bilingual interactions

[Teresa Lane]

When I went to Bolivia in December 2010, it was interesting to listen to people from my group (A) speak in English to person B, who translated the English to Spanish to person C. Person C translated Spanish to Quechua, to Person D. Then it went in reverse, Person D spoke Quechua to C; C translated Quechua to Spanish for person B; person B translated from Spanish to English for us, People A. It was so cool to see this, and is probably quite common in Bolivia, but it made me wonder what the longest "chain" of languages might be in the world. Does anyone have any idea?
 

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Teresa Phipps Lane
P O Box 81638
Pittsburgh PA 15217
teresalane at yahoo.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/terrylane

--- On Mon, 8/22/11, Gaudio, Rudolf <Rudolf.Gaudio at PURCHASE.EDU> wrote:


From: Gaudio, Rudolf <Rudolf.Gaudio at PURCHASE.EDU>
Subject: bilingual interactions
To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Date: Monday, August 22, 2011, 3:06 PM


Dear colleagues:

What do you/we call it when a conversation unfolds in which Speaker A speaks to Speaker B in one language (X-ish), and Speaker B responds in another (Y-ish)? The assumption is that both speakers have at least some passive competence in the other's language.

And do you know of any scholarship on this phenomenon?

Thanks for your help.

-Rudi




Rudolf P. Gaudio
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Media, Society & the Arts
Purchase College, State University of New York
735 Anderson Hill Rd.
Purchase, NY 10577

tel. +1 914 251 6619
fax +1 914 251 6603
rudolf.gaudio at purchase.edu