LARISSA ARONIN

Multilingualism, in very general terms, can be defined as the use and acquisition of three or more languages. It is the social and individual language practice that has come to the forefront in today’s human society. Its various aspects relate to spheres as diverse as human physiology, cognition, communities with their traditions and material objects, and, of course, languages. Multilingualism concerns education, engineering and commerce, policymaking, family life, and entertainment, to name only some of its dimensions. The field of multilingualism studies the way various languages are acquired, used, and treated today.

It is hard to imagine an aspect of modern life unaffected by multilingualism. The majority of the world’s population is bi- and multilingual, and those who are not, are still influenced by the mostly multilingual world they live in. Multilingualism is not about languages as such; rather it is about how people use multiple languages. Researchers study how, by whom, and in what conditions languages are acquired, spoken, and dealt with; how many and which language varieties are used or not used and why, and what are the implications of this on individuals and society as a whole.

Multilingualism has a bearing on all of us, as we have to contend with it through all the stages of life while acquiring language, pursuing a career, socializing, and getting older, as we live out our lives in the roles of language speakers, family members, citizens, and professionals. Researchers of multilingualism examine the way various languages are acquired, used, and treated today and discuss questions that arise daily in all parts of the world. For example, what is an optimal age to start teaching English as a third language? Which kinds of schools – monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual are appropriate for urban centers? Is it normal that grandchildren and grandparents do not understand each other because they speak different languages? Are there more and less economically beneficial languages? How are languages selected for work and international meetings? Why is everyone not a polyglot as Cardinal Mezzofanti was?

Aronin, Larissa & Susan Coetze van Rooy (2022) Emerging trends in multilingual learning and teaching: Beyond edges and borders. AILA Review. 

Aronin, Larissa (in press). English in Israel. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes. (pp. TBA). The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes. Oxford, UK/Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Aronin, Larissa and Moccozet Laurent (2021) Dominant Language Constellations: Towards Online Computer-Assisted Modelling. International Journal of Multilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2021.1941975

Aronin, Larissa, and Yelenevskaya, Maria (2021). Teaching English in multilingual Israel: Who teaches whom and how: A review of recent research 2014-2020 Language Teaching (CUP). https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0261444821000215

Laurent Moccozet, Nicolas Boeckh, Larissa Aronin (2021) Modelling socio-linguistic profiles in multilingual Higher Education Institutions (HEI)

Aronin, Larissa (2020). Dominant Language Constellation as an approach for studying multilingual practices. In Joe Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin (eds.) Dominant Language Constellations: A New Perspective on Multilingualism. (pp.19-33). Springer.

Aronin, Larissa (2019). What is Multilingualism? In David Singleton and Larissa Aronin (eds.), Twelve Lectures in Multilingualism. (pp. 3-34). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Aronin, Larissa and Singleton, David (2019). Introduction. In David Singleton and Larissa Aronin (eds.), Twelve Lectures in Multilingualism. (pp.xxiii-xxvi).Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Aronin, Larissa (2019). Challenges of multilingual education: Streamlining affordances
through Dominant Language Constellations. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, Vol. 58, 235-256. doi: 10.5842/58-0-845

Aronin, Larissa (2017). Conceptualizations of Multilingualism: An Affordances Perspective. Critical Multilingualism Studies. 5:1 (2017): pp 7-42. http://cms.arizona.edu/index.php/multilingual/article/view/109/163

Aronin, Larissa, and Vasilis, Politis (2015). Multilingualism as an Edge. Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition (Wydawnictwo Unwierstetu Śląskiego), (1), 27-49.

Aronin, Larissa, and Jessner, Ulrike (2015). Understanding current multilingualism: what can the butterfly tell us? In Claire Kramsch and Ulrike Jessner (Eds.), (271-291).The Multilingual Challenge. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Aronin, Larissa (2015). Current Multilingualism and New Developments in Multilingual Research. In Pilar Safont-Jordà and Laura Portoles (eds.), Multilingual Development in the Classroom: Current Findings from Research. (pp.1-27). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Aronin, Larissa, and Jessner, Ulrike (2014). Methodology in bi- and multilingual studies: from simplification to complexity. AILA Review 27: Research Methods and approaches in Applied Linguistics: Looking back and moving forward. 27, 56-79.

Aronin, Larissa, and Singleton, David (2008). Multilingualism as a New Linguistic Dispensation. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(1), 1-16.

Aronin, Larissa, Ó Laoire, Muiris, and Singleton, David (2011). The Multiple Faces of Multilingualism: Language Nominations. In Applied Linguistics Review, 169–190. Berlin-New York: Mouton De Gruyter.

