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Title: Bilingual Women: Anthropological Approaches to Second-Language Use (Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women, Vol 9) by Pauline Burton, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, Shirley Ardener ISBN: 0-85496-737-0 Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd Pub. Date: March, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $68.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Gender issues are finally addressed in this book.
Comment: Bilingual research literature very rarely distinguishes gender issues in second language use and relies on ungendered data or presents the masculine view as a usual default model. It was for this reason that the editors of this work gathered papers that dealt specifically with women's issue in second language use. Many cultures are represented in this volume that addresses the themes from an anthropological and ethnographic perspective. Women have often been the caretakers of indigenous languages that have fallen out of use because of colonization and changes in the social power structures. Mothers are the ones who have the greatest part in perpetrating languages through generations where the culture has become subordinate or migration or intermarriage with a member of another language group has severed connections with the maternal language community. It can also be their option not to teach their children their mother tongue. The authors include articles on the critical role of women in the survival of minority languages such as Breton and Gaelic. Power and equality are the major themes presented in the research where women under various circumstances do not have access to the privileged forms of a language and are thus limited in the social forum. One of the authors argues that women, like children, are maintained in a condition of privileged inferiority and suffer exploitation at the same time they are viewed with special regard. Bilingual women have also been considered to be both linguistically and sexually promiscuous. Historically this stereotype has a basis in the fact that often the colonizer would leave his wife at home and take up with a native woman who becomes the intermediary and language interpreter. Stereotypes of women's roles in language use are presented in such themes as: dominant and subdominant languages, women's use of them ; ambivalent or hostile attitudes towards women as translators, This book delves into issues that are rarely seen in bilingual and cross-cultural studies. The male default is usually explained and issues of gender go unreported and ignored. The information in this book is very useful because it makes the reader consider issues of gender and language use, presenting views of feminine empowerment and exploitation that are part of the researched language communities. The texts also investigate the deeper reasons for language gender differences within complex social structures and explains issues that fall below the surface of bilingual and multicultural studies. I recommend this book to all who have interest in sociolinguistics and gender studies.