Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition 
vol. 8 (2), 2022, pp. 1–8

https://doi.org/10.31261/TAPSLA.12445

Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin (Eds.), 
Dominant Language Constellations: 

A New Perspective on Multilingualism
Springer 2020, 301 pp.

The term ‘dominant language’ evokes negative connotations and conjures 
up thoughts of linguistic imperialism and hegemony. Yet, by adding just the 
single word ‘constellations,’ which refers to a group of similar items or quali-
ties, we are presented with a construct that inverts the concept of dominance 
into a notion that has nothing to do with oppression or imposition of linguistic 
power to the individual or the community. Quite the contrary, in fact, since the 
Dominant Language Constellations (DLC) perspective, vigorously making its 
way into multilingualism studies, refers to “a group of one’s most important 
(vehicle) languages, functioning as an entire unit, and enabling an individual to 
meet all his or her needs in a multilingual environment” (Aronin, 2016, p. 146).

The aim of the first of two interconnected volumes on DLC, under 
the general supervision of the eminent scholar Joseph Lo Bianco, is to provide 
a comprehensive definition of this new valuable construct, along with 
the qualities assigned to it by its architects. It also aspires to position DLC 
in the current discussions of multilingualism studies and to explain how DLC, in 
its own targeted way, can contribute to understanding the nature of multi-
lingualism. Notably, it also provides academically fertile ground for studies 
guided by the DLC, which Aronin (2020) views as an approach to studying 
multilingual practices, with a variety of applications from scholars of different 
disciplines carrying out research in diverse cultural contexts across the globe. 
Those which contribute substantially to understanding of why and how to use 
DLC as perspective for researching multilingualism will be briefly discussed 
in the last part of this review. Its first and major part will be concerned with 
how, in the chapters authored by the volume editors, Lo Bianco and Aronin, 

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https://doi.org/10.31261/TAPSLA.12445


Bessie Dendrinos2

the DLC is built as a paradigm of its own accord—a perspective for the study 
of individual and social multilingualism and a “research model,” but also in 
relation to two other notions—translanguaging and language repertoire—both 
of which have been gaining growing attention and increasingly surfacing in 
discussions concerning multilingualism and plurilingualism, particularly in the 
field of language and literacy education. 

Let us start with the comparison between DLC and translanguaging, a con-
cept that recently has been dominating academic discussions about pedagogy 
in bilingual and second language (L2) immersion programs, as well as peda-
gogy for multilingual and immigrant-background students taught through the 
official school language (for example, see: Leung & Valdés, 2019; Paulsrud 
et al., 2017). The authors explain that, whereas DLC involves multilingual 
agents in an act of selection of two or more languages from their total repertoire 
to use them purposefully at any one time, in different contexts, the latter, con-
stitutes a process. The process of translanguaging involves bilingual speakers 
(or multilinguals) in enacting their language assets. Furthermore, they note that 
translanguaging involves “complex language practices,” while DLC constitutes 
a “set of selected languages and skills” and is “a model of language practices.” 
In making this distinction, one wonders if the authors wish to downplay the 
complexity of language practices that DLC involves, when compared to those 
of translanguaging, and if so, why. Does this have anything to do with multi-
linguals often selecting from among their dominant languages, one at a time to 
communicate in different situations with different people in different environ-
ments? One also may perhaps question the characterization of DLC as a “set 
of language skills” and express certain reservations about the use of a term, 
which in popular foreign language teaching literature is associated with “the 
four skills,” namely, listening, reading, writing, and speaking. Is DLC “a set 
of language skills” or would it be fair to say that DLC refers to a multilingual 
individual who has the “plurilingual competence”1 to use the “languages which 
stand out as being of prime importance as the vehicle of the communicative 
practices of that person’s daily life, business, career and identity expression” 
(Aronin 2016, 2019; Aronin & Singleton, 2012, pp. 59–75).

