Individual Bilingualism and Collective Bilingualism

This is an unofficial translation of a speech given by Andre D'Allemagne in Montreal on March 8, 1980.

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Whether it be at the individual level or at the collective level, true bilingualism is an exceptional occurrence. It does not suffice, indeed, that a person knows of uses two languages, even with if markedly done without any effort, to qualify this person of "bilingual". If we want to give bilingualism a description rigorous enough to be satisfactory and useful, we must consider as authentically bilingual the individual who knows and practises two languages at sensibly the same degree, and with the same spontaneousness. Such is at least, in short, the definition adopted by linguists and psychologists.

One easily conceives the abnormal character of such a situation. Since the linguistic reality is global. A language is not a simple instrument of expression and communication, which we use without incidence. It is a mold for our thoughts. As linguist Izhac Epstein explains: "Every language is characterized by the way in which in chains ideas together." Consequently the learning of a language is accompanied by the acquisition of a coherent and complete ensemble of concepts - and even values - and a representation of the world particular to the a given language. To be bilingual, that is to be a part of the concurrent universes at the same time. One can guess how such a situation can imply potential conflicts.

Therefore there is no reason to be surprised by the number of linguists and psychologists who exposed the dangers of bilingualism for an individual. One could mention, among the better known, Braunhausen and Decroly in Belgium, Wagener and Riès in Luxembourg, Epstein, Meyhoffer and Mocklie in Switzerland, Jespersen in Danemark, Saes et Hughes in Wales, Smith in the United States, Gali in Catalonia, Conka in Tchecoslovakia, Henns and Yoshioka in Germany and Japan. According to them, there are two types of conflicts among bilinguals: a psychological conflict having a negative influence on intelligence, and a linguistic conflict coming from the prohibitive influence of one language over the other. Tossed between two systems of thought and expression, the bilingual is like a traveller who would ceaselessly have to chose between two paths to reach the same destination. Such a doubling risks to provoke linguistic and psychological perturbations, that is to say on both levels of thought and expression.

If the negative effects of bilingualism on the development of intelligence, denounced by some, are contested by others, the noxious consequences of bilingualism when it comes to linguistic expression are the object of a remarkable consensus.

In reality, however, bilinguals are rare. People who speak several languages are most of the time on polyglot, that is to say that for them the multiple languages are not on equal footing. In the most common case, that of diglossia, one of the two languages wins over the other: it is as a general rule the "mother tongue" or "primary" language, that which we have first learned. The thought of the polyglot was first molded in this primary language to which one of many other languages were added later on. As a result, the polyglot is more properly a translator, even if often he is not conscious of it, and others either. In this case, the risks of psycho-linguistic conflicts, without disappearing completely, seem strongly attenuated.

In a milieu or a society in which the individual is constantly exposed to two languages, the individual is generally somewhere on a line between bilingualism as one pole ans simple polyglossia as the other. Two factors, then, will be determinant: the age of learning the languages and the social pressure exercised on the individual by the milieu or the global society.

On on hand, the younger the individual learned the languages, the more he risks to become bilingual... to the point that it seems practically almost impossible to a unilingual adult to become bilingual. It is therefore at school and in the milieu around it that bilinguals are generally brought up. As a result, as we have seen, the more the individual is bilingual (and not polyglot) the more the dangers of conflicts are great.

In addition, the coexistence of languages in a given milieu, and with all the more reason in the whole of society, is never peaceful. Languages are in rivalry, in conflict, each one favoured or disfavoured by various factors such as their usefulness, their prestige and their diffusion. It is not necessary to search very far to find examples. The present colloquium offers one to us, and of the most eloquent kind: the parents of some 700 francophone students worry that they be anglicized and lose their cultural identity as a result of a cohabitation with 250 anglophone co-students. And what to say when a government is lead to make use of the law to oblige a linguistic majority of 80% of the population to frequent its own schools rather than that of a minority of 20%?

The individual, in a society marked by such a linguistic competition, become the target of opposing pressures: the more these pressures tend toward an equality that they will in fact never attain, the more the individual is bilingual; the more the pressures are unequal, the more the individual is directed toward polyglossia.

This leads us to consider bilingualism under its second aspect: as a social fact. A society authentically bilingual would be a society in which two languages would be on an equal footing, provided with the same weight in all sectors of collective life, known and used by the the whole of the population. One can ask if such societies exist but also if they could exist.

In fact, officially plurilingual societies correspond to States where we find a juxtaposition of unilingual territories of marked by the superiority of one language over the other(s). Such is the case of Switzerland and Belgium, just to mention two frequently evoked examples.