Bilingual Being
eBook - ePub

Bilingual Being

My Life as a Hyphen

  1. 288 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Bilingual Being

My Life as a Hyphen

Book details
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

Written by a survivor of childhood abuse, this moving memoir traces the influence of the author's mother tongue in the formation of her identity, and the role her second language played in providing a psychological sanctuary. Kathleen Saint-Onge reflects on the ambiguities of growing up in a primarily French household while attending English schools as she richly recounts the emotional gains and losses of a life lived in two languages. A testament to the power of language in determining feelings of belonging or alienation, Bilingual Being also presents a portrait of the 1960s in Quebec and the changing role of the Catholic Church. Depicting with warmth and humour her own developing independence gained at school, Saint-Onge reveals the tensions between the social world of her evolving English and her deep roots in French-speaking Quebec City. It is an exploration of hope where language provides an escape from traumatic memories and a chance to reconstruct a secure sense of self. Bilingual Being is a superbly crafted autobiography that seamlessly moves from the remembrance of abuse to observations of living bilingualism and the gradual unfolding of recovery in adulthood. It is a compelling, beautiful, and brave narrative that tells a wider story about human resilience and the impact of language in creating new possibilities for life.

Frequently asked questions

Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes, you can access Bilingual Being by Kathleen Saint-Onge in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Year
2013
ISBN
9780773588288
Topic
Social Sciences
Subtopic
Social Science Biographies
Index
Social Sciences

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Letter
  6. Clockwork
  7. Prologue
  8. Boxes
  9. 1 My Mother Tongue/My Mother’s Tongue
  10. Landslide
  11. 2 Un Boubou
  12. Pirouette
  13. 3 A New Linguistic Landscape
  14. Mouse House
  15. 4 Cultural Borderlands
  16. Sacrilege
  17. 5 Saints and Sinners
  18. Undershirt
  19. 6 The View from Here
  20. Pronoun
  21. 7 Insiders and Outsiders
  22. Daisies
  23. 8 Religion: The Language of the Bedroom
  24. Purple
  25. 9 My Brother: My Flip Side
  26. Wings
  27. 10 English Roots
  28. Definitions
  29. 11 Battle Lines
  30. Thankful
  31. 12 Becoming Other
  32. Party
  33. 13 French Roots
  34. Angry Bird
  35. 14 The Double Frame
  36. Crafts
  37. 15 Inheritance
  38. Codes
  39. 16 On Being Not Quite Right
  40. Fish
  41. 17 Shifting Grandmothers
  42. Etiology
  43. 18 Ruptures
  44. Installation
  45. 19 Imaginary Companions
  46. Partridges
  47. 20 On the Wings of Geese
  48. Avalanche
  49. 21 The Gifts I Keep
  50. Libellule/Dragonfly
  51. Epilogue
  52. Acknowledgments