ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the relevant terminology, and examines the often complex, hierarchical relationships between speech communities in plurilingual societies, and, consequently, between languages. It describes how speech communities manage their multiple languages in stable bilingual communities, how language choice indexes self-identification and community membership, and how in multilingual societies, as in monolingual societies, language is used to unite or isolate individuals and groups through language choice. The chapter addresses related issues such as attitudes of bilinguals and monolinguals toward bilingualism, and the range of attitudes toward language mixing. It looks at the flip side of contact—how it may first result in bilingualism but over time may also contribute to linguistic and cultural endangerment and loss. The chapter examines how nations use language to strengthen their borders and to acknowledge or suppress diversity, and what can be done to reverse endangerment.
