ILINGUISME/Bilingualism

BILINGUISME / Bilingualism

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Tanya MacNeil

Modifié le 6 juin 2005

par MD

ÉTYMOLOGIE / Philology

Bilingualism was derived from the adjective bilingual which itself had stemmed from the Latin term bilinguis : «in two languages» comprised of bi: «two» and lingua : «language». It was during the 20th century that this noun came to signify «the ability to use at least two languages» which is regarded today as its current, and most generally accepted, definition.

Bilingualism is known as the oldest and most common term for what the linguist Uriel Weinreich referred to as «the contact of two languages» (1953). It has motivated the creation of other terms describing interlinguistic relations. Multilingualism, plurilingualism, unilingualism and monolingualism have, in fact, been modeled after bilingualism. Similarly, such very specialized terms as ambilingualism, semi-lingualism and even double semi-lingualism have been introduced into linguistics, or other linguistically based social sciences, via bilingualism.

ÉTUDE SÉMANTIQUE / Definitions

1. The ability to use at least two languages.

3. bilinguisme additif : Situation où deux langues en contact sont chacune valorisée, ce qui évite le sentiment d’insécurité que ressentent les usagers de l’une des deux langues quand son emploi est socialement déconsidéré.

CORRÉLATS / Collocations

ACCUEIL/Reception, ACCULTURATION/Acculturation, ADSTRAT/Adstratum, ALIÉNATION/Alienation, ALIÉNATION CULTURELLE, ALIÉNATION SOCIALE, ALTERNANCE/Alternation, ANALYSE TÉTRAGLOSSIQUE/Tetraglossic analysis, ASSIMILATION/Assimilation, AUTEUR/Author, AUTOTRADUCTION/Auto-translation,

BAROQUE/Baroque, BICULTURALISME/Biculturalism, BICULTURATION/Biculturation,

CANON/Canon, CAPITAL LITTÉRAIRE/Literary capital, CENTRE/Centre, CHAMP LITTÉRAIRE/Literary field; -realm, CODE/Code, Code-switching, COLONIAL/Colonial literature, COMPÉTENCE/Competence; Proficiency, CONTACT/Contact, COSMOPOLITISME/Cosmopolitanism, CRÉALISATION, CRÉOLITÉ/Creoleness, CRÉATIVITÉ/Creativity,

DIALOGUE/Dialogue, DIALOGUE DES CULTURES/Dialogue of cultures, DIDACTIQUE/Didactic; Didactics, DIFFÉRENCE/Difference, DIGLOSSIE/Diglossia, DISLOCATION, DOMINANT/Dominant, DOUBLE/Double, DUALITÉ/Duality,

ÉCRITURE/Writing, ÉMIGRATION/Emigration, EMPRUNT/Borrowing, ENTRE-DEUX/In-between; Bordeline, ENTRE-DEUX CULTUREL, ETHNICITÉ/Ethnicity, ETHNOCENTRISME/Ethnocentrism, EXIL, EXOPHONE/Literature in foreign languages,

FRONTIÈRE /Frontier; Boundary; Border; Limit,

GÉOCRITIQUE/Geocriticism, GÉOPOÉTIQUE/Geopoetics,

HÉTÉROGLOSSIE/Heteroglossia, HYBRIDE; HYBRIDITÉ; HYBRIDATION/Hybrid; Hybridity, Hybridization, HYMEN/Hymen,

IDENTITÉ/Identity,IDENTITÉ D’EMPRUNT, IDIOLECTE/Idiolect, IMAGINAIRE/Imaginary, IMMIGRATION/Immigration, INFLUENCE/Influence, INSTITUTION/Establishment, INTERACTION/Interplay, INTERCULTUREL; INTERCULTURALITÉ/Intercultural; Interculturality, INTERSYSTÉMIQUE/Intersystemic,

