FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL LANGUAGE POLICY IN ONTARIO AND THE FUTURE OF THE FRANCO-ONTARIANS

Abstract The increase in Basque speakers in the last 30 years has been due in large part to ‘new speakers’ or euskaldunberri, a term that will be used here to refer to those who have learned the language by means other than family transmission. While very significant in numbers, to date this group has not been the object of much study. Little is known about their attitudes and motivations, how they perceive themselves as Basque speakers, or their language use and transmission patterns. Acquiring answers to these questions is of strategic importance for developing an effective evidence-based language policy for the future. This article presents the results of a qualitative study of new speakers. Drawing on data from focus groups and interviews, the central goal of the article is to examine how new speakers of differing profiles perceive and locate themselves with respect to the popularly used labels for “new” and “native” Basque speakers and the ideologies of authenticity and legitimacy that seem to shape these perceptions. The analysis shows that learning the language alone, even to a high degree of competence, does not guarantee a view of themselves as true and genuine speakers of Basque.

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Hong Kong’s Evolving English Language Policy: Challenges for the Future

Asian Englishes ◽

10.1080/13488678.2010.10801271 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 34-47 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Wing Fai Cheung

Keyword(s):

Language Policy ◽

English Language ◽

English Language Policy ◽

The Future

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Building expectations: Imagining family language policy and heteroglossic social spaces

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/1367006916684921 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 724-739 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Judith Purkarthofer

Keyword(s):

Language Policy ◽

Social Space ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Specific Situation ◽

Social Spaces ◽

Language Resources ◽

Family Language Policy ◽

The Future ◽

Family Language

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The article examines the language expectations of three couples with different language backgrounds – each expecting their first child. The study addresses three related questions: In what ways are linguistic resources imagined by the future parents? What social spaces and relations do they envision themselves and their child moving in, and how is this relevant for their family language policy? Design/methodology/approach: Situated within an ethnographic framework, speaker-centred qualitative methods (language portraits, biographic narratives) are combined with the analysis of multimodal tasks to analyse the parents’ construction of spaces of interaction, drawing on Lefebvre’s triadic concept of the production of space. Data and analysis: Co-constructed narratives of the three couples were elicited; starting with individual language biographies, the couples then constructed their family’s future in the form of visual representations of the spaces that they are about to inhabit. Recordings and pictures of the constructions were analysed jointly to understand how parents assign relevancy to their language resources, social spaces and family language policies. Findings/conclusions: The analysis shows how the parents construct the child as a multilingual self in her/his own right, subject to a biography that will develop, and who is influenced but not controlled by the parents. The multimodal data provide a window into the negotiation of language policy between the future parents. Originality: The innovative character of this paper comes from its combination of speaker-centred biographical methods with the interactive construction of three-dimensional future family spaces. Methodologically, this contribution renders theories of the construction of social space relevant for research on family language policy and practices. Significance/implications: While the study deals with the very specific situation of approaching parenthood, the findings, together with its original methodology and analytical framework, shed light on the construction of family language policy as an on-going process, starting before birth.

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MULTILINGUISME ET DYNAMIQUE DU FRANÇAIS AU CAMEROUN : VARIATIONS, CRÉATIVITÉS LEXICO-SÉMANTIQUE ET MORPHO-SYNTAXIQUE

FRANCISOLA ◽

10.17509/francisola.v1i1.2565 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Gisèle PIEBOP

Keyword(s):

Language Policy ◽

Present Article ◽

French Language ◽

Mots Clés ◽

Politique Linguistique ◽

New Meanings ◽

The Future ◽

Official Languages ◽

National Languages ◽

Linguistic Units

RÉSUMÉ. Motivé par la forte différenciation ethnico-linguistique d’un pays caractérisé par un profil sociolinguistique pléthorique et complexe du fait de ses 283 unités linguistiques, l’Etat camerounais opte au lendemain des indépendances pour une politique linguistique érigeant l’anglais et le français comme langues officielles. A ce titre, ces deux langues des anciennes puissances coloniales bénéficient de privilèges de premiers rangs, au détriment des langues nationales qui se contentent de statuts et fonctions secondaires. Le français en ce qui le concerne se retrouve ainsi sur un territoire où les diversités ethnique, géographique et culturelle détermineront ses modalités d’appropriation et d’expansion, et surtout les variations sociolinguistiques auxquelles il est soumis. Se pose alors la question du développement et du devenir de cette langue importée et le présent article vient apporter des éléments de réponse à ce sujet. Ainsi, le travail analysera à partir de l’approche variationniste, les usages du français camerounais qui évolue et s’enrichit chaque jour un peu plus de tournures morpho-syntaxiques, d’emprunts, de nouvelles graphies, de calques, de nouveaux sens, etc. Mots-clés: appropriation, diversité, français camerounais, statuts, variations. ABSTRACT. Motivated by the strong ethno-linguistic differentiation of a country with a bloated and complex sociolinguistic profile due to its 283 linguistic units, the Cameroon government after independence opted for a language policy erecting English and French as official languages. As such, the two languages of former colonial powers receive forefront of privileges at the expense of national languages which merely secondary status and functions. As well as it is concerned, the French language finds it self in a territory where ethnic, geographic and cultural diversities determine its terms of appropriation and expansion, especially sociolinguistic variations to which it is subjected. This raises the question of the development and the future of this imported language, and this article just provides answers to this. The variationist approach is the framework through which the Cameroonian French, that evolves and grows each day a little more through morphosyntactic turns, loans, new spellings, layers, new meanings, etc. is analyzed. Keywords: appropriation, Cameroon French, diversity, statutes changes.

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