Melissa G. Moyer

The Blackwell guide to research methods in bilingualism and multilingualism

Book synopsis: As globalization has increased awareness of the extent of language contact and linguistic diversity, questions concerning bilingualism and multilingualism have taken on an increasing importance from both practical and scholarly points of view. While there is a vast amount of information pertaining to research on bilingual and multilingual individuals and communities there is little information that deals with its methodology from different disciplinary perspectives in a systematic and coherent way.

Negotiating agreement and disagreement in Spanish-English bilingual conversations with no

The present paper examines the role of the Spanish discourse particle no for negotiating agreement and disagreement in Spanish-English bilingual conversations from Gibraltar. A sequential analysis of twelve conversational exchanges shows how language choice is an important linguistic resource for negotiating agreement and disagreement in interactions. As a discourse marker no can function as (a) a yes-no request where a speaker seeks information from the hearer or (b) as a device a speaker uses to check information or obtain acquiescence. At a metalingual level of analysis, the use of Spanish as well as the no particle constitute a move for communicating in the metalingual realm of bilingual interactions about the speaker and the hearer. These moves index the actions, meanings, and situations associated with the use of Spanish in Gibraltar. The connection between the discourse functions of no, language choice (i.e., convergence), and the meanings communicated at a metalingual level of the conversation shed light on the complex strategies available to speakers for expressing agreement and disagreement in bilingual talk.

Coding and analysing multilingual data: the LIDES project

Over the last few decades, the study of bilingual and plurilingual talk has been an important focus for linguists. Data have been collected through projects, large and small, in many countries and involving many different languages and dialects. This has been in the form of monographs describing particular linguistic situations where codeswitching (CS) is prevalent (Bentahila, 1983; Agnihotri, 1987; Gibbons, 1987; Heath, 1989; Nortier, 1990; Gardner-Chloros, 1991; Myers- Scotton, 1993a; Sebba, 1993; Treffers-Daller, 1994; Haust, 1995; Backus, 1996; Halmari, 1997; Zentella, 1997; McCormick, 2002; Nivens, 2002). Two books have been devoted to the grammatical aspects of CS (Myers- Scotton, 1993b; Muysken, 2000), as well as a further volume by Myers- Scotton (2002) developing her grammatical theory in the broader context of language contact. Chapters or sections have been devoted to CS in the principal volumes on bilingualism and language contact which include Romaine’s Bilingualism (1994), Coulmas’s Handbook of Sociolinguistics (1997), Hamers and Blanc’s Bilinguality and Bilingualism (2000), Li Wei (2000), Thomason (2001), Clyne (2003). A number of edited collections and special issues of journals have been devoted to different aspects of CS (Heller, 1988; Eastman, 1992; Milroy and Muysken, 1995; Auer, 1998; Jacobson, 1998; and Dolitsky, 2000).

Towards standardizing and sharing bilingual data

We describe a project (the LIPPS project) whose purpose is to set up a computerized database of bilingual texts to be used by researchers in the field of “language interaction” (i.e., codeswitching, borrowing, and other outcomes of contact between varieties). Current work includes an adaptation of the CHILDES system(MacWhinney,1995) to take account of the different needs of researchers in this area, for example, solving the problems of distinguishing, coding, and representing language interaction phenomena; providing a gloss / translation in user-friendly format; and developing qualitative as well as quantitative tools for comparing data-sets. Problems and some advantages of such a comparison are illustrated through a pilot project conducted by Gardner-Chloros using two sets of data: Greek-Cypriot/English data and Punjabi /English. Practical problems included giving transcribers/coders the necessary training in using the system and ensuring a consistent approach. Coding problems derived from interlinguistic differences were also highlighted. Clear advantages ensued, however, from being able to compare the type/quantity of codeswitches and so forth across data-sets, as this allows an assessment of the relative weight of linguistic and sociolinguistic factors in determining the form of language interaction.

Language, mobility and work

The theme of this special issue of the journal Language and Intercultural Communication on Language, Mobility and Work takes up the call by MacDonald and O’Regan (2011) for a critical research agenda in intercultural communication that addresses new zones of contact (Pratt, 1991) brought about by globalization and transnational mobility. Work and the way it is carried out in the twenty-first century is connected to a neoliberal economic agenda that permeates the way we think and talk about the conditions needed to be employed (see Moyer, 2017 for a more comprehensive account of the role of language and work). Another consideration is the different ways mobility – involving the physical displacement of a person to a different location – is connected to work. The manner in which the relationship of language, work, and mobility get construed largely depends on the local context in which they are embedded and the wider economic conditions that shape the labour market in a give location. Work and where it takes place is precisely one of those new zones of contact of the globalized era where the notions of language and culture, which MacDonald and O’Regan note as problematic for the field of intercultural communication, need to be examined. In Pratt’s (1991, p. 34) words it is in those ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power’ that we need to look closely at the role language plays but also at how perspectives and awareness of relations of power are understood, accepted or resisted. As Roberts (2013) effectively shows, intercultural misunderstandings can take place in high-stake work interviews with applicants whose background and English language competence do not meet the expectations of the recruiter and hence are unable to gain access to a job, regardless of the work skills they possess.

English in times of crisis. Mobility and work among young Spaniards in London

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of English in the decision of young Spaniards to leave Spain at the height of the economic crisis in 2012 when youth unemployment reached over fifty per cent. These young people in their twenties and thirties belong to one of the best trained generations in Spanish history and yet were obliged to migrate in order to try to fulfil their professional aspirations and to learn English in the hope of finding work. In this paper I analyse the ideologies that guide the decisions of these youths and the consequences of investing in a neoliberal logic where the stakes to learn English are high for those without the material and symbolic resources to survive in the city of London.

PIETER MUYSKEN, Bilingual speech: A typology of code-mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi, 306. Hb

Bilingual speech takes research on code-mixing a step further toward achieving a better understanding of the differences in what in the past has been referred to simply as the mixing of two languages in the sentence (or intrasentential code-switching). In addition, Muysken presents the state of the discipline of language contact in the year 2000 from the perspective of the grammar and structure of language contact phenomena. He brings together and analyzes an extensive set of language pairs from a wide variety of communities and social contexts. Good familiarity with such varied multilingual data provides the author with a strong base on which to support his three-way classification ( insertion , alternation , and congruent lexicalization ) of code-mixing phenomena at the sentence level.