Table of Contents

Preface x

Acknowledgments xii

1 Introduction 1

Multiple voices: The word from China 1

1.1 Introduction 2

1.2 Bilinguals and their languages 3

1.3 Views about bilinguals 3

1.4 Learning a second language 4

1.5 Where did bilingualism come from? 5

1.6 Linguists: What they know and don’t know 6

1.7 Why so many languages? 7

1.8 The rationale for many languages today 8

1.9 Attitudes about language 10

1.10 Linguistics and bilingualism 11

1.11 Why bilingualism matters to you 12

1.12 Bilingualism: Practical considerations 13

1.13 How the book is organized 13

1.14 Words and phrases to remember 15

2 What’s a Language? What’s a Dialect? What “Social Work” do they do? 16

Multiple voices: The word from Italy 16

2.1 Introduction 16

2.2 What counts as a language? 17

2.3 Problems with mutual intelligibility 22

2.4 Dialects as groupings under a language 23

2.5 The written language and dialects 24

2.6 Identifying the standard dialect 25

2.7 Who speaks a dialect? 26

2.8 Summing up 33

2.9 Words and phrases to remember 34

3 Who is a Bilingual? What Factors Promote Bilingualism? 35

Multiple voices: The word from Ecuador 35

3.1 Introduction 36

3.2 Who is a bilingual? 38

3.3 Defining bilingualism 44

3.4 Factors promoting bilingualism 45

3.5 Conditions of displacement 53

3.6 Summing up 65

3.7 Words and phrases to remember 66

4 Language Maintenance and Shift 67

Multiple voices: The word from Algerians in France 67

4.1 Introduction 68

4.2 Three useful models of community organization 70

4.3 Allocation of varieties 76

4.4 Diglossia and domains 76

4.5 Maintenance or shift? 89

4.6 Representative case studies 91

4.7 The younger generation and bilingualism 100

4.8 Separating language maintenance from cultural maintenance 102

4.9 Summary on language maintenance and shift 103

4.10 Summing up 105

4.11 Words and phrases to remember 106

5 Ideologies and Attitudes 107

Multiple voices: The word from Papua New Guinea 107

5.1 Introduction 108

5.2 Language attitudes vs. language ideologies 109

5.3 Power and the economy of language 114

5.4 How languages identify groups 115

5.5 Language attitudes 120

5.6 Theoretical models and the expression of attitudes 124

5.7 Language ideology 135

5.8 Summing up 140

5.9 Words and phrases to remember 141

6 The Social Motivations for Language Use in Interpersonal Interactions 142

Multiple voices: The word from Turks in the Netherlands 142

6.1 Introduction 143

6.2 Linguistic varieties as social indices 145

6.3 More than meets the ear 146

6.4 Language varieties absorb meanings from situations 149

6.5 Speakers have their own motivations for choices, too 150

6.6 Models to explain conversational choices 153

6.7 What accommodation means 155

6.8 Markedness Model: Another model of social motivations 158

6.9 Code choices within a Conversation Analysis approach 170

6.10 Summary on explaining bilingual conversations 172

6.11 Summing up 174

6.12 Words and phrases to remember 174

7 Inter-cultural Communication 175

Multiple voices: The word from Indians in England 175

7.1 Introduction 175

7.2 Languages are different and so are cultures 177

7.3 Dividing up societies as individualistic or collectivistic 179

7.4 High- and low-context messages 182

7.5 Five areas of potential differences 186

7.6 Is silence golden? 186

7.7 Ideas about “good” conversational routines differ 188

7.8 The faces of politeness 193

7.9 How to ask for something in different cultures 196

7.10 Cross-cultural ideas about power differentials 199

7.11 Managing cross-cultural conflicts 204

7.12 Summing up 206

7.13 Words and phrases to remember 207

8 Lexical Borrowing 208

Multiple voices: The word from Kenya 208

8.1 Introduction 209

8.2 Lexical borrowing 210

8.3 Cultural and core borrowings 212

8.4 Core borrowings 215

8.5 Less direct borrowings 218

8.6 How borrowed words are integrated 219

8.7 Morphological integration 224

8.8 Nouns vs. other categories 226

8.9 What borrowings can tell us 230

