Bilingual Minorities and Languages Issues in Writing: Toward Professionwide Responses to a New Challenge

After a definition of the nature of bilingualism - elective vs circumstantial - in American bilingual minorities, it is argued that the current compartmentalization of the English-teaching profession is unfit to fulfill the needs of this population. Research in second-language writing is found to have focused on English as a second language students rather than on fluent /functional bilinguals. The breakdown of compartmentalization is recommended; researchers - especially bilingual ones usually working on mainstream issues - should study questions involving non-English-background populations. 1 Table, 4 Figures, 104 References. Adapted from the source document