For example, consider a user who can read English, Spanish, and Portuguese and lives in the U.S. The result is that design practice completely ignores bilingual users, and even users who use one language while living in a different region. At the center of both of these processes is the simplistic notion that region and country dictate language. It invariably creates interfaces that are either modified to be international or adapted to be more appropriate for a local (regional) context. Internationalization and localization is the process by which we build interfaces that must address regional differences. Additionally, bilingual students who undergo standardized testing may not do as well as others simply because of the language of the test, not because they lack knowledge of the concepts.Ī quick look at the literature in human-computer interaction might explain why this monolingual interaction has been the norm. For example, bilingual individuals who speak with an accent may be perceived as lacking in intelligence simply for how they sound or their pronunciation of words. It is based on a mistaken notion that monolingualism is the norm, which has severe negative consequences for those who do not fit the monolingual mold. The idea that we communicate in a compartmentalized fashion, with just one language at a time, is not just wrong it also reinforces the ideology of English first and the standardization of language. Bilinguals do not flip a switch and change language use we use all of the languages available fluidly, often mixing words, phrases, and idioms. Perhaps unintentionally, monolingual interfaces fail to accommodate how multilingual users communicate with each other and interact with information in multiple languages. Standard language ideologies are harmful and damaging. Standard language ideology is "a bias toward an abstract, idealized homogeneous language, which is imposed and maintained by dominant institutions and which has as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class". Through its implementation, this ideology at best glosses over the complexities of communicating in more than one language at a time, and at worst is an agent of purporting a standard language ideology. Instead, designers assume that all users are monolingual and that bilingual users are comfortable communicating in one monolingual interface at a time. Within the design and implementation of user interfaces, the ideology of monolingualism not only neglects to account for the large portion of the population that is bilingual and multilingual but also, by building monolingual interfaces, designers disregard the nuances of linguistic diversity and ignore the bilingual individual as a user class. Within the context of the U.S., this ideology helps prop up English-first and English-only sentiments, the results of which are damaging to the language development and intelligence assessment of multilingual school-age children as well as to those who do not have English as a dominant language (see ). While it is clear that linguistic diversity is the norm, not the exception, the pervasiveness of the ideology of monolingualism is such that it is present in all aspects of our daily lives-with negative consequences. census data, around 20 percent of the population speaks more than one language that percentage has been increasing steadily in the past three decades. The number is even higher in Europe, where bilinguals account for over 50 percent of the population. and the world is bilingual or multilingual.Īccording to François Grosjean, about 60 percent of the world population uses more than one language. Furthermore, a significant portion of the population of the U.S. A more honest examination of everyday linguistic practices reveals that even if one is familiar with one language group only-English, for example-they have fluency in multiple dialects of that language-academic, professional, and so on. The ideology of monolingualism, however, is the notion that communication happens through and by only one language at a time. Monolingualism is the condition of being able to interact in only one language. Most user interface designs are influenced by an ideology of monolingualism and therefore support only monolingual interactions. When our languages are internal, we don't know where one ends and where one begins.
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