bilingual interactions

[Dave Paulson]

Leila,

Great work compiling all of the information from this discussion thread. I
took what you sent out and organized it into a Google Document - see the
link below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G4idHtFqX6fqv-kmCr2Ci6FkpljauHq-AhwFllMpffY/edit?hl=en_US

All of the posts have been edited for in-line spacing, the typeset is now
consistent, and there are even breaks between the entires. I went through
the discussion and pulled out all of the sources mentioned in the thread;
you will find these at the end of the document. Unfortunately, I don't have
enough time right now to write out the full citations or order
alphabetically, but this is the great benefit of using a Google Document.

Once you access the link above, you are free to edit the document in anyway.
Therefore, if someone posts something new or you would like to correct
something listed you can make these changes anytime. Google automatically
saves any changes so don't worry about whether or not what you contribute
will be saved.

Also, at any point in time this document can be downloaded as a PDF or DOC
file for saving or sharing simply by using the File/Download tab in the
upper-left corner. I feel this will be the most practical way of maintaining
a collectively produced document. Let me know if you have any questions.

All the best,
Dave

-- 
Dave Paulson
PhD Student & University Fellow
Temple University, Department of Anthropology
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
United States



On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 11:17 AM, Leila Monaghan
<leila.monaghan at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear all:
>
>
> Below is my first attempt at at edit of this great conversation on
> bilingual
> conversations for the SLA blog.  I have cut out our epistilatory greetings
> and sign offs as well as emoticons and some other conversational framings
> but have left most of the rest of the responses intact.  The line breaks
> still need some work.
>
>
> Let me know if this works for you.  Rudi, if you do a bibliography from all
> these suggestions, that can easily be posted as a separate blog post.
>
>
> all best,
>
>
> Leila
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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?
>
>
>
> Rudolf P. Gaudio
>
>
>
> ---
>
> 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...
>
>
>
> Kathryn Woolard
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
>
> This happens where I've done my work (Darjeeling, West Bengal, India), most
> often with Nepali, Hindi, Bengali, and English.
>
>
>
> Chelsea L. Booth
>
>
>
> ---
>
> I think I may have heard it called "non-reciprocal
>
> Bilingualism.”
>
>
>
> Lauren Zentz
>
>
>
> ---
>
> Laada Bilaniuk has written about it as "non-accommodating bilingualism."
> One
> reference is her 2005 "Contested Tongues: Language politics and cultural
> correction in Ukraine." Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP. Another is the sidebar she
> wrote for my intro textbook, "The Anthropology of Language" (2008
> Cengage/Wadsworth).
>
>
>
> Harriet Ottenheimer
>
>
>
> ---
>
> There is a 2007 European volume on receptive multilingualism that addresses
> this phenomenon. (I've recently been informed by my Sociolinguistics
> colleagues that "receptive" is the preferred term for this form of
> bilingualism in their camp, as "passive" seems to downplay the complexity
> of
> comprehension.) The aforementioned volume highlights two-way receptive
> bilingual situations, such as the one that you describe, as a desired model
> of multilingualism and multiculturalism that is promoted throughout Europe
> (notwithstanding increasing attacks on multiculturalism):
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Receptive-Multilingualism-Linguistic-analyses-language/dp/9027219265
>
>
>
> http://benjamins.com/catalog/hsm.6?sa=1
>
>
>
> Jonathan Rosa
>
>
>
> ---
>
> 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 Alvarez Cáccamo
>
>
>
> ---
>
> 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?
>
>
>
> Teresa Phipps Lane
>
>
>
> ---
>
> 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
>
>
>
> ---
>
>  This is also very common in UN Peacekeeping missions where you have people
> working for the UN from all over the world. Even though Peacekeeping
> missions have an official language (English or French, depending on the
> mission) for use in all official settings, in more informal settings where
> people were tired, you would often find multilingual groups, where people
> had some knowledge of various languages, but were too tired to actually try
> to produce appropriate language replies. In my experience, it was very
> common in East Timor, for example, to have a group of people speaking
> English, French, and Portuguese, with the person speaking their native
> language, and others replying in their own native languages. For most, it
> was far easier to understand than to try to speak in that language,
> especially if you're tired (or drinking) so this actually seemed to work
> out
> quite well.
>
>
>
> Nancy Lutz
>
>
>
> ---
>
> I heartily concur with Colleen. While working on a syllabus for next
> semester, I found a great piece that follows along the lines of Romaine's
> critique. This piece about academics' use of English also makes me think
> about our own roles in these thorny aspects of social relations. Here is
> the
> link to it and I think my students will like it so I wanted to share with
> it
> with my colleagues on the internet.
>
>
>
>
> http://web.natur.cuni.cz/~simon1/Robert_Hassink--Its_the_language,_stupid_On_emotions,_strategies,_and_consequences_related_to_the_use_of_one_language_to_describe_and_explain_a_diverse_world.html
>
>
>
> As  a person who works with endangered language speakers in Germany, I have
> also encountered similar dynamics of non-reciprocal bilingualism/asymmetric
> bilingualism and issues of accommodation. It just reminds me that we still