8.10 Summing up 231

8.11 Words and phrases to remember 232

9 What Happens to Grammars in Bilingual Contacts 233

Multiple voices: The word from Palestinians in the US 233

9.1 Introduction 233

9.2 Codeswitching 239

9.3 A model for classic codeswitching 241

9.4 How other approaches to codeswitching differ from the MLF model 250

9.5 Singly occurring words as borrowings or codeswitches? 253

9.6 Conclusions on singly occurring words in codeswitching 257

9.7 Characterizing larger Embedded Language phrases in Matrix Language frames 260

9.8 The 4-M model 267

9.9 Convergence and attrition 271

9.10 Creation of pidgins and creoles 278

9.11 Pidgins 278

9.12 Creoles 280

9.13 Summing up 287

9.14 Words and phrases to remember 287

10 Pyscholinguistics and Bilingualism 288

Multiple voices: The word from Hungary 288

10.1 Introduction 288

10.2 Themes in psycholinguistics and bilingualism 292

10.3 Classifying bilinguals 293

10.4 Validity and experimental methodologies 294

10.5 The mental lexicon 296

10.6 Levels of activation 299

10.7 Testing for selective access 301

10.8 Summary on experiments 305

10.9 Models of language production 306

10.10 Memory 310

10.11 Bilingualism, the brain, and aphasia 317

10.12 Summing up 322

10.13 Words and phrases to remember 322

11 Age of Acquisition and Success with a Second Language 323

Multiple voices: Croatian-Australians in Australia 323

11.1 Introduction 323

11.2 Introducing child bilingualism 325

11.3 Successes in child bilingualism studies 331

11.4 But is bilingualism an advantage or a disadvantage? 337

11.5 Does early acquisition affect some systems the most? 340

11.6 Learning a second language later 344

11.7 Age-related issues and the brain 350

11.8 Second language acquisition (SLA) as formal instruction 354

11.9 Summing up 366

11.10 Words and phrases to remember 367

12 Language Policies and Globalization 369

Multiple voices: The word from an American in Norway 369

12.1 Introduction 369

12.2 What are the parts of language planning? 378

12.3 Status planning 379

12.4 Corpus planning 392

12.5 Acquisition planning 395

12.6 English in the world 405

12.7 The European Union and Europe’s new industry: Translating 409

12.8 Summing up 410

12.9 Words and phrases to remember 411

13 Conclusions 412

Multiple voices: The word from Haitians in New York 412

13.1 Some themes to remember 412

13.2 Guidelines for understanding speakers in relation to their languages 414

References 415

Index of Authors 440

Index of Languages 446

Index of Subjects 449

About the Author

Carol Myers-Scotton is Carolina Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Linguistics Program and Department of English at the University of South Carolina. Her numerous publications include Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes (2002) and Social Motivations for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa (1993).

Reviews

"It's been hard to find a good textbook in bilingualism for undergraduate students in such diverse fields as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language policy; but Myers-Scotton, a leading scholar in the area, has met the need. Topics covered include language maintenance, language ideology, inter-cultural communication, lexical and grammatical borrowing, and language globalization. Numerous case studies from nations as far-flung as Italy, China, and Kenya, and from immigrant communities such as Turks in the Netherlands and Haitians in New York, make this a most attractive volume."
William Bright, Editor Emeritus, Language in Society


"Multiple Voices accomplishes a rare feat – it is both an accessible introduction to the study of bilingualism and a comprehensive treatment of research in the field. This is an ideal textbook for courses on language contact." Janet Fuller, Southern Illinois University
"This introduction is not a simple synthesis of research and theory, but also a compendium of a lifetime of dedication to understanding bilingualism."
Multilingua