Oxford University Press 2006 doi:10.1093/applin/aml013 ...mm924921/Applied...

Applied Linguistics 27/2: 220–240 � Oxford University Press 2006

doi:10.1093/applin/aml013

Reconceptualizing Multicompetenceas a Theory of Language Knowledge

1JOAN KELLY HALL, 2AN CHENG, and 1MATTHEW T. CARLSON1The Pennsylvania State University, 2Oklahoma State University

Over the last decade or so, the concept of multicompetence has attracted

significant research attention in the field of applied linguistics and in particular

in the study of multiple language use and learning. We argue that while

research efforts concerned with multicompetence have been useful in advancing

a more positive view of second language learners, they have been less successful

in transforming understandings of language knowledge. One reason for their

lack of success is the fact that these efforts have been mired in a state of

theoretical confusion arising from a continued reliance on three assumptions.

These assumptions include (1) a view of L1 and L2 language knowledge as

distinct systems; (2) the presumption of a qualitative distinction between

multicompetence and monocompetence; and (3) the assumption of homo-

geneity of language knowledge across speakers and contexts. Our intent here is

to redress these theoretical inadequacies by making a case for a usage-based

view of multicompetence. We do so by drawing on empirical evidence and

theoretical insights from other areas concerned with language and language

development that expose the theoretical flaws in current research efforts on

multicompetence. We then use these new understandings of language to

reconsider findings on the language knowledge of multiple language users and

to offer new directions for research on multicompetence.

MULTICOMPETENCE: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

In the last decade or so, the field of applied linguistics has seen a significant

migration toward new understandings of both language and learning

(e.g. Firth and Wagner 1997; Hall 2003; Kramsch 2000; Lantolf 2000).

One concept in particular, multicompetence, has attracted some significant

attention in the field for reconceptualizing language knowledge. The term

was first used by Vivian Cook (1991) in the early 1990s to address what

he perceived to be formal linguistics’ inability to address the language

competence of users of more than one language. As conceptualized by

Chomsky (1965), linguistic theory was to be concerned with the linguistic

knowledge of ‘an ideal speaker-listener in a completely homogeneous speech

community’ (Chomsky 1965: 4). The intent behind the theoretical construct

of an ideal native speaker was to allow linguistic science to focus solely

on the nature of language as independent from any performance factors

or nonlinguistic cognitive constraints. Cook, however, contended that

such a construct idealized the monolingual speaker and, in so doing,

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ignored the fact that most individuals know more than one language.

An adequate theory of linguistic knowledge, Cook argued, needs to capture

the language knowledge of multilinguals, and, to do so, Cook introduced

the term multicompetence, defining it as ‘the compound state of mind with

two grammars’ (Cook 1991: 112). For Cook, this competence is ‘a language

supersystem’ (Cook 2003a: 2) that differs in distinct ways from the language

knowledge of monolinguals.

To support his initial proposal of multicompetence as a unique state of

mind, Cook drew on three bodies of evidence. The first came from research

on bilingualism claiming cognitive differences between monolingual and

bilingual language users. Early studies, for example, revealed that bilinguals

did better on tasks requiring more analyzed linguistic knowledge (Bialystok

1991, 2001) and scored higher on tests of divergent thinking, which value

such traits as flexibility, originality, and fluency (Cummins 1979; Diaz 1985).

Findings also showed bilinguals to be more metalinguistically aware and

more flexible in their use of language learning strategies (Galambos and

Goldin-Meadow 1990; Nayak et al. 1989). More recent studies revealed that

bilinguals are more sensitive and responsive to their interlocutors than their

monolingual counterparts (Nicoladis and Genesee 1996). While this

particular body of research only indirectly addressed the language knowledge

of multiple language users, Cook argued that it supported his claim of

a qualitative distinction between the language knowledge of users of more

than one language and that of monolinguals.

A second body of research that Cook drew on in support of the notion of

multicompetence was concerned with documenting the components of

language learners’ interlanguage (IL) (Selinker 1972). The concept of IL was

initially proposed to capture what was considered to be the distinct system

of language that learners of a second or foreign language develop as they

move from beginning to more advanced stages of knowledge of the target

language.1 Findings from various studies (e.g. Beretta 1989; Corder 1978;

Ellis 1985; Selinker and Douglas 1987; Tarone 1983) revealed that in

addition to containing linguistic structures from each of the two languages,

IL contained structures that are of neither language, but are, instead, unique

to the learner’s IL. Earlier research characterized these unique components

as deficiencies in the L2 user’s language knowledge. However, later research

(e.g. Coppetiers 1987) examining the language knowledge of advanced L2

learners revealed that no matter how advanced L2 users are in the L2, their

L2 knowledge is different from that of native speakers of that language.

Thus, IL could not be considered a deficient or developing version of L2 but,

instead, must be treated as a legitimate system in its own right. Cook

(1992: 562) claimed that these findings provided strong evidence for his view

that ‘the grammar of the L2 in a multicompetent speaker is not the same as

the apparently equivalent grammar in a monolingual.’

