tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9405658026603375102024-03-13T16:27:16.338-04:00Linguistically CorrectJ Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-90939461846794365512023-10-31T15:07:00.001-04:002023-10-31T15:26:04.290-04:00The Prague School and Verbal Morphology, A Trend in European Structuralism <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b>Contents<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">1. The
'Classical Period' of the Prague School<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">2. Later
Developments<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Footnotes<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Bibliography<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 212.4pt; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">All
metaphysical questions are historical questions, and all metaphysical
propositions are historical propositions. Every metaphysical question either is
simply the question what absolute presuppositions were made on a certain
occasion, or is capable of being resolved into a number of such questions
together with a further question or further questions arising out of these.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 212.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Collingwood, <i>An
Essay on Metaphysics</i>, p. 49<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Linguistics in the twentieth
century has the absolute presupposition, stemming from Ferdinand de Saussure'
s <i>Cours de linguistique générale</i>, that language should be studied
as a system; this implies a step towards abstraction and is a complete reversal
of what Pos 1939:71 calls the nineteenth century's nominalism which was
concerned with the sheer description and accumulation of facts, isolated from
one another (cf. Trnka 1948: 154). This tendency towards abstraction implies
another presupposition, namely that it should be possible to provide a formal
analysis of language and was best illustrated in the inter-war period by
Trubetzkoy's <i>Grundzüge der Phonologie</i>. This last presupposition was
carried out by J<b>. </b>Cantineau, in accordance with a major trend in
American structuralism, to the point of virtually eliminating meaning from
linguistic description. Another presupposition, which will be recurrent
throughout this paper, is that the structure of 1anguage should be described in
terms of binary features (e.g., langue/parole, markedness/unmarkedness).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This essay will deal with works
on structural verbal morphology which use the formal apparatus originally
devised by Trubetzkoy and his collaborators of the 'Cercle linguistique de
Prague' for the analysis of phonology; in accordance with the very concept of
structuralism, this means viewing language as a system of oppositions. This
will entail a presentation of the so-called 'classical period' (1929-1939) of
the Prague School, which culminated in the publication of Trubetzkoy's <i>Grudzüge
der Phonologie</i>, and of the influence that these seminal ideas had on other
members of the group when faced with the description of particular aspects of
the verbal syntax. The second part will be devoted to an analysis of J.<b> </b>Cantineau's
generalisation of Trubetzkoy's ideas about phonology to other fields of
linguistics. There will also be an exposé of how the teachings of the Prague
School have been synthesized by the Spanish scholar Martin Sánchez Ruipérez in
a coherent doctrine which he applied to the description of Greek verbal
morphology(l). This essay could also be viewed as a study of the concept of
markedness from the early 1930's to the early 1950's, in a fraction of European
structuralism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The notion of a formal apparatus
used in describing morphological phenomena will be considered a crucial one for
the purpose of the present study. As for the goal of morphology, one can use a
definition given in 1958 by representatives of the new Prague School :<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The role of
structural morphology is (1) to state morphological oppositions (e.g., that of
the number of substantives, that of the common case — adnominal case, etc. in
English) and their neutralisations (e.g., <b>... </b>the
neutralisation of grammatical genders in plural in German<b>... </b>), (2)
to state the phonemic means (often homonymous) implementing the morphological
oppositions of a language, such as prefixes, suffixes, and alternations of
phonemes (so-called morphonemics). (Vachek1960:50)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">1. The 'Classical Period' of
the Prague School<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The first meeting of the 'Cercle
linguistique de Prague' was held on 6 October 1926, under the presidency of
Vilém Mathesius. Historically, the Prague movement can be divided into three
periods : the first one, called the 'Classical Period', from 1929 to 1939,
when occupation and war interrupted the activities of the Prague Circle; in
fact the date 1939 coincides with the death of N. S. Trubetzkoy. The
second period is one of stagnation, characterised in the late forties by
ideological squabbles around N. J. Marr's doctrine (Vachek 1966:13;
Lepschy 1975:890). There was a revival of interest in the late fifties and
early sixties which led to the publication of a new journal, <i>Travaux
linguistiques de Prague</i> (1964) (on this ternary division, cf. Vachek
1961:67). In the present paper, we will be concerned only with the classical
period, which acknowledged the combined influence of Baudouin de Courtenay and
Ferdinand de Saussure (Mathesius 1932:6). Saussure's influence is also
acknowledged by Trnka 1958:36 and Vachek 1966:18 who mentions the importance of
S. I. Karcevskij, a pupil of Saussure, in the first days of the Prague
Circle (cf. also Martinet 1953: 577) but the importance of this influence has
been questionned by G. Lepschy 1970:53. One may also add the influence of
the Czech Joseph Zubatý and the Russians Šachmatov and Ščerba (Trnka 1958:36).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From the very beginning, the
Prague linguists were mainly concerned with phonology, though they also
approached questions such as literary criticism, problems of the standard
language, etc.; they intended to test their theses first in phonology and afterwards
at higher levels of language (Vachek 1966:77-8).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Many scholars contributed during
these years to the theory of phonology : for example, Martinet's
contributions to the discussion of neutralisation and segmentation (Martinet
1936, 1939) are important historically but for the present purpose, it will
suffice to set out the main theoretical assumptions made by the Prague
linguists as they appear in Trubetzkoy's <i>Grundzüge der Phonologie </i>(published
posthumously in 1939) and how they have been applied during this period to the
analysis of morphology. This simplification in the presentation of the Prague
linguists' doctrine is justified by the fact that Trubetzkoy was the most
impressive personality in the group (Lepschy 1970:57).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Trubetzkoy calls phonological
oppositions those phonetic oppositions which, in a given language, serve to
differentiate meanings (Trubetzkoy 1976:33). The sounds which enter in such a
relation, he calls phonemes(2). A phoneme has phonological content inasmuch as
it is a member of a phonological opposition (<i>Ibid</i>.:69). These
phonological oppositions can be classified according to the logical relation
uniting their two members : such a classification is crucial in evaluating
how the phonological system works (<i>Ibid</i>.:76). A <b>privative opposition </b>is
one in which one member is characterised by the presence of a mark or feature,
the other by the absence of the mark : for instance, in the pair <i>b/p</i>,
<i>b</i> is characterised by the feature 'voice', <i>p</i> by its absence; the
member of the opposition characterised by the presence of the mark will be
called <b>marked term</b>, the other <b>unmarked term</b>. Trubetzkoy adds that
this type of opposition is extremely important in phonology (<i>Ibid</i>.:77).
A <b>gradual opposition</b> is one in which its members (here, by definition,
can be more than two) are characterised by different degrees of the same
feature : for example, <i>o</i> and in German have different degrees of
opening. Trubetzkoy adds : "Les oppositions graduelles sont
relativement rares et moins importantes que les privatives" (<i>Ibid</i>.).
We<i> </i>shall have the opportunity to criticise this judgement later and see
how it must be amended if the theoretical framework outlined by Trubetzkoy is
to be applied to higher levels of linguistics. The third category is composed
of <b>equipollent oppositions</b>, in which the two terms are logically
equivalent, in other words these two terms cannot be viewed as having a
different degree of the same feature nor as the affirmation or the negation of<b>
</b>a feature. These last oppositions are held to be the most numerous in every
system (<i>Ibid</i>.). And Trubetzkoy adds : "La valeur équipollente,
graduelle ou privative d'une opposition phonologique dépend donc du point de
vue auquel on se place pour la considérer. Mais on ne doit pas croire que cette
valeur soit purement subjective et imaginaire : par la structure et le
fonctionnement du système phonologique la valeur de chaque opposition est la
plupart du temps donnée objectivement et sans équivoque" (<i>Ibid</i>.:78).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">According to the extent of their
distinctive power, oppositions can be either <b>constant </b>or <b>neutralizable</b>.
In certain circumstances, one of the members of the opposition can lose its
distinctive feature; in that case, there remains only what the two<i> </i>members
have in common, in other words the "archiphoneme"; this concept
appeared for the first time in Jakobson 1929, cf. Vachek 1966:22. The member of
the opposition which appears in the neutralised position is to be considered as
the unmarked term, this being only possible in cases of privative oppositions.
On the other hand, if the neutralisable opposition is not privative but
gradual, then it is always the extreme member of the opposition (the member
which presents an extreme degree, either minimally or maximally, of a given
feature) which appears in the neutralised position (<i>Ibid</i>.:85).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The publication earlier, in 1927,
of Karcevskij's monograph <i>Système du verbe russe</i><u> </u>constituted the
first attempt, within the Prague Circle, to deal with morphology. The overall
impression is that of an inventory of forms, the task of the linguist being to
discover regularity amidst apparent chaos : "Cependant ne serait-il
pas permis de considérer toute classification simplement comme un moyen
pratique et conventionnel, dépourvu de toute valeur scientifique, de cataloguer
les phénomènes linguistiques, comme un procédé destiné à mettre dans une langue
un peu de cet ordre que la nature lui a refusé, afin de faciliter par là
l'étude de cette langue ? Mais une langue est un système, et prétendre y
introduire de l'ordre, c'est simplement avouer que nous ne la connaissons pas
suffisamment. Penser autrement et / admettre qu'une langue puisse demeurer dans
le chaos, c'est renoncer à la possibilité d'une science du langage"
(Karcevskij 1927:43-4).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Though Karcevskij operates with
notions such as neutralisation and the assumption that all grammatical
categories should be binary, there is no systematic attempt at defining them.
When dealing with the Russian infinitive, Karcevskij introduces the important
notion of "zero-value" but, unfortunately, he does not develop this
concept. But this treatment of morphology was very influential, as it was later
acknowledged by Jakobson : "None of the experts in syntax would ever
by-pass Karcevski's classification of elementary combinations (Saussure's <i>syntagmes</i>).
