Language Shift

My senior thesis was about language shift in French Guyana and I’m still fascinated by the phenomenon on a population scale. Working in this program has given me the chance to observe some language shifts in my own multilingual, multicultural community. For instance, I normally speak English with my Anglophone housemates since it’s a) very convenient and b) efficient for dealing with the tasks of daily life. I still speak French with my German roommate and occasionally try out small greetings phrases en allemand that I’ve picked up from my textbook. My enterprising Nicaraguan roommate A has taken advantage of the fact that most of the English-speakers know some Spanish to use that as her primary language of communication. This represents a shift away from a lingua franca (French), which is a foreign/second language for all interlocutors, to a situation involving a native speaker and several multilinguals. A doesn’t speak English and has a French boyfriend, so she gets plenty of language practice in France. As a result of my conversations with her, I can feel my comprehension improving enormously. There’s usually a few hours of lag time between a conversation and my realization that I can indeed produce a new structure in the language (better at distinguishing between ser/estar, imperfect vs. preterite for gustar, prepositions, etc.). She’s quite willing to work with me and I feel more confident in the language everyday. On a professional level, I speak primarily English with my teacher S (who loves American TV series and mystery novels), primarily French with V (whose English is a bit rusty after working with high-schoolers for awhile), and a 50/50 mix with M (who just speaks in whatever language happens to be passing through her mind at the time). We’ve tried to do some shifting – there was a period of time when I spoke mostly French with S and English with V – but we fell back into familiar patterns after the break. Being multilingual doesn’t necessarily mean one uses all of one’s languages every day and the choice of what language to use in which situations is an important, if often unconscious, decision for much of the world. More specifically, I’ve been reading articles about multilingual education in the US, Canada, Africa, and Asia to see how different communities strike a balance between several languages (home/majority, native/foreign, etc.). Serving in the Peace Corps will give me a better idea about how these ideas vont ensemble (go together).