34.518, Review: Psycholinguistics: Grosjean (2022)

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Subject: 34.518, Review: Psycholinguistics: Grosjean (2022)

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Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2023 02:38:59
From: Tyler Anderson [tanderso at coloradomesa.edu]
Subject: The Mysteries of Bilingualism

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/33/33-2518.html

AUTHOR: François  Grosjean
TITLE: The Mysteries of Bilingualism
SUBTITLE: Unresolved Issues
PUBLISHER: Wiley
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Tyler Kimball Anderson, Colorado Mesa University

SUMMARY

François Grosjean’s book The mysteries of bilingualism takes the reader on a
journey through eleven unresolved questions surrounding bilingualism. Here he
presents past and present research, including much of his own seminal
investigations, to offer the best answers to each of the issues. While each
chapter is connected, all are written so that each is a stand-alone chapter. 

To begin Grosjean’s delve into the selected unresolved issues, Part I takes on
matters dealing with bilingual adults and children. Chapter 1 tackles the
ever-polemic question of who is considered a bilingual. Grosjean approaches
this from several angles, stating that “diversity is found in both how we
define bilinguals and how we describe them” (p. 7). He begins with a focus on
how lay people define bilingualism, then turning to how dictionaries attempt
to answer the question at hand. He concludes this portion of the chapter by
turning to what language scientists have to say about the matter. Here he
indicates the extremes of the debate, starting with Bloomfield’s definition of
“native-like control of two languages” (p. 10) coupled with Thiery’s “someone
who is taken to be one of themselves by the members of two different
linguistic communities” (p. 10) on one extreme to Haugen’s someone who “can
produce complete, meaningful utterances” in a second language on the other
extreme. Grosjean himself leans toward a more intermediary definition of
“those who use two or more languages…in their everyday lives” (p. 11). He
states that he has adopted this definition because “it allows many people who
live with two or more languages to accept their bilingualism and be proud of
who they are” (p. 11). The second half of the chapter presents investigations
on how bilinguals are described, both by others and by themselves. 

In the following chapter, the question of how many bilinguals exist is
investigated. In order to inform this question, Grosjean presents census data
for a variety of countries, including the United States, Canada and a number
of European countries. He does so after presenting the difficulties of any
country counting the number of bilinguals within its borders, based on
imprecise questions or the simple lack of any query at all when collecting
census data. In the end, Grosjean extrapolates that the number of bilinguals
worldwide is more than half of the population, although he does provide
statements from other researchers that estimate that this number could easily
reach two-thirds of the world’s population. 

In Chapter 3 the author presents information on the bilingual infant’s path to
separating two languages. Here Grosjean presents information from perception
studies done with infants, presenting summaries of work on a variety of
language pairs, couched in several methodological frameworks. He then turns to
pragmatics, showing how many bilingual infants assign a language to a
particular person, and how these children become guardians of appropriate
language use. When their perceived violations of the person-language bond
happen, children struggle handling such incongruities. 

Part II turns the focus away from bilingual adults and children to linguistics
and neurolinguistics. Chapter 4 centers on bilinguals having a foreign accent
in one of their languages. Grosjean begins by defining a foreign accent,
including its phonetic characteristics, followed by how well one is
understood. He then presents the age-old question of what factors affect the
degree of a foreign accent, which includes maturation factors, amount and type
of language input, and motivations and attitudes. The chapter briefly
concludes with a discussion of accents in a third language. 

Chapter 5 turns its focus on language loss, both in adults and children,
presenting several case studies in each category. Here Grosjean describes a
number of factors that account for language loss—including frequency of use
and persecution of language speaker—and presents several innovative
methodologies—including hypnosis—that have been used to recover a language in
those adults that lost a language as a child. In Chapter 6, the author delves
into the world of brain injuries in bilinguals. Here he presents several
studies on, and personal testimonies of, aphasic patients. The bulk of the
chapter looks at serval types of recovery in these bilinguals, and what types
of factors account for impairment and recovery. The chapter concludes with a
discussion on language mixing and aphasia. 

Part III looks at language use and language processing. In Chapter 7, the
author discusses language choice and what factors lead a bilingual to choose
one language over another. Grosjean then turns to a discussion on his own
theory of the monolingual vs. bilingual mode, wherein he discusses the role of
the other language during the monolingual mode, and language mixing (including
code-switching, borrowing and loan shifts) during the bilingual mode. Chapter
8 continues this line of reasoning by looking at what bilinguals’ languages
are used for. Here he looks at what domains and topics might determine the
language of interaction for bilinguals. He concludes with a look at the
impacts of bilingual language use, both in language perception and language
production. 

