bilingual interactions

[Colleen Cotter]

Just happened to run across these issues of  
classification/identification, theoretically and descriptively, in  
Suzanne Romaine's 2010 chapter on language contact in Potowski, ed.  
Language Diversity in the USA, CUP.

She cites the "predominantly monolingual orientation of linguistic  
theory" (p. 28) dating to Bloomfield and Weinreich, and the "hegemony  
of monolingual ideologies" (p. 29) on the policy front, as  
problematic, particularly when characterizing contact issues in  
communities and language mixing in actual speakers.

She problematizes the "prescriptive" notion of the "balanced  
bilingual" and fact that "real-world bilinguals" (p. 29) seldom  
exhibit fluency in all contexts all the time. She notes that educators  
and linguists would be better served to focus on social context and  
function (as ling-anthers do as a matter of course) when  
characterizing competence and dominance.

May I also recommend Potowski's book for a comprehensive account of  
Languages of Other than English in the US.

Colleen Cotter
Linguistics Department
School of Languages, Linguistics and Film
Queen Mary, University of London
London E1 4NS
UK


Quoting Celso Alvarez Cáccamo <lxalvarz at UDC.ES>:

> I think Susan Gal (in Language Shift, 1979; also perhaps in "Peasant  
>  men can't get wives", 1978) called this pattern "unreciprocal   
> language choice", about the times of Kit Woolard's "bilingual norm"   
> and of Monica Heller's "negotiation" of language choices (related).   
> Regardless of labels, it's clear they/you all were into something   
> and the same. I don't have my rusty notes with me, but I believe   
> that from a social-psycholinguistic perspective (Scherer and Giles,   
> eds., Social Markers in Speech) it has been called "divergence", a   
> sort of a misnomer, as non-reciprocal "language" usages ("choices")   
> may indicate the opposite ("convergence", that is, reciprocal   
> tuning) at a deeper, fundamental coding level of human   
> communication: that of speaking the same language (yes, with   
> different words and grammar, but so what?). Please excuse so many   
> distancing quotation marks, but...
>
> -celso
>
> Celso Alvarez Cáccamo
>
> Em 22/08/2011, às 23:48, Lauren Zentz <laurenzentz at GMAIL.COM> escreveu:
>
>> I think I may have heard it called somewhere "non-reciprocal
>> bilingualism"...?  Like Kit, however, the citation eludes me...
>>
>> Lauren Zentz
>> Doctoral Candidate, Language, Reading, and Culture
>> Department of Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies
>> University of Arizona
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Chelsea Booth   
>> <chelsealbooth at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> This happens where I've done my work (Darjeeling, West Bengal, India), most
>>> often with Nepali, Hindi, Bengali, and English.
>>>
>>> Chelsea
>>>
>>>
>>> *Chelsea L. Booth, Ph.D.*
>>>
>>> Presidential Management Fellow / Public Health Advisor****
>>>
>>> Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Adminitration (SAMHSA)****
>>>
>>> On rotation: Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS)****
>>>
>>> Division of Prevention, Traumatic Stress & Special Programs, Suicide
>>> Prevention Branch****
>>>
>>> Suicide Prevention Branch, State/Tribal****
>>>
>>> 1 Choke Cherry Road, 6-1094****
>>>
>>> Rockville, MD 20857****
>>>
>>> Phone: (240) 276-1834****
>>>
>>> chelsea.booth at samhsa.hhs.gov
>>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Woolard, Kathryn <kwoolard at ucsd.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Rudi -
>>>>
>>>> This practice has been advocated  by some policymakers in Catalonia over
>>>> the last couple decades, since autonomy was established in 1979. I wrote
>>>> about it as "the bilingual norm"  in my 1989 book, Double Talk (pp.
>>>> 77-80). I think I've used other terms elsewhere - maybe "passive
>>> bilingual
>>>> conversations"? - and others have written about it in Catalonia, too,
>>>> though again I can't recall a settled term.  I recently saw a comment on
>>>> the practice elsewhere, but darned if I can remember where...
>>>>
>>>> Kit
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: "Gaudio, Rudolf" <Rudolf.Gaudio at PURCHASE.EDU>
>>>> Reply-To: "Gaudio, Rudolf" <Rudolf.Gaudio at PURCHASE.EDU>
>>>> Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:06:40 -0400
>>>> To: "LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
>>>> <LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
>>>> Subject: bilingual interactions
>>>>
>>>>> 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
>>>>
>



--