I thoroughly enjoyed reading this fascinating (almost excruciatingly long, for a web article) piece from the New Yorker, with so many interesting insights about second language learning and delightful tidbits about the differences between languages--equal parts informative and entertaining. But one sentence stopped me dead in my tracks, in a section where the author is describing the struggle to learn French and her resultant appreciation of it, making her acutely savor all its elements and quirks: English is a trust fund, an unearned inheritance, but I’ve worked for every bit of French I’ve banked. More than just a way of looking at the L1/L2 distinction, this makes for a compelling analogy of privilege, in this case language privilege. Especially because her native language is English, which although not the most commonly spoken language, is arguably the most powerful and certainly the most popular L2 (see this handy infographic). Being born into speaking English is a privilege easily overlooked as we judge others for not speaking our language, much the same as those with family money might judge those without. Everyone's native language is their own trust fund, taken for granted with all its benefits and local or international connections, though the point is especially poignant when in regards to English.
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On facebook I just came across the following two short articles, published in the last couple months:
What does being bilingual really mean? Is perfect bilingualism attainable? When I clicked on the link for the former, I was expecting content more similar to the latter and was a little disappointed. I agree with plenty of the first article's statements, things like 'perfection doesn't exist; the goal should in language learning should be to keep improving, etc.' But one particular statement stuck out to me which soured my opinion of the rest of the piece: "Bilingualism is an ideal. Bilingualism -the true mastery of two languages at the same level-..." We may have to agree to disagree there, because this perfectionist definition of bilingualism is too exclusionary for my taste. If this definition were the case, very very few people would be able to (self-)identify as 'bilingual,' and what descriptor is there to cover the rest of us? The perspective taken by the second article was much more up my alley, distinguishing between receptive and productive bilinguals, dominant and balanced bilinguals. There are qualifiers, sure, but they're still considered 'bilingual.' He also includes a term I'd personally never heard before: equilingual, which is what the first author thinks 'bilingual' should be reserved for describing. Given the rarity of achieving that state, I think it makes more sense for the special term (equilingual) to be used than to strip the general term (bilingual) from millions (billions) of people. This tension in terminology reminds me of the short article I use to open up discussion in the first session of my bilingualism course: "Multilingualism" by Guadalupe Valdés (2006). It presents provocative questions of who gets to include themselves in the club of bi/multilinguals and the importance of specificity (early, late, simultaneous, sequential, heritage, formal, natural, etc.) when we want to make statements about the characteristics and/or behavior of 'bilinguals.' After discussing how these ideas align or conflict with students' previous conceptions, I draw their attention to one key idea from the piece: a bilingual 'continuum.' As a class we discuss how that continuum could be represented visually, and students quickly figure out that a single line misses the complexity of the bilingual experience. The article and activity are an eye-opener for the heritage speakers and late L2 learners alike, who come to understand that the word 'bilingual' can be qualified to represent a broad array of experiences and proficiencies, even ones like theirs. |
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June 2019
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