Читать книгу Bilingual Couples in Conversation - Silja Ang-Tschachtli - Страница 5

In this sociolinguistic study, the speech and the modes of communication of ten bilingual couples were analysed, based on a corpus of in-depth interviews with both partners. My main aim was to draw a detailed picture of various areas pertaining to the communication between native speakers of English and Swiss partners who, despite being late bilinguals, have a high level of proficiency in English, their main couple language. Thus, important gaps in previous research on bilingual couples were filled, much of which is based on couples’ self-reports rather than their actual language use (Breger 1998; Khatib-Chahidi, Hill and Paton 1998) or concentrates on the female partner’s perspective (Heller and Lévy 1992). Studies on fluent couples have placed their focus on the discursive construction of a bilingual couple identity (Piller 2002a) or an individual bilingual identity (Gonçalves 2013). By contrast, I considered not only the couples’ reports on their linguistic practices and past experiences, but also analysed their language use during the interviews. Several areas of their speech were closely examined using qualitative as well as quantitative research methods, including the couples’ language choice, their language mixing, their manner of expressing emotions, their use of and reaction to swearwords, their attitudes towards their languages and cultures, and their production of humour and laughter. In addition, I investigated the influence of the bilinguals’ gender and mother tongue on various aspects of their language use. The analysis demonstrated that the couples’ language is predominantly English, with relatively little direct influence from the community language, Swiss German, and limited language mixing. Moreover, the bilinguals used only their main couple language to express emotions during the interviews, and also reported such a preference, in contrast to other bilinguals (Pavlenko 2008; Dewaele 2010). Nevertheless, the couples make use of their bilingualism in some very specific areas, for instance when coining neologisms and blended expressions, when using terms of endearment, when swearing, and when being humorous. Assimilation between the partners was evident in several areas, such as their language mixing behaviour, their swearing behaviour, and their attitudes; yet there was little indication of assimilation in the context of expressing emotions, or in the frequency and duration of laughter. At the same time, the participants’ gender and mother tongue were found to have a considerable influence on their expression of emotions, the number and type of language switches they used, the frequency of their swearing and the level offensiveness of their swearwords, as well as their laughter and their production and reception of humour. Thus, the analysis provides insights into the language practices of established bilingual couples, while also contributing to the fields of gender research and fluent sequential bilingualism.