Meillet was right in considering Karcevski's analysis of Russian verbal
categories as a remarkable performance and, as V. Vinogradov points out,
it is this work on the system of the Russian verb that gave such an impetus to
investigations of verbal derivation" (Jakobson 1956:496).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But probably the earliest and
most important systematic work on morphology during that 'classical period' and
the most typical of the Prague School approach (Vachek 1966: 118, n. l5)
remains Jakobson's "Zur Struktur des russischen Verbums" (1932), an
article that looks rather sketchy, with many references to other Russian
linguists but only a few examples. Jakobson starts by accepting Trubetzkoy's
system of correlations (p. 76) and uses them in studying the values of the
grammatical forms : the Russian verb contains two correlations of verbal
aspect and two correlations of verbal voices. In the aspectual correlation,
"perfective" is the marked term and "imperfective" the
unmarked term; inside the imperfective group, there is another correlation,
which appears only in the preterite : iterative (marked) /
non-iterative forms (unmarked). An equivalent of the phonological concept of
archiphoneme is also introduced : "Die merkmallose Form fungiert im
sprachlichen Denken als Repräsentant des Korrelationspaares; darum werden als
gewissermassen primäre Formen empfunden : die Imperfektiva gegenüber den
Reflexiva [..]" (Jakobson 1932:83).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jakobson characterises the
asymmetry of the correlative grammatical forms as the antinomy of the
signalising value of an A ("die Signalisierung von A") and its
non-signalising value ("Nicht-Signalisierung"). Two signs may be used
for the same referent, but in one case, the first sign will ascribe a mark to
that referent , while in the second case this mark will remain
unmentioned : for example, in Russian, the word for 'heifer' can be either
<i>télka</i> or <i>telénok</i>. Although the two<i> </i>words apply to the same
referent, only in the second case is the meaning left incomplete.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From the asymmetry of the
correlative forms follows also another antinomy : the general and the
partial meaning of the unmarked form, in other words the non-signalising of A
and the signalising of non-A. Thus the same sign possesses two different meanings,
so that in one case the mark of the referent remains unprecised, the presence
of this mark being neither affirmed nor denied; in the other case, the absence
of the mark is manifested. For example, the word <i>telénok</i> can either
refer to a calf without any mention of its sex or can also refer to a male
calf. Here Jakobson introduces a significant difference from Trubetzkoy's
framework. Whereas at the phonological level the correlation is between the
presence of a feature and its absence, here the correlation is more
complex : the un-marked term does not mention the presence nor the absence
of a given feature (in contradistinction to the phonological unmarked term
which is always characterised by the absence of a feature; this analysis is
different from the one given by Ruipérez, cf. infra). This analysis is also
adopted by de Groot 1939:111.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If we<i> </i>take as an example
of phonological neutralisation the German final devoicing of consonants
('Auslaut-verhärtung'), we get the following scheme,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1Fmv6TocFqs74rPqrghAo_-03H8Ue7jccdwmHt-OYyPtfqc8CQikDfZCFqTsoFaXhQouNS0mqYxU6UwuLT0x-lj0JUr7v_IOLMHJikEegdQaT5KEudTMuXRLLQbBC9sPBOOD49AAdIahUabjLmp0vFGWKnqw5wxg-c25PHKbP-FRgBvKR3baLuTEfXIbS" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="99" data-original-width="756" height="84" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1Fmv6TocFqs74rPqrghAo_-03H8Ue7jccdwmHt-OYyPtfqc8CQikDfZCFqTsoFaXhQouNS0mqYxU6UwuLT0x-lj0JUr7v_IOLMHJikEegdQaT5KEudTMuXRLLQbBC9sPBOOD49AAdIahUabjLmp0vFGWKnqw5wxg-c25PHKbP-FRgBvKR3baLuTEfXIbS=w640-h84" width="640" /></a></div></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to which can be compared<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh29tDi4YGAaYZVPb6TjvvE7znNmGRtmMD0UMA_DFRyUtt5BRRM1Pn6MHouf_LTQ7Y0jH-7P7Ep1QgpnOadSo16promsPV_KeslzcqP1x_ZwAoCqM98BV5WqSCSM2xbUY1jz4jBMGYOmUiDdvKxLpkcjn-iVRWf3Heh3PUbJ0uh4QI89Ov6M8tOEOYVdM4T" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="725" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh29tDi4YGAaYZVPb6TjvvE7znNmGRtmMD0UMA_DFRyUtt5BRRM1Pn6MHouf_LTQ7Y0jH-7P7Ep1QgpnOadSo16promsPV_KeslzcqP1x_ZwAoCqM98BV5WqSCSM2xbUY1jz4jBMGYOmUiDdvKxLpkcjn-iVRWf3Heh3PUbJ0uh4QI89Ov6M8tOEOYVdM4T=w640-h132" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">E. Seidel 1936 is worth
noting in so far as it is a departure from Jakobson' s theory :
"[...] ich kann Jakobson's [...] Gegenüberstellung von Perfektiv
(=merkmalhaltig) zu Imperfektiv (=merkmallos) nicht völlig zustimmen. Mir
scheint die Merkmallosigkeit eine der Funktionen zu sein neben den
übrigen" (Seidel 1936:118). Seidel states that both the perfective and the
imperfective aspects in Russian can function as marked and unmarked. In its
ultimate consequences, this merely means abandonning.the attempt of applying to
morphology and syntax the formalism devised for phonology in favour of a sheer
classification. Martín Sánchez Ruipérez is severe in his critique of Seidel's
attempt, saying that it is an absurd one (Sánchez R. 1954: 19).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">B. Havránek also wrote an article
on the same topic (Havránek 1939) which has been described as a minor
contribution (Vachek 1966: 87). The structuralist formalism is much less
developed than in Jakobson 1932; actually, the only reference to markedness is
this quotation : "Donc l'aoriste [en vieux slave] se présente comme
la forme du temps passé 'non-marquée' et l'imparfait comme la forme 'marquée',
en employant la terminologie de la linguistique structurale" (Havránek
1939: 227). But Havránek's analyses are structuralist in so far as he
integrates them in a global description of the verbal system.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even if one is to include a
couple of related articles (such as : Karcevskij 1932, Mathesius 1932,
Trnka 1932), the production of the Prague linguists in the domain of morphology
and syntax seems rather sparse. However one must emphasise the fact that they
wanted to establish their theory on a solid phonological basis which, in the
beginning, could not but entail a neglect of other linguistic levels in favour
of a deeper insight in the analysis of the phonological component.
Nevertheless, the basis on which future works could be built was laid in
Jakobson's paper on the Russian verb; only after World War II could these ideas
be developed, partly by modern representatives of the Prague School (Vachek
1966:86) but, for an obvious linguistic reason (the works being written in
Czech), they will not be dealt with here and we will, in the stead, focus our
attention on some Western European linguists who used the conceptual framework
established by Trubetzkoy and Jakobson.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">2. Later Developments<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The publication in 1947 of the
French translation of Trubetzkoy's <i>Grundzüge </i>was a major event since it
contributed largely to the diffusion of the Prague theories among Western
linguists. Following an indication given by Trubetzkoy himself ("tous ces
principes de classement ne valent pas seulement pour les oppositions phonologiques,
mais aussi pour n'importe quel système d'oppositions : ils ne contiennent
rien de spécifiquement phonologique", Trubetzkoy 1976:94), Cantineau
published some years later an article (Cantineau 1952) which is, possibly, the
first attempt to generalise Trubretzkoy's ideas on phonology to the whole field
of linguistics. However, it will be seen that the Prague School doctrine was
distorted on a major issue by the influence of the American descriptivism. I
shall now give a summary of Cantineau's views, introducing a critical analysis
wherever necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cantineau calls 'opposition
significative' the opposition made by two<i> </i>signs whose 'signifiers' (to
use Culler's translation of 'signifiant ') are different. What differentiates
this from a phonological opposition is that here whole signs, both signified
and signifier, are part of the opposition whereas the members of a phonological
opposition do not have meaning or, at least, meaning is not taken into account
(which is a strange interpretation of Trubetzkoy 1976:33, already quoted). A
classification of these 'oppositions significatives' is possible as it has been
possible in phonology, according to the same logical principles.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Trubetzkoy's distinction between
proportional oppositions and isolated oppositions is used as such and is held
to be the basis of grammar since it allows for a clear distinction between
grammar and lexicon : grammatical oppositions are proportional because the
formal and semantic relation existing between the members of a given opposition
also appears in at least another opposition in the same language; lexical
oppositions are isolated. A gramrnatical opposition which becomes isolated
ceases to be part of the grammar and enters the domain of the lexicon.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Amongst grammatical oppositions,
a privative opposition will be one in which the signifier of one member will be
characterised by the presence of a formal feature ("marque formelle")
which is absent in the signifier of the other member. Cantineau illustrates
this point by an example taken from Greek : in the verb λείπω, the
unaugmented aorist forms, imperative λίπε<i>, </i>subjunctive λίπω, optative
λίποιμι, are in a privative opposition with the corresponding present
forms : <span lang="EN-US">λε</span>ῖ<span lang="EN-US">πε</span>, λείπω,
λείποιμι which are marked by the root vocalism -ε- whereas this mark is absent
from the aorist. As we shall see presently, Cantineau would disagree with the
following critique since it will be made on semantic grounds. However, I
believe it is not possible to give an account of morphology and syntax without
any intervening semantic interpretation: for example, using only formal
criteria cannot provide an analysis of the following Latin sentence : <i>animal
gramen pascitur</i> because there is no nominative-accusative
distinction in the neuter and since the word order is free (example from
Martinet 1964:28). On the other hand, Cantineau does not exclude the
methodology of the American linguists who interpret the French masculine
adjectives <i>rond, oblong, droit, gris, lourd, gros</i> as lacking a mark
present in the corresponding feminine forms <i>ronde, oblongue droite, grise,
lourde, grosse </i>: though in principle the mark of a privative
opposition should be the feature added to the unmarked member, it is not at all
impossible to view it as a feature removed from the marked member. But such an
analysis, which admits masculine as the marked member, though most economical
from a morphophonemic point of view is counterintuitive : it does not take
into account everyday uses of the masculine for both genders, e.g. <i>L'homme
est mortel</i> vs. <i>La femme est mortelle </i>where the second example
has not the generalising value of the first; the same holds for a pair like <i>chien/
chienne</i>, where the feminine will never be used to refer to the species.
This raises the question of semantics in the grammar : should semantic
-factors be taken into account in the definition of 'mark'? On this point,
Cantineau's position is very clear : "la définition de la marque doit
rester purement formelle, sur le plan du signifiant. On repoussera, comme
contraire à la méthode, toute définition sémantique dans laquelle la marque
serait cherchée sur le plan du signifié" (Cantineau 1952:29). This is, of
course, in accordance with the general presupposition made by twentieth-century
linguists that language should be described in formal terms and is a major
characteristic of American descriptive linguistics, though it is wrongly
assumed that Bloomfield rejected meaning in favour of a purely formal analysis
(Bloomfield 1935:ch.9); this trend is most evidenced in the work of Z. H.
Harris, e.g. "morphemes are not distinguished directly on the basis of
their meanings or meaning differences, but by the results of distributional
operations upon the data of linguistics"(Harris 1960 [=1951]: 363),
though, even there, meaning is not completely excluded : "In determining
the morphemes of a particular language, linguists use, in addition to
distributional criteria, also (in varying degrees) criteria of meaning
difference. In exact descriptive linguistic work, however, such considerations
of meaning can only be used heuristically, as a source of hints, and the
determining criteria will always have to be stated in distributional
terms" (Harris 1960:365, footnote 6). Judging by the number of references
to works of Harris, Cantineau was well aware of this position though 'Les
oppositions significatives' does not yield any internal evidence of Cantineau's
having read <i>Methods in Structural Linguistics </i>(published one year
earlier). In any case, it is not possible to exclude meaning completely and one
has to admit meaning as a criterion when faced with choosing between two
competing analyses, as in the example already given of gender in French.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Moreover, if the mark can be seen
either negatively or positively, this leads to the ultimate consequence (noted
by Sánchez Ruipérez 1953:7) that it is no longer possible to identify the
marked term only on the level of the signifier, i.e. by formal means, a
consequence certainly not realised by Cantineau.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cantineau also uses the
phonological notion of equipollent opposition defined here as an opposition
between two equivalent members, i. e. both characterised by the presence of a
feature; he adds that these are the most frequent oppositions, an assertion which
seems strange when one considers the examples given : Engl. <i>foot/feet,
goose/geese</i>, German <i>sie brechen/sie brachen</i>. If one were to
introduce semantic criteria, one would come to the conclusion that there is a
correlation of privative opposition in the following pairs, each pair being
proportional with one another: Engl. <i>book/books, table/tables, tooth/teeth</i>,
German <i>sie lieben/sie liebten, sie brechen/ sie brachen</i><u>.</u> The
intuition of any native speaker will be that <i>tooth</i> and <i>teeth</i>
stand in the same relation to one another as <i>book </i>and <i>books.</i> In
other words, Cantineau's analysis does not reflect the native speakers'
judgement about the working of their own language, though it is only fair to
add that this kind. of structuralism is not intended to give a model of a
native speaker's competence. In any case, one is led to question the necessity
of using equipollent oppositions when dealing with higher linguistic levels;
Cantineau's position may well stem from a misunderstanding of the following
passage in the <i>Grundzüge</i> :"Les oppositions équipollentes
sont dans chaque système les plus nombreuses" (Trubetzkoy 1976:77), where
it is not clear whether Trubetzkoy refers only to phonological systems or to
linguistic (or even semiologic) systems in general. In this connection, it is
worth noting that Martín Sánchez Ruipérez does not use this concept in his
analysis of the Greek verb.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cantineau's concept of
neutralisation is similar with the one Jakobson employs in "Zur Struktur
des russischen Verbums" : an opposition is neutralised when its two
signs have the same signifier though the signifieds are different, e. g. there
is no number mark in the following pair in (spoken) French : <i>il
mange/ils mangent. </i>So, implicitly, Cantineau tacitly accepts Jakobson's
interpretation of neutralisation (cf. supra).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cantineau concludes :
"On voit [...] que la plupart des problèmes de grammaire peuvent être
traités par la méthode des oppositions. Celle-ci est une méthode générale de
classement formel. C'est par hasard qu'elle a été appliquée pour la première
fois aux sons du langage. Elle permet d'étudier d'une façon plus approfondie
une partie quelconque de la langue — de même que bien d'autres problèmes
concrets" (Cantineau 1952:40).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The most thorough attempt to
apply the Prague School phonological formalism to other fields of linguistics
is probably <i>Estructura del sistema de aspectos y tiempos del verbo griego
antiguo, análisis funcional sincrónico</i> (1954), by Martín Sánchez Ruipérez,
professor of classics at the University of Salamanca (Spain) (3). The goal here
is the same as for Cantineau : to apply the methods used in phonology,
since they are of general value (Sánchez Ruipérez 1954:6 and 10). But such a
classification will not take into account the signified : an opposition of
signs is impossible without a corresponding opposition of signifieds whereas,
on the contrary, an opposition of signifieds is possible even without a
corresponding opposition of signifiers; in an article on the same subject
written one year earlier, Sánchez Ruipérez says that "... the
neutralization of morphological oppositions takes place also on the level of
the signifié" (Sánchez Ruipérez 1953: 244). This implies furthermore that
"the determining factor of the neutralization must be of semantic, not of
phonic, value" (<i>ibid</i>.:24-5). This is a major difference from the
view taken by Cantineau and, ultimately, this position is in accordance with
the first major work of the Prague School on verb, Jakobson 1932.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Every feature distinguishing a
sign at the level of the signified is called 'noción pertinente'; 'sentido' or
sense applies to a value ('noción pertinente') realised in 'la parole'. This
distinction does not appear in Jakobson 1932 nor Cantineau 1952.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sánchez Ruipérez's treatment of
isolated and proportional oppositions is the same as Cantineau's : the
former pertains to the domain of the lexicon, the latter to the grammar. A
grammatical opposition established, at the level of the signifier, by means of
morphemes (which are<i> </i>defined as the signifiers of grammatical categories
within a word) is called a morphological opposition (Sánchez Ruipérez
1954:11-12).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Privative morphological
oppositions have a special character, different from privative phonological
oppositions, a fact already noted by Jakobson 1932. This is due to their being
an opposition of signifiers, and not only signifieds. A simple privative opposition
will be represented by the formula<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 1pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ax
/<i> </i>A<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">where A is a semanteme (or
lexeme) and x a morpheme. The marked member Ax expresses the notion of the
opposition shown by the morpheme (positive value). The unmarked member
possesses a double function : as unmarked, A remains indifferent to the
distinctive notion of Ax (neutral value); but as the term opposed to Ax, A can
also express the negation or the absence of the notion x (negative value) (4)<i>.
