bilingual interactions

[Alejandro Paz]

Hi,

I agree that this is a very interesting thread, with several good examples. The one thing I would add is it's important to specify what kind of boundary the participants understand themselves to be talking over, when deciding on a term (accomodation, asymmetric bilingualism, etc). That is, the communication pattern described by Rudi is very common inter-generationally among immigrant families (e.g., children speak English, parents answer in Spanish or other), which is very different than the peace-keepers described by Nancy, or from Jean Jackson's example from the Vaupes (I believe there was such bilingual communication in her description, perhaps I'm mis-remembering; that's in Bauman and Sherzer's volume "Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking" from 1974, and there's a follow-up somewhere from the nineties).

The other point to keep in mind is that in a stable situation, the varieties generally converge in many ways that participants aren't necessarily aware of, even if they hold these varieties to be distinct "languages." How the varieties are maintained distinct, and enregistered as emblems, is linked in some sense to the kind of boundary that is being signaled.

Cheers,
Alejandro

(U of Toronto)


On 22/08/2011 11:14 PM, Liz Coville wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I loved this thread, both the messages about definitions and sources and the
> examples (like Nancy's from UN in East Timor).  I'm reading it in a warnet
> in upland Indonesia after spending time in a village.  Thinking about these
> multiple repertoires from a non-monoglot-oriented perspective is really
> fruitful, both in the village (influenced by labor migration) and in town
> (influenced by tourism, especially European).  Thanks to all for the little
> gems of internet-mediated wisdom. 
>
> Liz Coville
> Dept Sociology&  Anthropology
> Carleton College