An analysis of South African university students’ multilingual mindsets based on a holistic approach to language attitudes

At a time when multilingualism is spreading in many universities the world over, monolingual mindsets still tend to predominate when analyzing language issues. However, there is an increasing agreement in academia at the tertiary level about the need to abandon monolingual ideologies and classroom practices in order to provide adequate cognitive support to multilingual students. Research on language attitudes has traditionally approached languages individually, as if they were separate and compartmentalized entities. In an attempt to overcome this fractional view of multilingualism, this study embraces a holistic approach to study language attitudes. The sample of the study was made up of 789 students from a South African university who completed a questionnaire that included both traditional and holistic scales. The statistical analyses indicated that the influence of independent variables such as the L1 or the language more predominantly spoken clearly diminished when the results of the holistic scale were compared with those of the monolingually oriented scale. These findings confirm the need to rely on new approaches and methodologies of research, as the treatment of languages on an equal basis by adopting a holistic approach helps to provoke a positive attitudinal change and to foster the development of multilingual mindsets.