Bilingual Couples Talk
Studies in Bilingualism (SiBil)
Editors Kees de Bot University of Nijmegen
Thom Huebner Sa...
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TITLE "Bilingual Couples Talk: The discursive construction of hybridity"
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Bilingual Couples Talk
Studies in Bilingualism (SiBil)
Editors Kees de Bot University of Nijmegen
Thom Huebner San José State University
Editorial Board Michael Clyne, University of Melbourne Kathryn Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa Joshua Fishman, Yeshiva University François Grosjean, Université de Neuchâtel Wolfgang Klein, Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik Georges Lüdi, University of Basel Christina Bratt Paulston, University of Pittsburgh Suzanne Romaine, Merton College, Oxford Merrill Swain, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Richard Tucker, Carnegie Mellon University
Volume 25 Bilingual Couples Talk: The discursive construction of hybridity by Ingrid Piller
Bilingual Couples Talk The discursive construction of hybridity
Ingrid Piller University of Sydney
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ingrid Piller, 1967Bilingual Couples Talk : The discursive construction of hybridity / Ingrid Piller. p. cm. (Studies in Bilingualism, issn 0928–1533 ; v. 25) Includes transcriptions of conversations in English and German. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Conversation analysis. 2. Discourse analysis. 3. Bilingualism. I. Title. II. Series. P95.45 P55 2002 401´.41-dc21 isbn 90 272 4136 8 (Eur.) / 1 58811 287 X (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
20002026171
© 2002 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Acknowledgements Transcription
vii ix
Chapter 1 Researching bilingual couple talk: A discourse-analytic approach to language contact
1
Chapter 2 What we know: Bilingual couples in linguistic research
19
Chapter 3 “It needs to be natural”: Building a corpus
37
Chapter 4 The couples
59
Chapter 5 “I speak English very well”: Linguistic backgrounds
75
Chapter 6 “We speak bilingually”: Language choice
133
Chapter 7 “We are citizens of the world”: Identity and cross-cultural couplehood
183
Chapter 8 “Talk is essential”: Doing couplehood
221
Chapter 9 “The doors of Europe will be open to them”: Private language planning
245
Table of contents
Chapter 10 “I’m a hybrid”: Hybrid identities, multiple discourses
265
Notes
277
References
281
Couples index
301
Name and subject index
303
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Acknowledgements
In the Native American languages of the Pacific North-West there is no equivalent for the English words “author” or “composer,” as members of the rock band Song Catchers explain during their performances. Rather, words and tunes are there in the community to be caught. This book is also the product of many voices that have come my way and I am grateful to all of them. Where I have caught words and ideas from identifiable sources I have acknowledged them in the list of references, as is common academic practice. However, many more have been less identifiable and I would like to record my gratitude to the following. My greatest single debt goes to the participants in this research, the bilingual couples who generously shared their conversations with me and let me into their lives. Quite literally, this book never would have been written without them. As always, I am indebted to my teachers, colleagues, and students, who keep refining my understanding of language and discourse. They are too numerous to mention, but a very special thanks goes to my wonderful colleague and friend, Aneta Pavlenko, who has read the entire manuscript and has been this book’s first and foremost critic – its godmother in her own words. I am also grateful to Toni Borowsky, Jane Simpson, and Adrian Blackledge for being such supportive colleagues. The support of a number of research assistants was crucial. Juliane Flügel, Merete Møller, and Christian Tiedt transcribed the conversations, and Vera Scurr proofread the manuscript. I am also indebted to colleagues at the University of Hamburg and the University of Sydney who allowed me time off teaching to concentrate on my research. A period as visiting scholar at the University of Southampton allowed me some uninterrupted research time. Thanks are also due to Kees Vaes from Benjamins for his support throughout the writing process, and to two anonymous reviewers and their helpful suggestions. My family has provided much inspiration and support, and, as always, I am particularly indebted to my husband, Nasser Vahedi. My father, Josef Piller (1936–1998), gave me the world and I would like to dedicate this book to his memory.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by two grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ‘German Research Council’ (grant numbers PI 275/3-1 and PI 275/3-2).
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Notes on transcription Most of the data for this study come from conversations. In order to make spoken discourse amenable to analysis, it has to be transcribed on paper (or on screen, actually). As the transcription process produces derivative data, transcription choices are theoretical choices (Ochs 1979). Therefore, transcription has deservedly received increasing attention in recent years (e.g., see the overview article by Edwards, J. A. 2001). In the following I will briefly describe the major transcription choices I had to make in this research and how I made them. First, as the conversations are, in most cases, between two persons only, I have chosen to set out speakers vertically on the page, i.e. I have adopted the conventions of the playwright. All the conversationalists’ names are pseudonyms to protect the identities of the participants. Second, some of the conversations are in English, some are in German, but most are characterized by a certain amount of code switching between the two languages. The bilingual nature of my data constituted a particular challenge. As I wanted to preserve the flavor of bilingualism that pervades the conversations, I have chosen to present all the data in the original language. Complete utterances in German are followed by their translations in italics, as in the following example: Ben (b1) wir sprechen mit den Augen wenn es drauf ankommt. we speak with the eyes when it really matters. Vera @ oder mit der Stimme. @ or with the voice.
For lexical code-switches into German that are part of a larger English utterance, I have provided the translation in double brackets and in italics right after the German expression, as in the following example:
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Maren (gb2) [...] when we met, you didn’t know- you knew only one phrase in German. zwei Bier bitte. ((two beers please.)) Dennis that’s right.
In the translations, I have endeavored to indicate hesitations, interruptions, false starts etc. as faithfully as possible. Of course, this might be quite a meaningless undertaking, but because English and German are closely related languages, it is possible to approximate the equivalent point where, for instance, an interruption occurs. Sometimes, however, this approximation can be quite impressionistic, and I would ask readers who are bilingual in English and German not to be overly critical of the translation choices I have made. They are there for the convenience of readers who do not read German, and have at no point been used as data in their own right. Occasionally, I have added notes to provide further details about a translation choice, e.g. in cases of ambiguity. Third, I have chosen on the whole to represent speech in the standard orthographies of English and German. My reasons for doing so are the good readability of the standard orthography and the irrelevance of fine phonetic detail for the purposes of my study. I have only departed from the standard orthography in cases where phonetic detail is relevant to my argument. For instance, one English speaker imitates a German accent at one point and says: Toni (gb4) [...] Germans talk like sis and say “well, s- s train is seven minutes late. why? why is that?” [...]
In order to capture the flavor of his imitation, I chose to depart from the standard orthography and substitute the th in “this” and “the” with “s.” However, in the (rare) cases where second language (L2) users of English actually substitute th with s, I have used the standard orthography. As the substitution does not serve any obvious purpose but would stereotype their speech, I have followed Roberts’ (1997) injunction to avoid “eye dialect” in such cases. “Eye dialect” is a term used to designate the impressionistic representation of phonetic detail. Furthermore, if a semi-standard spelling of a word exists that is widely recognized and that reflects the original pronunciation better than the standard orthography, I have chosen the semi-standard variant, e.g., “gonna” instead of “going to” or “coz” instead of “because” in English, or deletion of the first person singular present tense morpheme –e on German verbs (e.g., “versteh,” ‘understand’ instead of “verstehe”). The Courier font I originally used for the transcripts did not have the German umlaut symbols (ä, ö, ü), and consequently I am using their conventional replacements ae, oe, and ue in the transcripts.
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These choices and the specific conventions given below formed the bases for the transcription process. Each conversation was first transcribed by one of three research assistants – Juliane Flügel, Merete Møller, and Christian Tiedt. In a second step, I proofread and refined each transcript. I have listened to each conversation many times and have continuously refined the transcripts. As anyone who ever undertook the transcription of spoken data knows, a transcript is never fixed and each listening brings new insights and may call for revisions of one’s transcripts. There has been some debate about sloppy transcription practices recently (e.g., Kitzinger 1998; O’Connell & Kowal 2000). I have made every effort to ensure an accurate transcript and to ensure inter-coder reliability – as I said, two transcribers worked on each transcript – but, as Coates and Thornborrow (1999: 596) rightly point out in reply to Kitzinger (1998), “transcription is a never-ending process.”
Transcription conventions Intonation and tone units , clause final intonation (“more to come”) . clause final falling intonation (no space after the unit it ends) ! clause final high-fall ? clause final rising intonation Words and pauses .
short pause, i.e. less than half a second (preceded and followed by a space) .. long pause, i.e. more than half a second truncation, i.e. incomplete word or utterance : lengthening ê rise-fall on the vowel < <spoken rapidly> > the utterance between the double arrows is spoken rapidly CAPS emphatic stress (in keeping with standard orthography, I have capitalized “I” throughout, and the first letter of German nouns. These are not to be taken to indicate emphatic stress.) “animation” perceptible change in voice quality when another voice is imitated or quoted
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Transcription
Paralanguage @ @laughingly@ hh. .hh
laughter (one @ per syllable, i.e. @@@ = “hahaha”) the utterance between the two @s is spoken laughingly audible exhalation sharp breath intake
Conversational organization [ beginning of overlap ] overlap ends (only marked if not obvious) = one utterance latches on to another. There are two different types of latches: first, a speaker may latch on to the previous speaker’s utterance without a perceptible pause. Second, the latch sign may be used to indicate that a speaker’s turn continues beyond the length of the line, as in the following example. Solveig (d14) Gerhard Solveig
Analytic intervention /????/ /transcriber’s doubt/ [...]
underline Translation italics ((italics))
yeah. well, I don’t know [about accents or= [but=dialects, because I think we simply speak the language that we have been taught, and erm that’s how we communicate. [...]
inaudible utterance doubtful transcription omission. If the omission sign is placed within a speaker’s turn, part of the turn has been omitted. If it is placed in the speakers’ column one or more full turns have been omitted. analyzer’s emphasis
translations of complete German utterances are in italics translations of individual German words or expressions are in italics and double brackets
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Researching bilingual couple talk A discourse-analytic approach to language contact
. “Love should and must transcend all these differences”: An example
Extract 1: “My husband is not aware of living in a bilingual relationship” [. . . ] My husband knows no other language besides German and a smattering of English, which he never uses except when confronted by non-German speakers. His German is “Badisch,” which I do not like at all! We moved to a village an hour from A-Stadt six years ago so my children have picked up the “Swäbian” dialect, which is even worse than the Badische! My husband, I think, is not aware of living in a bi-lingual or bi-cultural relationship. He is irritated by my non-Germanness, my inability to cook the way his mother does (Sauerbraten ((braised beef )) and co. – I’m vegetarian!), my inability to bake “Weihnachtsplätzchen” ((Christmas biscuits)) etc. [. . . ]
Extract 1 comes from a letter I received from a British woman, who, at the time of writing the letter, had lived in Germany for 22 years and had been married to her husband for 13 years. The excerpt is in reply to a language proficiency question included in a set of interview questions I had distributed to bilingual – English- and German-speaking – couples: “How well do you speak each other’s language?” At a superficial level, the answer may seem strangely irrelevant to the question, particularly if one is used to multiple choice language questionnaires where “appropriate” answers to such a question would be restricted to “fluently,” “very well,” “poorly,” “not at all” etc. However, the answer raises a number of points that resonate throughout my data. To begin with, in the context of private relationships, questions of language use are rarely just that. Often they are made to stand for other relationships issues, such as emotional distance or involvement. These may include disappointment at the partner’s failure to learn one’s language or dislike for a particular language or variety, which often comes to represent other aspects of the partner’s personality. Second, a bilingual and bicultural relationship does not come about just because the partners were born in different countries and learned different first
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languages (L1s). Both monolingual and bilingual, or mono-cultural and crosscultural, relationships are actively created and performed. Cross-cultural couplehood is not a state of being, but an act of doing. Throughout my data, the participants – partners in couple relationships between an L1 speaker of English and an L1 speaker of German – routinely work very hard to “do” bilingual and cross-cultural couplehood. Third, language contact “in real life” is not between abstract standards of “English” and “German,” but occurs in a rich sociolinguistic tapestry of interrelated varieties. Particularly those of the participants in this study who live in the diglossic areas of Southern Germany – where Standard German tends to be the written language but not the spoken language – often speak about their feelings of exclusion, hurt and rejection, even if they came to Germany after having studied the language for years at American or British schools. Questions of “perceptual dialectology,” which center around the attitudes people have towards geographically-based variation, take on a new – personal and emotional – meaning if those varieties are spoken, not by some characters on TV or a shopkeeper in a service encounter, but by your own spouse and children. The letter from which Extract 1 was taken ends with Extract 2.
Extract 2: “Love should and must transcend all these differences” [. . . ] And though I am often totally exasperated by my husband’s Germanness, even though we are, in fact, totally and absolutely unsuited for each other, we basically get on well and I would never leave him, nor would he leave me. I feel that love should and must transcend all these differences. Learning to love “in spite of ” everything is probably the greatest challenge! However, in retrospect, I wish I had foreseen the isolation that comes in being with a partner who knows nothing, and cares nothing, about the other’s culture. I feel he is the loser, trapped in his Germanness. I wish I could break down those walls, say, hey, come out of there, there’s a whole world around you! But he seems content to rest there. So, I’ve kind of spoken it all out, I hope some of these things are of interest to you! And I’m sorry my husband couldn’t tell his story in his own words. I’m aware that it’s not really fair to speak for him. But maybe my perception of him is of interest to your research? I’m also sorry if this sounds weepy and moany; perhaps I’ve just been letting off steam, and it’s not really as bad as it sounds. As I mentioned, I’ve loads of wonderful German friends and probably it would be hard to leave here and settle anywhere else in the world.
At first glance, Extract 2 ends on a contradictory note, with its abrupt focus on the bright side of married life in Germany, in contrast to everything that has
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gone before. However, this is not an incompetent writer who answers questions irrelevantly and provides contradictory information. Rather, Extract 2 testifies to the complex of private and public discourses that characterize cross-cultural couplehood. Making sense of a cross-cultural relationship, and of heterosexual relationships more generally, involves an ability to live with contradictions and engage in contradictory discourses. Very often, the person one feels the deepest love and affection for is also likely to be the most irritating person in one’s life. Individuals have a range of discourses at their disposal that help them to make sense of these contradictions in their lives. A pervasive one is the discourse of love as transcending all manner of differences. Another powerful discourse is the discourse of national identity, often in the form of national stereotypes, and the differences it results in between partners in cross-cultural relationships. Discourses of romantic love minimize difference between partners. Discourses of national belonging maximize those differences. Individual speakers have to navigate the two and to seek to reconcile them as best they can. Contradictions also arise out of the research situation itself: this letter was prompted by my questions about language use in bilingual relationships and what it means to live with a partner from a different linguistic and national background. Thus, on one level, the writer is providing factual information about her bilingual life. At another one, she is performing this bilingual identity – a performance which differs significantly when both partners are working on it together in a joint conversation from those where only one partner participated, as in this case. At a third level, the writer is also trying to make sense of the research situation: like most participants, she writes about different things from the ones she expects me to be interested in as a researcher. Finally, although we had never met and she knew very little about myself, and all our interactions were in English, she was obviously aware of my German name and the fact that I was based at a German university at the time of data collection. Consequently, she attends to my face, too, as well as that of her absent husband, by politely ending the letter – which could be read as a long list of grievances at the hands of Germans – with a courteous reference to all the “wonderful Germans” she knows. In sum, Extract 1 and Extract 2 highlight the relationship between language choice and personal relationships, between language use and emotional connection, and between private and public discourses that form the basis of this book. In the following, I will first describe the rationale for this research (Section 1.2), before I go on to outline my theoretical framework (Section 1.3) and provide an overview of the volume (Section 1.4).
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. About this book This book is a sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic exploration of the linguistic practices of bilingual and cross-cultural – English and Germanspeaking – couples: two partners who live in a long-term committed relationship. Throughout the book I will use the terms “marriage” and “couplehood” interchangeably. Although “marriage” is the term of choice throughout much of the research literature, many of the couples who participated in this research were not legally married, but considered themselves a couple. I undertook this research because bilingual couple talk is located at the intersection of many of my research interests. These include language maintenance and shift, the linguistic construction of identity and intimacy, second language learning and socialization, and the intersection of private and public discourses. Thus, I am offering readers insight into the conditions, processes and results of private language contact and into the linguistic (re-)construction of identities in a second language (L2) context. .. Why bilingual couple talk? As people’s understanding of intimate relationships has changed, spousal communication has increased in importance. While in former times couples mainly came together to form an economic unit and to raise a family, today they tend to come together for “romantic” reasons, to share their free time and to be friends. A “good spouse” is no longer just a good housekeeper, breadwinner, or sexual partner but a good communicator. According to Fitzpatrick (1990: 433), communication difficulties are the main cause of marital unhappiness and marital failure in contemporary America. With communication as a constitutive factor in the make-up of a modern romantic relationship, what does it mean for people to live in a relationship with a partner who has a different first language? How do they choose their language as a couple? What are the reasons behind those choices? Which identities do they construct for themselves in societies that continue to see monolingual and mono-cultural marriage (whether such a thing exists or not) as the norm? Do they celebrate a new bicultural consciousness or deplore their outsider status between two cultures? This book attempts to answer these questions for a group of couples, in which one partner has English as a first language and the other German, and whose primary socialization was into two different national cultures.1 Feminist sociologists and social psychologists have often represented heterosexual marriage as situated at the crossroads between public and private
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relationships (Dryden 1999; Williams 1984). The public, or “intergroup,” dimension of marriage is due to the fact that it is a relationship between members of different groups, women and men, who find themselves in specific – usually unequal – gender relationships in society at large. At the same time, couplehood is a relationship between two unique individuals, and hence its private dimension. Add different languages and cultures to the relationship, and the crossroads becomes a busy intersection. As “crossing” and “hybridity” have, inspired by postmodernism, become phenomena of intense interest in many quarters of contemporary sociolinguistics (see, e.g., the contributions to Bucholtz, Liang, & Sutton 1999; Rampton 1999), it is only fitting that the spotlight should be put on the linguistic practices that couples use to navigate that intersection. The study of private language is important for a number reasons. First, because of the importance couple relationships have for the individual; and second because communication is the sole major cause of marital happiness or marital failure in modern postindustrial societies (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 1990; Fitzpatrick 1990). The enormous success of titles such as You just don’t understand (Tannen 1990), which according to the blurb was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years and has more than 1.5 million copies in print, or self-help books such as Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus (Gray 1992), testifies to the importance intimate communication has in people’s lives. Linguistic practices are thus central to contemporary couplehood. The study of bilingual couple talk is furthermore justified by the fact that persons whose family communication is also crosscultural communication are not a negligible minority but an increasingly numerous group. In Germany, for instance, more than 10% of annually registered marriages are between partners of different nationalities (Statistisches Bundesamt 1997). Given that in many Western societies there is now a trend towards cohabitation prior to or instead of registered marriage, it is likely that the number of binational couples is actually much higher. Finally, the study of constructions of social identity in a private context receives its justification from the fact that relations between native and nonnative speakers, between natives and foreigners, between women and men in the family do no simply mirror those in society at large, but these roles and relations are being negotiated, upheld or contested in the family and children are socialized into these roles and relations. The experience of having to reposition oneself in a new language, learned after puberty, is shared by bilingual couples with an increasing number of migrants worldwide. I thus take linguis-
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tic intermarriage as a case study in language contact, the (re-)construction of identities, and discourses of bilingualism. Stoltzfus (1996) demonstrates that intermarriage can successfully provide an example for an exploration of wider issues. Just as this historian used (religious) intermarriage to explore the possibility of resistance in Nazi Germany, I will take (linguistic) intermarriage to explore language choice and the discursive construction of identity. .. Why English and German speakers? This research is about bilingual and cross-cultural couples who fit the description “English- and German-speaking.” The participants mainly come from Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, but also Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and South Africa. At the planning stage of my research, many of my colleagues, particularly my German ones, pointed out to me in formal and informal discussions that my idea was interesting BUT . . . The caveat that inevitably followed took issue with my choice of participants. It was assumed that there would not be anything interesting to discover about the linguistic practices of Englishand German-speaking couples, and that I should look further afield. Suggestions typically mentioned German-Turkish or German-Japanese marriages. At that stage, I chose to stick to my original choice for purely pragmatic reasons: throughout my education my analytic skills have been honed on English and German, and therefore an in-depth discourse-analytic study of bilingual conversation in these two languages simply seemed more feasible than a project involving one or two languages I do not even speak. So I defied the advice to do research into cross-cultural couplehood with a different set of participants and began to collect the English-German conversations in my corpus. I was soon to find that the participants in those conversations shared the perceptions of my colleagues. They, too, argued that cultural proximity is unproblematic or at least less problematic than cultural distance (see Section 7.3.1). At that point, it became clear that my original pragmatic choice served a very important theoretical purpose: it helped me understand how an ideology that informed the original advice I got – the ideology of Western homogeneity – became a discursive resource in private couple talk. The ideology of Western homogeneity informs the perception that English- and German-speaking countries all belong to a common sphere of European or Western culture. “The West” is imagined as a homogeneous cultural space. The discourse of cultural homogeneity, or at least proximity, within the West, and distance from non-Western Others is explained by Frankenberg (1993: 17): “While discursively generating and
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marking a range of cultural and racial Others as different from an apparently stable Western self, the Western self is itself produced as an effect of the Western discursive production of its Others.” Not seeing oneself as “different” has often been taken as a reflection of Western privilege, and makes cross-cultural marriage between “Westerners” all but invisible – an observation also made by Varro and Boyd (1998b) in their attempt to explain the scarcity of studies of the linguistic practices of Americans living in Europe. These researchers explain that Scandinavians, for instance, tend to be quite surprised when they learn that Americans are the largest group of foreigners in the Nordic countries. The “invisibility” of Westerners in Westerns countries derives from the fact that they are regarded as “non-ethnic” foreigners. Furthermore, as largely white and middle-class they are not problematic, which makes them an uninteresting research subject. Research on migrants and minorities is preferably negative and “miserabilistic,” both in Europe and the USA (Root 1996). Americans, Britons and Germans like to sit “at the other end of the microscope” (Varro & Boyd 1998b: 7) in a classic pattern in which the strong study the weak, the rich the poor, and the “First World” the “Third World.” Thus, the fact that my participants are not perceived as problematic in their L2 communities became an advantage for a study of cross-cultural communication and multilingualism: “It makes it possible to separate (im)migration and language contact plain and simple from disadvantage and discrimination together with language contact” (Varro & Boyd 1998b: 8). .. Why linguistics? The linguistic practices of bilingual and cross-cultural couples are not a standard site of academic linguistic enquiry. So, why did I – a professional linguist – think this would be a fruitful research context? And what do I expect to be able to offer my discipline with this research? In attempting to answer this question, I draw on the work of the psychologist Caroline Dryden (1999). In her study of how British couples talk about the division of labor in their relationship, this researcher notes that academic psychology has largely neglected emotional experience in marriage – in stark contrast to the popular press and various fictional genres (Dryden 1999: 5). Just as psychology has paid insufficient attention to emotional experience in marriage, so the discipline of linguistics has been similarly reluctant to deal with the ways in which language “makes or breaks relationships” (Tannen 1986). There have, of course, been some notable and even high-profile exceptions, including the work of Deborah Tannen (1986, 1990) herself and, in the German-speaking world, Leisi (1993).
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However, while these works may have been more widely read by a general audience than any other linguistics titles, they have hardly been taken seriously by the academic community and have often been greeted with derision. Auer (1988) even insinuates that researchers of “love talk,” as well as the readers of such research, might really be motivated by voyeuristic intentions, more than anything else. Dryden (1999: 7) identifies four main reasons why marriage research has, until recently, been marginalized in academic psychology. These, I believe, are also true for linguistics to a certain extent. These reasons are related to methodology, perspective, gendered research practices, and ideologies of the family. To begin with, marriage is not amenable to experimental or quasi-experimental approaches. While the experiment certainly does not play anywhere near the same role in linguistics as it does in psychology, methodological problems of data collection are as pertinent in research into linguistic practices in marriage as they are in research into emotional experience in marriage. As I argued in Piller (2001b), the data collection methods most often employed in linguistic intermarriage research – censuses and questionnaires – have severely constrained the questions that could be asked. Secondly, psychology has been much more interested in individuals, or the behavior of individuals in groups, than in relationships. The same holds true for many branches of linguistics, which have privileged individual speech over speech in interaction. There is only one linguistic discipline that is unambiguously committed to talk in interaction and to the study of language as a relational phenomenon, namely discourse analysis. Discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary approach deriving from a number of social sciences, including sociology, anthropology, social psychology, philosophy, education, media and cultural studies, and many others (Cameron 2001). However, even discourse analytic approaches to bilingualism and second language acquisition tend to be rather recent (e.g., Auer 1998; Errington 1998; Heller 1999; Kulick 1992; Rampton 1995, and the articles collected in Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller, & Teutsch-Dwyer 2001). Thirdly, marriage is widely seen as a “woman’s issue” and that is enough to make it suspicious to disciplines such as psychology and linguistics, which both have their hang-ups about their place in the academic scheme of things, and would oftentimes have preferred to be natural sciences rather than social ones. Given that, in most societies, marriage continues to be resolutely heterosexual and that the prototypical couple continues to involve a woman and a man, this gendering of marriage research is of course more than just a little ironical. As a perceived woman’s issue, research into couple talk holds little academic pres-
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tige and has consequently often been left to be taken up by explicitly feminist researchers (e.g., Fishman 1978, 1980, 1983), along with other “trivia” such as women’s friendship talk (Coates 1996). Thus, discourse analytic studies tend to privilege interaction in institutional contexts over those in the supposedly private context of couple relationships.2 I refer to couple talk as “supposedly private” because – as I am arguing throughout this book – there is no clear-cut demarcation line between “public” and “private” and the two contexts intersect continuously (see also McElhinny 1997). Research into bilingual couple talk – just as into couple talk more generally – has often reproduced the perception of (inter)marriage as a woman’s issue when it only focused on the experiences and practices of the female partner in a bilingual relationship. Examples include Heller’s and Lévy’s (1990, 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1994) study of Francophone wives married to Anglophone men in Canada, Varro’s (1984) study of American wives in France, and Walters’ (1996) study of Anglophone wives in Tunisia. By contrast, I am not aware of a single study that focuses on intermarriage as a male experience and pursues the husbands’ point-of-view. The same gendering can be observed in popular texts about intermarriage such as two collections of the memories of “war brides” who “followed their hearts to Australia/New Zealand” (Overseas War Brides Association 2001; Wood 1991) – again, to the best of my knowledge, no comparable collections exist about men who enter cross-cultural relationships. Thus, I align my study with developments in the field of language and gender studies. There, a shift has occurred from the study of “women’s language” to the study of gender as a system of social and discursive relations (e.g., Cameron 1998; Pavlenko 2001a; Pavlenko & Piller 2001). Finally, where psychology has dealt with the family it has focused on child development and learning, and “family interaction” has often translated into “mother-child-interaction.” This limitation of academic psychology is directly mirrored by bilingualism research with its traditionally strong focus on simultaneous bilingual acquisition in bilingual families (see, e.g., classics such as Döpke 1992; Fantini 1985; Leopold 1939–1949; Pavlovitch 1920; Ronjat 1913; Saunders 1982, 1988). All of these four reasons – methodology, focus on the individual rather than on relationships, the gendering of research, and the focus on the socialization of children as the most worthwhile issue in family research – have biased academic linguistics, just like psychology, against the study of couple talk. This bias has resulted in a number of gaps in our knowledge. I will identify these in Chapter 2 and hope that this book will be a first step towards filling them in.
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. Theoretical framework Post-structuralism and social constructionism have made an enormous impact on the social sciences over the past three decades and they have become the standard theoretical frameworks. While linguistics has been comparatively slow to share in these developments, they have nevertheless made a considerable impact. I also align my work with these broad intellectual developments. Given that post-structuralism and social constructionism are not clearly defined terms, I will in the following briefly outline those three aspects that are particularly relevant to the present work. These are the interaction between language and identity (Section 1.3.1), the importance of belief systems for language use (Section 1.3.2), and the polyphony of discourse (Section 1.3.3). .. Identity The letter writer in Extract 1 and Extract 2 presents herself in a number of contradictory ways. For instance, she describes herself as a wife and a lover, but she and her husband are “totally and absolutely unsuited for each other”; a non-German living in Germany, who does not like it but would find it “hard to leave here and settle anywhere else in the world”; as a mother who detests her children’s ways of speaking; as a vegetarian in the German meat-culture characterized by braised beef. It is these contradictions that originally sparked my interest in bilingual couple talk: how do people live out such complex, and even contradictory, identities in everyday talk, and how are they played out in their L2 learning and use? In this section, I will provide a brief overview of the ways in which I will be using the term “identity.” In everyday speech, the term “identity” is commonly used to refer to a form of being. A widely used English dictionary, for instance, defines “identity” as “who or what a particular person or thing is” (Summers 1992). Identity is thus thought of in terms of categories and labels: e.g., Black, White, female, male, American, German, gay, straight, worker, professional etc. Each individual is plastered with these stickers and they combine easily. One might, for instance, be a Black female American straight professional or a White male German gay worker. The example clearly shows that identity is multiple, that each of us has many identities. It is one of the main challenges of research into language and identity to deal with the multiplicity of identity and establish which identity – if any – matters in a given context. Furthermore, the stickers may fade, be washed out and come off, or they may be replaced or enlarged and polished. Sometimes, these changes can
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be quite radical: people may change their sex (e.g., Colapinto 2000), their race (e.g., Browder 1999), or their sexuality (e.g., Barret 1999). While drastic changes are probably rare, incorporating new identities into one’s repertoire certainly is not. The proliferation of hyphenated identities (e.g., “GermanAustralian”) is testimony to that, as is the concept of hybrid identities. Within linguistics, the emergent field of “crossing studies” has mainly been concerned with language and hybridity. Ben Rampton (2001: 50), the key proponent of the field, states that “crossing’s defining interest [is] in the use of a language that doesn’t obviously belong to the speaker.” Other scholars in the field have taken this interest even further to investigate if and how people to whom a language does not obviously belong can become legitimate speakers. In a series of articles Aneta Pavlenko (1998, 2001b, 2001c, 2001d), for instance, explores the interrelationship between language and identity in the process of L2 learning. Based on data from the autobiographies of published writers who write in their L2, this researcher argues that successful L2 learning involves “self-translation” of identity or “discursive assimilation” to a new linguistic and cultural community. This researcher’s concern with the ways in which individual discourses of identity interact with publicly available discourses of identity in the context of migration, has become central to an increasing body of work in the field of second language acquisition (e.g., Armour 2001; Blackledge 2000; Kramsch 2000; McKay & Wong 1996; Miller 1999; Norton 1997, 2000; Peirce 1995; Vollmer 2000, and particularly the essays collected in Pavlenko & Blackledge 2001, and Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller & Teutsch-Dwyer 2001). Finally, the categories-and-labels approach to identity suggests that identity, or rather identities, is something that a person “is” or “has:” some immutable, true and inherent quality. By contrast, poststructuralist approaches regard identity as a form of “doing” (West & Fenstermaker 1995; West & Zimmerman 1987). Thus, the hypothetical Black female American straight professional and the White male German gay worker adduced above are no longer seen as having race, gender, sexuality and professional status. Rather, they are seen as doing race, gender, sexuality and professional status – to different degrees in different contexts. This doing, or performance, of identity is assumed to be a local construction that occurs in particular communities of practice. The “community of practice” concept comes from learning theory (Lave & Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998) and was introduced to sociolinguistics by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet (1992), where it has since made a considerable impact, particularly on language and gender research (Holmes & Meyerhoff 1999). Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1992: 464) define a community of practice as follows:
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an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of this mutual endeavor. As a social construct, a community of practice is different from the traditional community, primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages.
The communities of practice people move into and out of across their lifespans may be the family, the workplace, a friendship group, an athletic team or a church group (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 1995). For most people, the marital dyad or any other form of couple relationship – marital or non-marital, heterosexual or homosexual – is a major community of practice they are engaged in and in which they do identity. Most of this ongoing construction of identity is done linguistically because language is the most important symbolic resource human beings have at their disposal. Other symbolic systems include dress, music, pictures, and dance. Identity is thus not a matter of labels and categories but rather one of performance. From a linguistic perspective this means that language and social identity are mutually constitutive. Social identities are constructed and co-constructed in discourse, which is perceived as a site of contestation. The account of multiple, hybrid and performed identities I have given in this section is informed by current social theory and widely accepted in academic circles. However, that does not mean that people have ceased to think of themselves as having a unitary identity. I will turn to this discrepancy between the academic rhetoric of multiple, hybrid and performed identities on the one hand and powerful political and “common-sense” ideologies about a fixed inherent identity in the next section. .. Ideology Although identity as a theoretical construct is multiple, hybrid and performed, it is not necessarily perceived this way in everyday discourse, as is evident from the dictionary definition quoted above. People who actually live hybridity and simultaneous multiple identities may very well be perceived as misfits. The countries from which I drew the participants for this study – most notably, Germany, the UK, and the USA – have strong “one language, one nation” ideologies. How do border-crossers by marriage, who move from one linguistic and national background to another, accommodate to such widely held ideologies? The relationship between these common-sense ideas, belief systems or ideologies, and language choice and language use form another central concern
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of this volume. In this section, I will discuss my use of the term “ideology,” and the ways in which I conceptualize belief systems as interacting with identities and linguistic practices. Interest in language ideologies has surged in recent years, as is evident from the ever-increasing number of edited volumes published in the field (e.g., Blommaert 1999; Dirven, Frank, & Ilie 2001; Dirven, Hawkins, & Sandikcioglu 2001; González & Melis 2000; Joseph & Taylor 1990; Kroskrity 2000; Schiefflin, Woolard & Kroskrity 1998). Just as there is no single accepted definition of the term “ideology” (Cohen 1998), there is no single definition of “language ideology” that the contributors to these collections share (see Woolard 1998 for an overview). For the purposes of this research, I will draw upon the highly influential work of Michel Foucault (1972, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1981; Rabinow 1984). This critic has described ideologies as “orders of discourse.” Orders of discourse refer to particular perspectives on the world and particular ways of acting in that world. In a much-quoted definition he describes them as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault 1972: 49). Gee (1992, 1996, 1999) has suggested the term “Discourses with a capital D” for these forms of knowledge, which he further explicates as “socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting, and interacting, in the ‘right’ places and at the ‘right’ times with the ‘right’ objects” (Gee 1999: 17). Like identities, ideologies are multiple and open to contestation and change. In the following I will use the terms “ideologies” and “Discourses” interchangeably to refer to any belief that mediates the linguistic practices of the participants in this research. Although there are many strands of critical theory that see ideologies as false beliefs, I am not concerned with the truthvalue of a belief. While ideology refers to any belief that mediates language use, language ideologies are specifically beliefs about language. Linguistic ideologies refer to “the situated, partial, and interested character of conceptions and uses of language” (Errington 2001: 110). The relevance of ideologies to an analysis of my data is based upon the premise that identity mediates language use, and ideology mediates identity. In order to clarify, I need to return to one of my three assumptions about identity, namely the one that identity is performed. Even though identity is a construct, the chisel for this construct is not in our hands alone. Rather, identities are coconstructed. The identities we perform depend upon identities we have access to. By access I mean that we need to be able to imagine a particular identity for us and other people need to accept the identity we aspire to. For instance, in Australia in late 2001, there was a debate over the label “queue jumper.” The settlement chances of “boat people” crucially depend upon whether they can
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make a successful bid for the identity of “refugee” and whether immigration authorities accept them as such, or assign them the identity labels of “illegal arrival” or “queue jumper” etc. Identity labels are not labels for a social reality, but for reifications of a conventional map of social reality. Thus, refugee advocates have consistently pointed to the fact that there is no queue that could be jumped, and that it is the term that creates the identity. Labels that figure prominently in this research are national identity labels, such as “American,” “Briton,” or “German,” as well as “native” and “foreigner.” “These reifications structure perceptions and constrain (but do not completely determine) practice, and each is produced (often reproduced in much the same form) through the experience of those perceptions and constraints in day-today life” (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 1995: 470). Furthermore, these labels are not neutral, but they often come with a whole string of value judgments attached, which, for instance, transform the label of “foreigner” into a deficient identity. Given the particularity of the participants’ positions, they must often contend with contradictory ideologies. An example of such a contradictory positioning is the ideology of bilingualism as deficient in conjunction with the valorization of English and German (Chapter 9). In sum, I conceive of identity and ideology as dialectically related to linguistic practices, specifically bilingual practices. This approach recognizes “both the communicative freedom potentially available at the microlevel and political economic constraints imposed on processes of identity-making” (Kroskrity 2001: 108). This view obviously needs to be able to accommodate contradictions into its model, and it is contradictory discourses that I will now turn to. .. Polyphony How can we conceptualize the often contradictory interrelationship between language use, identities and ideologies? In particular, I am concerned with the contradictions emerging from cross-cultural marriage and migration, and from the intersection of nationalism and globalization. To pursue this question of contradictory discourses, I will draw upon the work of the Bakhtin circle (Bakhtin 1981, 1984, 1986; Bakhtin & Medvedev 1978; Morris 1994; Voloshinov 1975). These authors, who worked in the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century, provide an illuminating framework for an understanding of the interrelationship between the macro-level of ideologies and the micro-level of conversation. They pioneered the idea that conversational meaning cannot be understood without reference to larger discourses. As a matter of fact, con-
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versational meaning does not even exist independently of larger discourses.3 Through a number of “voices” various speakers are present in a conversation or a text. Many speakers – identified or unidentified – achieve voice in a particular text, which thus becomes “dialogic,” “heteroglossic,” “polyphonic” or even “carnivalesque.” In this view, no language use is ever completely original but is always an activation of voices that have been heard before (see also Silverstein & Urban 1996). In the present analysis I aim to demonstrate that the concept of “polyphony” as pioneered by members of the Bakhtin circle is a useful analytical tool in understanding how conversationalists position themselves vis-à-vis larger discourses. In this view, discourse itself is not only medium but also constraint because it draws on conventions which shape and are shaped by cultural conventions. “[A] single instance of language use thereby minutely contributes to reinforcing [cultural] values, beliefs and practices, and opposing others” (Ivaniˇc 1997: 43) (see also Heller 2001). Furthermore, the bilingual conversations in my corpus are not only characterized by a polyphony of voices drawing on different ideologies, but they are also differently constrained in different languages because “language is not a neutral medium that passes freely and easily into the private property of the speaker’s intentions; it is populated, overpopulated – with the intentions of others” (Bakhtin 1981: 273f.). Polyphony is based on the idea that the voices of the community are reflected in the voice of the individual. At the same time, it recognizes that speakers, as social actors, “are not sociolinguistic dopes” (Cameron 1990: 86). They do “their own thing” with the discourses and languages they have access to. This fundamental point has been better recognized in media studies than in sociolinguistics. Media researchers have again and again found active, unexpected, and even resistant and oppositional audience responses to media texts and the ideologies they carry (Barker & Galasinsky 2001; Gillespie 1995). Ang (1985) and Hobson (1982), for instance, found that women viewers of soap operas generated new meanings about the TV discourses in their own talk about the soaps. Similarly, Bucholtz (1999) showed that callers to shopping channel shows incorporate the discourses of the shopping channel into their own repertoires: they are taken up, twisted and bent, sometimes to such an extent that they become an oppositional discourse. In yet another example, I (Piller 2001a) demonstrated how personal ads draw upon the discourse of commercial advertising in a polyphony of voices that describe the attributes of the commodified self and the desired other. In sum, the concept of polyphony allows us to model the array of voices that are present in bilingual discourses drawing on different, and often contradictory, identity positions, ideologies, and languages. In order to be able to
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describe those polyphonic voices with any degree of validity and reliability I have built a diverse corpus of spoken and written, as well as private and public discourses (see Chapter 3 for details). .. Summary The conceptual framework outlined has informed both my data collection and my data analysis. It has informed my data collection in that I attempted to arrange a diverse corpus that would incorporate data from both written and spoken genres, as well as public and private genres. The decision to collect a diverse corpus is based upon the premise that language ideologies mediate language use. It has informed my data analysis in that I am exploring how Discourses are played out in discourses. Specifically, I am concerned with the ways in which linguistic and national border-crossers through marriage perceive and perform their identities. I ask which identities do they do in which ways and how do they juggle contradictory facets of their identities? How do they enact their couple identities in their conversations? What are their hopes and plans for the identities of their children? Which beliefs enable or constrain their language choices and bilingualism, as well as that of their families? How are conflicting ideologies played out in private conversations?
. Outline of the book This book is divided into two broad sections. The first one, which comprises Chapters 2–4, deals with data collection and introduces the participants. The second one, which comprises Chapters 5–9, describes the findings of the research. Chapter 2 lays the groundwork for my research by reviewing research into linguistic intermarriage and the findings of this research. It is the purpose of Chapter 2 to present a comprehensive state-of-the art report of research into the linguistic practices of bilingual and cross-cultural couples. Where appropriate, I also refer to the literature on monolingual marital communication. Chapter 3 documents the conduct and engagement of the empirical linguistic research this work is founded upon and it describes my corpus. It details the process of data collection and the challenges I encountered in collecting “couple talk.” These challenges include the pervasive private-public boundary. My initial failure to collect “authentic” bilingual couple talk led me to re-conceptualize the very notion of “private conversation.” The reliance upon
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a diverse corpus is also justified by the polyphonic stance adopted in this research. Chapter 4 provides brief biographies of the 36 couples whose conversations constitute my core data. The chapter aims to provide a sense of “the real people” behind the data, which, for the sake of the description of patterns and the continuity of the argument cannot be offered in the chapters of the second section. Chapter 5 describes the linguistic backgrounds of the participants. It is concerned with their mother-tongue claims, as well as their self-assessments of their L2 proficiency. The ways in which mother-tongue claims and L2 proficiency assessment are mediated by ideologies of language ownership and success in language learning are of particular concern. Chapter 6 then goes on to describe how the participants deploy their linguistic resources in their language choices, both in the couple domain as well as in their extended families and their public lives. The chapter is particularly concerned with an ideology that pervades the research literature on linguistic intermarriage, namely the belief that bilingual couples will most often choose the majority language as their common language. Chapter 7 analyzes how the couples position themselves vis-à-vis two powerful – and contradictory – beliefs: an ideology of unity and similarity in the family, and an ideology of national difference. The chapter asks which discursive strategies the couples employ to reconcile those contradictory ideologies and how they perform their common couple identity. Chapter 8 is also concerned with the linguistic performance of couple identity. However, it moves away from discourse strategies to conversational styles. In particular, it explores the participants’ descriptions of their private languages and describes one particular feature of their conversational styles, the collaborative floor. The collaborative floor in bilingual conversation is quite different from the collaborative floor in monolingual conversations and, consequently, I will specifically focus on the bilingual characteristics of the collaborative floor in the conversations. Chapter 9 is devoted to the couples’ language planning activities and language transmission across generations. Simultaneous bilingual acquisition is a traditionally strong concern for bilingualism research. Chapter 9 differs from this work in that it is concerned with the parents’ perspectives rather than the children’s acquisition. The participants are all highly committed to their children’s bilingualism and the chapter explores the reasons, educational practices and outcomes associated with that commitment. Chapter 9 continues the theme of Chapters 7 and 8, namely the constitution of private discourse in multiple public discourses. However, it also resumes the topic of language choice addressed in Chapter 6. While the focus of Chapter 6 is on language choice
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in the partnership domain, Chapter 9 addresses questions of intergenerational transmission. Finally, Chapter 10 concludes the volume by tying the case study of English- and German-speaking couplehood in with the larger concerns that motivated this research. Specifically, these relate to the interrelationship between intermarriage and language choice, the negotiation of identity in a language contact situation, and the interrelationship between private talk and public discourses. Throughout this book I am endeavoring to accord as much space as possible to the voices of the couples themselves. This practice, I hope, will allow readers to savor the celebrations of bilingualism and cross-cultural couplehood that they offer.
