Linguistic Repertoire and the Lived Experience of Language

The language we use in our daily basis is rooted from the accumulated knowledge from many resources: parents or caregivers, neighborhood, and schools. The notion of linguistic repertoire can be understood as a way we communicate or what language we use for purposes. It should be noted that this linguistic competence and performance grow is not in a rigid way. One knowledge of language could connect to both within and across languages. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend how linguistic repertoire develops and how we should deal with the bilingualism or multilingualism issues. 

The parents' language influences the language input of the children. Parents who are using French or Italian, Indonesian, any languages, will allow children to imitate the language. Especially in early age exposure, the children not only acquire the internal aspects of the language, such as phonological, morphological, syntactical, but also beyond the grammatical rules of the language, such as the appropriateness of the language. This huge family exposure to a particular language can shape the children' s linguistic competence and performance that to some extent, similar to their parents. If they were growing in an Indonesian family, their accent or dialect would be Indonesian. It would be completely different from the 'new speakers' accents or dialect, people who were not born in Indonesia (language) family, or just learned it. Their tongue or their speech properties were not 'trained' to Indonesian. Therefore, the natives of Indonesian are able to identify that the speakers are not native. 


Peers, neighbors, or schools can add the children language' sources. Having children to talk more than one or two languages are apparent today as the bilingual society increases. Even though the parents use the heritage language in their family, but it is downward impossible to speak the language off their parents'. In some cases, the school where the children go, introduces and implements two bilingual language policy. Consequently, the children would have different language instruction in the classroom settings that may be totally different from their family language. For example, the children who speak Bahasa Indonesia in their family domain may still need to learn a new language due to different school language policy. Now the children can speak another language as their friends and schools do.

The common question can be raised right now is that what language the children should use. Addressing that question is not simply stating a particular language. Otherwise, it falls into an unnecessary trap. A fundamental point to be kept in mind to deal with the question is that the language usage is flexible. Sociolinguistically, conversational context and audiences can be essential contributing factors to what language we will use. If we were at a formal meeting that requires formal language, Indonesian for instance, then using local language might be inappropriate. This point is also pertaining to the second contributing factor that is who our interlocutor is. We need to accommodate our audience as they do need to understand to what we are saying. Rather than persistently using the local language for whatever reasons, functionality or exclusivity for example, linguistic negotiation could be a realistic and tolerable actions that can be taken. It means what we can adjust the language use based on the conversational context and audience. 

How can that illustration be related to the lived experience of language? As the children grow, the wider scope of social interaction that the children gain, they are also exposed to a variety of language resources. From this standpoint, their ability to use a particular word or language is influenced definitely not by a single language used in domestic realm only. Their society also affects what language and how they grow linguistically. This is why that the linguistic repertoire is not a static state or product but instead of an ongoing process and this can be gained through a number of linguistic contact or linguistic interaction. 

In brief, linguistic repertoire develops through various resources. Experiences with other children, teachers, or from other proficient speakers can shape the linguistic repertoire. Restricting children to a particular language strictly could adversely affect their potential social skill development or even their potential academic performance, that are definitely essential for their future life. Therefore, exposing children to various languages could be advantageous, without ignoring the possible unfavorable impact that could be brought. 

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