ABSTRACT
Multilingualism is an exciting research topic to study because it is about people's use of language in the real world. It is people who translanguage and mix their languages, who set up fixed or flexible educational systems and who have certain ideas about how their societies should deal with multilingualism. This chapter focuses on social aspects of multilingualism. It considers how language use and multilingualism intersect with ideologies of gender goes back at least to seminal work by Gal. The chapter illustrates particularly well the complex interplay between social, cognitive and affective factors. It discusses, Norton, who sees the process of second language learning as shaped by learners' emotional investments in new identities, and their desire to become members of particular communities. Nguyen concludes that gendered linguistic practices can only be understood in their historical context, because they are often shaped by socio-political events. The chapter presents some closing thoughts of this book.