</i>Sánchez Ruipérez (p. 17) adds that this is a significant difference
from Jakobson 1932 : Jakobson says that the unmarked term does not mention
the presence nor the absence of a given feature whereas Sánchez Ruipérez
assigns to it two values, neutral and negative. Sánchez Ruipérez's position is
justified empirically in his article on the neutral aspect of present
indicative in classical Greek (1953).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Taking as an example the case of
aspect in Greek, this conception of privative opposition parallels the analysis
given by Martinet of the phonemes /t/, /d/, /n/ :<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTRExTK7nGEd_HhQI6j4g1Vf5m5n78gI30gwqEZXDqejY0WzQnre9nWssiyZ13EpDqxjY5zsVuioLkqXwIdSvIiGa9laC6wju3qsUPGimyxNqLiV-LzodUAstCM714qCHh8O_raqg1GrJfNZ5n0kLEOTguFJBGNuP4m3uEzEI60RwvPIkLYdvoS9ToHJ-P" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="111" data-original-width="755" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTRExTK7nGEd_HhQI6j4g1Vf5m5n78gI30gwqEZXDqejY0WzQnre9nWssiyZ13EpDqxjY5zsVuioLkqXwIdSvIiGa9laC6wju3qsUPGimyxNqLiV-LzodUAstCM714qCHh8O_raqg1GrJfNZ5n0kLEOTguFJBGNuP4m3uEzEI60RwvPIkLYdvoS9ToHJ-P=w640-h94" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(Sánchez Ruipérez 1953:242; the
difference from the scheme given <i>supra</i> is worth noting).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This means that the perfect is,
as far as aspect is concerned, in opposition to the present-aorist block in
that it expresses "la acción verbal después de su término"
(p. 47), e.g. νενόσηκα "at a given moment, I fell ill and I am still
ill". In contradistinction, both aorist and present express action <i>in
se</i> (p. 45). By their neutral value as unmarked members in that
opposition, present and aorist can be used instead of perfect: for example, in
Herodotus IV 190 <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">θ</span>άπτουσι δὲ τοὺς <u>ἀποθνήσκοντας</u> οἱ νομάδες the
present participle (underlined) is used instead of the perfect, though the
meaning is clearly that they bury the dead not the dying. There is a similar
privative opposition between present (marked) and aorist (unmarked) within the
unmarked member, non-perfect.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A gradual opposition is
introduced to explain the values of the Greek moods but it is not developed
further since the book is primarily concerned with tense<i> </i>and aspect
(p. 15, especially footnote 1). In this respect, subjunctive and optative
are differentiated only in the intensity with which they express the notion of
mood. But this treatment should also include the imperative; one would then be
led to posit objective expression of reality vs. subjective disposition of
speaker, this last member being composed of a gradual opposition :
imperative — subjunctive — optative, each term being a greater distanciation
from the reality expressed by the lexeme (this is tentatively suggested in
order to include the imperative. but would need to be developed and illustrated
with examples). In phonology, it is theoretically possible to reinterpret a
gradual opposition as a privative one, for example the opposition u/o as being
close/non-close (depending on the phonological system described, cf. Trubetzkoy
1976:79) but the same is not true for morphological oppositions, since both
members have a positive value whereas, if it were a privative opposition, one
of the members would have a zero-value with its associated two uses already
discussed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally, contrary to Cantineau' s
opinion, no morphological equipollent opposition is introduced by Sánchez
Ruipérez : they are excluded on a semantic basis : "en una
hipotética oposición morfológica equipolente, las nociones expresadas por cada
uno de los términos, no siendo ni grados distintos: ni la afirmación o negación
de una misma noción, serían valores independientes unos de otros, de tal modo
que, dado uno, sería imposible conocer cuál es el otro o cuáles son los otros,
contradiciendo así el carácter que debe tener toda oposición gramatical
significativa" (p. 16).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This has the result that, of the
three types of phonological oppositions defined by Trubetzkoy, only two seem to
apply at higher linguistic levels.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As opposed to Cantineau, Sánchez
Ruipérez, by his use of semantic criteria in analysing morphological
oppositions, is in direct filiation from the classical theses of the Prague
School, e.g. Pos 1939:75 : "L'opposition en elle-même et dégagée de
tout facteur matériel, est de nature éminemment logique : c'est une
relation qui ne se constate pas, mais qui se pense. Les opposés sont deux, mais
d'une façon particulière; leur dualité n'a pas le caractère indéterminé et
contingent de deux objets arbitrairement réunis par la pensée. La particularité
consiste en ce qu'étant donné l'un, la pensée déduit l'autre, ce qui n'est pas
le cas de la dualité contingente."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the early days of the Prague
School it was held that the system of a language should be uncovered by the
linguist since it is pre-existing, in other words the linguist, with the help
of his classificatory tools, does not put things into order but only reveals an
order already present.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For phonological description,
Trubetzkoy devised a kind of formalism which afterwards came to be applied to
morphology, but never to the same extent; this use of formalism is part of a
trend in modern linguistics which ultimately culminates in the use of
mathematical devices. The system of (privative) oppositions in morphology is
characterised by its binarism, a feature best exemplified in Jakobson's
works : given a system of the following type<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">____<u>A</u>____<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">B (b - c)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A is in opposition to B (which
stands for b and c as a whole) and within B, b is in opposition to c. Of the
three kinds of oppositions postulated by Trubetzkoy in <i>Grunzüge</i>, only
two, privative and gradual oppositions, seem workable at<i> </i>higher
linguistic levels, or at least in morphology. The third, equipollent
opposition, has been rejected on semantic grounds, in accordance with the
practice of the first Prague linguists who always gave equal importance to form
and meaning.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Footnotes<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">1. It should be added here that
the difference between morphology and syntax is somewhat attenuated in the
Prague movement : "According to the Prague functionalists morphology
is concerned with the analysis of the word, whereas syntax is mainly the
analysis of the sentence into its constituent relationships (e.g. subject —
predicate, etc.). In contradistinction to the views of the former linguists,
the Prague School holds that morphology and syntax cannot be linguistically
contrasted to each other as two disciplines concerned with 'parole' and
'langue' respectively, because even syntax deals not only with 'parole' but
also with 'langue', in attempting to discover normothetic laws, whose
individual actualizations take place in utterances" (Vachek 1960:50, s.v.
morphologie et syntaxe).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">2. The notion of phoneme itself
has evolved since the early days of the Prague School when the phonemes were<i>
</i>defined by Trubetzkoy and Jakobson as "des images acoustico-motrices
les plus simples et significatives dans une langue donnée" (First Congress
of Slavicists, 1929; also TCLP 1, 1929, 10-11), terms which are reminiscent of
Baudouin de Courtenay's "Lautvorstellung". This psychologistic
approach was abandoned in the "Projet de terminologie phonologique
standardisée", TCLP 4., 1931, 309-323, for a definition as a phonological
unit not dissociable into smaller and simpler (and Trubetzleoy will add
later : successive) phonological units (this does not take into account
the notion of distinctive feature.) For the history of the concept of phoneme,
see Trubetzkoy 1976: 36 ff., esp. 41-46<i> </i>and Vachek 1966, 43-50<i>.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">3. Most of his data come from
E. Schwyzer's <i>Griechische Grammatik</i> (II/ <i>Syntax und
syntaktische Stilistik).</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">4. "En el término no
caracterizado de una oposición morfológica privativa, junto al valor neutro o
de indiferencia a la noción distintiva, el signo posee el valor negativo <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>consistente en la indicación de la ausencia o
negación de la noción básica" (Sánchez Ruipérez 1954: 18).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <o:p></o:p></p>
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la linguistique fonctionnelle et structurale dans le développement général des
études linguistiques', <i>Časopis pro moderní filologii,</i> 18, 1-7.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>--------, </b>1936. 'On
some Problems of the Systematic Analysis of Grammar', TCLP 6, 95-107 =
Vachek 1964 :306-319<i>.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">--------, 1936b.'Deset let
Pražskeho linguistického kroužku', <i>Slovo a slovesnost</i> 2, 137-145; translated
in Vachek 1966:137-151, under the title 'Ten Years of the Prague Linguistic
Circle'.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Pos, H.J. 1939. 'Perspectives du
structuralisme', TCLP 8, 71-78.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Projet de terminologie
phonologique standardisée, TCLP 4,<i> </i>1930, 309-323.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Robins, R.H. 1967. <i>A
Short History of Linguistics</i><u>,</u> London, Longman.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Sánchez Ruipérez, M. 1953. 'The
Neutralization of Morphological Oppositions as Illustrated by the Neutral
Aspect of the Present Indicative in Classical Greek', <i>Word</i> 9, 241-252.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">--------, 1954. <i>Estructura
del sistema de aspectos y tiempos del verbo griego antiguo, análisis funcional
sincrónico</i>, Salamanca, Theses et studia philologica salmanticensia.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Sebeok, T.A. 1966<i>. Portraits
of Linguists, A Biographical Source Book for the History of Western Linguistics</i>,
1746-1933, Indiana University Press, vol. 2.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Seidel, E<i>. </i>1936. 'Zu
den Funktionen des Verbalaspekts', TCLP 6, 111-129.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Thèses, TCLP 1, 1929.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Trnka, B. 1930. 'On the Syntax of
the English Verb from Caxton to Dryden', TCLP 3.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>--------, </b>1932. 'Some
Thoughts on Structural Morphology', <i>Charisteria Mathesius,</i> 57-51 =
Vachek 1964 : 329-334.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">--------, 1946. 'Vilém
Mathesisus' in Sebeok 1966 : 477-488 : <i>Časopis pro moderní
filologii</i> 29, 3-13.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">--------, 1948. 'Jazykozpyt a
myšlenková struktura doby', <i>Slovo a slovesnost</i> 10, 73-83. Translated in
Vachek 1966 : 152-165.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">-------- et al. 1958. 'Prague
Structural Linguistics', <i>Philologica Parguensia </i>1, 33-40<i> =
Voprosy jazykoznan'ija</i> 3, 1957, 44-52.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Trubetzkoy, N.S. 1929. 'Sur la
morphonologie"', TCLP 1,85-88 = Vachek 1964:183-186.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>--------,</b>1936.<b> </b>'Die
Aufhebung der phonologischen Gegensätze', TCLP 6, 29-45.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">--------,1976.<b> </b><i>Principes
de phonologie, </i>Paris, Klincksieck. Translation of <i>Grunzüge der
Phonologie, </i>TCLP 7, 1939.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Vachek, J. 1936, 'Phonemes and
Phonological Units' TCLP 6, 235-239.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">--------,1961.<b> </b>'À
propos de la terminologie linguistique et du système de concepts linguistiques
de l'École de Prague', <i>Philologica Praguensia, </i>4, 65-78.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>--------, </b>1964. <i>A
Prague School Reader in Linguistics</i>, Bloomington, Indiana University Press.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>--------, </b>1966<i>.