LANGAGE/Language, LANGUE/Language, Leakage, LITTÉRAIRE, LITTÉRARISATION,

LITTÉRATURE COMPARÉE/Comparative literature, LITTÉRATURE ENGAGÉE,

LITTÉRATURE MONDIALE/World literature,

MAÎTRISE/Mastery, MARGE/Margin, MARGINALISATION/Marginalization, MASQUE/Mask, MÉTALANGAGE; MÉTALANGUE/Metalanguage, MÉTISSAGE/MESTIZAJE/Interbreeding, MIGRANTE/Migrant literature, MONDIALE, MONDIALISATION/Globalization; Global culture, MOSAÏQUE/Mosaic, MULTICULTURALISME, MULTIPLE; MULTIPLICITÉ/Multiplicity,

NATIONALISME/Nationalism, NATIFE/Native, NIVEAU/Level,

PAROLE/Speech; Word, PATRIMOINE/Heritage, PÉRIPHÉRIE/Periphery, PÉDAGOGIE/Pedagogy, PERFORMANCE/ Performance, POÉTIQUE/Poetics, PLURALISME/Pluralism, POSTCOLONIAL/Postcolonial,

REFOULEMENT; REFOULÉ/Repression; Repressed,

SCHIZOPHRÉNIE/Schizophrenia, SITUATION/Situation,

TEXTE/Text, TRADUCTION/Translation, TRANSFERT/Transfer, TRANSNATIONALE/ Transnational,

VA-ET-VIENT/To and fro,

ZEITGEIST.

NOMENCLATURES / Families of terms

AFRIQUE/Africa, ANTHROPOLOGIE/Ethnography, AUSTRALIE/Australian literatures,

BELGIQUE/Belgian literatures,

CANADA/Canadian studies, CARAIBE/Caribbean literatures, CULTURE/Cultural studies, COMMUNICATION/Communication, COMPARATISME/Comparative literature, CULTURE/Cultural studies,

FRANCOPHONIE/Literature in French,

HYBRIDE/Mixed forms,

IDENTITÉ/Selfness,INDE/India, INTERCULTURALITÉ/Intercultural relations,

LINGUISTIQUE/Language,

MULTISUPPORTS/Multimedia,

POLITIQUE/Political literature, PSYCHOLOGIE/Psychology,

QUÉBEC/Quebec studies,

SITUATION/Positions, SOCIÉTÉ/Social studies, SUISSE/Switzerland,

TEXTUALITÉ/Textual criticism, TRADUCTION/Translation.

MOTS-CLÉS

Afrique, Aliénation culturelle, Aliénation sociale,

Caraïbe, Culture,

Dante, Dialogue,

Exophone,

Francophonie,

Hugo (Victor),

Identité, Identité d’emprunt, Interaction, Interlinguistique,

Linguistique, Littéraire, Littérature engagée,

Situation.

Keywords

Africa,

Caribbean literatures, Cultural studies,

Dialogue,

Identity, Interplay,

Language, Literature in foreign languages, Literature in French,

Macaronic,

Situation.

ÉQUIVALENTS / Correspondences

Allemand / German : Zweiprachig.

Anglais / English : bilingualism.

Arabe / Arabic :

Chinois / Chinese :

Coréen / Korean :

Danois / Danish :

Espagnol / Spansih :

Français / French : bilinguisme.

Grec / Greek :

Hébreu / Hebrew :

Hongrois / Hungarian :

Italien / Italian :

Japonais / Japanese : nikokugoheiyô.

Latin :

Néerlandais / Dutch :

Persan / Farsi :

Polonais / Polish : bilingwizm.

Portugais / Portuguese : bilinguismo.

Roumain / Romanian : bilingvism.

Russe / Russian : билингвизм bilingvizm, двуязычие dvujazičie.

Viêtnamien / Vietnamese :

COMMENTAIRE / Analysis

If in the 1960's the concept of the «author» was contested to the point that it was replaced by the «implied author» (Booth, 1961), it wasn't until the end of the 80's-beginning of the 90's, that the putative monolingualism of this «author», be he implied or not, was truly brought into question. At this time the language in which a story was written began to be accepted as no longer one. It was neither stable nor heterogenous, for, as Calvet claimed, «il n'existe pas de pays monolingue et la destinée de l'homme est d'être confronté aux langues et non à la langue» (1987, p. 32). So, the writer, perhaps more than any other person having contact with language, was accepted as affected by the (omni)presence of other languages in and around the chosen language. Glissant remarked that one writes «en présence de toutes les langues du monde» (1996, p. 40). Derrida pushed the paradox even further claiming that one never only speaks one language while one only speaks a language (1996, p. 21). Hence, the urgency to consider how writing in the chosen language is developed through contacts with other languages. Literary bilingualism, the use of at least two languages for literary purposes, is an epistemological option to be contended with.