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What we know Bilingual couples in linguistic research
. Introduction Research into bilingual and cross-cultural couplehood may not be a standard site of linguistic research (Section 1.2.3), but, at the same time, it is not a completely new field, either. It has burgeoned particularly in contexts in which linguistic intermarriage is perceived as a problem within a wider societal context of language conflict. Thus, English-French intermarriage in Canada and Castilian-Catalan intermarriage in Catalonia figure prominently. Most research into bilingual couplehood is concerned with the question of language maintenance and shift. Therefore, I engage mainly with linguistic intermarriage and its relationship to language maintenance and shift in this chapter. Before I go on, I will briefly provide definitions for the main terms introduced in this chapter. The term “majority language” is used to designate the language used by the wider community, e.g., English in the UK and the USA, and German in Germany. Although I am aware that this usage is simplistic and the sociolinguistic realities are always much more complex (Section 5.5), this usage reflects common practice and it is a convenient shorthand, and I ask my readers to take it as such. Conversely, the term “minority language” is used to designate a language that is not the official language or the language of communication in the wider community, e.g., English in Germany, and German in the UK and the USA. In the context of the global spread of English many readers may find it difficult to think of English as a “minority language.” Again, this is a shorthand that ignores, for the time being, language status. In some contexts, the situation is more complex in that two languages are habitually used within a community. Such a situation is called “diglossia” (Ferguson 1959), and a standard example comes from the linguistic situation that prevails in many Arab countries, where both local and standard Arabic are in use. The language that is used in the family and in informal contexts is usually designated the “low variety” (local Arabic in the example) and the one that is used in pub-
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lic contexts, in institutional education and the media is designated the “high variety” (standard Arabic in the example). “Language maintenance” refers to the continued use of language X in a bilingual situation, while “language shift” refers to a change to language Y. Typically, language X is a minority language or low variety, and language Y is a majority language or high variety. From these clarifications, I now return to the structure of the chapter. I will first provide evidence for a pervasive negative evaluation of linguistic intermarriage in language contact research (Section 2.2). This negative evaluation stems from the assumption that intermarriage is detrimental to language maintenance. It has indeed been the most frequent finding of linguistic intermarriage research that intermarriage leads to language shift towards the majority language. However, these findings need to be taken with a grain of salt as most of this research shares four shortcomings. First, it takes a deterministic view of language contact (Section 2.3). Second, it treats intermarriage as an explanatory variable (Section 2.4). Third, it assumes that intermarriage is primarily an intergroup relationship, and only secondarily an interpersonal one (Section 2.5), and, fourth, it treats intergenerational transmission as the central linguistic issue related to cross-cultural couplehood (Section 2.6). I will then devote Section 2.7 to a special segment of the research literature, namely testimonies of partners in a bilingual relationship. Finally, in Section 2.8, I will briefly reflect on some approaches to monolingual couple talk, and how they might be useful to explorations of bilingual couple talk.
. Research assumptions about intermarriage As early as in the 1960s, Ervin-Tripp (1968) noted that views about intermarriage are more often based on “common sense assumptions” than actual research. In this specific case, she noted the underlying assumption that immigrants married to a US citizen are assimilated better than any other group of immigrants, and that they will employ English not only frequently but “for as many uses as their native language at home before” (Ervin-Tripp 1968: 211). This specific assumption, as well as the general observation, has not changed much since. “Intermarriage” seems to be one of the most negatively connotated concepts in language contact research. A search for “intermarriage” and “exogamy” in the Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) database produces collocations such as those quoted in Extract 3.
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Extract 3: Intermarriage in LLBA abstracts (my emphasis) Other threats to Berber survival include intermarriage, tourism, & relocation of villages (Battenburg 1999). Intermarriage & conversion to Islam are mentioned as possible explanations for the further weakening of these minority languages (Martin & Sercombe 1996). Intermarriage is often mentioned in accounting for the process & extent of mother tongue retention; intermarriage, both interethnic & interfaith, is negatively related to relative size of a given population group. Studied here is the concept that lower population ratios can lead to more intermarriage, & that more intermarriage can lead to lower mother tongue retention (Kuo 1978). Intermarriage with non-Jews hastened the linguistic deterioration of Jewish-Spanish, as did the emancipation of Jewish women, who were traditionally the monoglots of the family (Thompson, R. W. 1973). [. . . ] exogamy leading to imperfect learning may also have been a factor, [. . . ] (Lynch 1996). The challenge of exogamy (Bernard 1994). Findings indicate that the French enclave provides little support for French, & that language shift is explained by greater exposure to risks, as measured by exogamy, SC, French schooling, & age (Li & Denis 1983).
As these quotes show, “intermarriage” and “exogamy” collocate with “threat to survival,” “weakening of minority languages,” “low mother tongue retention,” “linguistic deterioration,” and “imperfect learning” – that is, “intermarriage” and “exogamy” pose a “challenge,” if not an outright “risk.” When such research gets reported in the popular press, the “risk” may take on even more sinister tones as in a suggestion in a Canadian article from the late 1970s that intermarriage is a “Trojan horse” type of threat to Canadian French (Mougeon, Savard, & Carroll 1978). By contrast, positive connotations of “intermarriage” are rare, such as the following: “[. . . ] there exists a ‘window of opportunity’ for recruitment to minority or historically dominated languages, and we could associate this with the general age of ‘courtship,’ pair-bonding, marriage, and living in union libre [. . . ]” (O’Donnell 2000: 240). Irrespective of the evaluation, most research into intermarriage and language contact regards the couples’ use of the majority language as a done deal. In the following four sections I will discuss why this is a questionable assumption.
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. Deterministic view of language contact To begin with, equating intermarriage with language shift towards the majority language involves taking a deterministic view of language contact. To give a sense of the overwhelming unison with which sociolinguists consider intermarriage as resulting in language shift towards the majority language, I am listing just a few linguistic contexts in which intermarriage has been named as a central factor in language shift – sometimes along with other factors, sometimes not. Intermarriage is said to be implicated in the shift from Angaité to Guaraní in the Gran Chaco of Paraguay (Fasold 1984: 18), from Cherokee to English in Oklahoma (Appel & Muysken 1987: 35), from Dutch to English in Australia (Pauwels 1985), from Dutch to English in New Zealand (Folmer 1992), from German to English in Australia (Clyne 1981: 67; 105), from Low-German to English in the American Midwest (Van Ness 1995: 408), from Spanish to English in California (Grenier 1984), from Welsh to English in Wales (Romaine 1994: 54), etc. etc. – the list could go on and on. The pattern is considered universal. Siguan (1980) asserts that the place where a bilingual couple lives is the most important determinant of their language choice. As subordinate factors he adds (2) the relative prestige of the two languages; (3) feelings of solidarity with the less prestigious or less widely used language; (4) gender issues – the author hypothesizes that, all else being equal, the language of the male partner would predominate; and (5) variable factors that do not fall into one of the patterns previously identified. Another author is also adamant about the predictive power of intermarriage: “Sociologically, we should consider the prevalence of in-group or out-group marriage as a factor in language viability [. . . ]” (Edwards, J. 1994: 10). The pattern is regarded as so universal, that it even turns up as a textbook exercise in sociolinguistics: Exercise 4: What would you predict as the effect of intermarriage on language maintenance and shift? If, in England, an English-speaking woman marries a Gujerati-speaking man, for instance, which language will they use with their children? Answer: When marriage partners use different languages, the majority language almost always displaces the minority language. Most often in such families, parents use the majority language to their children. When the minority language is the mother’s language, it may survive longer, but in the end the shift to the majority language seems inevitable. (Holmes 1992: 68)
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While I am not aware of any research into the specific constellation mentioned in the exercise (English-speaking woman and Gujerati-speaking man in England), Blackledge (2001: 59) describes the background of a woman who had grown up in Britain as the daughter of an English-speaking woman and a Sylheti-speaking man:1 “Mrs. Miah was a Bangladeshi woman who spoke Sylheti as a first language, and English as an additional language. Mrs. Miah’s father was Sylheti, and her mother was an English woman who spoke Sylheti as an additional language. Sylheti was the main language spoken in her home.” Mrs. Miah’s parents’ case is in direct contradiction to the textbook exercise quoted above, and while it may be exceptional, the fact remains that the pervasive assumption that couples with differing linguistic backgrounds choose the majority language is just that: an assumption, and not a research finding. The question of whether bilingual couples really choose the majority language, and how and why they arrive at their linguistic choice remains largely unasked and unanswered. I will now turn to counter-evidence in the form of case studies where bilingual couples do not choose the majority language. In one example the minority language is chosen instead of the majority language because the minority partner is not proficient in the majority language. In another example, an alternative to the dichotomous option of minority vs. majority language is presented in the linguistic practices of a group of indigenous Americans. To begin with, Yamamoto’s (1995) work provides evidence for a preference for the minority language in certain contexts. In her study of Japanese and USAmerican couples in Japan, this researcher postulated the following taxonomy of language use in bilingual families: 1. a receptively bilingual household; each spouse uses only his/her own native language productively; 2. a monolingual household; both spouses exclusively or mainly use the same language, the native language of either the native English partner or of the native Japanese partner; 3. a productively bilingual household; at least one spouse (possibly both) can use either language; and 4. an L3 household; as a common language, both spouses use a third language, which is the native language of neither (Yamamoto 1995: 68). Of the 51 couples whom Yamamoto interviewed, 2% used the first pattern (“receptively bilingual”), 65% the second one (“monolingual in English or Japanese”), and 34% the third pattern (“productively bilingual”). No couple used the fourth pattern (“L3”). Of the monolingual households (Pattern 2),
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more than two thirds used English, the remainder Japanese. Of the bilingual households (Pattern 3) both partners spoke both languages in 14% of the cases, only the Japanese partner spoke both languages in 12% of the cases, and in 8% of them the English partner used both. Yamamoto (1995: 69) explains this preference for English, the minority language in the Japanese context, with the fact that the Japanese partners tend to be more proficient in English than foreign residents are in Japanese. Asked to rate their own proficiency in the other language, the Japanese respondents showed greater confidence in their English than the English-speakers in their Japanese. Furthermore, irrespective of the language pattern used among the spouses, they use their native language when addressing their children. The reasons suggested for this are “emotional bonding” (Yamamoto 1995: 71) and the conscious decision to expose the children to both languages and to promote bilingualism at home. Outside the home, however, the children tend to use Japanese and to resist using English to reduce differences from their peers. Further evidence against the deterministic assumption of language choice in favor of the majority language comes from the ways in which the Tucanoan pursue an “outside the square” language pattern (Aikhenvald 1996; Ardila 1989; Barnes 1994; Gomez-Imbert 1986; Grimes 1985; Jackson 1983; Sorensen 1972). The Tucanoan peoples, who live in the North West Amazon Basin of Brazil and Colombia, an area also known as the Vaupés region, have a strong taboo against endogamy, i.e. they have to choose a spouse from another group, and group membership is defined through the language one speaks. Thus, all the couples in the area are bilingual. Instead of choosing one partner’s language over the other, they practice “dual-linguality.” The dual-lingual pattern can be described as follows: Husband and wife each speaks his or her own language to the other. Each understands the language of his or her spouse, but does not speak it except in circumstances where it is necessary in order to communicate with other people who do not understand the primary language. A child becomes fluent in the language of both parents, yet considers his [sic!] father’s language to be his own. (Grimes 1985: 391)
Thus, dual-linguality is a communication pattern in which each partner actively uses her or his L1 and receives the partner’s L1 in response. The term “dual-linguality” was first used by Lincoln (1979) in his study of a pattern of language use on the Solomon Islands. There, he also observed that husband and wife addressed each other in two different languages, one language belonging to the Austronesian language family and the other to the Papuan
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language family. Salisbury (1962) even describes a tri-lingual pattern he observed in a conversation in New Guinea. These studies could give the impression that dual-linguality is a very “exotic” practice. However, it might also be the case that American and European researchers think of it as an exotic pattern and therefore fail to observe it “closer to home” (see Section 6.4 for Englishand German-speaking couples who use dual-linguality). The Tucanoan maintain this dual-lingual spousal communication pattern throughout their lives, and, according to Holmes (1992: 88), language maintenance of the indigenous languages is a lot better than in many comparable indigenous communities around the globe.
. Intermarriage as an explanatory variable Not only is shift to the majority language all too often considered a done deal where there is linguistic intermarriage. Intermarriage is also treated as an explanatory variable rather than a concept that is itself in need of explanation. Where language shift is observed and intermarriage is observed, the latter is routinely taken as an explanation of the former. Despite the fact that every introduction to scientific methods warns against the fallacy of co-occurrence (just because two events co-occur that does not mean they are causally related), very few researchers who work with a language contact situation where language shift and intermarriage are both present have been able to avoid the temptation to treat the latter as an explanatory variable. One early cautionary voice comes from the work of Charles Castonguay (1976, 1979a, 1979b, 1981, 1982), a professor of mathematics at the University of Ottawa. This researcher used Canadian census data to explore the maintenance of French. In Canada, a national census is conducted regularly, and it always contains a language question inquiring about “mother tongue” and “home language.” The mother tongue question asks respondents for their “language first spoken and still understood” – note that the singular is used, thus precluding the possibility to name two or more mother tongues. The second one asks the respondent’s home language: “What language do you most often speak at home now?” When the researcher compared the 1971 and the 1976 census figures, he found that the shift from French as mother tongue to English as home language had slightly increased during that period. However, over the same period, the rate of exogamy had slightly dropped. In each age group and in each province, the number of French speakers who had switched to English was higher than the rate of intermarriage. Thus, Castonguay (1982: 267) explains: “A language shift
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as reported on the census questionnaire can quite possibly have occurred before, and not after, intermarriage: in such cases, the mixed marriage may well be viewed as an effect, rather than a cause of the language shift.” While census data can provide evidence that language shift and intermarriage are not necessarily causally related or that the causal relationship may be reversed, they cannot find any potential intervening variables. To do so, much richer ethnographic data are needed, and Susan Gal’s (1978) groundbreaking article “Peasant men don’t get wives” provides the missing link. This researcher argues that young peasant Hungarian women in the town of Oberwart, Austria, switch to German to escape the dire hardship of peasant life. The brighter alternative is factory work in the German-speaking local industry and marriage to a German-speaking factory worker, rather than a Hungarian-speaking peasant. The intermarriages they seek follow their language switch to German. Similarly, for Breton women their language shift from Breton to French is a symbolic journey “from cow-shit to finery” (McDonald 1994: 91). Young women shift to French and move away from the Breton-speaking countryside in droves. So much so, that Breton-speaking men cannot find local wives, just like their Hungarian-speaking counterparts in Oberwart. As a result, a new New Year greeting has emerged in Breton: “I wish you a Happy New Year and a lady wife before it’s out” (McDonald 1994: 100). In yet another example (also reported by McDonald 1994), a young German woman started to learn Breton because “of Atlantis, the Inkas, the Indians, of strange mysteries, of Woman, of Babylon, the Celts and the Beginning of the World” (McDonald 1994: 103). For her, learning Breton is part and parcel of pursuing this New Age mysticism, as is finding a Breton boyfriend. Ironically, the Breton boyfriend she has found for herself does not speak Breton himself because his mother had chosen to educate him in French. In sum, rather than intermarriage resulting in language shift, language shift and intermarriage may both be part and parcel of a larger desire: be it the desire for a better life on the conveyor belts, the desire for urban feminine sophistication, or the desire for a New Age mysticism (see Section 5.3.3 and Section 10.2 for further discussions of language desire).
. Intermarriage as an intergroup relationship Thirdly, language contact research frequently treats intermarriage as strictly public, that is, as a reflection of intergroup relationships – thereby ignoring the private or interpersonal dimensions of couplehood (Section 1.2.1). In and of itself, that is most welcome because the opposite danger – to treat couplehood
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as purely private – tends to loom much larger. However, in language contact research this is often not a matter of theoretical choice, but one of coincidence. Because bilingual couplehood tends to be treated as an explanatory variable, the assumption of the marital relationship as an intergroup relationship is usually not very well theorized, if at all. By that I mean that the reader usually looks in vain for a discussion of how the private and public dimensions of marriage, and with it those of language choice, might be related. Instead of concentrating on research with this particular shortcoming, I will again focus on research projects that have challenged such a naïve view, namely Heller and Lévy (1990, 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1994, 1996) and Walters (1996). Monica Heller and Laurette Lévy explicitly motivate their work with their desire to go beyond a view of intermarriage as an intergroup relationship: Astonishingly, to us at least, despite the plethora of demographic analyses of rates of exogamy and assimilation, no one, [. . . ], has ever bothered to ask any questions about what actually goes on in the lives of people involved in such linguistically mixed marriages. (Heller & Lévy 1992b: 14)
These two researchers are among the small number of researchers to ask what it means on the individual, personal level to be socialized into one language community as a child, and to move into another one as an adult. For their research, they interviewed 28 Francophone women married to Anglophone men in three Ontario cities about their lives: their schooling and that of their children, their work, family and social life, and their own, their spouses’ and their children’s use of French and English. On the basis of the interviews the respondents were placed into three attitudinal groups, depending on the strength of their sense of Francophone identity. Then, the following factors were analyzed and related to the attitudinal types: language choice in daily life, opinions about the use of English and French, the notions of identity held by the interviewees, and the form of the interview discourse (i.e., code switching, metaphorical expressions, or the characteristics of the French used). Unsurprisingly, to me at least, they found that marriage to an English-speaking partner did not inevitably lead to assimilation to English, and if it did, it did not result from “a mindless and unquestioning acceptance of the dominance of English. Instead there is always a struggle, a least at some level, a concern, an ambivalent turning to what might be sacrificed by abandoning French, and often there is heartfelt pain” (Heller & Lévy 1992b: 39). In yet another study, Walters (1996) offers an explicit framework to theorize intermarriage as both an intergroup and an interpersonal relationship. This researcher investigates the access to the local languages – Tunisian Ara-
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bic, Classical Arabic, and French – that Anglophone wives to Tunisian husbands enjoy in Tunisia. Tunisia is characterized by a diglossic situation in which Tunisian Arabic is spoken in informal contexts such as the family, and Standard Arabic and French in formal and public contexts. Consequently, the Anglophone wives in Walters’ study are really faced with the need to acquire three new languages. However, only few of them do so, and they either communicate with their husbands in English or French. The learning of Tunisian Arabic carries both benefits and disadvantages: it is beneficial because it is often the only language their female in-laws speak and the women of a family spend a considerable amount of time together. On the other hand, it is disadvantageous because the husbands may feel ambivalent about their Western wives and discourage them from learning Tunisian Arabic. They sometimes feel their wives sound stupid if they speak the local language or they feel that their Western “trophy wife” loses her symbolic value if she integrates too well. Waldis (1998) echoes these findings for another group of Western wives in Tunisia, namely Swiss women of French-, German-, and/or Italian-speaking backgrounds. Like the Anglophone women, their language learning and concomitantly their participation in their new communities is constrained by the political economy and the symbolic value of the languages involved. Both researchers stress the fact that unequal power relationships between linguistic and national groups – between the West and the Arab world in this case – will also play into the lives of the couples affiliated with both groups, but they do so in subjective and individual ways and are mediated by personal beliefs, such as those that Tunisian Arabic sounds dumb or that the Western wife is a trophy.
. Focus on the children Finally, linguistic intermarriage research has a strong focus on the linguistic knowledge of the children, rather than on the language maintenance or shift of the couples themselves. This is in step with the general ideology that the family is primarily a unit of socialization, rather than a relationship between adults (Section 1.2.3). Clyne (1982), for instance, shows that, in Australia, the children of intermarried migrants are more likely to prefer English over their heritage language than the children of parents who are both from the same ethnic background (Table 1). However, the figures in Table 1 also point in another direction. They differ significantly for the various languages and ethnic groups. Consequently, it is
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Table 1.* Second generation language shift to English in Australia Country of origin
Inter-ethnic marriage (%)
Intra-ethnic marriage (%)
Greece Italy Malta Germany Netherlands
68.40 78.51 94.58 96.16 99.09
10.08 18.56 53.68 62.28 80.79
* Adapted from Clyne (1982: 47; 50).
obvious that language-specific factors mediate language shift for the children of both intermarried and non-intermarried couples. These may be the size of the minority-language community or cultural ideologies about the interrelationship between language and ethnic identity. Gender is another crucial factor that mediates the linguistic outcome of bilingual parenthood. Boyd (1998), for instance, investigated the maintenance of English in the children of US-Americans married to Danes, Finns, or Swedes in Scandinavia. This researcher found that the children are more fluent in English if the mother is the English speaker. Boyd (1998) explains this pattern as a result of gendered family roles: a breadwinner father who uses English “virtually all the time” with his child, will expose the child far less to English than a homemaker mother who uses English to the same degree. Similarly, Chiaro and Nocella (1999), found that Italians married to an Anglo partner in Britain only transmitted Italian to their children if the mother was Italian. In sum, the assumption that intermarriage hastens language shift to the majority language is most often concerned with intergenerational transmission. The research focus thus is often shifted from the bilingual couple towards intergenerational transmission. Given that parenting practices are highly gendered in most societies, it is not surprising that the findings point to the importance of the gender of the minority parent. In the contexts investigated, the children were more likely to become bilingual in the minority language if the minority parent was the mother. However, it is also important to acknowledge that the traditional gender roles in the family are changing. In my sample there are comparatively few couples who fall into the “female homemaker and male breadwinner” pattern (Chapter 4). Language-specific factors also play a role in intergenerational transmission. These may be the size of the minority language community or beliefs about the importance of language to ethnic identity.
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. Testimonies of bilingual couples In this section I explore autobiographical accounts as an additional source of evidence in research into bilingual couplehood. Such sources, including language learner’s life stories, have only very recently been accepted as legitimate data sources in studies of multilingualism and second language learning (Kouritzin 1999, 2000a; McGroarty 1998; Pavlenko 1998, 2001b, 2001c, 2001d; Piller 1998a; Rampton 1995). In contrast to the previous neglect of autobiographical data sources, these authors stress the importance of attending “to issues of local sites, local and autobiographical histories, and representational resources and contexts” in studies of identity (Rampton 1995: 14). Autobiographical sources have a clear disadvantage: they are not the “objective facts of real life” – and that is why they have generally been eschewed by linguists who often continue to believe that third person accounts are more scientific than first person accounts (see Pavlenko & Lantolf (2000) for an excellent discussion). However, it is easy to ignore the fact that no data are objective slices of reality. The observer’s paradox is always in operation. Labov (1972) was the first one to point out that it is part of the impossible – and therefore “paradox” – task of the researcher to figure out what happens WITHOUT the presence of the researcher as observer. There is then a sense in which all data, through whatever means they are collected, are a product of the research activity (Coates 1996; Wilson 1987). Walters (1996: 552–553) is explicit in acknowledging the observer’s paradox, particularly in family research: Lest we researchers fool ourselves into believing that participant observation will enable us to understand fully the relationship between speakers’ beliefs about language, their ideology and their actual practices, we must remember Labov’s early discussions of the observer’s paradox [. . . ] an especially complex concern in research dealing with families and more particularly couples. As one anglophone wife wrote in response to an earlier draft of this article: “One related language issue I have often mused over is which language is used before, during, and after sex by all these braves gens. Ever ask? If that’s not power, then what is it?” I did not ask [. . . ]
Two illuminating autobiographical testimonies from partners in a bilingual relationship come from Fries (1998) and Finton (1996). Fries recounts her experiences as an American woman married to a Frenchman living in France as part of a larger collection on Americans in Europe (Varro & Boyd 1998a). Her main concern is her children’s bilingualism in English and French, which did not quite turn out the way she had desired it. She had expected to raise “highly
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proficient balanced bilinguals,” who would be a combination of two monolinguals and indistinguishable from either native speakers of French or native speakers of English. As it turns out, their English is very good but clearly different from their American peers. What is more, Fries had anticipated that bilingualism would be the most precious gift she was giving her children. However, her daughter, as a young adult, perceives English as an obligation and a burden, and even reports a sense of guilt that she will not be able to pass her mother’s cherished English on to her own children. With the benefit of hindsight, Fries explains these developments in two ways: first, in comparing her own educational practices with those of another French-American couple who mix languages and switch between them, she notes that her very strict attitude as to what constitutes “correct” French and “correct” English may have contributed to the feeling of “burden” that her children have come to associate with English. Second, she realizes that the different views she and her husband hold about bilingualism may have contributed to the outcome. While both partners were committed to their children’s bilingualism, the French father’s commitment resulted from the professional and economic advantage that English would bring to his children. Fries’ commitment, on the other hand, stemmed from the fact that English for her was “the mother tongue,” the medium of identity for her and her children. In contrast to Fries’ poignant account, which is permeated with a sense of failure despite her children’s remarkable degree of bilingualism, Finton (1996) celebrates her family’s bilingualism and biculturalism. Finton is also a native English-speaking American woman, but she has not migrated, but rather continues to live in the US together with her Deaf husband, who is a native user of American Sign Language (ASL). Like Fries, Finton was bilingual before she met her husband, and her bilingualism was thus not a result of her marriage, but her marriage may have been a result of her bilingualism. Also like Fries, it took her a long time to consider herself bilingual, and she only gained confidence in her bilingualism as her fluency in ASL increased. It is very common for late bilinguals to consider themselves as deficient L2 speakers, rather than bilinguals. However, in sociolinguistics, a bilingual is commonly defined as a person who uses two or more languages on a regular basis, irrespective of proficiency (e.g., Grosjean 1996: 21). Finton describes that one central issue she and her husband were faced with in the early years of their marriage was a widely-held belief that Deaf/hearing marriages do not work. Such a belief was much more common in Kansas, where they initially lived, than in other places they knew or lived in. The pressure of expected failure only loosened with time and with their moves to other states. Finton and her husband use ASL with each other although she
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admits to a certain amount of switching and mixing depending on the context and on other people present. Their two daughters, aged seven and three, grow up as confident bilinguals, who can easily move from one language to the other and who can translate very well when called upon to do so. Indeed, their linguistic development is well ahead of that of their monolingual peers as the use of finger-spelling made the concept of spelling in English a lot easier for them, and they could both spell their names at a very young age, when they were only two years old. Both Fries’ negative and Finton’s positive evaluation of their bilingual and bicultural families are partly a reaction to different ideologies of EnglishFrench and ASL-English bilingualism. Fries reports that family, friends and acquaintances had expected that her children would become bilingual automatically and envied them. Finton, on the other hand, had comments how very confused her children must be, having to deal with two different languages. Thus, “bilingual couples” will experience their bilingualism quite differently depending on the sociolinguistic context in which they find themselves – contexts which may attach low symbolic value to one linguistic combination and high symbolic value to another combination.
. Conversation-analytic studies of couple talk In this section, I will briefly turn away from bilingual couples to research into monolingual couple talk. When I first started to think about researching bilingual couple talk, I was less motivated by the language contact research I have described so far than by the work of Pamela Fishman (1978, 1980, 1983). This researcher, whose work has become a classic in language and gender research, asked three couples to position a tape recorder in their homes and to switch it on whenever they were both present. Based on a close conversation analysis of twelve and a half hours of couple talk recorded in this manner she found that the onus to initiate a conversation and to keep it going was consistently on the women: they were the ones who asked questions and used other attentiongetting beginnings such as “this is interesting” to start conversations and they used an inordinate amount of back-channeling devices such as “yeah” and “oh” throughout to support the continuation of a conversation that was underway. Men, by contrast, used such minimal responses to end conversations and discourage interaction. They also preferred the use of statements that do nothing to insure the success of a conversation. Furthermore, 28 out of 29 topics introduced by the husbands were taken up into a conversation, while only 17 out
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of 47 topics introduced by the wives were successful in the same way. Fishman linked the type of interactional work that the women engaged in to the maintenance household work that – in the gendered division of labor of a traditional heterosexual relationship – also typically falls on women. Consequently, she described women as “the ‘shitworkers’ of routine interaction” (Fishman 1983: 99). Other work on conversation in heterosexual relationships has found very similar patterns. Victoria DeFrancisco (1989, 1991), for instance, undertook very similar research in which seven white American couples participated. In addition to placing a tape recorder in their homes for a week to ten days, DeFrancisco also conducted follow-up interviews with her participants in which she re-played excerpts of their conversations to the partners (individually) and asked them to comment as to what they liked or disliked about a particular conversational moment. Like Fishman, DeFrancisco found that women worked harder in conversations than men. She explains that they had to because men often failed to uphold their end of the conversational bargain. Very often, they simply failed to respond to utterances directed at them, thus clearly violating a common turn-taking principle. In addition, these findings from the conversations were validated by the participants themselves in the follow-up interviews. All the women in the sample expressed concerns about the difficulties they had in engaging their husbands in conversation. One woman said: “He doesn’t talk to me! If it were up to him, we wouldn’t talk” (DeFrancisco 1991: 418). The findings of both researchers are reminiscent of Dryden’s (1999) findings, who, in interviews with British married couples, found what she terms “men’s separation behavior.” Some of the husbands in her sample went to extraordinary lengths to avoid having to speak to their wives, and, more generally, having to engage with their families: they would go off to the pub, watch TV at all times, work long hours, or simply fall asleep whenever they were in the home environment. She explains the husbands’ refusal to interact with their families as part of their efforts to maintain the status quo. The gendered division of labor in their relationships was much more advantageous for the men than for the women. Dryden (1999: 127) concludes that “silence can be a powerful weapon.” The work of these three researchers indicates that the communicative burden is unequally distributed in heterosexual relationships: if women want to talk with their partners, they have to put in some hard conversational work to achieve that aim while men use silence – that is, violations of the turn-taking system – to opt out of communicative (and, by implication, emotional?) – involvement with their partners. However, there is evidence that male taciturnity in heterosexual relationships is only one side of the coin: the work of Mary
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Talbot (1992, 1998) indicates that there may be situations where men compete with their wives for the conversational floor. This researcher analyzed a dinner table conversation in Britain with a particular focus on the contributions of a husband and wife, Sylvie and Chris. Sylvie is actually French and Chris British, but there is no indication whatsoever that Sylvie’s L1 background bears in any way upon the development of the conversation. At one point during the evening, Sylvie and Chris jointly tell a story. While they had collaboratively produced such a narration earlier in the evening, in the second instance their collaboration breaks down when the husband exclaims: “I wish you’d stop interrupting me!” Talbot explains that there had been a good deal of cooperative overlapping in the narration, but no evidence that Sylvie was “butting in.” Therefore, she suggests that Chris is not objecting to being interrupted per se, but to sharing the narration with his partner. In sum, conversation analytic work on the interactions of – a very small number of monolingual English-speaking – heterosexual couples suggests that wives and husbands have very different speaker rights. Furthermore, these different speaker rights seem to be played out differently in private and public contexts: in private contexts, men seem to withdraw from conversations with their partners, in contrast to public contexts, where they seem to take the conversational floor from their partners.
. Conclusion To date, most of the research into the linguistic practices of couples from differing linguistic backgrounds has been concerned with language choice, maintenance or shift – issues which are amenable to data collection through selfreports rather than direct observation. Much of this research – with the exceptions I have discussed – has assumed that bilingual couples choose the majority language and that intermarriage equals language shift to the majority language. The majority language is indeed a major factor to be reckoned with when it comes to marital language choice. However, the impact of the majority language upon a couple’s language choice is by no means straightforward. It is mediated by a number of factors. First, proficiency plays a crucial role. Does one or do both partners enter the relationship as bilinguals? Or do they only become bilingual as a result of their relationship? In the latter case, there may not be much of a choice, and the couple may actually choose the minority language over the majority language, as is the case with most AmericanJapanese couples in Japan. If both partners understand each other’s language,
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dual-linguality, a pattern in which each partner uses their L1 and receives the partner’s L1 in response, is a language pattern that expresses the couple’s duality very well and has excellent language maintenance results in a community where it is widely practiced, the Tucanoan. However in other communities this may not be an option if the partners do not even think of such a strategy, or if the wider community evaluates such a dual-lingual pattern negatively. Next, identities and ideologies are crucial to an understanding of the relationship between intermarriage and language choice. It appears that language shift and intermarriage can be part and parcel of a desired identity that one or both partners aspire to. The partners thus meet both as individuals and as representatives of their languages, their cultures, and their national and ethnic communities. In this way, Francophone women married to Anglophone Canadians may have to come to terms with the ideology of treason that the larger society confronts them with. Or Western wives in Tunisia may find that the neo-colonial and imperialist relations of their native countries with Tunisia and the Arab world constrain their linguistic, and also non-linguistic, practices in their marital and familial relationships. The couples’ language choices need to be clearly distinguished from those of their children. While the couple sometimes has a genuine choice to choose one language or another, or both, as the language/s of their relationship, their children do not. Their children need the majority language, not matter what, and may or may not choose to maintain bilingualism in the minority language. Gender as well as language-specific factors have been identified as central to the outcomes of the intergenerational transmission of bilingualism. Fries’ story also suggests that standard language ideologies and attitudes towards “correct usage” vis-à-vis “language-mixing” have an influence on bilingual maintenance. The attitudes of the wider community have to be considered, too, as they may work differentially depending on the languages involved. While Fries’ attempt to raise her children bilingually in English and French was applauded, Finton’s attempt to raise her children bilingually in ASL and English was denigrated. Finally, conversation-analytic approaches to monolingual couple talk provide evidence that the macro-societal context in which couples interact is also played out in the micro-detail of their conversations. The work I discussed concentrated on gender issues, and in Chapters 7 and 8 I will explore how national identities, native and non-native speaker status and ideologies of cross-cultural couplehood are played out in actual conversations.
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Chapter 3
“It needs to be natural” Building a corpus
. First steps As I pointed out in Section 2.8, it was my original vision to do work à la Pamela Fishman (1978, 1980, 1983) with bilingual couples. I expected to find a number of couples with one partner whose L1 is English and one partner whose L1 is German to tape-record their natural home interactions. Therefore, I asked three such couples, who are personal friends, to place a tape recorder in their homes and record whenever they were both present or felt there was a good moment. Two couples soon returned empty tapes to me: one with a note from the wife saying: “I just wasn’t able to find an occasion to make a recording of any kind, unfortunately.” The other couple commented that they had felt so constrained by the presence of the tape recorder that they had, for the time being, given up dinner conversations altogether. The third couple did tape themselves during a conversation. The conversation is rather short (7 minutes) and the beginning is presented in Extract 4.
Extract 4: “It needs to be natural” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Andi okay, Fern, erm it’s about nine ten right now. erm what do you think about going to the movies tonight? Fern hm. I don’t know what’s playing. Andi well, I haven’t checked the program yet. ha- have you seen the newspaper? Fern no, not at all. I haven’t seen the ads in weeks. I have no idea what’s playing. Andi the thing is that I have not kept up with new movies, so I couldn’t tell you at all. . maybe we sh- could just check on the internet. what do you think? .
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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Fern @I don’t- @[@@ Andi [@just keep on talking,@ just needs to be natural. [this is exactly what we should= Fern [I don’t think- I don’tAndi =do. it needs to be natural. yeah, okay. Fern @ I don’t think it’s listed on the internet. [I think we need to- well I think we should= Andi [yes it is. I think there is a local site for Hamburg. Fern =just buy a newspaper. Andi okay. well I know there’s a Robert de Niro movie playing at a little movie theatre somewhere in Hamburg. Fern uhmhu.
In this extract, Fern and Andi ostensibly discuss evening plans. After this initial segment they go on to discuss various evening options, from cinema to going out for dinner. They finally decide on going shopping together and agree to meet at a well-known central location in Hamburg, and devote the last segment of the conversation to discuss the exact location of that square and how it is positioned in relation to a number of Hamburg sites, including the university and the Alster, Hamburg’s inner-city lake. Listening to the conversation, one gets the impression that the couple never had any intention at all to do anything special on that evening and that they know the location of the places under discussion very well – and this is indeed what they confirmed when asked. Fern thought that it was rather ridiculous to stage such a performance of a conversation, as evidenced by her repeated giggling, her pauses, and her minimal responses which become increasingly frequent as the conversation progresses. By contrast, Andi felt that he was obliged to help me out by producing the kind of conversation he thought I needed. The conversation begins rather unnaturally with an announcement of the time (l. 1), and only a few turns into the discussion the conversation starts to stall as evidenced by Andi’s pauses (ll. 10 and 12). Fern delivers her answer laughingly and it remains unclear whether she wanted to reply to Andi’s question (e.g., “I don’t know what’s showing.”) or wanted to issue a meta-comment on their conversation (e.g., “I don’t know what we are doing here.”). Andi, who cannot stifle a laugh himself, interrupts her: “@just keep on talking,@” (l. 14). His pronouncement that this is exactly the kind of “natural conversation” they should be taping brings the conversation back on track (ll. 15; 17) although Fern’s continued resistance is obvious throughout as she becomes increasingly taciturn and restricts herself to min-
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imal responses like “uhmhu”(l. 26), and “right,” “okay,” “yeah,” “erm?” and frequent giggles later on. When I first listened to this tape, I was rather disappointed because it was not at all the kind of “natural” conversation I wanted. Now, I find it an interesting piece of negotiation of the definition of “natural couple conversation” that Fern and Andi engage in, but back in early 1997 I felt that I needed to take a different approach to data collection, particularly so as some other couples I had approached declined to tape themselves right away. It became increasingly obvious that the couples I was approaching had greater privacy issues than the couples Fishman (1978, 1980, 1983) and DeFrancisco (1989, 1991) had worked with.
. Balancing couple talk and privacy As it was still my goal to analyze couple talk, rather than to interview couples and get couple-cum-researcher talk, I had the idea that couples might very well interview each other: this way I would get information about their linguistic practices as in a semi-structured interview and at the same time I would get actual samples of couple talk. I developed a “discussion paper” with a set of interview questions, which participating couples would be able to use as a basis for their interviews of each other. I began advertising for participants in various bilingual interest publications in June 1997. These publications included newsletters such as the internationally distributed The Bilingual Family Newsletter; Polyglott, which serves bilingual families on the German national level; and three regional newsletters which serve English-speakers in various parts of Germany: Currents: Information for the English-speaking Community in Hamburg; In Touch: English Speakers in the Regio;1 and The Written Word: The newsletter for English-speaking people in Baden-Württemberg. Advertising for my research also appeared on biling-fam, an international internet mailing list for bilingual families (available through http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/bilingfam.html), and on a number of radio stations, including BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Services) and an English-speaking local station in Hamburg. My sample of bilingual couples was thus largely drawn on a voluntary, self-select basis from bilingual couples who can be reached through advertisements in bilingual interest publications, radio shows, or internet sites. However, some of the people who volunteered also sent me names and contact details of other couples, and I approached those directly. I also approached a number of couples who actively participate on the above forums as bilingual couples
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and “publish” their identities this way, through contributions to the various newsletters, postings on biling-fam, or by hosting websites dedicated to issues of bilingual partnering or parenting. This way, I hoped to collect a sample of about 30 conversations. I wanted to have about fifteen conversations from couples living in a German-speaking community, and a further fifteen from couples living in an English-speaking community. I never expected the overwhelming response I would get to my recruitment campaign. Altogether, 132 persons responded to my ads and I approached another 47. Thus, altogether I communicated with 179 couples about the research project, many of whom sent me long, detailed introductory letters about their circumstances.
. Gendered research participation The responses to the ad were heavily gendered: out of the 132 volunteers, it was the female partner who contacted me in 120 cases, and the male partner in only nine cases (in two cases the couple contacted me as a couple, and in one case the husband contacted me but expressly told me he was doing so at the request of his wife). Even more importantly, six out of the nine men who had volunteered actually participated in the research, while only 22 out of 120 female volunteers did (see Table 2). That means that women were 13 times more likely than men to be interested in research about bilingual couples and to volunteer to participate in such research, but men were almost four times more likely to get their partner to participate if they were the ones who wanted to do so (66.7% vs. 18.3%). Table 2. Gendered research participation Couple volunteered
Contact Participants Conversations
Female partner
Male partner
Both
120 22 16
9 6 6
3 3 3
Couple was approached
Total
47 26 11
179 57 36
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. Low participation rate Table 2 also shows that overall, only 57 out of 179 couples I made contact with participated (31.8%), which I found disappointingly low, particularly given that I had already engaged in extended e-mail exchanges with some of them. There is also a significant difference between the couples who volunteered to participate and those whom I approached: I approached 47 couples, and 26 out of those participated (55.3%). By contrast, only 31 couples out of 132 volunteers participated (23.5%). Why this low participation rate, particularly of people who had initially volunteered to participate? I am discussing the answers to this question in some detail here, not only in order to document how I went about my research and to be precise about the status of my data, but, even more importantly, because I believe that the low participation rate is in itself a significant indicator of marital communication processes, even if these are not necessarily communication processes specific to bilingual couples. Explanations for the low participation rate come mainly from that group of participants who participated in different ways from those that I had expected (see Table 2, “participants” vs. “conversations”). Whenever someone contacted me and volunteered, or when I approached bilingual couples, I told them that they would be expected to tape themselves during a discussion about their bilingualism. If they were happy to proceed, I sent them the following materials: a subject information statement, a discussion paper, questionnaires and a tape. This means that I have never met most of the couples who participated in this study. I expected that they would tape themselves during their discussion, fill out the questionnaire (which collects demographic information such as age, education, occupation, place of origin etc.) and return these two sets of data to me. However, only 33 out of 57 participants did exactly that while the remainder provided me with a diversity of data (see Table 3). I consider those participants who sent me either a taped conversation and the questionnaire or a monologue and the questionnaire as my core participants. Information about their social biographical backgrounds is provided in Chapter 4. From the data of those who did not tape themselves in a conversation but still returned letters and/or questionnaires to me, three reasons emerge for their participation in ways different from those I had suggested to them. First, they could not convince their partner to participate (Section 3.4.1). Second, they had issues with the content (bilingualism) or the spoken format which they had not anticipated (Section 3.4.2). Third, there were time constraints that made participation impossible (Section 3.4.3). It seems likely that these reasons also explain the low participation rate. I will now discuss each of them in detail.
