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CHAPTER 1. INTERVIEWS WITH BILINGUALS

PART 1.1. WHO DO WE CONSIDER BILINGUAL? 11

PART 1.2. HOW WAS MY DATA COLLECTED? 14

Interview questions 14

Interviews as a research method 14

PART 1.3. MEET MY BILINGUALS!

Me and my life-long commitment to English (Olga, Russia) 20

A charming and super educated bilingual (Apoorva, India) 26

A humble and a hard-working bilingual (Masumi, Japan) 30

A level-headed bilingual full of determination to succeed

(Sharifullah, Afghanistan) 33

A European’s experience with English (Milena, Austria) 35

Inspired by a teacher (Geetanjali, India) 38

A multilingual and multicultural future psycholinguist

(Jonathan, Malaysia) 39

A Latin American with an American accent (Pedro, Paraguay) 42

A brave researcher willing to make sacrifices

(Jelena, Montenegro) 44

A smart and polite bilingual gentleman (Naseer, Afghanistan) 47

A fellow linguist on a thorny journey to English

(Julia, Hungary) 49

Sophistication, intelligence, and style (Dania, Jordan) 52

Navigating the multilingual New Jersey (Alejandra, Colombia) 54

A routine life in Spanish and English (Samantha, USA) 56

A researcher experiencing bilingualism in Asia and the U.S.

(Suqin, China) 58

A dreamy bilingual with lots of stories to tell

(Angelo, Timor-Leste) 60

Being a bilingual in «the Windy City» (Cristina, Mexico) 63

Bilingualism as a family tradition (Marcus, Malaysia) 65

Building a life between two different languages and cultures

(Shazia, Pakistan, USA) 66

Balancing two languages and cultures as a heritage speaker

of Spanish (Natalie, USA) 68

Attempting to be a heritage speaker of Russian in the U.S.

(Rebecca, USA) 70

A translator living with two languages back home

and in the U.S. (Marta, Spain) 72

Slow but consistent adjustment to living in the U.S.

(Carmen, Peru) 74

A Pole and American at a time (Joanna, Poland, USA) 75

Building relations with each of your languages (Krisha, USA) 78

A Russian integrated into the American student culture

(Anna, Russia) 81

An American exposing some prejudice against bilingualism

in the U.S. (Alana, USA) 83

Neither totally American nor totally Latino (Genidi, USA) 85

Adopting a businesslike approach to bilingualism

(Saffet, Turkey) 87

An articulate and outspoken heritage speaker of Spanish

(Rebecca, USA) 89

A colleague from my former job and her bilingual experiences

(Yekaterina, Russia) 92

Methodically becoming bilingual (Lyu, China) 95

Friendships as a path to bilingualism (Jorge, Peru) 97

Postgraduate studies and bilingualism (Saeed, Iran) 98

Bilingualism with a Sicilian flavor (Francesca, Italy) 100

Four Nashville Interviews 102

A strategic way to deal with a foreign language

(Bashir, Afghanistan) 102

Living in between indigenous and foreign languages

(Ruzza, Indonesia) 105

An empowering male teacher of English (Wilson, Colombia) 106

Living a bilingual life in Africa (Ahmed, Sudan) 108

Bilingualism encouraged by family (Juan Manuel, Argentina) 110

A male dreaming of bilingualism and foreign language

teaching (Jorge, Spain) 111

A strong bilingual female forging an international career

(Kristi, Georgia) 113

A lady with ambitions of becoming a polyglot

(Mariam, Syria) 116

An American forming mindful connections

with foreign languages (Tristan, USA) 119

Talking to three native speakers of French,

la langue de l’amour 122

A French-Conglosese lady set to make a global difference

(Estelle, France) 123

Bilingualism as a utilitarian and geopolitical tool

for building international bridges (Magda, France, Algeria) 124

Legally bilingual (Cathy, France, Senegal) 127

A bilingual «chica» who knows her way around the world

(Erika, Ecuador) 129

Using a foreign language at work and in the household

(Nina, Russia) 131

Successfully overcoming the fear of embracing bilingualism

(Minsun, Korea) 134

An American about to experience a new language on another continent for the first time in her life (Natalie, USA) 136

A reflective English teacher on bilingualism

(Candelia, Argentina) 138

CHAPTER 2. ISSUES SURROUNDING BILINGUALISM

PART 2.1. LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING AS A JOURNEY

What is the right age to start learning a second language? 141

What kind of difficulties do learners have at different stages

of learning? 143

How do learners feel as they are learning

a second language? 145

Does it take something special to become

a successful language learner? 146

Doing it on your own 150

Why do people even bother to learn languages? 152

What other languages (apart from English)

are popular ones to learn? 155

What are the benefits of learning a foreign language? 156

Language learning tips from the participants 157

And what about language teachers? 160

How do language teachers teach? 161

What did the participants say about their language teachers? 165

What is it like to be a language teacher and what is expected

of them? 169

What does the future have in store for language learning

and teaching? 174

PART 2.2. IDENTITY, CULTURE, POLITICS AS «BIG» TOPICS

Who are bilinguals and where do they belong in the world? 177

My own story with the concept of identity 177

Defining identity 179

Types of identity 182

Accent as an identity marker 190

Identity and L2 writing 192

Do you feel like a different person when you switch between languages? 195

A few thoughts on culture and politics 199

Culture (more ambiguous than it might seem) 199

Politics (more than just a passing interest for linguists) 205

Life after Fulbright: how much bilingualism is in it? 211

Epilogue. Looking into the (increasingly uncertain) future 216

Acknowledgments 219

References 222