Bilingualism and diglossia

Just as the addition of adjectives to bilingualism has opened up new discursive space of linguistic inbetweeness, the term has furnished several neologisms. On one hand, bilingualism has given way to regionalisms. In Canada, an officially bilingual nation since 1969, the French verb bilingualiser (1974), and its English counterpart to bilingualise/ bilingualize mean «to be made bilingual» that is to say, to be produced in French and English, the two official languages of the country. On the other hand, bilingualism has spawned a number of didactic terms such as bilinguality and diglossia. The former refers to the translation of French term bilingualité put forth by the Canadian psycholinguists Hamers and Blanc in their manual Bilinguisme et bilingualité (originally published in French in 1981). Bilinguality, a synonym for «individual or personal bilingualism», has been defined by the authors as «the psychological state of an individual who has access to more than one linguistic code as means of social communication ; the degree of access will vary along a number of dimensions which are psychological, cognitive, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, sociocultural and linguistic.» (2000, p.8).

There has existed a tradition of research into bilingualism since the mid-20th century. Whether this research belongs to the fields of neuropsychology, developmental psychology, experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, social psychology, sociolinguistics, sociology, the sociology of language, anthropology, ethnology, political and economic sciences, education or linguistics, the underlying issue remains undoubtably the same : the texts debate the precision and the operationalism of bilingualism as «the use of at least two languages».

Bilingualism as a manifestation of language contact

In considering bilingualism as a privileged form of language contact, a great number of linguists have argued over the exact meaning of this inferred «usage» of two languages. Interestingly enough, it is possible to see the contributions from three general viewpoints.

First, usage translated as «the deliberate control of two languages» should be considered. For Bloomfield, for instance, bilingualism was the «native-like control» of two languages (1933). The bilingual was thus seen as sum of the two monoglot speakers and, even more, the idea of a perfect bilingual was presumed.

Recently, second language acquisition studies have contested this all encompassing view of bilingualism. Since Selinker (1971), who pointed out that only five percent of second language speakers have «absolute success» in their second tongue, many researchers, including Bley-Vroman (1989), Birdsong (1992) and Cook (1993), to name but a few, have come to reject monolingual competence as a frame of reference for bilingualism. Still others contend to subscribe to some extent to the two extremes. For someone like Toribio (2001), bilingualism is, in fact, a «native-like ability in two languages» based on the standard of «an idealised bilingual native speakers competence».

The second position of interest is that behind the issue of control, there is a need to evoke proficiency. On one hand, the proficiency can be maximal, that is to say equal when it comes to expression in each language. Following Marouzeau (1951), this meant no greater aptitude for one or the other language. On the other hand, the proficiency can be minimal. For Haugen (1953), bilingualism was «the point where a speaker can produce complete meaningful utterances in the other language». It therefore followed that proficiency required more rigorous boundaries. These parameters went anywhere from loose and all inclusive to strict and highly exclusive. McNamara (1967) is a good example of the first perspective. He proposed that a bilingual is anyone who possesses a minimal competence in only one of the four language skills : listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing. Hagege (1996) is a proponent of the second approach. He considers a bilingual to have equal ease all four areas of linguistic practice : « Être vraiment bilingue implique que l'on sache parler, comprendre, lire et écrire deux langues avec la même aisance. »

It has also been claimed that the use of two languages is informed by behaviour and, as such, a question of performance. Weinreich (1953) notably introduced bilingualism as alteration. According to him, «The practice of alternatively using two languages will be called bilingualism». Along the same lines Martinet associated «use» with the ability to change codes : « sont bilingues [...] ceux qui avec plus ou moins de succès sont capables, d'un message à l'autre, de changer totalement de code, d'employer une autre phonologie et une autre syntaxe. Ce sont des bilingues [...] quelque soit le degré de perfection qu'ils atteignent dans leur maniement de chacun des idiomes» (1970, p.168). In turn, Mackey (1976) spoke of «the separation of two languages». In seeking to identify bilingualism with « code-switching », these researchers inspired others to study bilingualism in relation to interference, code-mixing, borrowing and interlanguage. Beyond this, bilingualism was linked with translation ability and metalinguistic awareness.

