Bilingual=Bicultural: an absurd equation
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- Bilingual=Bicultural: an absurd equation
Mathematicians have equations to explain everything. There is a purity, a simplistically in numbers. You can have levels of complications, simple and higher level equations. Even mathematicians aren’t so cocky as to think there is a solution to everything. That is why they call equations with no solutions absurdities.
I think absurdity should be more openly embraced by linguists and lay-people trying to get their little brains around the complexities of bilingualism. Each individual (a) has a unique innate propensity for language (mono and multi). Each individual has a unique set of circumstances (b, c, d) that can negatively or positively impact the learning of language. In the case of a bilingual, rarely is there premeditated inspection into the intricacies of two languages (their phonemes, syntax, semantics, morphemes, etc.). So the parametric differences between a first language (e) and a second language (f) can be astronomical or minimal. And yet, the presumption is that
a(bcd)(e)(f)=√a2+a3
wherein the individual always equals a well adjusted and balanced bilingual and bi-cultural individual.
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I am not trying to be mean or to pick on an eight-year old Japanese girl. But I do think the exchange on the train (That’s pretty good) presents a fascinating situation, ripe for over-analysis. Later the same morning, Pam sent me this article See Baby Discriminate from Newsweek that was originally published in their Sept 5, 2009 print edition and their Sept 14, 2009 online edition. In it, the authors lay out research looking at cultural biases and how early these behaviors are established. These ideas coincide very nicely with research coming out the early language research (both prenatal and postnatal -conception to one year of age- receptive and expressive language development).
I find Elisa’s (not her real name) thought processes in the That’s pretty good Tale to be absolutely fascinating. This girl is a prime example of someone who, linguistically speaking for her age, is a balanced bilingual. A balanced bilingual for those of you who have better things to do with your life than read books, journals, and attend conferences devoted to bilingualism, is a person whose writing, reading, speaking and comprehension skills are equal (balanced) in two languages. This bilingually balanced child has attended a school with a simplified bilingual curriculum since kindergarten (little more than three years). Base academic classes at this school are taught in English. For the purposes of comparison, Sachan was the only full gaijin at her two previous schools; the only gaijin child in our neighborhood. Sachan is thus the only foreigner the vast majority of her schoolmates at her two previous schools has ever interacted with. Elisa, by comparison has been around and befriended children from a potpourri of countries and languages for the past three years. Elisa is many things; a typical Japanese child is not one of them…
…and yet…culturally, she is (as she should be!) very , very Japanese. Again, I am not being judgmental here. Simply making observations. I do not find Elisa’s “Japanese-ness” to be at all surprising or out of the ordinary and certainly not offensive. I am pointing this out because much of the bilingual literature points out the need to not only study and learn a language, but to understand the culture(s) that accompanies that language.
Tying this to the article in Newsweek, I feel certain that Elisa’s parents (who for the record have both lived abroad and are themselves bilingual) have excellent reasons for raising Elisa to be bilingual and that sending her to an international school with a bilingual curriculum best supports their desires for her education and life. With the hope that she would gain a bit of culture sensitivity while being in that environment. Furthermore, I suspect that her parents would begin apologizing profusely if we were to tell them what Elisa said, because as adults they would understand how that could be misinterpreted.
So you have parents doing a wonderful job raising their talented and intelligent daughter and providing her with the opportunity to be bilingual and bi-cultural. How then, do you “teach” that same child to be culturally sensitive? Is it absurd to expect that this ability wouldn’t naturally follow the school-based structured language and cultural instruction? Or, is it absurd that we do expect that cultural sensitivity will happen on it’s own?
I could go on and comment on the Newsweek article and tie in, what I thought was the most interesting thing about the article: parents want certain things for their children but either don’t know how or are simply reluctant to talk to their children about these issues. But I am, at the end of the day, a speech therapists, and so I will instead end with another question: What if the events on the train had happened with one small difference? What if the conversation had switched primarily to English, and Pam had asked the girls in English if they wanted to use the flashcards to study for their test? I feel certain that Elisa would have evaluated and analyzed the cards with the same thoroughness. I feel certain that Elisa would have asked who had written out the words and phrases. But I have no idea if she would have added the tag, “…for a foreigner” if she had been speaking in English. The answer to that isn’t an absurdity; but I do find it a conundrum.
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