A third body of research that Cook drew on in support of his notion of

multicompetence documented L2 system influences on L2 users’ first

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language systems. An early study by Flege (1987), for example, demonstrated

that L2 phonology components affected language users’ L1 phonological

systems, specifically in voice onset time of certain sounds. Cook’s own study

(1999) showed how L2 users’ grammaticality judgments of their L1 differed

from those of their monolingual counterparts. Encouraged by this work

demonstrating L2 effects on L1 knowledge, research in this area has

burgeoned in the last few years, with analytic attention given to L2 effects on

all language systems, including phonology (e.g. Leather and James 1996),

morphosyntax (e.g. Pavlenko and Jarvis 2002), lexicon (e.g. Laufer 2003),

semantics (e.g. Pavlenko 2003), pragmatics (e.g. Cenoz 2003), and

conceptual representations (e.g. Kecskes and Papp 2000). On the whole,

these findings have shown that L2 systems have the potential to influence

L1 systems at all stages of bilingualism.

It is apparent that, over the last decade or so, the concept of

multicompetence has helped to, in Cook’s (2002a: 19) words, ‘alter[s] the

perspective of SLA research.’ It has done so largely by bringing to the

foreground a view of L2 users as ‘successful multicompetent speakers, not

failed native speakers’ (Cook 1999: 204), with differences in the L2 users’

language knowledge perceived to stem not from any deficiency in the L2

user as a nonnative speaker, but rather from differences between the

multilingual and monolingual mind. In addition to helping to reshape

the ideological landscape of L2 pedagogy,2 such a view has also encouraged

further research in those areas that led Cook (1991) to propose the notion of

multicompetence in the first place. His recent volume (2003b) summarizes

the state of the art with respect to one of these strands, the influence of

the L2 on the L1.

While these research efforts have indeed been useful in advancing a more

positive view of second language learners, we submit that they have been

less successful in transforming understandings of language knowledge.

One reason for their lack of success in this respect is the fact that these efforts

have been mired in a state of theoretical confusion arising from a reliance,

howsoever tacit and unconscious, on three assumptions. This reliance

continues in spite of findings from the research concerned with multi-

competence that, at the very least, challenge the assumptions. The first

assumption that continues to influence multicompetence-inspired research

efforts is the treatment of L1 and L2 language knowledge as distinct systems.

Deriving from this is the second unexamined assumption: the presumption

of a qualitative distinction between multicompetence and monocompetence.

Third is the assumption of homogeneity of language knowledge across

speakers and contexts.

The work presented in Cook’s 2002b and 2003b volumes provides several

examples of the continued influence of a view of language knowledge

as discrete, homogeneous systems. Indeed, the title of the 2003b volume,

Effects of the Second Language on the First asserts the existence of a two-system

framework for describing and understanding bilingual language knowledge.

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Cook elaborates on this view in the background chapters to each of his

edited volumes (Cook 2002a: 10–13; 2003a: 6–11). Citing evidence mainly

from semantic representation in bilinguals, Cook (2003a: 10) suggests an

‘integration continuum’ to account for what he considers to be three possible

logical relationships between the first and the second language in the

bilingual mind. They are: total separation, interconnection, and total

integration into a single mental super system containing components of

each language system in addition to components that are not specific to

either system.

This discrete systems perspective is carried through, either explicitly or

implicitly, in most if not all of the volumes’ contributions. For example, both

Fabbro (2002) and Dewaele (2002) take a systems view of language in their

proposal to investigate the brains of speakers of two languages in order to

specify more accurately the locations of the two language systems. Fabbro

looks at the question of whether L1 and L2 are represented in common

or different cerebral structures, with a specific focus on the cerebral

organization of languages in bilinguals who acquired L2 subsequent to L1.

Dewaele’s study sets out to identify possible neurobiological causes for

synchronic variation in the fluency of L2 production. In a similar vein,

although Pavlenko (2003: 58) asserts that multilinguals’ linguistic repertoires

should be understood as ‘a unified, complex, coherent, interconnected,

interdependent ecosystem’, she proposes to examine ‘which L2 influence

processes take place in which language areas’ (Pavlenko 2003: 58) in the

bilingual mind. In doing so, she treats L1 as distinct from L2 and thus

suggests a two-system view of bilingual language knowledge. The perspective

is apparent as well in the terms used to theorize the system interactions

in the bilingual mind. For example, Pavlenko (2000, 2003) speculates that

systems in the bilingual mind are capable of borrowing, transferring, or shifting

components. Similarly, Pavlenko and Jarvis (2002) and Cenoz (2003) suggest

the term bidirectional transfer to explain what they argue is a two-way

movement between the two systems, and from a more negative perspective,

Porte (2003: 107) writes of the possible ‘erosive consequences of L1

deprivation’ to the L1 system that can arise from an encroaching L2 system.

