Portraits

Description : 

There are two important colours/languages in my repertoire: Green (English) and Pink (French). My skates and stick are both green because when I play hockey I speak English most of the time. My hat is pink because I usually think in french. My eyes and ears are both green because since I moved to Ottawa, the language I hear and see the most is English. The inside of my body is represented by French because it is my first language. My heart is yellow, which represents a french “dialect” that is spoken where I’m from, it is called “beauceron” since the region is called Beauce. It might be more of an accent than a dialect, but calling it a dialect gives it more importance. 

Description : 

My linguistic portrait displays three different colours which represent the languages I know and that I am currently learning: pink (French), purple (Arabic), and blue (English). Pink covers my eyes because I see French everyday, as we live in a bilingual country we constantly see French, on labels, signs, books, etc. Additionally, my ears are pink because I hear French all around me, especially in Ottawa. I also have pink on my hands to represent all the writing I did while learning French in school and my feet are pink to represent the French I learned while walking around France during an exchange. Lastly, I have pink in my heart because my family is from Quebec (however I am not). The purple is shown at the top of my head as I am currently learning arabic (using online resources) and so it is fresh on my mind. Finally, blue represents the language I have always known and the language I use every day, English.

Description : 

I have a few different shades of Blue for English to represent the different streams of English I use. My head I have for more academic English I use in my studies, and my hands are a lighter shade for the more common english I use in my everyday life. I also coloured my mouth the same lighter blue as the viral English I use the most is also more colloquial in nature. I drew roots on my feet and shaded them a dark shade to represent that the majority of my skills in english stem from my love of reading. The rest of my body I tried to blend the three shades of blue together to show how they’re all a part of the English base I’ve developed over the years and all the aspects of the different streams have shaped my current use of English.

Now I’m not fluent in French, but I included it on my body as it was part of my life when I was younger from both my mother’s family and from french classes through grade school. So the Orange on my legs represents more of my past with french and my experiences with it when I was younger.

Title: A Festival of Colours!

Description : The languages we know are like flowers that grow in our heads. Their roots are deep in our minds. Languages can live in different places in our bodies. English, which is yellow, is at the center of my being. It is the language in which I think and dream. French, which is orange, is also at the center of my being because it is the language I used during my studies for over sixteen years of school. Spanish, which is red, represents for me the salsa and bachata dance, which remains in my feet, legs and hands. The other languages that I have spent time studying are all over the place because they are the languages that I have studied during my journey.

Description: 

Languages help me think, communicate and climb the ladder. I chose these colours because they represent the four languages I speak. The green colour represents Mauritian Creole and the sugar cane plantations of Mauritius. Yellow represents Hindi and turmeric/spices from India. The blue represents French and PSG/the blues, because I'm a soccer fan! The red represents the English and the colour that is on the flag of England. 

Description: 

This image represents how I feel like I have 2 different versions of myself depending on the language, but they are still connected. One colour represents French and the other represents English.

Description: 

My multilingual portrait is inspired by the typical colours of heat maps: red for the Mandarin that raised me: green for the English that is my "center" (and knows more nuances): blue for the French that offers me opportunities and other perspectives. I chose a silhouette of myself when taking a picture, because my point of view is characterized by this mixture of languages.

Description: 

Je suis franco-ontarienne, with an anglophone touch. 

I speak in red, je ressens en vert. 

J’ai appris en bleu comme des myrtilles, 

Mais je mange des bleuets.

Je suis franco-ontarienne, 

Si j’avais ou si j’aurai, it’s all the same to me anyway.

Description: 

I chose blue and red for my dress to represent English and French, my two dominant languages. In the background, I put maple leaves for Canada, fleur-de-lis for France, a Union Jack for my English heritage, and an Italian, Russian and Spanish flag for the languages I am learning. 

Title: Mixed Pride

Description: The blue represents the English language, the pale yellow the French language. The green that is connected with both languages is the language of science. The pink is the language of mathematics which is most strongly connected to my Egyptian culture (the dark yellow). The orange is the language of the arts (piano and paintings) which are most strongly connected to my Canadian identity. The grey of the headphones represents the language of technology. Yes, culture and languages are interpreted as only this: a language and a culture, but for me, this can also represent other languages that we use every day (such as technology).

Description: 

In my silhouette the colours green, blue, white, red and orange represent the French speaking countries I know as well as the variety of French spoken in these countries. The symbols represent the cultures while the orange represents my mother tongue, which is why this colour appears in the center of the belly. Since we walk or visit a lot of countries, I decided to put the colour brown on the feet, which represents the habits. The way of thinking is represented by the black colour and located near my pocket because I like to keep and respect what others think.   

Title: Non-linear progress

Description: On the portrait, I chose flags of Canada and France because these are the places where I learned English and French. There is a musical instrument and musical notes because those are the ways I learned pronunciation and vocabulary. The picture of the world represents the other places I would like to travel to practice French. The book "Le petit prince" is my favorite book in French. Downstairs, there are croissants in a bowl because we eat them a lot. I am climbing here because it represents the progression I am making with my studies in French and pedagogy.

Title: A mixture 

Description: White is for me - a canvas. Blue is for French - a language that will give me possibilities, a clear sky.  The green is for my Irish heritage - Slainté nights and dance weekends.  Pink is for a piece of my heart - it's left in Japan in the trees さくら. 

By learning languages, I learn cultures; other ways of living. 

Description: 

In my multilingual portrait, the green represents English and the blue is for French. These languages are my legs because they are the first languages I learned. The purple is for German and the orange is for Arabic. I know a lot less of these other two languages, but I'm still improving them little by little. 

Title : Blurred line

Description: My multilingual portrait is represented by red and blue. I left my silhouette without colour to better symbolize the flags of the two countries that these colours symbolize. 

Description: 

My plurilingual portrait uses three different colours, pink, green and purple. The pink represents English, and takes up the majority of the space in the picture. If you look closely enough, you can see that my entire portrait is lightly shaded with pink, because it’s my native language and the only language I would consider myself fluent in. The green represents German, and the purple represents French. My hands are coloured in pink and purple because I learned how to use those languages in an academic setting, and therefore can read, write, speak and listen somewhat well in French (if it’s really simple French) and very well in English. My heart is coloured in half pink and half green because my ancestry is half German and half English, and is surrounded by a green halo because German isn’t a language I really understand, but is one that I feel a deep connection to and when I do encounter it, it makes me feel at home. Similarly, my stomach is coloured in mostly green and some pink, because my deepest connection to German is through the food I make and consume. And then, of course, I also eat some English food. The colours take up different space in my head based on the amount that I feel I can think in each language. The halos of different colours surrounding my head are representative of how much of each language I hear around me every day, German usually the least and English the most. All three colours shade in the musical note nearly equally because I listen to music in all three languages, even if I don’t completely understand what’s being sung. Finally, the ground is coloured pink and purple because those are the two languages and cultures that make up Canada and is slightly speckled with green because in my hometown, there are still some small German influences.