The communicative competence of bilinguals: some hypotheses and suggestions for research

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Abstract
A model for the description of bilingual speech is proposed which focuses on the linguistic and social constraints governing the speaker's selection of variables within a single complex linguistic repertoire. The model will be tested with field data from bilingual communities in India and Austria and results will be compared with relevant data on American English. The traditional dichotomy between bilingual and monolingual behavior is discarded and differences between the communities will be described in terms of the level of linguistic structure at which variables appear, the rules governing their co-occurrence and the social meanings they communicate. The goal is to contribute to our knowledge of the linguistic and social nature of code alternation to provide new insights into communication processes in ethnically diverse societies, and to lay the basis for improved educational strategies.

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