Parler plusieurs langues: le monde des bilingues par François Grosjean

Abstract

sujet de l’écrit sms (abréviation systématique, tendance à l’informel, ‘destruction’ du langage ou de la syntaxe) sont-elles vérifiées par l’exploration d’une large quantité de données sms?” (10), ouvrent la réflexion sur les grandes interrogations liées à la communication par ordinateur dans le cadre d’un cours de français moderne ou de sociolinguistique. Le sommaire récapitulatif ouvrant les douze chapitres, initialement plaisant, devient répétitif à l’intérieur des chapitres, et plusieurs figures, trop petites, sont pratiquement illisibles. On apprécie cependant les phrases en gras soulignant les aspects-clés de l’analyse. Au total Cougnon propose une revue efficace de la Cémo et des sms, reposant sur une méthodologie rigoureuse et objectivement présentée, peut- être excessivement au regard des chapitres consacrés aux résultats. Parmi ceux-ci, on peut noter la prépondérance des verbes sur les substantifs (à l’inverse du corpus du français parlé de Rivenc 1971); des interrogatives totales informelles (par exemple,‘ça roule?’); et l’indépendance de l’emploi des néologismes par rapport au chat, courrier électronique et forum. La communication interpersonnelle moderne permet ainsi une considération très à-propos des variétés francophones. Wake Forest University (NC) Stéphanie Pellet Grosjean, François. Parler plusieurs langues: le monde des bilingues. Paris: Albin Michel, 2015. ISBN 978-2-226-31260-0. Pp. 229. 19 a. The phrase parler bilingue occurs frequently in Grosjean’s volume: it signifies the dynamic and creative process of generating a novel linguistic variety based on the interaction of two languages or dialects. This perspective on the bilingual individual may be startling. For many readers, bilingualism implicates the complete mastery of two codes. There is no room for borrowings or code-switching.“Foreign” accents are to be effaced, and the goal is “passing.” In this reading, bilingualism is a performative act, and Grosjean rejects any such monolingual-bilingual dichotomy. Favoring process over product, we are, just as his young son, en devenir bilingues. Bilingualism, for Grosjean, is functional and contextual: a speaker may be bilingual (according to the classical definition referenced above) in certain socio-linguistic contexts, yet virtually monolingual, or better, in the process of becoming bilingual in others. Bilingualism may likewise be part of a biographical récit: so-called mastery of a language can vary according to age and circumstance.Grosjean illustrates this variation through a graphical rendering that highlights/contrasts knowledge versus use of several linguistic varieties. Indeed, biography and self-discovery are two important threads that are woven into this text. Grosjean reflects on his own bilingualism and the creation of a bilingual family as he elaborates the shifting theoretical and pedagogical approaches to this phenomenon. During the “black period,” from 1920–1960, the use of two languages was considered debilitating to mastery of the ambient language. Many immigrants to 286 FRENCH REVIEW 89.4 Reviews 287 the United States used a stigmatized language that signified the outsider, the unpatriotic , the non-participant in the American search for prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, these attitudes began to change. Grosjean cites studies whose results counter those of the previous decades. Bilinguals indeed acquire cognitive skills that enhance their linguistic ability, and there is no evidence that bilingualism has a negative effect on production in either language. Unfortunately, the prejudicial view that the use of some languages and their inevitable cultural associations destabilize the social structure is still in place, for example,Arabic in much of Western Europe. Thus, bilingualism has a social and economic aspect. There are élite bilinguals (English/French) and disadvantaged ones. Happily, many of the latter have found their voice, countering the notion of a monolithic nationalism. Grosjean’s notions of bilingualism are nonprescriptive and inclusive. Individuals who question their bilingualism because they do not “speak like diplomats” astound him: indeed, bilinguals who show linguistic mastery in virtually every domain may make errors, exhibit poor performance due to physical or emotional state, or display lexical gaps. Based on numerous historical and contemporary studies, Grosjean nonetheless avoids jargon and needless abstraction. His style is clear and immensely engaging. His personal stake in...