Bilingual Couples in Conversation

This book provides a detailed linguistic analysis of the communication of highly proficient bilingual couples. Combining the accounts of ten bilingual couples on their language use and past experiences with an analysis of their actual linguistic behaviour during the interviews, several areas of the couples’ speech and modes of communication were closely examined: their language choice and language use, their language mixing behaviour, their manner of expressing emotions, their use of and reaction to swearwords, as well as their attitudes towards their languages and cultures, and their production of humour and laughter. In addition, the influence of the bilinguals’ mother tongue and gender on their language use was explored. Thus, the study provides insights into the language practices of established bilingual couples, while also contributing to the field of fluent late bilingualism.

Inhalt:
1. Introduction
2. Language situation in Switzerland
3. The communication of bilingual, bicultural couples
4. Corpus and data collection
5. “We have a language of our own”: Language choice and use
6. “German sorta creeps into it”: Language mixing
7. “This uh foreign girl with a great accent”: Attitudes and attraction
8. “In Swiss German, I lieb di, that’s strange”: Expressing emotions
9. “You’re not gonna say this word!”: Swearing
10. “Then we’re the only two people laughing in the room”: Laughter and humour
11. Conclusion


Autor:inneninformation:
Silja Ang-Tschachtli has a PhD in English Linguistics from the University of Zurich and teaches English at a Swiss grammar school.