Silja Ang-Tschachtli - Bilingual Couples in Conversation

When looking at communicative difficulties experienced by fluent bilinguals, we should bear in mind that it is often not a matter of whether one understands or not; rather, there are different grades of understanding. We can distinguish between misunderstanding and incomplete understanding; incomplete understanding in itself may be divided into partial understanding and non-understanding (Gass and Varonis 1991: 124). The causes for communicative breakdowns are also varied, and may be caused by the speaker (misstatement) or be due to the listener’s failure to understand (misinterpretation), or both (Banks, Ge and Baker 1991: 106). In the case of the couples in this study, non-understanding can be expected to occur only rarely due to their language proficiency, while instances of partial understanding or misunderstanding may be more frequent. Nonetheless, the latter may be particularly challenging because they are not immediately obvious. As the participants in this study are very fluent in their couple language, only few misunderstandings due to insufficient knowledge of grammar and vocabulary are to be expected, and I will not discuss such issues here.

However, there seem to be a number of other language-specific characteristics and pragmatic conventions that can lead to misunderstandings or other issues, even when fluent L2 speakers are involved. For instance, misunderstandings can arise in the context of the formulaic use of language and idioms, which appear to be difficult for non-native speakers (Gumperz and Tannen 1979: 315). A further challenging aspect can result from conversational conventions, which may vary even between speakers of different varieties of the same language, or between languages that are fairly closely related. Thus, House describes a dinner conversation between an American and a German, who disagreed on aspects such as turn-allocation, or the question of which topics are appropriate in certain situations (2000: 157). This demonstrates that speakers of different mother tongues may not have the same expectations with regard to appropriate linguistic behaviour in a given situation, especially when it comes to speech acts such as apologies, congratulations, condolences, complaints, offers, requests, or expressions of gratitude. For instance, there can be differences with regard to when an apology is expected, how such an apology is framed and formulated, what function it has and what the appropriate response to it is (Spencer-Oatey 2000b: 42). Similarly, complaints may be used with a different purpose in different cultures — as a “game of sharing complaints” or a “game of one-upmanship” (Tannen 1986: 47). Moreover, abundant or frequent use of expressions of gratitude or positive emotions (as is customary among Americans) may seem over-the-top and insincere to people from a culture where this is less common. In turn, people who are not as expressive may be viewed as unenthusiastic or boring by people from a more expressive culture.

Related to this is also the preference for indirectness or directness, which is, to some extent, culturally determined. Cross-cultural studies suggest that the conversational style of Germans is often perceived to be very direct.12 Thus, House claims that “German speakers tend to interact in many different situations in ways that can be described as more direct, more explicit, more self-referenced and more content-oriented” than Americans (2000: 163). Similarly, Byrnes believes the American conversational style to be more indirect than the German conversational style and argues that “in German style, there is greater emphasis on the information-conveying function of language, as compared with its social bonding function” (1986: 200–201). Such differences may be particularly salient in the different approaches to conflict within the two cultures, as Oetzel et al. conclude from a cross-cultural comparison on facework in conflict:

The German [conflict] style is direct and confrontive. It is important to discuss issues thoroughly and completely. Discussions in Germany focus on facts and sorting through facts. […] U.S. Americans tend to remain calm. [Their style] focuses on talking about ideas in a calm manner in order to come to a mutually acceptable resolution. U.S. Americans often view Germans as being too blunt during conflict, while Germans view U.S. Americans as unwilling to engage in serious conflict. (2001: 253)

While, in my opinion, the Swiss are not generally as direct as the Germans, and value compromise, they may still be perceived as direct by native speakers of English.

Since the main conversational aim — conveying information or creating a rapport — appears to differ between speakers of different languages, they might also disagree with regard to the importance that is attributed to small talksmall talk. There is a persistent stereotypestereotypescultural that Germans refuse to or are unable to engage in small talk, whereas Anglophone people are considered to be experts of small talk (Bubel 2006: 245). This seems to be the case in House’s study of two reported interactions between native speakers of German and English. In a retrospective interview after a joint dinner, an American participant reported that he felt that Germans cannot — or do not want to — engage in small talk; he believed that, for German speakers, conversations always have to carry some weight (2000: 155). Based on her data, House arrives at the conclusion that many misunderstandings arise because the importance attached to small talk within the respective cultures differs (2000: 161). Nevertheless, Bubel found in her analysis of phone conversations between a British sales executive and his German customers that, while it was mostly the English speaker who initiated small talk, the German customers, for their part, usually participated (2006: 254). These divergent reports could be seen as an indication of a situational dependence of small talk in both cultures.

The overview of previous work shows that there are a number of challenges that bicultural and bilingual couples may face. These are often seen as a disadvantage for the relationship, and they are the main reason why such relationships tend to be viewed as less stable and more problematic than monolingual, monocultural ones. However, couples may not only learn to cope with their bilingualism, but they may also view it positively and benefit from it. Couples can, for instance, attempt to overcome their linguistic differences to some extent by improving their language skillsproficiency, or by being mindful of linguistic and pragmatic conventions. Furthermore, the partners may have very positive attitudes towards their bilingualism, or a particular interest in their partner’s language and/or culture, and therefore enjoy speaking their L2 or being in a bilingual relationship. Due to their affinity to their partner’s language and/or culture, they often see raising bilingual, bicultural childrenchildrenraising bilingual as an advantage, too. In addition, many bilingual couples consider their relationship to be more interesting than a monolingual relationship (Piller 2002a: 89). Such positive attitudes are especially common in the case of elite bilingualselite bilingual, such as the participants in this study. My aim in this study is not to focus primarily on the challenges bilingual couples may face, but to explore positive aspects and particularities of their relationships as well.

In this chapter, I present background information about the interviewees and discuss the process of data collection and analysis. I begin with an overview of the interviewees and give a short biography of each couple. Following this, I discuss some limitations that come with my sample of participants. I then comment on the process of conducting interviews, as well as on the questionnaire that formed the basis of the interviews. As I decided to make precise transcriptions of the interviews, including a number of suprasegmental features, I describe the most important aspects of the transcription conventions. Moreover, I discuss the transcription process and the difficultiesdifficultieschallenges I encountered. Finally, I also comment on my method of analysis before moving on to the analysis itself in the next chapter.