Читать книгу Bilingual Couples in Conversation - Silja Ang-Tschachtli - Страница 38

There are many different factors that interact to determine the language choice of a bilingual couple, and it can be difficult to decide which factor is dominant in each situation. One factor that inevitably plays an important role, at least initially, is the partners’ language proficiency. It seems highly likely that a couple will choose the relationship language in which their joint level of language proficiency is the highest. This may be the mother tongue of either of the partners, or a lingua francalingua franca. Beraud, who examined the language use of five Norwegian-Ukrainian bilingual couples, reports that many of them use English as a lingua franca, since this is “the strongest and fairest shared language” for them (2016: para. 1). When examining the language choice and use of German-English bilingual couples living in a number of different countries, Piller also found that language proficiency “is the most basic constraint on language choice” (2002a: 5). Their language choice is possibly linked to the partners’ formal educationlanguage acquisitionformal in each other’s mother tongues, as individuals who have studied their partner’s language at school tend to be more confident about their L2 skills and have a sense of language ownership (Piller 2002a: 99).

As the partners’ language skills evolve, the relationship language may also change. The partners may, for instance, start mixing languages, or using the respective other language in certain situations. However, once a language has been firmly established as a relationship language, habit renders it unlikely that the main language will change. Indeed, many couples in a study by Piller claimed that they use their relationship language out of habit, as it is the language they used when they first met (2000: section 4.2). One reason why habit is an important factor with regard to language choice is that the established language tends to be connected to the couples’ sense of couple identityidentitycouple. Thus, couples often “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” (Piller 2002a: 138). The language they are accustomed to using — as well as bilingualism itself — may be part of their idea of themselves as a couple. Furthermore, linguistic habits are only likely to change in conjunction with a considerable change in circumstances (Piller 2002a: 140). Since there is a high probability that, for many bilingual couples involving a native speaker of English, including the couples in this study, the language of the first interaction will be English, this frequently becomes their couple language, especially if English also happens to be the community language in their place of residence.