The Linguistic School of Prague,</i> Bloomington and London, Indiana University
Press.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">-------- and J. Dubský.
1960. <i>Dictionnaire de linguistique de l'école de Prague, </i>Utrecht
and Anvers,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Spectrum.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Waterman, J.T. 1970. <i>Perspectives
in Linguistics</i>, Chicago, 2<sup>nd</sup> ed., The University of Chicago
Press.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>Addenda<o:p></o:p></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Bierwisch, h. 1971. <i>Modern
Linguistics. Its Development, methods and problems,</i> Janua Linguarum 110,
The Hague, Mouton.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Faye, J.P. and L. Robel, eds.,
1969. 'Le Cercle de Prague', <i>Change</i> 3, Paris, Seuil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Garroni, Emilio (ed.).
1966. <i>Il circolo linguistico di Praga. Le tesi del '29</i>, Milan,
Silva.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Møller, C. 1936. 'Thesen und
Theorien der Prager Schule', <i>Acta Jutlandica</i> 8:2.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Vachek, J. 1970. 'On some less
known aspects of the early Prague linguistic school'. Actes du X<sup>e</sup> Congrès
International des Linguistes, vol. 2, 333-7.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> </p><br />J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-50598433524828258932022-07-21T20:30:00.001-04:002022-07-21T20:34:39.068-04:00Quebec's Aboriginal Languages<p>Thirty years ago...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUcN0nwmUsYiwpqQTvVp2TvxtSlrzLQw_1VFhVhk5AhnJ2E3zn_l2_1mrQGrOIicr4ix096JVH-NsUkeRT5q6GybyYe1QNZ0nxFik5kOjflu4yK4hra9ElJ4HSDjJHkp8yAsZP_cybNuXfLPC4HSFHcKADJB89FegWUhe-_lg9BxEpsXbzMh6pULy_A/s218/Ab%20Lgs1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="213" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUcN0nwmUsYiwpqQTvVp2TvxtSlrzLQw_1VFhVhk5AhnJ2E3zn_l2_1mrQGrOIicr4ix096JVH-NsUkeRT5q6GybyYe1QNZ0nxFik5kOjflu4yK4hra9ElJ4HSDjJHkp8yAsZP_cybNuXfLPC4HSFHcKADJB89FegWUhe-_lg9BxEpsXbzMh6pULy_A/w391-h400/Ab%20Lgs1.png" width="391" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhS_vdIp3nyA884vP21DJEbZU-2Ar-H5EKXaESi5jsqaQon-RDq2Myb9Zs9wUSqFb-0Al9CG-478KIezTXzPXcU1t5HGxWUKqbhOk_RV6P47-km85gJTO7u2q6jBnyWP6zuNHybetuYhQnrdTslXMeTuDylayDrBTmsMpd-rBTiiMX5JTxhcKAGDQNiQ/s232/Ab%20Lgs2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="196" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhS_vdIp3nyA884vP21DJEbZU-2Ar-H5EKXaESi5jsqaQon-RDq2Myb9Zs9wUSqFb-0Al9CG-478KIezTXzPXcU1t5HGxWUKqbhOk_RV6P47-km85gJTO7u2q6jBnyWP6zuNHybetuYhQnrdTslXMeTuDylayDrBTmsMpd-rBTiiMX5JTxhcKAGDQNiQ/w338-h400/Ab%20Lgs2.png" width="338" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnzp7hvOJjZ0_qa2ffDdsJy7OMW6G7eQi7JjlNXmvaJbRakkR9S3l2Og8sKkRxyBapi2Kw9U_GYnLJU7Kji4dR8lXmAbmT7DRjVEmyEViZOjiAzvG0dsdH3xABOHQOlBYPMWiV0olPxwiWWwheqerMytsaJ7LV4iap8gPGEXGjOadGhYYH13p9OM4Nw/s313/Ab%20Lgs3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="274" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhnzp7hvOJjZ0_qa2ffDdsJy7OMW6G7eQi7JjlNXmvaJbRakkR9S3l2Og8sKkRxyBapi2Kw9U_GYnLJU7Kji4dR8lXmAbmT7DRjVEmyEViZOjiAzvG0dsdH3xABOHQOlBYPMWiV0olPxwiWWwheqerMytsaJ7LV4iap8gPGEXGjOadGhYYH13p9OM4Nw/w350-h400/Ab%20Lgs3.png" width="350" /></a></div><div><br /></div>In English:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYC9PsvwV15ygoh8NC30e3maZsSYi7aMM88736Jf4REYrvdrJmSNlGN7TwRuswxHJYjDVNPLI3up6UC3LO9WFSyiJrfF7YvcBcH90Q7R_I1Zkm8O6Tfmn82uLdAb2T2VKgx_RAPE-Bm36s6rkRWJapOO-sy3Iq5eJ4u-A5WU9qw9ww9HSrB93PJJpZRw/s475/Ab%20Lgs4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="347" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYC9PsvwV15ygoh8NC30e3maZsSYi7aMM88736Jf4REYrvdrJmSNlGN7TwRuswxHJYjDVNPLI3up6UC3LO9WFSyiJrfF7YvcBcH90Q7R_I1Zkm8O6Tfmn82uLdAb2T2VKgx_RAPE-Bm36s6rkRWJapOO-sy3Iq5eJ4u-A5WU9qw9ww9HSrB93PJJpZRw/s320/Ab%20Lgs4.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><br /><div><a href="https://www.multilingualmatters.com/page/detail/Quebec/?k=9781853593611" target="_blank">Multilingual Matters, 1996</a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-88625173249772767932019-10-25T17:38:00.000-04:002019-10-25T17:38:46.529-04:00The Québec Experience of Language Planning<div align="CENTER">
The Québec Experience of Language Planning</div>
<div align="CENTER">
by</div>
<div align="CENTER">
Jacques Maurais</div>
<div align="CENTER">
<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER">
Conference on Democracy and Ethnopolitics</div>
<div align="CENTER">
Riga, 9-11 March 1994</div>
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<b>Introduction</b></div>
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My paper will present the main features of our experience of language planning. "Language planning" is the usual English term; but in Québec a French equivalent which is not a litteral translation has been proposed and is now spreading throughout the French-speaking countries : <i>"aménagement linguistique"</i>. It is used in the meaning of a middle- or long-term attempt at reaping advantage from a collective resource, language (or languages), while taking into account the needs and interests of a given group. It is implemented according to a flexible action plan directing societal evolution without rushing matters while demanding adhesion and participation from the general population (according to Corbeil, 1980 : 9). As can be gathered from the preceding definition, this French term does not have the connotations of social control the English term has : <i>"aménagement linguistique"</i> takes for granted a social consensus on language policy. Theoricians of language planning usually view it as being composed of two aspects : <i>corpus planning</i> (deliberate intervention on the linguistic fabric itself) and <i>status planning</i>(allotment of a socio-political status to a given language) (Kloss, 1969). This paper will focus on status planning; corpus planning will be touched on only briefly.</div>
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Language planning in Québec is characterised by an emphasis put on legal aspects. Since 1969, three major language laws have been enacted in Québec : the <i>Act to promote the French language in Québec</i> of 1969 (Bill 63) the <i>Official Language Act</i> of 1974 (Bill 22) and the <i>Charter of the French language</i> of 1977 (Bill 101). There has also been a number of other laws with linguistic impact (see Maurais, 1987).</div>
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These legal texts stemmed from the need to prevent language shift from French to English not only among native speakers of French but also among immigrants who upon their arrival do not speak English nor French but had acquired a tendency, especially after Word War II, to shift to English. If that trend had gone on, French would have become in Québec an ethnic language, that is the language of a particular ethnic group. The aim of our language planning project is to make French the common language (the common public language, the common language for public life) of the different ethnic groups making up the social fabric of the province. This has been made even clearer in a policy statement by the Ministry of Immigration. In its statement, Québec's Ministry of Immigration has introduced a new concept, that of a "moral contract" binding the immigrant and the host society. According to this moral contract, the immigrant must accept that French is the common language of public life in Québec. The policy statement adds that command of a common language is different from linguistic assimilation. It also explains that Québec, as a democratic society, does not interfere in the right of the individuals to use whatever language they want in their private life. Finally it is stated that ethnic languages are an economic, social and cultural asset for the whole population of Québec (Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l'Immigration, 1990 : 15-16). I shall come back later on to the problem of a common language as I know that the concept of <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">язык межнационального общения has been at the core of Soviet language policy.</span></div>
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Before I present with more details the aims of Québec's language planning policy, let me first sum up the background of the various language bills that were passed since 1969, that is over a quarter of a century.</div>
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Several factors, which emerged more conspicuously in the 1960's, were at the root of the various language laws. Among them are : the economic inferiority of Francophones, not only within the whole of Canada, but within Québec itself, the preponderance of English in the labour market and the apprehensions of French-speaking Canadians regarding their demographic situation. For a long time, the demographic aspect largely dominated the language debate. Québec is the only Canadian province with a French-speaking majority and, before the government intervened in the language field, certain demographic indicators were alarming. Immigrants were becoming assimilated into the English-speaking group, while Francophones, because of their declining birthrate, could not offset the number of immigrants that were swelling English-speaking ranks. Hence, a growing language shift towards English was noted, facilitated by the educational system. Allophones (immigrants whose mother tongue is neither French nor English) were more attracted to English schools than to French schools; French-speaking Québecers also felt that attraction. In 1971-1972, 85 % of Allophone youngsters attended English schools, while only 15 % attended French schools (see St-Germain, 1980, and Paillé, 1981). In 1973, 25 000 French-speaking youngsters were enrolled in English schools (Duchesne, 1973). By the late 1960's, it had become obvious that Allophones would only attend French schools if French were required on the job and if the urban environment, especially in Montréal, reflected the predominantly French character of Québec.</div>
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In this paper, I shall address the following points : the question of a common language for public life, language of education, language used in the workplace, corpus planning, language or languages used on public and commercial signs and before I conclude I will set forth some principles that can be drawn from our experience of language planning.</div>
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<b>The Common Language Question</b></div>
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This is a moot question. People making efforts to promote a common language in a bi- or multilingual community take a risk to be called linguistic Jacobinists. For instance, many nationalities in the former Soviet Union have been resentful at what was perceived as Russian chauvinism trying to impose Russian as a lingua franca (under the name <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">язык межнационального общения); analogous reactions came from many Russian-speaking minorities when, starting with Estonia in 1989, various Soviet republics passed language laws declaring official the language of the titular nationality. This question will</span> only be touched on here; owing to its sensitivity, such an issue should need a much more thorough discussion.</div>
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I want to introduce in the discussion the concept of "regional linguistic majorities" : "regional linguistic majorities", though a majority in their historic territory (where they may nevertheless be experiencing some form of assimilation), are minorities at the national level. By the phrase "regional linguistic majorities" are understood situations like that of French in Québec, Catalan in the Catalan Countries (Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Roussillon, Andorra), and of course Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and other languages in the pre-1991 Soviet Union (by the way, Latvian is a clear instance of a receding majority since the Latvian ethnic component of the population of the Latvian SSR fell from 62 % in 1959 to 54 % in 1979; Estonian might serve as another example since, over the same period, it fell from 74.6 % to 64.7 %, see Rannut, 1989 : 16; situations like these ones should be dealt with before they became incorporated under the heading "aboriginal minorities").</div>
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In the case of what I term "regional linguistic majorities", the need is felt, for the language to survive, to have it as the common language of the various groups making up the population. At the same time, this has to be done in due respect to the linguistic minorities.</div>
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As for Québec, the Charter of the French Language, in its preamble, declares that French should become the common language in the following way :</div>
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[...] the National Assembly of Québec recognizes that Québecers wish to see the quality and influence of the French language assured, and is resolved therefore to make of [<i>sic!</i>] French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business;[...].</div>
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Having French as the common language of Québec could be best obtained, it was thought, through imposing it as the teaching medium of newcomers and as the normal language to be used on the job. Guarantees were given to the English-speaking historic community that it would retain its institutions and the right of the Amerinds and the Inuit (formerly, the Eskimos) was recognized to preserve and develop their original languages and cultures.</div>
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Immigrants are offered the opportunity to learn French through a network of special institutions called COFI's ("<i>Centres d'orientation et de formation des immigrants</i>"). The public school system also offers the opportunity for the children to learn their ethnic language (PELO, "<i>Programme d'enseignement des langues d'origine</i>").</div>
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It should also be added that in 1986 the Québec government passed Bill 142 which guarantees social and health services in English. Many health services, especially in the Greater Montreal area, have taken steps to provide their patients with services in many foreign languages. This is most important since illness is a circumstance when a human being is most vulnerable.</div>
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<b>Language of Education</b></div>
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This part of my paper could also come under the heading "Freedom of Choice" as freedom of language is usually advocated in the educational context.</div>
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In Canada, the phrase "freedom of choice" usually refers to the freedom granted (or denied) to the parents to choose the language of schooling for their children (it also applies, on a much less controversial scale, to the freedom granted to individuals dealing with ministries and agencies of the federal government to receive services in one of Canada's both official languages, English or French).</div>
