ABSTRACT
In this chapter I discuss the discourse of the American Israeli families from two points of view: bilingualism and interlanguage. As has been seen, particularly in the metapragmatic discourse discussed in Chapter 6, for American Israeli families bilingualism is an active social practice. All members of the family are competent English-Hebrew bilinguals, and all alternate freely between the two languages during dinner. There are several questions that need to be answered in regard to bilingualism. What goes on in this kind of interaction generally? Do parents and children differ in their preferences for Hebrew or English and in their switching behavior? Is there uniformity among the families in their language choice? Is there evidence in the interactions that parents are promoting the maintenance of English? If so, do children collaborate with their parents in this maintenance? 1 Interestingly, the issue of interlanguage arises in this context with regard to a native language spoken by an immigrant community, namely English. Our findings show that at least in its pragmatic aspects, the English spoken in the homes of the American Israeli families differs from (but is influenced by) both native American English and native Israeli Hebrew. In other words, I argue that the discourse style that emerges realizes features of a first-language-based interlanguage.
