Relationship between the Individual and the State

Relationship between the Individual and the State

Bourhis Richard Y., Howard Giles, and Wallace E. Lambert 1975. “Social consequences of accommodating one's style of speech: A cross-national investigation.” IJSL 6:55--71.

In bicultural or multiethnic situations, speakers can choose to interact with each other in one of two ways. Speech convergence is used to gain listener's approval, by using his style, in an integrative gesture. Dissociation occurs when the speaker hangs onto his own style and refuses to accommodate to the listener, either to emphasize his own group identity or to show disapproval of the listener.

Bourhis, Richard Y., Howard Giles, Jaques P. Leyens, and Henri Tajfel. 1979. “Psycholinguistic distinctiveness: Language divergence in Belgium.” Language and social psychology, edited by Howard Giles and Robert N. St. Clair. Baltimore: University Park Press. 158--185.

Based on Giles's, Bourhis's, and Taylor's work on ethnic group relations, Tajfel's theory of intergroup relations and social change, and Giles's theory of speech accommodation (see Bourhis, Giles, and Lambert 1975), this article shows that language in multilingual contexts can be used by in-group speakers to raise psycholinguistic distinctives. A two-phase experiment in Belgium was used to test the original hypotheses that was found to be true in this instance. Flemish students whose ethnolinguistics identity was threatened to various extents by taped French speakers, employed different strategies of language divergence from Flemish to English.

Carranza, Michael A., and Ellen Bouchard Ryan. 1975. “Evaluative reactions of bilingual Anglo and Mexican adolescents toward speakers of English and Spanish.” IJSL 6:83--104.

Bilingual education can influence language identity, as it stresses differing functions of each language (per Fishman's domains) and thus preserves the worth of each language. The prestige of the minority language is increased as it is shown to have worth in the areas of home, group identification, cultural ...