Officially Bilingual
The Concept of the Bilingual for the Unilingual Person:
Everything should be accessible to me in my language.
The Concept of the Bilingual for the Partially Bilingual:
I will use my second language if necessary, but not necessarily.
The Concept of the Bilingual for the Bilingual:
You use your langue maternelle when you want to, I'll use mine when I need to.
The Concept of the Bilingual in the Fed Civil Service:
Let's all work in English to save time and effort, and work on maintaining our language classifications for the annual bilingual bonus.
The Concept of the Bilingual in the Army Officer Corps:
You must be bilingual. Unless you refuse to cooperate.
(Send all unilingual officers on up to eight months of full-time language training: Do not hold them accountable if they fail to achieve competency in their second language at the end of eight months.)
There are many concepts of the bilingual. Many of them are contradictory and incompatible. For example, see the difference between the concept of the bilingual to the unilingual and to the partially bilingual. What is lacking is the courage of leaders in the federal government to enforce career consequences on people who refuse to achieve competency in their second language after promising contractually to do so by taking a bilingual imperative job.
Many people take on unhealthy attitudes in this social project. Here is a list of unhealthy attitudes that must be eradicated.
1) I will not speak my second language unless I'm sure that it will come out sounding right.
2) Ceux qui crucifient le français devront faire l'objet de ridicule et sont mieux de ne pas essayer.
3) Convenience is king. If everyone speaks English in this group, and some are uncomfortable in French, we should speak English. Now you are forcing the harder working people to compensate for the people who didn't do their homework (I'm referring to working groups that have bilingual requirement of course).
4) I won't learn anything that I don't need to know. "Need to know" is a good principle for security clearances. It is a terrible attitude towards learning. Learning as an economic decision, a rational cost-benefit analysis, is a very depressing concept.
5) Everyone should be capable of doing what I can do. Not everyone has the same chances and resources in life.
6) How dare the government require me to speak a language that is written into my job description?
7) - 10) will be left blank, to be filled in by the readers. I'm sure I'll think of more in the future.
A ray of hope:
The next generation is one that will be more bilingual than ever. My impression is that the 20-30 crowd are by and large more bilingual and more open to working in their second language.
Everything should be accessible to me in my language.
The Concept of the Bilingual for the Partially Bilingual:
I will use my second language if necessary, but not necessarily.
The Concept of the Bilingual for the Bilingual:
You use your langue maternelle when you want to, I'll use mine when I need to.
The Concept of the Bilingual in the Fed Civil Service:
Let's all work in English to save time and effort, and work on maintaining our language classifications for the annual bilingual bonus.
The Concept of the Bilingual in the Army Officer Corps:
You must be bilingual. Unless you refuse to cooperate.
(Send all unilingual officers on up to eight months of full-time language training: Do not hold them accountable if they fail to achieve competency in their second language at the end of eight months.)
There are many concepts of the bilingual. Many of them are contradictory and incompatible. For example, see the difference between the concept of the bilingual to the unilingual and to the partially bilingual. What is lacking is the courage of leaders in the federal government to enforce career consequences on people who refuse to achieve competency in their second language after promising contractually to do so by taking a bilingual imperative job.
Many people take on unhealthy attitudes in this social project. Here is a list of unhealthy attitudes that must be eradicated.
1) I will not speak my second language unless I'm sure that it will come out sounding right.
2) Ceux qui crucifient le français devront faire l'objet de ridicule et sont mieux de ne pas essayer.
3) Convenience is king. If everyone speaks English in this group, and some are uncomfortable in French, we should speak English. Now you are forcing the harder working people to compensate for the people who didn't do their homework (I'm referring to working groups that have bilingual requirement of course).
4) I won't learn anything that I don't need to know. "Need to know" is a good principle for security clearances. It is a terrible attitude towards learning. Learning as an economic decision, a rational cost-benefit analysis, is a very depressing concept.
5) Everyone should be capable of doing what I can do. Not everyone has the same chances and resources in life.
6) How dare the government require me to speak a language that is written into my job description?
7) - 10) will be left blank, to be filled in by the readers. I'm sure I'll think of more in the future.
A ray of hope:
The next generation is one that will be more bilingual than ever. My impression is that the 20-30 crowd are by and large more bilingual and more open to working in their second language.
posted by Lt Smash at 5:53 PM
2 Comments:
I hate to disagree with you Big Bro, but based on my experiences with the majority of my aquantainces and the majority of the students who I knew at WCI (who had only learned to conjucate Etre in the present tense and were never forced to actually listen to a teacher speak French except to teach said verb, my generation does not know French. I can remember a grade 8 debate in which the kids in my class tried to argue that it would be O.K for Quebec to seperate because then they wouldn't have to learn French. Perhaps we do speak it better than our parent's generation, but not well enough to negotiate our workplaces in said language.
Well lil sis, I guess we run with different crowds! I agree that there remains a large segment of the anglophone population who do not have the foresight to recognize the value of language learning. I do think that there are more anglophones than ever who are realizing the value of learning French. I hope that I am right, and not just seeing this trend because I am an anglo minority in a francophone culture.
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