The relation of plurilingualism/culturalism to creativity: a matter of perception

Abstract

In the context of 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation, this paper proposes an integrated reflection on creativity and its relation to plurilingualism. Relevant literature is reviewed and includes the following domains: economics (OECD, 2000); culture studies (Bhabah, 1994); globalisation studies (Monge, 1998); creativity studies and cognition (Boden, 1996); creativity studies in a socio-cultural framework (Sawyer, 2006; Vygotsky, 1971); bilingualism and plurilingualism studies (Bernaus, Andrade, Kervran, Murkowska, & Trujillo-Sáez, 2007; Bialystok et al., 2005; Bialystok, Craik, & Ryan, 2006; Bialystok & Shapero, 2005; Jessner, 2006; Morton & Harper, 2007; Neufeld, 1993); intercultural studies (Bennett, 1993; Maalouf, 1998), as well as literary authors. A report on a workshop experienced by 10 language teachers from the primary and tertiary sectors of education in Ireland forms an integral part of the review as it addresses the question of transferability of concepts – on creativity and plurilingualism – into individuals’ personal, social and professional dimensions. The paper concludes that the relation of creativity to plurilingualism lies in individuals’ heightened perception of the world (Vygotsky, 1971) which can be located in one's awareness of spaces ‘in-between’ (Bhabah, 1994). Moreover, raising awareness of the creative potential that exists within a plurilingual framework brings additional arguments to current thinking on the role of languages in a global context.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 42 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.