Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism (review)

This collection of papers by twenty-three well-known experts from twelve countries gives the reader a kaleidoscopic picture of recent issues in the research of societal bilingualism. The papers are diverse, but judiciously arranged, so that the book is thematically almost continuous. The authors do not try to overview what has been done in the field, but rather try to further elaborate it, contribute with new ideas, and push the discussion on. In addition, five discussion-stimulating questions accompany each contribution and give the floor to the reader.

In the introduction, the editors point out some of the opportunities of bilingualism for individuals and for society, and some of the challenges of bilingualism for governments, education, and the research community. For the purpose of this brief notice, I divide the contributions into four groups, dealing primarily with (i) theoretical concepts, (ii) language ideologies in a community, (iii) processes of language maintenance and shift in a community, and (iv) language situations and language management.

The following contributions can be seen to belong to the first group: Joshua Fishman’s discussion of ‘holy languages’; John Edwards’s skepticism about the present-day ‘language-ecology thrust’; J. J. Smolicz’s presentation of ‘core values’ of linguistic communities that coexist in a multilingual state; Peter Nelde and Peter Weber’s nonlinearity of language maintenance and shift; and Wolfgang Wölck’s placement of ‘ethnolect’ on the evolutionary line multilingualism–ethnolect–urban dialect.

The ‘language ideologies’ contributions include: Tove Skutnabb-Kangas’s review of the current state of human rights vis-à-vis linguistic genocide; Harold Schiffman’s chapter pointing out shortcomings of the economy-theory-inspired conception of state interventionism in France; Damir Kalogjera’s description of the development of attitudes of Croatians to Croatian dialects (one of which is shared as the basis of the standard variety with Serbian—the former eastern variant of former Serbo-Croatian); and Tim Marr’s analysis of the discourse of the Academia Mayor de la Lengua Quechua, Peru, which constructs (and tries to impose) its linguistic and cultural superiority in the region.

Processes of language management and shift are described by Jüri Viikberg (on Estonians in Siberia), Bernard Spolsky (on Navajo-English bilingualism), and Vivian de Klerk (on a Xhosa community in South Africa). Each of them approaches this issue from his/her own perspective.

Florian Coulmas and Makoto Watanabe guide the reader through the history of linguistically diversifying Japan. Xu Daming and Li Wei show how the Singaporean government has been managing multilingualism over the last fifty years. Bjö rn Jernudd, working within language-management theory, suggests (ways to find) solutions to discourse-related problems at a bilingual university in Hong Kong. Ofelia García and Cecilia Traugh show how the method of descriptive inquiry can help improve the teaching of bilingual children by bilingual teachers in New York City. William Mackey’s contribution, ‘Changing paradigms in the study of bilingualism’, serves as a suitable coda to this inspiring and well-written book.