Bilingualism as an individual state of being

As for studies in psychology or psycholinguistics, they posit bilingualism as the state of an individual having access to two languages. This access has itself been influenced by at least two main factors.

The age at which the bilingual acquires the second language is the first factor often taken into account. Depending on the age of the individual, «child» bilingualism or «adult» bilingualism can be inferred. These two forms can be further classified according to the type of acquisition involved. Adult bilingualism is frequently «consecutive» ; a second language is learnt after the first is already in place. Child bilingualism may itself be «simultaneous» or «early successive». In the first case, the child learns two languages at the same time while in the second case, his acquisition of the first language is interrupted by the instruction of a second language.

The other important factor to be considered is the degree of the bilingual's mastery of the two languages in contact. If we were to establish a cline of bilingualism, we could say that the highest level of mastery would be «ambilingualism» or, the perfect comprehensive knowledge of the two languages, even though this pole should reasonably be occupied by «equilingualism» also known as «balanced bilingualism» that is, the ability to function in roughly the same manner in two languages, for, as we have previously seen, perfect mastery of two languages is more of an illusion than a reality for the majority of the second language learners. On the other end of the cline, we could find «semilingualism» and possibly even «double semi-lingualism» the idea that people do not possess either one or the other languages properly. Between «ambilingualism» or «equalingualism,» between «semi-lingualism» or «double-semilingualism» different levels of «assymetrical» bilingualism can be disengaged. That is to say, different levels of linguistic imbalance can be located. It is, for example, possible to speak of «passive» bilingualism, where comprehension is possible but production is not. Likewise, we can identify «dormant» bilingualism, where the faculty to use one of the two languages has been temporarily lost. Yet another example is «functional» bilingualism, where only minimalist comprehension is possible.

Bilingualism as a marginalized communitarian situation

In countries where different speech communities reside, bilingualism is the term most often used to describe the use of two languages by the minority group. This form of bilingualism ponders the linguistic, social or psychological problems encountered by this group who must cope with the fact that their mother tongue is not the language of the government, the administration, the judiciary and all other significant spheres of society. In general, this kind of situation pertains to immigrants and indigenous language groups who have not yet been assimilated by the dominant linguistic group and thus suffer from different forms of cultural or social alienation. Consequently, societal bilingualism has been tantamount to diglossia. By way of examples we may cite the Jewry of the diaspora, North African workers in France and Portoricans in the United States.

Bilingualism as an educational approach

Teachers and teacher-trainers are responsible for classifications of bilingualism as a dynamic form of learning either in two languages or in one of the two languages of the learner. It is obvious that this has been a concern in bilingual countries. The Canadian researcher Mackey (1970) has suggested a classification along the lines of home, curriculum, community and status of language that lead to a typology of ninety different types of bilingual education. Nevertheless, bilingual learning has also interested researchers from monolingual countries. Fishman and Lovas (1970) have offered a form of classification based on the American educational system containing transitional bilingualism, monoliterate bilingualism, partial bilingualism and full bilingualism. In France, yet another monolingual country, bilingual learning has been confined to three basic forms : immersion, partial bilingualism and late bilingual instruction (Luc, 1998).

Bilingualism and politics

On the continents of Oceania, Africa, Asia, Europe and America, bilingualism can also correspond to a form of legislation of two languages put in place by a State. In legalizing bilingualism, governments attempt to assure the status of two official languages as well as guarantee the citizen’s, right to individual unlingualism. There are three official forms of bilingual language policies in the world.

First, institutional bilingualism can be personal in nature ; the individualst have the possibility to use either of the two languages when addressing the government wherever they may be on the territory. This is true in Canada, Norway and New Zealand.

Second, institutional bilingualism can be personal in nature but limited to a certain region of the territory ; individualst can choose the language in which they communicate with the government depending on the region. This is the case for certain regions in Spain including Navarra, Basque country, Communidad Valenciana and Cataluña.