This view of bilingual language knowledge as comprising two separate

systems has had the unfortunate consequence of limiting investigatory

concerns in multicompetence-related research largely to documenting

structural effects presumed to arise from interaction between the two

systems in the bilingual mind.3 Balcom (2003), for example, looks specifically

at the influence of the L2 system on L1 lexico-syntactic rules and

representations. For Cook et al. (2003), the concern is with capturing the

influence of L2 cues on L1 syntactic knowledge. Jarvis (2003) is also

concerned with documenting changes to L1 and, in keeping with a systems

view, interprets the changes to his L2 user’s L1 language system as

undergoing either ‘item-specific L2 influenced deviant structural change’

or ‘system-level deviation’ (2003: 99). The two-system view of bilingual



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language knowledge is also embodied in Kecskes and Papp’s (2003) proposal

for a Common Underlying Conceptual Base (CUCB), a concept that draws

heavily on the initial formulation of multicompetence. According to these

scholars, L2 influence on L1 is not possible until a CUCB develops following

sufficiently intense exposure to the L2, and once developed, is responsible

for the operation of both language systems. By suggesting that there is

a threshold of proficiency in L2 that must be reached for the L2 to affect

the L1, they are, in effect, proposing that there must be two systems in place

before interaction between them can occur.

This view of two language systems in one mind has led Cook (1992, 1995,

2003a) and others (e.g. Kecskes and Papp 2000; Jessner 2003) to claim

a unique, qualitative distinction between multicompetence and monocompe-

tence. Because it is presumed to cover L2 knowledge in all stages of

development in addition to L1 knowledge, multicompetence is considered to

be dynamic and variable. In contrast, Cook argues, because it involves just

one language-specific system, monocompetence is considered to be a stable

and finite state of knowledge, which ‘all human beings attain’ (2003a: 4).

Despite the asserted qualitative distinction between monocompetence and

multicompetence, however, research efforts continue to use the first as

a basis of comparison for the second. Cook (2002a), for example, readily

admits that the comparison of L2 users’ language systems to that of the

native speakers is ‘indeed a useful research technique’ (Cook 2002a: 21), as

long as such a comparison does not lead to an ideological conclusion such as

treating L2 users as deficient native speakers. In other words, although we

should appreciate ‘the ways in which L2 users go outside the bounds of

monolinguals’ (Cook 2002a: 21) and recognize the ultimate achievements of

L2 users, and although multicompetence is seen as a qualitatively distinct

state of mind, monocompetence is still considered to be a valuable yardstick

against which L2 users’ language knowledge can be evaluated. Consequently,

in most if not all of the research concerned with multicompetence, the ideal

monolingual native speaker becomes the norm for assessing the language

knowledge of individuals considered to be multicompetent.4 Such research,

in our opinion, is an empty exercise. For, if a unique state of mind is

assumed for multicompetence, comparing the knowledge of multiple

language users to that of monocompetent users, at the very least, begs the

question, that is, uses the premise of uniqueness to support the findings of

difference.

Such confusion is also evident in the concepts used to refer to individuals

who know more than one language. We find, for example, terms such

as ‘ambilingual balanced bilingual’ and ‘balanced bilingual’ (Herdina and

Jessner 2002: 118) that evidently use the monolingual native speaker as

a measuring stick. Herdina and Jessner use the first term to refer to

individuals with ‘native-like competence’ (ibid.) in both languages and the

second term to refer to individuals with two language systems that are each

‘below a native speaker proficiency level’ (Herdina and Jessner 2002: 119).



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The nod to the native speaker norm is also apparent in Cook’s (2002a: 6)

admonition against paying too much attention to the ‘select handful of

specially gifted individuals’ who can pass for native speakers in their

languages.

Related to the notion of a multilingual as possessing two or more separate,

internally consistent language systems and the argued qualitative distinction

between monocompetence and multicompetence, the third assumption

continuing to influence current multicompetence-inspired research is the

assumption of homogeneity of language knowledge across speakers and

contexts. This assumption is most evident in the operationalization of

language users into groups of monolinguals and bilinguals (e.g. Cook et al.

2003; Dewaele and Pavlenko 2003; Kecskes and Papp 2003; Pavlenko 2003),

and in at least a few cases, into groups of monolinguals and trilinguals (e.g.

Hoffman and Ytsma 2003; Cenoz et al. 2001), based solely on identification

with a specific language code, for example, English, Spanish, German,

Japanese, etc. This is so despite Cook’s (1991, 1996) and others’ (e.g. Herdina

and Jessner 2002; Kecskes and Papp 2003) criticism of Chomsky’s

idealization of the native speaker and despite compelling empirical evidence

from research in both linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics extending

well over four decades that reveals the extent to which individuals’

language knowledge varies according to class, education, age, gender, region,

and so on.5

To recap, by seeking to understand ‘the compound state of mind with two

grammars’ (Cook 1991: 112) of individuals who use more than one

language, multicompetence research has succeeded to some extent in freeing

the multilingual from traditional models of language knowledge based on an

idealized monolingual user. However, in trying to make a case for a positive

view of multilingual knowledge, it has failed to use the findings on

multilinguals’ language knowledge to reconsider some primary theoretical

assumptions framing these efforts. Specifically, it has left intact the notion of

language as discrete systems, with that of the monolingual defined as being

finite and stable, and thus, qualitatively distinct from the multilingual, which

is viewed as dynamic and variable. It has also held on to a narrow view of

language knowledge as homogeneous and stable across speakers and

contexts. These lingering assumptions, we suggest, have had the unfortunate

consequence of cloaking what could otherwise be a transformative and

influential concept of language knowledge.

In the discussion that follows, we redress these theoretical inadequacies

with the ultimate goal of making a case for a usage-based view of

multicompetence with significant implications for research concerned with

multiple language use and development. We do so by drawing on empirical

evidence and theoretical insights from other areas concerned with language

and language development that expose more fully the theoretical flaws in

current research efforts on multicompetence.