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First of all, it must be remembered that freedom of choice, especially when it relates to education, is often considered in the sociolinguistic literature as being detrimental to linguistic minorities. What could be called <i>linguistic liberalism</i> is in fact non-intervention in language matters but this non-intervention is not so neutral as it could seem from a superficial perspective; as a matter of fact, it is favourable to the dominant language in the existing language competition. In other words, <i>"Le discours libéral n'est plus que la couverture d'interventions avantageant les couches ayant intérêt à la conservation d'une situation langagière qui leur est favorable"</i> [Liberalism is a cover for interventions to the advantage of population strata whose interests rest in the perpetuation of a linguistic situation that is favourable to them] (Guespin & Marcellesi, 1986 : 17). Paradoxically, this liberal policy of freedom of choice for the language of schooling has perhaps been best exemplified in the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, especially on the occasion of the Education Reform of 1958-9 under Khrushchev (see Bilinsky, 1962 or Maurais, 1990). According to Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (1978 : chapter 5), this freedom of choice granted to Soviet parents to choose between Russian and their ethnic language as the medium of schooling was favourable to the Russian language. According to a Catalan sociolinguist, freedom of choice in education is the best system to perpetuate cultural and linguistic inequalities (Puig, 1983 : 37; for inequalities in the educational system on a more general level, see Bourdieu & Passeron, 1964). But it is actually more than that : seen from a historical perspective, freedom of choice paves the way to ethnolinguistic assimilation.</div>
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The preceding general considerations can be best understood if applied to a concrete case. In the Province of Québec, the majority of the population is French-speaking (some 83 % according to the latest census). Nevertheless, there was a marked tendency, especially after World War II, for the newly arrived immigrants to send their children to the English school, which according to some demographers writing in the late 60's could turn Montreal into an English city by the beginning of the third millennium as Francophones, because of their declining birth-rate, could not offset the number of immigrants that were swelling English-speaking ranks. Immigrants were more attracted to English schools than to French schools; even French-speaking Québecers were increaslingly sending their children to the English school. The need was felt to intervene as French, which is a majority language in the Province of Québec, is a minority language at the Canadian level; the aforementioned question of "regional majority languages" (often in a federation) is indeed a very acute one and requires special attention in language planning.</div>
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In order to reverse demographic trends unfavourable to French and taking into account the fact that Canada is a land of immigration, legislative action was taken. Laws were adopted by Québec's National Assembly : the Official Language Act ("Bill 22") in 1974 and the Charter of the French Language (also informally called "Bill 101") in 1977. These are two all-encompassing pieces of legislation. Their two main sectors of intervention are education and the workplace, which are the pivotal aspect of Québec's language legislation since it had already become obvious by the late 1960's that immigrants would only attend French schools if French were required on the job.</div>
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The Charter of the French Language is currently in force. In the area of fundamental rights the Charter sets forth the following principle : "Every person eligible for instruction in Québec has a right to receive that instruction in French" (section 6). The original (i.e. 1977) version of the Charter recognized the right to instruction in English of a child whose father or mother had received elementary instruction in English in Québec (section 73a), a child whose father or mother was domiciled in Québec when the Charter came into force and had received his or her elementary instruction in English outside Québec (section 73b), and a child, and his or her brothers and sisters, who, when the Charter was adopted, were already receiving instruction in English in Québec, in a kindergarten, elementary or secondary school (section 73c and d). These provisions were compatible with the Constitution of 1867 that guaranteed Protestant instruction in Québec (which at the time meant instruction in English, for all practical purposes).</div>
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These rules have had a number of repercussions on Québec's linguistic communities. Francophones (with the exception of those who attended an English elementary school) no longer have the freedom to choose the language in which their children receive their education : they must send them to a French school. Anglophones still have the right to choose between French and English schools. Immigrants can no longer attend English educational institutions.</div>
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It should also be mentioned that the chapter of the Charter of the French Language devoted to the language of instruction gives all categories of citizens (no matter their maternal language) complete freedom in choosing the language of instruction at the Cegep (pre-university) and university levels. Parents may also choose the language of instruction at the elementary and secondary levels if they enrol their children in non-subsidized private institutions.</div>
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At the time the Charter of the French Language was discussed at the National Assembly, the Québec government proposed reciprocity agreements with the governments of the English-speaking provinces : people coming from these provinces would be granted permission to send their children to English schools in Québec provided these provinces gave their French minorities the same education facilities as those granted to its English minority by the Québec government (this was section 86 of the Charter : "The Government may make regulations extending the scope of section 73 to include such persons as may be contemplated in any reciprocity agreement between the Gouvernement du Québec and another province"). The reciprocity agreements were supposed to redress the historic denial of access to French education in many English provinces, for "since Confederation until relatively recently, <i>Francophones outside Quebec</i> were systematically denied educational services that adequately reflected their linguistic needs and aspirations" (Mallea, 1984 : 229). No province has since accepted to sign such an agreement; but in the wake of the adoption of the Charter of the French Language the government of Québec decided to recognize that New Brunswick granted its French minority the same educational facilities as those enjoyed by the English-speaking minority in Québec and accordingly people migrating from New Brunswick were entitled to send their children to an English-medium school.</div>
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Certain aspects of the provisions contained in the Charter of the French Language were modified rather substantially when the Supreme Court of Canada noted, in July of 1984, that new constitutional rules (adopted without Québec's consent) had changed Québec's capacity to enact or enforce its own conditions for access to instruction in English. The Supreme Court recognized that a part of the 1982 Constitutional Act of Canada (particularly section 23) was designed to establish a different system of access to instruction in English. The judgment handed down opened the door to English instruction to two new categories of children : a child whose father or mother had received elementary instruction in English <i>anywhere in Canada</i>, and the brothers and sisters of a child of a Canadian citizen, who had received or was receiving elementary or secondary instruction in English in Canada. It should also be noted that the children of Canadian citizens whose mother tongue was English (even if these citizens had not attended English school in Canada) would be eligible for English instruction in Québec if so authorized by the Québec government under the provisions of section 59 of the 1982 Constitutional Act.</div>
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On a practical plane, the net result of the Charter of the French Language is that some 75 % of Allophone children are now enrolled in French schools.</div>
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On a more theoretical plane, the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada seem to imply that, as far as linguistic rights are concerned (at least in so far as they relate to education), the rules applying to immigrants are different from the rules applying to citizens. In other words, it has been accepted that immigrants from outside Canada may have to send their children to French schools in Québec whereas migrants from other provinces still have the choice between French and English schools. It should also be noted that the federal government and the other provincial governments when devising amendments to the Canadian Constitution in 1982 (without the presence of representatives of the Québec government) along with the Supreme Court of Canada in its decisions based on the new Constitutional Act of 1982 have in fact accepted the criterium of eligibility to instruction in English as established by Québec's authorities : elegibility is now determined on the basis of the language in which at least one of the parents has received his or her elementary education <i>in Canada</i>; this criterium is a manageable and objective one (it can be proved by documents) whereas eligibility based on the maternal language has proven to be inapplicable and the source of many social tensions.</div>
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<b>Language used in the workplace</b></div>
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The pre-eminence given of the question of the language of work was the pivotal aspect of both the 1974 and 1977 language laws, to the extent that, in this respect, there was only a difference in degree between Bill 101 and Bill 22, as a political economist of an Ontario university has noted : "What is particularly striking about the law as it applies to the private sector is its strong continuity with Bill 22, the Official Language Act of 1974" (Coleman, 1984 : 144). However, to better grasp the significance of the legislative provisions relating to the language of work, a brief historical overview should be provided.</div>
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The work of the commission of inquiry set up in 1969 by the Québec government to study the position of the French language in Québec (Gendron Commission) showed that the English language in fact dominated in the workplace. The Gendron Commission summarized the situation as follows :</div>
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French appears to be useful only to French-speaking persons. In the province of Québec itself, it remains basically a marginal language, since non-French-speaking persons have little need of it and many French-speaking people use English as much as and sometimes more than their mother tongue for important work (Gendron Report, 1972 : I, 108).</div>
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In short, French was the language of menial jobs and low incomes and not the language of access to the upper echelons and their attendant benefits.</div>
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To carry out its mandate, i.e. to "advise the government on any legislative or administrative measures which might be passed to see to it that French is the working language in public and private undertakings in Québec" (section 14b of Bill 63 of 1969), the <i>Office de la langue française</i> (hereafter French Language Bureau) had begun, even before the Gendron Report was published, to set up administrative mechanisms that were to be used in implementing the 1974 legislation and, later on, the Charter of the French language.</div>
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However, to determine the management processes to bring about a linguistic change in the workplace, the French Language Bureau had to conduct pilot experiments in a number of firms. These experiments demonstrated that a Francization programme could be managed in the same way as any other activity of a firm, such as a change in a manufacturing process, without halting or slowing down production, but that there would be socio-psychological effects (including resistance to change). These Francization experiments also showed that the largest firms would produce a spill-over effect that would extend to medium and small businesses. Both the 1974 and the 1977 laws took this into consideration by first compelling firms with more than 100 employees to use French in the workplace. The pilot experiments also showed that the incentives for companies to use French, proposed in Bill 63, were ineffective because the firms never got beyond the linguistic analysis stage and that, accordingly, ways of compelling companies to use French had to be determined.</div>
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Moreover, the experiments showed that a linguistic profile of the company first had to be drawn up. Hence, a linguistic analysis questionnaire was developed. The Charter of the French language stipulates that all companies with more than 50 employees must fill out the questionnaire. The main areas covered in the analysis are : written communication within the company, oral communication at meetings, written communication with firms outside Québec, forms, training and reference manuals, language used on internal signs, language used in advertising, the company's policy regarding the teaching of the second language to its management personnel and other employees, linguistic criteria for hiring, promoting and transferring employees, use of French terminology within the company, the volume of translation from English to French and from French to English, and so on.</div>
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Once the linguistic analysis is completed, the company must negotiate a Francization programme with the French Language Bureau. According to the Charter (section 141) :</div>
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The Francization programme is intended to generalize the use of French at all levels of the business firm. This implies : (a) the knowledge of the official language on the part of management, the members of the professional corporations and the other members of the staff; (b) an increase at all levels of the business firm, including the board of directors, in the number of persons having a good knowledge of the French language so as to generalize its use; (c) the use of French as the language of work and as the language of internal communication; (d) the use of French in the working documents of the business firm, especially in manuals and catalogues; (e) the use of French in communications with clients, suppliers and the public, (f) the use of French terminology; (g) the use of French in advertising; (h) appropriate policies for hiring, promotion and transfer.</div>
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An amendment to the Charter of the French Language passed in 1993 has added a new requirement to the preceding list : the availability of computer softwares in French.</div>
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As part of its Francization programme, the firm negotiates with the French Language Bureau the list of positions that require knowledge of another language with a view to ensuring communication among the departments of the firm or with other companies outside Québec. It has been proposed that these positions be known as <i>linguistic bridges</i>. They are only to be used for communications with firms outside Québec, not for communications within the firm itself (Corbeil, 1975 [1974] : 25).</div>
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In firms employing more than 100 people, a Francization committee devises a Francization programme and supervises its application (section 150); workers must make up at least one-third of the members of the Francization committee (section 146) which, according to a 1993 amendment, must meet at least every six months.</div>