Finally, institutional bilingualism can be territorial. In certain areas of the nation, only certain languages are considered to be the official languages of the regions. Even though Switzerland has three official languages (French, German and Italian), in the Cantons of Bern, Freiburg and Vallais, French and German are the two official institutionalized languages.

Bilingualism as a historical fact

History has shown that the usage of two languages is a fact resulting from the conquest of one people by another. This was the case in 52 B.C., when Rome invaded Gaul leading to a period of Gallic-Roman bilingualism that lasted up until Latin became the koine of the people around the 5^th century. This was also the case in England following the invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066. From the Norman conquest to the early 13^th century, Anglo-Norman was the mother-tongue of the upper class. To a certain point, this is, the case in modern-day Québec. Since the English conquest of 1760, the French population has come to be in close contact with English.

Bilingualism as a key notion for a political sociology of language

In political sociology, the use of two languages has been used to explain the coexistence of languages in today's globalized society. Since the early 1990's, De Swaan has endeavoured to present this society as a «galaxy of languages» in which peripheries and centres compete. These languages are in fact interconnected by bilinguals. In other words, bilingual individuals are the links between central language of which the speakers are monolingual and peripherical languages of which the speakers are bilingual if not plurilingual. Calvet (1999) has further informed this model by taking into account the mode of acquisition of the languages by the bilinguals (programmed or spontaneous) and the direction of their bilingualism itself (horizontal or vertical). Consequently, he has emphasized the importance of bilinguals for the survival of world languages.

Bilingualisms instead of bilingualism ?

Whether we focus on the «use of two languages» from the point of view of linguistics or sociolinguistics, education or history, sociology or political sociology, we should bear in mind that «bilingualism» is not only an entirely relative concept but an irrevocably plural phenomenon. No matter how many different perspectives one are involved with, bilingualism remains open to an infinite number of definitions and, hence, closed to absolute distinction.

Literary bilingualism : «real», or «implied» ?

To speak of literary bilingualism, one must, first and foremost, recognize the difference between the bilingualism of the «author», the real person outside the narrative transaction proper, and the bilingualism of the «implied author», the governing consciousness of the work as a whole. If we take examples from literature written in French, we shall see just how this differentiation is indeed fundamental to literary bilingualism.

The author's bilingualism is determined by the vicissitudes of life. The writer can, for example, be born into a family in which two languages are spoken. This was the case for Eugène Ionesco whose father was French and mother Romanian. The writer can grow up in a place where two languages were spoken as was true for Frédéric Mistral, a native of southern France where both Provençal and French were of use.

Bilingualism can be the result of education in a language other than the mother tongue. As for Assia Djebar and Albert Cossery, French was the language learned through formal instruction, whereas Arab remained the home language.

Bilingualism can be brought on by (im)migration to a foreign country. So was the situation for the Hungarian born Swiss novelist Agota Kristov and for Milan Kundera who, after years of residence in Paris, has moved away from writing in Czech to writing directly into French.

One should not hastily come to the conclusion that bilingualism is purely and simply an individual situation, it gains to be situated in terms of cultural hegemony and placed in time. During the Middle Ages, bilingualism was, for example, confined to the elite. It is clear that the clerks were bilingual, they wrote in Latin and as well as in the common languages. During the 16^th et 17^th centuries, bilingualism was once again synonymous with prestige but this depended on which languages were involved.

For Italian writers such as Casanova and Denina, writing in French was a distinct marker of culture. This is not to infer that bilingualism has always been well looked upon. In the 1960's in Québec, a group of writers, the majority of whom submitted texts to the review Parti-pris, decided to shed some light on the dark side of bilingualism. They voluntarily decided to write in joual, a Montréal working class sociolect characterized by non-standard grammar, regionalisms and the presence of English loanwords. Having recourse to joual was a way to make a strong political statement : the colonization of the French Canadian writers both by French and English cultures had to come to an end and give rise to Québec literature.

Modern day Creole literature shows yet another way to use bilingualism as a aesthetic and political project. Works such as Texaco (1982), Eau de café (1991) and L'exil selon Julia (1996) effectively blend Creole words with French to create a new form of literary expression decided by the writers rather than imposed by Paris. This is one of many examples of what has been called «creoleness».

