Tara Goldstein, Two languages at work: Bilingual life on the production floor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. Pp. xvi, 277. DM 198.00.

Abstract

For readers who are interested in learning how and why speakers select among competing language varieties, Goldstein's critical ethnography of immigrant factory workers in Toronto provides compelling documentation. She was employed as an on-site teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL) at Stone Specialities, a manufacturing company that hired large numbers of Portuguese-speaking workers from the Azores. The workplace ESL classes were less successful than expected, so she undertook an in-depth ethnographic study to determine why.