Mother tongues

First of all, responses to the question regarding participants’ mother tongue, or in other words the language or languages that they learned as a child and could still understand, revealed a diversity that was characteristic of the sample. Among the 36 languages marked in this category, which ranged from Albanian to Vietnamese (cf. Appendix 3), French was by far the most frequently mentioned (N = 291), unsurprisingly. It was followed by languages

collectively labeled other (N = 98). Italian and German were each reported by 25 students, while English counted 21 first language speakers. It is important to note that, although the analysis clearly showed that the vast majority of students (93.6%) had skills in multiple languages, a similarly great number of them (80%) chose only one of these as their L1. This is especially interesting in light of their language use patterns discussed below, since these also testified to participants’ plurilingualism.

Figure 4.1 summarizes the extent of mother tongue plurilingualism as testified by the different L1 groups. It also shows that the largest of the groups, that of French mother tongue speakers, reported the highest level of L1 monolingualism, with 222 students (76.3%) marking only one language as their first language. On the other hand, English L1 speakers, who were the least numerous (N = 21), reported having on average two mother tongues. Students who chose another language than the four listed by name also tended to have more than one first language, with an average of 1.6. The ANOVA tests, revealed that the above differences are not due to chance, as there was a significant link between membership of any of the five categories and the number of mother tongues participants spoke.

These figures also describe a central aspect of the plurilingual context at hand. First, they draw attention to the social factors that might influence university students’ answers to the question of their mother tongues. In an officially French-speaking but predominantly plurilingual society, of which this sample is a perfect example, there is considerable social and economic

222

Figure 4.1 Number of mother tongues reported by speakers of different L1s

pressure to master French. Meanwhile, the results of the study also question the legitimacy of this categorization of languages, in a society where plurilingualism is not only a wide-spread phenomenon but also an economically beneficial one (cf. Grin, 1999).

In light of the above, it might be surprising that, as Figure 4.2 shows, French speakers made up the most heterogeneous group in terms of the combinations of their first languages. On the one hand, it bears noting that French mother tongue students composed by far the largest group in the study, which helps explain the high level of variation. On the other hand, the figure makes it clear that French was part of most combinations, which is understandable given the setting of the study but it also accounts for much of these differences. The smallest subsample, composed of English L1 speakers, also displayed a heterogeneous composition, although the proportions of German and Italian speakers were lower. Interestingly, however, none of the participants spoke both German and Italian as their L1.

A similar pattern can be found in Figure 4.3, which compares the total scores for each of the five language categories in different gender groups. The group of female students, twice as large as that of male participants, showed a more diverse overall language portfolio.

Nevertheless, as Figure 4.3 demonstrates, all of the language categories were represented in both cases.

Figure 4.2 Responses per combination of mother tongues

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

French L1 speakers (n=291) German L1 speakers (n=25) Italian L1 speakers (n=25) English L1 speakers (n=21) French German Italian English Other

It can already be concluded that the results discussed so far reflect the characteristic multilingual nature of the Geneva context, described in Chapter 1. Nevertheless, these details became even clearer when students were compared based on the place of upper secondary education. Here, the distribution of first languages showed remarkable differences. Figure 4.4 indicates that Swiss students outperformed their international counterparts as regards the proportion of responses for both German and Italian. On the other hand, the figures reveal that English was an option more frequently chosen by foreigners (6.7%) than among the Swiss (5.1%). While the larger sample size might result in a more balanced language portfolio, the case of German and Italian can also be interpreted as a representation of Swiss plurilingualism, in which Swiss official languages play a central role.

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Male (n=124) Female (n=251) Total (n=375)

French German Italian English Other Figure 4.3 Responses per mother tongue, compared by gender

While comparisons among the four faculties were less straightforward due to considerable variance in sample sizes and the non-representative nature of the sample, Figure 4.5 displays the number of responses for each language category. In sum, Italian was most frequently chosen as a mother tongue at the Faculty of Science, which also contributed the largest subsample in the study. Eleven out of the total of 25 German L1 speakers attended the Faculty of SES, although this faculty yielded the lowest participation. Languages other than the three Swiss official languages were marked as students’ first languages in the greatest proportion at the Faculties of Law (42.55%) and Science (31.33%), with the SES showing the lowest number at 18.33%. Nevertheless, Figure 4.5 also confirms my earlier observation concerning representativeness, showing that group sizes varied greatly among subsamples.

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Switzerland (n=256) Abroad (n=119) Total (n=375)

French German Italian English Other Figure 4.4 Responses per mother tongue, compared by place of secondary education

Unfortunately, groupings based on other factors raised similar concerns. Different aspects of the language data showed trends that might provide food for thought, however, the great variation in subsample sizes rendered decisive conclusions difficult. Therefore, additional tests were carried out so as to examine the statistical significance of these differences. The significant results of these calculations are presented at the end of this section, where I address the effects of socio-demographic factors on language skills and practices.