Multilingual Research: Challenges and Perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to find out the peculiarities of the concept MULTILINGUALISM as one of the key components of the conceptual sphere LANGUAGE POLICY. The first part of the article concentrates on defining the key notions of the research: language policy, the instrument serving as the regulator for the functioning of several languages on the particular territory, and multilingualism, the speaker’s ability to speak several languages and the co-existence of several languages within a particular geographical territory. As language policy is a multidimensional notion, in terms of cognitive linguistics it is considered to be a conceptual sphere, with MULTILINGUALISM being one of its core concepts. The second part of the article deals with the detailed analysis of the frame structure of the concept MULTILINGUALISM as one of the key components of the conceptual sphere LANGUAGE POLICY. Analysing cognitive features of multilingualism as a phenomenon, we single out the slots composing the frame structure of the concept MULTILINGUALISM and single out the lexical units representing each of the slots in the modern English language. We come to the conclusion that the conceptual sphere LANGUAGY POLICY is very multisided and includes a number of other concepts requiring further consideration.