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A 1993 amendment to the Charter of the French Language requires that business firms, even when they hold a Francization certificate, report every three years to the French Language Bureau. This amendment has been devised so that Francization may not step back.</div>
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The Francization process as described above may not apply to head offices and, since 1983, to research centres. The text of section 144 was amended by Bill 57, passed in 1983. It now reads as follows :</div>
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The manner of applying Francization programmes in head offices and in research centres may be decided by special agreements with the Office [de la langue française] to allow the use of a language other than French as the language of operations.</div>
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A regulation of the French Language Bureau defines the two criteria which entitle a company to a special agreement : if, on the one hand, 50 % or more of the revenue of the firm is derived from exports outside Québec and, on the other, it is impossible for the firm to meet the requirements of section 141 of the Charter (quoted above in full), given the frequency of its transactions abroad, the complexity of the techniques used, its specialized staffing needs or the effects that a Francization programme could have on its competitive position. One of the two criteria is sufficient to entitle the firm to a special agreement; the first criterium has been the most frequently invoked until now (see FTQ, 1985 : 24).</div>
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What headway has been made in the Francization of business firms?</div>
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As of 31st March 1992, 82.6 % of businesses with 50 to 99 employees hold a Francization certificate; progress has been somewhat slower in the case of firms with more than 100 employees : 66.4 % hold a Francization certificate (Conseil de la langue française, 1992 : 106). The certificates attest to the fact that the firms can operate in French, i.e. that they have translated their most important documents and that a sufficient number of their management staff can express themselves in French.</div>
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From 1971 to 1989, progress in the use of French throughout the labour force was noted : 66 % of the labour force worked mainly in French in 1971, 70 % in 1979, 73 % in 1989. Progress has been more noticeable in the Montréal area : 51 % in 1979, 56 % in 1989 whereas over a ten-year period there was no significant progress for French in the rest of the province (87 % in 1979, 88 % in 1989) (see Béland, 1991).</div>
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<b>Corpus Planning</b></div>
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Industrialisation in Québec was brought about since the nineteenth century by English-speaking entrepreneurs (first from Britain and thereafter increasingly from America). From the beginning, Québec's economic development was based on extraction of raw materials which were transformed elsewhere; businesses established in the province were most often branches of British or American firms with manegerial personnel coming from the United Kingdom or America with the lower echelons filled by local manpower, thus creating a predominantly French-speaking proletariate in the cities. This historical fact explains why English has been since the beginning of industrialization the dominant language in the workplace; it is noteworthy that even in the countryside new machinery introduced since the nineteenth century was more often than not designated under English names while traditional agricultural machinery and activities usually kept their French names.</div>
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Language bills passed in the 1970's (on which see Maurais, 1987) commissioned a government agency, the French Language Bureau, with the mandate to make French the working language in business firms and in the Civil Service; this implied an emphasis on terminology, i.e. the Bureau had to provide correct French terms to replace traditionally English or `Franglais' terms.</div>
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The historical situation which has just been outlined has led to the fact that the variety of French used in Quebec, especially the technolects, presents a lexical deficit when compared to English and this has a special bearing on terminology as practised in Quebec. In other words, traditionally terminological activities in Quebec have had more to do with lexical modernization than with terminology, <i>qua</i> terminology; and even at that, lexical modernization has consisted more often than not in establishing bilingual lexica providing North-American French-speakers with terms already in use in France. Gapping a lexical deficit, catching up with English in technical domains, are the main characteristics of corpus planning in Quebec.</div>
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Among its many activities, the French Language Bureau had to adopt a definite position regarding loan-words. When technical domains are literally flooded with foreign borrowings, as was the case in some sectorial vocabularies in Quebec, the matter is of public concern since the law entitles every worker to work in French; in such a case one may ask whether a worker is actually working in French when he uses an overwhelming foreign (and considered by himself to be foreign) technical lexicon. A certain regulation of the flow of loan-words is therefore called for : the Language Bureau has issued a policy statement on that matter (Office de la langue française, 1980). In its policy statement, the Bureau declares that linguistic borrowing (more precisely loan-words, loan-translations and semantic loans) is a legitimate means to enrich a language but it should not prevail over internal modes of lexical creativity; the Language Bureau sets three tasks : a) to get rid of Anglicisms which are detrimental to Quebec's French integrity (essentially loans that uselessly compete with standard French words); b) to promote French lexical creativity as a means to designate new realities, usually imported from the United States, instead of perpetuating the habit of systematically resorting to borrowings from English as the regular source for neologisms; c) to establish guidelines regulating admission of foreign words when they are really needed to fill a gap in the lexicon and when internal linguistic resources are clearly at an end.</div>
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<b>Language(s) of Signs</b></div>
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Language demands were often related to the fact that Québec did not have a French image, a French face ("<i>visage français</i>"). Signs were often bilingual, if not solely in English. The former premier, René Lévesque, once said :</div>
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In its own way, each bilingual sign says to the immigrant : there are two languages here, French and English, and you choose the one you want. To the Anglophone, it says : you don't need to learn French; everything is translated.</div>
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This statement faithfully reflects the attitude of the Nationalists towards the sign question in the late 1960's and early 1970's, when they called for government intervention in this area.</div>
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Here is one author's description of the sign situation in downtown Montréal in the 1960's :</div>
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Look at downtown Montréal, in the Sainte-Catherine-Peel area, for example : almost all the large signs are only in English... There is some French on small signs in shop windows and on menus, to promote sales! But, to assert our presence, come on! These shopkeepers advertise in English, their language, or that of the most powerful in Canada, the language they have chosen, turning up their noses at the French demographic reality of Québec and Montréal itself (Lorrain, 1966 : 80).</div>
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In 1969, the Act to promote the French language in Québec (better known as "Bill 63") timidly paved the way for intervention by entrusting the French Language Bureau with the mandate to "advise the government on any legislative or administrative measures which might be passed in regard to public posting to ensure the priority of the French language therein" (section 14d). The Official Language Act of 1974 made French mandatory on public signs, rejected English unilingualism in favour of French unilingualism or bilingualism, and no longer mentioned the "priority" of French : "Public signs must be drawn up in French or in both French and another language, except within certain limits provided by regulation" (section 35). In 1977, the Charter of the French language opted squarely for French unilingualism : "except as may be provided under this act or the regulations of the Office de la langue française, signs and posters and commercial advertising shall be solely in the official language" (section 58, 1977 version). Only as an exception could the wording in French on signs be accompanied by another language in cases of "cultural activities of a particular ethnic group" (section 61) and in "commercial establishments specializing in foreign national specialities or the specialities of a particular ethnic group" (section 62); French was not mandatory in "messages of a religious, political, ideological or humanitarian nature" from non-profit associations (section 59); and, finally, "firms employing not over four persons including the employer may erect signs and posters in both French and another language in their establishments" (not outside their establishments), but "French must be given at least as prominent display as ... the other language" (section 60). Only the official language may be used on traffic signs (section 29).</div>
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French unilingualism on signs was deemed necessary because it was to symbolize, in the eyes of the entire population, the real possibility of linguistic change. This is how it was justified :</div>
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We have therefore chosen a number of highly visible, concrete manifestations of language and we have made them the subject of provisions in the Charter of the French language. These manifestations are : company names, signs, advertising and terminology. The changes that are occurring and will occur in these areas are directly visible and actually modify what we perceive with our eyes and ears. This will be an obvious confirmation for everyone that the law is effective, that things are changing (Corbeil, 1977 : 12).</div>
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The provisions of the Charter of the French Language relating to signs were challenged before the courts. In December 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that freedom of expression could not be reduced to political expression and that it also applies to commerce. The Court added that requiring the predominance of French on commercial signs would be acceptable and would serve the goal of preserving and promoting a French face in the province. According to the Court's reasoning, it is legitimate to require a "marked predominance" of French on commercial signs for demographic reasons as more than 80 % of Québec's population is French : this means that the "linguistic face" should reflect the demolinguistic composition of the population. This interpretation is questionable. According to some legal experts (e.g. Woehrling, 1993), the Court has given a wrong interpretation and the objective of section 58 of the Charter of the French Language (pertaining to commercial signs) has been wrongly identified. The objective was to change non-Francophones' attitudes towards French, not to mirror the proportion of French-speakers in the population; this objective was based on the assumption that the "linguistic landscape" conditions to a great extent the psychological attitudes of non-Francophones towards French : inasmuch as people who do not speak French need the information transmitted through that language they will learn it but if commercial signs and advertisement are also available in English (or another language) they will not feel the need to learn French. As already mentioned, there were exceptions to the rule of French unilingualism, which had the effect of loosening that requirement, but these exceptions were not even taken into account by the Supreme Court in its 1988 decision.</div>
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Subsequently, the government of Québec amended the provision on commercial signs. As of 1993, bilingualism is again permitted on commercial signs. In some cases, the regulations provide for a one-to-one bilingualism but in other cases the regulations call for the "marked predominance" of the French language. This "marked predominance" has been defined by the two-to-one rule (that is, twice as big or twice as many). The rule of French unilingualism has nevertheless been maintained for advertisement-hoarding (signs and posters) of more than 16 square metres and for advertisement on vehicles used for public transport (including bus shelters and premises giving access to public transport). The maintenance of some domains of French unilingualism has been justified by the Conseil de la langue française on sociolinguistic grounds :</div>
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Only some domains of exclusive use of French on signs and in advertisement will guarantee the status of French as a creative language. Without those domains of exclusive use, there is a serious risk that French becomes again a translated language on signs and in advertisement whereas for the last 15 years lexical and semantical creativity has been increasingly manifested in those areas (Conseil de la langue française, 1993 : 14; translation mine).</div>
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<b>Some Principles of Language Planning</b></div>
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Some basic sociolinguistic principles can be derived from the Québec experience of language planning. It remains to be seen whether they will hold true in every other circumstance. They will be presented here rather schematically.</div>
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(1) <u>Need for a prior sociolinguistic description</u></div>
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A language planning project must be based on a thorough sociolinguistic description. On the basis of that description realistic goals must be set. Québec's language laws could build on two very important sociolinguistic surveys : the Canadian government's Royal Commission on bilingualism and biculturalism (Laurendeau-Dunton Commission, also called B & B Commission) and the Gendron Commission set up by the Québec government in 1969.</div>
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(2) <u>Need for state intervention</u></div>
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When a language planning project aims at a massive switch-over (such as making French, instead of English, the usual language in the workplace), one must realize that the individual is helpless. An individual alone cannot bring about such a massive language change in a business firm, let alone in a whole society. In other words, one must do away with voluntarism. The state has to set the rules and to provide some sort of control (this, by the way, is in the opinion of the current author a major flaw in the 1989-1990 language laws of the Soviet republics as no state agency is entrusted with all the practical aspects of implementing the switch-over from Russian; see Maurais, 1991; this situation seems to have been rectified in Latvia by the creation of an "Official Language Commission", which includes an "Official Language Inspection Department" (<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Инпекция государственного языка), and in Estonia by the recent creation of a body of language inspectors; a language agency has also recently been established in Lithuania).</span></div>
