If We Do It Right, It Will Hurt: The Official Languages Act, Nation-Building, and English-Speaking Quebec

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
If We Do It Right, It Will Hurt: The Official Languages Act, Nation-Building, and English-Speaking Quebec
Abstract
The author notes that in Quebec—a province with complex and fraught language politics—the federal Official Languages Act recognizes the English-speaking population of Quebec as a minority language community. Anchored in the perspective of English-speaking Quebec, she argues that the Official Languages Act is a timid attempt at nation-building, embedded and embroiled in the history and politics of language. First, the author discusses how the existence of English-speaking Quebec shaped language rights and the Official Languages Act in particular. Next, she describes the English-speaking minority of Quebec and how this minority fits within the framework of the Act, commenting on and critiquing the Act from this perspective. Lastly, the author argues that the modernization of the Act is more than just a technical exercise and that it requires a national conversation and debate around language and identity.
Publication
Minorités linguistiques et société / Linguistic Minorities and Society
Volume
No. 17
Pages
76-90
Date
2021
Language
en
URL
Citation
Sandilands, Marion. “If We Do It Right, It Will Hurt: The Official Languages Act, Nation-Building, and English-Speaking Quebec.” Minorités linguistiques et société / Linguistic Minorities and Society No. 17 (2021): 76–90. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/minling/2021-n17-minling06632/1084700ar.pdf.
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