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Table 3. Participants and the data they provided Data type
Total
Core data 1: Conversation and questionnaire (b1, d1, d3, d4, d5, d6, d7, d8, d9, d10, d11, d13, d14, d15, d16, d18, d19, d22, d23, d24, d25, d27, gb1, gb2, gb3, gb4, gb5, nl1, us1, us2, us3, us4, us5)* Core data 2: Monologue and questionnaire (d20, d21, d26) Conversation and questionnaire, but tape of poor quality (a1, d2, d17) Taped conversation only without any attendant information (d12)** Conversation and questionnaire, but did not fit the bilingual profile (il1) † Focus group interview and questionnaires (fg1) Letter and questionnaire Questionnaire only Total:
33
3 3 1 1 1 5 10 57
* The couple codes consist of a letter, which stands for the country in which they lived at the time of data collection, and a running number. “a” stands for “Austria,” “b” for “Belgium,” “d” for “Germany,” “gb” for “Great Britain,” “il” for “Israel,” “nl” for “The Netherlands,” and “us” for “USA.” ** d12 was sent to me anonymously: it is a short conversation (9 minutes), in English, between a man, who is obviously a speaker of Australian English, and a woman, who is an L1 German speaker. References to the city in which they live as well as the postal stamp make it obvious where they live. The conversation deals exclusively with bilingual parenting and how their situation differs from a family they know where both partners are German and who are also raising their children bilingually in English and German. †il1 is a conversation, in English, between a woman who is an L1 speaker of Polish and her partner, who has Hebrew as his L1.
.. Uncooperative husbands First, in many cases, people volunteered or agreed to participate without consulting with their partner, only to find that their partner did not want to participate. In all but one case (of those cases where I have an explanation) it was the husband, who was the reticent partner (d26 is the exception to this gender pattern). One woman provides the explanation quoted in Extract 5.
Extract 5: “I was willing” I read about your research with great interest and was willing to participate in your study but my husband absolutely refuses to take part. Sorry! I have filled out my part of the questionnaire, if that helps any. I hope your other informants are more cooperative! (underlining in the original).
Another woman writes: “My husband did not want to make a tape with me so I’m returning it.” While some women just state that their husbands chose not to participate, many more provide an explanation. The explanations for their non-cooperation vary: “I’m returning the filled out questionnaires for your research project. Unfortunately, I can’t convince my husband to make the
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recording with me (he says he’s too inhibited when a tape recorder is going).” The letter from which I took Extract 1 and Extract 2 contains this explanation: “My husband can’t find the time and probably never will so I will be doing this alone, and answering for him.” (the underlined part is in handwriting in the original, in a letter that is otherwise typed). Deborah Hauser (d20), who taped herself in a monologue, says: “I am recording this tape alone, because my husband has declined to participate. I guess you can guess which one of us is the German!” Finally, Mary, who organized the focus group interview (see Section 3.5.2), writes: “My husband (Jurist) doesn’t like to be taped but maybe I can pass on some observations to you.” G. “Jurist” translates as E. ‘jurist, legal expert, lawyer’ and the code-switch (as evidenced by the capitalization; German nouns are capitalized) also suggests that in addition to being a legal expert, it is also the fact that he is a German legal expert that keeps him from letting himself be taped. A number of women whose husbands refused to participate explain their refusal by the fact that their husbands are German. However, there is evidence in my data that American and British men can be just as reticent. Furthermore, in comparable research of American (DeFrancisco 1989, 1991) and British (Dryden 1999) couples there were also cases in which the female partner wanted to participate in the research but could not convince her partner. My data, as well as DeFrancisco’s and Dryden’s, clearly show a gendered pattern: sometimes women seem to have a hard time getting their partners to communicate in a way they would like them to – i.e. tape their home conversations as in DeFrancisco’s case, participate in an interview with a psychologist as in Dryden’s case, or engage in a discussion about bilingualism as in my research. While this pattern appears clearly gendered to an outside observer, gender is not an explanation that the spouses themselves appeal to. Their members’ understanding – in the ethnomethodological sense of everyday understandings based on assumptions that “they” (i.e., some category of people) do such things (Sacks 1992: I,179; Silverman 2001: 139–151) – explains their husbands’ refusals with their nationality (“you can guess which one of us is the German!”), their profession (“Jurist”), or their personality (“he says he’s too inhibited when a tape recorder is going”). National or cultural background becomes a convenient resource to explain issues one or both partners perceive as problematic. While some women who wanted to participate chose to adjust the research task so that they could do it on their own instead of as a couple (writing a letter, taping a monologue, organizing a focus group interview), it is likely that most women who could not get their spouse to participate simply gave up on the research, thus (partly) explaining the low participation rate. It must also be
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remembered that the research context generated a situation in which couples were publicly accountable for their relationship and an admission that one cannot get one’s partner to co-operate in one’s plans is potentially face-threatening to the couple identity (see also Chapter 7). Consequently, simply avoiding further contact with the researcher would have been the least face-threatening option for many volunteers. .. Unexpected issues with the research Secondly, some couples who volunteered had issues with the spoken format or with their bilingualism that they had not anticipated when they volunteered. Doris and William Clark (gb3), for instance, begin their conversation with a reference to such a difficulty (Extract 6).
Extract 6 (gb3): “We don’t like microphones” 1 Doris hallo, wir sind Doris und William Clark, und, 2 wir moegen eigentlich keine Mikrophone. wir 3 haetten eigentlich lieber nen Multiple-Choice4 Test gehabt. aber wir versuchen das trotzdem. 5 erm normally we speak English together. so erm 6 we are going to use English. on this tape. 7 hello, this is Doris and William Clark, and, 8 normally we don’t like microphones. we would 9 have preferred a multiple choice test. but 10 we’ll give this a try, nevertheless.
While Doris and William have obviously been able to overcome their aversion to microphones, others may not have been able to do so. This is apparent from another letter writer (Extract 7).
Extract 7: “It seemed artificial” Obwohl wir als zweisprachiges Paar (beide mit abgeschlossenem Sprachenstudium) sehr offen und bewußt mit der Zweisprachigkeit umgehen, fiel es uns dennoch schwer, eine Aufnahme zu machen. Es kam uns irgendwie künstlich vor. Although, as a bilingual couple (both with a university degree in languages), we deal very openly and consciously with bilingualism, we found it difficult to make a recording. It seemed somehow artificial to us.
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This couple is adamant that the problem is with the medium, not with content. However, for some volunteers content was also problematic (Extract 8).
Extract 8: “I have a few hang-ups about bilingualism” At the moment my husband and I are experiencing marital difficulties which are connected with my not coming to terms with life in Germany. Answering the questions would mean getting onto sensitive topics again which I would rather avoid at present. As it happens I have a few hang-ups about bilingualism which your questions expose. I’m sorry I didn’t take all this into account when I first volunteered to participate in your research.
Extract 8 seems to be in line with Fitzpatrick’s (1988: 80) observation that unhappily married couples do not volunteer to participate in research. However, this letter writer did initially volunteer, and, more importantly, there is no evidence from the recorded conversations that all the couples who recorded a conversation are happily married. Some couples have open disagreements and rows during their conversations, and while these are not necessarily indicators of an unhappy relationship, they raise issues that one or both partners perceive as problematic. On the whole, the couples who participated in this research seem a lot happier than those interviewed by Dryden (1999). All 16 couples participating in that research admitted to conflicts over the division of labor, and seven wives and one husband had been or were suffering from depression. No such grave problems are apparent in my data. However, Extract 8, as well as some of the conversations (Section 6.5) indicate that bilingualism per se as well as attendant issues such as migration were a source of conflict for a number of couples. Again, I am suggesting that, for some volunteers, the admission of such conflict was too threatening to their performance of happy couplehood for them to participate. .. Time constraints Thirdly, many couples indicated time constraints that kept them from participating or delayed their participation. Almost all the conversations came back to me with an apology for their delay. On average, it took the couples who did tape a conversation about five months to do so, from the time they first made contact with me. Many couples sent me little notes with their tapes and questionnaires in which they are saying “we’ve finally recorded the tape and filled out the questionnaire” or “I apologize for the delay, and hope it is not too late for you but now return the questionnaire and cassette.” In other cases, the time
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problem comes up during the conversation itself as in the case of Virginia and Jochen Borgert (d5). Extract 9 comes from the beginning of their conversation.
Extract 9 (d5): “We’ve got to do it before it’s too late” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Virginia erm wir machen diese Interview fuer Doktor Ingrid Piller erm jetzt wuerd ich das einmal vorlesen, Jochen Borgert, mein Mann ist sehr im Stress wie @seit zwei Monate schon.@ erm we are doing this interview for Doctor Ingrid Piller erm now I’m going to read this out, Jochen Borgert, my husband is very stressed as @he has been for the past two months.@ Jochen wie seit seiner- seit seiner Geburt= as he has been since his- since his birth= Virginia =seit seiner Geburt? [@. =since his birth? [@. Jochen [ja das ist so. [yes, that’s how it is. Virginia und heute faehrt der in zwei Stunden nach Paris und ich hab gesagt wir muessen es unbedingt fertigmachen sonst wird der Untersuchung vorbei. and today he’ll be going to Paris in two hours and I said we absolutely have to complete it otherwise the study will be over.
The conversation gets off to an obviously bad start and Jochen gets increasingly irritated with Virginia’s questions. After a while, they stop recording altogether and resume the recording a week later at a more leisurely moment. Extract 9, as well as all the apologies for delayed participation indicate that having a concentrated conversation about bilingualism together is not necessarily something that couples normally do. It may be that it is recording a conversation which is the problem, but at the same time it is hard to see how recording a conversation would be particularly time-consuming in a context where couples normally engage in such conversations. It is not only my data which point to the fact that extended conversations are not a speech event that couples habitually engage in, but also Dryden’s (1999) findings. Many of the wives in her interview study with British couples complained that their husbands did not talk to them. If extended conversations – as opposed to the exchange of tasks and
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directives involved in the organization of everyday activities – are not a regular practice in “doing couplehood” it is obvious that the extra effort required to stage such a speech event would be a further explanatory factor for the low participation rate. .. Summary In sum, the three interrelated factors of reticent husbands, discomfort of taping one’s own speech or talking about bilingualism, and extended conversations as a special speech event which requires extra staging, explain the low participation very well. In hindsight, the question is less why many volunteers did not participate but rather why so many did participate, after all. While I never asked anyone why they did participate, many couples express a sense of obligation towards me, to help me out in my work. Brendan O’Brien (d13), for instance, says: “if I- I was asked to help out or do something, then I would do as much as possible. and, if I couldn’t, then I’d explain why, and- and leave it at that.”
. “Couple talk”: Private and public .. The conversations The conversational data in my corpus, specifically the conversations from the 36 core couples (Chapter 4), form a hybrid genre that is located between private and public. At times, they are framed as private couple talk and at others as public talk for research. They are “private” in the sense that they meet my original requirement that they should be couple conversations without the presence of an interviewer. However, at the same time, many of the conversations are framed as “semi-public” in that the couples address their conversations specifically to me. Addressing themselves specifically to me, rather than to each other or in addition to each other, takes a variety of forms. These include greetings, self-introductions, pronoun use, leave-taking formulae, and asides. First, many couples begin their conversation by specifically positioning it as “for Ingrid Piller.” Extract 9 is a case in point, as is the beginning of Gerda and Shane Lambert’s (nl1) conversation (Extract 10).
Extract 10 (nl1): “Welcome to our house” 1 Shane okay. ... welcome to our house. @@@
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2 Gerda @ same from me. 3 Shane this is Shane Lambert and Gerda Lambert, from 4 the Netherlands. so let’s start with this 5 discussion paper, shall we? 6 Gerda yeah.
In addition to addressing me as the researcher specifically, many couples also introduce themselves before they begin their conversation (Extract 6 and Extract 10). Usually this introduction consists of the partners’ names, but sometimes it includes other details such as their address, age or place of birth (Extract 11).
Extract 11 (d16): “Your mother tongue is German, or what?” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Susan
Martin Frenzl, in Hamburg, at the telephone number zero zero zero zero zero zero. and our address is A-Strasse zero zero zero, zero zero zero zero zero Hamburg. erm we wanted to answer the: discussion sheet, or talk about the discussion sheet, for bilingual couples. erm I’ll just tell you a little bit about myself, and where I come from. you can say about where you come from. and then we’ll answer some of the questions. erm my name is Susan. I’m thirty years old. I grew up in B-State, USA. I’m actually thirty-one /????/ erm grew up in BState, USA, and I’ve lived in Hamburg now for six years, with?= Martin =with ME! Susan @@@ Martin my name is Martin. Frenzl. erm yeah, I’m bornI’m German, I’m born here right close to Hamburg. I don’t know whether E-Dorf sounds familiar to you. I’m thirty-four years old, and yeah, that’s it. I don’t know what else to say about myself. Susan your mother tongue is German, or what? Martin my mother tongue is German.
It is obvious that most of the information provided in Extract 11 would be irrelevant and out of place if this were nothing but a private conversation of a married couple of nine years, who can be assumed to know such basic facts
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as their address, each other’s age and place of birth, etc. The fact that this information is provided makes it clear that the conversation is simultaneously addressed to the absent researcher who will listen to the tape later on. That the conversation operates on two different levels, with two different addressees, also becomes obvious from Susan’s use of the pronoun “you”: “you” in l. 7 indexes the absent researcher: “I’ll just tell you a little bit about myself.” The following instances of “you” (ll. 8–9), however, index Martin, her husband: “you can say about where you come from.” Throughout most of the conversations there is this shifting use of the second person pronoun, particularly in the ways in which my own voice comes into the conversations through the discussion paper. Most couples read out the questions from the discussion paper, and some do so directly (e.g., “As a bilingual couple, which language do you usually speak together?”) while others adapt them (e.g., “As a bilingual couple, which language do we usually speak together?”). There are very few conversations in which either pattern is followed consistently, but couples usually use different pronouns for different questions (e.g., “As a bilingual couple, which language do you usually speak together?” and then, later on in the same conversation, “Under which circumstances do we use another language?”). One couple does not rely on the discussion paper in their conversation (d6), one couple does so in only one of their two taped conversations (d27), and three couples stop relying on it some time into the conversation (d12, d15, us5), and in these cases, the issue of pronoun choice obviously arises to a lesser degree or not at all, but these are comparatively few. Mostly, the couples go through the questions suggested in the discussion paper, one after the other. Another consequence of the dual-addressee format of the conversations is that the partners end up asking each other rather ludicrous questions, such as “your mother tongue is German, or what?” in Extract 11 (l. 23). Such a question functions as a display question on the level of the couple conversation, as the partners obviously know the answer, and as a genuine question for the benefit of the absent researcher who does not know the couple. Answers can be oriented towards both or only one of these levels. Martin in Extract 11 (l. 24) goes along with the two levels introduced into the conversation, by replying “my mother tongue is German,” which only makes sense if it is intended for the benefit of the absent researcher. By contrast, Jochen (d5) only orients towards the display question in Extract 12 and consequently gets irritated with Virginia for asking the obvious.
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Extract 12 (d5): “Why are you pestering me with this?” 1 Virginia how well do you speak each other’s language? 2 was wuerdst du sagen Jochen? 3 what would you say Jochen? 4 Jochen wieso belaestigst mich mit dem, des weisst du 5 ja dass ich ja schlecht Englisch sprech und du 6 guat weil du ja aus Amerika kommst ja? genauso 7 umgkehrt mitm Deutschen. 8 why are you pestering me with this, you know 9 this anyway that I speak English poorly of 10 course and you speak it well because you are 11 obviously American right? same thing the other 12 way round with German.
Not only does Jochen label Virginia’s questioning as “belästigen,” ‘pestering’ (l. 4), but his frequent use of “ja” (ll. 5, 6) indicates that she is asking the obvious. G. “ja” can be translated as E. ‘anyway, of course, obviously, right’ in this context, and serves as a contextualization cue (Gumperz 1992). Contextualization cues such as “ja” “serve to highlight, foreground or make salient certain phonological or lexical strings vis-à-vis other similar units, that is, they function relationally and cannot be assigned context-independent, stable, core lexical meanings” (Gumperz 1992: 232). Jochen’s repeated use of “ja” contextualizes what is being said as “stating the obvious” and, implicitly, the conversation as operating only on the couple level, rather than for the benefit of the absent researcher. Two other ways that serve to reframe the conversations from private couple conversations to conversations for a researcher are leave-taking formulae and asides to me. While some couples simply switch off the tape recorder at the end of their conversation, others explicitly re-orient towards the absent researcher with the use of a leave-taking formula such as Extract 13 from Vera Altmann and Ben Bloomberg (b1).
Extract 13 (b1): “Damit zurück nack Köln!” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ben
und erm viel Glueck mit der Forschung ne? and erm good luck with your research okay? Vera ja.= ((right.=)) Ben =damit zurueck nach Koeln! = and with this back to Cologne! Vera [@@@ Ben [@@@
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8 Vera @ins Sportstudio@ [also- tschuess!= 9 @to the sports studio@ [okay- bye! = 10 Ben [@ =tschuess. 11 ((bye.))
Vera and Ben use three different techniques to reframe their conversation from a couple conversation to one addressed to the absent researcher at the end of their conversation. First, by bringing up the topic of research and wishing me well with it. Second, by using intertextuality to allude to a famous sports show on German national public TV, called Sportstudio, which is based in Cologne. Reporters on that show usually end their interviews or reports by saying “Und damit zurück nach Köln ins Sportstudio,” ‘And with this back to Cologne, to the sports studio,’ before the host in the Cologne studio comes back on. Finally, the conversation is reframed from couple talk to talk for the researcher by the use of the farewell formula “tschüss,” ‘bye’ – they obviously do not take leave from each other but from the tape recorder. Finally, occasional asides throughout a conversation also serve to reframe the conversations from couple talk to talk for the researcher. An example comes from Christine and Brendan O’Brien’s (d13) conversation (Extract 14).
Extract 14 (d13): “This is one for you, Ingrid” 1 Brendan 2 3 4 Christine 5 Brendan 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
and, and this is one for you Ingrid, anyway by the way. why do all Germans insist that everybody who speaks English is an Englander? @ I mean I’ve been called an Englander downtown. and in fact I come from Northern Ireland. and I consider myself Irish. I’ve got Scottish friends who are in the forces as well. erm and we get insulted by the German people saying, oh look there is an Englander. when in fact we are British, Scottish, or Irish. erm we- we. TOO. are proud. from where we come from. erm just like you said Christine. you are proud to be German. I’m proud to be Irish.
In Extract 14 (l. 1) Brendan puts the conversation with his partner, Christine, on hold to address an aside directly to me. I am framed as a representative of “all Germans” (l. 2) who are criticized for labeling all English speakers as Englanders, rather than distinguishing the various British ethnic groups. Bren-
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dan cannot level this criticism at his wife, who had earlier on said that after her 14-year-marriage to a British serviceman “I can’t consider myself German anymore.” Christine seems somewhat embarrassed by her husband’s aside as her slight laugh in l. 4 indicates. Consequently, Brendan proceeds to do some face-work and explain and justify his challenge. This justification involves repeating something Christine had said earlier on (“I was always proud to be a German.”), thus enlisting his wife’s support for his argument (ll. 12–13: “just like you said Christine”), and thereby reframing the conversation yet again, away from the aside to the researcher, back to couple talk. In sum, the conversations are strictly speaking private couple conversations. However, the unique research situation makes the conversations “couple talk on display.” The participants have a number of ways to orient towards either the private or the public dimension of their taped conversation. Framing strategies that construct the conversations as public include greeting and farewell formulas addressed to the researcher, self-introductions and display questions, as well as asides. The conversations, which were specifically produced for this research, can thus be considered semi-private data. In addition, I also relied on public data that were – with the exception of the focus group interview – not specifically produced for this research. I will describe these in the next section. .. Public data Gubrium and Holstein (1987, 1990) challenge family researchers to transcend views of the family as a private domain that can only be found – and studied – in one single context, namely the private world of the home and the household. Instead, they argue that “family” is a way of interpreting, representing and ordering social relations which is not private but inextricably linked with public life. For them this has significant methodological implications for data collection in family research: “Viewed as descriptive practice, the family may be found in any setting where it becomes topical, that is, wherever it is talked about, described, challenged, praised, or explicitly dismissed” (Gubrium & Holstein 1987: 777f.). As I showed above, the conversations in my corpus form a hybrid genre between private and public talk. However, in order to understand the resources that couples draw on when they speak about their bilingualism, it is important to also understand those public discourses in which bilingual and bicultural partnering and parenting is “talked about, described, challenged, praised, or explicitly dismissed.” Those public discourses include first and foremost the newsletters and internet mailing lists I used to recruit
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the participants (Section 3.2). Readers of and contributors to these newsletters and mailing lists constitute communities of practice (Section 1.3.1) brought together by their shared interest in bilingual partnering and parenting. Consequently, I monitored the newsletters and biling-fam for a period of one year (mid-1997 to mid-1998) and collected all references to bilingual and bicultural partnering and parenting, which in the case of The Bilingual Family Newsletter, Polyglott, and biling-fam are, in effect, the complete issues. Many of the conversationalists are frequent contributors to these forums. However, throughout this book I will avoid linking public texts such as articles in newsletters, lettersto-the-editor, or list postings, to the core participants in order to protect their identities. Furthermore, there is evidence that all the volunteers read these forums, even if they do not actively participate. If they did not read the newsletters or the internet list, they would not have been exposed to the ads for my research. Furthermore, a number of couples make references to the newsletters or the mailing list during their conversations, as Joanne and Heinz Wagenbrecht (d23) do in Extract 15.
Extract 15 (d23): “This problem was discussed on the mailing list” 1 Heinz 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
ja dieses Progre- Problem ist natuerlich auch in dieser Mailing Liste erm besprochen worden, und das hat mir natuerlich auch ein bisschen mehr Sicherheit gegeben zu sagen, ja okay das ist vielleicht nicht unbedingt sehr hoeflich. aber es ist auf jeden Fall besser fuer unser Kind. und fuer die entsprechenden Anwesenden kann man eben mal ne Uebersetzung geben. was zwar nicht immer so einfach ist, aber was, glaub ich sinnvoll ist um dem Kind wirklich ne vernuenftige Sprache beizubringen. well this progre- problem was of course also erm discussed on this mailing list, and this has of course also provided me with a little more reassurance to say, yes okay this may not necessarily be very polite. but in any case it is better for our child. and one can simply translate for the respective people present. which admittedly is not always that easy, but it, makes sense I think in order to teach the child a really sensible language.
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22 Joanne ich bin sehr ermutigt worden durch das Buch the 23 bilingual family von erm Philip Ha- Harding. 24 und Edith Riley. das erm finde ich erm 25 sehr erm sehr- eine sehr grosse Anregung. 26 I have been very encouraged by the 27 book the bilingual family by erm Philip Ha- Harding. and 28 Edith Riley. I erm find that erm very erm very29 a very good stimulus.
In Extract 15, Heinz, who never posted on the mailing list during the entire year I monitored the list, shows that he is a regular, if passive, participant on the list (l. 2). He describes the discussions on the mailing list as having given him some reassurance in his parenting, particularly in the practice to speak English to his son in front of German speakers. Furthermore, Joanne refers to the book The Bilingual Family: A Handbook for Parents (Harding & Riley 1986) in the same vein (ll. 22–25): it provides encouragement and ideas for her bilingual parenting. Harding and Riley (1986) is frequently mentioned by the conversationalists, as well as in postings to the mailing list, and in references in the newsletters. It enjoys something of a “cult status” with bilingual parents and is clearly looked to as a model in decisions related to bilingualism in the family (see also Tuominen (1999) for similar findings). After the period of data collection, a new handbook for bilingual families was published (CunninghamAndersson & Andersson 1999). Both these volumes have been added to my corpus as they constitute major resources in which bilingual partnering and parenting is described. During the period of data collection, I was also collecting any references to bilingual couples – particularly couples with English and German as their languages – that I came across in the media. My corpus is therefore further supplemented by websites devoted to bilingual partnering and parenting, as well as newspaper articles and TV coverage. The issue that received the widest attention in general media at the time – as opposed to special interest publications by and for bilingual families – was the issue of international child custody cases, and specifically child abduction. While there is no evidence in the conversations that this was an issue for any of the couples themselves – and those participants I know to have split up since did not have children – child custody problems and child abduction as potential consequences of an international divorce consistently received the highest level of public attention of any aspect of bilingual partnering and parenting during the period of data collection. Consequently, there is also a public subset of my corpus that deals with interna-
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tional divorces and their consequences, including a book by a British mother whose children were abducted to Germany by their German father, They Are My Children, Too: A Mother’s Struggle for her Sons (Meyer 1999). The public data describing bilingual couples are generally written texts except for one focus group interview (fg1) I conducted with two American and two British women married to German men. These four women meet regularly once a week as an English-speaking mother-and-toddler group. One of the American women, Mary, volunteered to tape a conversation with her husband, but when her husband refused, she volunteered her mother-and-toddler group who were happy to be interviewed. The interview took place in late 1997 in Mary’s home in Hamburg. In addition to the four women and myself, five toddlers and two babies were present. The women had all seen the discussion paper and the questionnaires before the interview, and it was my plan to go over the same discussion paper that the couples were basing their conversations upon. However, the participants chose to discuss two issues almost exclusively, namely bilingual parenting and aspects of life in Germany as a foreigner, including difficulties with the “Ausländeramt,” ‘foreigners’ department’ and (the lack of) professional opportunities.
. Conclusion Silverman (2000, 2001), a sociologist, who is one of the most respected practitioners of qualitative research, has repeatedly charged qualitative research in the social sciences, including discourse analysis, with “anecdotalism,” which he defines as the “appeal to a few, telling ‘examples’ of some apparent phenomenon, without any attempt to analyze less clear (or even contradictory) data” (Silverman 2001: 34). Couple talk seems to be particularly prone to anecdotalism as some of the most widely read research on marital communication (Tannen 1986, 1990) and bilingual marital communication (Visson 1998) clearly suffers from it. In this research, I have made every effort to steer clear of anecdotalism. My efforts included accounting for my theoretical framework (Section 1.3), as well as for all aspects of data collection and analysis. In this chapter, I have accounted for my data collection by describing my corpus in full. My analysis is based upon conversational data from 36 bilingual couples (see Chapter 4 for social biographical background information for each couple) and the information they provided in a supplementary questionnaire and in letters and e-mail messages to me. These data are supplemented with a “pretest conversation” (Extract 4). They are also supplemented with data from 21 partici-
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pants whose conversations were either excluded because of poor quality (a1, d2, d17), missing additional information (d12), or because they did not fit the bilingual profile (il1), or who did not tape a conversation but provided other data (letters, questionnaires, focus group interview) (see Table 3 for an overview). Supplementary data also come from letters and e-mail exchanges I had with a total of 179 couples in preparation for the research and, with some of them, over the past four years. 122 of these are letters, notes or e-mails from volunteers who offered to participate. These range from short notes such as “We read about your research and we’d like more information” plus contact details to lengthy letters detailing the couple’s situation. Furthermore, in order to meet Gubrium’s and Holstein’s (1987, 1990) challenge to locate family in public discourses, too, public discourses that relate to bilingual parenting and partnering were also collected for a period of one year (in some instances longer). These include public discourses that bilingual couples engage in (mailing list, newsletters, websites, how-to guides for bilingual families) and public discourses that they do not participate in but that are about bilingual couples (an unsystematically collected media corpus of newspaper articles, TV shows, and the autobiographical account by Meyer (1999)). The latter were found to mention bilingual and bicultural couples almost exclusively in the contexts of international divorce and child abduction. The supplementary data will be used to triangulate my core data in this research without ignoring the contextbound nature of all interaction (Silverman 2001: 233–235). This diverse corpus is in keeping with the view that all talk is polyphonous (Section 1.3.3). The process of data collection in itself yielded a number of important findings about the communication practices of bilingual couples. To begin with, the private image of couplehood made it impossible to collect data that were both private and natural. The fact that other researchers had more luck in this respect – DeFrancisco (1989, 1991) and Fishman (1978, 1980, 1983), who found seven and three couples respectively who were willing to tape their home conversations – might be due to cultural differences between their American participants and the German-American and German-British couples I had approached. However, I can only speculate that couple talk might be less private for the former than it is for the latter. In any case, “natural” conversation is not necessarily natural at all as indicated by Extract 4. Secondly, bilingual couple talk was found to be a heavily gendered domain. The fact that the vast majority of people who volunteered to participate in my research were women indicates that private communication is mainly seen as a women’s domain, a finding echoing those of DeFrancisco (1989, 1991) for (monolingual) American couples and those of Dryden (1999) for (monolingual) British couples. At
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the same time, women volunteers were far less likely to get their husbands to participate than men volunteers were to get their wives to participate. Many women expressly explained to me that they wanted to participate but their husbands refused to. In those explanations the women rationalized their husbands’ refusals with all kinds of attributes belonging to their husbands such as nationality, profession or personality. However, the most obvious explanation, namely that there was a gendered division of communicative labor in their relationship, did not come up. Thirdly, tape-recording a conversation together meant a special time commitment for all participants suggesting that extended conversations are not necessarily “natural” speech events that couples regularly engage in. Avoiding anecdotalism also means accounting for one’s data analysis as fully as possible. My analysis in the following is based upon the conversations of the 36 core couples (Chapter 4), which have a joint length of 18 hours and 44 minutes. These were transcribed in full (see “Transcription,” pp. ix ff.) and form the basis for a comprehensive data treatment, constant comparison, deviant-case analyses and appropriate quantification (according to Silverman (2001: 236–241) these are the major methods to validate qualitative data). In addition, I will refer to supplementary data of another 2 hours and 7 minutes of spoken interactions (d12, fg1, il1), which were also transcribed in full, and numerous written texts, including letters and e-mails to myself, a year’s worth of postings to biling-fam, thirteen issues of The Bilingual Family Newsletter, nine issues of Polyglott, four issues of Currents, five issues of In Touch, twenty issues of The Written Word, various websites, newspaper articles, and three books (Cunningham-Andersson & Andersson 1999; Harding & Riley 1986; Meyer 1999). The analytic questions I will be asking of these data relate to proficiency as the basis for language choice (Chapter 5) and to language choice in the family (Chapter 6). I will also be concerned with the performance of couple identity through discourse strategies (Chapter 7) and conversational style (Chapter 8). Finally, I will focus on the issue of intergenerational transmission as it appears in private language planning (Chapter 9). A central question that runs through all these concerns relates to the ideologies and identities the couples embrace and how these public discourses are negotiated, upheld or contested in private discourse.
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The couples
This chapter provides some essential social biographical information about the couples who participated in this study. It can be read as a chapter in its own right or used for reference purposes when extracts from a couple’s conversation appear in the text. The couple codes are organized alphabetically for ease of reference. As indicated in Table 3, the couple codes are based on the couple’s country of residence at the time of data collection. “b” stands for “Belgium,” “d” for “Germany,” “gb” for “Great Britain,” “nl” for “the Netherlands,” and “us” for “the USA.” In keeping with the poststructuralist framework embraced in this work (Section 1.3), it is my intention to provide a sense of the “whole people” who participated in this research, which, for the sake of the continuity of the argument and pressures of space, it is impossible to provide in the following chapters. The accounts derive from the information the couples gave me in their questionnaires, their conversations, and any other communication I had with them in relation to the research project. All the names are pseudonyms to protect the identities of the participants. In a few cases, I have also changed geographical and occupational details if there was a danger of the couple being identifiable. As only content is relevant for this section, quotes from the conversations in this chapter may differ from extracts quoted in the remaining chapters, as German utterances have been translated into English and conversational dysfluencies have been edited out.
b1: Vera Altmann and Ben Bloomberg. At the time of data collection, Vera (38) and Ben (35) had been a couple for 12 years. Vera grew up in Germany and studied modern languages at a German university where she met Ben, who spent time there as an exchange student. Ben had grown up in Britain. His parents are German-Jewish, but he had grown up monolingual in English. He says, “my parents used German only as a secret language when I was a child, for instance to discuss what present I would be given for my birthday.” Consequently, he had to learn German “in school, the hard way.” Both Vera and Ben work as translators in Brussels and use a number of other European languages on a regular basis. They say that they usually speak German with each other
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although Ben would prefer English as their common language. Their conversation is almost entirely in German except for a few code-switches. The couple do not have any children. They contacted me voluntarily.
d1: Paola Sanso and Rob Herman. At the time of data collection, Paola (26) and Rob (27) had been a couple for two years. Paola grew up bilingual in German and Italian in Germany, and Rob grew up bilingual in English and German in Australia. However, Rob expresses a lot of insecurity about his German proficiency. Rob had been living in Germany for three years, and met Paola through his work. He is a freelance artist and she is a university student. The couple do not have any children. Their conversation is in a heavily code-switched variety. As they say themselves, they speak “very gemischt,” ‘very mixed’. Paola and Rob are very self-conscious and clearly uncomfortable during their conversation as is evident from their frequent giggling. They frame their conversation largely as some kind of language proficiency test. Paola contacted me voluntarily. d3: Cynthia and Franz Hofstedter. At the time of data collection, Cynthia (60) and Franz (61) had been a couple for ten years. They had both been widowed when they met in London at the wedding of a relative of Cynthia’s first husband, who had been German-Jewish. Now they live in Franz’ native village in Southern Germany. Franz works in a skilled trade and Cynthia is a homemaker. When they married both had adult children from their former marriages. Both say that their proficiency in the other’s language is limited, and Cynthia additionally explains that she does not understand the local dialect at all. They report that they use English with each other. The tape they sent me does not contain a conversation, but two monologues, one by Cynthia in English and one by Franz in German. I contacted the couple. d4: Anita and Werner Hofer. At the time of data collection, Anita (41) and Werner (39) had been a couple for four years. Anita, whose father migrated to the US from Germany, and whose mother was Pennsylvanian Dutch, met Werner on vacation in the Mediterranean. She moved to Southern Germany, where Werner grew up, soon after. Despite her German background Anita’s proficiency in German was limited at the time. She reports that it has greatly improved but she continues to have trouble with the local Swabian dialect, of which she claims to understand “between a quarter and a third of what they’re saying.” Werner works as a financial accountant, and Anita works part-time from home as a software developer. They have a 20-month-old daughter. Anita contacted me voluntarily, and she does most of the talking during their con-
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versation, while Werner is monosyllabic in the extreme. At one point he seems to have fallen asleep because Anita exclaims “Werner! Don’t fall asleep there!” They report that they speak German during the week and English on Sundays. The conversation starts out in English, but halfway through Anita switches to German to get Werner more involved, to little avail.
d5: Virginia Rasmussen-Borgert and Jochen Borgert. At the time of data collection, Virginia (52) and Jochen (59) had been a couple for 28 years. They met in the US, where Jochen spent time on exchange, and moved to Germany together once Jochen’s contract there ended. They both work full-time, Virginia as a social worker and Jochen as an engineer. They are both strongly committed to internationalism and have traveled in 114 countries. Virginia says “we actually live a very international partnership I think.” They report that they used to speak English for the first seven years of their relationship, but switched to German when they went on a round-the-world trip and Virginia was worried that she would lose the German she had worked so hard to acquire. Since then they have been speaking German to each other. Their tape contains two conversations: one in German where they almost have a row over participating in the research project, and a second one in English, which was taped a week later, where they have an amicable conversation, which differs strikingly in tone from the first one. Virginia and Jochen are one of the few couples to use affectionate nicknames with each other during their taped conversation. They do not have any children. I contacted the couple. d6: Olivia and Christoph Radlow. At the time of data collection, Olivia (30) and Christoph (33) had been a couple for five years. Olivia, who grew up in England, had come to Germany eight years ago, for professional reasons, and that is where she met Christoph. Both work full-time, Olivia as a translator and Christoph in a clerical position. They did not have any children, but were planning to have some in the near future. The couple report that they speak “English or German, quite haphazardly” and they worry how their future children will cope with the mixture. However, their taped conversation is entirely in German with only a very small number of lexical code-switches when they talk about things that could be considered typically English such as “school uniform” or “mantelpiece.” Olivia’s German is excellent and the only noticeable traces that suggest that she might not be an L1 speaker are some erroneous article choices. However, it is actually unclear whether she grew up bilingually in English and German or not: “I’m a mixture myself. I’ve got a German mother but grew up in England and I was actually brought up in English, up until
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adolescence, and then, well, then German was the family language. It was the language of the mother. The protection and safety.” In her questionnaire she gives “English” as her native language. Olivia contacted me voluntarily.
d7: Felicia Lincoln and Matthias Benz. At the time of data collection, Felicia (31) and Matthias (32) had been a couple for six years. They met in New York when Matthias lived there. Soon after, they moved to Germany together, where Matthias works as a psychologist and Felicia pursues university studies. They do not have any children. They claim that they are both highly proficient in both languages although Felicia only started to learn German when she moved to Germany. In their conversation they frequently code-switch. Their conversation stands out from all the others in the way they position themselves vis-à-vis the research project. Instead of taking the research seriously as all the other participants do, they treat the discussion paper as a kind of party game and poke fun at the project. For instance, at one point Matthias discusses their vacation plans and Felicia tells him to stop. When he asks why, she replies that the researcher might attempt a break-in and enter if she knew their detailed plans. Eventually, they start playing the guitar and the remainder of the tape contains guitar music. The couple contacted me voluntarily. d8: Meredith and Holger Kilger. At the time of data collection, Meredith (41) and Holger (46) had been a couple for five years. Meredith grew up in England, but has spent most of her adult life in various continental European countries as an ESL teacher. Holger grew up in Germany and has lived in his region all of his life. Both of them work full-time, Meredith as a teacher and Holger as an engineer. They have a daughter, who is two-and-a-half years old. Meredith contacted me voluntarily because, as “a ‘curer of monolinguals’ i.e. an ESL teacher(!),” she has “a professional interest in any research projects on bilingualism.” The couple report that they use a dual-lingual communication pattern in which Meredith speaks English and Holger German. In their taped conversation, they mainly stick to this pattern although Meredith also uses German in a number of turns. d9: Monika and Ian Eckmann. At the time of data collection, Monika (43) and Ian (42) had been a couple for seven years. They met in London, where Monika had been transferred by her company for a while. Monika works full-time in a clerical position while Ian states his occupation as “houseman/father.” They have one daughter who was almost two years old. The couple have attempted a role reversal of traditional gender roles. Not only is Monika the breadwinner
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and Ian the homemaker and caregiver, but they have also taken Monika’s surname as their common name. Monika says that London was “a shock” because her English was not very good, and while it improved during her stay there she says that she has now forgotten most of it again. Ian only learned German when he came to live in Germany. Their conversation is characterized by heavy code switching. Theirs is the shortest conversation because shortly into the conversation their daughter gets into some trouble with her toys. Ian contacted me voluntarily.
d10: Erika Anders and Michael Coles. At the time of data collection, Erika (34) and Michael (50) had been a couple for eight years. Erika grew up in Germany and spent some time at odd jobs in England after she had graduated from high school. Michael grew up in England but had not lived there for an extended period since his twenties. As an engineer he had worked in consultancy positions in many different countries. He met Erika in a major German city, which he has since made his base to which he returns when his jobs allow him some free time. Erika worked in various clerical positions before she became a full-time mature student. They did not have any children. Both claim to be highly proficient in each other’s languages although Michael only started to learn German informally since he had come to live in Germany. They report mixing English and German in their conversations with each other, and their taped conversation is indeed characterized by heavy code switching. The couple use terms of endearment with each other in their taped conversation. I contacted Erika. d11: Melanie Becker and Jerry Usher. At the time of data collection, Melanie (35) and Jerry (34) had been a couple for six years. Melanie’s first language is German, but she has spent a number of years in various English-speaking countries for professional reasons. She met Jerry, who is British, while on holiday and some time later he decided to brush up his O-Level German and move to Germany, where they lived at the time of data collection. Both Melanie and Jerry worked full-time, she in a paramedical profession and he as a software engineer. They did not have any children, but were planning to have some in the near future. At one point they report that they usually speak German together, but make that into “mischmasch” later on. They taped two of their conversations, two weeks apart, and both of them are almost entirely in English, except for a few lexical code switches, and a German section at the end of the second conversation, at Melanie’s suggestion: “I think Jerry, you should say a sentence or two in German now, so that she can hear @how good your German is.@” Jerry contacted me voluntarily. At the time of the conversation they
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were planning to get married, have children, and move to New Zealand. About a year after the conversation they got married, but two years later they split up over the issue of residence: Melanie decided to remain in Germany, while Jerry realized their dream and moved to New Zealand.
d13: Christine and Brendan O’Brien. At the time of data collection, Christine (32) and Brendan (34) had been a couple for 14 years. Brendan grew up in Northern Ireland and joined the British army after learning a skilled trade. During their marriage they have moved to a number of different European countries on army postings. At the time of the interview, they lived on an army compound in Germany, but were planning to move to England, as Brendan was due to retire from the army soon. Christine also worked full-time in a skilled trade. They have two daughters, aged 13 and 11, who are passive bilinguals (with German being their passive language). Brendan speaks hardly any German although he has acquired some set phrases over the years, and understands “a fair bit.” Consequently, their common language is English, and that is what they use in the taped conversation. I contacted the couple. Two years after the conversation, they moved to England, which was a compromise for them: as Brendan did not have any German he did not see any opportunities for himself in the German labor market, and Christine refused to live in Northern Ireland. d14: Solveig and Gerhard Beuys. At the time of data collection, Solveig (68) and Gerhard (69) had been a couple for 41 years. Solveig was born and raised in Norway speaking Norwegian. Gerhard was born in Germany but his family fled to Palestine in the 1930s, and then moved to the US later on. Gerhard considers German as his native language although he feels that his English is “better” than his German. The couple met in Oslo and then moved to the US together, where Gerhard was based at the time. They are both US citizens, but have been living in Germany for more than 30 years now. They speak English together. Solveig describes her German as fluent and Gerhard his Norwegian as “poor” although Solveig does not agree with that assessment. She says “at least you understand some of the Norwegian, but you also is a perfectionist, and you want to understand everything, what’s being said, and cannot . build a little bit on a few phrases that you pick up and then from that make a little bit sense of the whole con- erm conversation.” Solveig used to work as a nurse, but is now a “housewife.” Gerhard lists a number of current occupations, from “international marketing” to “conversation teacher.” The couple do not have any children. Gerhard contacted me voluntarily, and he confidently takes on the role of professional interviewer in their taped conversation, while Solveig is
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clearly less than enthusiastic about participating, and repeatedly describes the questions in the discussion paper as “wrong” or “meaningless.”
