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Multilingual Globalization and Social Identity

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With globalization surging in full blaze, it become more and more common that people tend to learn more than one language. For multilingual, it would be inaccurate to identify them by geography or nations. Learning a new language has been equated with learning a new identity (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000), which could cause different self concept and social identity. Today, language learning has become a global trend. As we know, some languages such as English, Spanish, French and Chinese are very popular to learn. As a international language, English is learning as a second language in many countries. Many people start learn English since primary school which made them great English ability after they grow up. This ability provide them a good foundation to explore other culture and to widen their horizon. A specific cultural is now longer known by one group, and with the development of internet, culture output became more easier than ever. For advanced foreign language learners, intercultural encounters become more and more common. For instance, many people lived in Japan are keen on Western pop music. It is common to find English sentences in Japanese pop songs or English titles for them. People can find American TV Series on Japanese channel, although the American value has big difference with Japanese tractional value, it is really popular in Japan. Another good example is that in Japanese dietary, there is a kind of food named “Y?shoku ” which is based on Western diet with a little Japanese reform which is eaten by knife and fork, and now “Y?shoku ” has become one major dally diet in Japan. The language came from Western are usually written in Katakana like Y?shoku. And Katakana is getting more and more important status in Japans. Therefore, cultural identity is becoming more complex today. Young people especially multilingual today may develop both local and global identities that afford them a sense of belonging to a worldw

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