Aronin, Larissa, and Singleton, David (guest eds.). (2010). Special Issue, The Diversity of Multilingualism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language (Mouton de Gruyter). Issue 205.

Aronin, Larissa, and Singleton, David (2010). Introduction. The diversity of multilingualism. In Larissa Aronin, and David Singleton (guest eds.) (September 2010), Special Issue: The Diversity of Multilingualism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1-5. Mouton de Gruyter.  

Romy-Masliah, Daphne, and Aronin, Larissa (guest eds.). (2007). Issue «L’anglais et les cultures». Droit et Cultures : Revue semestrielle d’anthropologie et d’histoire, 54(2).

Aronin, Larissa, and Singleton, David (2008). The complexity of multilingual contact and language use in times of globalization. Conversarii. Studi Linguistici, 2, 33-47.

Aronin, Larissa (2021) Dominant Language Constellations: Teaching and learning languages in a multilingual world. In Raza, K., Coombe, C., & Reynolds, D. Policy development in TESOL and multilingualism: Past, present and the way forward. (pp. 287 - 300) Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Aronin, Larissa, and Yelenevky, Maria (2021) Teaching English in multilingual Israel: Who teaches whom and how: A review of recent research 2014-2020 Language Teaching (CUP). https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0261444821000215

Aronin, Larissa, and Spolsky, Bernard (2010). State-of-the-art article. Selected Research on English Teaching/Learning Published in Israel (2004–2008). Language Teaching, 43(3), 297-319. Cambridge University Press.

Aronin, Larissa (2005). Theoretical perspectives of trilingual education. The International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 171, 7-22.

Aronin, Larissa, and Jessner, Ulrike (2014). Methodology in bi- and multilingual studies: from simplification to complexity. AILA Review 27: Research Methods and approaches  in Applied Linguistics: Looking back and moving forward. 27, 56-79.

Aronin, Larissa (2019). Challenges of multilingual education: Streamlining affordances
through Dominant Language Constellations. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, Vol. 58, 235-256. doi: 10.5842/58-0-845

Aronin, Larissa (2004). Multilinguality and emotions: Emotional and attitudinal experiences of trilingual immigrant students towards themselves and languages in multilingual settings. Estudios de Sociolinguistica [Now Sociolinguistic studies], 5(1), 59-81.

 Aronin, Larissa, and Ó Laoire, Muiris (2003). Multilingual students’ awareness of their language teacher’s other languages. Language Awareness, 12(3/4), 204-219.

 Aronin, Larissa, and Toubkin, Lynne (2002). Language interference and language learning techniques transfer in L2 and L3 immersion programmes, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 5(5), 267-278.

Aronin, Larissa (2001). Teaching English reading comprehension at the University of Haifa: Effect of listening comprehension reinforcement on different L3 student populations. In Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen and Ulrike Jessner (eds.), Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition: Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism (pp. 111-119). Tübingen, Stauffenburg.

Pawlak, Mirosław, and Aronin, Larissa (eds.). (2013). Essential Topics in Applied Linguistics
     and Multilingualism. Springer.

The Philosophy of Multilingualism


Aronin, Larissa, and Singleton, David (2013). Multilingualism and Philosophy. In Carol A. Chapelle (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 3951-3954). Wiley-Blackwell.

It might have been imagined that a philosophy of multilingualism could draw copiously on the long-established concepts and procedures of the philosophy of language. However, much of the work undertaken by philosophers of language is of minimal relevance to current multilingualism—a phenomenon sometimes labeled a new world order (Fishman, 1998). Among the new realities one can cite the changed role of multilingualism in our present world, where so much now depends on multilingual arrangements and individuals. Complexity is also a salient feature of contemporary multilingualism—a concomitant of the dramatic rise in the number and significance of multilingual migrants and multilingual communities, which has enormously extended the scope of current multilingualism. Finally, at both individual and community levels, constellations of languages often fulfill the communicative, cognitive, and identificational requirements once met by single languages.


Aronin, Larissa, and Vasilis, Politis (2015). Multilingualism as an Edge. Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition (Wydawnictwo Unwierstetu Śląskiego), (1), 27-49.

The article presents a philosophical conceptualization of multilingualism. Philosophy’s general task is to subject human experience to reflective scrutiny and the experience of present day society has changed drastically. Multilingualism, as the vehicle of a new linguistic dispensation, plays a central role in it. We apply the metaphor ‘edge’ to explore the way multiple languages are deployed in, and intensively shape, the postmodern world. We also demonstrate how multilingualism is an edge, not only metaphorically, but involving true and real boundaries of various kinds, and all of them are essential for its nature.
K e y w o r d s: philosophy, multilingualism, boundaries, edge

Aronin, Larissa, and Jessner, Ulrike (2016). Spacetimes of Multilingualism. In: Researching Second Language Learning and Teaching from a Psycholinguistic Perspective. (23-35). Berlin: Springer.

