Multilingualism and Wellbeing

Multilingualism and Wellbeing is an innovative text that combines sociolinguistic, psychological and philosophical approaches to explore multilingualism as a source of wellbeing. It challenges the “monolingual bias” and the common assumption that multilingualism is solely driven by utilitarian, formal, or identity-based motivations.

Across nineteen carefully edited chapters, contributors illustrate the enduring vitality of multilingualism across the globe through personal and empirical accounts, investigating diverse motivations behind its persistence. Authors present compelling evidence for multilingualism’s positive impact on a person’s sense of mental, social and cultural wellbeing. With a distinctive global reach, this volume showcases multilingual experiences from regions including West Africa, the Netherlands, Georgia, Japan, and Indonesia, while also examining governmental policies that promote multilingualism—despite the practical challenges involved—offering a nuanced and balanced perspective.

This groundbreaking work is essential reading for advanced students and researchers in multilingualism, language acquisition, language learning and applied linguistics, as well as for those in related fields of sociology, psychology and philosophy.