Читать книгу Bilingual Couples in Conversation - Silja Ang-Tschachtli - Страница 31

In order to examine the modes of communication employed by bilingual, bicultural couples, I interviewed ten heterosexual (cisgendercisgender) couples, each consisting of a native speaker of English and a native speaker of Swiss German. As I intended to examine fluent bilingual communication, I specifically looked for couples who had a high level of proficiencyproficiencyhigh in their relationship language. To ensure that this was the case, I chose couples whose relationship language is English (although one couple uses both languages) and who have been together for a substantial period of timerelationship length (on average 8.3 years).13 The shortest relationship was 1 year at the time of the interview, the longest 24 years. The interviewees’ ages range between 20 and 51 years; the majority of them are in their late twenties or early thirties (on average 30.15 years). On average, the couples met at a fairly young age (between 17.5 and 27, on average 21.85). Seven of the ten couples are married (not surprisingly, the three couples with the youngest average ages are not), and four of them have children. Furthermore, many of the interviewees (16 of 20) have tertiary education or were pursuing a tertiary degree at the time of the interview.

In order to keep other linguistic influences to a minimum, I only interviewed partners who had grown up in a largely monolingual home. It needs to be borne in mind, however, that all of the interviewees have come into contact with other languages, especially the Swiss partners, all of whom studied several languagesmultilingual at school (Standard German, French, English and sometimes other languages such as Spanish or Italian; see also section 2.2, “Multilingualism in Switzerland”). Technically, the Swiss partners are all at least trilingualtrilingual, although their levels of fluency in their L3 and L4 vary greatly. Regardless of which language the participants in this study feel to be their dominant language at present, or which language they currently use the most, I use the term first languagefirst language (orfirst language L1) to refer to the language that they acquired first, which (in this case) is also the language they would call their “mother mother tonguefirst languagetonguemother tonguefirst language”. I consider their most fluent non-native language, which is also their partner’s language in all cases, to be their second languagesecond language (L2), rather than the language they acquired second (which would be French for most of the Swiss participants). All of the participants view Swiss German or English, respectively, as their mother tongue and dominant language. They all learnt their second language in their teens or in adulthood and are thus late (or sequentialsequential bilingualism) bilingualsbilingualismsequential (see Harding and Riley 1986: 47).

All of the Swiss partners are from the German-speaking part of Switzerland, though they speak different dialectsdialectregional. The countries in which the English-speaking partners grew up are England (n=5), the USA (n=3), Australia (n=1) and Northern Ireland (n=1). Nine of the Swiss partners once stayed in an English-speaking country for an extended period of time, most of them for a year (1.05 years on average). Even though eight of the couples met abroad (one met in Switzerland, another one in an English-speaking online forum), all couples except for one were residing in the German-speaking part of Switzerland at the time of the interview.14 On average, the English speakers had been living in Switzerland for 5.8 years. Most of the couples had also had a long-distancerelationshiplong-distance relationship for an extended period of time before settling in Switzerland (on average almost two years).

Finding ten couples who fit my very specific criteria and were willing to participate in an extensive interview turned out to be a difficult undertakingchallengesmethodological, and this is one of the reasons why the interviews took place over a period of several years (see section 4.3, “Interviews”). First of all, many people dislike being recorded (which was also the case for potential subjects in Piller’s [2002a] study), particularly in a non-native language. Some couples expressed worries about their relationship being the subject of the conversation, especially if they were having relationship problems. Moreover, many potential participants I was put in contact with had grown up bilingually themselves or turned out to be non-native speakers who use English as a lingua francalingua franca (ELF), and therefore did not fit my research profile. Several attempts at finding volunteers via social media and newsletters did not lead to any interviews with suitable couples. As a consequence, I decided to also include couples who I was acquainted with (which I initially wanted to avoid as I was a little concerned that this might influence the couples’ answers and conversational behaviour). In a few cases, I knew one or both of the partners quite well; other participants were acquaintances from university or people I had met at social gatherings. Some I had never met prior to the interview, as we had only been in contact via email. In the case of the latter, I was given the couples’ contact details by mutual acquaintances. Although I was sceptical at first, I believe that the interviews ultimately benefitted from the fact that there was always a personal link to the interviewees, direct or indirect, as they were all very open to sharing details about their relationships and to talking about personal or even problematic topics.

