On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, renee hayes wrote:
>
> Ahem. So I have been thinking about looking at bilingualism from a
> community standpoint (well, I know there has been a lot of tugging at the
> definition of community lately, but I am doggedly clinging to this word for
> lack of a better one at this point).
....
> I am not
> sure where to go from here, but if anybody knows any references or examples
> of bilingualism viewed from any perspective other than
> "somthing-in-the-head-of-the-individual," IŽd love to hear it, because I am
> still in the process of morphing.
You could find some useful material from the early
sociolinguists/sociology
of language people back in the 70s. There was a book edited by Joshua
Fishman called "Bilingualism in The Barrio", with several articles on the
functions and distribution of languages (Spanish/English) in Puerto Rican
neighbourhoods in a major USA city.
Gumperz early work in Norway is also along these lines, looking at
bilingualism and diglossia from a community standpoint.
Joan Rubin (anthropologist, sociolinguist) "Bilingualism in Paraguay", is
another source.
All of these look at bilingualism as it is experienced in and by the
"speech community". Within a bilingual or multilingual
community/group/state there might be a sizable number of individuals whose
contact with or knowledge of the other language(s) is limited or
non-existent.
One of the main problems with these studies is with the definition of the
"group" within which the languages are distributed. Most of the sociology
of language studies use geographical or political boundaries in their
definitions. More sociolinguistic studies aimed at definitions based on
frequency of contact, interactions, shared attitudes, values, etc.
Perhaps looking at some of the issues they bring up with the affordance of
the theoretical construct of "community of practice" might be useful.
Hope some of this helps,
Rosa
ICSYH-Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, MEXICO
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