Finally, one may also feel the need to understand better what the authors 
mean when they state that DLC may serve as “a model of language practices” 
so as not to think that what they are implying is that DLC is some type of 
prototype or archetype of language practices, that it is some mechanism to be 
used as an example or a procedure to imitate. Finally, it is worth noting that 
what has not been highlighted adequately but is quite important in the com-
parison between the two constructs is that DLC concerns different languages 
1 Plurilingual competence—a concept which to be revisited shortly in this review—roughly 
refers to the ability to use, in different ways and forms of communication, the different lan-
guages a person knows. 



Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin (Eds.), Dominant Language Constellations… 3

spoken in societies and used by individual speakers, whereas translanguaging, 
as theorized by some of its most important proponents (García, 2013; García 
& Li Wei, 2014; Otheguy et al., 2015) puts on the table the question of the 
discreteness of languages. 

As a matter of fact, building on the claim by Makoni and Pennycook (2007) 
that languages do not exist as real entities in the world but rather are inven-
tions of social, cultural, and political movements, translanguaging scholars refer 
to the distinctness of language being non-existent. Garcia (2009), for example, 
claims that the multilingual’s linguistic system is internally undifferentiated 
and unitary reflecting the fact that languages have no linguistic or cognitive 
reality. Moreover, in the same documents she claims that additive bilingual-
ism is an illegitimate monoglossic construct because it similarly assumes the 
existence of two separate languages that are added together in bilingual indi-
viduals. Otheguy et al. (2015), on the other hand, state that codeswitching is 
an illegitimate monoglossic construct because it assumes the existence of two 
separate linguistic systems. This is a bit different than what is suggested in the 
intro of this volume that “[b]oth translanguaging and the DLC approach, dem-
onstrate that the pattern of using several languages more or less concomitantly, 
and this overrides the previously sufficient pattern of employing one language at 
a time.” Despite statements by the authors that DLC (like translanguaging and 
language repertoire) at individual and communal level may involve more than 
one language, it does not question the existence of languages alone or in com-
bination with one another. Translanguaging scholars actually do question the 
existence of language (cf. Cummins, 2021), while focusing on “the fluid and 
dynamic practices that transcend the boundaries between named languages, 
language varieties, and language and other semiotic systems” (Li Wei, 2018, 9). 

This brings us to another concept which is discussed by the Lo Bianco and 
Aronin as a cognate yet as a distinct perspective from that of DLC: that is, lan-
guage or linguistic repertoire.2 The notion comprises elements of the different 
levels of description of language—including phonetic-graphical, lexical-gram-
matical, notional-functional and discursive-textual) but also of language use. 
As such, an individual’s repertoire forms the basis of every language learner’s 
plurilingual competence (either current or possible). According to Lo Bianco 
and Aronin (p. 5), while “linguistic repertoire aims to include the totality of an 
individual’s, or a community’s linguistic skills,” DLC is “the active part of 

2 The term was coined in the context of language sociology, for the set of language varie-
ties—including registers and dialects—“exhibited in the speaking and writing patterns of 
a speech community” (Fishman, 1972, p. 48). The concept is applied both to multilingual and 
monolingual repertoires: “Just as a multilingual linguistic repertoire allocates different language 
varieties to different speech situations, so does a monolingual repertoire. For all speakers—
monolingual and multilingual—there is marked variation in the forms of language used for 
different activities, addressees, topics, and settings” (Finegan, 2004, p. 319).