Of course, literary bilingualism is influenced by the bilingualism of the author, as an individual and as a part of a community, but it is truly a question of textual strategies of composition in two languages which are endowed upon the implied author, the author's textual counterpart. The bilingualism of the implied author manifests itself on several levels.

It can first be identified on the level of the text itself. This may concern a great number of texts, several texts or simply one text. The majority of texts by Samuel Beckett have been written in French and in English by Beckett himself. The bilingualism of these texts is well acknowledged. Others, like Kateb Yacine, for instance, have written some works in one language and some in another language. This form of bilingualism is relatively well grounded. Others still have written principally in one language and for experimental reasons in another. The Swedish writer August Strindberg wrote, for example, one text in French. This last kind of bilingualism is rather superficial in comparison to the two others.

Bilingualism can also affect the language of the text. The question of separation and mixture of two languages has been conveyed in many different ways. The two languages can be separated by the binding of the book. In L'Homme invisible/ The Invisible Man (1977) by Patrice Desbiens, the text is in English on one side and in French on the other. More often the two languages intertwine.

As was previously stated, Creole writers tend to embed Creole into the body of the main language, French. What could be said of this literary code-switching ? This linguistic mingling can lead to the creation of new words. In Henri Lopes’s» Le chercheur d'Afriques (1990), Bantu prefixes have been added to French words to Africanize the language. The fusion that undergo the two codes can also be a conceived of as a form of rewriting of the past. In the Québécois Jacques Ferron's texts the outrageous spelling of English words is a way to contest the imposition of English as the language of political, linguistic and economical domination. Sometimes, however, the distinction between the two languages is difficult to make. When this is the case, the difference is often said to be repressed, while the fetishization of the other language is stressed. Bernabé's review of Aimé Césaire's poetry (1998) highlights this position. He claims that Creole is absent, whereas French is venerated.

In principle, literary bilingualism, be it textual or linguistic, is more or less dependant on the identity of the reader. Although bilingualism on the level of the text and language, can be identified by unilingual readers, it is essentially, and logically, the bilingual reader who is the most sensitive to this. It must be stressed that the bilingual reader occupies in very uncomfortable position when it comes to reading bilingual literature because, as Simon (1990) puts it, «la vie des langues a beaucoup plus à faire avec les notions autoritaires de maîtrise et de frontière qu'avec les joies de la créativité». It follows that bilingualism has been associated with literary innovation but also reduced to translation ability, viewed as the work of great artistry but relegated to forms of theoretical schizophrenia, valued as a counter-strategy to combat cultural imperialism and yet criticized as a form of neo-colonization.

Bilingualism and critical literary thought

Although bilingualism has led to a flurry of uses in linguistics and other linguistic based social sciences, its usage is rather limited in literary criticism, especially if we take into consideration the work of critics writing in French. Several reasons to explain this unpopularity may be advanced.

For some bilingualism seems too politically bound. It is not surprising that since circulation of the writings of Fanon (1952), Memmi (1955) or D'Allemagne (1966), bilingualism has continued to be associated with colonialism and defined in terms of acculturation, alienation and assimilation. This is certainly one of the reasons why Quebec writers have refused literary bilingualism and also why their critics have preferred other terms such as plurilinguism (Gauvin, 1999) or even the neologism heterolingualism (Grutman, 1997). For others, bilingualism is not socially bound enough. Critics of Creole literatures, for instance, have a preference for diglossia for it shows the struggle between colonial and post-colonial forces. Such is the case for Barnabé (1983) and Carpanin-Marimoutou (1989). Others still prefer terms like (nouveau) baroque, which can be seen as a literary hybrid. Chancé sums it up particulary well, «On pourrait poser à titre d'hypothèse que le baroque est la poétique d'auteurs qui s'interrogent profondément sur l'ordre du monde, de la loi, sur le chaos et qui préfèrent aux classifications et aux catégories dont ils ont pour une part hérité, une mouvance, une prolifération, un entrelacs, des figures hybrides, contradictoires, inachevées et éphemères que l'on a pu à juste titre appeler baroques.» (2001, p. 8).

