ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects upon linguistic diversity and thus attempts to bridge the gap between individual and societal bilingualism and multilingualism. There are situations in which the use of just one linguistic variety is the optimal solution and others where the use of more systems is required. In our research on natural and institutional situations of language contact, we could observe that the speaker or hearer is adapting to the situation, in a natural and ecological way of personal language management or implicit language policy. We propose to generalize this approach for educational and professional environments where more languages are needed.
