Читать книгу Bilingual Couples in Conversation - Silja Ang-Tschachtli - Страница 42

A number of researchers have proposed that multilingualism itself may be gendered, which could have consequences for the language choicelanguage choiceinfluence of gender on of bilingual couples. It is noteworthy that even the selection of a cross-cultural partner is often influenced by gender roles and cultural stereotypes. As Piller points out, this is particularly evident in romance travel: “men from industrialized nations go on ‘romance tours’ to choose an overseas bride, while women from underdeveloped nations migrate to join their overseas husbands and take up residency with them” (2007: 346). Further aspects that are potentially gendered are the choice of the place of residence and of the relationship language. Piller reports that, in her sample of 47 couples living in the home country of one partner, the native language of both genders was used with comparable frequency. However, since more female partners had migrated to their partner’s country (43 out of 47), a high number of females, namely 22, found themselves in a doubly disadvantaged position, having “given up their status as natives and their status as native speakers” (2000: section 4.3, para. 3). In contrast, only 3 out of 47 male partners in her sample were in a similarly disadvantaged position (see also section 3.3.3.1, “L2 learning and use”). In a different study of 13 German and English-speaking couples, Piller found that sometimes, “one partner may be stuck with all the deficient labels, ‘female’, ‘migrant’, and ‘non-native speaker”, while the other receives all the prestige labels, ‘male’, ‘native’, and ‘native speaker’” (1999: 119).

Moreover, a person’s gender may be of significance to his or her access to and view of multilingualismmultilingualism, as well as to the value that is attributed to his or her multilingualism. According to Piller and Pavlenko, there are “two ways in which gender structures multilingualism in [the] domains [of economic production and social reproduction]: gender structures access to language as symbolic capital, and ‘doing multilingualism’ may in itself be a gendered practice” (2007: 26). They postulate that “[l]anguage work, language learning, and bilingual childrearing have all become sites that are implicated in the reproduction of hegemonic gender ideologies” (2007: 27). Thus, access to languages is often limited for immigrant women, especially for members of a lower social class. Gender can also play a role with regard to the economic benefits of speaking a second language. This applies to English in Switzerland: The language carries a high economic value, yet apparently more so for men than for women. As the economist François Grin discovered, in Switzerland, men who are highly proficient in English have a significantly higher income than women who have a high level of proficiency in the language (2001: 73).

Finally, whether or not a couple has childrenlanguage choicewith children will also inevitably influence their language choice(s) to some extent. It is conceivable that each parent’s language use with his or her children might be influenced by his or her gender, too, since language socialisation and transmission tended to be allocated to the female partner in the past (Schüpbach 2009: 20). Consequently, the non-community languagenon-community language may be more likely to be transmitted if it is the mother’s native tongue than the father’s. Moreover, while many couples may not take conscious decisions relating to their joint language at the beginning of their relationship, this usually changes once they have a family. At this point, careful language planning often takes place (see Piller 2002a: ch 9). Consequently, the family situation may affect their language choice(s) in general as well as their language mixing behaviour (see section 7.6, “The couples’ views on raising bilingual children”).