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A USAGE-BASED ACCOUNT OF LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE

Current theoretical insights and empirical support from fields such as

psycholinguistics (e.g. Bates 1999, 2003; Bates et al. 1998; Elman 1999;

MacWhinney 2001), child language development (e.g. Snow 1999; Tomasello

2003a), and functional and cognitive linguistics (e.g. Bowerman and

Levinson 2001; Bybee and Noonan 2002; Bybee and Hopper 2001b;

Hopper 1998; Ochs et al. 1996; Tomasello 2003b) provide compelling

evidence for a usage-based view of language knowledge. Specifically, findings

show language knowledge to be comprised of dynamic constellations of

linguistic resources, the shapes and meanings of which emerge from

continual interaction between internal, domain-general cognitive constraints

on the one hand and one’s pragmatic pursuits in his or her everyday worlds

on the other, that is through language use. That is to say, particular

grammatical and other linguistic elements of language knowledge are not

a priori components belonging to stable, acontexual systems. Instead, they

emerge as relatively automatized structures or schemas of expectations that

are used to both represent and respond to the human experience. As our use

of language changes, the substance of our language knowledge also changes.

Crucial to the specific shaping of individual language knowledge are the

distribution and frequency with which we encounter specific components

in our everyday interactions with others. The more frequent and reliable

the appearance of particular patterns is, the more likely the patterns will be

stored and remembered.

Research from neurobiology and psycholinguistics supports this usage-

based account of language with findings suggesting that the shape and

substance of language knowledge rely in part on a set of general constraints

from which grammar emerges as a ‘solution to mapping hyperdimensional

meanings onto a low-dimensional channel that is heavily constrained by

the limits of human information processing’ (Bates et al. 1998: 590). Elman

(1999) operationalizes the constraints into two types. Architectural constraints

refer to the inherent structuring of the brain that makes possible the

processing of information. Also giving shape to language knowledge are what

Elman calls chronotopic constraints. These constraints are defined in terms of

the timing of external events, such as when input is presented, and

of internal developmental events, such as those involving the maturation of

cognitive capabilities. Because they depend in part on language input,

chronotopic constraints highlight the crucial role language use plays in giving

shape to language knowledge.

We find additional evidence pointing to the malleable, activity-sensitive

nature of language knowledge in research on child language development

(e.g. Rowland et al. 2003; Lieven et al. 2003; Tomasello 1999, 2003a).

Findings here make visible the intimate links between the social-contextual

conditions of language use and the shape and substance of language

development. More specifically, they reveal that the shape of children’s



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language knowledge is tied to their repeated experiences in regularly

occurring communicative activities with their primary caregivers. In these

interactions, children are provided with a considerable amount of input in

which the caregivers make the more important cues salient to the children

through the use of nonverbal cues such as gazing and gesturing, and verbal

cues such as cue repetition and tone and pitch changes. They are also

provided with verbal instructions that direct them to perceive or notice these

cues and make connections between them and their contexts. Children make

such connections by interpreting and interacting with the intentions of their

caregivers, thereby grounding language structure in concrete, historically-

situated contexts of language use. These actions, along with the frequency

with which particular forms appear in the input and the degree to which

their form–function relationships are transparent and consistent, give shape

to children’s emerging language knowledge.6

Further corroborating a usage-based view of language knowledge is

research in functional and cognitive linguistics (e.g. Bybee 2003; Langacker

1987, 1991, 2000). Analyses of large corpora of natural data reveal that

rather than culminating in an unchanging, static end state, ‘the fixing of

linguistic groups of all kinds as recognizable structural units is an ongoing

process’ (Bybee and Hopper 2001a: 2), resulting in grammars that are

‘variable and probabilistic’ (ibid.: 19). A prime influence on the continual

re-structuring of language knowledge is frequency of use. According to

Bybee (2003), frequency has two main effects. The first is a processing effect

whereby the specific meanings of frequent words become generalized

and their phonetic shape reduced with use. For example, the meaning of

‘going to’, a pervasive phrase in English, extends beyond its original meaning

of movement (He is going to the store), to include intention (I’m going to do

that for him) and the future (He’s going to call tonight). In addition, it

becomes phonetically reduced to ‘gonna’, resulting in less muscular effort

when processing on-line. At the same time, frequency of use affects the

structural properties of words and phrases by ensuring the retention of those

constructions most frequently used. Moreover, the more frequent their use,

the more entrenched the constructions become and the more likely it is that

they will be preserved and accessed as whole units. This is so regardless of

how seemingly irregular they are. This is the storage effect. Boyland’s (2001)

study on the use of hypercorrect forms of the English pronouns ‘you and I’

as objects illustrates the connection between frequency of use and the

entrenching of structural aspects of language knowledge. Her corpus of data

reveals, among other things, that the phrase ‘you and I’ is the most

frequently used conjoined phrase with the pronoun I. Because of its frequent

use, she argues, it has become processed as one unit and thus is accessed by

speakers as a complete element. That is, in the process of communicating,

rather than generating two separate pronouns with a conjunction, speakers

use the phrase as a single unit. Thus, they are more apt to use ‘you and I’



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after prepositions such as ‘between’ and ‘from’ rather than the grammatically

prescribed forms ‘you and me’.

