This volume is meant as a companion piece to three
previous volumes published by Cambridge on language in
various parts of the English-speaking world (the volume
on the United States, edited by Charles Ferguson and Shirley
Brice Heath, appeared in 1981, followed in 1984 by one
on the British Isles edited by Peter Trudgill, and in 1991
by a volume on Australia edited by Suzanne Romaine). This
collection contains 26 short articles, divided into three
sets. The first set attempts to provide an overview of
sociolinguistic issues in Canada from historical, demographic,
and policy perspectives. The second set treats aboriginal
languages and the two official languages, French and English;
this set includes two articles on language teaching –
restricted, however, to the teaching of international languages,
mainly as first languages, and to the teaching of French
as a second language through immersion methods. The third
set offers language profiles of each of Canada's ten
provinces, as well as of its two (now three) territories.
The organization of the book is meant to provide different
angles on sociolinguistic issues in Canada, but unfortunately
the result too often is that material is either repeated
or consistently left out.
