The latest The Stone post discusses the topic of writing in languages other than one’s ‘native language’ (a problematic concept when it comes to writing, as I will argue), bearing the somewhat dramatic title ‘Born again in a second language’. Though this is undoubtedly a fascinating topic, the post itself is a bit heavy-handed in the use of metaphors to describe the passage from writing in one language to writing in another, such as:
To begin with, when changing languages you descend to a zero-point of your existence. There must be even a moment, however brief, when you cease to be. You’ve just quit the old language and the new one hasn’t received you yet; you are now in limbo, between worlds, hanging over the abyss.
(Even in practice, this doesn’t sound quite right, as typically the transition is gradual rather than sudden, with intermediate periods of active writing in both languages, or possibly even in more than two languages.) Moreover, the ‘evidence’ cited by the author of the post, Costica Bradatan, to substantiate his claims does not go much beyond the anecdotal, even if the writers he cites as having had this experience are luminaries such as Cioran and Beckett. Valuable though these testimonies are, Bradatan could also have consulted the significant body of literature in linguistics on second language writing, which is a bourgeoning field of research (currently with its own journal and annual conference).
But the main shortcoming of the post, in my opinion, is the fact that it projects the concept of a ‘native tongue’ -- which as the term itself indicates, pertains to spoken rather than written languages -- into writing, as if this transposition were entirely unproblematic. True enough, Bradatan is not alone in assuming a straightforward correspondence between speech and writing: the age-old, received view is that writing is simply the visual rendering of speech, which implies that properties attributed to speech, for example the concept of a native tongue, can also be attributed to writing in an uncomplicated way.
However, a small number of theorists, among whom linguist Roy Harris, philosopher Sybille Krämer and, of course, the controversial Jacques Derrida, have pointed out the severe limitations of the view that writing is no more and no less than the visual counterpart of speech. Instead, according to these authors, writing is best conceived as a different form of language altogether, and individual systems of writing as independent languages rather than as subsidiaries to specific spoken languages. (I discuss these arguments in Chapter 2 of my book Formal Languages in Logic.) The received view on writing as subsumed to speech is further complicated by the existence of other linguistic modalities, in particular sign languages, which are now increasingly seen as independent languages with their own specific properties: grammar, prosody etc.
A salient dissimilarity between speech and writing concerns the spontaneous emergence of speech in a child given minimal exposure, whereas writing typically requires extensive training to be mastered. Relatedly, every single known human population relies on communication systems that no one would hesitate to describe as human speech, whereas writing emerged independently only at three different occasions in human history (in Mesopotamia, China and Mexico), subsequently being exported to large portions of the world. (But bear in mind that a significant parcel of the current human population still leads lives that do not involve writing in any obvious way.)
So here is the main point I want to make: the concept of a ‘native tongue’ pertains exclusively (if at all) to speech, not to writing. If this is correct, then the whole point of Bradatan’s post seems to be undermined. Writing is a practice that is by and large independent of speech, even if it happens to be the case that most people develop their writing abilities in close connection with their (spoken) native languages. Writing is above all (in most cases at least) a product of schooling, so typically one’s preferred system of writing will be the one through which schooling took place. This may or may not coincide with one’s (spoken) native language. Think for example of speakers of languages which do not occur in written form: speakers of these languages can of course learn to read and write in another language that is for them a ‘second language’, and yet arguably with respect to writing this would be their ‘native language’.
One might think that the concept of a ‘native tongue’ could still apply to writing in the sense of the language in which one first learns to read and write (and while young children are perfectly able to learn to speak multiple languages at once, writing is best learned one language at a time). But this too seems problematic. More generally, it seems that, while one never really loses the ability to speak the language of one’s childhood (and it is well known that, with age and mental degeneration, the language of one’s childhood is typically the one that is last forgotten), writing is a practice that requires constant maintenance. Without constant practice, one’s ability to write in a given language will inevitably deteriorate, regardless of whether the language in question is one’s ‘native tongue’ or not (speaking from personal experience, alas).
This being said, the phenomenon of ‘language switching’ for the purposes of writing is certainly fascinating from a linguistic, cognitive as well as a literary point of view. But a lot of the ‘drama’ in Bradatan’s post seems uncalled for, and if the emotionally charged concept of a ‘native tongue’ is left out of the discussion, I submit that we are more likely to arrive at a better understanding of the phenomenon – simply because this concept makes little to no sense when it comes to writing.
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