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(3) <u>Need for visible change</u></div>
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Language is an abstract reality and so is language change. In order for a language policy to succeed, some signs of progress have to be made visible so that the whole population is no longer under the spell of collective powerlessness and will realise that change is possible.</div>
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People must perceive that change has been made or is under way, otherwise the situation will be seen as hopeless. Speakers chronically suffering from linguistic insecurity must be driven out of their vicious circle. Three domains were selected in Québec in that respect : 1. Public commercial signs; 2. Terminology in the workplace (i.e. doing away with English and Franglais [Frenglish] terms); 3. School enrolment (easily checked through official statistics). As Corbeil (1977 : 12; translation) wrote :</div>
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We have therefore chosen a number of highly visible, concrete manifestations of language and we have made them the subject of provisions in the Charter of the French Language. These manifestations are : company names, signs, advertising and terminology. The changes that are occurring and will occur in these areas are directly visible and actually modify what we perceive with our eyes and ears. This will be an obvious confirmation for everyone that the law is effective, that things are changing.</div>
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(4) <u>Domains of non-intervention</u></div>
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The law must define the domains where the official language is to be used, alone or with another language. All the other domains, and especially all private domains (including religion), are to remain untouched.</div>
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(5) <u>Special status of bilingualism</u></div>
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Everyone agrees that bilingualism is an asset for the individual. But when it comes to social bilingualism (which more often than not is synonymous with diglossia, that is a relationship between a dominant language and a dominated one), the situation is no longer so clear as bilingualism is usually an intermediary step to later unilingualism in the dominant language. In Québec, social bilingualism has been deemed to be detrimental to French : systematic bilingualism as used to be the rule before the language laws of the 1970's meant that immigrants, when offered the choice between French and English, usually opted for the second. Québec's language laws therefore provide for a certain regulation of bilingualism : for instance, business firms have to negotiate with a specially commissioned government agency (<i>Office de la langue française</i>) the list of positions that require the knowledge of a language other than French; these positions are indeed necessary in order to ensure communication with the departments of the firm situated outside Québec and with firms from outside Québec. The provisions in the Charter of the French Language relating to bilingualism are based on a distinction that has been made between individual bilingualism (which must be fostered) and institutional bilingualism (which must be controlled) (on this, see Corbeil, 1977 and 1980).</div>
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In other language planning projects, bilingualism plays a very different part. This is so in cases where the decline of the language is more acute than it was in Québec. In such instances requirements of generalized bilingualism may be the first step to restore the language. This is clearly the case in the Spanish Basque Country where slightly more than 25 % of the population have reportedly a sufficient knowledge of the language. Latvia offers another example of a language planning project fostering bilingualism (where the titular nationality is on the verge to loose its status of majority). Section 22 of the Latvian Law on languages stipulates that citizens shall be reimbursed for any losses due to a failure of employees to speak Latvian or Russian and that this reimbursement may even be demanded from the guilty employee; according to section 23, infringement on a citizen's freedom of language choice shall bring the guilty party before court. These bilingual requirements must of course be evaluated in reference to the demolinguistic composition of the population. As ethnic Russians tend to be unilingual, such requirements are clearly set out in order to increase their knowledge of the majority language.</div>
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The preceding examples clearly show that the role of bilingualism can be very different from one language planning project to another.</div>
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(6) <u>Need to build consensuses</u></div>
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In order for a language planning project to develop some sort of support in the population, large consensuses must be built. Here are some consensuses which still hold in Québec : the immigrants must be enrolled in French schools; French must be obligatory and prominent on public commercial signs; and there is a need for state support for French, since this is clearly a minority language in the North American context.</div>
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(7) <u>The role of the time factor in language planning</u></div>
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Language planning is a middle-term or a long-term undertaking. It is generally estimated that language change, i.e. more precisely phonological change, takes about one generation. I think it could also be assumed that planned change – and I mean real, deep change, not only changing the names of the streets from one language to another – would also probably take one generation, if not more. A switch-over from one language to another cannot be done overnight. In order words, in language planning there is no short cut – or, in any case, resorting to short cuts could be dangerous. This observation entails two consequences :</div>
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1- The need for visible change in some domains (which has been already mentioned) in order to reduce uncertainty about the future of the language;</div>
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2- The need for monitoring : as most of the linguistic change will go unnoticed by the individual speaker in his life span, a team of experts must monitor the change. If this is not done, then the language planning project might well be a short-lived endeavour.</div>
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<b>Conclusion</b></div>
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The Québec experience in language planning is of course broader in scope than what has been discussed in this paper. What is most striking about our experience and has been perhaps only hinted at in some passages of this paper is the pragmatic character of our language planning project. This character is best exemplified by the fact that this project, embodied in an act of parliament, has been periodically modified in order to meet new needs and/or demands arising either from some group (e.g. the Anglophones pressing in 1983 and 1993 for a better recognition of English) or from the evolution of the economy (e.g. the massive introduction of personal computers in the workplace necessitated in 1993 that the requirements on the Francization of business firms be readjusted).</div>
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BIBLIOGRAPHY</div>
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BÉLAND, Paul (1991), <i>L'usage du français au travail. Situation et tendances</i>, Québec, Conseil de la langue française.</div>
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BOURHIS, Richard Y. (1984), <i>Conflict and Language Planning in Quebec</i>, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters.</div>
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CONSEIL DE LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE (1992), <i>Indicateurs de la situation linguistique au Québec. Édition 1992</i>, Québec, Conseil de la langue française.</div>
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CONSEIL DE LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE (1993), <i>Avis sur d'éventuelles modifications à la Charte de la langue française</i>, Québec.</div>
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CORBEIL, Jean-Claude (1975[=1974]), <i>Description des options linguistiques de l'Office </i>de la langue française, Régie de la langue française, coll. Études, recherches et documentation n<sup>o</sup> 2.</div>
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CORBEIL, Jean-Claude (1977), "Principes sociolinguistiques de la Charte de la langue française", <i>Langues et usage des langues</i>, Québec City, Conseil de la langue française, coll. Notes et Documents No. 50.</div>
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CORBEIL, Jean-Claude (1980), <i>L'aménagement linguistique du Québec</i>, Montréal, Guérin.</div>
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DUCHESNE, Louis (1973), <i>La situation des langues dans les écoles du Québec et de ses régions administratives (1969-70 à 1972-73)</i>, Québec City, Ministère de l'Éducation.</div>
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FÉDÉRATION DES TRAVAILLEURS ET DES TRAVAILLEUSES DU QUÉBEC (F.T.Q.) (1985), <i>Travailler en français, nos droits, nos responsabilités, nos moyens d'action</i>, Montréal, F.T.Q.</div>
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GOVERNMENT OF QUÉBEC (1972), <i>Rapport de la Commission d'enquête sur la situation de la langue française et sur les droits linguistiques au Québec</i>, Québec City, Official Printer's, 3 vols.</div>
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GUESPIN, L. & J.-B. MARCELLESI (1986), "Pour la Glottopolitique", <i>Langages</i> 83, 5-34.</div>
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KLOSS, Heinz & Albert VERDOODT (1969), <i>Research Possibilities on Group Bilingualism</i>, Québec City, International Centre for Research on Bilingualism.</div>
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LORRAIN, Roland (1966), <i>La mort de mon joual</i>, Montréal, Éditions du Jour.</div>
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MALLEA, John R. (1984), "Minority Language Education in Quebec and Anglophone Canada" in Bourhis (ed.) (1984 : 222-260).</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1987), "L'expérience québécoise d'aménagement linguistique" in J. Maurais (ed.), <i>Politique et aménagement linguistiques</i>, Québec City, Conseil de la langue française and Paris, Éditions Robert.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1990), "Les législations linguistiques soviétiques de 1989", <i>L'Action nationale</i> LXXX/10, 1439-1450.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1991), "Les lois linguistiques soviétiques de 1989 et 1990", <i>Revista de Llengua i Dret</i> (Barcelona) 15, 75-90.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1993), "Terminology and Language Planning" in Helmi B. Sonneveld & Kurt L. Loening, <i>Terminology. Applications in Interdisciplinary Communication</i>, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins, 111-125.</div>
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MINISTÈRE DES COMMUNAUTÉS CULTURELLES ET DE L'IMMIGRATION (1990), <i>Énoncé de politique en matière d'immigration et d'intégration</i>.</div>
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OFFICE DE LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE (1980), <i>Énoncé d'une politique relative à l'emprunt de formes linguistiques étrangères</i>, Québec City, Official Printer's.</div>
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PAILLÉ, Michel (1981), "The Impact of Language Policies on Enrolment in Public Schools in Québec", <i>Contributions à la démolinguistique du Québec</i>, Québec City, Conseil de la langue française, coll. "Notes et Documents" n<sup>o</sup> 48.</div>
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PUIG, Gentil (1983), "Criteris per a una normalització lingüística democràtica a Catalunya", <i>Treballs de sociolingüística catalana</i> 5, 25-39.</div>
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RANNUT, Mart (1989), <i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">О</span></i> <i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">законе</span> <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">о</span> <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">языке</span></i>, Tallinn, Znanie.</div>
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SAINT-GERMAIN, Claude (1980), <i>La situation linguistique dans les écoles primaires et secondaires, 1971-1972 à 1978-1979</i>, Québec, Conseil de la langue française.</div>
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WOEHRLING, José (1993), <i>La conformité de certaines modifications projetées au régime linguistique de l'affichage public et de la publicité commerciale découlant de la Charte de la langue française avec les chartes des droits et libertés</i>, Québec, Conseil de la langue française.</div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-90150921929329316832019-10-24T15:29:00.001-04:002023-10-31T15:29:45.144-04:00Language Planning and Human Rights<div align="CENTER">
Language Planning and Human Rights :</div>
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Some Preliminary Comments</div>
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Jacques Maurais</div>
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Symposium on Linguistic Human Rights</div>
<div align="CENTER">Riga, 13-15 October 1991</div>
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<b>1. Introduction</b></div>
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The organizers of the symposium on Linguistic Human Rights seek to depict the situation of linguistic rights on the background of general human rights and the international law and how these principles apply to different categories of people (immigrants, indigenous people, regional minorities, stateless groups, majority populations, etc.). They also want to discuss political constraints and limitations affecting Linguistic Human Rights. On tha last day of the symposium they plan to draft a final document. This paper is intended to provide some background information that could be of use in the drafting of the symposium's final document.</div>
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The first part of this paper will be a brief presentation of the question of the protection of minorities (more precisely aboriginal people) at the international level; this is based on a recent survey concerning the indigenous languages of the Americas (Maurais, forthcoming a) which will be the first chapter of a book on Québec's native languages due to appear at the beginning of 1992 (Maurais, forthcoming b).</div>
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The second part will sketch the general features of the new situation arising from recent international treaties on commerce (such as free-trade agreements) as they impact on languages.</div>
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The third section will deal with the at times controversial question of freedom of choice in language matters.</div>
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The fourth section will comment on the need for a common language expressed in many language planning projects, which obviously is in more than a way reminiscent of the Jacobinist ideology. Nevertheless, this problem cannot be evacuated from discussion as it is central to many recent language laws.</div>
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The fifth and last section will propose some sociolinguistic principles applicable in a major language planning project such as a switch-over from a language to another (for instance, a switch-over from English to French in the workplace).</div>