Bessie Dendrinos4

one’s language repertoire” as it “includes only the most expedient languages 
or language skills that relate to a person or a group in their communication 
functioning at a given time and in a given environment.” They further explain 
that linguistic repertoire includes “all languages used by speakers/writers and 
potentially available to them for use, those identified with but not active 
and those which are passive yet still present,” whereas DLC, as mentioned earlier, 
is concerned only with the active languages.” One more point that the authors 
make is that DLC “operates as a coherent whole, and therefore is the account 
of what an individual or wider grouping’s specific repertoire of used languages 
is in a given time and setting.” Does this mean that “linguistic repertoire” is 
not and does not operate as a coherent whole? Yes and no. Because the concept 
of repertoire includes all the assets or resources a social agent has for com-
munication, but these assets are not homologous in the sense that they are not 
just languages. Social agents have other semiotic resources, given that com-
munication nowadays is not simply multilingual but also multimodal—the five 
modes of communication being linguistic, visual, aural, gestural, and spatial 
(Dendrinos, 2020).

On the basis of the above, though not only, it might be preferable to 
compare DLC not to the concept of linguistic repertoire, which admittedly 
is used frequently when discussing or examining multilingual communication 
because, unlike DLC, it is a component of an approach not the approach itself. 
That is, (a) one has a repertory of languages and uses the dominant one(s) at 
any one time (DLC approach); (b) bi/multilingual individuals regularly draw 
on the totality of their linguistic resources in communicative interactions and 
classroom instruction should support students to use the languages or elements 
of the languages they know in flexible and strategic ways as a tool for cognitive 
and academic learning (translanguaging pedagogy); (c) just as effective com- 
municators draw on the totality of their semiotic resources to participate 
constructively in discursive practices, language learners should develop their 
plurilingual and pluricultural competence—the ability to put to productive use 
these resources in combination in order to construct (and negotiate) meaning 
(Dendrinos, forthcoming). 

Actually, the idea of learners developing plurilingual and pluricultural 
competence, so as to use the repertoire of (a) the languages in which they 
have developed greater or lesser proficiency, (b) the languages around them, 
and (c) the languages they are learning began being discussed in the language 
teaching community and language education scholarship after the publication 
of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for 
Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001)—a policy document translated 
in over forty languages that over time became very influential for language 
teaching, learning, and assessment across European school systems but now 
only. It is there where it was first suggested that learners’ linguistic repertoire 



Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin (Eds.), Dominant Language Constellations… 5

is the base upon which their learning can progress (CEFR: 3) and stated that 
“the aim [of education in a language] is to develop a linguistic repertory, in 
which all linguistic abilities have a place.” It also noted that “a single, richer 
repertoire of this kind thus allows choice concerning strategies for task ac-
complishment, drawing where appropriate on an interlinguistic variation and 
language switching” (CEFR: 132). The idea of language learners developing 
plurilingual and pluricultural competence has recently further built up and 
expanded in the Council of Europe’s CEFR Companion Volume (Council of 
Europe 2018/2020), which describes what plurilingual and pluricultural com-
petence entails and clearly states from the first pages that “[i]n the reality of 
today’s increasingly diverse societies, the construction of meaning may take 
place across languages and draw upon user/learners’ repertoires” (CEFR-CV) 
and provides a long list of levelled descriptors for mediation across languages 
(cross-linguistic mediation) but also within the same language (intra-linguistic 
mediation), since a learner’s repertory includes not only languages or ele- 
ments of different languages but also linguistic varieties, including registers, dia- 
lects, styles, and accents that exist in a community or within an individual. 

As we come to the last part of this review, let us turn attention to notable 
studies guided by and using the DLC approach by authors of different disci-
plines who “introduce a variety of applications and interpretations of the DLC 
model leading to important insights,” “from a wide variety of perspectives.”

