Bilingualism in the Community

Reviews / Votes

'This book takes us out of our comfort zone in critically examining the evidence for supposed convergence between Spanish and English in the Southwestern United States. It sets new standards in language contact research and the team of Rena Torres Cacoullos and Catherine Travis has produced an impeccable study, using state of the art methodology and analytical tools.' Pieter Muysken, Radboud University, Nijmegen 'Thanks to impeccable scientific methodology and singularly rich data, this ground-breaking study of the oldest bilingual community in the US stands the received wisdom about contact-induced change on its head. A must-read for all serious students of language contact, regardless of perspective or approach!' Shana Poplack, University of Ottawa 'This rich linguistic and sociolinguistic analysis of Spanish and English in a traditionally bilingual community where code-switching is the norm sets a new standard for the study of language contact. The careful quantitative analysis produces the surprising result that code-switching speakers maintain distinct structures and constraints in their two languages. The methods and the results constitute a ground-breaking contribution to the study of language change.' Joan Bybee, University of New Mexico 'Bilingualism in the Community sets a high standard of variationist studies of contact-induced change and applies a systematic comparative methodology that includes comparing with a previous, monolingual variety and monolingual benchmarks. The book is in general very well written and is recommended to scholars interested in language contact, variation, and the interplay of the two both within and outside the variationist framework.' Maria Khachaturyan, The LINGUIST List