d15: Patricia and Anton Schulze. At the time of data collection, Patricia (49) and Anton (45) had been a couple for 23 years. Patricia grew up bilingually in English and Zulu in South Africa, and Anton monolingually in Germany. Anton describes his profession as “traveling merchant,” and the couple first met in Thailand, and have lived in a number of different Asian countries, in the US, and in various European countries. At the time of the interview Anton commuted between France and their home base in Germany, where Patricia pursued full-time university study as a mature student. They do not have any children. I approached the couple, who were enthusiastic to participate. Their conversation is the longest of all the taped couple conversations I received, and Patricia and Anton were so deeply into their discussion that they forgot to turn the tape over after 60 minutes and consequently felt they had to recap that part of the conversation which had been lost: “okay, this is the second side and we sort of spoke and spoke and spoke and erm we realized that the tape had stopped.” Their conversation is mainly in English although there are some extended code-switches into German. They both report being fairly fluent in each other’s languages and they engage in all kinds of word play, including throwing in some Afrikaans, French, Indonesian and Thai words. d16: Susan and Martin Frenzl. At the time of data collection, Susan (31) and Martin (34) had been a couple for nine years. Susan grew up in the US and Martin in Germany. They met on holiday in France, and soon after, Susan came to live with Martin in his German hometown. Both of them work full-time, Susan in a clerical position with an American company and Martin as a security guard. The couple do not have any children. Their conversation is in English throughout with the exception of a few lexical switches. Indeed, Susan’s proficiency in German is unclear. She says that she learned it through “learning by doing” since she came to Germany, but Martin argues that she has very little chance to practice her German as she speaks English with him, with her coworkers, and as most of their friends are English speakers. The couple split up about a year after the conversation, and Susan continues to live in Germany because she feels that she would not be able to afford the same life-style in the US on a single wage. I contacted Susan. d18: Jill Mackenzie and Astrid Keck. At the time of data collection, Jill (33) and Astrid (26) had been a couple for almost five years. Jill, who was born
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and brought up in Ireland, teaches English at German schools and Astrid, who describes herself as “Swabian,” was a full-time university student, preparing for a language teaching career. Jill has been holding limited-term contracts in various German cities for a number of years, and in one such city the couple met, but had moved to another one since. Astrid had just returned from a one-year student exchange to the USA at the time of the conversation. Both are highly proficient in each other’s language and they say that they started out speaking German, but switched to English once they became romantically involved with each other. The taped conversation is almost entirely in English with only a few lexical code-switches. The couple is the only gay couple among my participants, and they do not have any children. I contacted Jill.
d19: Jennifer Spencer and Boris Mair. At the time of data collection, Jennifer (21) and Boris (25) had been a couple for less than one year, making their relationship the shortest in my sample. They met at a German university, where Boris was enrolled as a full-time local student and Jennifer spent time on a oneyear exchange program administered by her American university. They did not have any children. Both of them grew up bilingual in English and German, as Jennifer’s mother is German and Boris’ mother was Irish. For both, their minority languages (i.e., German for Jennifer and English for Boris) are clearly their weaker languages, and Jennifer says, “Boris speaks English better than I speak German.” The couple claim that they speak “Germish” with each other, but their taped conversation is fully in English. I contacted Boris, and he also got his father, Karl Mair (d21), to participate in the project (see d21). d20: Deborah Hauser. At the time of data collection, Deborah (27), who is American, and her German husband had been a couple for three years. On her questionnaire she writes: “We’ve known each other for 6 years, but only the last 3 have been a romantic relationship; the first 3 were only a friendship.” Deborah volunteered to take part in my research project, but her husband refused to and so she taped herself in a monologue in which she speaks in English about their relationship. She says: “I am recording this tape alone, because my husband has declined to participate. I guess you can guess which one of us is the German!” The couple met at a US university where Deborah was majoring in modern languages, and where her husband taught as an international teaching assistant in the German program. After they became a couple she followed him to Germany, where he is working full-time as a secondary school teacher of English, and she is studying full-time at university and also preparing for a teaching career in English. The couple did not have any children in 1997, but were
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planning to have children. Deborah reports that they speak English together because when they first met, her husband’s English was considerably better than her German. Since then her German had improved since she had lived in the country for more than two years and attended university in German, but they continued using English with each other.
d21: Karl Mair. Karl Mair is the father of Boris Mair (d19). Karl’s Irish wife, and Boris’ mother (see d19), had passed away some years previously, and so Karl, who was 52 years old in 1997, taped himself in a monologue in which he answered the questions on the discussion paper, one after the other. Karl, who had grown up in Germany had met his wife on a business trip to Ireland. Karl and his wife used to speak English for the first five years of their marriage because “my wife was not able to speak a word of German.” For the first couple of years of their marriage they lived in Ireland, but then they spent most of their joint life in Germany and, when his wife learned more and more German, they used German increasingly in the home, too, so that for the remaining twenty years of their marriage they mainly spoke German. Karl’s monologue is completely in English, for no discernible reason. As he does not offer an explanation for his unexpected choice, I will not speculate. Maybe it did not seem unexpected to him. d22: Jane Price and Bernhard Hillmann. At the time of data collection, Jane (32) and Bernhard (32) had been a couple for five years. Jane, who has an American father and a German mother, was born in Germany, but her parents moved to the US when she was one-and-a-half years old. They returned to Germany when she was five and moved back to the States when she was 12. At 27, after she had graduated from university, she returned to Germany for a visit and attended a reunion of the class she had attended when she was 11 years old. Bernhard had been in the same class, and they got romantically involved with each other after that reunion. Jane remained in Germany, where she worked as a freelance translator as her American law degree was not recognized. Since the birth of their daughter, who was sixteen months old, she had been a fulltime mother and homemaker. Bernhard worked full-time as an architect. Jane contacted me voluntarily, stating “our case is probably not typical because I am already bilingual.” Bernhard’s English is also fairly fluent, but the couple speak German to each other. Their conversation is fully in German except for the questions from the discussion paper, which they are reading out in English. They are planning to raise their daughter bilingually by using the “one person, one language” method. At the time of their interview they were planning to
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move to the US, and it is likely that that has happened because a letter I sent them a year later was returned to me with a “moved – address unknown” note.
d23: Joanne Wagenbrecht-Myles and Heinz Wagenbrecht. At the time of data collection, Joanne (40) and Heinz (40) had been a couple for 20 years. Joanne grew up in Northern England and studied German at university. On an exchange trip to Germany she met Heinz and they have since mainly lived in Germany, but have also spent extended periods in Joanne’s native city in England. Joanne works full-time in an international managerial role but was on maternity leave at the time of data collection as their son had been born seven months ago. Heinz works full-time in a skilled trade. The couple speak German together when they are in Germany and English when they are in England because “one does not want to stand out.” However, they are considering reversing that pattern in the future so that their son will have the benefit of hearing more English in Germany. Their conversation is entirely in German. Heinz contacted me voluntarily. d24: Amy Baker-Novak and Gunther Novak. At the time of data collection, Amy (44) and Gunther (47) had been a couple for 24 years. Amy grew up in the US and Gunther in Germany. When she was 19, Amy came to spend a year as an exchange student in Germany as she was planning to become a German high school teacher in the US. However, she met Gunther in the students’ hall of residence where she lived, and stayed. Gunther works full-time as an IT professional and Amy pursues various language-related casual jobs. The couple have two children aged 17 and 15. They are both fluent in each other’s language, and normally use German with each other. Their taped conversation is mainly in German although Amy switches into English every now and then. Gunther is monosyllabic throughout the conversation. I contacted Amy. d25: Teresa Green and Max Heusinger. At the time of data collection, Teresa (23) and Max (25) had been a couple for 1.5 years. Teresa grew up in the US and majored in modern languages at university. After graduation she began work in the German office of an American company, and this is where she met Max. In 1998, Max was a full-time university student with a science major. The couple speak either English or German with each other, but insist that they avoid mixing the two languages. Consequently, they have either “Deutschzeit,” ‘German time’ or “English time.” Their conversation is in German. The couple do not have any children. Teresa contacted me voluntarily.
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d26: Blair Wilkinson-Lange. At the time of data collection, Blair (49), who is British, and his German wife had been a couple for 14 years. Like Deborah Hauser (d20), Blair recorded a monologue because his wife did not want to participate. He volunteered to participate and says, “I wanted to convince my wife to participate in this. discussion paper. but she refused to.” Like Monika and Ian Eckmann (d9), Blair and his wife had attempted a reversal of gender roles. While she continued full-time work, he was on paternity leave to care for their ten-months-old daughter. He normally works as an international truck driver, and has picked up a number of languages on his travels. The couple speak German together, and Blair even speaks mostly German during his taped monologue. As he says at one point: “why am I speaking German? I don’t know. erm. this . form is written in English. nevertheless. uh. I’ll continue trying this.” d27: Natalie Hempel and Steven Hempel-Klein. At the time of data collection, Natalie (35) and Steven (35) had been a couple for eleven years. They met at a US university where Natalie, who had grown up in Germany, spent time as an exchange student. Steven grew up in the US as the son of German immigrants, but he had refused to speak German from a very early age and had to relearn it as an L2: “by the time I was eighteen I really- I could understand some. but I had forgotten most of it. and I had to relearn it, yeah- as a second language.” Natalie has a university degree in English Studies and Steven has one in German Studies. At the time of data collection, Natalie was a full-time university student pursuing a second degree, and Steven worked in a skilled trade. They have two children, Leo (6) and Sally (4), who they are educating bilingually by following the “one person, one langugage” method. They themselves speak English with each other. Natalie contacted me voluntarily, and the couple recorded two conversations for me: one in which they go through the discussion paper together, and one in which they are playing a board game with their children. gb1: Helga and Andrew McLemore. At the time of data collection, Helga (29) and Andrew (31) had been a couple for ten years. They met in Helga’s hometown in Germany where Andrew was stationed as a British soldier. Two years prior to the interview they had moved to England where they now live on an army estate in the London region. Andrew mentions repeatedly that he is “a Scottie,” though. Andrew works full-time as a soldier and Helga works parttime as a secretary and pursues university studies part-time as a mature student, an option she thinks she would not have had in Germany. The couple have two young children aged 3 and 5. Helga contacted me voluntarily and
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she is the one who does most of the talking during the conversation while Andrew is rather monosyllabic and is repeatedly prodded by his wife to participate more: “come on. say something.” Both partners speak both languages and during their conversation they switch frequently between the two languages.
gb2: Maren and Dennis Evans. At the time of data collection, Maren (35) and Dennis (35) had been a couple for 12 years. They met in London, where Maren had migrated to “because I liked England. I loved English. I love British culture. I wanted to live here.” At the time of the interview they continued to live in the London region. Dennis serves in the navy, which takes him away from his family for weeks and months at a time, and Maren held a number of clerical positions before they had their first child. At the time of the interview she was studying graphic design. The couple have two daughters aged 7 and 5, who they are educating bilingually. Their conversation is intensely personal and they remind themselves of the tape-recorder every now and then: Maren it’s getting very personal, isn’t it? Dennis it is rather. Maren should we pass on to the next one?
The conversation is in English throughout and Dennis reports that he has only passive German skills. Maren contacted me voluntarily.
gb3: Doris and William Clark. At the time of data collection, Doris (38) and William (36) had been a couple for 17 years. They met at a British university where Doris spent time as an exchange student. At the time of the interview they lived in southern England. William has a degree in computer engineering and works in that profession. Doris has a degree in languages and used to work as a secondary school teacher, but had given up paid employment when they had their first child. In the questionnaire she describes herself as “housewife and mother.” The couple have two children aged 5 years and 18 months. They are highly committed to raising them bilingually in English and German, “to an excessive degree almost” as William says. Most of their conversation deals with bilingual education. The conversation is in English throughout, but they report that William is also a proficient speaker of German. William contacted me voluntarily, but pointed out in his contact e-mail that he did so at the request of his wife. gb4: Marga and Toni Roberts. At the time of data collection, Marga (37) and Toni (35) had been a couple for almost ten years. Both of them are medical
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doctors and they met at work in a hospital in an English city, where they continue to live. Marga grew up in Germany and Toni in Britain. Toni specializes in gerontology, and Marga had been working part-time since they had their first child. They have two children, a son who is almost four and a baby. Their conversation is entirely in English and Toni is rather defensive about the fact that he has not learned any German, apart from a few assorted phrases. He assesses his proficiency as follows: “I could say I’d like a cup of tea.” Marga contacted me voluntarily.
gb5: Hildegard Rinke-Davis and Roger Davis. At the time of data collection, Hildegard (34) and Roger (54) had been a couple for five years. Roger’s first language is Welsh and he had lived all his life in a small Welsh-speaking village. They met in Roger’s native village in Wales when Hildegard was vacationing there, and that is were they lived at the time of data collection. Roger owned the village grocery store and Hildegard, who used to work as a preschool teacher in Germany, also worked in the store. She used to work there four days a week but had cut it down to one day since the birth of their son, Felix, who was almost three years old at the time of the interview. Their conversation consists of a number of monologues in which Hildegard speaks in German and Roger in English. They relate a number of cross-cultural and linguistic problems and misunderstandings. In particular, Hildegard is disappointed that Roger has not learned any German and Roger is disappointed that Hildegard has not learned any Welsh. Their age difference is also a major cause of concern for them, which they mention repeatedly in the conversation. Roger relates this age difference to their plans to leave his native village and move to Germany: Roger [. . . ] we- we hope this year to move over to Germany. bag and baggage. and- coz- because of my age. I’m 54 now. if anything happens to me, Hildegard obviously will go back to Germany to live. and take Felix with her. so I would like to see what- what’s in front of Felix. and also erm I’ve been here 54 years. I- I’d like a move. I think it’s interesting. erm people say, oh, I gonna be homesick. no, I don’t think so. coz the village is in change. [. . . ]
When I tried to contact the couple again about a year after their conversation, the letter was returned to me with a “moved – address unknown” note, so I assume that they did indeed make that move. Hildegard contacted me voluntarily.
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nl1: Gerda and Shane Lambert. At the time of data collection, Gerda (40) and Shane (50) had been a couple for more than 10 years. Gerda grew up in Germany and Shane in Britain. Shane works as an IT professional and Gerda used to work as a sales manager but has given up paid employment since the couple moved from Germany to the Netherlands for Shane’s job. In the questionnaire, she gives her current occupation as “mother, not trained for.” The couple have two children aged seven and three. Gerda and Shane usually speak English together although Shane also speaks German very well, having lived in the country for a number of years. The couple were planning to educate their children trilingually in Dutch, English and German, but their son, who was seven at the time of the interview, had refused to speak any language other than English since he was three, and his little sister copied him in that. Shane sums up the situation as “now we are stuck as being an English speaking family. . for better or for worse.” While he is resigned to that, Gerda is not, and the language question seems to be an ongoing source of conflict between them. Shane contacted me voluntarily. us1: Corinna and Jordan Thornton. At the time of data collection, Corinna (28) and Jordan (28) had been a couple for five years. They met at university in Southern Germany, where Jordan spent time as an exchange student. After their wedding they had moved to the US three years ago. They now live in a major city in the Midwest and Jordan teaches German at high school and Corinna pursues various language-related jobs (teaching, translating) on a casual basis. They have a two-year-old son, whom they are educating bilingually by speaking mainly German at home. Both partners are highly proficient in both languages and they frequently switch between them during their conversation. Corinna contacted me voluntarily. us2: Claire Douglas and Alfred Berger. At the time of data collection, Claire (36) and Alfred (37) had been a couple for nine years. Claire was born and raised in California and Alfred in Germany. They met in the US shortly after Alfred had been sent to work there by his company. They now live in California and they both work full-time as IT professionals. They have a three-year-old son and, at the time of the conversation, were expecting their second child. The conversation is in English throughout, but the couple report that they were both using German with their son to educate him bilingually. Claire contacted me voluntarily, and they were the only couple to videotape their conversation.
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us3: Rita Schweiger and Jens Jespersen. At the time of data collection, Rita (32) and Jens (35) had been a couple for six years. Rita is from Germany and Jens from Denmark. They met in the US and continue to live there. Both of them are working full-time, Rita in a managerial role and Jens as a freelance artist. They have a two-year-old son, whom they are raising trilingually in English, German, and Danish. Their conversation is entirely in English, and they report that Jens speaks German “fairly well, but not well enough to have a quick conversation.” Rita says of her Danish that it “is @not good.@ I mean I understand a lot, but I can’t really speak very much.” The couple see themselves as cosmopolitans and are enthusiastic about linguistic and cultural diversity, and particularly the fact that their son will have three citizenships. Rita contacted me voluntarily. us4: Hannah and Allan Sinclair. At the time of data collection, Hannah (30) and Allan (33) had been a couple for seven years. Hannah’s parents are German and in her youth she moved a lot because of her father’s job. She received most of her education in the Netherlands and also started to visit the US during school holidays from an early age because she has family there. When she was 22, her company, in which she held a clerical position, sent her to work in the US, where she met Allan. Together they went to live and work in Germany for a while and Allan learned German there, but they are now settled in the US. Allan works as an engineer and Hannah has given up paid employment to look after their two children, aged two-and-a-half years and nine months. They speak German at home in order to raise their children bilingually. Their conversation is mainly in German, but also contains a number of extended switches into English. Hannah contacted me voluntarily. us5: Kate and Ernst Posner. At the time of data collection, Kate (51) and Ernst (54) had been a couple for 31 years. They met at an American university where both of them were enrolled in the German program. Kate grew up on a farm in the American Midwest, where the couple now live. Both through her Swedish father and her high-school year abroad in Switzerland she was exposed to different languages and cultures from an early age. The same is true for Ernst who grew up in Southern Germany, but whose parents were Baltic-German refugees who spoke German, Estonian, and Russian. Both Kate and Ernst teach German, and jointly they run the family farm. They have two children aged 15 and 11. They mainly use German with each other because “it needs to be in German. otherwise it doesn’t go well, and it doesn’t feel right.” Their conversation is entirely in German except for a few lexical code-switches. I contacted the couple.
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“I speak English very well” Linguistic backgrounds
. Introduction
Extract 16 (d20): “English was necessary to communicate” 1 Deborah [. . . ] “as a bilingual couple which language do 2 you usually speak together?” well, my husband 3 and I erm decided to speak English together. 4 and I guess mainly that has to do with the 5 fact, that, when I first arrived here in 6 Germany two years ago his English was 7 considerably better then my German, and in 8 order for us to communicate, even on a basic 9 level, it was- it was necessary for us to speak 10 English. [. . . ]
As a number of studies of language choice in international couples have shown, language proficiency is the most basic constraint on language choice (Walters 1996; Yamamoto 1995; see Section 2.3). Thus, for the issue of language choice even to arise, all participants in an interaction must have at least some proficiency in more than one language. This is a basic observation also made by the participants (e.g., Extract 16). In order to establish the basis from which the bilingual couples who participated in this research made their choices, I will in the following describe how they identify and describe their first and second languages, including their learning histories, and how they (collaboratively) arrive at assessments of their proficiencies in their languages. I am not concerned with objective proficiency measures or the participants’ performance on language tests in this chapter. In fact, I never collected any such data (although some of the participants thought I did). Given that success, and with it proficiency, are assessed differently by different people, “objective” measurements would be quite meaningless. Language users make those assessments on the basis of their personal needs and on the basis of what it is that they need to
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be able to do with their various languages. Instead of pseudo-objective measurements, I am interested in the ways in which the participants name and construct their languages and their proficiencies, and the ways in which they affiliate with particular linguistic groups and claim ownership of a language. In these assessments beliefs about native speaker status, language learning, language ownership, and success in second language learning find expression. The chapter is organized around L1s and L2s. I will start out with an exploration of mother tongue claiming (Section 5.2). Then, I will go on to discuss L2 learning trajectories, including beliefs about naturalistic and tutored L2 learning (Section 5.3). In Section 5.4, the focus on L2s will continue with a change of perspective. I will explore the ways in which the participants assess their L2 proficiency and their ideologies of success in L2 learning. Finally, I will argue that it is not only proficiency in the standard language that is relevant to the participants, but – in some contexts – also knowledge of various non-standard varieties (Section 5.5).
. What’s a native language? .. Participants from hybrid backgrounds My recruitment ad for research participants read, in part: “If you are a German/English bilingual couple and are interested in taking part in a research project, please get in touch with [. . . ].” In some of the print versions of the ad “German/English” was in bold font. I assumed that this would get me volunteer couples with one partner who had English as their L1 and one partner with German as their L1. However, based on information from the questionnaire, only 27 out of the 36 core couples unambiguously fit this bill, and nine do not. If one also takes information from the conversations into account another three do not fit the bill, either. Thus, 12 couples (33.3%) are “exceptional” to the expected simple pattern of an L1 English partner married to an L1 German partner. In three of these, one partner grew up monolingually, but with a language other than English or German: Solveig Beuys’s (d14) L1 is Norwegian, Roger Davis’ (gb5) is Welsh, and Jens Jespersen’s (us3) is Danish. Furthermore, there are 12 partners (from 10 couples) who grew up bilingually (Table 4). As Table 4 shows, most of the participants who grew up bi- or multilingually grew up with English and German. A number of other languages are claimed as well (Estonian, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Russian, Zulu), but in eight couples (22.2%) one partner comes from a German minority background in
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Table 4. Participants who grew up bilingually
Ben Bloomberg (b1) Paola Sanso (d1) Rob Herman (d1) Anita Hofer (d4) Olivia Radlow (d6) Gerhard Beuys (d14) Patricia Schulze (d15) Jennifer Spencer (d19) Boris Mair (d19) Jane Price (d22) Steven Hempel-Klein (d27) Ernst Posner (us5)
L1/s claimed in the questionnaire
L1/s claimed in the conversation
English German, Italian** German English English German English, Zulu English, German English German, English German, English German, Estonian
English (German, Polish)* German, Italian English, German English, German English, German English, German, Hebrew English English Germish English, German English German, Estonian (Russian)
* Languages in brackets are mentioned as having been spoken by the parents but were not passed on to the participant. ** The language order in the questionnaire column directly reflects the order in which the languages are mentioned on the questionnaire. The language order in the conversation column reflects the strength of the claim to the language. That is, the first one is claimed as a stronger language than the second.
an English-speaking context and has a partner from a German-majority background (Ben, Rob, Anita, Olivia, Jennifer, Jane, Steven), or an English minority background in a German-speaking context and has a partner from an Englishmajority background (Boris). These minority backgrounds are either due to the fact that these participants are the children of parents who both migrated (Ben, Gerhard, Steven) or who were already “mixed” English and German (Rob, Anita, Olivia, Jennifer, Boris, Jane). Interestingly enough the claims to the minority language tend to be stronger from participants with one minority parent than from those with two migrant parents – a finding that is in direct contradiction to the assumption that intermarriage results in speedier language shift then intra-ethnic marriage in minority groups. The fact that their children would return to their parents’ “origins” often came as a surprise to the parents of my bilingual participants, as Anita (d4) reports in Extract 17.
Extract 17 (d4): “Where does my daughter wind up?” 1 Anita and erm, what’s funny, when I was growing up in 2 the US. since my father had been German. he was 3 not, you know, hundred percent American. a lot 4 of things that they did in America, he didn’t 5 understand. erm like new maths was for- erm one 6 thing. and erm, so, because erm my mother’d
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7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
been an American but my parents had divorced when I was pretty early. so I always felt like I was American but not a hundred percent American. and, now I’m here in Germany and I feel like, well, part of me is German, but part of me is American. so, you know, that’s the kind of a- an odd feeling sometimes. erm so, but it’s interesting. my father says, “boy!” he says, “I immigrated to the US FROM Munich.” and he says, “where does my daughter wind up? BACK in Munich!” @@
This finding that many participants already came from bilingual backgrounds before they entered their “mixed” relationship is reminiscent of those of Varro (1998: 112–113), who says about her original 1972 sample of 146 American wives married to Frenchmen in France (the original study is reported in Varro 1984): “Only 28 percent were ‘bonafide first generation mixed couples,’ in the sense that they were the first in their respective families to have married ‘out’” (italics in the original). The figure is even more strikingly similar to those reported here for Varro’s second generation, the children of the 1972 firstgeneration American women (Varro’s second generation are closer in time to my 1997–1998 bilingual couples anyway than are her 1972 first generation): 8 out of 35 (22.9%) out of those “mixed” French-American children who had grown up with an English-speaking background in France married L1 English speakers when they were adults themselves. Table 4 also reveals considerable differences between the L1/s claimed in the questionnaire and the L1/s claimed in the conversation. How can the blatant differences, if not outright contradictions, which are apparent in most of the cases listed in Table 4 be explained? Barring the possibility that these participants are so scatterbrained that they do not know what their first language/s is/are and that they change their opinion about this fact within minutes,1 how did the questionnaire context differ from the conversational one? The questionnaire claims are in reply to the following item: “Native language/s (the language/s you first learned as a child).” The discussion paper does not contain any reference to L1s, and they were usually discussed in response to one or all of the following questions: “How well do you speak each other’s language? How did you learn it? Do you speak other languages, and do they play a role in your relationship?” Sometimes, the participants’ own bilingual upbringing, or lack thereof, was also brought up at the end of the conversation
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in response to the questions “Are you passing on both languages and cultures to your children? Why, or why not? How does it work?” The fact that the partners’ L1s were not an explicit discussion topic explains the difference in Patricia Schulze’s (d15) accounts: Zulu simply does not come up in the conversation. However, in all other cases, there are genuine contradictions, and they derive from contradicting ideologies that the participants hold, about the meanings of “bilingualism” and “monolingualism” and the relationships between ethnic and linguistic background. Specifically, they are related to blurred boundaries between three issues. First, it is not necessarily clear what a “first” and a “second” language is (Section 5.2.2). Secondly, what kinds of knowledge does one need to have to “own” a language, particularly in terms of speaking vs. writing skills (Section 5.2.3)? Thirdly, there are doubts about the legitimacy of mixed varieties, particularly in the face of powerful institutional practices that insist on the use of monolingual standard languages (Section 5.2.4). Of course, these three contradictory ideologies and discourses blend into each other and overlap, but I will explore them as separate issues in the following. .. L1 or L2? Steven Hempel-Klein (d27) put down “German, English” as his “native languages” in his questionnaire, but in the conversation German metamorphoses from “mother tongue” to “second language” (Extract 18, which also provides information about Steven’s background).
Extract 18 (d27): “I had to relearn it as a second language” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Steven
yeah, and I learned German- well my parents are German. so actually German is also my mother tongue. Natalie yeah. Steven although . I grew up in America, so I don’t know. I- at a very young age I stopped speaking German. and erm by the time I was eighteen I really- I could understand some. but I had forgotten most of it. Natalie you still had to learn it again [as a- as a= Steven [and I had to relearn it, Natalie =second language [right? Steven [yeah- as a second language.
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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Natalie Steven Natalie Steven Natalie Steven Natalie Steven Natalie Steven Natalie Steven
Natalie Steven
Natalie Steven Natalie Steven
right. although it always was familiar to me. I mean I- when I came back to Germany at eighteen, I really had- I had trouble understanding the radio. [or[really? yeah yeah. I- I couldn’t really listen to a news broadcasting and grasp everything. [so. [we’ve never talked about that before, you know that? yeah, I guess not. I don’t have a clear picture when you actually learned German again? was [that at university= [yeah. =then?= =no no. when I was [eighteen. [oder- ((or)) or you were just coming to Germany. when I came to Germany, right. right. well, maybe at seventeen, because I was here that summer when I was seventeen I guess. maybe that’s when I started again. seventeen eighteen something like that. yeah and then I just practiced listening to the radio, listening to the news, the television. [read the newspaper. [well I guess living in the country does it.= =right, and then when I was in Berlin I began taking- erm I began taking, . Deutsch als Fremdsprache ((German as a Foreign Language)) courses. oh where? at the Volkshochschule. ((Institute for Adult Education)) @ I never knew that. well, I went to the Volkshochschule ((Institute for Adult Education)) once. and then of course then I had my erm German courses at the university, and . yeah ok. so. next question.
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In Extract 18, Steven’s German metamorphoses from “mother tongue” (ll. 2– 3) via “second language” (ll. 13, 14) to “Deutsch als Fremdsprache”, ‘German as a foreign language’ (l. 44). His initial claim to German as his mother tongue is immediately modified by the concessive “although” (l. 5), the pause (l. 5), and the “I don’t know” (ll. 5–6), which throws his assessment into question. The claim to German as his “mother tongue” is modified for two reasons. First, through the concessive clause (“although . I grew up in America,” l. 5) which includes the presupposition that “real” mother tongue speakers of German do not grow up in America. Second, he explains that he stopped speaking the language from a very young age, which also modifies his claim to German as his mother tongue. The transformation from “mother tongue” to “second language” occurs when Natalie declares his re-learning process a second language learning process (ll. 10–13). A transformation, Steven first accepts (“right,” l. 15) and then rejects (“although it was always familiar to me,” l. 15). It is unclear whether the ensuing clarification (“I mean I- when I came back to Germany at eighteen, I really had- I had trouble understanding the radio.” (ll. 15–18) expands on his acceptance or rejection of Natalie’s description of his German as a second language – syntactically it expands on his “familiarity” with German, but semantically it expresses unfamiliarity rather than familiarity. The ensuing story Steven tells about his learning of German, in reply to Natalie’s questions, is the story of an adult second language learner and not of an L1 learner: he was conscious of his difficulties (“I had trouble understanding the radio.” ll. 17–18; “I couldn’t really listen to a news broadcasting and grasp everything.” ll. 20–21); he employed learning strategies (“I just practiced listening to the radio, listening to the news, the television. read the newspaper.” ll. 37–39); and he had formal tuition in it (“when I was in Berlin I began taking erm I began taking, . Deutsch als Fremdsprache ((German as a Foreign Language)) courses.” ll. 42–45; “and then of course then I had my erm German courses at the university” ll. 51–53). In sum, the contradiction between Steven’s questionnaire response and his exploration of his “mother tongue” in the conversation derives from the process of his language learning. The ways in which he learned German do not fit the prototypical process of L1 acquisition. Additionally, he expresses doubts about his German because he compares his proficiency to the proficiency of Germans who grew up in Germany as an imaginary benchmark, an issue which will be more fully explored in the next section.
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.. L1 and literacy In this section, I will mainly draw on the case of Rob Herman (d1), who put down “German” as his native language on the questionnaire, but who sees himself as the English-speaking partner in his relationship with Paola. Rob’s mother is German and his father Australian, and Rob grew up in Australia. On the questionnaire, the participants usually put down a designation for a language or two, and nothing more, except for Rob, who explains “German (we always spoke German at home until I went to school).” The comment in brackets explains an apparent contradiction as he had stated “Australia (Sydney)” in reply to a preceding questionnaire item “place of origin (in which city or region did you spend the first fifteen years of your life?).” However, in the conversation the monolingual upbringing suggested in the questionnaire becomes a bilingual upbringing when he says “I’ve always had German and English erm and Paola has always had Italian and German.” In fact, he declares English his stronger language (Extract 19) and his German in need of improvement.
Extract 19 (d1): “My German has improved” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Rob Paola Rob Paola Rob
Paola
Rob
Paola Rob
erm “has your language use changed in @the course of your relationship?@” erm= =doch. @ =I’d say so. @ well, ja. ich kann jetzt besser Deutsch. well, yes. my German has improved. auf jeden Fall. viel [besser. absolutely. much [better. [und ich bin sehr froh, dass ich nicht Schwaebisch erm gelernt habe. [and I’m so glad I haven’t erm learned Swabian. nein, in diesem Haushalt ist es auch nicht moeglich. no, that’s impossible in this household. nein. das ist nur Hochdeutsch hier. @@ no. it is only standard German here. @@ how well do you speak each other’s language? well? well? [@@@@@ [@@ ich kann es ziemlich gut sprechen. Deutsch. aber nicht so gut schreiben. ich mein,
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23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
Paola Rob Paola Rob
Paola Rob
Paola Rob Paola
es geht. aber Paola muss sehr viel korrigieren, wenn ich schreibe. [@@ I can speak it quite well. German. but I can’t write it that well. I mean, it’s okay. but Paola has to correct a lot, when I write. und wenn ich schreibe? and when I write? wenn [du Englischwhen [you English[ich meine, Englisch? [I mean, English? dein Englisch? dein Englisch ist sehr gut. und ich muss sehr wenig korrigieren, aber du hast es auch gelernt. your English? your English is very good. and I don’t have to correct much, but then you’ve learned it. das erfuellt mich mit Stolz, [danke. that makes me proud, [thanks. [und ich habe es nur ein bisschen gelernt, aber @mehr vom Ohr aufgenommen@= [and I’ve only learned it a little, but @acquired more by ear@= =was, Englisch? =what, English? Deutsch. ((German.)) ach so. @@ ((I see. @@))
In Extract 19 Rob claims to be an expert on English, but not on German, which he had identified as his “native language” in the questionnaire. He confidently assesses Paola’s English (ll. 35–37), but has his self-assessment of his German (l. 5) assessed by Paola (l. 7). In doing so, he claims ownership of English, but not of German, as it is usually the perceived owners of a language who expect to pass judgment about good usage themselves and are allowed to make such judgments by others. Additionally, Paola is positioned as an expert on German, not only because she gets to confirm Rob’s self-assessment of his proficiency (l. 7), but also because they describe her as the arbiter of Rob’s written German (ll. 23–24). Furthermore, Extract 19 contains an explanation of the reasons for
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Rob’s insecurity about his German when he contrasts his German writing skills with Paola’s English writing skills (ll. 21–24; 35–37; 43–45): ‘but then you’ve learned it. [. . . ] and I’ve only learned it a little, but @acquired more by ear@’. Here Rob is suggesting that, for him, sense of ownership of a language is not connected to native or non-native speakership, but rather to having received formal training in a language, particularly as far as writing skills are concerned. This explanation is in line with research in bilingual contexts that suggests that literacy education in the L1 boosts overall linguistic skills and educational attainment both in the L1 and the L2 (Hamers & Blanc 2000: 318–354; Oriyama 2001). Such research typically looks at proficiency measures, but Rob’s insecurity about his German confirms these findings from a different perspective: not only may limited or non-existent literacy in the minority language stunt overall linguistic growth, it may also delegitimate ownership of the language in the eyes of the speakers. .. Hybrid L1s Finally, contradictions between the L1/s claimed in the questionnaire and the conversation may be due to the fact that there are no widely accepted terms for mixed varieties – as becomes apparent in the conversation of Jennifer Spencer (d19) and her partner Boris Mair. Jennifer’s mother is German and her father American and Jennifer grew up in the US. Boris’ mother was Irish and his father is German, and Boris grew up in Germany. Jennifer stated “English, German” as her “native languages” in the questionnaire, but in the conversation it transpires that she is learning German when Boris discusses the languages in which his two sisters, Antje and Marian, are interacting with Jennifer (Extract 20).
Extract 20 (d19): “A chance to learn German” 1 2 3 4 5 6
Boris
[. . . ] well, Antje enjoys speaking English with her, erm with Jennifer, and Marian always tries to speak German so that Jennifer [can get= Jennifer [oh yes. Boris =a chance to learn German, Jennifer I really appreciate that, too.
Jennifer’s expression of appreciation at Boris’ mention of his sister’s efforts to speak German with Jennifer (l. 6) ratifies Boris’ assessment of her as a learner of German, rather than a speaker of German. At another point in the conversa-
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tion Jennifer describes how difficult it is to learn German, which also casts her as a learner of German: “erm, I like German. it’s a terrible language to learn. it’s very hard. erm well I like it because of the connections with my childhood or with my own family.” The proverb “like marries like” certainly holds true for this couple (although, in fact, they were, like many of the couples in my sample, not legally married) if one considers their linguistic stories. Like Jennifer to German, Boris is emotionally strongly attached to English (he only stated “English” as “native language” on the questionnaire), but German is by far his stronger language. Boris, who is one of the few participants I met face-toface, rather than exclusively through (e-)mail contacts, was enthusiastic when I asked him to participate in the research project. He said that bilingualism was a big issue for him and that he could tell me any number of stories how he had suffered as a bilingual child. When he began elementary school in Germany, he was initially sent to a special school for children with learning disabilities because the German he spoke at the time – which was apparently mixed with English, or, in any case, deviated from the German of his monolingual peers – was taken as evidence of a cognitive disability. In the German educational system, there are a variety of “Sonderschulen,” ‘special schools’ for children with various disabilities, such as schools for the blind, the deaf, or those with mental disabilities. While special schools for those with learning disabilities are intended to serve students with low IQs, who are not mentally disabled, or students with behavioral problems, there is evidence that a disproportionally large number of students from minority-language backgrounds are sent to these special schools because their limited proficiency in German is taken as evidence of a cognitive problem. Table 5 shows that, at any point in time since 1980, non-German students were more likely than German students to attend a special school, and the difference has been on the rise. While 4.3% of non-German students were attending a special school in 1980 (as against 3.8% German students), that figure had risen to 6.1% as against 3.7% by 1995. Table 5.* German and non-German students in special schools**
German students Non-German students
1980† Total (k)
%
1990 Total (k)
%
1995 Total (k)
%
327/8,541 28/646
3.8 4.3
207/6,102 44/780
3.4 5.6
335/9,018 56/913
3.7 6.1
* Adapted from Statistisches Bundesamt (1997: 38). ** These are all special schools for the disabled as a breakdown into different types of special schools is not available from the Bureau of Statistics. †The figures for 1980 and 1990 are for West Germany, and those for 1995 for the united Germany.
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Furthermore, the percentage of non-German students who attended special schools has always been higher than their overall presence in the German school system (Table 6). In 1980, 7.0% of all the students in the German educational system were non-German, but they made up 7.9% of students in special schools. Again, the difference has been rising, and by 1995 they made up 14.3% of students in special schools, but only 9.2% of students in the overall educational system. The official statistics in Table 5 and Table 6 provide the macro-context for Boris’ story. Boris started schooling in 1978, and the context captured in the official statistics is one of educational disadvantage in which minority students may find themselves labeled as “intellectually disabled” because the assessor in their elementary school was incapable of distinguishing between linguistic and cognitive ability. Although the statistics support Boris’ story, they do not represent him because he is a German citizen and thus would not have been captured by those statistics (see Piller 2001c for a discussion of citizenship and language in Germany). The special schools are a dead end for most students. 32.0% of non-German students left school in 1995 without a qualifying certificate, but only 14.7% of German students did (Statistisches Bundesamt 1997: 40). However, Boris fought his way back into the mainstream educational system. He told me that within half a year of his transfer to the special school he was back in a mainstream elementary school because he had decided that he would “show them” that he was “not dumb.” One can only speculate that the fact that he does not belong to a visible minority2 – he is actually stereotypically tall, blond and blue-eyed – helped in this achievement, along with his determination. For the 6-year-old Boris (as told by the 25-year-old Boris) “showing them” that he was “not dumb” meant first and foremost to stop using English. His rejection of English was so complete that, for most of his school life he was at the bottom of his class in English (which is a compulsory school subject; Section 5.3.1). Only as a young adult was he able to re-claim English and he pursued English Table 6.* Non-German students in special schools**
All school types Special schools
1980† Total (k)
%
1990 Total (k)
%
1995 Total (k)
%
646/9,187 28/355
7.0 7.9
780/6,882 44/251
11.3 17.5
913/9,931 56/391
9.2 14.3
* Adapted from Statistisches Bundesamt (1997: 38). ** These are all special schools for the disabled as a breakdown into different types of special schools is not available from the Bureau of Statistics. †The figures for 1980 and 1990 are for West Germany, and those for 1995 for the united Germany.
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Studies at university. I was able to access his proficiency scores for some of his language classes in the program, and they were all in the bottom 20% for each class. That means that most of his classmates, most of whom presumably grew up monolingually in German and for whom English was unambiguously an L2, achieved higher proficiency scores. Between Boris’ rejection of English in first grade and his reclaiming of the language by pursuing English Studies and by claiming it as his only native language in the questionnaire, lay a long and tortuous process. This involved moving from one speech therapist to the next in order to improve his German during his elementary school years. Boris’ father hints at the difficulties involved in Extract 21.
Extract 21 (d21): “Bilingual couples should make up their minds” 1 Karl [. . . ] the bilingual couples always have some 2 problems coz they’re mostly not consequent 3 enough to: speak one language in a certain 4 situation at certain places. hh. they mostly 5 mix up both languages and that causes problems 6 for the children. for example to form 7 grammatical correct sentences. and it causes a 8 lot of problems at the very beginning. hh. kids 9 sometimes can’t erm realize what- erm recognize 10 what kind of languages speaking at the time. 11 hh. cause it ca- they do think in both 12 languages. so it should be quite clever if the 13 parents make up their minds, and say, if we 14 stay at home we just speak English, and if 15 we’re outside we just speak German, or erm 16 agreement like this. certainly would be helpful 17 for bilingual couples.
Extract 21 comes right at the end of Karl’s monologue when he has answered all the questions in the discussion paper. He had already switched off the tape recorder and switches it back on for the final statement quoted in Extract 21. This gives added weight and almost a sense of urgency to the advice provided. Karl does not speak specifically about his own children, but talks about bilingual parenting generally. However, against his son’s story of the problems his bilingualism had resulted in during his early schooling, it is obvious that Karl is talking about his own experiences as a parent in a bilingual family. He seems to shoulder (some of) the blame for his son’s difficulties with the educational system by suggesting that the problems were caused because he and his wife had
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not followed an “agreement” (l. 16), a pattern of language choice (see also Section 9.6). This mixing, he says, causes “(a lot of) problems” (ll. 2, 5, 8) for the children because they get confused (ll. 8–12). Boris himself is also adamant that bilingual education has to be done correctly when he advocates consecutive bilingualism in Extract 22.
Extract 22 (d19): “Problems with language are always problems with friends” 1 Jennifer yeah. “are you passing on both languages and 2 cultures to your children? why or why not? and 3 how does it work?” we don’t have children, but 4 I would like to, you know, say we have 5 children, some day, I would like to speak both 6 with them, first get them settled in a language 7 erm you know say if we’re in Germany then they 8 would- I would want them to feel comfortable 9 with German most as- as a primary language and 10 then to add English on the side, and in America 11 the other way around. 12 Boris yes, same with me. I think it’s good to have 13 erm- to erm have been brought up bilingual but 14 there are a lot of problems which you have to 15 face, if you are- that’s not done well. but 16 first you must really get settled in one 17 language but otherwise you get mixed up. and 18 that causes problems with language, and 19 problems with language are always proble20 problems with friends, and schoolmates.
Extract 22 suggests that both Jennifer and Boris have “learned their lesson” and are in unison about the fact that an upbringing in the majority language, with the minority language “on the side” (l. 10) is the parents’ responsibility if they do not want to cause problems for their children. In this they echo Boris’ father’s view that bilingual parents should approach the issues of language choice more systematically (Extract 21). Judging from Extract 22 one would not expect that earlier in their conversation Jennifer and Boris had actually stated that “Germish” – the mixture of German and English they profess to speak – is one of the aspects of their attraction to each other (Extract 23).
