The Bilingualism Reader

Citation

Li Wei (Ed.). (2007). The Bilingualism Reader (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

This is an edited reader, not a textbook with a single narrative: it gathers 22 research articles by other authors and frames them with editorial writing by Li Wei. The publisher lists 592 pages and describes the structure as three parts (Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Bilingualism; Linguistic Dimensions of Bilingualism; Psycholinguistic and Neurolinguistic Dimensions of Bilingualism) between an introduction, "Dimensions of Bilingualism" (pp. 3–22), and a concluding chapter, "Methodological Issues in the Study of Bilingualism" (pp. 495–504). The front matter has a preface, acknowledgements and a "How to Use the Reader" note; the back matter has a resource list, a glossary, a bibliography and an index. A short "Notes for Students and Instructors" follows each group of readings. The publisher says the second edition adds nine new chapters and postscripts in which the original authors evaluate their articles in light of recent research, along with revised study questions and activities, discussion of research methods and a comprehensive glossary.

Introduction: Dimensions of Bilingualism

The editor's opening chapter (about 20 pages) introduces the dimensions of bilingualism that give the three parts their names.

Part 1, Sociolinguistic Dimensions of Bilingualism

The first group of readings concerns the definitions and typology of bilingualism: Charles Ferguson's "Diglossia" and two Joshua Fishman pieces, "Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism" and "Who speaks what language to whom and when?". The second group, on language choice and bilingual interaction, has four readings on code-switching: Jan-Petter Blom and John Gumperz, "Social meaning in linguistic structure: code-switching in Norway"; Carol Myers-Scotton, "Code-switching as indexical of social negotiations"; Peter Auer, "The pragmatics of code-switching: a sequential approach"; and Li Wei, Lesley Milroy and Pong Sin Ching, "A two-step sociolinguistic analysis of code-switching and language choice: the example of a bilingual Chinese community in Britain". The third group, on identity and ideology, has Monica Heller, "Code-switching and the politics of language", and Ben Rampton, "Language crossing and the problematisation of ethnicity and socialisation".

Part 2, Linguistic Dimensions of Bilingualism

Part 2 turns to the grammar of code-switching and to bilingual acquisition. The grammar readings are Shana Poplack's "Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: toward a typology of code-switching", Carol Myers-Scotton and Janice Jake's "Matching lemmas in a bilingual language competence and production model: evidence from intrasentential code-switching", and Pieter Muysken's "Code-switching and grammatical theory". The acquisition readings are Virginia Volterra and Traute Taeschner's "The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children", Fred Genesee's "Early bilingual language development: one language or two?" and Jürgen Meisel's "Code-switching in young bilingual children: the acquisition of grammatical constraints".

Part 3, Psycholinguistic and Neurolinguistic Dimensions of Bilingualism

The third part covers bilingual production and perception, with David Green's "Control, activation, and resource", Kees de Bot's adaptation of Levelt's speaking model, Judith Kroll and Annette de Groot's "Lexical and conceptual memory in the bilingual" and François Grosjean's "The bilingual's language modes". The last group on the bilingual brain has Loraine Obler and colleagues on cerebral lateralization in bilinguals, Michel Paradis's "Language lateralization in bilinguals: enough already", and Jubin Abutalebi, Stefano Cappa and Daniela Perani on the evidence from functional neuroimaging.

Conclusion: Methodological Issues in the Study of Bilingualism

The editor's closing chapter (about ten pages) discusses research methods in the study of bilingualism.

Key Concepts

• Diglossia: the topic of Ferguson's and Fishman's readings, which ask how languages are distributed across a community and who speaks what language to whom and when.
• Code-switching: the alternation of languages in discourse, approached socially (Blom and Gumperz, Myers-Scotton, Auer, Li Wei and colleagues), politically (Heller) and grammatically (Poplack, Myers-Scotton and Jake, Muysken).
• Language crossing: the subject of Rampton's chapter, which the title connects to ethnicity and socialisation.
• Bilingual acquisition: the question of whether young bilingual children develop one language system or two.
• Language control, activation and language modes: models of how bilinguals select and manage their languages (Green, Grosjean, de Bot).
• Lateralization and neuroimaging: the evidence on the bilingual brain examined in the last group of readings.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Access to primary sources. The reader gathers original research that would otherwise be spread across journals and books. In a review of the first edition in Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Roy Major noted that the editor wanted to compile important articles and to encourage readers to go to original works instead of commentaries on them.
• Three disciplines in one volume. The sections move from sociolinguistics through grammar and acquisition to psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, so the volume suits students from linguistics, psychology and education, as the publisher says.
• Editorial scaffolding. Each part has an introduction and each group of readings is followed by notes for students and instructors; the publisher adds graded study questions, a glossary and a resource list.
• Voices responding to later work. The second edition's postscripts, in which authors reassess their own articles, show how the arguments developed.

Limitations

• Research articles. The readings are articles written for researchers, so a student new to the field will want the editor's notes and the glossary at hand, and possibly a textbook alongside.
• Selection, not survey. A reader presents a chosen set of articles. The contents show a strong weight on code-switching and no section on language policy, education or planning, which a general sociolinguistics textbook covers.
• Date. The second edition appeared in 2007; later research is represented only in the postscripts. The publisher's page lists no later edition.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is a companion for the bilingualism strand of a sociolinguistics course, not a first textbook. Wardhaugh and Fuller's An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Holmes and Wilson's An Introduction to Sociolinguistics and Trudgill's Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society give the broad framework; the Reader goes to the research literature on bilingualism itself. Its Part 1 pairs naturally with Wardhaugh and Fuller's chapters on languages in contact and contact varieties.

Chambers's Sociolinguistic Theory and Eckert's Meaning and Linguistic Variation concern variation more than bilingualism, so they complement rather than overlap with this volume.

How to Use This Book

The publisher describes it as an introductory resource for students of linguistics, psychology and education. An introductory linguistics course will probably help with Part 2, and some psychology with Part 3.

A practical plan:

• Start with "How to Use the Reader" and the editor's "Dimensions of Bilingualism".
• Choose a track: Part 1 for a sociolinguistic course, Part 2 for code-switching grammar and child bilingualism, Part 3 for psycholinguistics and the bilingual brain.
• Read the notes after each group of readings first, then the articles; use the glossary for unfamiliar terms.
• Use the study questions and the postscripts to compare the original claims with later views.
• Finish with the methodology chapter before designing a project.