ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the cultural convergence of Israel's Jews and Arabs in the area of bilingualism. Israel is a setting where Jews and Arabs represent conflicting identities but where Hebrew, the dominant language, Arabic, the minority's official language, and English, the first foreign language, are all diffused— though unevenly— in the majority as well as the minority. The relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel have been generally discussed as a conflict between an underprivileged national minority and a better-off majority. The social, political and cultural disparities, which separate Jews from Arabs are, indeed, manifest. Cultural influences stemming from majority-minority inter-group relations are primarily determined by the distribution of power. Researchers refer, in this respect, to different models of bilingualism: a majority which has become bilingual, and thereby converges toward the minority, isolates the latter culturally. Face-to-face personal interactions are another factor of cultural convergence. Another facet of cultural convergence concerns the cultural impact of inter-setting relations.
