Bilingualism as Interactional Practices

Joseph Gafaranga argues that the notion of bilingualism itself must be redefined so that bilingualism can be seen as consisting of diverse interactional practices and investigated as such. This book details the rehabilitation effort which has been undertaken to get us where we are today.

Research on bilingualism and on code-switching in particular has traditionally been geared towards rehabilitating bilingualism and bilingual language use. From being seen as a sign of lack of competence, code-switching is now seen as a sign of high competence in the languages involved. However, this rehabilitation of bilingualism raises an entirely new problem: Where to from here? How can the study of bilingualism continue to be interesting and relevant? In order to overcome the challenges the discipline faces as a result of its own success, here Joseph Gafaranga argues, the notion of bilingualism itself must be redefined. Bilingualism must be seen as consisting of diverse interactional practices and investigated as such. This book details the rehabilitation effort which has been undertaken to get us where we are today, proposes a methodology which can be used in moving forward and illustrates it with three case studies, all the while inviting other researchers to contribute to this new research direction.