A difficult choice

In 1984, the author obtained a grant from the National Science Foundation to research the processing of mixed speech in bilinguals. He describes the studies that he undertook with his team along with other bilingual studies started during his sabbatical. In 1986, the author met with Noam Chomsky to talk about bilingualism and he reports on this encounter. This was also a time where he had to decide whether he should remain at Northeastern, accept a position that McGill had offered him, or return to Switzerland in search of a permanent position there. Finally, in 1987, the University of Neuchâtel offered him a professorship which he accepted.

Reflections on the bilingual and the bicultural person

The author used part of his sabbatical to write a much cited paper on bilingualism. In it he presented his “the bilingual is not two monolinguals in one person” view. He first argued how a monolingual view of bilingualism had impacted every aspect of bilingualism research up until then. He then described his holistic view and presented a number of concepts that accompany it such as language mode, the Complementarity Principle, language restructuring in bilinguals, etc. Another paper he worked on was on the bicultural person whom he depicted for the first time. He presented how behavior changes in a monocultural and a bicultural mode, and how biculturals come to grips with their identity.

Discovering sign language

The author discovered American Sign Language (ASL) and the world of the deaf whilst in the United States. He helped set up a research program in the psycholinguistics of ASL and describes a few studies he did. He also edited, with Harlan Lane, a special issue of Langages on sign language, for French colleagues. The author then worked on the bilingualism and biculturalism of the deaf, and authored a text on the right of the deaf child to become bilingual. It has been translated into 30 different languages and is known the world over.

Becoming bilingual

In 1954, the author entered Aiglon College, a small English school in Villars, Switzerland. He quickly acquired English in a friendly “submersion” environment. Since the boys were both English and American, the author slowly acculturated to their cultures. At the same time, because he no longer needed French, he started losing his first language which he illustrates with examples of his written French at the time. Since his mother lived in Italy, the author acquired Italian and very quickly became fairly fluent in it. But later, it too started to be lost since he no longer used it. Language attrition as a linguistic process is explained.

My early monolingual years

The author’s parents separated when he was a little over one year old, and he and his sister were placed in foster homes. The author’s early years as a monolingual child in a small French village, Villiers-Adam, are described. When he was a bit more than seven and a half, his mother abducted him to Switzerland where he was reunited with his sister. His new life in a home d’enfants in a small village, Chesières, is then described. It is there that he was given English lessons to prepare him for his new school. The chapter ends with a description of his French when he was just over eight years old.

Conclusion

I started this book by suggesting that seen from afar, my life, both linguistic and cultural, might appear to be very ordinary…and rather French, Parisian even. Having now finished relating it, I think it is fair to say that this is not so. Yes, it did start in Paris and continued in a little French village outside that city, but then it took a number of twists and turns in four different countries and brought me in contact with a number of languages. Two were acquired sequentially and stayed, but changed their dominance at varying times (French and English) and two others were learned, used and then lost (Italian and American Sign Language). As for the four cultures I came into contact with, and lived in, they have found their place in a mosaic of cultures that characterizes me and that I am proud of....

A quieter life

The author’s illness encouraged him to take early retirement and to close down his laboratory. He then took up writing books and rebuilt his health this way. He wrote both academic books, starting with Studying Bilinguals with Oxford University Press, as well as books for the general public. He had kept in mind the fact that when he was a student at the University of Paris many years before, he looked for a book on bilingualism but found only scholarly works. As part of his wish to nurture bilingualism, he started a blog, “Life as a bilingual”, on Psychology Today which has been visited by some 1.7 million readers.

The children become bilingual

In 1982–83, the author and his family spent a sabbatical year in French-speaking Switzerland, and observed their English-speaking children become bilingual. The author describes how this took place, and how each boy developed a different strategy to do so. The older one emphasized communication, even if it was in broken French, whereas the younger one took his time, and when he finally started speaking, it was error free. The author also describes how every member of the family had to get used to living in a very different culture. When they returned to the US, the parents used a number of approaches to maintain French in the family. They were successful and both boys, now adults, are multilingual.

Life with Two Languages

In 1979, the author taught a course on bilingualism for the first time. Since there was no adequate textbook on the topic, he contacted Harvard University Press and offered to write a book on the subject. They accepted and the book came out in 1982. It was original in many ways, among them the personal testimonies of bilinguals and the many examples of bilingual speech. During this time, the author met with the bilingualism specialist, Einar Haugen. He and his wife, Eva, encouraged the author and helped him accept his own bilingualism. He remained in touch with the couple until they passed away in the 1990s. The author honored them recently at the Einar Haugen lecture in Oslo.

A new life in the United States

The author and his family left for the United States in July 1974 where he joined the Psychology Department at Northeastern University. He recounts his impressions during their first years there, both at work and in everyday life. The family’s first boy, Cyril, became the conduit to things American. A sojourn that was to last one year became a twelve year stay. The author headed the new Linguistics Program, taught, and did research. It is at MIT that the author developed the gating paradigm which he used to study spoken word recognition. During those years, he met and started doing research with James Gee.