Freitag, 12.30 Uhr
This paper proposes to report some problems related to the study of the language usage of cross-cultural couples, and some preliminary findings of an experimental study of such practices.
Over the last decades spousal communication has in many societies gained in importance. A 'good spouse' is no longer just a good housekeeper, breadwinner or sexual partner but a good communicator. Surprisingly enough, Tannen (1986; 1990) is one of the few authors who have investigated how language "makes or breaks relationships". One type of couples whose language practices have received particularly little scholarly attention are cross-cultural couples. Although all spousal communication can be characterized as cross-cultural (e.g. Tannen 1990), in the present study, a cross-cultural couple is defined as one in which the spouses have different first languages. In today's open societies bilingual couples are no longer a marginal minority: in Germany, for instance, binational marriages have been on the increase over the last decades (cf. Statistisches Bundesamt 1997: 22). In 1960, 3.7% (total: 19.458) of all the couples that got married in the Federal Republic were between a German and non-German national. By 1995 their number had risen to 13.5% (50.686). Nevertheless, just as "the idea that multilingualism is divisive, while monolingualism is a normal and desirable state of affairs, is still with us today" (Romaine 1994: 33), the idea that it is a normal and desirable state of affairs that spouses should have the same first language is still with us today.
The main reason why there are so few studies of the language of couples in general, and bilingual couples in particular, is probably the fact that by its very nature this type of language is not readily available for observation and investigation. Therefore I have come up with the following experimental design: based on issues that emerged as "models" from an analysis of the discourse of bilingual couples in literature, films and advertising, and also on the issues that have already been addressed in comparable research a one-page "discussion paper" was developed in English. This paper has been given to German-English couples who are willing to spend some time discussing the issues addressed in it, and tape themselves as they do so. This design elicits self-reported information on their language practices like in a semi-structured interview, but on the other hand, really yields samples of couple talk without the presence of a researcher. Although the design is experimental, it is "not too unnatural" as the couple has the choice of the setting. All the participants are also asked to fill in a short demographic questionnaire on rather unambiguous variables such as age, education, occupation, how long they have known each other etc., so that the results can be related to the analyses of the tapes.
Together with the pros and cons of this design, I propose to describe some of the conversations on these tapes, the problems in obtaining and analyzing them, and to discuss some preliminary results. The paper will thus be a contribution to the workshop's focus on research methods in intercultural communication.
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