Types of bilingualism

Despite the fact that bilingualism is widely used, it is commonplace to find this term qualified by an adjective and, indeed, these adjectives are numerous. Hence the truism : bilingualism has not only various forms but also varying dimensions. Perhaps the first parameter of variation to be addressed is the difference between «societal» and «individual» bilingualism. Within this parameter other subdivisions may be established. The bilingualism of a society may be seen as «territorial» or «personal» as it may well be considered as «horizontal» «vertical» or «diagonal». With concerns to «individual» bilingualism, the categories are even larger in scope. When speaking of the individual, his or her bilingualism may be evaluated as «additive» or «substractive» «passive» or «active» «balanced» or «unbalanced» «child» or «adult» «primary» or «secondary». Another parameter to be mentioned is bilingual education. Studies on second language acquisition have established bilingual learning not only as «simultaneous» «rapid successive» and «slow successive» but also «transitional» «monoliterate» «partial» and «full».

Although plurilingualism, heterolingualism, diglossia and baroque are tempting terms to use in describing interlinguistic literary contact, the term bilingualism has been chosen by critics of comparative literature and translation studies. In fact, the phenomenon has been filtered through several different perspectives since the 1990's.

Rainier Grutman is responsible for several typologies of literary bilingualism. In 1990, he examined bilingualism through a linguistic model. Literary bilingualism was found to be intersystemic, that is to say dependant on the linguistic capacities of the writer, the text and the reader. In 1993, he systematized bilingualism as a poetic. What emerged from this classification was the author wanting to suggest bilingualism without exceeding monolingual competence has three devices at his disposal : allusion, translation and commentary. In 1994, Grutman analyzed bilingualism in a specific literary tradition at a specific point in its history. Studying Provençal literature from 1150 to 1250, he uncovered literary, poetic and referential bilingualism. [As for Fitch (1988) and Clément (1994), they explored the bilingualism of one specific writer. They chose Samuel Beckett, perhaps the only author having written the majority of his texts in both languages. In the course of his research, Fitch called for the necessity to both separate and unite the two Becketts in order to come to an adequate comprehension of his very exclusive form of literary bilingualism. As for Clément's study of Beckett's bilingualism as rhetoric, it established bilingualism as a means to create distance between literary norms and new forms of expression. Beckett made himself a place between the two languages by writing directly in his foreign tongue, French, in the 1940s, by self-translating back and forth from English to French, and vice-versa, in the 1950s, and by returning to English, which had become a sort of foreign language to him, in the 1980s.

Another stance was taken by Oustinoff (2001). He exhibited the bilingualism of several well-known bilingual authors through a translative perspective. What emerged from his research were three forms of translation : Julien Green practiced a form of «naturalizing self-translation» Vladimir Nabokov used «decentring self-translation» while Samuel Beckett was proven to be a specialist of «recreating self-translation».

More recently MacNeil-Aurenge (2002) proposed a classification of a number of existing classifications of literary bilingualism. Drawing upon the critical considerations of the researchers previously mentioned and those of the sociolinguist Baetens-Beardsmore (1978), she confined bilingualism to the text, the writer, the practice of self-translation and poetics, in the largest sense of the term. When she applied this typology to the three main currents of contemporary Canadian literature, she discovered that bilingualism, which separated the Québécois, French Canadians and English Canadians in principle, articulated three different approaches to the French and English languages in their texts.

Clearly, literary bilingualism can be construed as an option to map frontiers between language and languages, writing and translation as well as prototypes and successive versions of a text. Despite the far-ranging possibilities of such a concept in this age of inbetweenness and border talk, the future of research is far from guaranteed. From what we have seen, the term does not meet unanimity among critics and is somewhat blackballed. Moreover, a number of the examples of bilingualism stated would be considered as examples of «minor» «peripheral» or «emergent» literature and, again, marginalized. Furthermore, because no typology has attained authority, the concept of literary bilingualism still lacks precision. Needless to say, its fate of this concept depends on the enthusiasm of bilingual critics. It depends not only on their determination to go against the critical tradition which searches « l'unité dans la diversité plutôt que l'inverse », as Grutman pointed out (1990, p.201), but also their desire to continue to stretch the parameters of bilingualism even further without, however, going so far as to adopt larger, catch-all terms.

Tanya MacNeil

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