Loi sur les langues officielles et vitalité des minorités : mission impossible ou oeuvre inachevée?

The author specifies the conditions necessary for language policies and legislation to have substantial effects on the linguistic vitality of minority groups in Canada. His article has three parts. First, he concludes that the Official Languages Act (OLA) had only minimal effects on the vitality of official language minorities. Secondly, he points out three essential actors that influence linguistic vitality: the community of intimacy, the group’s civil society and the State. The author then underlines two sociolinguistic principles that language legislation and policies would need to apply if its goal is to enhance the vitality/revitalization of minority language groups in Canada. Finally, the author focuses on section VII of the OLA, which, he believes, provides the best chances for establishing a global language management plan based on these principles in order to coordinate a synergy of actions by the three essential actors and to enhance the vitality of the two official minorities.

Minorités linguistiques et société / Linguistic Minorities and Society

No. 17

125-161

2021

fr