Extract 23 (d19): “Germish is nice and comfortable” 1 Jennifer yeah. well I think it’s more exciting. to- I
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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Boris 10 11 12 13
don’t know, it’s more romantic in a way, when you have a cross-cultural partner. it’s more exciting. for me it’s a- erm I don’t know, it’s like a, connection with MY childhood in my German side of the family that I never could have in America. and so for ME it’s really comfortable and nice. yeah, for me it’s the same cause I used to talk English with my mother. and we talk- erm we used to talk a sort of Germish too, erm now I can do the same with my girlfriend. that’s really nice and I love it.
Against the background of Boris’ rejection of English and “Germish” as a child and his embrace of German, Extract 23 takes on a rather sad hue. Both partners are reclaiming their childhood languages in the excerpt, but Extract 21 and Extract 22 testify to the fact that ideologies of monolingualism in the standard language continue to loom large in their lives. Those ideologies are policed by powerful institutional practices, particularly those associated with the educational system, and allow for bilingualism only if it takes the form of being monolingual twice over (see also Heller 1999, 2000). Individuals such as Jennifer and Boris may find themselves producing contradictory accounts of what their “native language” is because of their emotional allegiance to the mixed varieties of their private lives and their exposure to public institutions and discourses that delegitimate those mixed varieties.
. Second language learning trajectories Except for some of the hybrid cases discussed in Section 5.2, the L1 of one partner is an L2 for the other partner. Knowledge of these L2s was, in most cases, discussed in the conversation in response to the questions “How well do you speak each other’s language? How did you learn it?” Listening to the conversations it is striking that all participants claim to know their partner’s L1. In three cases (Toni Roberts (gb4); Hildegard Rinke-Davis (gb5), and her husband Roger Davis) it is obvious that this knowledge of German (in Toni’s and Roger’s cases) and of Welsh (in Hildegard’s case) covers no more than the very basics (the numbers, ordering in a restaurant, etc.), but all others report at least some conversational abilities in their L2. What is more, 27 out of the
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69 core participants claimed that they could pass for a native speaker of their L2 in some circumstances (Piller 2002), and in a number of cases where no such claims are made there is evidence from the conversations themselves that at least one partner is a highly proficient L2 speaker. The L2 English speakers, i.e. the L1 German speakers, form a relatively homogeneous group with regard to their attitudes towards English, the opinions they express about their proficiency, as well as their learning histories. I will discuss their stories in Section 5.3.1. Learning English as a L2 was instructed language learning for all participants, and I will consequently focus on their beliefs about the comparative merits of tutored and untutored L2 learning. While all the L1 German speakers had learned English and had some knowledge of English before they met their partners, 14 of the L1 English speakers had never been exposed to German before they met their partners. In contrast to the similarity of the responses of the L1 German speakers to the questions “How well do you speak each other’s language? How did you learn it?” the L1 English speakers’ responses share far fewer similarities. This is partly due to the fact that they were educated in different educational systems (Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, United States), but also to the relative status of English and German in the world. Consequently, relatively more L2 German speakers tell stories of untutored L2 acquisition, and their views will be explored in Section 5.3.2. It is noteworthy that many participants in both groups, L2 English and L2 German speakers, studied their L2 at tertiary level and hold university degrees in English or German Studies. All of these and some others present themselves as “Anglophiles” or “Germanophiles,” and their desire for their L2 will be the focus of Section 5.3.3. .. English as a second language English is a compulsory subject in German secondary schools.3 Consequently, all but three of the participants who were educated in Germany state that they were first exposed to English through schooling (Extract 24 and Extract 25 are typical).
Extract 24 (d10): “I learned it at school” (1) 1 Erika [. . . ] “how did you learn it?” well, we both 2 know about that. I learned it at school, being 3 in love with my English teacher, which gave me 4 a lot of inspiration. [. . . ]
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Extract 25 (d4): “I learned it at school” (2) 1 Werner I learn English in- at school. erm six, six 2 years. no seven years. seven years and then I 3 have erm4 Anita for seven years? or seven years ago? 5 Werner for seven years.
The only three Germans who did not learn English as part of their secondary education are three of the older participants who completed their schooling prior to the time when English became compulsory. It is impossible to say when English became compulsory for all school types because Germany does not have a national educational system – education is the responsibility of the states, “Länder” – and most of these have a hierarchical secondary school system which streams students into three main types of secondary schools, namely one that prepares students for blue-collar work and skilled trades (“Hauptschule”), one that prepares them for clerical work (“Realschule”), and one that prepares them for university entrance (“Gymnasium”). Some states have only one type of secondary school (“Gesamtschule”), which is, however, streamed internally in a similar fashion. English started to be widely taught in the 1960s (in West Germany), and the 1970s saw a widening public debate about the need to expand foreign language teaching in secondary schools and to teach additional foreign languages, in addition to English (e.g., Haensch 1973). In the 1980s there was increasing concern that, despite almost universal English teaching in secondary schools by that time, the proficiency levels of graduates remained low, and that their English (and their French) was not adequate to the demands of the workplaces they prepared to enter (e.g., Riegel & Zahn 1989). These public and academic discourses about the insufficiency of English Language Teaching (ELT) (see Andersen 1997 for an overview) led to a further expansion of English learning and teaching in the 1990s into primary schools, and even preschools, and the introduction of immersion-type programs with English as the medium of instruction on the secondary and tertiary level (Flügel 1999; Piller 2001a). In this context it is not surprising that even the three participants who had not learned English in secondary school (Franz Hofstedter (d3); Jochen Borgert (d5); Holger Kilger (d8)), had attended English classes before they met their partners. Franz Hofstedter (d3) was 61 years old at the time of data collection and must have had his secondary education – he left school when he was 14 years old – in the immediate post-war years. Later, he attended evening classes in English at an institute for adult education (“Volkshochschule”) in order to
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be able to cope with ‘everyday needs’ (“zum taeglichen Gebrauch”) as foreman and union representative in his skilled trade. Jochen Borgert (d5) was 59 years old – like Franz he attended secondary school in the late 1940s and early 1950s when English was not part of his school’s curriculum. He first encountered English in the technical college (“Ingenieursschule”) he attended to become an electrical engineer. After graduation he won a scholarship to study and work in the USA, where he spent eight years in the 1960s and where he met his partner Virginia. Holger Kilger (d8) left school in 1966 as a 15-year-old. In 1969, he returned to secondary school through the night school system (“auf dem zweiten Bildungsweg”) to study for a school-leaving certificate that would allow him to enter university. There he had to do English for one year only and, unlike in Jochen’s case, English was not part of the curriculum of the technical college (“Fachhochschule”) he attended. He says English does ‘not play an important role’ (“keine wesentliche Rolle”) at his workplace, but, even so, he ‘got’ an English course form his company (“und ich hab 1991 erm in der Firma einen Englischkurs bekommen, .. der dauerte bis 95.” ‘and in 1991 I got an English course erm in the company, .. which lasted until 95.’). When he met Meredith in 1992, his English was still very basic as he describes in Extract 26.
Extract 26 (d8): “I brought the dictionary” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Holger
[. . . ] ich kann mich erinnern als wir das erste Mal zum Italiener gegangen sind und ich hab des deutsch-englische Woerterbuch @mitgenommen,@ [um ueberhaupt erm n paar Saetze [erm zu= [. . . ] I remember when we went out to dinner together for the first time, I @took along@ a German-English dictionary, [in order to erm talk at least [erm a few sentences. Meredith [oh yeah. [yeah. Holger =reden.= Meredith =yeah. yeah. that happened a lot in the beginning [. . . ]
Given that, with the exception of Franz, Jochen and Holger, all the participants had had English as a school subject – many of them for up to five hours a week for up to nine school years – one would assume that they should have felt highly proficient by the time they left school. However, that is not the case – on the contrary, the way in which my participants evaluate their schooling in English is reminiscent of Riegel’s and Zahn’s (1989) scathing criticism of foreign
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language teaching in German secondary schools: “Schulischer Fremdsprachenerwerb ist keine ausreichende Grundlage für eine spätere berufliche Anwendung” (quoted from Andersen 1997: 24). ‘Foreign language learning in school does not provide a sufficient basis for later use in the workplace.’ My participants echo this criticism with regard to each and every field of language use, not just the workplace. Monika Eckmann (d9), for instance, says that after six years of secondary-school English in a “Realschule” (see p. 91) she did not have ‘any English at all,’ “überhaupt kein Englisch” (Extract 27).
Extract 27 (d9): “I didn’t have any English at all” 1 Ian 2 3 4 5 6 7 Monika 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
[. . . ] “has- has- has your language changed in your relationship?” ja! es ist besser geworden. erm. Monika auch ihr English ist erm besserist behalten [weilyes! it has improved. erm. Monika, too, her English has erm improved- has kept [because[behalten! ich war- ich hatte ja ueberhaupt kein Englisch. ich muss eigentlich dazu sagen, ich bin erm . ja, so n bisschen ueberrascht worden. nach London gegangen. mit Schulenglisch. ich habe vordem meinen Englischlehrer gehasst. ich mochte diese Sprache ueberhaupt nicht. [. . . ] [kept! I was- I didn’t have any English at all. I’ve really got to add that I was erm . well somewhat taken by surprise. went to London. with school English. I used to hate my English teacher. I didn’t like this language at all. [. . . ]
When Ian suggests that Monika has retained her English because of the exposure afforded by their relationship (ll. 2–4), Monika interrupts him indignantly and contends that she had no English that could have been retained (ll. 7–8). “Schulenglisch,” ‘school English’ (l. 11) is here equated to “überhaupt kein Englisch,” ‘no English at all’ (l. 8). The reasons she gives why school English failed her are both emotional: she hated her English teacher (ll. 11–12) and she disliked the language (ll. 12–13). By contrast, Erika bears no grudge against her school English because she was in love with her English teacher (Extract 24). Another example of a harsh dismissal of “Schulenglisch” as useless comes from Melanie Becker (d11). Although she had English as a school subject for nine
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years from grade 5 to grade 13,4 she is adamant that this is not where and how she learned English (Extract 28).
Extract 28 (d11): “I certainly didn’t learn it at school” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Melanie ah, “how did you learn it?” well, how did I learn English? Jerry @ Melanie I certainly didn’t learn it at school. or at least only very little. and I went over to England for four weeks, once, and got very frustrated because I thought, god, I’ll never learn that language. and then I went erm on an agricultural exchange o- one and a half years in South Africa. and that’s actually where I learned most of my English. I mean I went back abroad another t- for another year later on, but I think the first one and a half years I went abroad that was the time when I learned English, by just working for English speaking people, and living with them, and not having any Germans around me [and that’s= Jerry [uhmhu. Melanie =how I learned the language. yeah. and that’s in my eyes most @effectively@ to learn a language. for myself at least. yeah.
Not only does Melanie deny that she learned English in the most obvious place – school – (l. 4) but she also indicates the loci where, for her, English learning did take place: during her exchange in South Africa (ll. 9–15). She thereby combines two beliefs that recur among the L2 English speakers. First, years of tutored English learning in school are considered useless. Second, it is considered best to learn a language in a naturalistic environment (ll. 19–21; see Extract 18, ll. 40–41, for another example). Such beliefs that hold the superiority of naturalistic acquisition over instructed acquisition are widespread, but need to be taken with a pinch of salt as Teutsch-Dwyer (2001) shows. This researcher followed the untutored acquisition of English by a Polish man, Karel, over a period of 14 months. Although Karel believed as strongly in naturalistic acquisition as my participants do, his English fossilized at a very early stage. His encoding of temporality, which was the focus of the study, was mainly through lexical means and grammaticalized extremely slowly, and the grammaticaliza-
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tion that was in evidence produced mostly non-target-like forms (e.g., “we eating” instead of “we are/were eating”). Such errors are also produced by the L2 English speakers in my corpus (e.g., Extract 25, l. 1: “I learn English in- at school,” instead of “I learned English in- at school.”). However, they are extremely rare and most of the participants who use their L2 in the conversations can hold their own in a conversation that involves fairly complex linguistic tasks, including reporting past events, speculating about future events, formulating and revising opinions about complex private and societal issues etc. For the L2 English speakers these high levels of obvious proficiency are also borne out by their self-assessments (Section 5.4). In sum, the routes through which the L1 German speakers acquired their L2 English are remarkably uniform: almost all of them were exposed to long years of intensive tuition in English as a foreign language in their secondary school classrooms, and, in addition, many of them had spent extended periods in a target language environment learning English naturalistically. Their evaluations of these learning trajectories are also remarkably similar: they devalue their schooling and formal language learning, and value their naturalistic language learning experiences. However, a comparison of their perceived and obvious levels of proficiency with those of untutored naturalistic L2 learners suggests that they have been highly successful L2 learners. It seems likely that their formal education in English prevented premature fossilization from occurring and helped grammaticalization to occur. .. German as a second language While all the L2 English speakers had at least some English before they met their partners, this is not true of the L2 German speakers. 17 of them had some German when they met their partners (and this includes a number of participants from bilingual backgrounds as described in Section 5.2.1), but 14 had had no exposure to German at that point. The reasons for this discrepancy are obvious. First, there is the status of English as a world language, which means that getting an education necessarily includes learning English for most nonnative speakers of English, and certainly for the Germans, as well as Danes and Norwegians, in my sample. By contrast, none of the educational systems in the English-speaking countries from which the L2 German participants hail has such a strong language requirement, and the foreign language teaching that does occur in Australian, British, and US-American secondary schools is spread out over a number of languages.
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To begin with Australia, few Australian states make the teaching and learning of a LOTE (“Language other than English”) compulsory at the secondary level (nor at the primary or tertiary level). Those that do, such as Queensland and Victoria, adopted such a policy only in the 1990s while most of my participants attended school in the 1970s and 1980s. For the LOTE teaching that occurs, a set of “priority languages” has been devised by the Commonwealth government and states are expected to concentrate on the teaching of eight “core languages” of their choice out of the following priority languages: Aboriginal languages, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Modern Greek, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese (Herriman 1996: 56). In New South Wales, the most populous state, where enrollment in a LOTE is voluntary, 80% of the students who were enrolled in a LOTE in 1998 learned one of the following four languages (in order of frequency): Japanese, French, German or Italian (Department of Education and Training NSW 1998). The situation in Britain is similar in that foreign and second languages have a precarious status in the curriculum and there is a great diversity of languages to choose from. Since 1998, Britain has had a National Curriculum, which makes some form of foreign or second language teaching compulsory for at least a few years in secondary school (Clark 2001). The National Curriculum identifies 19 languages that are eligible to be taught as foreign languages at the secondary level, namely Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Gujerati, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Urdu (Thompson, L., Fleming & Byram 1996). However, in practice this list is reduced to French, German, and Spanish, which remain the most widely taught foreign languages in Britain (Thompson, L., Fleming, & Byram 1996: 118). As for the USA, the marginal status of languages other than English – in policies if not in actual practice – there is well known: “US residents remain remarkably uninterested in developing second language proficiency or even in acquiring basic information about other peoples and their values, attitudes, and traditions” (Tucker 1994: 1). Consequently, foreign languages at the secondary level are compulsory only in a few states, and in 1991 only 40% of high school students were enrolled in a foreign language (Ricento 1996: 149). In principle, it seems that any language could be taught as a foreign language – i.e., I have not been able to find a list of priority languages or eligible languages as in Australia and Britain – but in practice French, German, Italian and Spanish are the prototypical foreign languages in the US (Ortega 1999: 244).
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The policies that shaped the foreign language learning of the L1 English participants during their secondary education thus differ from those that shaped the English learning of the L1 German participants in a number of important ways: first, the valorization of foreign languages as indicated by their status as “compulsory” or “voluntary” school subjects differs. Second, the only choice with regard to foreign languages that exists in German schools, and only in some of them, relates to acquisitional order, i.e. whether English is to be learned as the first or second foreign language. In Australian, British and US schools, on the other hand, there are a range of languages to choose from, even if German is likely to be amongst the choices offered in many of those schools. Finally, public discourse in Germany demands that success or failure of foreign language teaching be measured against the demands of the workplaces students prepare to enter. Students are thus expected to become proficient in English through schooling even if schools are frequently perceived as falling short of that aim. By contrast, there is evidence at least from the USA that such an expectation does not even exist: “[. . . ] monolingual native speakers of English are encouraged to study a foreign language during adolescence but are not expected to develop proficiency in it for actual use [. . . ]” (Ortega 1999: 246). These policy differences are reflected in the L2 German learning histories of the participants in that only very few of the participants answer “in school” to the question how they learned German. From those who do, the same sense of unimportance that characterizes the language teaching policies emerges when they describe their language learning experiences. For instance, in Extract 29 Claire Douglas (us2) describes her German classes in high school exclusively in negative or belittling terms.
Extract 29 (us2): “We played around” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Alfred Claire Alfred Claire Alfred Claire
yeah, how did you learn erm German? in high school. and then at work. uhmhu. they had class. and then by talking to you. uhmhu. so in high- in high school I had German for four years, but we didn’t really- we did- we didn’t study it that much. Alfred uhmhu. Claire we- we played around most of the- the teacher was not very good. so we didn’t learn that much. oh I took a little bit in college, too. but erm that’s it I think, [. . . ]
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As a result of the limited German teaching during their secondary education, many L2 speakers of German started to learn their L2 at a significantly older age than their L2 English speaking partners. Fourteen of them only started to learn German after they had met their partners, which seems to have jolted some of them into language learning action, as Patricia (d15) narrates:
Extract 30 (d15): “I realized I have a German husband” Patricia I learned it- yes I started to learn- I realized that’s- erm er well I have a German husband. and er it was about the time I started to learn the language. so I went to the Goethe-Institut, and I did the Grundkurs ((foundation course)) there.
The typical learning paths of the two groups – L2 English and L2 German speakers – also extend to the tertiary level: the L2 English speakers have many years of formal tuition followed by natural exposure while the L2 German speakers tend to start out with natural acquisition and may or may not undertake formal tuition “on the side.” Corinna and Jordan Thornton (us1), who both studied each other’s language at university level, compare these different trajectories. Jordan studied Spanish in high school and developed an interest in German when he visited the country after he had completed high school. When Corinna mentions her seven years of school English and her English studies at university, which had a strong literature component, Jordan points out their different acquisitional paths (Extract 31).
Extract 31 (us1): “You first learned English from books” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Jordan
und du hast English erstmal von- von Buechern gelernt und- und dann hinterher- hinterher dann- dann das geuebt und= and you first learned English from- from books and- and then later on- later on then- then you practiced it and= Corinna =uhmhu= Jordan =geprochen. wobei ich es ganz andersrum gemacht hatte. ich habe erstmal Deutsch von Deutschen gelernt, und dann erst nachher- hinterher von Buechern. =spoke it. while I did it exactly the other way round. I first learned German form Germans, and then only later- afterwards from books. Corinna ja. ((yes.))
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16 Jordan 17 18 19
oder aus Buechern. gelernt an der Universitaet, nochmal. or out of books. learned it at the university, again.
Jordan, whose German is excellent, thinks that Corinna’s English is better than his German because she has “a better foundation” – an assessment Corinna does not contradict (Extract 32).
Extract 32 (us1): “You’ve got a better foundation” 1 Jordan 2 3 4 5 6 7 Corinna
[. . . ] so ja, ich wuerd sagen, dass du eigentlich Englisch besser sprichst weil du bes- eine bessere Grundlage hast. [. . . ] so yeah, I’d say, that really you speak English better because you have bet- a better foundation. uhmhu.
While there is no evidence in my data that the L2 English speakers as a group objectively have better English than the L2 German speakers, perceptions such as Jordan’s and Corinna’s (Extract 32) are frequently expressed by couples whose proficiency levels are obviously very similar (as evidenced by their educational achievements in the language, and the conversation). It seems that the long years of formal language study – in Corinna’s case seven years at the secondary level and five years at the tertiary level – pay off for the L2 English participants in the form of confidence in their L2. It seems that long years of formal language study help to inculcate a “habitus” of confident language use. The concept of “habitus” comes from Bourdieu (1990, 1993), who describes it as a complex of beliefs and opinions internalized in the course of socialization. In sum, the two groups do not necessarily differ with regard to their L2 proficiency levels. However, they differ in their confidence in their L2. A combination of tutored and untutored L2 learning has resulted in a comparatively strong sense of L2 ownership on the part of the L2 English speakers. .. “Language desire:” Beyond secondary education
Extract 33: Language desire and language study I have to say that I have been attracted to the English-speaking culture from my earliest childhood, and I listened to BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) all afternoon. I loved the chants of the soccer fans and the
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fact that ‘love’ was such an easy word for these people. Later I chose English as a Leistungskurs [specialization for the high school diploma] and after I graduated from high school I went over to England as an au pair for a year. I majored in English for my translating and interpreting degree at X-University, and during my studies I spent another year in England as an assistant teacher. I can’t imagine a life without English and without the English culture. I would have moved to England after I graduated if I had not met my husband, who substitutes England for me here, so to speak. [. . . ] My husband has been attracted to the continent from his earliest childhood. He watched long hours of Fassbinder movies and dreamed about French cafés. But his relationship to German culture is even deeper. As a child he often came to Germany where his aunt and uncle were stationed, and also to Austria. As the son of a soldier who was fed on war comics he was fascinated by the contrast between the ‘enemy’ and the cozy-friendly Germans whom he met here. Later, he read German and French Literature at Oxford. [. . . ] [my translation]
18 of the 69 core participants (26.1%) majored in their L2 from university or were pursuing such a major at the time of data collection. Ten of these did German at an American or British university and eight did English at a German university. All of them pursued these university studies before they met their partners and, in fact, one might say that they met their partners as a direct result of their educational and career choices (as most of these met their partners while on a study abroad program). All of them express a longstanding desire for their L2 which culminated in pursuing the language in a university degree course (Extract 33). From a close inspection of the group of participants who pursued tertiary studies in their L2 a strong emotional attachment to their L2 emerges – a feeling that could be called “language desire.” They talk about dreams and desires they had in relation to their L2 even prior to their romantic involvement with their partner (Extract 33). Natalie (d27), who reads Arthurian romances in the Middle English original in her free time, also describes such strong feelings for English (Extract 34).
Extract 34 (d27): “I just like English” 1 Natalie I always @wanted to marry a cowboy.@ [@@@ 2 [. . . ] 3 Natalie like, I just said this jokingly but even as a 4 kid I always wanted to marry a cowboy. I always
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5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
liked America, and the idea of America, and having married you was NOT AT ALL coincidental, like you just happened to be American. uhmhu.
Steven [. . . ] Natalie I like English. @ I studied English. I’ve always liked English. everything that has to do with English. Old English, Middle English, American English, British English. Steven uhmhu. Natalie hell, Australian English . whatever. I’m going to be silly. Steven now I like-= Natalie =I- [I just like English.
Natalie’s declaration of love for English is one of the most extended and raving ones in all the conversations (but see also the letter extract quoted in Extract 33), but the sentiment expressed – a long-standing desire for and attachment to the L2 – is not at all rare. It comes from all those who studied their L2 at the tertiary level and also a number of those who did not, such as Maren Evans (gb2).
Extract 35 (gb2): “I loved English” Maren [. . . ] I came over because I liked England. I loved English. I love British culture. I wanted to live here.
There is evidence from around the world that foreign language study is an extremely gendered educational and career choice. For instance, in Britain, four times as many girls as boys choose A-Level French and even at the postdoctoral level women now outnumber men in modern languages (Sunderland 2000). In Japan, in 1998, according to the Japanese Ministry of Education, 67% of foreign language majors among university students were female, with English being the most popular choice (Kobayashi 2000). In Germany, in 1995, women made up 84% of all MA graduates, 80% of all teaching diploma graduates, and 66% of all recipients of a PhD in English Studies (Gohrisch 1998). These figures are also reflected in my data where 14 out of the 18 participants who pursued their L2 at the tertiary level are female. However, those four men who did major in their L2 all express similar dreams and desires as having motivated
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their educational and career choice as the women do (e.g., Extract 33). Another example comes from Steven:
Extract 36 (d27): “I used to love German” 1 Steven [. . . ] I used to love- I used to love German. I 2 mean I studied it, but I don’t know now since I 3 really don’t have much to do with the language 4 other than using it daily as a tool just to 5 communicate, and to- . yeah. just go about my 6 business I guess erm, coz I’m not really all 7 that interested any more. I’m not really 8 particularly interested in German literature 9 any more. I think. I hardly ever read anything 10 in German any more.
In sum, almost a third of the participants pursued their L2 as a major at the tertiary level. All participants in this group claim high proficiency levels in their L2. They share this claim with many participants, who did not major in their L2, but they can be regarded as representing the group of self-assessed high achievers. Majoring in the L2 always coincides with the claim to high achievement, but no other single criterion does. Closer examination of the discourses of this group reveals that, as far as confidence in the L2 is concerned there is a clear difference between the L2 English and L2 German speakers. The long years of formal study of their L2 that the L2 English speakers were exposed to socialized them into a habitus which gives them the right to speak, a strong sense of confidence in their L2 skills. Furthermore, these participants engage in discourses of “Anglophilia” or “Germanophilia,” i.e. they express a strong desire for and emotional attachment to their L2. This discourse is gendered in that it correlates with majoring in the L2. However, those few men who engaged in the same “feminine” practice of majoring in a foreign language also produce the motivational discourse of liking, love, and desire for the L2.
. “Interactive” proficiency assessment .. Introduction Having described the L2 learning trajectories of the participants and their beliefs about processes of L2 learning, I will now go on to explore the ways in which they talk about their proficiency in their L2 and their measures of suc-
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cess in L2 learning. It is important to note that these are not standardized proficiency measures, but rather explorations of the ways in which people talk about their language learning and discursively construct their proficiency and success (or failure). In addition, this discursive construction of linguistic knowledge is achieved interactively and the speakers are accountable to their partners, who are aware of their L2 use in everyday interactions and who may have issues with their partner’s efforts, or lack thereof, to learn and practice their L1. Consequently, this section explores the ways in which “linguistic knowledge” is interactively assessed. Research into proficiency assessment from a discourseanalytic perspective has only recently begun to emerge (e.g., Young & He 1998, a collection of discourse-analytic explorations of oral proficiency interviews). In this research, I have not attempted to assess the participants’ proficiency in any systematic way. Rather, I am interested in the resources the participants have at their disposal in talking about their proficiency. The most noteworthy finding of these self-assessments is the high levels of proficiency that the participants claim. Table 7 provides an overview of these self-assessments and shows that 56 participants (81.2%) express a positive assessment of their own and their partner’s L2 proficiency, with 27 (39.1%) expressing extraordinary satisfaction with their achievement, and even claiming to be able to pass for native speakers in certain circumstances (see Piller 2002 for further details). By contrast, only 13 (18.8%) take an overall negative view of their L2 proficiency. In the following I will explore what people mean when they say “I speak English very well” or “I’m fluent in German, but I don’t always speak it grammatically correct” (Section 5.4.2). Then I go on to discuss the ways in which these two groups – those who see themselves as successful L2 users and those who see Table 7. Self-assessments of L2 proficiency Self-assessment
Total
%
“very good,” “very well,” “very very well,” “perfect” “fluent, but not perfect” “pretty good,” “fairly good,” “relatively good,” “not too bad”
27 6 23
39.1 8.7 33.3
Total, positive assessment:
56
81.2
4 3 4 2
5.8 4.3 5.8 2.9
13
18.8
“not perfect,” “not brilliantly,” “not fluent” “understand everything,” “understand a lot” “can just about survive,” “can get by,” “understand some” “poorly” Total, negative assessment:
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themselves as not so successful L2 users – talk about their proficiency (Sections 5.4.3 and 5.4.4). .. Ideologies of proficiency The question on the discussion paper in response to which the self-assessments were mostly generated was “How well do you speak each other’s language?” In the discussion paper, I did not specify any specific area of proficiency. Applied linguists usually view proficiency as a cluster of separate, but often interrelated, areas. These areas are often pictured as a matrix (Mackey 1968), where the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are assessed on a number of levels (Table 8). These levels are the traditional levels of linguistic competence (phonology, grammar, lexicon, semantics, stylistics, graphics) as well as the more recently added ones of communicative competence, including discourse and cross-cultural pragmatics (see Bachman 2000). Which of the areas of linguistic proficiency captured in Table 8 are most salient to L2 users when they talk about their proficiency? Which areas matter to them and for which areas do they have discourses at their disposal? What do they want to do with their L2 in order to consider themselves successful L2 learners? Which ideologies of proficiency do they embrace? There are only very few participants who say nothing more than the evaluative labels quoted in Table 7. Most of them dwell on the question of proficiency in some detail, and they describe what they can and cannot do in their L2 as Claire (us2) does in Extract 37. Table 8. Matrix for assessing proficiency* Skills Levels
Listening
Linguistic competence Phonological Grammatical Lexical Semantic Stylistic Graphic Communicative competence** Discursive** Pragmatic** * Adapted from Mackey (1968: 557) and Romaine (1995: 13). ** Not present in Mackey’s (1968) original matrix.
Reading
Speaking
Writing
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Extract 37 (us2): “I can’t remember which sex a table is” 1 Claire but- but you know like some of the stuff like 2 your grammar like. I can’t- I don’t really know 3 how to do things with different tenses, like 4 past tense or future tense. I pretty much know 5 how to talk about right NOW. which works really 6 good, with a little kid. which is where I do 7 most of my German speaking now. but it’s a 8 limitation, I mean, it really is. and- and for 9 the life of me I cannot really remember der, 10 die or das.((the))5 I just- it’s like a table- I 11 don’t- I don’t unders- I can’t remember which 12 sex it is. @ [I just13 Alfred [a- a lot of Germans do that 14 wrong, too. [. . . ]
Overall, there are four aspects of proficiency that emerge as important to many participants. First, they make a distinction between “grammar” and “fluency” (Section 5.4.2.1). Secondly, there is a distinction between active and passive skills (Section 5.4.2.2), and, thirdly, between speaking and writing skills (Section 5.4.2.3). Finally, accent is regarded as one of the most important measures of success by many participants (Section 5.4.2.4). In the first three areas, the L1 is often taken as a benchmark, something that never happens with accent. ... Grammar vs. fluency In the research literature, fluency has often proved an elusive concept (see, e.g., Hamers & Blanc 2000 and Mitchell & Myles 1998 for introductory overviews). It is most convincingly seen as a combination of procedural knowledge (explicit grammatical rules, formulas, etc.) and communication strategies (circumlocutions, appeals for help, etc.). The ways in which the participants talk about fluency suggests that they set up a dichotomy between grammar, which seems to equate roughly with “linguistic competence,” and fluency, which in many cases equates with “communicative competence.” Patricia and Anton Schulze (d15), for instance, set up a distinction between fluency and grammatical correctness in Extract 38.
Extract 38 (d15): “I’m fluent, but make grammatical mistakes” 1 Patricia [. . . ] well I think I’m fluent in German, but I 2 don’t always speak it grammatically correct. .. 3 and erm I think you speak English pretty well,
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4 5 6 7 8 Anton 9 10 11 12
sometimes you make some mistakes but I don’t think you make as many grammatical mistakes as I do. in German. in- in English I don’t think you do it, hm? well you know I never think about it. because I’m- I’m a little bit lazy speaking any language. even German. so I don’t really find it so important to speak it erm grammatically correct.
Patricia does not seem to attach too much comparative value to grammatical correctness vs. fluency, although the term “mistake” (ll. 4; 5) is of course negatively connotated. Anton, however, explicitly claims that grammatical correctness is not particularly important to him, neither in his L1 nor in his L2. While Patricia and Anton distinguish between “fluency” and “grammatical correctness,” Erika and Michael (d10) set up a contrast between fluency and lexical knowledge in Extract 39.
Extract 39 (d10): “Who would know all those words?” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Erika
Michael Erika Michael Erika Michael Erika Michael Erika Michael
sometimes, I mean nowadays I just don’t remember the words. they used to come very easily to me, and now I sit down and think, what is- what is the right English one. and I have to ask you constantly. well, I still don’t know the words. the English words, or what? no, the German. the German words. yeah. sometimes not the English words either, my darling. of course [I know all the English words. [@/Henry James/@ yeah okay, this kind of crap, who- who would know all those words?
Like Anton in Extract 38, Michael is dismissive of certain kinds of lexical knowledge (ll. 15–16). It seems that he dismisses some aspect of the vocabulary of Henry James’ novels. It is difficult to judge whether Erika really says “Henry James” (l. 14) because of the overlap and the way she speaks it laughingly. If it is indeed “Henry James” one can only speculate that they might have
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had a discussion about some word or words used in one of his novels at an earlier point in time. It is clear, from the discussions of those participants who distinguish between fluency and some form of linguistic competence that linguistic competence is a powerful way for them in which to think about their L2 proficiency. However, at the same time, there is some indication that fluency matters more to them than some more specialized forms of linguistic competence do, as is evident from the way it is dismissed as “a lot of Germans do that wrong, too” (Alfred, Extract 37, l. 13–14), “not so important” (Anton, Extract 38, ll. 10– 11) or “this kind of crap” (Michael, Extract 39, l. 15). In these dismissals, they appeal to their knowledge of their L1 as the benchmark against which L2 proficiency should be measured. Areas of proficiency that they do not particularly value in their L1 are dismissed as not relevant in the assessment of the L2. ... Active vs. passive skills In addition to distinguishing between linguistic competence and fluency, many participants also appeal to the distinction between active and passive skills when they describe their competence in their L2. Extract 40 from Maren and Dennis’ (gb2) conversation provides an example. The couple discuss what Dennis can and cannot understand in German (there is evidence elsewhere in the conversation that his production skills are limited to set phrases and formulae): he understands what goes on around him in a German context, he understands Maren’s German interactions with their children, but he has trouble following multi-party conversations in German. Extract 40 also provides an indication how limited L2 proficiency of one partner affects linguistic practices in the relationship when Maren describes her sense of obligation to translate everything that was going on in a German context (ll. 4–10).
Extract 40 (gb2): “You understand most of it” 1 Maren 2 3 Dennis 4 Maren 5 6 7 8 9 10
well, when- you- your German is better than it was. when we first met. oh yes, certainly. although- although I feel less- be- because, I think one thing that’s changed is because I know that you- you UNDERSTAND quite a lot of German. I- I now don’t bother to translate for you. remember the first- the first time we went to Germany, I used to CONSTANTLY translate. everything that was going on.
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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Dennis that’s all right. yes. Maren and I don’t do that at all now. [because-= Dennis [no. Maren =because I know you understand most of it. andand also because I’ve got used to speaking German to the children while you- while you are at home. Dennis that’s right but, having said that I stillaround the dinner table, in Germany I still lose track of the conversation. because it- it will chop and change. I’ll be following the thread of the conversation, and it will change suddenly. and unless I pick up the thread right from the very beginning, I tend to lose the conversation. Maren yeah. but now I don’t- I don’t feel the need to translate for you so much anymore. Dennis no. [no. Maren [I mean you are all right.
... Speaking vs. writing skills The distinction between active and passive skills is mainly made by those participants who indicate limited proficiency. The distinction between speaking and writing skills, on the other hand, comes from some of those participants who consider themselves highly successful L2 learners and users. For instance, Heinz (d23), whose wife Joanne says that he is not recognized for an L2 speaker in England, says that he lacks writing skills in English (Extract 41).
Extract 41 (d23): “I lack writing skills” 1 Heinz 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
[. . . ] anfangs hat man immer noch gesagt man konnte nicht erkennen wo du herkommst. aber man hat meistens gesagt, du kamst nicht aus Hamburg. mittlerweile gibt es also kaum noch Leute die wirklich unterscheiden koennen, dass du nicht aus Hamburg kommst, neh? in the beginning people used to say they couldn’t guess where you came from. but they usually said that you weren’t from Hamburg. in the meantime, however, there is hardly anyone who can really distinguish that you don’t come
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12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
from Hamburg, right? Joanne ja. das gleiche gilt fuer dich wenn du in England b- bist. faellst du ja nicht auf dass du da Auslaender bist. ja. wir haben uns auch jeweiligen Dialekten und Slangs angeeignet. der jewe- der- unsere Heimatstaedte oder Gegend @. unsere Partnerstaedte erm angenommen. [. . . ] yes. the same goes for you when you are in England. you are not recognized for a foreigner. yes, we’ve acquired each other’s dialects and slangs. of our hometowns and regions. @ of our partner cities. [. . . ] [. . . ] Joanne [. . . ] manchmal denke ich du kennst dich besser in der englischen Sprache aus als in deiner Muttersprache. [. . . ] sometimes I think you have a better knowledge of the English language than of your mother tongue. Heinz was ich teilweise auch glaube. @@@ bei mir fehlt das erm leider noch sehr an den erm Schreibfaehigkeiten in der englischen Sprache. aber die fehlen mir leider auch in der deutschen Sprache. und dementsprechend @ist das kein sehr grosser Unterschied.@ which I partly also believe. @@@ I am erm unfortunately still lacking writing skills in the English language very much. but I lack those in the German language, too. and therefore @this is not a big difference.@
Like Alfred, Anton and Michael in Extract 37, Extract 38 and Extract 39 respectively, Heinz presents his L1 proficiency as the benchmark against which his L2 proficiency is to be measured. He claims that he does not have any writing skills in German either, and consequently the lack of writing skills does not affect his assessment of his English proficiency. Even in the absence of writing skills he can still claim that his English is “better” than his German (ll. 25–27; 31).
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... Accent Finally, the presence or absence of an L2 accent is for many participants an important measure of success, particularly for those who claim to be highly proficient. Extract 41 can serve as an example: the first aspect of their proficiency that Heinz and Joanne discuss is their ability not to be recognized for a foreigner in their L2 (ll. 1–6; 13–18). While Heinz and Joanne claim not to have an accent in their L2, Claire (us2) finds that her husband’s English is fine except that he has an accent (Extract 42).
Extract 42 (us2): “You still have some accent” 1 Alfred uhmhu. so, how- how well do I speak the English 2 language? 3 Claire actually you speak much better than you did erm 4 seven or eight years ago. you still have some 5 accent, but you actually have very good control 6 over it. getting on with some slang and stuff.
The attainability of a “native” accent for L2 speakers has been an issue of long contention in applied linguistics and is usually answered in the negative, even by researchers who do not subscribe to the critical period hypothesis, which posits maturational constraints on L2 learning. That means even researchers who accept that L2 users may reach native-like ability in all other aspects of the L2 linguistic system doubt that they can reach native-like pronunciation, a phenomenon sometimes called the “Joseph Conrad phenomenon” or the “Henry Kissinger effect” (see, e.g., Brown, H. D. 1987; Scovel 1988). However, the assumed impossibility of attaining a native-like pronunciation has recently been questioned by a number of researchers (e.g., Bongaerts 1999; Bongaerts, Mennen, & van der Slik 2000; Bongaerts, Planken, & Schils 1995; Bongaerts, Van Summeren, Planken, & Schils 1997; Ioup, Boustagui, El Tigi, & Moselle 1994; Major 1997). I do not wish to enter the debate about the critical period hypothesis, particularly in relation to pronunciation, here although some of the participants (e.g., Joanne (d23); Amy (d24)) have native-like L2 pronunciation in my judgment. However, the crucial point I want to make here is that accent is an important proficiency measure for the majority of the participants. Whether they claim to have native-like pronunciation or not, they regard such pronunciation as the ultimate measure of success. This is disturbing for applied linguists in two ways: on the one hand it is a potentially debilitating ideology for L2 users because it sets up a goal that many applied linguists would argue is impossible to achieve for late learners. On the other hand, it is clear that emerging and in-
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creasingly strong academic discourses that throw the native-speaker ideal into question (e.g., Braine 1999; Cook 1999; Coulmas 1997, 1999; Kramsch 1997; Leung, Harris, & Rampton 1997; Liu 1999; Piller 2001e; Rampton 1990, 1995) have yet to reach the objects of that discourse, the L2 users themselves. .. Speaking of success As shown in Table 7, about two-thirds of the participants take a positive view of their L2 proficiency. However, the modesty maxim (Leech 1983) mitigates against unmodified self-praise. The modesty maxim is a principle of interpersonal rhetoric which claims that the minimization of self-praise and the maximization of dispraise of self are preferred, or “felicitous” (in the terms of speech act theory), conversational moves (Leech 1983: 136–138). This includes moves such as self-dispraise, understatement of one’s achievement, or non-agreement with commendations of oneself by others. These conversational principles are thought to be conversational universals, even if operant in different degrees in different cultures (Clyne 1994; Leech 1983; Levinson 1983; Mey 1993). Consequently, talking about one’s success at L2 learning poses an obvious problem. The participants circumvent this problem by appealing to their partners for an other-assessment or by jointly praising each other’s skills. The appeal to the partner for support in the positive self-assessment seems to occur for two reasons. First, in order to comply with the conversational maxim “be modest” and, secondly, because the partner who is an L1 speaker may be perceived as a more legitimate judge than the L2 speaker her/himself. Evidence for the latter comes from one of the few unmitigated highly positive self-assessments (Extract 43). There, Rita (us3) may not feel the need to appeal to her partner for confirmation of her positive assessment of her English proficiency (“very good”) because her husband Jens has Danish as his L1, and not English, and she thus may not consider him as an appropriate judge of her English proficiency.
Extract 43 (us3): “My English was very good when I moved here” 1 Rita [. . . ] as you know, Ingrid, we speak you know, 2 we learn- I don’t even remember when we started 3 sp- learning English, but I guess it’s in the 4 fifth or sixth grade, and erm my- I had an 5 American boyfriend for a few years and that 6 definitely helped my English. otherwise I don’t 7 think I would be speaking as well as I do now. 8 and- and- because I feel my English was pretty
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9 10
much- it was very good when I moved here. it was almost probably the same as it is now.
Unmitigated positive self-assessment such as Rita’s in Extract 43 is rare in the data. The only other example comes from Matthias (d7) (Extract 44). Matthias’ and Felicia’s conversation is bantering, ironical and humorous in tone throughout and is best characterized as “arguing sociably” (Schiffrin 1984). In this context, the self-praise in Extract 44 can be understood as an ironic exaggeration, rather than the unambiguous self-commendation it seems to be.
Extract 44 (d7): “I speak really perfect English” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Felicia “how well do you speak each other’s language?” Matthias ja. ich spreche ja perfekt Englisch. besser als Felicia. well. I speak really perfect English. better than Felicia. Felicia halt’s Maul. ((shut up.)) Matthias @@@
The more typical way to state self-praise can be found in Extract 45, where Bernhard (d22) states his positive claim (“very well”; l. 1) and then mitigates it (“but not perfectly”; ll. 1–2). This gives his partner Jane a chance to confirm the positive assessment (ll. 5–6), an assessment which Bernhard can now modestly reject (l. 9). The positive assessment has been put on record, but modesty in talking about one’s own achievements has also been upheld.