Multilingual speakers, bilingual and more often multilingual, are diverse in many ways. They undergo different kinds of experiences in a variety of social spaces, in particular when undergoing changes in their linguistic environments. This article suggests a conceptual tool to examine the various contexts in which multilingual speakers emerge and re-establish their identity: the concept of spacetime. The concept of spacetime allows analytical vision of the circumstances and actors. It can be instrumental in teasing out the mechanisms by which new linguistic practices appear both in local settings and globally. From the complexity perspective, each spacetime of multilingualism is an emergent, dynamic and self-organizing system that cannot be understood simply by understanding its separate parts, but by exploring their interaction in complex and non-linear ways. It is the interaction between the many elements of each spacetime that makes it unique. The spacetime approach takes into consideration both space and time. Thus the understanding of multilingualism becomes more realistic and more attuned to the diversity and unpredictability of each particular sociolinguistic situation

Aronin, Larissa, and Jessner, Ulrike (2015). Understanding current multilingualism: what can the butterfly tell us? In Claire Kramsch and Ulrike Jessner (Eds.), (271-291).The Multilingual Challenge. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Understanding multilingualism has always been a challenge. The reasons are several. Firstly, manifestations of multilingualism at first sight are similar to those of bilingualism, so that often the impression is that it is “just learning an additional language.” Secondly, researchers admit it is much too complicated to study compared to bilingualism. In this chapter we will consider the phenomenon of current multilingualism on the background of a significant pool of data collected in multilingualism studies up to now. We will discuss whether there is a need to distinguish between bilingualism and multilingualism, and explain the challenges multilingualism poses to researchers and practitioners by showing how its very nature is complex. Finally we will examine the implications of seeing multilingualism as a complex phenomenon, different from bilingualism in many important ways.

Aronin, Larissa and Moccozet Laurent (2021) Dominant Language Constellations: Towards Online Computer-Assisted Modelling. International Journal of Multilingualism.   https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2021.1941975

Aronin, Larissa (2021) Dominant Language Constellations: Teaching and learning languages in a multilingual world. In Raza, K., Coombe, C., & Reynolds, D. Policy development in TESOL and multilingualism: Past, present and the way forward. (pp. tba) Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Aronin, Larissa (2016). Multicompetence and Dominant Language Constellation. In Vivian Cook and Li Wei (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multicompetence. pp. 142- 163. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Aronin, Larissa (2021) Dominant Language Constellations in Education: Patterns and Visualisations. In Larissa Aronin and Eva Vetter (eds.) Dominant Language Constellations Approach in Education and Language Acquisition (pp. 19-41). Springer.

Aronin, Larissa (2020). Dominant Language Constellation as an approach for studying multilingual practices. In Joe Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin (eds.) Dominant Language Constellations: A New Perspective on Multilingualism. (pp.19-33). Springer.

Aronin, Larissa (2019). Challenges of multilingual education: Streamlining affordances through Dominant Language Constellations. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, Vol. 58, 235-256. doi: 10.5842/58-0-845

Aronin, Larissa (2019) Dominant Language Constellation as a Method of Research. In Eva Vetter and Ulrike Jessner (eds.) International Research on Multilingualism Breaking with the Monolingual Perspective. (pp.13-26) Springer.

Aronin, Larissa (2006). Dominant language constellations: An approach to multilingualism studies. In Muiris Ó Laoire (ed.), Multilingualism in Educational Settings (pp. 140-159). Hohengehren: Schneider Publications.

Aronin, Larissa (2001). Teaching English reading comprehension at the University of Haifa: Effect of listening comprehension reinforcement on different L3 student populations. In Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen and Ulrike Jessner (eds.), Looking Beyond Second Language Acquisition: Studies in Tri- and Multilingualism (pp. 111-119). Tübingen, Stauffenburg.

