The Languages of a Bilingual Community

124 Pages·1970·9.189 MB·

by  J. R. Rayfield

THE LANGUAGES OF A BILINGUAL COMMUNITY
JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI YAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curai
C. H. YAN SCHOONEVELD
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
SERIES PRACTICA
77
1970
MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS
THE LANGUAGES
OF A
BILINGUAL COMMUNITY
by
J. R. RAYFIELD
YORK UNIVERSITY
1970
MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS
© Copyright 1970 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print,
photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from
the publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-106457
Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION 7
1. INTRODUCTION 9
1.1 Introduction 9
1.2 Definition of Terms 11
1.3 Methods 11
2. SPEECH HABITS AND ATTITUDES OF THE COMMUNITY 14
2.1 The Community — Socio-Cultural Background 14
2.2 The Languages of the Community 19
2.2.1 Yiddish and English 19
2.2.2 Hebrew 21
2.2.3 Russian 22
2.2.4 Polish 24
2.2.5 German 25
2.2.6 Other Languages 26
2.3 Categories Based on Speech Behavior and Attitudes towards Language 26
2.3.1 The Yiddish Intellectuals 28
2.3.2 The Yiddish Monolinguals 35
2.3.3 The English Speakers 36
2.3.4 The Bilingual Majority 40
2.4 Factors Influencing the Speech Behavior and Attitudes of the Com-
munity 42
2.4.1 Summary of Characteristics of Categories 42
2.4.2 Factors Determining Membership of Categories . . .. 43
2.4.3 Conclusion 52
3. THE LANGUAGES OF THE BILINGUAL MAJORITY 53
3.1 Introduction 53
3.2 Switching 54
6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
3.2.1 In Response to the Immediate Social or Speech Situation . 55
3.2.2 As a Rhetorical Device 56
3.3 Interference 58
3.3.1 Lexical Interference 58
3.3.2 Lexical-Structural Interference 62
3.3.3 Structural Interference 64
3.3.4 Structural-Phonic Interference 71
3.3.5 Phonic Interference 78
3.3.6 Summary: Interference Between Yiddish and English . .. 85
4. FACTORS DETERMINING INTERFERENCE BETWEEN THE LANGUAGES OF A
BILINGUAL COMMUNITY 86
4.1 Comparison of Bilingual Situations 86
4.1.1 Yiddish and the Slavic Languages 86
4.1.2 Yiddish and Hebrew 89
4.1.3 Yiddish and English 93
4.1.4 Norwegian and English 94
4.2 Conclusions 99
4.2.1 Current Hypotheses Regarding Interference 99
4.2.2 Factors Influencing Interference 103
4.2.3 Summary 107
APPENDIX A: List of Informants 108
APPENDIX B: Recollection Test 110
APPENDIX C: Questionnaire 112
BIBLIOGRAPHY 114
INDEX 117
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
In transliterating Yiddish words from a written text, I have used the system devised
by Yivo (the Yiddish Scientific Institute) and used by Uriel Weinreich. (U. Weinreich,
1954: vii).
1 3
« -<— a 1 -<— y (as glide) ts
o -<— i (as vowel) P k
3
-s- b <- k i -«- r
2 -<- v kh •«- sh
a 1
g h Ü -«- s
D n
d m -s- t
-<—
n n
h 2 -<— n -e- s
0
u s •I>S•> -<— ey
* -<— z S e ay
n -<— kh 2 P ••1 -e- oy
B -<— t S •*- f
Hebrew words in Yiddish are spelled with the consonants only. In transliterating
them I have supplied appropriate vowels.
In their spelling, Yiddish writers sometimes indicate and sometimes ignore the
major dialectical variations, which consist mainly of changes in vowels. Thus the
word for 'come' is always written kumen, though speakers of Polish dialects pronounce
it kimen. But the word for 'cow' is usually written ku or ki according to the pronun-
ciation.
In transcribing oral texts I have transliterated phonemically in accordance with
the pronunciation I heard. Thus the word for 'use' appears sometimes as nutsn,
sometimes as nitsn.
The Hebrew characters in which Yiddish is written make no distinction between
small and capital letters. In transliterating I have used a capital letter for names of
persons but not for the beginning of a sentence.