Extract 45 (d22): “I speak English very well but not perfectly” 1 Bernhard erm ich sprech ganz gut Englisch aber nicht 2 perfekt. 3 erm I speak English very well but not 4 perfectly. 5 Jane naja doch d- doch du sprichst schon ziemlich 6 @gut.@ 7 oh well yes y- yes you speak quite @well@ all 8 right. 9 Bernhard nein, nein. ((no, no.))
Some participants do not engage with the question of their own proficiency at all, but either pass the question directly on to their partner as Alfred (us2) does in Extract 42 (ll. 1–2) or they simply speak about their partner’s proficiency rather than their own as Heinz (d23) does in Extract 41 (ll. 1–6). Praising the proficiency of another person constitutes an act of positive politeness
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(Brown, P. & Levinson 1987), and as such also demands some face-work (Goffman 1967) in return on the part of the recipient of the praise. Face-work in interaction can be seen as based on “reciprocity of perspectives” (Schutz 1970), in which each interactant “respects the self-presentation of the other in expectation of being accorded the same respect” (Malone 1997: 6). The reception of praise is a difficult speech act as two preferred moves clash, namely the modesty maxim and the agreement maxim (“minimize disagreement between self and other;” Leech 1983: 132). The preferred solution to this conversational problem differs across cultures as Leech (1983: 137) suggests when he says: “It appears that in Japanese society [. . . ] the Modesty Maxim is more powerful than it is as a rule in English-speaking societies, where it would be customarily more polite to accept a compliment ‘graciously’ (e.g., by thanking the speaker of it) rather than go on denying it.” In my data, where most participants have been living both cultures for a long time and many reject being ascribed one culture only, the response to praise cannot be related to cultural background, but there are simply two strategies. The face-work that follows praise may either be modest denial (e.g., Extract 45, l. 9) or praise in return (e.g., Extract 41, ll. 13–18). Such reciprocal praise as Joanne’s “yes. the same goes for you when you are in England. you are not recognized for a foreigner,” (Extract 41, ll. 13–15) may also play a role in the high number of very high proficiency claims. As many couples claim similarly high levels of achievement for both partners, it may well be the case that at least one such claim may be motivated to some extent by the need to reciprocate praise in interaction. In the conversations, face-work occurs on two levels: the couples work to manage their own self-presentations with each other, but at the same time they work to present a couple identity to the researcher. In one case (b1) where Ben does not confirm his wife’s self-praise, but rather challenges it (Extract 46, l. 7), Vera immediately chastises him for his failure to engage in the expected face-work, by banteringly calling him “Schwein,” ‘swine’ (l. 8).
Extract 46 (b1): “Swine” 1 Vera [. . . ] und obwohl wir jetzt zusammen Deutsch 2 sprechen ist mein Englisch trotzdem besser 3 geworden im Laufe der Zeit wuerd ich sagen. 4 [. . . ] and despite the fact that we now use 5 German with each other my English has improved 6 over the years nevertheless I’d say. 7 Ben ja findest du? [@ ((you really think so? [@)) 8 Vera [@Schwein.@ ((@swine@))
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.. Speaking of failure In talk about success in L2 learning modesty and positive face need to be managed. In contrast, talk about failure calls for the management of the negative face of one or both interactants. There are four ways in which this can be achieved. First, as in talk about success, relying on the partner to “condone” one’s lack of success is the strategy that is relied upon most frequently. Second, those who do not speak their L2 very well may appeal to their own agency and describe the level they have achieved as their target, or thirdly, and conversely, as outside their own control, and therefore the limit of their capability. Finally, two participants, Toni (gb4) and Roger (gb5), manage their limited success by putting down their partner’s proficiency. The first phenomenon, in which the partner becomes the arbiter of the speaker’s proficiency level was also the one most frequently observed in talk about success. An example comes from Brendan (d13), who relies on Christine to expand on his claim that he “CAN get by” (Extract 47, l. 5). Christine does not only expand his claim (“you can get across what you want to say”; l. 6), but also compares his German favorably to her family’s lack of English (ll. 7–8).
Extract 47 (d13): “I don’t speak German brilliantly” 1 Brendan 2 3 4 5 6 Christine 7 8 9
[. . . ] erm “how well do you speak each other’s languages?” well, from my point of view, Christine speaks English very very well erm and from my own view that’s again I- I don’t speak German erm brilliantly but I CAN get by. you can get across what you want to say. uhm you speak German sometimes to my parents and to my family since they don’t speak any English . you make yourself understood in German.
This strategy, in which the partner helps to manage a negative assessment, is sometimes combined with the second strategy, which is an explanation that one has achieved all one ever wanted to achieve. In Extract 48, for instance, Holger and Meredith (d8), co-construct his stopping to learn English as deliberate.
Extract 48 (d8): “It didn’t seem like it was worth carrying on” 1 Holger 2 3
[. . . ] und ich hab 1991 erm in der Firma einen Englischkurs bekommen, .. der dauerte bis 95. and in 1991 I got an English course erm in the
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4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
company, .. which lasted until 95. Meredith uhmhu. and then it didn’t seem like it was worth you carrying on, did it really? you remember how it was like? Holger ja, ne, das hat mi- hat mich nicht mehr interessiert, [weil des zu branchenspezifisch= yes, no. I- I wasn’t interested in that any longer, [because it got too work-specific,= Meredith [uhmhu. Holger =wurde, dann.= =then.= Meredith =but I think you were getting so much English anyway at home, it was- and that was the kind of English you wanted, wasn’t it, really? Holger ja. . genau. ich wollt halt diese englische Umgangssprache verstehen. [dasyes. . exactly. I just wanted to understand this English everyday language. [theMeredith [uhmhu.
Choosing the proficiency level one wants to achieve is in no way facethreatening. On the contrary, it shows that one has exerted one’s own agency and made a choice. Conversely, one can maintain one’s own face by arguing that low proficiency is due to circumstances beyond one’s control. Specifically, a few participants who have an overall negative view of their proficiency, appeal to language talent and claim that they do not have it. Extract 49 provides an example: throughout the conversation, Dennis (gb2) repeatedly appeals to his limited or non-existent capacity to learn languages (ll. 1–2; 7–8; 11–12).
Extract 49 (gb2): “My capacity for learning new languages is very poor” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Dennis [. . . ] my capacity for learning new languages is very poor. [. . . ] [. . . ] Dennis [. . . ] erm my command of other languages- I only ever had a small command of French, and that went straight out of the window when I started to learn German, and my capacity to speak three languages is nil! [. . . ]
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10 Dennis [. . . ] I mean- I mean I would LIKE to 11 be able to speak other languages but? I just don’t have 12 the capacity I’m afraid.
A talent for languages, or “language aptitude” is another heavily debated concept of applied linguistics (see, e.g., Lightbown & Spada 1999 for an overview) and the role of individual or learner characteristics in L2 learning is as yet not fully understood. However, whatever the nature of language aptitude or “capacity” may be, L2 users can use the concept as an interactional resource to explain why they have only limited proficiency in their L2 without having to consider this limited proficiency as a failure. Instead of appealing to the absence of language talent, one can also shift the blame on others, as Dennis does at another point in the conversation (Extract 50) when he argues that he cannot practice his German as much as he would like with native speakers in Germany because they all want to practice their English with him.
Extract 50 (gb2): “Everybody you meet wants to practice their English” 1 Dennis [. . . ] difficulty of course, learning German, in 2 Germany! is that, it’s very difficult to 3 practice it. because everyone you meet wants to 4 practice their English. 5 Maren yeah still. still does. 6 Dennis still the same, yeah. constantly had the same 7 problem with your family. [. . . ]
If participants blame others for their limited L2 proficiency, they always blame unspecified (“everyone”; Extract 50, l. 3) or at least absent (“your family”; Extract 50, l. 7) third parties, except for Toni (gb4), who comes close to blaming his partner for his failure to learn German in Extract 51.
Extract 51 (gb4): “The problem is that your English was pretty good” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Toni
[. . . ] erm because the erm the- the problem from my point of view is that your English was erm pretty good when I first met you, in England. and erm I’m very lazy, [so erm there wasn’t= Marga [@@@ Toni =the big- there wasn’t the big erm motive to learn German [as it- if you know I had met you= Marga [no.
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9 Toni =and had to learn [it to communicate really. 10 Marga [yes.
Not only does Toni blame Marga’s English proficiency for his failure to learn German (ll. 1–3), but he also uses all the other face-saving strategies discussed so far: he holds a character trait outside his control responsible (“I’m very lazy,” l. 4) and he invokes his own agency when he says “there wasn’t the big erm motive to learn German” (ll. 6–7). Marga supports this “self-defense,” even if only minimally, with laughter (l. 5), and a short “no/yes” (ll. 8; 10). Finally, there is one more strategy that appears in the conversations about limited success, and that is the negotiation of one’s own proficiency by putting down one’s partner’s proficiency. This is doubtlessly the least preferred way to talk about one’s limited proficiency, as is obvious from the fact that it only appears in two conversations (gb4 and gb5), and the time it takes to lead up to, utter, and then repair such a put-down (Extract 52).
Extract 52 (gb4): “You don’t understand the nuances” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Toni [. . . ] I think my German is pretty poor. uhm. Marga yeah, I- I don’t think you could communicate in German. Toni ah, I COULD communicate in German. it’s just not about very many things. Marga yes. Toni you know erm I could say “I’d like a cup of tea.” and that counts as communicating. Marga yes. Toni but I couldn’t erm have a conversation [of any= Marga [no. Toni =interest. erm maybe that’s not a bad thing. [. . . ] [. . . ] Toni now that’s not strictly true, [because we’ve= Marga [@@ Toni =just listened to the tape and, erm we’ve realized that erm something that we haven’t mentioned is the erm fact that although we erm use English as our main language, which is the language we use to talk to each other, but erm there are still erm some words that you’d still struggle with. and- and stumble over. and
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24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
Marga Toni
Marga Toni
Marga Toni Marga Toni
Marga Toni
perhaps you use not quite the right word. and I don’t always remember and make allowances for it. so I can take it literally. [erm we just= [uhmhu. =earlier on in the tape, because you- you said you didn’t think that I could- you said that you didn’t think I could [communicate. [communicate. in German. in German. and erm I took that as meaning I couldn’t communicate as in not able to erm erm erm let anybody know what I was thinking AT ALL. in any way whatsoever. erm whereas when I went on in- in that sort of pedantic way erm erm I pointed out I COULD communicate and really I think erm you were saying when we were listening to this tape again that erm you really would have meant converse. uhmhu. like you know I couldn’t have a conversation. yes. erm but . . . erm I think that erm thing about language and- and certainly coming as a second language and using that predominantly is that although you get very good at it, you don’t erm understand I- I don’t mean you as in you individually, but you as in one. one doesn’t necessarily understand all the nuances [erm= [yes. =very well.
The conversational trouble in Extract 52 starts when Marga does not reply to Toni’s self-assessment “pretty poor” (l. 1) with some expansion or re-assurance, as, for instance, Christine does at a similar point in that conversation (Extract 47, ll. 6–9). When Marga agrees with Toni’s assessment (ll. 2–3), she abides by some form of the “maxim of quality” (Grice 1975; see Mey 1993 for an overview), i.e. she is truthful, and thereby flouts the politeness maxim, which would call for attention to her partner’s face. It is often reported in the literature on cross-cultural communication that in Anglo-Saxon cultures the politeness maxim overrides the quality maxim in case of a clash and that the
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reverse is true of Germanic cultures (e.g., Kotthoff 1989). House (1996a, 1996b, 1997a, 1997b) describes a cline from the indirect, implicit, and addressee- and other oriented Anglo-Saxon speech styles to the direct, explicit, content- and self-oriented German speech styles. In my data – where all participants have had many years’ of experience with both cultures – this is the only instance which could be interpreted as such a cross-cultural misunderstanding. Furthermore, in return, Toni also gives preference to quality over politeness when he challenges the accuracy of Marga’s assessment in ll. 4–12. At this point the conversation moves on to another topic (L2 learning history) before returning to it at the very end of their conversation. Marga and Toni had already switched off the tape and listened to it (as they explain in ll. 15–17), and ll. 15ff. are thus something of a “postscript” to both their conversation as a whole and, specifically, the proficiency assessment in ll. 1–12 and earlier (see also Extract 51). The “postscript” is specifically motivated by the discussion over Toni’s communicative ability (ll. 4–12), as Toni points out in ll. 28–43. This lengthy explanation that Toni engages in and that is only punctuated by brief minimal responses on Marga’s part (ll. 27; 42; 44; 52) is part of the put-down, with which Toni goes on record in ll. 17–24: “we’ve realised that erm something that we haven’t mentioned is the erm fact that [. . . ] there are still erm some words that you’d still struggle with. and- and stumble over. and perhaps you use not quite the right word.” This criticism gains additional weight from the fact that it comes after the main conversation and that it was considered important enough to switch the tape-recorder back on and add the “postscript.” It also comes after Toni’s earlier assessment that Marga’s English was “very good” and his statement that it usually took people a while until they realized that English was not her L1. Although Toni engages in face-work with regard to his own failure to learn German when he changes his previous proficiency assessment of Marga’s English proficiency, it is a problematic act in two ways: by attempting to save his own face with regard to his German proficiency, he jeopardized his own face with regard to generosity, and he challenges the face of this wife. This difficulty explains the lengthy repair that follows after Toni has gone on record with the put-down. First, there is the danger that he be seen as ungenerous, and therefore, in his next move, he locates the problem within himself (“I don’t always remember and make allowances,” ll. 24–26) and provides a lengthy explanation for why the “postscript” was necessary (ll. 28–41). Second, there is the face-threat to his wife, which he repairs in ll. 45–53 when he makes a general statement about L2 learning and dissociates it explicitly from Marga (“I don’t mean you as in you individually, but you as in one,” ll. 49–50). The awkwardness of the move is also apparent from the false starts (ll. 23; 28; 37;
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46; 49), the long pause (l. 45) and the frequent use of the hesitation marker erm (ll. 17; 18; 19 etc.). In sum, a negative assessment of one’s partner’s proficiency in order to enhance one’s own face is a rare and extremely difficult move.
. Standard languages and regional varieties So far, I have treated “English” and “German” as the two languages in contact. In doing so, I have implied that “English” and “German” are in themselves unified and homogenous entities. However, that is, of course, not the case, as both languages are characterized by significant internal variation. To speak of “English” and “German” in contact can thus only serve as a convenient shorthand for these two linguistic conglomerates. My use of the shorthand is justified by the fact that these terms – and the names of other languages – are widely used and are commonly assumed to have a tangible referent, namely the standard language. This is also the use that all the participants, except for two, espouse. Only two participants did not provide a conventional linguistic label such as “English” or “German” in response to the questionnaire entry “Native language/s (the language/s you first learned as a child).” One of them is Brendan (d13), who wrote “English (Northern Ireland slang)” and the other is Alfred (us2), who wrote “Hochdeutsch,” ‘High German.’6 However, the labels “English” and “German,” which are so readily used by the participants, and indeed by everybody else, are reifications. In a non-trivial sense languages do not exist as such, but are abstractions and idealizations on the basis of a number of related dialects. As a matter of fact, linguists are notoriously unable to define “a language” in linguistic terms. They typically fall back on Max Weinreich’s famous dictum “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”7 There is no principled (linguistic) way to predict what this abstraction will be based on. It is based on political considerations, most frequently ideologies such as “one nation, one language,” which stipulates that national and linguistic borders match. Furthermore, the relationship between these varieties of a language is not a neutral one, but a hierarchal one in which the standard variety is perceived as superior to the non-standard varieties (e.g., Bex & Watts 1999; Lippi-Green 1997; Milroy & Milroy 1985). Neither of the above – that a language label is a reification and that the standard language is perceived as superior to non-standard varieties – is particularly new. These points have been made much more eloquently and in far greater detail by sociolinguists for more than three decades, if not longer. However, despite the fact that they are commonplace in sociolinguistics, the com-
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plexity of the sociolinguistic situation has often been sidelined in second language acquisition and bilingualism research, and one could almost get the impression that second language users enter standard language utopia devoid of variation. Indeed, there is evidence from the accounts of the participants that, even after years of foreign language study, some of them did not expect and were not prepared to encounter anything else but the standard language. In the following I will explore how linguistic variation complicates the issue of language choice for the couples, particularly in some domains such as the extended family and friendship networks. These complications work in two ways: first, a non-standard variety may constitute an additional language that has to be dealt with and which may turn a bilingual into a trilingual situation. Dealing with this additional language may be the harder because it is not recognized as such. Second, the choices between standard vs. non-standard varieties are not neutral and second language users also have to learn how various non-standard varieties are evaluated. Most of the couples who are confronted with issues relating to non-standard varieties live in South-Western Germany, and I will therefore briefly describe the macro-linguistic context there (Section 5.5.1), before I go on explore how diglossia affects L2 use (Section 5.5.2). .. Diglossia Mattheier (1990) distinguishes three levels of spoken German: base dialects, intermediate varieties (urban or supraregional varieties), and the spoken standard language. Most Germans command at least two of these and use them diglossically (see Section 2.1). In a diglossic situation, one code serves “high functions” in public domains and the other one serves “low functions” in private domains. This is exactly the case in many areas of Germany where a number of large-scale surveys found that “dialect is spoken more in private situations among family members and friends than in public situations or professional settings” (Bister-Broosen 1997: 306–307). Although dialect use overall is on the wane, South Western Germany is one of the areas where it is highest – Bister-Broosen (1997: 307) cites 72% dialect speakers in South BadenWürttemberg vs. 57% for West Germany as a whole. Different figures keep getting published, and it is likely that dialect use is under-reported in surveys because of its negative evaluations. Mattheier (1990), one of the most respected authorities on German sociolinguistics, estimates that less than 30% of speakers in West Germany (and he estimates that the situation is similar in other German-speaking areas) would be monolingual in the spoken standard.
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Some of the dialect varieties are not intelligible to speakers of standard German, as is evidenced by the fact that the speech of speakers from some areas of the South West – and also from the South East, the East, as well as from areas of Austria and Switzerland – are subtitled on national TV. The unintelligibility of dialect – it is most often Swabian that is singled out as an example in my corpus – is also obvious from the conversations. Extract 53, for instance, is part of Claire’s description of what she can and cannot do with her L2 German (see also Extract 37). When she says that she cannot understand fast L1 speakers of German, Alfred reassures her by saying that there are L1 speakers of German who he, as an L1 speaker himself, does not understand.
Extract 53 (us2): “I have problems understanding them” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Alfred [so but- I have other friends that you know are like, from Swabia, er they haveClaire oh that yeah, [they are veryAlfred [of course. and they have very deep deep [deep accent. for I have= Claire [yeah I have trouble to- that is heavy slang or accent. Alfred =sometimes really problems- I have sometimes problems understanding them.
While Swabian, like all dialects, may not be intelligible to standard speakers, all dialect speakers will be able to understand, even if not actually use, the spoken standard language as a result of educational practices, media exposure, etc. The reverse is not true of standard speakers who are not dialect speakers or who are speakers of another dialect. Non-intelligibility would qualify as a linguistic criterion to identify a distinct language. However, linguistic ideologies are such that low varieties are perceived as “dialect” rather than “language.” Many participants raise the issue of how low varieties are best described. Very few actually use a label such as “language” – and consequently “bilingual” as a descriptor for someone who speaks a dialect and the standard – without any problems. One of these few is Anita (d4), who says: “I found that you know most Germans really speak TWO languages they speak German, you know High German and then they speak their local dialect.” Most participants search for the right word, e.g., Martin (d16; Extract 55 below), who starts out referring to the way how people in South Germany speak as “a totally different language” (l. 12). Then rephrases it as “not a totally different language” (ll. 15–17), and finally settles on “dialect” (l. 22). These searches for the right term indicate a difficulty that
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arises from the dissonance between the belief that non-intelligibility means a different language, on the one hand, and the equally strong belief that all Germans speak German, on the other. In some cases, one partner makes a claim for language status, and the other one rejects it outright as in Extract 54.
Extract 54 (d22): “That doesn’t count” 1 Bernhard ich bin auch zweisprachig. Dialekt und 2 Hochdeutsch. 3 I’m bilingual too. dialect and High German. 4 Jane na ja gut, aber @das zaehlt nich@.[. . . ] 5 well okay, but @that doesn’t count@. [. . . ]
Swabian, the dialect most frequently mentioned and discussed, is an Alemannic dialect, which is spoken in eastern Baden-Württemberg and western Bavaria (Bussmann 1990). It is the West German dialect that has consistently been identified as the one with the lowest prestige (although some East German dialects enjoy even lower prestige) (Allensbacher Berichte 1998; Bausinger 1972). Its low prestige is also apparent in the conversations (e.g., Extract 1, Extract 19). Furthermore, Swabian is a dialect that enjoys relatively high visibility nationally – as pointed out above, dialect maintenance for Swabian, as for other dialects of the South West is relatively high, and the area where it is spoken is densely populated, and has both economic significance (icons of German industry such as Mercedes and Porsche are located there) as well as political importance (a number of national politicians come from the area). All these factors ensure that the supraregional varieties of the region as well as spoken Standard German with an Alemannic accent have a fairly high presence in the national media. Its high visibility in conjunction with its low prestige probably explain why it is mentioned relatively frequently even by participants who do not live in the area and do not have ties to the region (e.g., Alfred, Extract 53). In sum, the linguistic macro-context of (South Western) Germany is characterized by diglossia. The low variety in this diglossic situation consists of a continuum, and those varieties on the continuum that are furthest away from the standard are not intelligible to speakers of standard German. Even so, they are not commonly recognized as separate languages, and consequently dialect speakers are not commonly recognized as bilinguals. Furthermore, the low varieties are characterized by low prestige. This situation is one that is similar to many other diglossic situations in the English- and German-speaking world, and, indeed, elsewhere. However, I have discussed the Swabian situation here in some detail because this situation is almost the only one that is an issue
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for the participants. There are some other German contexts brought up – in relation to a wide variety of German dialects, including Badensian, Bavarian, Berlinish, Hessian, Low German, Silesian, and Swiss German – but all these contexts are singular cases and can, by and large, be understood with reference to the Swabian case. By contrast, there is only one English-speaking context where a diglossic situation is an issue, and that is the Welsh village in which Hildegard and Roger live (gb5). For the intents and purposes of this study, the situation in which Hildegard finds herself is very similar to the one in which the L2 German speakers in South West Germany find themselves, except for the fact that Welsh is not systematically related to English and is recognized as a language, while Swabian is not. It seems that none of the other couples who live in the US and the UK find themselves in such a diglossic situation. This may indeed be the case, particularly as variation in English has a stronger social basis, where variation in German has a stronger regional basis (of course, variation in both languages is both regionally and socially based). As most of the participants are middle class (Chapter 4), social variation would be less salient in their lives than regional variation. However, another reason for the fact that it is not discussed may also be related to the belief systems of the participants. Many participants are convinced that there actually is less variation in English than in German, and that variation consequently is not a problem for them. This is both true as regards assumptions about American English (Extract 55) and British English (Extract 56).
Extract 55 (d16): “Some speak a totally different language” 1 Susan 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Martin 13 14 Susan
[. . . ] always amazes me about Germany. is that for such a relatively small country. and for me saying small because that’s the size of a state, really. that it could CHANGE, in such a short- like from Hamburg to Frankfurt. and for me. when I think of culture within the United States, it MIGHT change from Michigan to Texas. but within Michigan, it’s all one people, basically. at least, the way you think. it’s so amazing in Germany, that it changes so much in such a short space, you know. yeah, some speak a totally different language. [or they could speak a totally different= [uhmhu
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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Martin =language down [there. not a totally different= Susan [uhmhu. Martin =language but, I mean, that’s what you have in the states. the country in the United States is so big, and you might have a different ACCENT in the language. Susan uhmhu. Martin we actually have different dialects.
Extract 56 (d3): “Not too much of a problem” 1 Franz [. . . ] fuer mich als Deutscher ist es nicht 2 allzu schwierig, wenn Slang oder Dialekt 3 gesprochen wird, da Dialekte im Englischen 4 keine so gro- gravierende Unterschiede 5 aufweisen wie in Deutschland. [. . . ] 6 [. . . ] for me as a German it is not too much of 7 a problem, when slang or dialect is spoken, 8 because dialects in English do not show such 9 big- serious differences as in Germany. [. . . ]
.. L2 use in a diglossic context Walters’ (1996) study of Anglophone wives in Tunisia (see Section 2.5), describes a similar, even if more complex, situation to the one discussed here in that his participants also entered a diglossic situation – where varieties of Tunisian Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic and French are in regular use – as L2 speakers. In that context, Walters (1996: 537) found that [i]n few if any examples from the literature on language and gender, language choice in multilingual settings, or even the political economy of language have members of the community linked access to a linguistic code, or the encouragement to learn or use that code, so directly and unambiguously to issues of power.
The same is true of the participants in this study who find themselves in a diglossic situation as described in Section 5.5.1. They link their access to Swabian, or the low variety more generally, with stories of dependency and exclusion. This is, for instance, the case for Amy (d24). Amy had studied German both in high school and in college before she came to Germany as an exchange student. Amy, who had resided in Germany for 25 years at the time of data collection, is clearly one of the most successful L2 users of Swabian. She says
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that she understands “almost everything by now” (Extract 57, l. 6), and her speech could best be characterized as an intermediate variety in Mattheier’s (1990) sense (Section 5.5.1). Some characteristics of this intermediate variety include her consistent reduction of “ich,” ‘I’ and “mich,” ‘me’, to “i” and “mi” (ll. 1; 2; 11 etc.), deletion of word-initial and word-final –e– (“versteh,” ‘understand’ instead of “verstehe,” l. 6, or “s,” ‘it’ instead of “es,” l. 8), or the use of “schwätzen,” ‘speak’ instead of “sprechen” (l. 10). Despite her knowledge of Swabian, she links her initial experience with the diglossic situation with dependency (Extract 57) and exclusion (Extract 58). Initially, she was dependent upon her partner because he had to translate for her from the low variety into the high variety.
Extract 57 (d24): “You had to translate everything” 1 Amy 2 3 4 5 Gunther 6 Amy 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[. . . ] i hab zuerst kein Wort Schwaebisch verstanden, als wir- als i zuerst hier herkam. da musstest du alles auf- von Schwaebisch in Hochdeutsch uebersetzen. erm [inzwischen= [uhmhu. =versteh i eigentlich fast alles auf Schwaebisch, aber erm i kann mi noch- erm noch nicht so dafuer begeistern. @ i find s schoen, so wenn i- wenn i jemand aus Norddeutschland schwaetzen hoer. dann find i des Schwaebische schoener. das von sued- also. jetzt bin i so lange hier, dass- dass das mir normal vorkommt. das Schwaebische. [. . . ] [. . . ] I didn’t understand a word of Swabian when I came here, when we- when I first came here. you had to translate everything intofrom Swabian into High German. erm [in the meantime I understand basically almost everything in Swabian, but erm I still cannoterm I’m not yet enthusiastic about it. @ I find it nice, when I- when I hear someone from northern Germany speak. then I find the Swabian nicer. the one from south- okay. now I’ve been here for so long, that- that it seems normal to me. the Swabian. [. . . ]
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In Extract 58, Amy describes her sense of exclusion from Gunther’s friendship networks at the time when she did not speak Swabian. Amy’s utterance starting in l. 4 comes in response to an assertion by Gunther that they have never had any problems resulting from the fact that they are a bilingual and cross-cultural couple.
Extract 58 (d24): “You are excluded if you don’t speak the dialect” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
Gunther da gab’s eigentlich nie Probleme damit. aber-= there have never really been any problems with that. but-= Amy =ausser dass- die in- in deiner alten Clique, dass die nicht mit mir gschwaetzt @haben frueher@, weil sie sich geniert haben @Hochdeutsch zu reden@ @ =except for- those in- in your old set, that they did not speak to me @in those days@, because they were embarrassed to @speak High German@ @ Gunther ach so. ((I see.)) Amy und Schwaebisch hab i nicht verstanden am Anfang. aber- nee das hat mir nicht gefallen am Anfang. weil man ausgeschlossen ist, wenn man den Dialekt nicht spricht. [und die= and I didn’t understand Swabian in the beginning. but- no I didn’t like that in the beginning. because you are excluded, if you don’t speak the dialect. and the= Gunther [uhmhu. Amy =Schwaben [akzektieren die Leute nicht. =Swabians [don’t accept people. Gunther [koennen auch kein Hochdeutsch. [don’t know High German either. Amy ja. die koennen- und die akzeptieren das sehr langsam, dass jemand and- fremdartiges da reinkommt. [oder? das dauert halt lang.= yes. they know- and they accept it very slowly, that someone dif- foreign comes in. [right? well that takes a long time. Gunther [@@ =ja ((yes)).
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The exclusion described in Extract 58 seems to be more or less unintentional, even if it is perceived as intentional by Amy. She equates the inability of Gunther’s set to speak the standard language with a conscious and intentional exclusion of outsiders. However, Franz (d3) admits that Swabian can be used intentionally to exclude his wife from a conversation. Unlike Amy, Cynthia says she does not understand the local dialect and interactions in groups are “difficult” for her.
Extract 59 (d3): “When we don’t want my wife to understand” 1 Franz [. . . ] unsere Umgangssprache hier- hier ist 2 Schwaebisch. wenn ich mit Freunden oder- oder 3 meine Kinder etwas so- etwas sprechen will, was 4 meine Frau nicht verstehen soll, dann reden wir 5 schnell und ein sehr tiefes Schwaebisch. [. . . ] 6 [. . . ] our local language here- here is Swabian. 7 when I want to talk with friends or- or my 8 children something- talk about something, which 9 we don’t want my wife to understand, then we 10 speak fast and a very deep Swabian. [. . . ]
A further interesting similarity with Walters’ (1996) findings is that the Anglophone wives in his study claimed they mainly needed Tunisian Arabic to access female support networks within the extended family, particularly to be able to talk to their mother-in-law. Two of the participants in this research (Anita (d3), and Jill (d18)) – both of who consider their Swabian as very limited – state this as the major problem with their inability to use Swabian, too. They say that the most negative consequence of their inability to understand and speak Swabian is the fact that they cannot comfortably interact with their female in-laws of the older generation and other members of the extended family. It bears repeating that both Anita and Jill consider themselves as highly proficient speakers of German – Anita grew up bilingually in English and German, and Jill has got a degree in German Studies. Even so, they do not have access to “kitchen talk” (Extract 60).
Extract 60 (d18): “I could talk with your granny in the kitchen” 1 Astrid [. . . ] I know that she [refers to her 2 grandmother; IP] kind of thinks you don’t 3 understand her. which is kind of true coz when 4 she speaks [with dialect5 Jill [yeah but I do- I do sometimes have
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6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Astrid Jill Astrid Jill Astrid Jill
Astrid Jill Astrid Jill Astrid Jill
problems with- with your family. yeah. with dialect. also with Erich. uhmhu. erm when he speaks this real sort of Swabian? Stuttgarter [Swabian? [I know. II kind of understand half of it. it’s getting better but I can’t understand everything. but yeah I think if I was a German native speaker, it might be more relaxed. uhmhu. because sometimes with theyeah thismore relaxed. because I could talk with your granny in the kitchen, and I [would understand= [@@@ =everything.
. Conclusion This chapter explored the participants’ language knowledge and language ideologies. These provide the background against which the couples make their language choices (Chapter 6). I looked at this background from four different perspectives: beliefs about the native language, trajectories and ideologies of L2 learning, discourses about success in L2 learning, and diglossia as the macro-linguistic context in which choices are made. As for beliefs about the native language, it has emerged that real people are sometimes confused by the complexity of their linguistic situation – particularly if discourses about such complexity are not readily available. The L1 backgrounds of the participants are by no means as clear as the simple dichotomy of “English” and “German” might lead one to expect. Almost a third of the participants come from hybrid backgrounds themselves. However, they do not necessarily have discourses of hybridity at their disposal and consequently name their L1 differently in different genres, namely questionnaire and discussion. The distinction between L1 and L2 becomes blurred because of ideologies of symbolic language ownership. Such ideologies hold that the typical speaker of an L1 should be a native of a certain country, or countries, and should have a
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high level of proficiency. Particularly writing abilities emerge as a focal point for a sense of language ownership. Institutional failures to understand and accommodate hybrid L1s also contribute to feelings of inadequacy in relation to a hybrid L1. In contexts where only standard languages are legitimized it is hard for speakers of varieties that bear traces of language contact to establish a sense of the legitimacy of their language. Secondly, when it comes to the participants’ L2 it is amazing how many of them regard themselves as highly successful and proficient L2 users. More than two thirds of the participants regard themselves as successful L2 learners and take a positive view of their L2 proficiency. An exploration of the ways in which the participants learned their L2s shows clear differences between the L2 English and L2 German users. While the former learned L2 English in a context of secondary education which valorizes knowledge of English and accords foreign language learning a strong place in the educational system, the latter learned L2 German in contexts where a number of languages compete in the secondary school system, and foreign language learning is overall less valued. Despite this, the L2 English speakers do not particularly value the formal training they received in English in secondary school, but believe that their ensuing naturalistic acquisition of the language was much more important to their success. In both groups, there is a significant number of “Anglophiles” or “Germanophiles” – participants who express a strong sense of desire for and emotional attachment to their L2. They often studied their L2 at the tertiary level and it is clear that their involvement with their L2 preceded their intermarriage rather than vice versa. In a third focus, I explored the beliefs about language proficiency held by the participants. Which aspects of language do they consider as essential to consider themselves successful language learners? In their conversations, they refer to some proficiency areas much more than others, and these include grammar and fluency, active and passive skills, speaking and writing skills, and accent. The importance they accord to accent reflects entrenched beliefs that accent is a major criterion of proficiency. This belief clashes with assumptions widely held in applied linguistics and the second language teaching profession. The ways in which language learning and beliefs about language learning interact is a field ripe for further investigation. Furthermore, in conversational proficiency assessment, it is not only the assessment itself that has to be managed, but participants also have to engage in significant face-work. When they speak about their success, they take care not to sound immodest, and when they speak about their limited success, they take care not to present themselves as failures. This face-work is usually achieved
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interactively, i.e., the partners take joint responsibility for the conversational assessment. Finally, I explored the macro-linguistic contexts which some of the participants have entered as L2 speakers. Many of them are not only faced with a choice between Standard English and Standard German, but non-standard varieties also enter the picture. The consequences of a diglossic situation in the L2 include reduced access to family and friendship networks in which low varieties are spoken, and the attendant experiences of dependency upon the partner, and exclusion. These difficulties may be aggravated by linguistic ideologies that deny the low varieties language status. As a result low varieties are not easily recognized as gate-keeping codes to extended family and friendship networks. In sum, this chapter has paved the way for the next one about language choice. It has become clear that the language choice of bilingual couples is by no means a simple choice between two languages, but that it is played out against a host of issues that relate to language knowledge and language ideologies within a complex macro-linguistic context.
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“We speak bilingually” Language choice
. Introduction In studies of language maintenance or shift, there is a pervasive tendency to scapegoat intermarriage for language shift (Chapter 2). However, language choice research only rarely explores the domains of partnership and family in any detailed fashion – a lacuna also noticed by Varro and Boyd (1998b) and Tuominen (1999: 61–64). In a way this is an odd lacuna as the family is one of the few contexts where there really is an option for individual language choice, much more so than in public and institutional contexts – provided of course that both partners have some knowledge of each other’s languages (Chapter 5). In contrast to the “intermarriage leads to language shift” hypothesis, most of the couples in my sample value their multilingualism and actually aim to continue it. This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the couples’ language choices, both in the partnership domain and in domains outside the couple relationship, such as the extended family and friendship groups. As in Chapter 5, I am particularly concerned with the ways in which these choices are structured by identities and ideologies. In Chapter 2 I showed that linguistics has oftentimes approached the question of language choice in bilingual couples in a rather simplistic fashion, assuming that the majority language would be the “natural” choice for bilingual couples. However, Table 9 shows that this assumption does not hold true for my sample in two ways: neither do the overwhelming majority choose the majority language as their couple language nor do they necessarily even make a choice between majority vs. minority language as the high incidence of the use of a mixed code shows. The figures derive from two sources: the couple language claimed on the questionnaire and the discussions about language choice during the conversation. Language choice is normally discussed in response to one or all of the following questions in the discussion paper: “As a bilingual couple, which language do you usually speak together? Under which circum-
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Table 9. Language choice in the couple domain English
German
Mixed code
Residence
Qu*
Con**
Qu
Con
Qu
Con
Germany UK USA Other
7 4 2 1
8 3 2 1
7 – 2 1
6 – 1 1
10 1 1 –
10 2 2 –
* “Qu” stands for “language choice claimed in the questionnaire” ** “Con” stands for “language choice in the conversation”
stances do you use another language? Has your language use changed in the course of your relationship?” First, only seven out of 24 couples resident in Germany claim to use German (29.2%). I have higher numbers for the choice of the majority language in Germany published in Piller (2000a, 2001b), which were based upon all the questionnaires I received, rather than only the core couples (Chapter 3). There, 18 out of 38 couples (47.4%) claim to use German in Germany. Although this is a considerably higher percentage than the one for the core participants, it is still not an overwhelming majority. In English-speaking environments the figures of participating couples who claim to use the majority language with each other are somewhat higher (Table 9). Four out of five UK-based couples (80%) and two out of five US-based couples (40%) claim English as their common language on the questionnaire. What is even more interesting then the unexpectedly low numbers of couples who use the majority language with each other is the high number of couples who sidestep the dichotomy between “majority language” and “minority language” by claiming the use of a mixed code, as 11 out of the 36 couples (30.6%) do. In the following, I will explore how each choice is discussed in the conversations: the choice of the majority language (Section 6.2), the choice of the minority language (Section 6.3), and the choice of a mixed code (Section 6.4). Furthermore, one particular speech event, namely rows, is singled out as exception to the usual choice by many couples, or described as a speech event that calls their language choice into question. Consequently, Section 6.5 will be devoted to language choice and conflict. From there I will move away from language choice in the couple domain and focus on language choice in other domains (Section 6.6).
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. Choosing the majority language Like the writers about intermarriage and language choice quoted in Chapter 2, the couples themselves also seem to view the majority language as their default option. This is apparent from the fact that this choice is hardly discussed at all during the conversations. Couples who use the minority language or who use a mixed code tend to engage in lengthy discussions, explanations and justifications in their responses (Sections 6.3 and 6.4). By contrast, those who use the majority language rarely do so. They provide a simple statement such as “normally we speak English together” (Doris (gb3)) or the one quoted in Extract 61, where both partners jointly construct the normalcy of their choice. This lack of the provision of reasons for the choice suggests that the couple see their choice as self-evident and not in need of an explanation.
Extract 61 (d22): “Normally we speak German” 1 Jane [...] wir sprechen normalerweise= 2 [...] normally we speak= 3 Bernhard =normalerweise 4 Deutsch.= ((=normally German=)) 5 Jane =Deutsch. ((German.)) [...]
Those few couples who provide an explanation for their use of the majority language universally cite one partner’s limited proficiency in the minority language, as for instance Maren (gb2) does. As Maren explains in Extract 62, not knowing how much her partner understood of what she was saying in German made the use of German “too much hassle.”
Extract 62 (gb2): “I never knew how much you understood” 1 Maren but erm .. I mean, I find it difficult to speak 2 German to you because I never knew how much you 3 understood. and you- you- you very often 4 thought, you understood what I’m saying. and 5 then I find that- that you actually got it 6 wrong! but you wouldn’t question. so- so it 7 was- it was just too- too much hassle and my 8 English was so much better than your German at 9 the time. we just got into the habit.
Even these couples who report having chosen the language of the wider community as their couple language, however, report that there are circumstances
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when they would use the minority language with each other. Such circumstances either have to do with secrecy (Extract 63) or with language learning (Extract 64).
Extract 63 (gb3): “In English shops we use German” 1 2 3 4 5 6
Doris
[...] and the next question is, ”under which circumstances do you use another language?” William normally when we don’t want anyone to understand us. Doris so it depends where we are. William so in English shops we use German.
Extract 64 (d25): “We have English time because I need to learn it better” 1 Max 2 3 4 5 Teresa 6 7 Max 8 9 10 11
[...] und erm dann haben wir English time gemacht, gelegentlich. =and erm then we had English time, occasionally. ja. [aberyes. [but[aber das wollen wir in Zukunft noch haeufiger machen weil ich das ja auch noch besser lernen muss. [but we want to do that even more in the future because I really have to improve it.
Finally, even if a couple choose to use the majority language with each other, that does not necessarily mean that the minority language will be lost to the next generation, as is apparent from the strong commitment to raising their children bilingually that all the parents in the sample have (Chapter 9). Thus, for example, Jane (d22; cf. Extract 61) uses English with her daughter although she uses German with her partner, and Maren (gb2; cf. Extract 62) and Doris (gb3; cf. Extract 63) both use German with their children although they use English with their partner.
. Choosing the minority language While few couples who use the majority language with each other volunteer reasons for their choice, most couples who have chosen to use the minority lan-
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guage with each other, do volunteer such reasons. The most frequently adduced reasons are habit (Section 6.3.1) and compensation (Section 6.3.2). .. Habit Habit as an explanation for the choice of English in Germany is, for instance, adduced by Deborah (d20; Extract 65, which continues Extract 16).
Extract 65 (d20): “It became a habit” 1 Deborah [...] when I first arrived here in Germany two 2 years ago his English was considerably better 3 then my German, and in order for us to 4 communicate, even on a basic level, it was- it 5 was necessary for us to speak English. and I 6 think we’ve just kept that up, because it 7 became a habit, and also I think it’s sort of 8 a- a way for him to offer some sort of 9 sacrifice to ME. because I had to give up, all 10 my things, my culture, my language, my family, 11 and my friends to move to Germany. and he had 12 everything here around him. and I guess the 13 only thing he COULD offer me was his language. 14 [...] and we also discussed that it’s- it’s 15 STRANGE for us when we speak German with each 16 other. because we met in the States he was 17 teaching German at the university where I had 18 studied. and I had already graduated but he was 19 giving me private lessons. and that’s how we 20 became friends and tha- we just spoke English 21 together THEN. and we have always spoken 22 English together, and it just seems strange 23 that once I came here, that we should then 24 speak German.