Studies in highly complicated multilingual contexts such as those in Africa 
are always fascinating because the languages which must be managed are the 
many indigenous languages, some of which have official status nationally or 
regionally, and non-African languages with a colonial past and post-colonial 
present. Two interesting African-setting studies included in this volume are one 
by Felix Banda, and the second by Susan Coetzee-Van Rooy. The former, by 
Banda, explores the notion of DLCs in Zambia where 72 indigenous languages 
are spoken, plus English which is the main language of education, national 
government business and socioeconomic mobility—one of the main remnants of 
colonialism. Using data from various sources, the author illustrates “the multi-
layered DLCs operating across individual/household, community, regional and 
national boundaries” and shows how to the complex situation created by how 
the multilingualism is managed and how it exists in the Zambian context adding 
to the and dynamism of DLCs. The latter, by Coetzee-Van Rooy, applies the 
DLC concept to language-repertoire survey work done on urban present-day 
South African multilingualism, who finds that the size of a typical DLC is 
three languages—a finding that holds implications for language in education 
practices for urban multilingual students in South Africa.

Two well-written and documented studies by three authors concerned with 
languages in the educational context discuss of the usefulness of DLC as a tool 
for capturing multilingual language patterns. One of the two studies, written 



Bessie Dendrinos6

by Björklund, Björklund, and Sjöholm, shows how DLC can be used as a tool 
to describe the domains and functions of different languages at individual and 
societal levels in Finland and to promote multilingual awareness among student 
teachers. The second study, by Slavkov, concerns the use of DLC as a tool for the 
crucial issue of language background profiling of students in educational insti-
tutions. He examines a rich array of interesting data and situates his findings 
within the context of other multilingual perspectives but then focuses specifi-
cally on the notion of DLC discussing how this perspective can prove beneficial 
for the conceptualization of language background profiling. 

Τhe studies on “Personal Dominant Language Constellations Based on the 
Amount of Usage of the Languages” are also quite interesting because they 
describe and analyse the learning and real life experiences of multilinguals 
with their DLCs in very different contexts starting with a paper by Kannangara 
which sheds but also shed light on multilingualism in Sri Lanka and con-
vincingly argues that the uniqueness of one’s DLC varies depending on its 
linguistic, societal, political, or geographical context and that these variations 
can be observed in interrelated factors, such as the prominence of the language, 
its level of proficiency, and the functions allocated to each language. Next in 
line is a study by Karpava which examines the DLCs of Russian speakers 
in Cyprus. The analysis of the author’s qualitative data interestingly revealed 
that the female adults in her sample have either Russian or mixed (Russian and 
Cypriot Greek) cultural and linguistic identity, whereas students have mainly 
mixed (Russian and English) identity concluding that immigration, social milieu, 
integrative and instrumental motivation affect the constitution, configuration, 
and dynamics of their DLCs. The third study in this part of the volume is by 
Krevelj, who examines the potential of the DLC approach for studying the 
under-researched area of crosslinguistic influence (CLI) in multilinguals by 
looking at previously collected data and outcomes of a research project, which 
investigated simultaneous interaction of languages used by multilingual partici-
pants from the same community in Croatia, with a common DLC (involving 
Croatian and Italian as official languages and English as a foreign language). 
In looking at her data from the DLC perspective, the author finds some novel 
insights, and discusses the benefits of DLC, both as a concept and as a research 
tool. Finally, the last study in this part of the volume, authored by Nightingale, 
presents “a case study focusing on the DLC of a Moroccan-born man living 
in Spain, specifically on how his most expedient languages are reconfigured 
according to the multilingual environment and how they relate to his emo- 
tions, language attitudes, and identity construct.” The author makes no gener-
alizations based on this one case study; however, he does point out the studies 
such as this one, with ample qualitative data helps us understand better multi-
lingual practices realized in concrete social and cultural contexts. 



Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin (Eds.), Dominant Language Constellations… 7

The concluding chapter, by Lo Bianco, argues that the DLC concept makes 
a vital contribution to understanding language questions today, and purposefully 
sets the agenda for future directions of the concept of the DLC and its role 
in/for multilingualism studies, as these figure in areas such as public policy, 
education, grammatical exploration, sociology of multilingualism, intercultural 
relations, and personal and group identity. 

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Bessie Dendrinos8

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Bessie Dendrinos
Emerita Professor at the National and Kapodistiran University of Athens

https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12568
https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amx039