In the following, I present an overview of the most important biographic facts about all of the interviewees (Table 1), and then give a brief description of each couple and of their language choicelanguage choicewith each other and use. The couples are introduced in the order of the length of their relationshiprelationship length at the time of the interview (from shortest to longest), which is also the case in all tables involving all participants henceforth. In order to protect the interviewees’ privacy, all the names that are used are pseudonyms.

Name	Home country	Level of education	Occupation	Age	Rel. length	Married	Children (number)
Robert	England (Irish parents)	A-level	English teacher	20 years	1 year	no	no
Stephanie	Switzerland	MA*	Student	24 years
Tim	Australia	Advanced rigger (RA)	Technician / telecommunications field worker	29 years	3 years	no	no
Sarah	Switzerland	BSc* (part-time)	Student / assistant corporate communication	23 years
David	England	BSc	Senior technology officer IT	32 years	5 years	yes	no
Susanne	Switzerland	MA	English teacher	29 years
Courtney	England (Ghanaian parents)	MA*	Student	24 years	5.5 years	no	no
Martin	Switzerland	MA	Journalist	26 years
Richard	England	BA	Consultant	29 years	7 years	yes	yes (1)
Sophia	Switzerland	MA	History teacher	31 years
Claire	Northern Ireland	BSc	Occupational therapist	28 years	8 years	yes	no
Simon	Switzerland	MA	English teacher	34 years
Dean	England	GSCE	IT recruitment consultant	29 years	9 years	yes	no
Monika	Switzerland	MA	English teacher	29 years
Joshua	USA	MA* (part-time)	Student / legal assistant	30 years	10 years	yes	yes (2)
Deborah	Switzerland	Academic baccalaureate (“Matura”)	Stay-at-home mother	28 years
Craig	USA	MSc	Electrical engineer	32 years	10.5 years	yes	yes (1)
Katia	Switzerland	MSc	PE teacher	28 years
Karen	USA	MA	English teacher	51 years	24 years	yes	yes (3)
Philipp	Switzerland	MA	English teacher	47 years

Table 1:

Overview of participants

Key: * still studying at time of interview.

Robert (English-Irish, 20) and Stephanie (Swiss, 24)

Stephanie and Robert met while they were both studying in Aberdeen, Scotland. For several months, they kept running into one another at college parties and at the library, where they always had long conversations. They became a couple shortly before the end of Stephanie’s exchange year. Robert’s family is originally from Ireland, but he grew up in Luton (East of England); his accent is a mixture of the varieties spoken in both locations. After Stephanie’s year abroad ended, Robert decided to move to Switzerland with Stephanie, and after a few months he found a job as an English teacher at a private language school in Saint Gall. Stephanie was studying English language and literature at the University of Zurich at the time of the interview and they had been a couple for a year. Stephanie and Robert speak mostly English to each other, but they try to speak German as well now as Robert intends to stay in Switzerland and therefore wants to learn the language. They also mix languages occasionally; this mixing usually involves using loanwords from Swiss German while speaking English. Robert started doing this after moving to Switzerland because there are certain words he really likes in Swiss German, and Stephanie followed his example.

Tim (Australian, 29) and Sarah (Swiss, 23)

Tim and Sarah met in 2005 when Sarah was travelling in Australia and attending a language school in Cairns. They met at a local bar when they were both out with friends; Tim was there with a local group of friends, and Sarah with other language students from overseas. Tim is from Brisbane, Queensland. He has an advanced rigger licence and works as a technician and telecommunications field worker for Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications and media company. Sarah grew up in a village in the Zurich area, and was finishing her bachelor’s degree in Business Law at a Swiss University of Applied Sciences and Arts (“Fachhochschule”) at the time of the interview. She is the only one of the Swiss participants who does not have a Swiss baccalaureate (“Matura”), and has thus had less formal education in English than the others. She speaks English fluently but made more mistakes than the others did during the interview. At the time of the interview, Tim and Sarah had been together for three years. Their relationship had been largely long-distance relationshiplong-distance , and they were not quite sure yet where they were going to live in the long term. Sarah and Tim always speak English to each other, as Tim speaks little (Swiss) German. Occasionally, they integrate some German words that he has learnt into English.

