If you speak Spanish they'll think you're a German: Attitudes toward language choice in multilingual environments

Abstract

The present research attempts to study language attitudes in innovative ways. Specifically, our problem is how to examine the language‐switching event as a context that reveals language attitudes of communicators. The major findings reported here concern a mulu'lingual school setting in Spain in which language choice and language‐switching are everyday occurrences. Open‐ended interviews supplemented with observational data were used to study attitudes toward language‐switching events and the communicative functions of language choice. Findings were that language choice decisions were often highly emotional to participants in conversations and that such choices played a role in group inclusion. Attitudes toward language switching in this environment seemed to cluster around national and linguistic stereotypes. Implications for bilingual education are briefly discussed, and die essay concludes with some suggestive observational data using conversational analysis techniques to examine language‐switching events in the Southwest USA.

Notes

Kristine Fitch is a Teacher of Special Programs at the Language and Culture Center, Department of English, University of Houston and Robert Hopper is Professor of Speech Communication at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712. Offprint requests should be addressed to the latter author.