Frequency of use also affects language knowledge in that the more

different the types of language use speakers are exposed to and participate in,

the wider the range of options they are likely to have encountered and

stored (Thompson and Hopper 2001). This effect of frequency and diversity

of exposure is illustrated in Frisch et al. (2001). In their study examining

patterns of acceptability judgments of words, the authors found that English

speaking subjects’ experiences with language changed their intuitive

judgments about the language. Those with more language experiences,

defined as those with larger vocabularies, judged low probability words

as more acceptable than did subjects with smaller vocabularies and,

concomitantly, fewer experiences. Such judgment differences occur, they

argue, because those with a greater diversity of language experiences are

more likely to have robust memory representations of words that are

considered to be low-probability, having encountered and used them more

often. Thus, they are more likely to find them acceptable. Findings such

as these provide compelling evidence of the interrelationship between

language knowledge and language use and of the crucial role frequency

plays in both the shape and substance of language knowledge. They

also demonstrate that individual understandings of language do not stand

apart from, but rather arise from language use. In other words, rather than

a prerequisite to performance, language knowledge is an emergent property

of it, developing from its locally-situated uses in culturally-framed

and discursively-patterned communicative activities. Language structures,

as conventionally conceptualized, are simply post-hoc observations of the

continually shifting patterns and schemas we employ to negotiate specific

contexts of action.

Also providing persuasive empirical support of the flexible nature of

language knowledge, and at the same time, evidence against an assumption

of homogeneity of language knowledge across speakers and contexts is the

substantial body of sociolinguistic research on language variation (for up-to-

date reviews of this research see, e.g. Coupland and Jaworski 2006; Fitch and

Sanders 2005; and Wardhaugh 2002). Findings here reveal quite convin-

cingly that language knowledge varies not only diachronically over the

lifespan of an individual, but also synchronically. Specific differences

in individual knowledge have been tied to a wide range of social identities

and contexts including social class, race, region, gender, ethnicity, and

communicative practice. By making apparent the conditional, context-

dependent nature of language knowledge, such research provides compelling

support for a view of language knowledge as dynamic and malleable,

constituted by ‘a massive collection of heterogeneous constructions, each with

affinities to different contexts and in constant structural adaptation to usage’

(Bybee and Hopper 2001a: 3, emphasis in the original).



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A USAGE-BASED VIEW OF MULTICOMPETENCE

The account of language knowledge presented above transforms the

theoretical base on which much multicompetence-inspired research has

rested in at least three ways. First, it makes a fundamental move from the

view of language knowledge as static, internally coherent and uniform

systems, and instead, takes the dynamism in language knowledge of

multilinguals to be the inherent nature of all language knowledge and not

simply a product of certain destabilizing forces, for example, multilingualism.

More specifically, it reveals multiple language users’ knowledge to be

essentially flexible, comprised of dynamic constellations of resources the

shapes of which are emergent from interaction between internal

architectures and cognitive processes on the one hand and social experiences

on the other as a species-specific means ‘to serve the many complex goals

of human society and culture’ (Bates 2003: 243). The language knowledge of

multilinguals, then, is not a super system of grammar in the sense of abstract

rules, but, as Ford et al. (2003: 122), observe, ‘a minimally sorted and

organized set of memories of what people have heard and repeated over

a lifetime of language use, a set of forms, patterns, and practices that have

arisen to serve the most recurrent functions that speakers find need to fulfill.’

As we have argued above, while showing evidence of the dynamic

properties of language knowledge, multicompetence-inspired research has

attempted to explain the dynamic properties of language knowledge with

reference to inherently stable systems that are somehow destabilized with

the advent of multicompetence. A usage-based perspective offers a solution

to this contradiction by turning the problem around, seeing language

knowledge as an inherently dynamic set of patterns of use which, in turn,

is subject to a variety of stabilizing influences that are tied to the constancy

of individuals’ everyday lived experiences, and more generally, to more

encompassing societal norms that value stability. Evidence of the power

of such norms may be seen, for example, in prescriptivist grammars and

in the amount of variation permitted in various registers. What is important

from a usage-based perspective is the fact that the source of any apparent

stability in language knowledge has its roots in socioculturally contextualized

activity rather than in a mentalist notion of a monocompetent native

speaker, whose competence may be jarred loose by the acquisition of a

second language.

A second way a usage-based view of language knowledge helps to

transform the theoretical underpinnings of multicompetence research is by

making clear that all language knowledge is socially contingent and dynamic

no matter how many language codes one has access to. The differences across

users based not on number of languages, but on amount and diversity of

experiences and use. Thus, while it is true, as Cook (1991, 1992) asserts,

that the language knowledge of multilinguals is not the same as that of

monolinguals, the differences in language knowledge are not qualitative



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or linked to differences in number of linguistic codes, that is monolingualism

versus multilingualism. Rather, they are tied to the pragmatic variation in the

use of language within and across social experiences in which individuals are

engaged, variation that exists even within a single language code. As noted

earlier, the more frequent and varied the communicative contexts are in

which individuals engage, the wider the range of forms and functions they

are likely to have experienced, and the wider and more encompassing their

understandings about language are likely to be. This variability, as Frisch

et al.’s (2001) study revealed, is not a matter of language code since the

subjects in their study were all English speakers, but of experiences using

language. From this, we can conclude that language knowledge is always

provisional and sensitive to renegotiation and renewal, a conclusion that

belies the idea that there is, or indeed, can ever be, a homogeneous

monolingual native speaker. Thus, even monolinguals—as conventionally

defined in the literature on multicompetence—can be considered to be

multicompetent.