David (English, 32) and Susanne (Swiss, 29)

David and Susanne met at the end of 2003 when Susanne was working as a teaching assistant in Southern England for a year. They met through friends of theirs (an Englishman and a French exchange student, who were themselves a couple), and became a couple within two weeks of their first meeting. After the end of Susanne’s exchange year the following summer, they had a long distance relationship for half a year; then David decided to resign from his job and move to Switzerland. Susanne, who is originally from a small town in the east of Switzerland, has a master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Zurich and works as an English teacher at a grammar school in Saint Gall. David holds a Bachelor of Science in business information systems and works as a senior technology officer for an IT and marketing company near the Austrian border. The business language is English, as most clients are native speakers of English. Because most of his colleagues are also fluent in English, he rarely uses German at work. The couple had been together for about five years at the time of the interview and had been married for one year. David and Susanne reportedly speak mainly English to each other, but occasionally use Swiss German expressions.

Courtney (English, 24) and Martin (Swiss, 26)

Martin and Courtney met at a college party in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2004, when they were both studying at the University of Aberdeen. Martin is originally from Saint Gall and spent a year in Scotland on a scholarship. Courtney grew up mainly in England, but she has Ghanaian roots and many of her family members live in Ghana. After Martin’s exchange year ended, they had a long-distance relationship for four years. Courtney decided to study in Italy for a year and Martin went to Vienna on a second exchange year, before earning his master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Zurich. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in Scotland, Courtney moved to Switzerland to live with Martin — who was then working as a journalist in Basel — and to pursue a master’s degree in art history at the University of Basel. At the time of the interview, she had been in Switzerland for a year and they had been together for almost five and a half years. Martin and Courtney speak mainly English to each other, as Courtney’s German skills are still limited. They occasionally decide to speak German to each other so that Courtney can practice, but tend to return to English after a few sentences, because Martin feels he has to explain aspects of the language to her in English. At times, they use German in humorous situations.

Richard (English, 29) and Sophia (Swiss, 31)

Richard and Sophia met online in an English-speaking forum for Harry Potter fans in 2005. After communicating online regularly for some time, Richard decided to meet Sophia in person and flew to Switzerland for a weekend in late 2005. They decided to give their relationship a try that weekend and maintained a long-distance relationship for the following two-and-a-half years. In 2008, Richard moved to Switzerland, where he attended German school every day for half a year, and he has since then become fairly fluent in Swiss German as well. Richard has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and works for a small company owned by Sophia’s father, who usually speaks to him in Swiss German. Sophia grew up in a town in the canton of Zurich. She holds a master’s degree in history and teaches history in English (“Immersion”) at a Swiss grammar school. She spent a year in New York at the age of eleven and has loved English ever since. At the time of the interview, the couple had been together for seven years and had been married for three years. They have a daughter who was then seven months old, whom they address in their respective mother tongues. Sophia and Richard speak mostly English to each other, though they have also started using Swiss German, especially when they are with other people, but also in humorous situations.

Claire (Northern Irish, 28) and Simon (Swiss, 34)

Simon and Claire met in a bar in Belfast in 2005 when they were both out for a drink with friends. At the time, Simon was studying at Queen’s University in Belfast for a year. After Simon’s return to Switzerland, Claire obtained her bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy in Belfast. They had a long-distance relationship for three years; then Claire found a position as an occupational therapist in Simon’s hometown in eastern Switzerland. Simon holds a master’s degree in English and Spanish language and literature from the University of Zurich and teaches these languages at a Swiss grammar school. At the time of the interview, the couple had been together for eight years and had been married for nine months. Claire had been living in Switzerland for four and a half years and was working in a Swiss German-speaking environment; she also had no friends who were native speakers of English. At home, Claire and Simon speak English to each other most of the time, but they address each other in Swiss German when they are with other people. They also mix Swiss German and English at times, using English as their base language and integrating Swiss German expressions, especially when they are talking about Claire’s work.

