions will be the subjects of detailed focus. Finally, the findings of the study and some implications for future studies will be presented.

CROSS-LEXICAL CONSULTATION IN MULTILINGUALS

This section focuses on multilingual studies of language mixing resulting from linguistic search in various settings. Since many of the relevant studies are introspective in nature, our discussion will start with some remarks on the methodology of introspection and then move on to an overview of relevant investigations in this research area.

In this chapter, we explore the notion of commodified identity and introduce a series of tools and frameworks by which to analyse its discursive constitution. We pursue four different interpretations of the term ‘commodified identities’:

1. Identities of consumers (accounts for and practices of consumption).

2. The process of identity commodification through acts of consumption (How do commercial discourses such as advertisements ‘speak’ to us and engage us with their message?).

3. Representations of identities in commodified contexts (for example, consumer femininity, commodified ‘laddism’).

4. Self-commodifying discourses (for example, personal advertisements, job applications/CVs/references, commercial telephone sex lines).

In order to address all of these connotations of ‘commodified identity’ we draw on critical discourse analysis and critical discursive psychology. In other words, we analyse the linguistic content of advertising or promotional material, but will, in a detailed case study of men's lifestyle magazines, relate this to in-depth interviews and reader-response exercises conducted with groups of male consumers. This kind of two-way analysis captures meanings at the interface between contexts of production, text and consumption and is allied to a growing tradition of research known as a ‘circuits of culture’ model central to contemporary cultural studies (for example, Du Gay et al. 1997; Johnson 1986). A circuits of culture model acknowledges the importance of a global consideration of all moments in the broader context of commercial culture (that is, production, text, consumption, lived identities of consumers) and the often complex ways in which they may intersect.

In this chapter, we consider how to define and analyse ‘institutional identities’, This is a less straightforward task than might initially seem the case. Does ‘institutional identity’ refer to fixed, pre-discursive and complementary pair roles, such as ‘doctor and patient’? Does it refer to any identity that is displayed in talk oriented to institutional goals or activities? Is it possible to identify ‘institutionality’ linguistically? Do we need prior knowledge of institutional encounters to understand them?

We discuss two main approaches to understanding the links between institutions, discourse and identity. Ethnomethodological and conversation analytic (CA) approaches argue that ‘institutionality’ or institutional identities are emergent properties of talk-in-interaction. In contrast, critical discourse analytic (CDA) accounts argue that the way people interact in social situations reflects existing macro-social forces. Any analysis of institutional interaction starts with a critique of institutions as structures that embed power relations within them. Institutional identity is therefore a function of these existing relations. The tension between these two approaches is summarised usefully by Mäkitalo and Saljö (2000: 48):

Ever since the seminal work of Peal and Lambert (1962), who found that bilingual children showed cognitive advantages over their monolingual counterparts and attributed this result to the metalinguistic abilities of their informants, interest in metalinguistic tasks, metalinguistic awareness and metalinguistic skills in connection with bi- and multilingualism has increased over the years. The latest studies by Bialystok and her collaborators, which have raised public interest world-wide, showed that the cognitive advantages of bilingualism also persist in elderly adults (Bialystok et al. 2004).

A look at the history of research so far makes clear though that to date interest in metalinguistic awareness has mainly been reflected in studies on FLA where the onset of metalinguistic awareness in the language development of monolingual children has been the focus of attention. In bilingualism and SLA studies metalinguistic awareness has been the focus to a lesser extent. In recent years, however, an increase in interest in the topic has been stimulated by the pedagogically motivated ‘language awareness’ movement (see, for example, Hawkins 1984; James and Garrett 1991; Van Lier 1995).

The following discussion is intended to provide a state-of-the-art description of research on metalinguistic awareness including the presentation of the functions and roles that metalinguistic awareness in multilingual speech and learning can fulfil. This chapter starts with a look at the sometimes confusing variety of related terms used in the study of metalinguistic awareness and language awareness.

The discussion in this book is intended to contribute to the identification of linguistic awareness both as an essential product and a necessary prerequisite of multilingual proficiency. It has made evident that both the definition and the scope of how awareness of language has been viewed according to common approaches inevitably need to be restructured or expanded in order to find appropriate ways of acknowledging the role of linguistic awareness in multilinguals.

