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Bilingualism-multilingualism: Its characteristics and properties

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Contrastive Sociolinguistics
This chapter is in the book Contrastive Sociolinguistics
Bilingualism-multilingualism: Its characteristics and properties Jacob L. Ornstein-Galicia 1. Preliminary observations With well over 5,000 distinct languages on the globe, there is no dearth of tongues for sociolinguistic comparison. Mackey (1968: 44) has emphasized that, "bilingualism, far from being exceptional, is a problem that affects the majority of the world's population, not a problem that is confined to bilin-gual countries." In the present study, we will concern ourselves mainly with cross-language variations and some leading features of this. In addition, to the extent possible, we will examine some of the leading issues in bilingual-ism/multilingualism from the viewpoint of comparative sociolinguistics. It must be presumed that any serious scholar in our field is acquainted to some extent with the seminal writings of Weinreich, Haugen, Mackey, Fishman, Labov and other leaders in the field, who have provided key concepts for the sociolinguistic consideration of language diversity. It must be kept in mind that sociolinguistics is barely four decades old, and has by no means found practitioners in all corners of the globe. Certainly it is erroneous to think of the U.S. as the exclusive "inventor" of sociolinguistics. Predecessors in Europe included, in various ways, such figures as Hjelmslev in Denmark, Dürkheim, Marcel Cohen and Meillet in France, certain members of the Prague Linguistic Circle and contributors to the German journal Wörter und Sachen. This worker and a colleague had attempted to bring together a kaleidoscopic view of the field, at least up until 1975, in Ornstein and Murphy (1974: 140-157), Murphy and Ornstein (1976: 423^161) and Ornstein (1977: 951-953). Nevertheless, with the appearance of more and more theoretical treatments of the subject, as for example the present volume, one can certainly gainsay the statement of the American sociolinguist Allen Grimshaw (1971: 135) that "Sociolinguistics is a hybrid discipline with a short and largely atheoretical history". Be that as it may, for purposes of orientation, it might be useful to suggest a formulation of the main directions of sociolinguistics. The first

Bilingualism-multilingualism: Its characteristics and properties Jacob L. Ornstein-Galicia 1. Preliminary observations With well over 5,000 distinct languages on the globe, there is no dearth of tongues for sociolinguistic comparison. Mackey (1968: 44) has emphasized that, "bilingualism, far from being exceptional, is a problem that affects the majority of the world's population, not a problem that is confined to bilin-gual countries." In the present study, we will concern ourselves mainly with cross-language variations and some leading features of this. In addition, to the extent possible, we will examine some of the leading issues in bilingual-ism/multilingualism from the viewpoint of comparative sociolinguistics. It must be presumed that any serious scholar in our field is acquainted to some extent with the seminal writings of Weinreich, Haugen, Mackey, Fishman, Labov and other leaders in the field, who have provided key concepts for the sociolinguistic consideration of language diversity. It must be kept in mind that sociolinguistics is barely four decades old, and has by no means found practitioners in all corners of the globe. Certainly it is erroneous to think of the U.S. as the exclusive "inventor" of sociolinguistics. Predecessors in Europe included, in various ways, such figures as Hjelmslev in Denmark, Dürkheim, Marcel Cohen and Meillet in France, certain members of the Prague Linguistic Circle and contributors to the German journal Wörter und Sachen. This worker and a colleague had attempted to bring together a kaleidoscopic view of the field, at least up until 1975, in Ornstein and Murphy (1974: 140-157), Murphy and Ornstein (1976: 423^161) and Ornstein (1977: 951-953). Nevertheless, with the appearance of more and more theoretical treatments of the subject, as for example the present volume, one can certainly gainsay the statement of the American sociolinguist Allen Grimshaw (1971: 135) that "Sociolinguistics is a hybrid discipline with a short and largely atheoretical history". Be that as it may, for purposes of orientation, it might be useful to suggest a formulation of the main directions of sociolinguistics. The first

Chapters in this book

  1. I-IV I
  2. Contents V
  3. Contrastive Sociolinguistics: An introduction 1
  4. Part I Bilingualism – Multilingualism
  5. On comparing the centers of plurinational languages: The example of German 17
  6. Sociolinguistic characters: On comparing linguistic minorities 37
  7. Bilingualism-multilingualism: Its characteristics and properties 57
  8. In search of the deeper message: Codeswitching rationales of Mexican-Americans and Malaysians 77
  9. Multilingualism through migration: A comparison of internal and external migrant communities in Switzerland 103
  10. A contrastive analysis of language use and contact in the Alemannic area: Colmar and Freiburg 135
  11. Language attitudes on either side of the linguistic frontier: A sociolinguistic survey in the Voeren/Fouron-area and in Old Belgium North 157
  12. Part II Language planning and language politics
  13. Educational language choice – multilingual diversity or monolingual reductionism? 175
  14. Ecological and non-ecological approaches to language planning 205
  15. The inequality of languages: Economic aspects of language estimation 213
  16. Language borders in northern France and in Belgium: A contrastive analysis 229
  17. Feminist language planning and titles for women: Some crosslinguistic perspectives 251
  18. Pidgins and Creoles as literary languages: Ausbau and Abstand 271
  19. The typology of dictionaries of English-based pidgins and Creoles 291
  20. Part III Cross-linguistic discourse analysis
  21. Contrastive sociolinguistics and the theory of “cultural scripts”: Chinese vs English 313
  22. Contrastive discourse analysis and misunderstanding: The case of German and English 345
  23. Two polite speech acts in contrastive view: Aspects of the realization of requesting and thanking in French and Italian 363
  24. Concepts of communicative virtues (CCV) in Japanese and German 385
  25. Referential perspective in speech acts: A comparison between German and Japanese 411
  26. Male-female speaking practices across cultures 447
  27. Narrative universals? Some considerations and perspectives 475
  28. Index 497
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https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110811551.57

Chapters in this book

  1. I-IV I
  2. Contents V
  3. Contrastive Sociolinguistics: An introduction 1
  4. Part I Bilingualism – Multilingualism
  5. On comparing the centers of plurinational languages: The example of German 17
  6. Sociolinguistic characters: On comparing linguistic minorities 37
  7. Bilingualism-multilingualism: Its characteristics and properties 57
  8. In search of the deeper message: Codeswitching rationales of Mexican-Americans and Malaysians 77
  9. Multilingualism through migration: A comparison of internal and external migrant communities in Switzerland 103
  10. A contrastive analysis of language use and contact in the Alemannic area: Colmar and Freiburg 135
  11. Language attitudes on either side of the linguistic frontier: A sociolinguistic survey in the Voeren/Fouron-area and in Old Belgium North 157
  12. Part II Language planning and language politics
  13. Educational language choice – multilingual diversity or monolingual reductionism? 175
  14. Ecological and non-ecological approaches to language planning 205
  15. The inequality of languages: Economic aspects of language estimation 213
  16. Language borders in northern France and in Belgium: A contrastive analysis 229
  17. Feminist language planning and titles for women: Some crosslinguistic perspectives 251
  18. Pidgins and Creoles as literary languages: Ausbau and Abstand 271
  19. The typology of dictionaries of English-based pidgins and Creoles 291
  20. Part III Cross-linguistic discourse analysis
  21. Contrastive sociolinguistics and the theory of “cultural scripts”: Chinese vs English 313
  22. Contrastive discourse analysis and misunderstanding: The case of German and English 345
  23. Two polite speech acts in contrastive view: Aspects of the realization of requesting and thanking in French and Italian 363
  24. Concepts of communicative virtues (CCV) in Japanese and German 385
  25. Referential perspective in speech acts: A comparison between German and Japanese 411
  26. Male-female speaking practices across cultures 447
  27. Narrative universals? Some considerations and perspectives 475
  28. Index 497
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