1 - The Setting

Summary

The author’s interest in bilinguals and bilingualism was triggered by his own bilingualism. He started on his journey in languages and cultures at the age of eight in English schools, first in Switzerland and then in England. During those ten years, he often reflected on what it means to use two or more languages in everyday life. This led him to do a Master’s thesis on bilingualism at the Sorbonne with Dounia Fourescot-Barnett. He wanted to find out about the topic and, indirectly, better understand what he was going through linguistically. A few years later, after having moved to the United States, he surveyed the field for his first book on bilingualism, Life with Two Languages. The book was organized from the macro to the micro level in six chapters: “Bilingualism in the World,” “Bilingualism in the United States,” “Bilingualism in Society,” “The Bilingual Child,” “The Bilingual Person,” and “Bilingual Speech and Language.” The book was one of the first-generation books on bilingualism that surveyed the field as it stood at the time. It was at that time that the author met Einar Haugen who befriended him and encouraged him to undertake research in the field.