SECTION 8 Code-switching and self-translation in the therapeutic context

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EXERCISE
In the film, Frankie reads one section from a whole paragraph on language attrition. Here is the paragraph.
If you have learned your native language fully from childhood and speak it until you are about twelve years old, it will normally be quite stable and resist erosion. If you leave your country and begin to speak a new language, you may still experience some of the symptoms of language attrition (and this may feel quite upsetting for you and others), but it is unlikely that you will truly forget your mother tongue (Schmid, 2011).

1. Why do you think some people may believe they have forgotten their first language?
2. What do you think Frankie is thinking about when he asks: That’s an interesting word - attrition. To be worn down. I wonder if that is how you feel?
3. How might you work with language attrition in therapy?
4. What do you think about the “trick” the therapist played on the client?
5. One explanation for Valerie’s ability to suddenly access her home language is that the cognitive process of translation distracts from the emotional overload produced by hearing or saying the words. What do you think about this possible explanation?
6. Frankie says: You know some people forget their languages because they need to forget. Because the pain is too much for them in that language.  What about people who have never learned their home or heritage languages?

The way in which people learn, or more significantly don’t learn, or forget their heritage languages can have an impact on people’s psychological development. Susan Samata (2016) documents the experiences of research participants who grew up not speaking the language(s) of their parents. They felt inauthentically connected to either the language they spoke or the languages their parents spoke. This left them in a “neither … nor” position, a position identified by Berry (1997), from an acculturation perspective, as culturally marginalised. 

​EXTENSION using Other Tongues
p. 21 to 25 considers recovery from traumatic experiences. How can language-switching be useful as a therapeutic asset in the treatment of trauma?

References
Berry, J. W. and Sam, D. (1997) Acculturation and adaptation. In J. W. Berry, M. H. Segall. & Kagitcibasi (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology. Vol. 3, Social behavior and applications (pp. 291–326). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Samata, S. (2016) Cultural Memory of Language. London: Bloomsbury.
Schmid, M.S. (2011) Language attrition. Cambridge University Press. 0521759935. 9780511852046 

Next... SECTION 9 Working with couples across languages