Receptive Multilingualism

Multilingualism is part of daily life for a large part of the world's population (see Chapters 2 through 5, this volume). For many people, multilingualism causes a communicative challenge. If speakers with different native language (L1) backgrounds want to communicate, they need to find a way to cross linguistic borders. However, language acquisition is mostly hard work. It requires mastering grammatical rules, memorizing word lists, and practicing pronunciation. Many speakers feel insecure about speaking or writing in a language that they have not mastered well. Furthermore, it is only possible for an individual to learn a limited number of languages. Many people have not learned other foreign languages up to a standard for cross-border communication. Often, the solution is to use a lingua franca, a language that makes communication possible between people who do not share a first language. Various lingua francas are used in different parts of the world, but English has become the global lingua franca of the 21st century. However, results of surveys (e.g., EF EPI 2017) show that people vary to a large extent in their level of English proficiency depending, for example, on gender, age, level of education and country. Many people have difficulties understanding and speaking English. Therefore, alternative modes of communication have been explored (Backus et al. 2013).