As she describes in Extract 65, Deborah finds it strange to use the majority language German with her husband because that is not what they did when they first met (ll. 5–7; 20–24). The fact that couples find it difficult to change from the language of their first meeting to another one can probably be explained with the close relationship between language and the performance of identity. In a number of studies in the 1960s, Ervin(-Tripp) (1964, 1968) found that
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language choice is much more than the choice of the medium. Rather, content is affected too. In a number of experiments, which have unfortunately not been replicated since, she demonstrated that in Thematic Apperception Tests (TAT) the content of picture descriptions changed with the language (English or French) a person used (Ervin 1964). When she asked Japanese–English bilingual women to do a sentence completion test, she got the same dramatic results: the sentence completion changed from one language to the other. Her most famous example is probably that of a woman completing the stimulus “When my wishes conflict with my family ...” with “It is a time of great unhappiness” in Japanese, and with “I do what I want” in English (Ervin-Tripp 1968: 203). More recently, in an analysis of the narratives told by French–Portuguese bilinguals in their two languages, Koven (1998) also showed that bilinguals perform the self differently in different languages. If we say different things in different languages, it is quite obvious why “habit” would be a main reason for the choice of a couple’s language. They stick to the language of their first meeting because they might lose the sense of knowing each other, the sense of connectedness and the rapport derived from being able to anticipate what the partner might be about to say if they switched. This sense of being a different person in different languages is brought up by the participants in a number of cases (e.g., Extract 66), and it is connected with knowing each other, as the caption of Extract 66 indicates.
Extract 66 (d25): “I ask myself whether he knows me at all” 1 Teresa [...] das ist interessant ist zu hoeren, wie 2 ich mich ueber bestimmten Sachen auf Englisch 3 aeussere und wie ich mich dabei auf Deutsch 4 aeussere. und das ist sogar irgendwie erm 5 unterschiedliche Gedanken gibt oder 6 unterschiedliche Meinungen oder irgendwie ist 7 das doch ganz anders. und deswegen ist es auch 8 besonders interessant und wahrscheinlich auch 9 wichtig dass wir uns gelegentlich auf Englisch 10 unterhalten. 11 [...] that is interesting to hear, it is, how I 12 speak about certain things in English and how I 13 speak about it in German. and that is even 14 somehow erm there are different thoughts or 15 different opinions or somehow it is completely 16 different after all. and that’s why it is
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17 18 19 20 Max 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Teresa 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
particularly interesting and probably also important that we speak English every now and then. ja. aber tendenziell wuerd ich sagen dass esalso es hoert sich schon sehr anders an, wenn du auf Englisch redest. und- und zwar ist es prinzipiell irgendwie etwas haerter zynischer oder- . ja steckt da irgendwie mehr hinter, was zwar wahrscheinlich nicht so: erm verwunderlich ist weil man sich wahrscheinlich in seiner Muttersprache doch ein bisschen besser ausdruecken kann. ein bisschen mehr damit spielen kann. yes. but I’d tend to say that it- okay it really sounds very different, when you speak English. and- and it is mainly somehow somewhat stronger more cynical or- . well there’s somehow more behind it, which is probably not tha:t erm surprising because one can probably express oneself a little better in one’s mother tongue after all. can play with it a little more. ja. aber wenn er mir das erzaehlt dann frage ich mich erm, ob er mich UEBERHAUPT kennt. ne, aber was er @dann@ @@@@ hoer auf! hoer auf! und erm. hh. . ja ob ich tatsaechlich auf Englisch haerter bin, oder ob ich irgendwie erm nur, vertaeusche? vortaeusche? erm dass ich- dass ich so erm suess bin und nett bin und dass ichdass ich vielleicht tatsaechlich erm ein- ein gar nicht so nettes Maedchen bin. nur das is im Deutschen nicht genug, oder so. [...] yes. but when he tells me that then I ask myself erm. whether he knows me AT ALL. no, but what he @then@ @@@ stop it! stop it! and erm. hh. . yes whether I’m really harder in English, or whether I somewhat erm only, protend?1 pretend? erm that I- that I’m so erm sweet and that- that I’m nice and that I- that I’m maybe really erm a- a not really such a nice girl.
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57 58
only that is not enough in German, or something like that. [...]
In Extract 66, Teresa explains that she has different thoughts and opinions in her two languages (ll. 1–7). Max then specifies the ways in which she seems different to him when she speaks English: “stronger, more cynical” (l. 23). A characterization Teresa accepts. In English she is “harder” (l. 43), but in German she is “a nice, sweet girl” (ll. 45; 47). She herself thinks that not being a nice girl just won’t do in German (“that is not enough in German”; ll. 47–48). Returning to language choice, it is tempting to speculate that it is probably the “nice girl” who Max is in love with and that “being hard and cynical” might alter the relationship. The differing performance of identity in different languages thus strongly mitigates against a change of the choice that a couple made when they first met. This also explains why the percentage of couples who use German in a German-speaking country is lower than the percentage of couples who use English in an English-speaking country (29.2% vs. 60%; see Table 9). English is much more likely to be the language of the first interactions – no matter where the couple will eventually settle down – as all the L1 German speakers had learned English when they met their partner but 14 of the L1 English speakers had not learned any German when they met their partner (see Section 5.3.2). However, this is not to say that none of the couples has adjusted their choices over the course of their relationship. First, all language use changes across the lifespan and the same must be true for the couples, who might move towards a more mixed code, as Karl (d21) claims was the case in his marriage. However, as I do not have any longitudinal data, I can only speculate about such changes. Second, two couples (Virginia and Jochen (d5), and Hannah and Allan (us4)) actually claim that they did fundamentally change their language choice from English to German in both cases. In both cases the language change coincided with a major change in their circumstances, which may have made it easier to break the “habit” of the original choice. In Hannah’s and Allan’s case this was their move from Germany to the US, and in Virginia’s and Jochen’s case it was when they embarked on a round-the-world trip (Extract 67). However, their claim that they consistently use German with each other (ll. 1–3) is somewhat thrown into question by the fact that they taped two conversations, one in German and one in English, and the English one is much more relaxed and comfortable in tone.
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Extract 67 (d5): “We’ve been speaking German with each other since we wanted to leave Germany” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
Virginia wir sprechen praktisch Deutsch? basically we speak German? Jochen Deutsch, ja. na logisch. German, yes. of course. Virginia @ @Deutsch is logisch?@ @ @German is a matter of course?@2 Jochen ich mein die- wart mal. I mean the- wait a second. Virginia also es is so dass wir am Anfang, also wir ham uns ei- erm neunundsechzig kennengelernt, und die ersten sieben Jahre praktisch ham wir English miteinander gesprochen. well the fact is that initially we, okay we met ei- erm in sixtynine, and for the first seven years we basically spoke English with each other. Jochen ja. ((right.)) Virginia und dann wo wir praktisch Deutschland verlassen [wolltenand then when we basically wanted to leave [GermanyJochen [und dann wolltest du Deutsch weitersprechen weil bei den Amis warst, und seitdem sprechen wir Deutsch miteinander. so einfach ist das. [and then you wanted to continue speaking German because you were with Americans, and since then we have been speaking German with each other. it’s as easy as this. Virginia ja ja, na- erm praktisch wo wir auf die Weltreise gefahren sind, wollt ich Deutsch mit dir sprechen. [und seitdem sprechen wir= yeah yeah, na- erm basically when we embarked on the round-the-world trip, I wanted to speak German with you. [and since then we have= Jochen [ja? ((well?)) Virginia =Deutsch miteinander. [...] =been speaking German with each other. [...]
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These two cases of a reversal of the choice are also instructive in that they were changes from minority language to minority language, so to speak. In both cases, the reason for the change lay in the desire of the L2 German partner to be able to continue practicing their L2 under circumstances where the partner was likely to afford the only interactional opportunity in the L2. .. Compensation Apart from habit, it is also compensation that is given as a reason for the choice of the minority language as couple language. An example comes from Extract 65 (ll. 7–13), where Deborah explains that the use of English in Germany became a gift that was offered to compensate for the sacrifice Deborah had to make to live with her husband, namely migration. For Deborah migration meant that she “had to give up, all my things, my culture, my language, my family, and my friends to move to Germany.” (Extract 65, ll. 9–11). And there can be no doubt that, at least initially, the migratory experience is similar for all migrants, until they find new “things”: a new culture, a new language, a new family, and new friends. In cross-cultural relationships the partner in whose native country the couple live is often privileged in many diverse ways: legally, economically, and usually socially, too (see the articles in Breger & Hill 1998a). In the linguistic construction of reality, power may also accrue to a person through being an undisputed expert manipulator of a code, a native speaker. Sandra Kouritzin (2000b), an L1 speaker of Canadian English who lives with her L1 Japanese-speaking husband in Canada speaking Japanese in the family describes such a case. Her husband has become the “ultimate linguistic authority in our home” (Kouritzin 2000b: 321). He is seen as an undisputed expert of Japanese whose pronouncements in language questions the family regularly seeks and unquestioningly accepts. Being a foreigner and having to use an L2 may place a person in a doubly weak position, while living in one’s native community, using the native code may place a person in a doubly strong position. The compromise to let one partner be the native, and the other the native speaker may thus become a compensatory strategy, even if the legal, economic and social benefits of citizenship clearly outweigh the less tangible benefits of native speaker status.
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. Choosing hybridity .. What is language mixing? Of the 36 core couples, 11 (30.6%) claim to use a mixed code on the questionnaire and 14 (38.9%) actually do so during their conversation (see Table 9). “Using a mixed code” encompasses a number of different strategies. On the questionnaires, these are statements such as “both,” “English + German,” or different answers by the two partners to the item “in which language do you usually address your partner?” (thereby indicating a pattern of dual-linguality; Section 2.3). In the conversations, mixed codes are identified as “Germish” or “Denglish” and include conversations that are characterized by frequent and extended code switching or by dual-linguality. I do not consider conversations that only contain a small number of lexical switches or even a limited number of utterances in the other languages (e.g., d24) as “mixed,” but I have counted two conversations that consist of consecutive monologues by the partners (d3, gb5) as mixed conversations. On the surface the latter conversations also follow a pattern of dual-linguality. However, they differ from “true” dual-linguality in that one partner does not understand the other’s L1 they are receiving on the tape, as Roger (gb5) explains in Extract 68.
Extract 68 (gb5): “I have no idea what Hildegard was talking about” 1 Roger hi. I am sitting here now. and I have no idea 2 what Hildegard was talking about. but after 3 five years I get used to it. at the beginning 4 of this tape we used to stop the tape and turn 5 it on. then I asked what- what she said. of 6 course she understands my English but I don’t 7 understand her German. so we stopped the tape, 8 and said, ”what do you say now again.” so I 9 didn’t ask what she said now. so I have no idea 10 what she did say. [...]
It is not at all apparent what some of the participants mean when they claim “language mixing.” Jennifer and Boris (d19) or Natalie and Steven (d27), who claim they speak “Germish” and “Denglish” respectively have no obvious traces of German in their conversations, except maybe Boris’ accent and some unconventional aspect and preposition choices. Olivia and Christoph (d6) use a few lexical code-switches into English in their conversation (e.g., “school uniform” or “mantelpiece” for which no common substitutes exist as German
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schoolchildren do not normally wear uniforms and mantelpieces are not common features of German houses). However, they claim that they mix English and German haphazardly in their conversations (Extract 73 below). One of the few descriptions of “language mixing” comes from Hannah and Allan (us4). In Extract 69 they describe – and condemn – the linguistic practices of Hannah’s relatives, German-born Americans. The extract includes a description of what participants mean when they talk about mixed languages. They refer exclusively to lexical code switching (ll. 1–4; 11–12).
Extract 69 (us4): “They don’t know either language a hundred percent” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Allan
Hannah Allan
Hannah Allan Hannah
Allan Hannah
weil Hannah hat Verwandte hier und sie- sie machen das staendig. sie- sie reden hauptsaechlich Deutsch, aber sie schmeissen immer ein englisches Wort rein,= coz Hannah has relatives here and they- they do that all the time. they- they speak mainly German, but they always throw in an English word,= =ja ((yes)).= =wo’s irgenwie hinpasst oder bequemer ist. je- wir haben es gerade auch n paarmal gemacht, aber=where it fits somehow or is more convenient. whether- we also did that a couple of times just now, butja ((yes)). aber die machen es staendig. but they do it all the time. die machen es SO schlimm, dass es ganz deutlich auffaellt auch wenn sie in Deutschland sind. die- wie lange sind die auch schon hier? fast ueber dreissig Jahre. they do it SO bad, that it’s quite apparent even when they are in Germany. they- how long have they been here, though? almost more than thirty years. jaja. ((yeah yeah.)) aber bei denen merkt man ganz deutlich, die koennen weder noch, perfekt- auch wenn sie sich Muehe geben, glaub ich, erm merkt man in
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31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Allan 39 Hannah 40 41 42
Deutschland, dass die nicht mehr da leben. und ihr Englisch ist auch nicht perfekt. but with them it’s really obvious, they know neither nor, perfectly- even if they try, I think, erm one realizes in Germany, that they don’t live there anymore. and their English isn’t perfect either. ja. ((yes.)) sie koennen keine Sprache hundertprozentig. und das finde ich ganz traurig. they don’t know either language a hundred percent. and I find that really sad.
.. Negative evaluations of language mixing Extract 69 also contains strong negative evaluations of language mixing. The couple jointly produce a highly negative view of their relatives’ speech. While Allan criticizes their linguistic practices in an American context, Hannah criticizes the same practices in a German context. Mixing is condemned – it is said to be “bad” (l. 19), “not perfect” (ll. 29; 32), and “really sad” (l. 40) – but the rationale for the negative evaluation remains unclear. Hannah provides some kind of explanation when she says that Germans in Germany can judge from her relatives’ speech that they do not live there anymore (ll. 30– 31). However, as that is a fact, the basis for the negative judgment does not become much clearer. The common-sense knowledge that language mixing is bad is such a powerful assumption that explanations are unnecessary. What is more, while explanations are unnecessary, justifications are. Allan points out that they themselves are using quite a few lexical code-switches, which triggers a justification sequence which contrasts the couple’s code switching with that of the relatives (“but,” ll. 12; 17; “SO bad,” l. 19). The need to justify one’s own practices as not “SO bad” as those of others, in conjunction with the unquestioning acceptance of the value judgment that linguistic practices which are evidence of protracted language contact, derives from institutional discourses that are reproduced in private discourse. Consequently, it does not come as a surprise that code switching is most often devalued in relation to education, as Olivia does when she speaks about her future children (Extract 73 below, ll. 14–16). The internalization of negative evaluations of language mixing may also result in scathing criticisms of mixing for no apparent reason at all. In Extract 70, Max paints a gloomy picture of language mixing: one has to take
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care not to mix, it sometimes happens inadvertently, but one has to be strict with oneself, otherwise one gets confused. In sum, language mixing is “somehow not good at all” (l. 9). This weak unspecific reason, “somehow,” for such a strong condemnation of language mixing points to the fact that Max may not really have thought through the issue for himself but is rehashing a pervasive condemnatory discourse of language mixing.
Extract 70 (d25): “One has to take care not to mix” 1 Max [...] aber was ganz wichtig ist. man muss 2 aufpassen dass man Deutsch und Englisch nicht 3 zusammen MISCHT. sondern wir haben 4 festgestellt, das ham wir am Anfang aus 5 Versehen ein paar Mal gemacht. und haben uns 6 das dann radikal verboten, erm weil man da 7 ziemlich, erm durcheinander bei kommt. und die 8 Sprachen ziemlich miteinander verwurstelt. was 9 irgendwie ueberhaupt nicht gut ist. und 10 deswegen haben wir dann festgesetzt, jetzt ist 11 Deutschzeit und jetzt ist Englischzeit. [...] 12 but what is very important. one has to take 13 care not to MIX German and English. but we’ve 14 found, initially we did that a couple of times 15 by mistake. and then we forbade that ourselves 16 radically, erm because one gets quite, erm 17 confused. and the languages quite mixed up. 18 which is somehow not good at all. and that’s 19 why we then decided, now it’s German time and 20 now it’s English time. [...]
In yet another example, a further condemnation of “Mischmaschsprache” ‘mixed language’ comes from a letter writer (Extract 71).
Extract 71: “We’ve been aware of the danger” Zur “Reinhaltung” der beiden Sprachen in unserer Beziehung: Wir haben Freunde (englisch-deutsch), bei denen sich mit der Zeit eine Mischmaschsprache durchgesetzt hat. Wir waren uns von Anfang an dieser Gefahr bewusst, und haben versucht, dagegenzusteuern. On keeping the two languages in our relationship “pure”: We’ve got friends (English-German) who have developed a mixed language over time. From the beginning we have been aware of this danger and have tried to counter it.
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Language mixing in couple talk is negatively evaluated because there is a pervasive discourse that is condemnatory of language mixing in public domains. The negative evaluation is transferred from the public to the private. A number of couples ascribe blame for language mixing to others (e.g., Extract 69, Extract 71). In yet another example, Olivia (d6) chastises the English-speaking community in her German hometown for having lost their L1. After an extended period in their new country they are said to speak their L1 only “stotternd,” ‘stutteringly.’ A negative evaluation is implied in this word choice, which equates language use in which traces of language contact are apparent with a pathological condition. The condemnation of language mixing in public domains is not only in evidence from institutional discourses such as schools (see Section 5.2.4; Heller 1999, 2000), but also in public discourses in which the couples participate (see Section 3.5.2). Polyglott: The Newsletter of Bilingual Families, for instance, carried the following long letter to the editor (half a page out of a total of 12 pages) in its winter 2000 issue:
Extract 72: “Mixing is undermining our German language” It was mentioned in the most recent issue of Polyglott how comfortable it is to travel in a country – Scandinavia in this case – where people can switch from their mother tongue into English without any problems. Without a doubt that is very comfortable, practical and desirable. However, when I consider the situation in Germany, I often wonder whether “switching” is not frequently confused with “mixing” in this regard? Surely I am not the only one who is fed up with all the totally unnecessary English expressions that are undermining our German language? Are we really more likely to buy a weatherproof coat if it is called a windbreaking jacket? [a long list of similar examples follows; . . . ] Surely, it does not serve multilingualism in any way to mix two languages in such a fashion. Rather, it leads to a withering away of the mother tongue. In Germany we should kindly be addressed in German. German just as well as English and any other language is a cultural asset and should be preserved as such. To tell you the truth I am fed up with events for power people at the service point and I reckon it is time that a card be called a “Karte” again! (Sévérac 2000; my translation3 )
The author of this letter to the editor, who identifies herself as “German-French family” and as “regional officer of the Society German Language,”4 is obviously committed to bilingualism – as is evidenced by the first of her two identifica-
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tions, as well as the fact that she not only reads, but also writes in a newsletter dedicated to promoting the interests of multilingual families, and particularly the bilingual education of the children of such families. She shares this commitment with many, if not all, of the participants in my study. For the letter writer as well as many of the participants (e.g., Extract 69, Extract 70, Extract 71) this commitment to multilingualism takes very similar forms. It means valuing practices that keep the languages separate and devaluing mixing practices in which language contact becomes obvious. “True fusion, all the time, is not what is valued; what is valued is being monolingual several times over (and proving it by making a slip or two every now and then)” (Heller 2000: 10). .. Positive evaluations of mixing If language mixing is evaluated so negatively, why do couples do it, and, what is more, admit to doing it? The contradictory answer is because they simultaneously evaluate mixing positively. In Extract 73, for example, Olivia provides two contradictory evaluations of speaking bilingually, of using both languages “haphazardly”: mixing is not good for their future children (ll. 14–16), but she does not want to stop mixing because the two languages are connected to different thoughts and feelings and she values being able to express both (ll. 24–28).
Extract 73 (d6): “It depends on how I feel” 1 Olivia 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Christoph 14 Olivia 15 16
[...] also ich hab gemerkt dass ich in letz- in letzter Zeit immer mehr Englisch mit dir rede, also ich glaub je nachdem was ich grad sagen will und- oder in welche Sprache ich grad denke kommt entweder Englisch oder Deutsch raus, einfach ziemlich wahllos, [wahlfrei= [...] okay I’ve realized that recent- recently I’ve been speaking more and more English with you, well I think it depends what I want to say and- or in which language I’m thinking at the moment results in either English or German, simply quite haphazardly, [optional5 = [uhm. =und ich weiss nich ob das gut is wenn wir nachher Kinder haben, sollten wir vielleicht immer eine Sprache sprechen, oder? dass du
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17 Deutsch mit dene sprichst und ich Englisch. 18 =and I don’t know whether that’s good once 19 we’ve got children, we should probably stick to 20 one language consistently, don’t you think? 21 that you speak German with them and I English. 22 Christoph das waer moeglich, ja. 23 that would be possible, yes. 24 Olivia also das is ne Sache der Disziplin und das is 25 mir eigentlich- das ist mir nicht ganz recht, 26 es kommt ganz drauf an ueber was ich spreche 27 oder wie ich mich fuehle, ob ich jetzt Deutsch 28 oder Englisch sprechen will. 29 well that’s a question of discipline and I 30 don’t particularly- I don’t like that 31 particularly, it depends on the topic I’m 32 talking about or how I feel, whether I want to 33 speak German or English.
As is the case with the contradictory accounts of hybrid L1s explored in Section 5.2.4, the discontinuities and contradictions between claims on the questionnaires and actual practice during the conversations, as well as between differing evaluations which emerge within a single conversation – even in adjacent turns (Extract 73, ll. 14–16 vs. ll. 24–28) – derive from contradictions in available discourses. As I showed in Section 6.4.2, public discourses, particularly institutional discourses, devalue mixed varieties, code switching and hybridity. By contrast, positive evaluations draw much more on personal experience than the negative ones: “It depends on how I feel.” Some participants adduce the sheer joy they derive from bilingual language play, such as Blair (d26). In Extract 74 he explains that he and his wife enjoy language mixing and other forms of language play afforded by their bilingualism. Even so, the widespread negative evaluation of language use phenomena resulting from bilingualism also finds its way into his explanation when he states that they enjoy language play despite the fact that they are “errors.”
Extract 74 (d26): “We like the way it sounds” 1 2 3 4 5
Blair ich sage manchmal erm, should I open the Fenster? erm oder Einmeldewohneramt.6 oder verschiedene Sachen werden so ein bisschen durcheinander gesagt, und dann merkt man spaeter dass das ein Fehler ist, aber trotzdem
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wir haben das gern wie das klingt. also benutzen wir das WIEDER. obwohl wir das fehlerisch gemacht haben. I sometimes say erm, should I open the window? erm or citizens’ registration office.6 or some things are said a little mixed, and then you realize later on that it is an error, but nevertheless we like the way it sounds. therefore we use it AGAIN. although we used it wrongly.
A similar sense of fun is tangible in Matthias’ (d7) bizarrely exact quantification of the language ratio in their relationship: “fünfundsechzig Prozent Deutsch,” ‘65% German’. In addition to the playful motivation for code switching, codeswitches may also be motivated by the fact that they are perceived as a better match between form and function. A related issue is the one of appropriateness. Having two languages at one’s disposal of course includes that some things are easier and more appropriately expressed in one language than the other, as Vera (b1) points out in Extract 75. Again the mixture of positive (“more appropriate,” “completely fitting”) and negative (“tempting”) evaluations occurs.
Extract 75 (b1): “There are simply more appropriate words” 1 Vera [es gibt auch einfach Woerter erm die passender 2 sind in ner anderen Sprache, wo’s in- in der 3 eigenen Sprache gar nich so n total treffenden 4 Ausdruck gibt, da is man verleitet den in ner 5 anderen Sprache zu benutzen= 6 [also there are simply words erm which are more 7 appropriate in another language, where there 8 just doesn’t exist such a completely fitting 9 term in- in one’s own language, then it’s 10 tempting to use it in another language=
A specific form of marital language mixing, namely dual-linguality, is often considered a particularly “exotic” practice. A number of couples report how by-standers express their surprise when they overhear them communicate in both languages. However, this surprise may also be turned into a source of joy. Meredith and Holger (d8), for instance, gleefully describe the surprise of third parties who hear them practice dual-linguality for the first time (Extract 76). Unfortunately, Extract 76 is one of those sections of their conversation where
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they are not actually using a dual-lingual pattern, but where both partners speak German.
Extract 76 (d8): “This is Europe” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Holger
Meredith Holger
Meredith Holger
Meredith Holger Meredith
Holger Meredith
[...] uhmhu, was lustig war in- in Portugal, [erm mit dem- [mit dem- erm am Nachbartisch,= [...] uhmhu, a funny thing in- in Portugal, [erm with the- [with the- erm at the neighboring table,= [yeah. [uhmhu. =als sich da ne deutsche Familie hingesetzt hat. und du und Lena, ihr habt eigentlich die ganze Zeit ueber geredet, in Englisch, und er mich dann in ganz gebrochenem Englisch gefragt hat “kannst du- erm [kann ich bitte den= =when a German family sat down there. and you and Lena, you basically spoke the whole time, in English, and he then asked me in really broken English “can you- erm [can I have the pepper please?”= [uhmhu. =Pfeffer haben?” und ich dann “na, selbstverstaendlich koennen Sie den Pfeffer haben.” [@@ und er total erstaunt war. [und= =and I said “well, of course you can have the pepper.” [@@ and he was completely surprised. [and= [@@ =meinte “ja, DAS ist Europa.” @@= =said “well, THIS is Europe.” @@= [yeah. yeah. =jaja. ja, das kann Spass sein auch- [im- im Urlaub.= =yeah yeah. yes, that can be fun too- [on- on vacation.= [ja. ((yes.)) =uhmhu. das war besonders Spass in Portugal, weil jeder anderen waren entweder deutsch ODER englisch. it was particular fun in Portugal, because everyone else there was either German OR
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English. Holger ja. ((yes.)) Meredith und dann- das war lustig, weil die Leute hat erstmal gemerkt und hat die- die erste Satzpa- paar Saetze gehoert. ach ja, das ist ein deutsche [Ehepaar. and then- that was funny, because the people first recognized and heard the- the first sentence- few- a few sentences. oh well, this a German [couple. Holger [Ehepaar. oder n englisches.= [couple. or an English one.= Meredith =oder ein englisch Ehepaar. [und dann war doch= =or an English couple. [and then after all= Holger [ja. ((yes.)) Meredith =erschreckt, weil das war nicht so, das war n bisschen mehr kompliziert. [...] =they were shocked, because it wasn’t like that, it was a bit more complicated. [...]
.. Summary In sum, although language mixing is a frequent choice of couple language among the participants, it is also a problematic one. Unlike the choice of “English” or “German” it embraces a far broader range of linguistic practices. Additionally, it is subject to contradictory evaluations to a much greater degree than the choice of the majority language or of the minority language. Like those participants who claimed hybrid L1s (Section 5.2.4), those participants who claim a hybrid couple language do not have ready-made discourses available in which to talk about their choice. Rather, these discourses have to be custommade and consequently they are often contradictory as participants draw upon public, and particularly institutional, discourses of disapproval, and, simultaneously, upon personal discourses of individual thoughts and feelings, as well as the sheer joy of being able to play with more than one language.
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. Language choice and conflict .. Language choice during conflict If TV representations of couplehood – whether in soap operas, telenovelas, or one of the many afternoon talk shows – are anything to go by, having a row must be the single most frequent speech act that couples engage in. Research into private argument among adults – as opposed to public debate or arguments among children – is comparatively sparse as Kakavá (2001) points out in her overview article (even if it overlooks Dryden’s 1999 excellent monograph about marital conflict over the division of labor). I am not aware of any research that links private argument and language choice – as opposed to conflicts over language choice (Nelde 1997). At the same time, almost all the couples bring up language choice during conflict as an issue, which is why I am devoting a separate section to it. As I pointed out in Section 6.1, the language choices that the couples claim are reports of what they “usually” do. However, they may divert from this choice in some circumstances, such as for purposes of secrecy or language learning (Section 6.2), or when company is present. Arguing does not necessarily lead to a departure from the usual choice, but it seems to throw the choice into question, it may be the only time the speakers ever think about their language choice, at least that is what the self-reports suggest. To begin with, neither the questionnaire nor the discussion paper nor any other communication I had with the couples even alluded to conflict. Therefore, the fact that it comes up in so many conversations clearly indicates that it is a “rich point” (Agar 1994) in marital language choice. Agar (1994: 100) defines a rich point as an interesting problem, which attracts attention to itself, where language is “puttied thickly into far-reaching networks of association and many situations of use.” Although most couples raise the issue of language choice during conflict, they are also careful to dissociate themselves from arguments. The impression that they are arguing a lot would jeopardize the performance of a conventionally acceptable couple identity (Chapters 7 and 8). For Hannah (us4; Extract 77, l. 8–9) countering the impression that she and Allan might fight a lot is important enough to interrupt Allan’s turn and take the conversational floor from him.
Extract 77 (us4): “We don’t fight that much” 1 Allan 2 3
[...] aber wenn wir dann stritten, dann war s immer einfach auf Englisch. [...] but when we quarreled, then it was always
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simply in English. Hannah ja. ((yes.)) Allan und jetzt kann ich ganz schon-= and now I can already quite-= Hannah =so viel streiten wir gar nicht. =we don’t fight that much. Allan ach nee, gar nicht so viel. aber jetzt kann ich richtig auf Deutsch mich aufregen. oh no, not that much. but now I can really get worked up in German. Hannah ich muss sagen erm, da hab ich neulich drueber nachgedacht, wenn ich mich aufrege oder jeueber- mit jemandem streite, dann faellt es mir etwas leichter auf Englisch. weilI have to say erm, I thought about this recently, when I get upset or some- aboutfight with someone, then it’s easier for me in English. becauseAllan mehr Schimpfwoerter. ((more swearwords.)) Hannah ich finde, es gibt bessere Schimpfwoerter, man kann einfach besser bitchen. auf Englisch. [@@ I think, there are better swearwords, it’s simply easer to bitch. in English. [@@
While it is obvious from my data that language choice during conflict is an important issue for the couples, it is much less clear whether there is a pattern as to what the preferred choice is. The comparatively sparse literature that investigates language choice and emotions would suggest that it is the L1 that is preferred in an event involving strong emotions, such as a marital conflict (see Pavlenko 2002 for an overview). However, strong emotional connection to one language is not mentioned at all in my data. Rather, there is the perception that one language is simply a better conflict language than the other, or there are proficiency considerations. Many couples say that English is better suited for a row than German, as Hannah and Allan do (ll. 16–28). The reasons they give for that preference are that there are more swearwords (Allan, l. 24) and that there are better swearwords (Hannah, l. 25). Another couple (Claire and Alfred (us2)), who also pre-
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fer English for their arguments, do so for different reasons. Alfred finds English “easier, simpler, and quicker” (Extract 78, ll. 7; 11; 15).
Extract 78 (us2): “I can’t win arguments with you in German” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Claire [...] for some things we use a little bit German but still mostly English. Alfred yeah. Claire cause I can’t win arguments with you in German.@ Alfred we:ll, well I actually must admit for me it’s easier to argue in English andClaire yeah? Alfred yeah. Claire you are getting used to it, uhm? Alfred it’s simpler! Claire @@@ Alfred so, erm so that willClaire how is- how is it simpler to argue in English? Alfred well, it’s quicker, German is slower, actually. [...]
In addition to a widespread preference for English as “conflict language,” proficiency also comes into play. In Extract 77 (ll. 1–2), Allan describes how they used to switch back into English, even after German had become their couple language, whenever they had a row because, at that time, he was not proficient enough to argue in German. He seems to take his ability to have a fight in German as a measure of success which he is proud of (ll. 12–13). Similarly, Claire states in Extract 78 (ll. 4–5) that she might use more German with Alfred if she could win arguments in that language. Most couples share a preference for a particular conflict language (as Hannah and Allan, and Claire and Alfred do). However, in some cases this is not so, and it may be outright impossible to accommodate the preference of both partners, as happens when one partner does not speak both languages. The most poignant account of such a case comes from Hildegard (gb5; Extract 79).
Extract 79 (gb5): “I feel disadvantaged” 1 Hildegard [...] tja, was ich als schwierig empfinde, 2 manchmal, ist, wenn wir ne richtig heisse 3 Diskussion haben, mein Mann und ich, oder eben 4 so n heftiges Streitgespraech, und ich mich
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dann eben nicht in meiner Muttersprache erm verstaendigen kann, erm dann fehlen mir oftmals so richtige stichhaltige Argumente, die ich dann eben nicht spontan im- im Englischen einfach zu Wort bringe. erm denn fuehle ich mich oft im- im Hintertreffen [...] [...] okay, what I find difficult, sometimes, is, when we’ve got a really hot discussion, my husband and I, or really a fierce argument, and I obviously can’t erm communicate in my mother tongue then, erm I often lack really substantial arguments, which I then obviously don’t spontaneously simply express in- in English. erm then I often feel disdisadvantaged. [...]
Hildegard feels disadvantaged when she has to express herself during a fight in English because she says she cannot express her arguments easily in that language. While Hildegard, as well as some other participants, regard it as a disadvantage that they cannot fight in their L1 and that they do not have the proficiency to argue effectively in their L2, Franz regards this lack of “rowing proficiency” as an advantage (Extract 80).
Extract 80 (d3): “Sich zusammenraufen7 ” 1 Franz [...] oft wurden wir gefragt, wie wir am Anfang 2 Differenzen oder Streitigkeiten entgegen 3 getreten sind. man sagt sich- man sagt auch, 4 sich zusammenraufen. die Antwort. wir konnten 5 uns nicht streiten, da wir ueber keine 6 entsprechende Sprachkenntnisse verfuegten. 7 spaeter als wir die Kenntnisse hatten, war es 8 nicht mehr noetig. [...] 9 [...] we’ve often been asked, how we dealt with 10 differences or quarrels in the beginning. this 11 is called- this is also called, sich 12 zusammenraufen.7 the answer. we couldn’t fight, 13 because we didn’t have the necessary linguistic 14 skills. later when we had the skills, it wasn’t 15 necessary any more. [...]
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A related issue that also has to do with proficiency is a feeling for the “strength” of swearwords in the L2 (see Espín 1999 for a detailed discussion of the differential strength of taboo for bilinguals). A number of participants explain that they sometimes may have inadvertently started a conflict or fanned the conflict when they used expressions that the partner perceived as “stronger” than they had intended it. Vera (b1) points out that her use of English swearwords is a source of conflict between herself and Ben (Extract 81).
Extract 81 (b1): “Those are swearwords and that’s really bad” 1 Vera [...] also Ben ist immer voellig entsetzt wenn 2 ich im Englischen gewisse erm Woerter benutzte 3 die man nicht benutzt und ich hab einfach nich 4 das Sprachgefuehl . zu wissen WIE schlimm die 5 eigentlich sind= 6 okay Ben is always completely appalled when I 7 use certain erm words in English which one does 8 not use and I simply do not have the feeling 9 for the language . to know HOW bad they really 10 are= 11 Ben =ja so Schimpfwoerter sind das 12 und DAS ist ganz schlimm. 13 =yeah those are swearwords and THAT is 14 really bad.
.. Conflict over language choice So far, I have suggested that language choice may become salient during marital conflict. However, language choice itself may be a source of conflict. A number of participants express conflict, mostly very mild, over the ways in which language choice has worked out in their relationship. The strongest expression of conflict over language choice occurs in the conversation of Gerda and Shane (nl1; Extract 82).
Extract 82 (nl1): “You are too lazy to speak any German” 1 Shane as a bilingual couple which language do we 2 usually speak together? 3 Gerda that’s a sad question. 4 Shane a sad question? no, I think it’s a wonderful 5 question. [@@
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Gerda Shane Gerda Shane Gerda Shane Gerda Shane
Gerda
Shane Gerda Shane
[@@ it’s from your point of view. and the answer is [of course[@English.@ English. but you know why this is? erm the reas- reason for that? yes, but the reason doesn’t apply anymore. yeah the original reason is, that you would be at home all the time speaking German. with the children. so it’s only fair that we should speak English together to balance it. however, @things turned out a bit differently from what we expected.@ and if I remember rightly, we spoke English most of the time when we used to living in Germany, [or? [no.= =yes!= =das stimmt nicht. =that’s not true.
[...] Shane [...] “has you language use changed in the course of your relationship?” Gerda yes. Shane yes. it’s become even more English. Gerda yes, and that’s just because you are too lazy to speak any German. Shane and it’s also because of Julian’s school where English is the language. Gerda which is not true because this boy de- decided not to speak any German anymore when he was three. Shane yê:s that’s true. but then why did that happen? Gerda yeah. I don’t know. Shane we don’t know the answer to that, do we?
Muntigl and Turnbull (1998) identify four types of disagreement, which they rank from most to least aggravated: irrelevancy claims, challenges, contradictions, and counterclaims. All these types are present in Extract 82, which suggests that language choice is a fairly aggravated source of conflict for Gerda and
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Shane. There are two irrelevancy claims (ll. 12; 19–21), two challenges (ll. 6; 31–32), five contradictory moves (ll. 4–5; 22; 23; 24; 35–37), and two counterclaims (ll. 13–18; 33–34). The strong disagreement moves (irrelevancy claims and challenges) all come from Gerda, for whom the familial language arrangement is problematic. Shane, by contrast, for whom the present linguistic arrangement in his family is apparently not problematic, uses various persuasive strategies, including strategies aimed mainly at the researcher (ll. 13–18), to downplay the conflict: he tries to laugh it away (l. 5) – a move that Gerda briefly co-engages in – he tries to reason, and rationalize the conflict (ll. 9; 11; 13–18; 33–34), prove his point indexically by his code-switch into German (l. 24), use irony (l. 30), and engage in concessive moves (ll. 38; 40). Discourse analysts have often tried to link the use of various communicative strategies used during conflict to the identities of the interactants, particularly gender and cultural identities. Gender has been claimed to influence conflict style, most famously in the work of Tannen (1990, 1994a, 1994b, 1998), who is the best-known exponent of the thesis that men prefer direct confrontations while women tend to seek overt agreement and avoid confrontation. As for cultural identity, there seems to be a widespread assumption among discourse analysts that conversational cooperation is the linguistic default option8 and, consequently, observed conflict has often been viewed as culture-specific. Kakavá (2001) lists research from the following cultural contexts, where confrontations are not only in evidence, but are reportedly also positively evaluated: African American, Balinese, Chamula Indian, Cypriot, Cretan, German, Greek, Israeli, Turkish, and Yoruba. These connections between broad identity categories are difficult to reconcile with the data presented here. None of the women quoted in Extract 77, Extract 78, and Extract 79 show any qualms about admitting that they fight with their husbands, that they enjoy “good swearwords” and “bitching” (Hannah), and want to win arguments (Claire) – irrespective of their cultural backgrounds. What’s more, in Extract 82, it is Gerda who engages in open confrontation and uses the stronger disagreement types. When the couples in Dryden’s (1999) study engaged in conflict talk over housework it was also the women, who were disadvantaged by the existing division of labor in the relationship, who tended to initiate disagreements, even if they were not able to sustain their challenges. Similarly, in conflict talk about language choice those partners who feel disadvantaged by or are unhappy with the existing language choice pattern in the relationship bring it up as a challenge. Marital conflict is thus not linked to some aspect of identity but to existing conflicts in interest that the partners have, be they over who does the dishes and the laundry, or over which language choices are made. The various challenges
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to the existing language choice arrangement that Gerda makes throughout the conversation remain unresolved, as each conflict ends with some conciliatory or concessive move on Shane’s part (l. 40), followed by a “stand-off.” A standoff is defined as an end to the discussion of the issue over which disagreement has arisen and a change of speech activity (Vuchinich 1990). In his analysis of conflicts occurring during American family dinners, Vuchinich (1990) also found the stand-off to be the most common means of ending a conflict. The relative stability of patterns of language choice (Section 6.3.1) mitigates against other means of conflict resolution such as submission or compromise. Most conflicts over language choice are mild, and, as I said, Extract 82 is the most aggravated case of conflict over language choice in the conversations. This may be related to the fact that all the core couples were in a long-term stable relationship at the time of data collection. By contrast, there is the possibility that marital conflict may also be expressed through language choice. Catherine Meyer (1999: 87), for instance, describes how her ex-husband began to alter their common language from English to German at the time of their separation (Extract 83).
Extract 83: “He put a barrier between us” From time to time, Hans-Peter would phone to talk to the boys. He always addressed me in German. This had been a new development; it began about a year before, when Hans-Peter started to speak to me systematically in German and demanded that I answer in it. This deeply frustrated me since I was unable to express myself properly and often made grammatical mistakes (I never had time to study the language except for introductory self-teaching), and Hans-Peter would constantly correct me. But, as if he had put a barrier between us, he would speak English only when the conversation concerned us personally – which had been more and more rarely. (Meyer 1999: 87)
In this account, conflict is also played out on the terrain of language choice, and the unilateral change of the common language is described as hostile. And, given the evidence from the core couple’s conversations, there are – ex negativo – good reasons for that perception. In sum, the emotionally fraught context of marital conflict is a situation in which language choice becomes particularly salient. The couples’ normal choice may be thrown into question as one or both partners have a specific preference for an “argument language.” It is important to note that the preferred conflict language is not necessarily the L1. Furthermore, the couples’
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language choice may itself be a source of conflict. Given the overall stability of the couples’ linguistic choice, conflict over language choice is not easily resolved once a particular pattern has become entrenched.
. Bilingual networking So far in this chapter, I have explored language choice in the private domain among the couples themselves. I focused upon three different choices, namely the majority language, the minority language, and a combination of both languages. Furthermore, I explored conflict over the choices made as well as the choices during marital conflict. I will return to language choice in the private domain in Chapter 9 when I explore the language planning decisions that the participants make for the education of their children. However, language choices are not only being made in the private domain of couple talk, but also in the public sphere. These choices are less rigid than one might assume at first glance. At first blush, one would expect that the couples who live in Germany will have to use German outside their homes, and those who live in the UK or the US will have to use English – end of research. However, the story is more complex. All participants, without exception, have personal networks in the minority language, which means that they also use the minority language to various degrees outside the couple domain. There is not a single couple who do not participate in minority language networks to some extent. On the language use questionnaire, all of them indicated at least some contacts with whom they regularly use the minority language, be they members of their extended families, neighbors, colleagues, friends, or even God and pets. In the following, I will discuss language choice in the extended family (Section 6.6.1), at work (Section 6.6.2), with friends (Section 6.6.3), and “self-talk” (Section 6.6.4). I use the term “self-talk” for language choice for the “inner functions” (talking to oneself, counting, dreaming, etc.) and with interactants that do not give conventional linguistic feedback, such as pets and deities. .. Extended family To begin with, most participants have family members with whom they have regular contact and who are not bilingual. Often these are the participants’ parents, but grandparents, siblings, and more distant relatives either of the parents’ or the own generation are also mentioned. While none of the participants actually live with their extended families, many of them make a point to meet
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with them regularly. Those couples who have children are particularly keen for the children to spend time with the minority partner’s extended family. At the time of their conversation, one couple was on a visit to the minority partner’s parents (Corinna and Jordan (us1)) and one couple was expecting the minority partner’s parents for a visit the following week (Doris and William (gb3)). Contact with extended families is not only maintained through visits, but also over the phone. Martin (d16) and Allan (us4), for instance, both joke that the only difference between an international couple and a “GermanGerman” or “American-American” one is their phone bill. In order to facilitate communication between family members from different backgrounds, many participants report having to interpret for them. Interpreting is typically thought of as a highly public institutionalized practice (conference interpreting, court interpreting etc.), and only very recently the practice of “community interpreting” has started to receive some attention (Carr, Roberts, Dufour, & Steyn 1997; Pöchhacker 1999; Pöchhacker & Shlesinger 2002; Wadensjo 1998). Community interpreting usually refers to the interpreting practices of nonprofessionals as they are carried out in the day-to-day routines of multilingual societies. However, the focus continues to be on public practices such as community interpreting in hospitals or educational settings. Even less attention has been given to private interpreting practices within the family. At the same time, private interpreting is a routine practice for many of the participants. Sometimes they have to interpret for their partner when they go and visit the minority partner’s extended family (see, e.g., Extract 40 and Extract 57 above). More frequently, interpretation is necessary between the two extended families, and while this is described as a burden by some, more often couples mischievously describe those interpretations as a possibility to mediate not only across linguistic barriers, but also across cultural or ideological barriers, as Patricia and Anton (d15) do in Extract 84.