Dean (English, 29) and Monika (Swiss, 29)

Monika and Dean met through mutual friends in 1999 while Monika was staying in London for a year. She had just finished grammar school in Zurich and had moved to London, where she was working as a language teacher. When Monika moved back to Switzerland to finish her studies the year after, Dean followed her. After many unsuccessful applications, he finally found a position, but in order for him to be allowed to stay in Switzerland, the couple had to get married. Reluctantly, they decided to marry legally at the age of twenty; however, they only celebrated their wedding eight years later. Dean does not have a university degree and works in IT recruitment. Monika, who has a master’s degree in English language and literature from the University of Zurich, works as an English teacher at a grammar school. She grew up in a town near Zurich. At the time of the interview, the couple had been together for nine years and had been married for eight years. Monika and Dean speak English to each other almost exclusively, although Dean is fairly fluent in German and understands almost everything. They hardly ever mix languages, with the exception of the occasional term they borrow from the other language.

Joshua (American, 30) and Deborah (Swiss, 28)

Joshua and Deborah met in 1998 when Joshua travelled to Europe as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Deborah is a member of the same church, and her family invited Joshua over for dinner on a regular basis. Deborah and Joshua were not allowed to pursue a romantic relationship during Joshua’s assignment, but he returned to Switzerland shortly after and they started dating. Deborah was 18 at the time and Joshua was 20. Joshua is originally from Utah, where he attended university for three semesters, but when he moved to Switzerland, he had to complete the British A-Levels to be allowed to enrol at the University of Zurich. He was finishing his master’s degree in English language and literature at the University of Zurich at the time of the interview and intended to become a teacher afterwards. To support their family, he was also working part-time at a law firm. Deborah, who grew up in the Zurich area, has a Swiss Academic Baccalaureate (“Matura”) and did temporary work before becoming a stay-at-home mother to their two young girls. The couple had been together for ten years, had been married for eight years, and were expecting their third child. Deborah and Joshua are the only couple among the interviewees who do not use mostly English with each other. Deborah did not feel comfortable speaking English when they met, and Joshua’s German was already very good at that point. Initially, they spoke to each other in Standard German, then they switched to Swiss German, and later they started mixing English and Swiss German. Now that they have children, they mix less and try to speak one language at a time when with their children. They raise their children bilingually using a “one parent, one language one parent, one language strategy ” strategy.

Craig (American, 32) and Katia (Swiss, 28)

Craig and Katia met in February 1997 when Katia spent a high school exchange year in Texas. Craig was completing an internship for his university degree at the time and staying with the same family as Katia’s friend, an exchange student from Denmark. Katia was 17.5 and Craig was 22 when they met. At the end of her exchange year, Katia returned to Switzerland to graduate from grammar school. After maintaining a long-distance relationship for four years, Craig, who is an electrical engineer, lost his job in the USA, found one in Switzerland, and moved there permanently in 2002. He works in an English-speaking environment but has learnt (Swiss) German in order to converse with Katia’s family and friends. Katia holds a master’s degree in human movement sciences and sport and works as a grammar school teacher. At the time of the interview, they had been together for 10.5 years and had been married for three years. They have a two-year-old daughter whom they are raising bilingually. Craig and Katia usually speak English to each other, unless they are in the company of native speakers of (Swiss-)German. They also mix languages sometimes, if they cannot think of a word in the language that they are speaking or if there is a phrase in either of the languages that fits the situation better. However, they are now trying to avoid code-switching in the company of their daughter, as they find it important to each use one language when communicating with her.