It is not the case then that multiple languages per se confer special

knowledge capabilities that set multiple language users’ knowledge apart

from that of monolingual speakers. Indeed, monolingual users rely on the

same kind of cognitive and social processes that multilinguals do in

constructing language knowledge. What lead to differences in their

knowledge are the amount and quality of exposure to variable linguistic

forms, and, more generally, the unique social contexts and pragmatically-

based communicative activities that individuals encounter in the process of

becoming multilingual. This being the case, we should find differences in

language knowledge among individuals with different communicative

repertoires regardless of the language variety they use. The knowledge of

individuals with more diverse communicative experiences—even within a

single language—is likely to differ from the knowledge of those with fewer

and less diverse experiences. What gives rise to the differences in language

knowledge are the particular circumstances within which an individual

experiences and uses language. Taking social activity rather than language

code as the starting point not only belies the qualitative distinction asserted

to exist between the language knowledge of monolinguals and multilinguals,

but it also makes apparent that there can be no end-state to knowledge

development, no culminating point at which language knowledge can be

considered to be a complete, finite state of mind. Finally, it exposes the

inadequacy of a similarly monolithic view of language as stable and

homogeneous across speakers and contexts.

The view of language knowledge as fundamentally dynamic and socially

contingent helps to shed new light on findings from research on

multicompetence. For example, it helps to explain more fully several

findings on the differences found in language knowledge as revealed via tests

of grammaticality judgments across monolingual and multilingual users

as well as differences in metalinguistic and socio-pragmatic skills



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(e.g. Goetz 2003; Kecskes and Papp 2000). Rather than arising from

differences in code, as originally proposed, it is more likely that they come

about as a result of multilingual users’ increased and more varied

communicative experiences. Although not directly concerned with language

knowledge, a recent study (Ruffman et al. 1998) comparing metalinguistic

abilities across age groups rather than language code supports this view by

revealing that children who had more language experiences with older

siblings showed greater increases in their metalinguistic abilities than did

children with fewer language experiences.

Locating the source of knowledge in activity can also help explain

differences in L1 knowledge found in L2 users with different learning

experiences, as reported, for example, by Kecskes and Papp (2000). In the

discussion of their findings, Kecskes and Papp suggest that the differences may

be due to a hypothetical threshold of language proficiency in the other

language that learners need to reach before that knowledge can affect L1 skills

and before they can gain the advantages claimed to exist for bilinguals.

Although they do not explicitly define the threshold, they suggest that it is

composed of a certain, specifiable amount of knowledge of language system

components. From a usage-based view of multicompetence, any attempt to

operationalize such a threshold in this way is pointless, for, as argued above,

language knowledge is not composed of a-contexual, stable system

components. A more likely source of differences between groups of learners

is in the learning experiences themselves. What the learning of additional

languages provides to learners is involvement in and access to new practices

and, in the case of classroom-based language learning, to new instructional

practices. The more frequent and varied the practices are in which learners

participate, the more expansive their language knowledge is likely to be as

compared to those with fewer and less varied experiences. Understanding

individual learners’ language knowledge in this way provides, we suggest, a far

more satisfactory explanation for the differences in language knowledge found

across groups of language learners such as those found by Kecskes and Papp.

IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH CONCERNEDWITH MULTICOMPETENCE

Our reconsideration of multicompetence in light of current research on

language has several implications for how we both conceptualize and design

research concerned with language knowledge of multiple language users.

First, it makes apparent the need for new terms and concepts that more

adequately address what language users do with and know about language.

Terms such as interlanguage, transfer, shift, and interference to describe cross-

linguistic influences suggest the existence of autonomous systems with

identifiable borders.7 Likewise, the term native speaker suggests the existence

of system masters—individuals who have reached a complete state of system

knowledge.8 Because these terms have had a long history in both traditional



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linguistics and second language learning theories, their meanings and

underlying assumptions about language may be too entrenched, too

institutionalized to allow them to address current concerns or take on new

meanings that help explain current findings.

What are needed, we suggest, are new concepts and terms that capture

contemporary understandings of language knowledge as emergent and

provisional constellations of structures, whose shapes and boundaries are as

malleable and porous as the social actions in which they are grounded. For

example, like Pavlenko (2000), we suggest replacing the notion of language

groups with that of communities of practice (Chaiklin and Lave 1993;

Lave and Wenger 1991). Communities of practice are social groups composed

of individuals who come together for shared purposes that are organized

around, for example, social, familial, or professional goals. Locating

theoretical and conceptual concerns with language knowledge in commu-

nities of practice rather than in groups defined by language codes moves the

focus away from a-contextual language systems and toward communicative

activities comprising particular communities of practice. Likewise, it defines

individual language knowledge not in terms of abstract system components

but as communicative repertoires9—conventionalized constellations of semiotic

resources for taking action—that are shaped by the particular practices

in which individuals engage, be they interpersonal, that is, practices that

involve others, or intrapersonal, that is, practices such as thinking, planning,

and self-reflecting that involve just the individual (Vygotsky 1986). Terms

like reorganization, redirection, expansion, and transformation, then, become

useful in describing the continual evolution of individuals’ language

knowledge as they move into different contexts and appropriate different

means for taking action.10

To capture individual differences in individual communicative repertoires

we suggest the term communicative expertise (cf. Kasper 2004; Wenger 1999).