Chapter 9 deals with the question of language activation in bilinguals,
specifically addressing the issue of whether both languages are engaged at all
times or if bilinguals are able to selectively shut off one of their
languages. Beginning with language perception and then turning to production,
the author presents evidence from both camps, and then concludes with the
answer of “it depends” (p. 122). 

Part IV concludes by addressing biculturalism and personality. In Chapter 10
Grosjean describes biculturals and the process of becoming such. The chapter
ends with a discussion on bicultural identity, which dovetails into the final
chapter, Chapter 11, and the discussion of whether a bilingual’s personality
changes when she switches languages. This chapter presents anecdotal
information from blogs, followed by research that addresses the question at
hand. In sum, the author states that despite common misconceptions, no
evidence exists to indicate that there is a change in personality when
bilinguals switch languages. 

EVALUATION 
François Grosjean’s renowned expertise in the world of bilingualism is on
display in this welcome addition to the field. His goal of addressing
yet-to-be-fully resolved issues in the field is done skillfully and
intimately, as he shares his personal experiences as well as in-depth reviews
of the extant research on each of the eleven main questions. As he states in
the introduction, this tome is written in such a way that it can be used in
courses in linguistics, bilingualism, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics,
cognitive sciences and language acquisition. While it is detailed enough to be
beneficial in master level courses, it is suitable for the upper-division
undergraduate courses, as well as simple enough for the layperson interested
in the topics presented throughout the book. 

While each chapter is self-contained, the book flows effortlessly from chapter
to chapter and from part to part. It is organized in a logical and thoughtful
manner as to help the reader move from one unresolved issue to the next. 

The breadth of topics covered is impressive for such a medium-sized tome
(approximately 150 pages of content). Ranging from defining bilingualism to
changing language/changing personality, the coverage is precisely what one
would expect in such a volume. Each chapter is well balanced and divided
nicely into reasonable subsections. A potential exception comes in the
treatment of code switching, where little to no discussion is given to 
grammatical or pragmatical constraints. Simply defining code switching could
merit a  chapter similar to the one dedicated to the defining and describing
of what it means to be a bilingual. And while it was understood that each
chapter would be self-contained, the book ends abruptly; a concluding chapter
to tie all the topics back together would greatly benefit this volume. 

Entitled Mysteries of Bilingualism, the book sets out to present research on
‘unresolved issues’ in bilingualism. For example, Chapter 3 provides a
wonderful definition of ‘bilingual infants’ and provides a great discussion of
the topic at hand. This is followed by two larger sections, the first one
being a selection of various perception studies used to address the issue of
language separation in bilingual infants. The methodologies used range from
rate of sucking in babies to how long an infant looked at a video. The second
section looks at pragmatics of the person-language bond (mentioned above).
Grosjean concludes with a summary of the topic and indicates that “the
ultimate answer to the question of when and how bilinguals develop the ability
to categorize their languages is almost certain to be complex—and truly
fascinating, we might add” (p. 41). In other words, while we know much about
the current question, much is left to be resolved.

However, many of these mysteries appear to be ‘solved’—at least at some
level—by the way that Grosjean adeptly presents his review of pivotal research
on a variety of topics. For example, in Chapter 4, Grosjean focuses on what
the phonetic characteristics of a foreign accent are, coupled with how well
accented speech is understood, using research from as early as the 1980s to as
recent as 2018, all of which appear to have answered this question, thus
removing it from the realm of the unresolved. 

In Chapter 4, Grosjean indicates that many bilinguals have an accent in one of
their languages. Interestingly, most linguists would argue that all speakers
have an accent, and most introductory textbooks on linguistics and
sociolinguistics state such (e.g. Meyeroff 2006 and Finegan 2015). Yule (2023)
is very clear on this, stating that “we all speak with an accent. It is a myth
that some people speak with an accent while others do not” (p. 292). Grosjean
would be better served changing his chapter title (and the discussion) to
‘Having a foreign accent in one of your languages’. (And to be fair, towards
the middle of the chapter he has a subtitle of ‘Factors that affect the degree
of foreign accent’). 

As previously mentioned, while most topics are addressed sufficiently, other
topics that might improve the tome are omitted. For example, in Chapter 5
while considering language attrition in bilinguals—adults and children—one
omission has to do with attrition of the bilinguals second language. This
chapter appears to deal solely with children and adults losing their first
language at the expense of their second language. While this focus is merited,
the inclusion of second language attrition would greatly enhance this chapter.
For example, Schmid and Köpke (2019) dedicate an entire section of their
handbook on language attrition to the loss of a second language.