Karen (American, 51) and Philipp (Swiss, 47)

Philipp and Karen met at the University of Minnesota in 1989 when Philipp was studying there for a year. Karen was working as a campus minister, and Philipp was her best student. He went back to continue his studies at the University of Zurich, but returned to Minnesota for another exchange year in 1991. After his return to Switzerland, they had a long-distance relationship until Karen managed to find a teaching job in Switzerland; they married the same year. Philipp has a master’s degree in English language and literature, and Karen in education, and they both work as English teachers. Philipp teaches English at two different Swiss grammar schools, and Karen teaches business English at a University of Applied Sciences and Arts (“Fachhochschule”). At the time of the interview, they had been together for 24 years. They have three teenage children, whom they have raised bilingually, and a large network of friends who are native speakers of English. The couple speak English almost exclusively to each other. Philipp and their children also mix languages at times, but Karen does so only very rarely, apart from a few terms that she uses in Swiss German. Karen does not feel very comfortable speaking or writing in German; however, she actively seeks out situations which require passive knowledge of the language.

The couples’ biographies show that, in many ways, these relationships are different from the ones frequently depicted in previous research. For instance, Khatib-Chahidi, Hill and Paton reported that many of their subjects married nationals of other countries because they were feeling marginalizedmarginalization (structurally, socially or personally) (1998: 57, cf. section 3.2.2, “Bicultural couples”). None of these aspects were mentioned by any of the respondents in my study, and none of the twenty interviewees depicted their partner as a “way out”. Moreover, the women in Khatib-Chahidi, Hill and Paton’s study reported that they had had intensive contact with other foreigners before meeting their spouse (as had their spouse, since they met in the women’s home country) (1998: 57). While this is also true for most Swiss interviewees in my study, many of the English-speaking partners had very little if any contact with Swiss or other German-speaking foreigners before meeting their partner. To my knowledge, none of my interview subjects had had previous (long-termrelationshiplong-term) partners from other cultures. There are some similarities, however, to the bilinguals in Piller’s (2002a) sample. For instance, many of the Swiss participants expressed very positive feelings about the English language, although only one Anglophone participant (Joshua) had similarly positive feelings about Swiss German (see section 7.4.2, “Anglophone partners’ attitudes”).

There are a number of particularitieschallengesmethodological of the composition of the sample that should be borne in mind for the analysis. The English-speaking partners are from a variety of different cultural backgroundscultural background, which might skew trends with regard to certain linguistic behaviour (such as swearing or language mixing) or influence the use of suprasegmental features. The Anglophone partners’ cultural background and variety of Englishvarietyof English may also influence the participants’ attitudes, and thus, potentially, their language choice. Moreover, there is a slight imbalance with regard to the educational leveleducationlevel of of the participants, as there are more English-speaking partners with no tertiary education than there are Swiss partners. Conversely, the sample is relatively balanced with regard to gender in combination with other factors like the age and educational level of the participants: The educational level of the female partners is slightly higher on average than that of the male partners, and the gap in the average age of the male and female participants, as well as the Swiss and English-speaking participants, is minimal (less than a year in both cases).

As regards the applicability of the findings of this study to other bilingual couplesbilingualcouples, it should be noted that the fact that one partner is a native speaker of English is bound to influence the results, for instance with respect to the partners’ attitudes and language choice. Since English has a very high prestigeprestige internationally, and Swiss German is valued highly within Switzerland, the couples’ place of residence, it is to be expected that the couples evaluate their bilingualism positively. If they lived in another environmentenvironmentdifferent (e.g. in an English-speaking country), or spoke different languages, this would possibly not be the case.15 Furthermore, it should always be kept in mind that the sample includes exclusively couples in which both partners are proficient in the couple language, and very familiar with their partners’ culture; most of them lived in their partners’ country for an extended period of time.16 Due to this selection, the couples only reported a limited range of linguistic and intercultural conflicts. In part, this might also be attributed to the fact that, as has been noted in other studies on couple relationships, couples with serious relationship issues are unlikely to participate in such a study (e.g. Fitzpatrick 1988: 80; Piller 2002a: 45). However, even though the findings of this research cannot be generalized to all bilingual couples, I believe that the focus on extensive interviews with proficient bilingual couples will enable me to draw some firm conclusions on how bilingual couple communication works on an advanced leveladvanced bilingualism.