Full Description
What happens - sociologically, linguistically, educationally, politically - when more than one language is in regular use in a community? How do speakers handle these languages simultaneously, and what influence does this language contact have on the languages involved?
Although most people in the world use more than one language in everyday life, the approach to the study of language has usually been that monolingualism is the norm. The recent interest in bilingualism and language contact has led to a number of new approaches, based on research in communities in many different parts of the world. This book draws together this diverse research, looking at examples from many different situations, to present the topic in any easily accessible form.
Language contact is looked at from four distinct perspectives. The authors consider bilingual societies; bilingual speakers; language use in the bilingual community; finally language itself (do languages change when in contact with each other? Can they borrow rules of grammar, or just words? How can new languages emerge from language contact?). The result is a clear, concise synthesis offering a much-needed overview of this lively area of language study.
Contents
Contents - 8 Preface - 12 1. Introductions: Bilingualism and language contact - 14 Part I: Social aspects of the bilingual community - 24 2. Language and identity - 24 3. The sociology of language choice - 35 4. Language maintenance and shift - 45 5. Language planning - 59 6. Bilingual education - 72 Part II: The bilingual speaker - 86 7. Psychological dimensions of bilingualism - 86 8. Second-language acquisition - 95 9. The effects of bilingualism - 114 Part III: Language use in the bilingual community - 130 10. Code switching and code mixing - 130 11. Strategies of neutrality - 142 12. Strategies and problems in bilingual interaction - 151 Part IV: Linguistic consequences - 166 13. Language contact and language change - 166 14. Lexical borrowing - 177 15. Pidgins and creoles - 188 References - 200 Index to languages and countries - 214 Subject index - 219 Author index - 223
