ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we explore the politics behind people’s language choices in a bilingual community. I will first describe the extent of language diversity in the world and factors that give rise to bilingual societies. Key sociolinguistic concepts such as diglossia, language shift, and language maintenance will be discussed, along with the different societal circumstances under which people become bilingual. I will look at a few of the world’s multilingual countries and consider the ideological motivations behind national language policies. I will show how individual language choices are influenced by societal power structures and how bilingualism frequently serves as a precursor to monolingualism for language minority populations.