1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The object of this study is to contribute to knowledge of the processes by which
a language changes under the influence of contact with another language.
The material for the study is the speech of a community of Jewish immigrants
who came to the United States from eastern Europe forty or fifty years ago. It was
found that most members of the community speak both Yiddish and English, each
language being subject to a high degree of interference from the other. These mixed
languages are taken as typical of the language of one type of bilingual, i.e., the
speaker who has learned his second language as a young adult and used it for a long
time. They are described in Part 3 of the study with special attention to the amount
and nature of interference in each direction.
Part 2 consists of background material necessary to justify the use as prototypes
of the languages described in Part 3. It deals with the speech habits of all sections
of the community, including the minority who do not speak the mixed languages
described in Part 3. Speech habits are correlated with social, cultural and psychological
factors which may have influenced them. Special attention is given to (1) the
situations in which the native language and English are used; (2) the attitudes of
speakers to the native language and to English; and (3) the relative proficiency of
speakers in the languages they use.
In Part 4 the data obtained by observation of the community is used in conjunction
with the work of other linguists to formulate hypotheses about factors determining
the amount and nature of interference between languages in contact. Comparisons
are made between: (1) the interference situation between the two languages of the
present community; (2) the interference situation between the immigrants' primary
language and other languages with which it has been in contact in the past; and (3)
the interference situation between English and the primary language of another
immigrant group in the United States.
Since language is both a part of a culture and a reflection of the whole of a culture,
a study of the languages of an immigrant group should illustrate the process of
10 INTRODUCTION
acculturation, indicating the features of the old culture most persistently retained
and the features of the new most readily adopted. The differences in language
behavior of various categories within the immigrant community might be expected
to reflect difference in degree and manner of acculturation.
A language is a system, or rather a system of sub-systems, such as the phonemic
system, the morphological system, and the syntactical system. Therefore an
examination of the changes in the sub-systems of a language under the influences
of the corresponding sub-systems of another language should yield information
about the relative stability of the various sub-systems of a language system and the
processes of second language learning.
The questions to be posed, therefore, are both linguistic and cultural. Linguistic
questions are:
(1) What kinds of interference — lexical, structural and phonic — occur in each
direction? What is the relative strength of each kind of interference in each direction?
(2) How does the pattern of interference between the primary language and English
compare with that between the primary language and other languages with which
it has been in contact ?
(3) How does the pattern of interference compare with that between English and
another immigrant language ?
It will be found that the answers to these questions relate closely to cultural as
well as linguistic factors. The following questions regarding the cultural background
of the speakers will be considered:
(1) In what situations is each language, i.e., the primary and the secondary, used?
(2) What are the attitudes to the use of each language in various situations?
(3) What are the relative degrees and kinds of proficiency in the two languages?
(4) How do the answers to the above questions vary according to the background
of the immigrants in the old country and their experiences in the new ?
Similar questions have been treated by Einar Haugen (1953) and Uriel Weinreich
(1953b). In the present study, advantage will be taken of the situation in the community
being studied, in which the constant factors, age and length of residence, provide a
background against which variables may more easily be studied. With few exceptions,
the immigrants studied are all old people who came to the United States as young
adults about forty or fifty years ago. Their speech behavior is described in relation
to certain variables, of which the most important are:
(1) Experiences in the old country: languages spoken in the home, learned in
school or elsewhere; attitudes of parents, children and neighbors to languages and
to Jewish and non-Jewish culture.
(2) Experiences in America: opportunities for and attitudes towards education
in English-language culture; degree and nature of contact with general American
culture.