Extract 84 (d15): “We never translated the truth” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Anton
but you know, I- I actually think, the best story is-= Patricia =yes?= Anton =er is that in actual fact, er our- er our parents get along so nicely. and this actually has only something to do with that we never translated the truth of what they have said. Patricia @oh, that’s lovely.@
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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
Anton because er our fathers are total opposite. Patricia yes. Anton er my father being at- at least at that time being very leftist. Patricia yes. Anton your father being er totally er conservative and- and rightist. Patricia yes. Anton and er they couldn’t talk to each other. because you know my father’s er English wasn’t good enough, I mean he spoke a couple of words and your father spoke a couple of words of German. [but I mean German. but it wasn’t-= Patricia [yes. but notAnton =wasn’t good enough at all. so er we transwhenever they- they came up with something [to- to er test the- the other and find out= Patricia [@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@] Anton =what- what er the other was thinking, we translated it in a very positive way. so that my fa- father thought, your father was a- a typical er leftist er er er union man like he was, and your father thought,] my father was a very conservative er you know er er er @@@@ yes so and they- [they spoke only highly of each= Patricia [they love each other. they love each other. Anton =other. and even today they think that theythey are actually the greatest friends becausealthough they have only met twice. and they think that they are the greatest friends and they have so much in common. Patricia yeah. Anton every time when we- when- when we- we meet your father, he says, oh you know, we had such a great time and we were so close to each other. a pity we couldn’t talk to each other. and hadidn’t have the same language. and we always have thought, thanks god they couldn’t talk to each other, ne? ((right?)) [so that=
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50 Patricia [@@@ yeah, that’s 51 very good, very good story. 52 Anton =actually having- having er er er two languages 53 actually made our life with our parents and all 54 the problems I think a lot of er couples have 55 with their- with their parents-in-law, with 56 their parents, I think we- we got away with 57 that.
The extended family that provides opportunities to use the minority language is typically the in-law family, or situations in which mediation between one’s birth family and one’s in-law family is necessary. However, there are two participants who even report that they use the minority language with members of their birth family. Natalie (d27) and Kate (us5) both have brothers who also have an English-speaking partner (in Natalie’s case) or a German-speaking partner (in Kate’s case) and both report that they use the minority language with these brothers. In both extracts in which this language choice is reported (Extract 85 and Extract 86) a sense of surprise on the part of the speakers themselves is evident, which clearly points to the fact that using a second language with a member of one’s birth family is regarded as a marked choice. In Extract 85, Kate reports the signs of this surprise when she says that, whenever she and her brother speak German with each other, they look at each and question their choice (ll. 9–12).
Extract 85 (us5): “Why are we doing this to ourselves?” 1 Kate [...] er hat auch eine- eine deutsche Frau. und 2 mit ihr haben wir dann bayrische Verwandten. 3 die wir- was wir auch ganz lustig finden. aber 4 mein Bruder kann auch recht gut Deutsch. er war 5 auch ein Jahr in Deutschland als- auch als 6 Austauschschueler. und hat auch vorher etwas 7 Deutsch gelernt. so, es ist schon vorgekommen, 8 dass mein Bruder und ich in einer Unterhaltung 9 Deutsch gesprochen haben und dann haben wir uns 10 einander angeguckt und gesagt, warum tun wir 11 uns das eigentlich an? ne? @@ wir koennen ja 12 Englisch sprechen. aber es- wir haben auch 13 gesagt, wie kommt es, dass wir beide Deutsche 14 heirateten, ist das irgendwie eine 15 Familienschwaeche, oder was. und der- der Witz
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16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
ist, wir brauchen Leute, die uns in Ordnung halten. he has a- a German wife, too. and with her we’ve then got Bavarian relatives. who wewhich we also find quite funny. but my brother also speaks German quite well. he also was in Germany as- as an exchange student, too. and he also learned some German prior to that. okay, it sometimes happens, that my brother and I have a conversation in German, and then we look at each other and say, why are we doing this to ourselves? right? @@ we could really speak English. but it- we also said, how come, that we’ve both married Germans, is that somehow a family weakness, or what. and the- the joke goes, we need people, who keep us in order.
While the signs of surprise are reported in Extract 85, they emerge during the conversation itself in Extract 86. There, Steven and Natalie first jointly establish German as the obvious choice for Natalie to use with her birth family (l. 7) before Steven springs the surprise question “but with your SIBLINGS. now?” (ll. 8–9) on her. Both the emphasis on “siblings” and the new intonation contour on “now” serve to increase the sense of “You’ve been caught out.” And in l. 10, Natalie concedes that that is true, and further increases the sense of surprise by speaking rapidly, under her breath, and one can almost “hear” a facial expression of surprise.
Extract 86 (d27): “You speak English with your brother” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Steven
[...] I mean for you this is very interesting because it says erm ok “which language do you usually address the following persons?” ok. your partner, me. I mean we usually speak English. your parents you speak- ok you speak [German. Natalie [German. obviously. Steven with your grandparents you spoke German. but with your SIBLINGS. now? Natalie < > Steven with Gustav you speak English usually.= Natalie =always.
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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Steven always? Natalie always. Steven you always speak English. and erm when Gustav is around erm generally erm Arnold will also then speak English. Natalie Arnold speaks English with you, but I sort of refuse to speak English with Arnold [although= Steven [I see. Natalie =he speaks English with you. Steven and when your sister’s here we usually speak English also, don’t we? Natalie no, I don’t. Steven you don’t? ok. Natalie you do, though. Steven well yeah. she speaks perfect English. Natalie I don’t speak English with my sister. Steven uhmhu. Natalie I only speak English with my brother. Gustav. Steven with Gustav right . [...]
Extract 85 and Extract 86 provide evidence that in some cases the choice of the minority language may be such a strong choice that it “spills over” from interactions with the partner into interactions with members of one’s birth family – interactions where the use of an L2 is considered highly marked, thereby indicating how much these participants have become habituated to their L2. .. Workplaces In addition to the need to use the minority language or engage in bilingual practices with extended family, many of the participants are employed in bilingual workplaces. They either pursue language-related careers (teachers, translators etc.) or they work in multinational corporations where English is widely used (the latter case would obviously only lead to minority language use in the German context). Table 10 provides a summary of the answers to the questionnaire item “Which role do languages play in your current occupation?” As Table 10 shows, 42 of the 69 core participants (60.9%) accord languages a major role in their workplaces. In language-related professions, such as teaching or translating, this is to be expected as a matter of course. The two answers in Extract 87 are typical.
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Table 10. “Which role do languages play in your current occupation?” Role
Total
%
“central,” “crucial,” “major,” “very important” “minor,” “small,” “not so important” “none”
42 15 12
60.9 21.7 17.4
Extract 87: Language-related professions “Necessary for German-English translations. But I always use English in the classroom (outside of class I speak to students in whichever language they feel comfortable with – usually German!)” (Jill, d18, English teacher) “a crucial one – I translate legal documents, and as a lawyer was an intermediary between German-speaking and English-speaking persons” (Jane, d22, translator, attorney)
Although a large number of the participants work in language-related professions such as teaching and translating, the wide range of occupations that would not normally be considered language-related, but where languages play an important role according to the participants is even more striking (Extract 88).
Extract 88: Non-language-related professions “At work, especially at [name of tourist site] there are many tourists from other countries and I have to talk not only German but also English, Italian and sometimes also Spanish.” (Paola, d1, university student, tourist guide) “I meet quite a few English-speaking artists and also do some work for the American army where nobody speaks German.” (Rob, d1, artist; emphasis in the original) “Language plays a very important role because I work with asylum seekers. I speak English with English speaking clients.” (Virginia, d5, social worker) “a very big role. I use English daily.” (Jochen, d5, engineer) “Dealing with International Clients – language abilities help every day!” (Susan, d16, clerk) “A lot of papers are in English” (Gunther, d24, IT professional) “I travel often to England, France etc. with deliveries and need to communicate.” (Blair, d26, truck driver)
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“My boss is German, so I use both languages at work” (Helga, gb1, secretary, university student) “I teach my children and some ladies German” (Doris, gb3, housewife, mother)
As these quotes show, many participants outside traditionally language-related workplaces also work in occupations that allow them to use both their languages. In most cases, these opportunities to use the minority language in the workplace derive from the status of English as an international language. The use of English as a lingua franca in international communication makes it relevant to the fields of tourism, social work, trade and freighting. Additionally, English dominates in a number of specific fields (engineering, IT). The presence of American and British army bases in Germany – sometimes referred to as “Nachbar Amerika,” ‘Neighbor America’ (Herget, Kremp, & Rödel 1995) – also creates opportunities for the use of English in the workplaces on those bases (Rob, and see also the biographies of Christine and Brendan (d13), and Helga and Andrew (gb1), in Chapter 4). Although it is not apparent from my data, which were collected in 1997 and 1998, the American Forces were, for at least two decades in the 1950s and 1960s, the main employers in some German regions and, in some cases, continued to be so until their “draw-down” – the reduction in size – in the early 1990s (Moeller 1995; Ritzenhofen 1995). Indeed, once the draw-down occurred in the early 1990s it was mainly discussed as an economic event in the German press, rather than as a military one, as one might expect. A sales pitch to potential investors who might replace the American Forces as employers typically included the point that “the Forces are leaving behind a talented and bilingual workforce that would be an asset for any potential investor” (Moeller 1995: 160). The fact that the participants who reside in Germany frequently state that the use of English is important in their workplaces, even if they are not employed in language-related professions, derives mainly from the international status of English (see also Piller 2001a for further aspects of the valorization of English in German society). Consequently, those participants who reside in the UK or the US and use German in their workplace mainly do so in languagerelated jobs, mostly German teaching. Some other participants either use German in their workplace due to chance factors such as the boss being German (Helga (gb1)) or because their private domain coincides with their work domain and they have turned it into an opportunity to use German there (e.g., Doris (gb3)). The status difference between English and German and the impact it has on the workplaces of the participants is most obvious from the state-
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ments of those participants who work for major international corporations, often in the IT sector. All such participants who reside in Germany state that English plays an important role in their occupation (e.g., see the quotes from Jochen (d5), Susan (d16), Gunther (d24) in Extract 88). By contrast, no such sense of necessity emerges from comparably employed participants who reside in the US or the UK, as the quotations in Extract 89 show.
Extract 89: American and British workplaces “Languages do not play an important role but cultural differences do.” (William, gb3, computer engineer) “I work in a company with international divisions and customers. My work is easier if I have more than 1 language, but I can perform well with only English.” (Claire, us2, IT professional) “I consider English the primary language in my line of work.” (Alfred, us2, IT professional) “Occasional Business contact with German companies” (Allan, us4, engineer)
In sum, many of the participants consider their minority language to play an important role in their workplaces and their workplaces provide them with additional opportunities to use the minority language. However, in the work domain the different status of English and German is most apparent. The international status of English almost makes it impossible to think of English as a minority language. For many of the participants residing in Germany, the use of the minority language in the workplace is thus a necessity. By contrast, the workplace is significantly less likely to provide an additional space for the minority language for the American and British residents. .. Friendship Table 11 provides an overview of the answers to the questionnaire item “In which language do you usually address your friends?” 53 of the 69 core participants (76.8%) indicate that they have friends in both languages when they state “English and German,” “some English, some German,” “English, German with my German friends (letters)” etc. Some people in this group also indicate that they even have friends with whom they use a third language. This third language is most often French, but also Danish, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, and Welsh. It is thus obvious that, for the majority of participants, their partner is not the only speaker of their L2 with whom
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Table 11. “In which language do you usually address your friends?” Friends
Residence
More than one language English only UK, USA Germany German only Germany UK
Total
%
53 6 4 2 10 9 1
76.8 8.7
14.5
they have a close personal relationship. Additionally, they have one or more speakers of that language whom they regard as friends. Only 16 participants (23.2%) state that they have only monolingual friendships, i.e. that they address all their friends in English or German (Table 11). For 13 (18.8%) of these this language is the majority language, i.e. four participants who reside in the UK or US name only English as friendship language and nine participants who reside in Germany name only German as their friendship language. Only two of these are a couple (Rita and Jens (us3)). The most obvious characteristic of the participants who only claim majority language friends, and, indeed only monolingual friendships, is that they are mostly male: 10 out of those 13 who only claim majority friends, and 12 out of those 16 who only claim monolingual friends are men. It is well-established that friendship practices are highly gendered (e.g., Coates 1996) and it might be that men are more likely to have only monolingual friends because they have fewer friends overall. 10 out of those who claim to have only majority friends are L1 speakers of the majority language – thereby pointing to the fact that for these 10 people their cross-cultural relationship is not reflected in their friendship patterns. However, most of the friendship circles do reflect the cross-cultural relationships, as shown above, and in the following I will explore some characteristics of these friendship groups as they emerge from the conversations in some more detail. First, not all the minority language friendship networks are necessarily between L1 speakers of the minority language. Many of the L1 English speakers who reside in Germany use English with some German friends in order to accommodate their preference to practice the language. Meredith (d8), for instance, writes in reply to the questionnaire stimulus “In which language do you usually address your friends?” (emphasis in the original): “English with the English native speakers, German with most of the German ones – (some like to practice their English!).”
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Second, many of the friendships with people of one’s L1 minority background seem to have been formed quite deliberately. One reason for seeking out friends from one’s L1 background lies in the need to communicate in one’s L1 every now and then. This need is cited by Cynthia (d3), Virginia (d5) and Amy (d24), who are part of the same “Stammtisch” of English-speaking women. “Stammtisch” literally translates as ‘regulars’ table’ and refers to a group of regulars, who have a standing reservation for a pub table. This typical German form of socializing, which, according to a standard German dictionary, is negatively associated with ignorant political discussions (Drosdowski 1989), has been keenly adapted by English-speaking communities all over Germany. The events’ sections of all the newsletters have one or more Stammtische in their calendar, sometimes even using the diminutive “Ami Stammi,” “American Stammtisch” for it (Currents), which does not exist in German (i.e., it does not have an entry in Drosdowski 1989). It is very obvious that the connotations have changed between the languages, and the negative German connotation of uninformed political discussion has been replaced with friendly socializing. It also seems to me that the German Stammtisch is a typical male form of socializing (Drosdowski 1989 does not say so, but then this might only be due to the “male as norm” bias of the dictionary). The English-speaking Stammtisch, by contrast, is often an all-female or mixed-sex event. Cynthia, Virginia, and Amy and some other “interesting English-speaking ladies” (Cynthia) make an effort to meet regularly at their Stammtisch although they do not even live in the same city. Cynthia, who cannot attend during wintertime because her round-trip is more than 100 kilometers and not feasible in the sometimes difficult road conditions of rural Southern Germany, says she misses the regular meetings very much during that period, and would “dearly love to live closer [. . .] and see each other more regularly.” Female friendship groups have also been discussed by other researchers as an important factor in language maintenance. Pauwels (1985), for instance, describes the Dutch practice of “gezelligheid,” ‘togetherness’, which women value more than men, as an important factor in Dutch maintenance in Australia. Similarly, Heller and Lévy (1990, 1991, 1992a, 1992b, 1994, 1996) found that the Francophone wives of Anglophone men in Canada whom they interviewed all had a network of French-speaking female friends with whom they used French regularly. Female friendship networks are a characteristic of many diasporic communities. Ethnographers working with Vietnamese communities in both the USA and Australia, for instance, have noted that “women sought out networks to assist them in obtaining resources to fulfil economic and social responsibilities to their families” (Thomas 1999: 171).
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Apart from offering a chance to speak one’s L1, minority language friends may also be sought out for the shared experiences they may offer, as one participant wrote in a letter:
Extract 90: “English-speaking friends who have similar experiences” [. . .] I find myself dearly wishing to leave Germany, regretting having married a German, resenting the growing Germanness of my children, wishing to give them more of an English background and perspective. [. . .] In the first years here I only read books in German, even translations of English books. Now I read only English books. I have joined the local English Stammtisch, found English-speaking friends who have similar experiences. [. . . ]
Another reason for seeking out minority language friendship networks, or even creating them purposefully, comes out of the desire to expose one’s children to the minority language outside the home in minority language playgroups. This is true of the women who participated in the focus group interview, as well as some other participants. Four of the female core participants are the founders of a minority language playgroup in their cities, and many more engage in such groups. The fact that bilingual parents often organize or seek out playgroups in the minority language is also apparent from the “contacts” section of newsletters such as The Bilingual Family Newsletter. These ads typically give the name, contact details, language combination, and number of children plus their year of birth or age. If the desired contact is specified, it usually specifies the desired language (combination) and the area, as in the following examples: “Would like to meet other English-speaking families in the Braunschweig-Hannover area,” “Any English speaking families in the Bodensee area?” or “The family has recently moved to Germany from England. Elke is a kindergarten teacher and would like to start an English/German playgroup as well as meet other English/German families” (see Chapter 9 for further details on private language planning and the creation of minority language networks as part of the effort to raise bilingual children). This discussion of minority language friendship networks should not create the impression that the participants live in some kind of ethnic ghetto without friendship ties – other than familial ties – into the majority society. This is clearly not the case, as only three participants named exclusively the minority language as a vehicle of their friendships (see Table 11; these three are Jerry (d11), Brendan (d13), and Marga (gb4)). What is more, many participants do not only seem to have friendships in both languages, but equally strong ones
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in both languages. Franz (d3), for instance, expresses his admiration for the extent of Cynthia’s German friendships as well as her interpersonal skills (Extract 91). It is obvious that Cynthia has strong ties in the village where they live, but from the above it is also clear that she cherishes her English-speaking Stammtisch as well.
Extract 91 (d3): Impressive friendships 1 Franz [...] bemerken moechte ich dazu, dass meine 2 Frau in den zehn Jahren, wo wir verheiratet 3 sind, mehr Kontakt zu den Leuten aufgebaut hat 4 als ich in dreissig Jahren. beachtlich. das ist 5 halt unsere schwaebische Mentalitaet. [...] 6 [...] I’d like to add, that my wife has created 7 more relationships in the ten years, since we 8 have been married, than I have in thirty years. 9 impressive. well, that’s our Swabian mentality. 10 [...]
In sum, most participants engage in ethnic friendship networks, which create additional bilingual spaces in their lives. Particularly the women among the participants seek out friendship groups in the minority language in order to enjoy speaking the minority language, but also to share experiences. .. Self-talk As I explained above, I am using the term “self-talk” for the so-called “inner functions” (Vygotsky 1962), and for interactions in which the speaker functions as both addresser and addressee. Although such addressees (the self, God, pets, vehicles) may be perceived as responding by the addresser, they do not do so in a conventional linguistic manner. As Romaine (1995: 173) points out “[s]elf-talk is hardly a recognized speech event.” However, it has received some attention in language choice research since Weinreich (1968) hypothesized that a bilingual’s stronger language would be chosen for such functions. Mackey (1968: 565) lists the following types of self-talk: counting, reckoning, praying, cursing, dreaming, diary writing, note taking. Researchers of childhood bilingualism have also added talk to toys and pets. Research into childhood bilingualism has found some support for the hypothesis that it is a child’s stronger language which is used in self-talk. Fantini’s (1985) son Mario, for instance, who was raised bilingually in English and Spanish, with Spanish being the
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home language, spoke Spanish to his teddy bear. Saunders’ (1982, 1988) children, who were raised bilingually in English and German, with English being the home and community language, and German coming from their father, addressed animals in English. However, Saunders (1982, 1988) also reports that the children regarded their toys as bilingual and addressed them in English and German, but treated the toys of their English monolingual friends as monolingual, and only addressed them in English. This would be an argument against the hypothesis that self-talk is the domain of the stronger language, as is Elwert’s (1959) autobiographical account. Elwert, who grew up trilingually in English, German and Italian, reports that his language choices for the inner functions depend upon the context, i.e., in an English context, he would use English, in a German one, German, etc. My interest in this section is not so much with what self-talk can tell us about the language balance of an individual, but the ways in which self-talk can be used to create an additional bilingual space in the lives of the participants. The data for this section mainly come from questionnaire responses to the questions “In which language do you usually address God?” and “In which language do you usually address others (please specify)?” In the following, I will discuss the responses to these two questions separately, first focusing on language choice in addresses to God and then in addresses to others, which turned out to be mainly pets and dreams. The questionnaire item that asked for language choice in prayer was inspired by Gal (1978, 1979), who studied language choice and language change in the bilingual town of Oberwart in Austria. There, Hungarian was gradually being replaced by German and the researcher found that “addressing God” was the domain that was most resistant to language change, i.e., even those Oberwarters who had switched to the use of German in virtually all other domains continued to use Hungarian in their conversations with God. Consequently, I expected that the participants in my study would be most likely to address God in their L1. However, Table 12 shows that this is not necessarily the case. To begin with, 28 participants (40.6%) do not address God at all. Most of those who do not address God said so emphatically, e.g., by writing “I DON’T” in capitals or adding a few exclamation marks to “n/a.” One even bothered to use a different color pen. I take these emphases to mean that these participants took issue with the presupposition of my question, which obviously entailed the assumption that they would address God. This is in line with sociological research into the characteristics of people who intermarry. It is a consistent finding of that research that they tend to have weak religious convictions (Khatib-Chahidi, Hill & Paton 1998). The fact that four participants responded “I don’t know” proba-
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Table 12. “In which language do you usually address God?”
“I don’t” “Don’t know” English German Both Welsh
Total
%
28 4 11 14 11 1
40.6 5.8 15.9 20.3 15.9 1.5
bly also points to weak religious convictions, and concomitant practices. Anton (d15) wrote “Good questions, never thought of it!” It is ambiguous whether this means “I don’t know (I’ve never thought about it)” or “I don’t (I’ve never thought of addressing God).” Some of those who responded “I don’t” may also have taken issue with the Christian implication that arises out of the spelling “God” and the singular. There is one open challenge to this implication. The female L1 English partner of couple a1 (whose conversation was of such poor quality that it was impossible to transcribe; see Table 3) wrote “mostly in English – Goddess, by the way.” As a matter of fact, I do not know the religious affiliation, if any, of any of the participants. 26 participants (37.7%; see Table 12) claim to address God monolingually (in English, German, or Welsh) and in all these cases the language they claim is their L1. Even these monolingual addressers, however, describe some exceptions. The exceptions may be due to the place of residence, as Natalie (d27) explains: “usually German, except when I’ve spent a long time in an Englishspeaking country.” They may also be due to a difference between private and public prayer, as Doris (gb3) explains: “at home: German, in English churches: English.” Finally, eleven participants (15.9%) wrote “both,” “English and German” or “German/English.” None of these provided any further explanation, except Alfred (us2), who, rather unspecifically, adds “English and German (depends).” In sum, based on existing research it was to be expected that language choice in prayer would be more resistant to the choice of an L2 than other domains. 26 (37.7%) participants indeed nominate their L1 as their language of choice in prayer. However, this is the question that participants engage with least: on the questionnaire they hardly ever elaborate as they do for many other questions (see, e.g., the quotes in Extract 87, Extract 88, Extract 89), and, unlike anything else on the questionnaire, it does not come up in a single conversation. When the conversations turn to topics that could be vaguely regarded as
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religious it is usually about different Christmas customs (i.e., what’s the best time to unwrap presents? which foods are preferable, and can you have both a goose and a roast? etc.). Thus, language choice in addresses to God seems to be more informative with regard to the strength of the participants’ religious convictions, than with regard to issues of language choice. The question “In which language do you usually address others (please specify)?” was left blank by 53 participants. “Others” must be understood in relation to the following entries: your partner, your parents, your grandparents, your siblings, other members of your family (aunts, uncles, cousins), your parents-in-law, your grandparents-in-law, your brothers- and sisters-inlaw, other in-laws, your children, your children’s friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends, God. In the following, I will therefore only concentrate on those 16 participants who identified language choice with “others.” Of these 16, six participants mention “others” that are not self-talk, namely internet contacts, people in shops and streets, pen friends, and a god-child. Of the remainder, language choice in addressing pets, most often cats, “myself,” and vehicles are identified, as well as language choice in dreams. Paola and Rob (d1), for instance address their cats in English: “cats: English (because of our cat from the USA. She’s trained on words like “cat-food,” “bad kitty” and “treat.”) German cat has learned it.” (Paola) This report is confirmed during the conversation when Paola makes an aside to chide the cats.
Extract 92 (d1): “We talk English to our cats” 1 Paola =Sam! Beth! bad cat! 2 Rob oops, that was our cat. @@ 3 Paola we just talk English to our cats. coz they are 4 American cats. at least one of them.
In this case, the choice of English accommodates the cat, so to speak. The same sense that a specific choice needs to be made with a specific pet is apparent from Kate’s (us5) response when she explains that her children also respect the choice: “cat: German! (the children also often speak German to him) (named Mikesch9 ).” Those who make no reference to a specific pet, all make a statement to the effect that they use their L1 – which mostly happens to be the minority language – with pets or animals, e.g. “German to pets” (Christine, d13), “English with German animals” (Jill, d18), “animals – English” (Jennifer, d19), “talk German to animals/vehicles” (Ernst, us5). Finally, language choice in dreams is brought up on the questionnaire by Susan and Martin (d16): Susan claims to dream in English, and Martin in both
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languages. At the same time, the language of dreaming is also discussed in a few conversations. When it comes up, the choice is never related to the stronger language, but to speech event and context. Hannah (us4), for instance, claims that whenever she has a dream in which she fights with her sister, the language of choice is English (Extract 93). Extract 93 is part of a larger exploration of language choice during conflict in Hannah’s and Allan’s conversation, and comes shortly after Extract 77. This linguistic choice does not only depend upon the speech event (fight), but also upon the dream, as Hannah uses German in real life with her sister, and that choice probably also holds during any actual fights they might have.
Extract 93 (us4): “Always in English” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Hannah aber auch wenn ich mit Berta, wenn ich traeume, und ich hab n Krach mit Berta im Traum. but also when I dream, with Berta, and I’ve got a fight with Berta in my dream. Allan ja. ((yeah.)) Hannah das ist immer auf Englisch. that’s always in English. Allan @ja.@ ((@yeah.@)) Hannah geht einfach besser. ((simply works better.))
Some participants who discuss language choice and dreams speak about the importance of the context, i.e. they claim that they dream in the majority language and this choice obviously changes, depending on the community in which they spend time (Extract 94). The same goes for Kate (us5), who is the only diary writer among the participants, and who says that she writes in English in the US, but in German overseas.
Extract 94 (d27): “I dream in English” 1 Natalie oh. I dream in English when I’ve been in the 2 States for an- an- [I mean in an= 3 Steven [right. [...] 4 Natalie =English-speaking country.
In conclusion, self-talk takes a number of different forms, ranging from prayer via communication with animals, pets and vehicles, to talk with oneself and during dreams. Language choice in these domains often favors the L1, which is simultaneously the minority language for many of the participants who provide information about self-talk. Furthermore, many participants report that
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their choice is not fixed, but depends upon the interlocutor (e.g., a specific cat), the speech event, and the context. Most of these choices create an additional bilingual space in the participants’ lives, be it through the choice of the minority language or through code switching.
. Conclusion In the heading for this chapter I quoted the male partner from couple d12 (who are not one of the core couples because I only received a taped conversation without any further details; see Table 3), who says “well as a bilingual couple erm we speak erm bilingually, sometimes we speak English and sometimes we speak German.” In this concluding section, I will briefly summarize the main findings of this chapter – which can indeed be summed up as “bilingual couples speak bilingually” (Section 6.7.1) – before I will return to re-engage with the “intermarriage equals language death” hypothesis, with which I opened the chapter and which I also reviewed in Chapter 2 (Section 6.7.2). .. Doing bilingualism The central finding of this chapter is that language choice is a very complex issue. The question if “language A” is chosen over “language B” only scratches the surface of this complex, as does the assumption that the majority language would be the preferred choice. To begin with, there is no single moment of choice, but language choices have to be made again and again, in different domains, different contexts, and with different interlocutors. Within the central domain that is at issue in this research – the couple domain – the choice made tends to be fairly stable over time, even if it may vary with the context, e.g., the presence of other people, and the speech act, e.g., language choice during conflict. Second, languages do not exist as such, and the choices are not necessarily between “English” and “German,” but between “English,” “German,” and “mixed and code-switched varieties,” as well as between “Standard English,” “Standard German,” and “non-standard varieties.” Negotiating and navigating these choices is best understood as a form of practice, as “doing bilingualism.” Doing bilingualism in the couple domains entails that the majority language is perceived as the unmarked choice, but it is by no means the most frequently made choice. Some couples choose the minority language instead because it offers them the sense of connectedness that comes from shared habits, including linguistic habits, as well as a means to compensate one partner for
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migration. Even more couples choose some form of language mixing: either dual-linguality or frequent code switching. With this choice, more so than with the other two, it is clear that language choices are not made by a couple in a social vacuum, but that the ideologies available to them have a strong influence on the choices they make, as well as the ways in which they evaluate their choices. Particularly those couples who make some form of mixed choice also have very mixed feelings about this choice. On the one hand, they feel somewhat guilty about it and evaluate language mixing negatively. On the other hand, they gleefully report how they enjoy the fact that they are not easy to categorize and how mixing best expresses their dual selves. The negative evaluations take over once evaluations of language mixing and code switching in public domains are at issue. Making a choice together as a couple, rather than as an individual, may be an issue of conflict for the couple, and one that is not easily resolved once the choice has become entrenched. In addition to conflict over language choice, language choice during marital conflict is also an issue for many of the participants. There are discussions of conflict languages as well as some expressions of frustration at not having a “rowing proficiency” in the L2. Language choices outside the couple domain are even more fractured than those in the couple domain, for the simple reason that there is a far greater variety of those domains. Most interestingly, most, if not all participants, have created some bilingual spaces in their lives, in addition to the immediate family domain. These minority language spaces in the larger majority language context, include the extended family, the workplace, friendship networks, and even self-talk. .. Intermarriage and language shift Does the multiplicity of bilingual practices as described in this chapter and summarized in the preceding section disprove the “intermarriage equals language shift” hypothesis, which posits that the most likely choice of a bilingual couple is the majority language? In a strong form, it does, of course, and I would hope that future editions of introductory sociolinguistics textbooks will be published without simplistic statements such as this one: “When a Germanspeaking man marries an English-speaking Australian woman, English is usually the dominant language of the home, and the main language used to the children” (Holmes 2001: 61). Whatever else, language choice is clearly a much more complex issue. However, if the hypothesis is taken in a weak form – language shift as the most likely linguistic outcome of intermarriage – then it
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has not been disproved, simply because the situation I am describing here is not typical of the societal contexts for which language maintenance or shift are most often described. The present research context differs from these on four counts. First, the hypothesis is primarily concerned with the children of a bilingual marriage, and I have not even addressed intergenerational transmission in this chapter. I will, however, address it in Chapter 9, and show that all the parents in the sample are extremely committed to bilingual education. Second, and more importantly, the language status of English and German is such that neither is a prototypical minority language. Many readers may have felt a little uneasy about the label “minority language” for English in the German context. I certainly felt uneasy using the term. While it fits sensu strictu, it seems wrong given the international role of English. It is now the most widely spoken language ever and is immensely prestigious as a global language (e.g., Crystal 1997). Conversely, even German does not easily fit the prototypical perception of a minority language. It is a traditional language of education, and, even today, it is one of the three most frequently taught foreign languages in English-speaking countries (see Section 5.3.2). Perhaps even more crucially, it is a “white language,” and there is evidence from a diversity of settings that white speakers are seen as less problematic L2 users of English than non-white users (e.g., Pavlenko 2000; Vollmer 2000). Not being burdened with a problematic L2 identity, clearly frees up energies to devote to maintenance of the L1 and to promote and celebrate bilingualism. Third, the relationship between English and German is also worth examining, and non-typical of bilingual contexts in which language shift, loss and death are an issue. They have never – or only in very limited contexts that have no bearing upon the cases discussed here – been in a relationship of dominant and dominated language. In many ways people who enter an international marriage also become representatives of their nations and peoples, and although English- and German-speaking countries and nations have their own issues with each other (see Section 7.4.4), theirs has never been one of historical domination, with a long-standing history of conflict, including language conflict (as is the case for many of the intermarriage and language choice studies quoted in Chapter 2). Fourth, the participants in my study do not fit the prototypical perception of the class position of minority language users. Minority language users do not occupy a unified class position per se, but they are often seen as the downtrodden of the earth. By contrast, none of the participants project such an image of being poor, uneducated, and disadvantaged. They are mostly middle
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class, as indicated by their occupations and educational level. 38 of the 69 core participants have a university degree (59.4%), and another 13 (18.8%) were pursuing a university degree at the time of data collection. The remainder had high school degrees and worked in white-collar professions or skilled trades. Their educational achievements and class position may well give them the resources to choose “both” rather than “either/or.” By contrast, many bilingual contexts are characterized by precarious economic positions and educational disadvantage. In sum, their language status, their whiteness, their class position, and their educational attainment do not make the participants in this study typical for the body of bilingual research that has addressed intermarriage and language choice. However, saying that my participants are not representative of the populations for whom language maintenance and shift has most often been studied, does not mean to say that understanding their language choices is less important. On the contrary, understanding how and why these people successfully engage in bilingual practices is important to break the nexus between intermarriage and language loss where it might exist. As my research shows, the nexus does not exist for international couples, speakers of prestigious languages, citizens of wealthy Western nations, who are highly educated. Ultimately, intermarriage may be nothing more than a comfortable non-threatening explanation for language shift and language loss; an explanation that does not challenge the status quo as more realistic explanations of discrimination and disadvantage might.
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“We are citizens of the world” Identity and cross-cultural couplehood
. Introduction In the previous chapter, I discussed the linguistic choices bilingual couples make and their reasons for these. In this chapter, I will describe how they view their cultural, national, and linguistic identities – identities acquired through birth and marriage – and how these identities are performed in the conversations. Both chapters share a concern with the interrelationship between public and private discourses. The interrelationship between language and identity has received enormous attention right across the social sciences in recent years. In most of this work social constructionist approaches that often are also indebted to concepts from the political economy of language have become the standard framework within which identity is approached (see Section 1.3). This work has mostly focused on individuals’ identities – be they L2 authors of autobiographies (Pavlenko 1998, 2001b, 2001c, 2001d), L2 diary writers (Norton 1997, 2000; Peirce 1995), or individual L2 learners (McKay & Wong 1996; Miller 1999; Teutsch-Dwyer 2001). Research into the linguistic construction of identity in cross-cultural marriage, in particular, has mostly focused on the perspective of one partner in such a relationship and how they talk about their identity (e.g., Heller & Lévy 1992a, 1992b, 1994; Piller 1999, 2001b; Varro 1984; Waldis 1998; Walters 1996). The present research adds to this work by focussing on the ways in which a joint couple identity is performed. As I argued in Chapter 3 and Section 5.4, couples in a research situation do identity work on two levels, namely the individual level and the couple level (see also Dryden 1999). Given that the latter is relatively under-researched, particularly in relation to cross-cultural couples, this chapter (as well as the following one) deals with the ways in which the latter is achieved. Conversations, including couple conversations, help people to make sense of their world. It is through ongoing conversations with each other that partners in a couple relationship “construct a shared reality and subsequently define their identities” (Fitzpatrick 1988: 232). Fitz-
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patrick (1988) points out that such a “couple identity” is accomplished at the level of conversational topics and themes. In addition, it may also be achieved through the use of conversational strategies and conversational style. In this chapter, I will concentrate on conversational strategies and in the following on conversational style. This chapter starts out with an exploration of the resources that the participants have at their disposal in their talk about identity. These resources are ideologies about intermarriage, and I will show that the couples have to position themselves vis-à-vis public discourses of intermarriage as a problem (Section 7.2). I will then go on to explore in detail how these positionings are achieved, namely through constructions of similarity (Section 7.3) and deconstructions of difference (Section 7.4). The data for the present chapter mainly come from talk that was generated in response to the following stimuli on the discussion paper: [. . . ] Does the fact that you are a bilingual and cross-cultural couple influence your relationship? How? Do you have some stories to show that it is good fun to have different languages and cultures? Do you have some stories to show that having different languages and cultures can be quite frustrating? Which cultural traits of each other do you really like or really hate? It has been said that “one’s language is one’s inheritance and one’s secret code.” Has your relationship affected your sense of identity? How? How do you feel about English, German, or other languages and cultures? What do you really hate or love about Britain, Germany, the US or any other country? Do you have any stories about official institutions and how they deal with bilingual and binational couples? What do your families and friends think about your relationship? Do you have some stories about their reactions? [. . . ]
I am, however, not as concerned with the content of the answers to these questions in themselves, as with the discursive strategies employed in talk about identity. Although the questions on the discussion paper are about identity my interest is in the attendant “doing of identity.” As Cameron (2001: 172) argues, talk about identity is not simply data, but also discourse: “When people talk about aspects of identity, they are not just operating on the ‘meta’ level; they may be reflecting on identity, but they are also doing identity at the same time” (italics in the original).
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. Cross-cultural couplehood as problem Identity is crucially about similarity and difference (Jenkins 1996; Morley & Robins 1995). When we talk about who we are we talk about the groups we belong to and we negotiate the boundaries between “us” and “them,” or the Self and the Other. Because group membership is at stake – rather than, say, some personal characteristics – discourses about identity are heavily contested sites of cultural production (Jenkins 1996). That means that many different groups in society vie for the right to define who is “in” and who is “out” and individuals draw on and align themselves with different discourses at different times. Appealing to diverse discourses produces multiple identities. This multiplicity of identity is compounded in couple talk where two different types of identity constructions are pursued simultaneously: that of the individual members of the unit, as well as that of the unit. For cross-cultural couples identity talk is quite a challenge: they are part of discourse communities in which national belonging plays a central role in the construction of in- and out-groups. At the same time, these same communities herald the family as the primordial locus of belonging. How is this conflict between affiliation with two mutually exclusive groups resolved? Difference based on national identity derives from the simple fact that the partners “belong to” different national groups, which are mutually exclusive. National belonging – as well as its inverse, national difference – is “imagined.” Anderson (1991) famously argued that, with the advent of “print capitalism,” people came to imagine themselves as members of a particular group who could all read the same texts. He sees nations as systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community. That means that “people are not only legal citizens of a nation; they participate in the idea of the nation as represented in its national culture. A nation is a symbolic community [. . . ]” (Hall 1996: 612). Being a member of one national community precludes imagining oneself as part of another national community, i.e., there are no discursive provisions for imagined dual citizenship. If “nationality is a narration, a story which people tell about themselves in order to lend meaning to their social world” (Ram 1994: 153; quoted from Wodak, de Cilia, Reisigl, & Liebhart 1999: 23), then the stories of binational couples are crucially about imagining themselves as being different from each other. Furthermore, difference based on national identity is not value-free, but oftentimes negatively stereotyped. Stereotypes are cognitive categorization devices with “a central feature, [the] – often negative – judgmental factor” (Scott,
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P. & Spencer 1998: 469). Not only is national difference per se often negatively evaluated, but cross-cultural marriage is widely portrayed as problematic, too. It is perceived as a deviation from some imaginary norm of “intra-cultural marriage” and this deviation is seen as problematic (see, for instance, the articles in Breger & Hill 1998a). This ideology of the cross-cultural marriage as a problem is evident in much sociological research (see Breger & Hill 1998b, and Johnson, W. R. & Warren 1994 for detailed analyses). It can be found in psychoanalytic literature where titles such as “I can’t love you in your language” (Prado de Oliveira 1988) and interpretations of cross-cultural marriage as desexualized and at the same time incestuous relationships (Heenen-Wolff & Knauss 1997) abound. It is apparent in linguistic research where “intermarriage” often collocates with words such as “threat” and “risk” (Section 2.2). Furthermore, media representations of intermarriage also portray it as a problem with their focus on international child custody cases and child abduction (Section 3.5.2). I have no indication whatsoever in my data that the participants’ relationships are in any way more or less problematic for them than they are for any monolingual and mono-cultural couple. However, there is ample evidence that the couples are confronted with the ideology that their relationships are problematic. Most frequently such beliefs are attributed to family and friends, who are quoted as having made dire predictions for its outcome at the beginning of the relationship. Karl (d21), for instance says: “anyway my sister expected it wouldn’t last any longer than two years. and it lasted for a lifetime.” In another example, Christine (d13) describes negative predictions as ongoing (Extract 95).
Extract 95 (d13): “It won’t last” 1 Christine [. . . ] erm when I tell anybody at work . that 2 I’m married to a British serviceman, I usually 3 get funny looks. and they say, “it won’t last!” 4 well, we’ve been married fourteen years now. 5 and-= 6 Brendan =uhmhu= 7 Christine =and it HAS lasted.
All the couples report comments such as the above or show that they are aware of a widespread framing of cross-cultural marriage as problematic. Sometimes this may only be a very indirect reference as in those cases where an assumed expectation that there might be a problematic perception is countered. Marga’s
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(gb4) response to the discussion paper question “What do your families and friends think about your relationship?” is typical (Extract 96). Her assertion that no one said anything negative implies that she is aware of a widespread assumption – which she can only assume might be behind the question – that there is something “negative” about cross-cultural couples. Indeed, while many participants respond similarly to this question – i.e. that no negative comments have been made – none says something like *“They haven’t said anything positive.” Thus, there is evidence that all couples are at least aware of negative perceptions, even if they themselves have never directly encountered any personal negative remarks.
Extract 96 (gb4): “They haven’t said anything negative” Marga “what do your families and friends think about your elationship?” .. well, they haven’t said anything negative about it.
All couples report that they have encountered negative views of intermarriage or they are aware that such negative perceptions are widespread. However, negative beliefs about cross-cultural relationships may actually be overridden by identities that are even more problematic. Thus, a number of women refer to their age at the time when they entered the relationship. It seems that even dated ideologies about “spinsterhood” continue to exist. Consequently, there are some jokes that a cross-cultural marriage may be better than no
