Lexa Frail, our guest blogger this week, is always working on a writing project of some sort, be it linguistic analysis or some variety of found-family fantasy fiction. She recently earned her M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Concordia University, coming from a background in American Sign Language, translation, and interpretation. Her research interests include plurilingualism, critical sociolinguistics, language and identity, and language ideology.

Growing up in a monolingual English-speaking family in the United States, I was always envious of those who spoke multiple languages. I remember (half-jokingly) asking my parents why they didn’t teach me a second language as a child, something I believed to be a requisite for “perfect” bilingual fluency (neither had more than a few years of high school Spanish classes, so I’m not sure how they were supposed to achieve this goal). Nevertheless, other languages and cultures gripped me. When I envisioned the future, I concocted an image of myself speaking at least one additional language, travelling the world, maybe studying abroad. It all seemed a distant dream. I had no contact with speakers of languages other than English at that time. The very idea of a bilingual was mind-blowing, and my concept of it was typical for many: a person with equal competencies in multiple languages, across all domains, seamlessly switching from one to another. It was a flawed understanding of bi-/multilingualism that remains common, particularly among those who grew up in linguistic environments identical to mine.

When I was fourteen, I began studying American Sign Language (ASL) in high school. My fascination with additional languages fuelled a motivation to throw myself into learning. Almost immediately, I developed a habit of spelling out every word that popped into my head, imagining how to structure sentences, envisioning myself conversing smoothly, rapid-fire hands engaging in deep discussions that onlookers would not understand. One day, I swore I’d be able to craft mind-blowing ASL poems and song translations. But while I had motivation, I didn’t have enough contact with native signers at that point. There were a few local meetups that validated my efforts, but aside from that, I only had other L2 learners for feedback. I rose to the top of the class and based my entire perception of myself as an ASL signer around showing off to my peers. After all, I had always envisioned a multilingual version of myself as someone who could impress others.  

It was a dimension of language learning I never admitted aloud, but it was highly influential in tempering my motivation. After waxing poetic about how I’d achieve such lofty goals to a college admissions department, I entered a prestigious undergraduate program for ASL-English interpreting (see below* for information on ASL interpreting programs and other resources for learning ASL) .

The chance to become my ideal self was within reach—until interactions with native signers reminded me that that person didn’t exist. The stark contrast between my aspirations and my reality suddenly crippled me by means of second language speaking anxiety. Instead of integrating myself into the target language community, I stuttered and faltered and developed terrible habits. I would smile and nod when I didn’t understand instead of negotiate for meaning. The second I couldn’t understand an utterance, my brain shut off in a panic. I lacked the pragmatic knowledge to know how to start a conversation organically. The visions of grandeur that sparked my passion were snuffed out by defeatist thoughts: how do I make friends to learn from if I can’t keep up with their pace? Who would want to put up with constant requests for repetition? While I eventually made progress interacting with native speakers, I never attained that suave, balanced bilingual ideal. These days, I try not to hold myself to the same impossible standards I began my language learning journey with. Once I switched from interpreting to linguistics, I was able to relax more and improve drastically.

In summation: I actively studied ASL for eight years. Only in the last year of dedicated study did I call myself bilingual.

Parallel to my journey towards ASL mastery was another: I began a minor in French and found it to be a relief from the stress of my interpreting program. I floundered in my major courses but succeeded in French, once again deriving my motivation to study from an idealized version of myself (switching between three languages was far more impressive than just two, and the one interaction I had where I used all three reinvigorated me). As I lived in upstate New York at the time, my interactions with native French speakers were limited to my professors. Once again, I could position myself as one of the “better” speakers in the class, a person to admire and envy. Despite these similarities between beginning ASL and beginning French, practicing with one of my friends was enough to convince me things wouldn’t be the same in this language, that I wasn’t just walking in circles with my language learning experiences. This was when I invented a new label for myself—“try-lingual”. I was trying to be trilingual—and one day I would be, but that day had not happened yet.

Et puis, j’ai déménagé à Montréal.

There are two important things of note I came to realize: one, I had inadequately addressed the issues I had learning ASL; and two, that the concept of bilingualism I’d subscribed to for so long was a narrow, inaccurate reflection of most people’s experience. A graduate course on multilingualism introduced me to the plurilingual framework, or the idea that one’s languages are an inter-related body of communicative resources (Galante, 2021). My initial concept of bilingualism as uniformly balanced initiated my language learning journeys, but it proved to be a volatile source of motivation. The plurilingual framework took a lot of the perfectionism out of language learning. I began to focus on the competencies I had rather than the ones I lacked: French literacy, understanding subtle differences between French and English labels on products, knowledge of ASL literature, and my use of simultaneous ASL-English code switching, or code mixing (Bishop, 2011). My language learning experiences have also left me with a greater awareness of what individual factors affect my process. While I have an intrinsic interest in other languages and cultures, my perfectionism and anxiety keep me from fully capitalizing on it. This holds true for many students across ESL and foreign language classrooms. To some teachers, I looked perfectly competent and capable because I was comparing my language output to that of my classmates. When put into a naturalistic language environment, however, I floundered. Students like the one I was, motivated by some cosmopolitan ideal self, are likely to fall victim to the false perception of bilingualism: that it is uniformly balanced and that there is a threshold to reach to “know” a second language. Though ultimately, students’ goals should be considered when teaching, they may be working from a framework that actively hinders their chances of success. Under a more realistic, practical understanding of how language competency works, the flawless, impressive trilingual self I’d envisioned becomes an adaptable communicator with evolving knowledge of other cultures and language varieties—and nowadays, that is the person I’d rather be.

* For information on ASL interpreting programs: 

• https://www.rit.edu/ntid/aslie This was my undergrad program. It was very stressful and had a very mixed, albeit important, impact on how I learned to perceive myself as a language learner.
• https://actualites.uqam.ca/2019/nouveau-programme-interpretation-francais-lsq This is the most local program I can find here in Montreal. It’s French-LSQ at UQAM.
• https://www.oasli.on.ca/index.php/interpreters/how-to-become-an-interpreter This is information about interpreting programs in Canada. 

Resources for learning ASL:

• https://youtu.be/DaMjr4AfYA0 Dr. Bill Vicars, a Deaf ASL instructor who provides free ASL lessons on YouTube. 
• https://handspeak.com/ An online ASL dictionary and resource. 
• https://www.spreadthesign.com/en.us/search/ A sign language dictionary that contains signs from around the world. 

References

Bishop, M. (2011). HAPPEN CAN’T HEAR: An analysis of code-blends in hearing, native signers of American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 11(2), 205-240. doi:10.1353/sls.2010.0007.

Galante, A. (2021). Affordances of plurilingual instruction in higher education: A mixed methods study with a quasi-experiment in an English language program. Applied Linguistics, 2021, 1-25. doi: 10.1093/applin/amab044