Overall, Grosjean does an excellent job at defining key terms. Beginning in
Chapter 1’s focus on defining bilinguals, it is apparent that the author
considers the level of the reader that he is targeting. At times, however, he
does contradict his definitions. In his explanation of bilinguals, he states
that he “insist[s] on two or more languages” in his definition “as some people
use more than two languages regularly” (p. 11), discarding the use of
‘multilingual’ for individuals, as this term is usually used to describe
nations or societies. However, throughout the book he reverts back to the term
‘multilingual’ to describe individuals. For example, in Chapter 2 he discusses
“a percentage of the bi- and multilinguals in the world” (p. 18), thus
contradicting his own definition provided in the previous chapter.  

As is to be expected in a tome about unresolved issues, there are
controversial postulations that emerge throughout the book. In his section on
the number of bilinguals in the United States, Grosjean proposes that many
minority languages are passed on from generation to generation, but this
historically has not been the norm in the US (p. 23). The normal tendency is
that immigrant speakers of the minority language will be monolingual in their
first language, followed by the second generation being bilingual in the
minority language and English, followed by monolingualism in English by the
third generation and beyond. While perhaps oversimplistic (see Pauwels 2016),
this has been the go-to description of language shift in the United States.
Yes, this historical trend is recently starting to be rejected by speakers of
minority languages who remain bilingual into the third generation, but this
remains the exception to the norm. Grosjean does allude to this by stating
that based on recent census data there is now beginning to be room for other
languages in the US alongside English (p. 24). 

Another controversial statement comes in his treatment of language mixing.
Following the reporting on a study of intermediate to advanced L2 speakers who
resort to code-switching to their dominant language when communication breaks
down, he states that “this confirmed that dominant bilinguals speaking their
weaker language will code-switch and borrow more than bilinguals who have a
good knowledge of the language, when the situation permits” (p. 95). While
this may be true, the insinuation is that balanced bilinguals do not
code-switch nor use other language contact phenomena such as borrowing or
loanshifts. Research has shown that this simply is not the case, with the most
proficient bilinguals being the ones who use such strategies, especially
intra-sentential code-switching, in their bilingual mode. Bullock and Toribio
(2009) make it clear that code-switching “is not indicative either of the
bilingual’s inability to separate his languages or a lack of proficiency.
Rather it is an additional communication resource available to bilinguals” (p.
8). They further demonstrate that code-switching “patterns may be used as a
measure of bilingual ability, rather than deficit. In fact, the degree of
language proficiency that a speaker possesses in two languages has been shown
to correlate with the type of [code-switching] engaged in,” with those
demonstrating the greatest bilingual abilities favoring intra-sentential
switches (Bullock, Toribio 2009, p. 9; see also Poplack 1980.) 

These few limitations aside, Grosjean has provided a wonderful text that
scholars and students alike will find useful. As would be expected in a book
about ‘mysteries’, the author includes numerous ideas for future research. For
example, in his discussion of biculturalism, Grosjean provides summaries of
several research findings, and then posits adjustments to these methodologies
that would lead to further understanding of the question at hand (see p. 141).
Such inclusions make this book invaluable for the future scholar and an
essential to all those interested in bilingualism. 

REFERENCES 
Bullock, B. E., & Toribio, A. J. (Eds.). (2009). The Cambridge handbook of
linguistic code-switching. Cambridge University Press.

Finegan, E. (2015). Language: Its structure and use (7th ed.). Cengage
Learning. 

Meyerhoff, M. (2006). Introducing sociolinguistics. Routledge.

Pauwels, A. (2016). Language maintenance and shift. Cambridge University
Press. 

Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en
español: Toward a typology of code-switching. Linguistics, 18(7-8). 581-618. 

Schmid, M. S., & Köpke, B. (Eds.). (2019). The Oxford handbook of language
attrition. Oxford University Press.

Yule, G. (2023). The study of language (8th ed.). Cambridge University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Tyler K. Anderson is Professor of Spanish at Colorado Mesa University, where
he teaches courses in language, linguistics and second language acquisition.
His research interests include language attitudes toward manifestations of
contact linguistics, including the acceptability of lexical borrowing and
code-switching in Spanish and English contact situations. He is currently
researching the perceptions of phonetic interference in second language
acquisition and frequency of Spanish-origin loanwords in English.





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