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  • Spanish in Bilingual and Multilingual Settings around the World by Gregory L. Thompson, and Edwin M. Lamboy
  • Elena Retzer
Thompson, Gregory L., and Edwin M. Lamboy. Spanish in Bilingual and Multilingual Settings around the World. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. 280. ISBN 978-1-78052-926-4.

Thompson and Lamboy’s outstanding, fact-dense 2012 book Spanish in Bilingual and Multilingual Settings around the World, published by Brill, is organized into three tightly connected sections: 1) What is Bilingualism; 2) Bilingualism/Multilingualism in the Hispanic World; and [End Page 531] 3) Bilingualism in the United States. The scrupulously researched and thoughtfully argued text more than fulfills the authors’ stated hope to become an introduction to bilingual research and an in-depth description of bilingual phenomena.

The first chapter starts with multilayered, nuanced definitions of the main concepts studied by linguistics: what are languages, dialects, regional and social macro- and micro-varieties; what constitutes diglossia; as well as broader social constructs (such as prestige, linguistic standard, identity, and language attitudes). The fascinating exploration of different definitions and approaches to understanding the complex phenomenon of bilingualism (starting on page 27) takes into account multiple factors. Among them are: the age of acquisition of L2; continued exposure to L2; the circumstances of learning each of the two (or more) languages; relative skill and (un)equal fluency in each; passivity (or activity) of knowledge, etc. The authors favor an 8-dimensional analysis of who a bilingual speaker is (to which I simply cannot do justice here). Their measured discussion contains such notions as: emerging bilinguals; bilingualism as a continuum; aspects of language that most benefit from early acquisition; bicultural competencies; endogenous multilingual and exogenous monolingual communities in which bilinguals live; elective (conscious) vs. circumstantial bilingualism, etc. (32). The chapter also convincingly argues against some common misconceptions of what bilinguals are and are not: (i.e., they are not born translators, they do not suffer from double or split personalities, switching languages does not equal laziness, bilingualism does not delay language acquisition in children, and so on [32]). A subsequent discussion in this chapter explains some factors that promote multilingualism, such as: the distribution of languages within a country or a region (if different language groups coexist therein, and wish to interact and trade); language policies (including banning or discouraging of regional languages); movements and contact of people produced by globalization; and economic, social and symbolic statuses (37).

Chapter 2 applies the exposed theoretical framework to bilingualism and multilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world (i.e., to Spanish in contact with other languages in the Americas, Africa and Europe, as well as to bilingual educational policies in all the introduced communities). It starts with the standard exploration of the birth of Castilian, an “abnormal” Hispano-Romance dialect in the Burgos area of southern Cantabria (83) and traces its development and diffusion in the Americas. The chapter further discusses the national languages of Spain (catalán, gallego and Euskera/Basque) and indigenous languages in Latin America, which is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions of the world, with over 650 indigenous languages (and about 205 of the living languages on the verge of extinction). Case studies of Mexico, Ecuador and Paraguay; language policies and planning in both Latin America and Spain, and endangered communities (including the Palenquero, Guaraní, Mayan and Islanders—isleños—of Delacroix Island east of New Orleans) constitute the core of this second chapter.

The third chapter of Spanish in Bilingual and Multilingual Settings around the World contains a review of the history of Spanish bilingualism in the United States and the growth of bilingual communities. According to Thompson and Lamboy, in 2012, more than fifty million (50.7) Latinos constituted the nation’s largest minority group, representing 16.4 percent of the entire population (196). Interestingly, 51 percent of surveyed Latinos refer to their family’s country of origin when defining their identity (such as Bolivian or Mexican) and not the census-enforced homogenizing label Latino/Hispanic; 21 percent of these surveyed persons identify as “simply” American; and only 2 percent as either Hispanic or Latino (200). Nevertheless, the issues, history, models (and criticisms) of bilingual education, as...

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