Research on expertise (Sternberg and Horvath 1995; Sternberg 1998) reveals

three findings. First, it is best understood as a prototype representing

the typical case of a category and comprising three clusters of features.

These are domain knowledge, which includes both knowing about and

knowing how; efficiency in using domain knowledge to take action and

solve problems; and insight in arriving at solutions in ways that are both

appropriate and innovative. Second, the substance of these features is

context- or domain-sensitive rather than context- or domain-general. That is,

there is no stable set of features that defines expertise across domains.

Third, expertise is not a fixed end-state but ‘is in a process of continual

development’ (Sternberg 1998: 11).

Although studies of expert performance do not make the connection,

we consider the research on expertise to be consistent with findings on

language knowledge as flexible and activity-dependent and, therefore,

it can help us to understand at least some of the variation in the language

knowledge that individuals develop and draw on to participate in their



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social worlds. To refer to those individuals who are considered skilled

participants in a variety of communicative domains or practices as

instantiated within particular communities of practice, we suggest the term

multi-contextual communicative expert. We suggest this in lieu of terms such as

native speaker, bilinguals, and multilinguals, as they fail to capture the fact

that differences in language knowledge between individuals and groups

is not a matter of code but is, instead, tied to the quality and variety of

individuals’ experiences in multiple communicative contexts.

In making apparent that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from

questions of use, a usage-based view of multicompetence also has

implications for the design of studies concerned with multiple language use

and language learning. Research goals, for example, can no longer be to

reach an understanding of the language knowledge of multiple language

users divorced from real world contexts of use, but rather to understand it

as it is constructed by individuals-in-society-in-history (Newman and Holzman

1993). It is not a matter of investigating whether there are differences in

individuals’ language knowledge, as there surely will be differences. Rather,

it is a matter of examining the varying shapes and substance of individuals’

language knowledge as they are developed within specific contexts of action

that in turn are tied to specific communities of practice, with the ultimate

aim of understanding ‘the relationships between human action, on the one

hand, and the cultural, institutional, and historical situations in which this

action occurs on the other’ (Wertsch et al. 1995: 11).

New research goals call for a reconsideration of how and why we select

research participants. As noted earlier, studies of multicompetence have

typically constituted groups based on language code (e.g. English, Italian, or

Japanese) and number of codes. For instance, individuals with one code are

grouped together and labeled native speakers, while those with two or more

codes are grouped together and given the labels of bilinguals, trilinguals, or

multilinguals. Such groupings have persisted despite the many difficulties

noted in finding ‘like-minded’ participants. Grosjean (1998), for example,

observes that in research on bilingualism, bilingualism appears to be taken

to mean different things, with research participants varying, for example, by

manner of acquisition, degree of affective involvement, and context of use.

To remedy what conventionally have been considered to be distractions,

some (e.g. Grosjean 1998) have called for researchers to control for such

variation, and others (e.g. Balcom 2003; Jarvis 2003; Pavlenko 2003) to

increase comparative studies between monolinguals and bilinguals. In

contrast, since a usage-based perspective considers language knowledge

to be fundamentally variable, differences within and across communities

are treated as central concerns, i.e. phenomena to be explored and

understood rather than controlled or ignored. The question of participant

selection then becomes a matter of choosing to study those individuals-in-

society-in-history associated with specific communities of practice about

whose language knowledge we are interested in learning more.



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New research goals call for additional, differently constructed research

