Interactional Order in Talk in Two Languages: Identity-Related Accounts

Abstract

As we have seen in Chapter 3, from a grammatical point of view, language alternation is an issue of order because, in principle, it runs against the Structural Uniformity Principle. Likewise, at the level of interaction, a general principle is at the basis of the view that language alternation is an issue of order. Provisionally, let me call this principle ‘One-Situation-One-Language Principle’. Elsewhere, I have referred to this principle as the norm of ‘language separateness’ (Gafaranga, 2000a). Like the Structural Uniformity Principle, in monolingual contexts, the One-Situation-One-Language Principle might not be of any particular interest because, presumably, every interaction takes place in one language. However, in bilingual contexts, the principle gains paramount importance. It is such a principle that would have motivated Weinreich (1953) to formulate the now famous statement

that the ideal bilingual switches languages according to appropriate changes in the speech situation and not in an unchanged speech situation and certainly not in the same sentence. (1952: 73)