The interplay between declarative and procedural knowledge, the boundaries between implicit and explicit knowledge, and also the fundamental discussions of such classifications, will, among other issues, be of interest to multilingualism research. The application of research results to multilingual education such as the clarification of the catalytic effects of third language learning presents a further step. All of this work has to be seen in relation to the key role of linguistic awareness in multilingual learning or to the teacher's efforts at raising linguistic awareness in multilingual education. Studying the nature of the interaction between cross-linguistic influence and linguistic awareness certainly presents a major challenge to future investigators.

It is suggested that the basis of future multilingual education be constituted by a bilingual norm whose cross-lingual dimension is fostered in teaching. As part of this approach metalinguistic and metacognitive abilities should be analyzed through processes of self-reflection and accompanied by strategy training for both teachers and learners. The nature of future language teaching should be characterized by approaches that blur boundaries and integrate systems.

This chapter contrasts two approaches to the analysis of identity in conversation: performativity and ethnomethodological approaches. We have chosen to focus on just those studies that analyse identity in everyday interaction. This cuts out a large literature based on interview or focus group talk and studies of institutional settings. It is probably fair to say that the majority of discourse-based work analyses identity construction in interviews and focus groups, particularly in the study of gender identity, sexuality and ethnicity. Some of this interviewbased work is discussed in Chapter 4 (Narrative Identities) and Chapter 5 (Commodified Identities). Identity practices in institutional talk are explored in Chapter 3 (Institutional Identities), Chapter 4 and Chapter 6 (Spatial Identities).

Let us start by considering some data, which come from a conversation between friends before embarking on a night out together:

Extract 2.1: VH: 3: 90–111 Simplified transcript

Dawn: We need to go in three quarters of an hour.

Elena: Okay.

Marie: Oh MAN I haven't even gone out and I'm sweating like a rapist! (Laughter and ‘horrified’ reaction)

Marie: I'm really hot!

Elena: You two have got to stop with that phrase.

Marie: Has anyone – has anyone got any really non sweaty stuff.

Dawn: Dave has. But you'll smell like a man.

Kate: (Laughs)

Marie: Right has anyone got any feminine non sweaty stuff.

Kate: I've got erm roll on.

We start this chapter with the following quotation from a public Internet discussion site describing activities of the members of the board:

Extract 7.1: Internet discussion site

We go on coach trips to Narnia and have Mary Poppins round for tea on a regular basis.

This embodies, in a tongue-in-cheek way, many of the utopian possibilities of virtual identity. In cyberspace, space, time and identity it would seem are no impediment to doing whatever we want to do, or being whomever we wish to be. Identity on the Internet is playful, creative, impressive and limitless, and (so popular discourse would have it) an entirely different proposition from identity in the ‘real world’, In this chapter, we critically explore the concept of ‘virtual identity’ and its relationship to language, and attempt to elucidate its relationship to what is called ‘real life’ (RL) identity.

After exploring ‘virtuality’ as a concept, and summarising work that has explored ‘identity’ and ‘community’ online, we look at the genre-specific realisations of the language of computer-mediated communication (CMC). We argue that it owes much of its distinctiveness to an attempt to compensate for an absence of audio-visual context in the medium (notwithstanding interactions via ‘Webcam’!). This absence has implications for notions of ‘embodiment’ and space introduced in the previous chapter (‘Spatial Identities’) and forms a crucial element of identity work online. We illustrate our discussion with data from two message boards, one a soap opera discussion list and the other a graphic novel message board.

As a book with ‘discourse’ in the title, it is not surprising that we have used many different kinds of textual data in it: website materials, Internet message boards, conversations between friends, radio and television interviews and talk shows, telephone talk, talk in institutional settings, interview and focus group data, magazine advertisements, and street signs. By and large, the data are our own, which are either transcribed orthographically (verbatim) or using Jefferson's (2004a) system for conversation analysis (see below). Other data are quoted from existing published sources, for which we had no control over the transcription system used and have simply used it exactly as originally written. A variety of transcription systems have therefore been used. Except in the case of some of the media data, we have anonymised each piece of data used, in accordance with academic codes of ethical conduct. The personal names, place names and all other identifiers used throughout the book are pseudonyms. Where there is no source mentioned in the Extracts, the material has been collected and transcribed by the authors.

The Internet message board data used in Chapter 7 were taken from a public site with unrestricted access. Despite this free access, there is some debate among Internet researchers about the use of such materials. Some argue that researchers should make themselves known to ‘users’ in ‘chatrooms’ and explicitly seek permission to use the data (e.g. Cherny 1999).