> have  a lot of work to do as scholars and educators to help
> non-ling-anthers
>  explore the reasons why people do what they do with multiple repertoires.
>
>
>
>
>
> Elizabeth Spreng
>
>
>
> ---
>
> 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
>
>
>
> ---
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Alejandro Paz
>
>
>
> ---
>
>  I was thinking of different examples and the differences in situation,
> motive, personalities etc. Inspired by Nancy's example, I wondered about
> that particular kind of situation, frequent in my experience, more about
> international colleagues working together on some project. And so why
> wouldn't it happen with some frequency that two people with different L1s
> and some competence in the other's L1 as their L2 sometimes talk their own
> L1s to each other?
>
>
>
>
>
> If it's true that L1 acquisition and L2 learning both show that at any
> point
> in the process comprehension outpaces production, and if I remember right
> that the preferred direction for simultaneous interpretation is L2 to L1
> ...
>
>
>
> And if there's a lot of space in that massive excluded middle between
> "doesn't speak L2" and "speaks L2" so that it's normal and frequent for a
> person using L2 to have what the Austrians call "Sprachmuedigkeit" or
> "language/speech tiredness"...
>
>
>
> And if nothing in the interpersonal and situational constraints  on
> communication of the moment prevent it ...
>
>
>
> Why wouldn't it happen that two people would figure out that they could
> both
> talk in their L1, use less energy, and drink more? Perhaps this version
> could even be about removing boundaries.
>
>
>
> And having figured that out once, why wouldn't they go forth and suggest it
> in other encounters, L2 comprehension ability and situational constraints
> permitting?
>
>
>
> Mike Agar
>
>
>
> ---
>
> To continue the thread, it also strikes me that this kind of asymmetric
> bilingualism could be about respect--about self respect (my language/way of
> speaking is good, I can speak it and not accommodate to the other) and
> respecting the other (his/her language [variant] is perfectly fine and I
> can
> understand what I'm hearing). I take this from what I remember of Laada
> Bilaniuk's nice book on Ukraine, as well as the articles on Vaupes
> (Sorensen
> as well as Jackson). I have also had similar accounts from indigenous
> people
> in Kamchatka. In the last case, where respect is absent, people claim that
> languages are mutually unintelligible.
>
>
>
> Alexander King
>
>
>
> ---
>
> I too have experienced this phenomenon but not entirely in the ways listed
>
> above. In my experience "asymmetrical bilingualism" has been encountered in
> the course of my own language learning.
>
>
>
> The first anecdote I can point to comes from Vietnam where my students,
>
> friends, and some of the family I was living with would routinely speak to
>
> me in English while I would carry out the conversation in Vietnamese. Now,
> given the range of individuals who would use this communicative tactic, one
> can safely assume it was employed for a number of reasons.
>
>
>
> In the case of my students, I am nearly certain they saw our interaction as
>
> a chance to converse with a native speaker, and would even go as far as to
>
> ask me to stop speaking Vietnamese to give them exercise in their listening
> skills. Many of my friends (anthropologists and younger people) would
> generally discuss academic topics and/or have informal conversations
> --vocabularies which I have yet to fully develop. If they did relate that
> information in Vietnamese I would have been left in the dust. In this case
> we see clear accommodation for a non-native speaker. With the case of the
> family, I generally encountered this with the father who, unlike others in
> the house, had studied English in university and used the language for
> professional business. To not use English with me, it seemed, would be an
> insult to his own intelligence and role as the head of the household. I
> reach this conclusion based on the dynamics of our relationship, which was
> quite paternal as he would usually be the one to take me aside and explain
> the intricacies of Vietnamese life. Social roles in Vietnam can be quite
> pronounced at times, especially in the realm of gender, family and class.
> One dynamic of conversation, three different reasons.
>
>
>
> My second anecdote comes from my grandfather who is a native speaker of
> Hungarian. We traveled to his home country this summer and I was able to
> pick up a beginner's level of conversational fluency. However, each time we
> talk he still uses English while I respond in Hungarian. Here and there he
> will throw in some Magyar phrases but it is by and large 'asymmetric
> bilingualism.'
> In this example, I feel our contours of communication are shaped by the
> fact
> that he has used English with me throughout my entire life. Only a very
> small percentage of our relationship has been bonded by the Hungarian
> language. If anything, he is just being consistent.
>
>
>
> Another interesting note on this relationship is that when we speak on
> the phone
> he will often respond to my inquiries in Hungarian with "si" - Spanish for
> yes - a language he has a general familiarity with. Could this be
> attributed
> to the fact he knows I am using an L2 and subconsciously shifts to mode of
> thinking when he hears me speak? Or could it be he is just an old guy who
> gets confused sometimes?
>
>
>
> In any event, a fascinating subject and one I am glad people are
> discussing.
> In the end we can be sure that, like most things linguistic, there is never
> a one-to-one correspondence between communication and the reason people
> speak the way they do. Just another reason why people in our profession
> still have a mountain of work to ahead of them, and why our discipline is
> so
> absolutely intriguing.
>
>
>
> Dave Paulson
>
>
>
> --
> Leila Monaghan, PhD
> Department of Anthropology
> University of Wyoming
> Laramie, Wyoming
>