 Invited lectures

2020, November 27. (online) XIX International Conference Professional Culture of the Specialist of the Future. Roundtable "Technology and Language" invited speaker, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU).
2020, June 10. (online) Invited talk Webinar (Erasmus+)(Germany-Netherlands). Google Classroom Training Week. "The material culture of multilingualism in language teaching classroom."
2019, June 18. Darmstadt, Germany "Language situation in Israel" Lecture for the " Evenary Forum". Technische Universität Darmstadt.
2018, September 26. Darmstadt, Germany. Invited presentation " Dominant Language Constellations in Education, Language Teaching and Multilingualism " at 2018 ECSPM Symposium, Paradigm Shift in Language Education for the Development of Multiliterate and Plurilingual Agencies.
2018, June 7-8. St. Petersburg, Russian Federation. Herzen State Pedagogical University. 10th conference Russia's Ethnic Cultures. Invited presentation "Multilingualism and Russian Culture in the Post-Soviet World".‎
2016, June 15. University of Cologne, Germany, invited talk “Dominant Language Constellations with the German Language in Israel”.
2015, June. Invited discussions in the framework of gemeinsamen Aktivitäten zwischen Israeli Embassy und der Technischen Universität Darmstadt anlässlich des 50-Jahr-Feier diplomatischer Beziehungen zwischen Israel und Deutschland.
2015, June 22. Public lecture Öffentlicher Vortrag zu, Deutsch, Deutschen und Deutschstämmigen in Israel Technischen Universität Darmstadt, Germany.
2015, February 23. Invited lecture ‘Dominant Language Constellations” for the MA program students at University Jaume I Castelló, Spain.
2014, July 10. Public Talk “Bilinguals and multilinguals” CLCS, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
2014, May 26. Public Talk “Bilingualism and Multilingualism – the same or worlds apart?” Long Room Hub, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
2013, June 23. CLCS, Trinity College, Dublin Ireland lecture for PH.D students and staff.
2013, June 17. Invited talk for the 5th AILA-Europe Junior Researcher conference 2013, Trinity College, Dublin Ireland.
2013, May 23-25. Invited talk on Multilingualism (ReN) at 25th International Conference on Foreign/ Second Language Acquisition Szczyrk, Poland.
2010, June 24-25. Invited paper: “The Multiple faces of Multilingualism: Language Nominations” Bloomsbury Round Table on Communication, Cognition and Culture: The multiple faces of multilingualism. London, UK University of London, Birkbeck College.
2009, July 6. Talk: “Minorities and Affordances” CLCS, Trinity College, Dublin.
2006, June 13. Lecture: “The Use of Languages in the Globalization Age. Dominant Language Constellations”. Darmstadt University, Germany.
2006, February 15. Lecture: “Multilingualism as a New Linguistic World Order”. Trinity College Dublin, Centre for Language and Communication Studies.
2006, February 23. Seminar lecture: “Languages in the Contemporary World” for Socrates Programme students, Institute of Technology, Tralee, Ireland, Business and Humanities Department.

Courses taught (In English, Hebrew and Russian)
 
1. English for Academic Purposes (University of Haifa 1995-2014) (in English)
2. Issues in TESOL (Oranim Academic College of Education) (in English)
3. Psycholinguistics and language acquisition (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (in English)
4. Multilingualism and children at risk (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (in Hebrew)
5. International and intercultural aspects of doing business in English (Oranim Academic College of Education) (in English)
6. Teaching English: myths and reality (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (in English)
7. Language Policy (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (in Hebrew; in English)
8. Neuropsychological Foundations of Language Acquisition (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
9. Introduction to Linguistics (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
10. Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
11. Syntax through the Use of Computers (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
12. Linguistics (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
13. Brain and Cognition (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
14. Business English Oral Communication (Oranim Academic College of Education) (in English)
15. The Structure of English (Oranim Academic College of Education) (in English)
16. Academic Skills: writing academic papers (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
17. Neuro-psychology of learning disabilities (Gordon College of Education) (in English)
18. English as a Global Language (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (in English)
19. Quantitative research methods (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (in Hebrew)
20. Multilingualism (Cherepovets State University, Russia, M.A., B.A. and M.Ed. students) (in Russian; in English)
21. Academic writing and publishing (Cherepovets State University, Russia, B.A. and M.Ed. students and faculty) (in Russian; in English)
22. Teaching in a complex environment (Oranim Academic College of Education, M.Ed.) (In Russian)
23. “Multilingualism in education and in Israel” (Oranim Academic College of Education in Russian).
24. “Cognition, Languages and Material Culture” (Oranim Academic College of Education in English and in Hebrew)
25. “Sociology of Language for students of MINT” (MINT – Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences and Technology in English)
26. Нормы Академии в Израиле и мире (Oranim Academic College of Education (in Russian and in English)
27. Intercultural Communication (Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University) (in English)
28. Innovative approaches to EFL: material culture and visualizations. (The University of Silesia in Katowice) (in English) Spring 2023