Encountering Language Difference in Australian Memoirs of Living in France

Abstract

Travel memoirs tend to be premised on the transformation of the self through spatial translation. This paper explores the roles language might play in this transformation, and the possibilities of a linguistic translation of the self among memoirs of Australians in France. Among the recent rush of memoirs by Australians of their sojourns in France, the encounter with French language is invariably evoked. Its depiction, however, differs from that identified in ‘language memoirs’ by migrants and other language learners, which have been seen to emphasize the renegotiation of identity through inhabiting a new language. More often, in the Australian memoirs, either language difference is portrayed as having a limiting effect, diminishing the author to a shy shadow of the familiar self, or the author's proficiency in French smooths over language difference, concealing it. Only in rare instances is language represented as the very means of transformation of the self, reforging the author's experience. One such instance is Ellie Nielsen's memoir Buying a Piece of Paris, which paradoxically details the process of language learning while at the same time deflecting attention from it and attributing the transformation of the self to an altogether more tangible operation. The article analyses this double game and its implications for identity and belonging.

Keywords:

• travel writing
• language learning
• cross-cultural
• belonging

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Greg Hainge and Barbara Hanna for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this paper and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

Notes

[1] The length of the stay that the recent Australian authors recount ranges from two weeks to 18 years.

[2] Cf. Besemeres (‘Anglos Abroad’) and Hanna and de Nooy on Turnbull's engagement with different cultural scripts for behaviour.

[3] Similarly, Harvey Levenstein traces the history of American perceptions of France and its association with the social élite.