methods that go beyond clinical or experimental elicitation data, such as

metalingual judgment tests, which, arguably, have been a hallmark of much

multicompetence-inspired research. We need methods such as ethnographies

of communication and discourse and conversation analyses that consider

naturally occurring contexts of action to be the primary source of data on

language knowledge. While means for collecting and analyzing data may

vary across these methods, their collective concern is with understanding

how individuals use their language knowledge to construct their commu-

nicative activities and how, at the same time, these activities serve to

construct individual knowledge (Hall 2003). We also need longitudinal

studies through which we can uncover the conventional or typical

instantiations of communicative activities and the wider sociohistorical

and political forces that give shape to them. On the more micro level,

by following individuals’ language use over time, we can discern how

individuals develop their specific communicative repertoires as participants

in their social worlds and how they use these repertoires to negotiate

their social identities and larger cultural discourses. In the end, what we

are after is not an understanding of language systems apart from individuals

or their contexts of use. Instead, we seek to understand the means by

which language users’ and learners’ involvement in the various constella-

tions of their practices is constituted and the particular forms of language

knowledge that emerge from such activity.11

There are at least three current research efforts in the broad field of applied

linguistics that, although traditionally considered to be outside the main

purview of multicompetence-inspired research, embody the perspective

articulated here and, as such, illustrate useful directions for future research

on multicompetence. The first draws on a language socialization paradigm12

and is concerned mainly with describing and chronicling the development

of individuals’ communicative repertoires as they participate in specific

contexts of action associated with particular communities of practice. The

second joins a situated learning perspective with conversation analytic

methods to investigate the particular communicative repertoires developed

by specific communities of language learners both within and outside of

the classroom.13 The third addresses the larger sociohistorical influences

on individual language knowledge through in-depth analyses of the

communicative repertoires shaping and shaped by particular communities

of practices specifically in non-western contexts.14 Although these research

efforts do not directly address the phenomenon of multicompetence, their

research agendas, especially their detailed research plans (e.g. their design,

including research questions and participant selection, and their data analysis

methodologies) can offer points of entry, cases for reference, and/or

lenses for data analysis to researchers aiming to develop, sustain, and

enrich a line of research that studies multicompetence from an emergent,

context-sensitive usage based perspective.



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CONCLUSION

Without a doubt, Cook’s initial proposal of the term multicompetence in the

early 1990s made a significant, positive contribution to the field of applied

linguistics as it helped to highlight the inadequacies of a view of L2 users as

deficient communicators or failed native speakers and offered scholars and

practitioners a useful means for viewing the knowledge of multiple language

learners from a perspective of difference rather than deficiency. With regard

to ideology, the impact of this insight has been substantial. However,

multicompetence research has yet to have an equal impact on theoretical

understandings of language. We have argued that this lack of influence is

due in part to the fact that findings on multilinguals’ language knowledge

have not been used to redress several key assumptions on which the initial

concept of multicompetence was based.

We have proposed a usage-based approach to multicompetence as a way of

accounting for the findings, not only of multicompetence research but also

of language variation and of recent findings for monolinguals in the domains

of functional and cognitive linguistics, in a more unified way. This view sees

language knowledge as provisional, grounded in and emergent from

language use in concrete social activity for specific purposes that are tied

to specific communities of practice. In addition to occasioning the need for

new concepts and terms that can capture contemporary understandings of

language knowledge, this shift in theoretical vision occasions the need for

differently designed studies on multicompetence, including new criteria for

selecting research participants and new methods of collecting and analyzing

data. It is our hope that the usage-based perspective on multicompetence

offered here will contribute to the development of a coherent research

agenda through the joint efforts of researchers interested in exploring the

multicompetent mind.

Final version received 5 June 2006

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank our colleagues Soojung Choi, Hanae Katayama, and Nicole Mills for their help with

earlier drafts of this paper. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and the journal editors for

their many helpful comments.

NOTES

1 Note, however, that IL was not

proposed as a ‘state of mind’ (see

Bialystok and Sharwood-Smith 1986),

as Cook conceptualizes multicompe-

tence, but rather as a dynamic and

developing L2 grammar that, while



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separate from the L1 grammar, took

the L1 grammar as its starting point

and increasingly approximated the L2

grammar.

2 See, for example, Braine (1999) on

the non-native educator, and Cook

(1999) and Gomes de Matos (2002)

on the L2 learner.

3 We note, however, that SLA research

in general has documented transfer

effects at multiple levels of both

formal and functional linguistic

knowledge. See Odlin (2003) for a

review of this research.

4 For multiple examples, see the studies

in Cook (2003).

5 The significance of language variation

to our reconceptualization of multi-

competence is discussed in more detail

in the next section.

6 Tomasello (1999: 109) summarizes the

dialectic interaction between frequency

of exposure and pragmatic predictabi-

lity in language development: ‘To

acquire language the child must live in

a world that has structured social

activities . . .. For children, this often

involves the recurrence of the same

general activity on a regular or routine

basis so that they can come to discern

how the activity works and how the

various social roles in it function . . . if a

child were born into a world in which

the same event never recurred, the

same object never appeared twice, and

adults never used the same language

in the same context, it is difficult to

see how that child—whatever her

cognitive capabilities—could acquire a

natural language.’

7 We note that the term ‘crosslinguistic

influence’ has also been proposed

(Odlin 2003) as a way of avoiding

some of the problematic connotations

of ‘transfer’, but it does not solve the

problem addressed here, that of the

limiting influence of the systems view

of multilingualism.

8 For a fuller critique of the term native

speaker, see Rampton (1990).

9 This term has its roots in Dell Hymes’

(1962, 1972) early work on commu-

nicative competence.

10 We draw in large part from

Sternberg’s (e.g. 1985, 1998) work

on expertise and intelligence in

suggesting these terms.

11 Tony Crowley (1996: 28) notes that

such an approach would ‘seek and

analyse . . . the modes in which

language becomes important for its

users not as a faculty which they all

share at an abstract level, but as a

practice in which they all participate

in very different ways, to very

different effects, under very different

pressures, in their everyday lives.

12 See Watson-Gegeo (2004) for a

comprehensive review of this

research as it relates to SLA.

13 See Mondada and Doehler (2004) for

an example of classroom-based

research and Brouwer and Wagner

(2004) for a look at contexts of

learning outside the classroom.

14 See Makoni, Brutt-Griffler, and

Mashiri (in press) for an articulate

example of this direction.

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