Maintaining a Minority Language: A Case Study of Hispanic Teenagers

Gibbons (English, Hong Kong Baptist U.) and Ramirez (medical interpreting, U. of New South Wales) report findings from a study of 106 teenagers from the Spanish-speaking community in Sydney, Australia, conducted during 1997-1998. The authors present an understanding of the factors that lead to the development of biliteracy and bilingualism in the individual and the maintenance of these in communities—particularly minority communities—and then explore and test out these understandings in the bilingualism and biliteracy of the Sydney teen subjects. Some material from the text appeared in other scholarly publications between 1998 and 2003. Distributed in the U.S. by UTP Distribution. No subject index. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR