French: A Language for Everyone in Québec?

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
French: A Language for Everyone in Québec?
Abstract
With the realisation that the future of French in Quebec depends on its adoption by a growing number of immigrants, government efforts have intensified in recent years to promote a less ethnic and more civic conception of "Québécois" identity. As attested by the title of the 2001 final report of the Commission des États généraux sur la situation et l'avenir de la langue française au Québec (French, a Language for Everyone), a key component of this new conception is the idea that French should be a "langue publique commune" (common public language) for all those residing in Quebec, irrespective of ethnic origin. The author examines the notion of "langue publique commune" in more detail. While the concept assumes that language can somehow be 'de-ethnicised' to become the property of all ethnic groups, he points out that observations made in other contexts only confirm the inextricable link between language and the ethnic, as opposed to the civic, dimension of national identity. The author also investigates the issue of language motivation, in particular the related challenge faced by the Quebec authorities of how to encourage so-called new Quebecers to adopt French as their language of public communications.
Publication
Nations and Nationalism: Journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism
Volume
Vol. 10
Issue
no. 4
Pages
539-558
Date
October 2004
Language
en
Citation
Oakes, Leigh. “French: A Language for Everyone in Québec?” Nations and Nationalism: Journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism Vol. 10, no. 4 (October 2004): 539–558.
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