Early Spanish-English Bilingualism: Theoretical Issues, Empirical Analyses (2007 Plenary Address‪)‬

I. INTRODUCTION. Bilingual communities are characterized by their social and linguistic heterogeneity, perhaps even more so than monolingual communities. Linguistically, the heterogeneity is evident in the proficiency continuum that develops in the languages involved. The linguist's concern is the study of this continuum, which in the case of Spanish, for instance, as an unofficial language in the United States, reflects processes of simplification and loss.