Abstract
The city of Biel/Bienne is often cited as a model of a non-conflicting cohabitation between two language groups with a similar status: German (i.e. in a diglossic situation: Standard German and Swiss German dialects) and French both benefit from explicit political promotion and legal protection. In a qualitative study conducted in the city of Biel/Bienne, most of the 40 interviewees talking about their lives in this bilingual city confirm this consensual view of linguistic cohabitation. However, the apparent balance between both communities is challenged on different levels, including the relationship between language communities according to their respective minority and majority status, the status and the visibility of both languages in the public sphere, the conflicting loyalties of bilingual citizens, the use or avoidance of a language in certain contexts or the choice of a common language in (potentially) bilingual interactions. The results of the analysis reveal divergent – and potentially conflicting – perceptions regarding urban bilingualism: although most of the interviewees appreciate the linguistic cohabitation in Biel/Bienne, many of them refer to various zones of language conflict which they suffer from or which they allot to the other speech community.
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank Sarah-Jane Conrad for her valuable comments on a first draft of this text and Holli Schauber for her corrections and comments.
Appendix
Transcription conventions
In the transcriptions, we use a simplified version of the GAT-protocol (Selting et al. 1998):
- [ ]
overlapping speech
- (.) (-) (--) (---)
short pauses
- =
uninterrupted speech
- (...)
omission
- << >>
indications about diction etc.
- : :: :::
elongated speech
- (1 sec.)
longer pauses (in seconds)
- (xxx)
incomprehensible segment
- ( )
supposed segment
- (( ))
paralinguistic and non-linguistic behaviour
- CAPITAL LETTERS
stressed pronunciation
Speakers: If, Im (female, male informant); Mf, Mm (female, male project collaborator).
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Language conflict research: a state of the art
- Equal status, but unequal perceptions: language conflict in the bilingual city of Biel/Bienne
- Language conflict in Brussels: political mind-set versus linguistic practice
- Changements urbains et conflits sociolinguistiques: l’impact de la gentrification sur le français de Marseille
- Re-thinking language conflict: challenges and options
- Book Review
- Where were you, our friends on the inside? Language and contestation in Northern Ireland
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities 80
- Language and identity in the context of conflict: the case of ethnolinguistic communities in South Darfur State
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Language conflict research: a state of the art
- Equal status, but unequal perceptions: language conflict in the bilingual city of Biel/Bienne
- Language conflict in Brussels: political mind-set versus linguistic practice
- Changements urbains et conflits sociolinguistiques: l’impact de la gentrification sur le français de Marseille
- Re-thinking language conflict: challenges and options
- Book Review
- Where were you, our friends on the inside? Language and contestation in Northern Ireland
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities 80
- Language and identity in the context of conflict: the case of ethnolinguistic communities in South Darfur State