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As the present author is no jurist, it should be borne in mind that the discussion of Linguistic Human Rights will be made more from a sociolinguistic perspective than from a purely legalistic point of view.</div>
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<b>2. Legal protection of languages and minorities at the international level</b></div>
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As already stated in the introduction, this section will look at the protection of minorities mainly from the point of view of the protection of aboriginal people as the present author has just completed a survey on that topic. Clearly, other texts (such as the Helsinki Agreement or the bill on regional linguistic minorities under discussion at the European Parliament) should be introduced to give a more thorough picture of the international guarantees given to minorities; but this aspect will be left to other participants of the symposium.</div>
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The main international texts dealing more or less closely with the question of the protection af aboriginal rights are the following : Charter of the United Nations (section 1, par. 3; section 13; section 55; section 73); Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide; International Covenant on civil and political rights; and Convention against discriminations in education (see Stavenhagen, 1988 : 119-134). According to Stavenhagen (1988 : 129), who has carried on the most thorough survey on the legal protection of aboriginal minorities in the Americas, of all texts adopted by the United Nations, it is section 27 of the International Covenant on civil and political rights that is the most important for indigenous populations; section 27 reads as follows (official English version unavailable to this author) :</div>
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Dans les États où il existe des minorités ethniques, religieuses ou linguistiques, les personnes appartenant à ces minorités ne peuvent être privées du droit d'avoir, en commun avec les autres membres de leur groupe, leur propre vie culturelle, de professer et de pratiquer leur propre religion, ou d'employer leur propre langue.</div>
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The United Nations documents, according to Rainer Enrique Hamel (1990), are a weak basis for the defence of linguistic rights; they establish individual fundamental rights and forbid discrimination based on race, sex, religion or language; as to linguistic rights, this is not sufficient since those texts specify the rights of individuals, not of minority groups, and they do not compel the States to take the initiative in protecting minorities. Nevertheless, section 27 of the International Covenant on civil and political rights contains an embryo -- however still-born as it may look -- of collective linguistic rights.</div>
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Two documents produced by the International Labour Organization concern aboriginal populations : new convention No. 169 (replacing convention No. 107) and recommendation No. 104. Preamble of convention No. 169 states that there is a need to adopt new international standards in order to cancel the orientation of former standards the aim of which was assimilation (<i>"il y a lieu d'adopter de nouvelles normes internationales [...] en vue de supprimer l'orientation des normes antérieures, qui visaient à l'assimilation"</i>). Section 28 of recommendation No. 169 refers more specifically to language (it will be quoted in French as the English version is not available to this writer) :</div>
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1. Lorsque cela est réalisable, un enseignement doit être donné aux enfants des peuples intéressés pour leur apprendre à lire et à écrire dans leur propre langue indigène ou dans la langue qui est le plus communément utilisée par le groupe auquel ils appartiennent. Lorsque cela n'est pas réalisable, les autorités compétentes doivent entreprendre des consultations avec ces peuples en vue de l'adoption de mesures permettant d'atteindre cet objectif.</div>
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2. Des mesures adéquates doivent être prises pour assurer que ces peuples aient la possibilité d'atteindre la maîtrise de la langue nationale ou de l'une des langues officielles du pays.</div>
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3. Des dispositions doivent être prises pour sauvegarder les langues indigènes des peuples intéressés et en promouvoir le développement et la pratique.</div>
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Recommendation No. 104 contains a section (section 9) on the language to be used in communications with workers belonging to aboriginal populations :</div>
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Aussi longtemps que les populations intéressées ne seront pas en situation de jouir de la protection accordée par la loi aux travailleurs en général, le recrutement des travailleurs appartenant à ces populations devrait être réglementé, en particulier, au moyen de mesures destinées à : [...]</div>
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f) s'assurer que le travailleur :</div>
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i) a bien compris les conditions d'emploi, grâce à des explications données dans sa langue maternelle.</div>
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The Interamerican Charter of social guarantees (resolution No. 29 of the Organization of American States) is "a catalogue, incredibly modern and progressive, of social rights" (judgment quoted by Stavenhagen, 1988 : 144). Section 39 of the aforementioned Charter reads as follows :</div>
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In countries with a problem of indigenous population, arrangements should be taken to give assistance and protection to the Indians, to guarantee their lives, freedom and property, to protect them against extermination, to protect them from oppression, exploitation and destitution, to educate them in an appropriate manner. [...] Institutions or services must be set up for the protection of Indians, particularly in order to have their territorial claims respected, to legalise possession of their lands and to prevent foreigners to invade their lands (rough translation from Spanish).</div>
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The Interamerican Charter is thus an effort to create obligations for the states and in this sense it is a prerequisite for the defence of minority groups. But it says nothing about collective rights for the same endangered groups.</div>
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A United Nations draft document (<i>Draft Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights as contained in document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1988/25</i>) mentions certain collective rights such as the right to preserve and develop ethnic and cultural identity and the right to protection against ethnocide (that is against assimilation or forced integration and imposition of alien life styles).</div>
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Finally, it can be mentioned that some work has been done on an international definition of "aboriginal population". The following definition has been proposed :</div>
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Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems (Martínez Cobo, 1987 : 29, § 379).</div>
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As can be gathered from the preceding presentation, there is now an incipient tendency, at the international level, to recognize some collective rights, at least insofar as the indigenous populations are concerned. This is a striking difference from the situation which prevailed formerly and which consisted essentially in guaranteeing individual personal rights.</div>
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Protection granted to the indigenous languages at the national level (in the constitutions, in various laws and administrative documents) will not be dealt with here; for an overview of the situation in the Americas, please refer to Maurais (forthcoming a); see also Gauthier, Leclerc and Maurais (forthcoming) which is a collection of all language-related provisions in the constitutions of the various sovereign or non-sovereign states of the world.</div>
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A last word of caution is needed before concluding this section : only aboriginal linguistic minorities have been considered here owing to the fact that this author has just completed a study of this question. But it seems that other aspects of the protection of language rights have not been dealt with so far at the international level : the most obvious shortcoming in this respect would be the lack of attention paid to the question of "regional linguistic majorities" which, though majoritary in their historic territory (where they may nevertheless be experiencing some form of assimilation), are minorities at the national level. By the phrase "regional linguistic majorities" are understood situations like that of French in Québec, Catalan in the Catalan Countries (Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Roussillon, Andorra), and of course Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and other languages in the pre-1991 Soviet Union (by the way, Latvian is a clear instance of a receding majority since the Latvian ethnic component of the population of the Latvian SSR fell from 62 % in 1959 to 54 % in 1979; Estonian might serve as another exemple since, over the same period, it fell from 74.6 % to 64.7 %, see Rannut, 1989 : 16 ; situations like these ones should be dealt with before they became incorporated under the heading "aboriginal minorities").</div>
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<b>3. New linguistic situation arising from the suppression of barriers to free trade</b></div>
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In some cases language can be considered as a non-tariff barrier to free trade. Minority languages would be most vulnerable to such legal interpretations. Free trade treaties are above all commercial agreements and it is not to be expected that a state would put its economic relations in jeopardy for non-economic reasons, for instance linguistic reasons. Nevertheless it is highly probable that more and more court decisions on free trade agreements will entail linguistic consequences. Examples from the European Community will serve as an illustration of this problem.</div>
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First example : the ISMUNIT case (SG[85]D/11505 of 6.9.1985). A French laboratory demanded that the labels on reagents produced by an Italian laboratory should also be worded in French and not only in English. The Commission of the European Communities decided that the French demand would be detrimental to commerce and added that the French researchers were bound to know English owing to their specialized training.</div>
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Second example : the France Quick case (SG[85] 8791 of 8.7.1985 & SG[85] 9123 of 17.7.1985). This French corporation had been condemned by a French court on the ground that it had used on the menus of its restaurants English words such as "big-cheese", "fishburger", "coffee-drink", "milk-shakes" without the French translation that was compulsory according to the Law No. 75-1349 of 31 December 1975 (on the use of the French language). The European Commission sent a memorandum to the French government in July of 1985 indicating that the decision handed down by the French court was excessive and that the obligation to use French constituted an additional economic cost on import operations.</div>
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There is however a counterexample where linguistic requirements preventing the circulation of people, goods and services have been held by a European court. This is the Anita Groener case (Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxemburg, 379/87). On 28 November 1989 the Court handed down its decision on the requirements established by the Irish government that applicants to an appointment as teacher of plastic arts should have a certain knowledge of Irish. The job had been denied to a Dutch applicant on the ground that she did not have the required knowledge of Irish. The Court had to give a ruling on the following points :</div>
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- the main objective of the requirement of Irish was to prevent applicants from other member states to get the job;</div>
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- knowledge of Irish was not necessary on the job as classes were given mostly in English.</div>
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The European Court accepted this policy of promoting Irish as a way to express national culture and identity in view of the fact that Irish is the first official language of Ireland. The Court added that this kind of policy is acceptable provided it is not out of proportion to the goal sought and that it does not bring about discrimination (see the summary and comments by Solé i Durany, 1991).</div>
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Court decisions on free trade agreements insofar as they impact on the legal use of languages are a relatively new phenomenon and should require special monitoring before it can be determined whether or not they are detrimental to non-dominant languages. This is an aspect that can change the situation of linguistic rights at the international level in the years to come.</div>
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<b>4. Freedom of choice</b></div>
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In Canada, the phrase "freedom of choice" usually refers to the freedom granted (or denied) to the parents to choose the language of schooling for their children; it also applies, on a much less controversial scale, to the freedom granted to individuals dealing with ministries and agencies of the federal government to receive services in one of Canada's both official languages, English or French. Only the problems arising in the education sector will be dealt with in this section.</div>
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First of all, it must be remembered that freedom of choice, especially when it relates to education, is often considered in the sociolinguistic literature as being detrimental to linguistic minorities. What could be called <i>linguistic liberalism</i> is in fact non-intervention in language matters but this non-intervention is not so neutral as it could seem from a superficial perspective; as a matter of fact, it is favourable to the dominant language in the existing language competition. In other words, <i>"Le discours libéral n'est plus que la couverture d'interventions avantageant les couches ayant intérêt à la conservation d'une situation langagière qui leur est favorable"</i> [Liberalism is a cover for interventions to the advantage of population strata whose interests rest in the perpetuation of a linguistic situation that is favourable to them] (Guespin & Marcellesi, 1986 : 17). Paradoxically, this liberal policy of freedom of choice for the language of schooling has perhaps been best exemplified in the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, especially on the occasion of the Education Reform of 1958-9 under Khrushchev (see Bilinsky, 1962 or Maurais, 1990). According to Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (1978 : chapter 5), this freedom of choice granted to Soviet parents to choose between Russian and their ethnic language as the medium of schooling was favourable to the Russian language. According to a Catalan sociolinguist, freedom of choice in education is the best system to perpetuate cultural and linguistic inequalities (Puig, 1983 : 37; for inequalities in the educational system on a more general level, see Bourdieu & Passeron, 1964). But it is actually more than that : seen from a historical perspective, freedom of choice paves the way to ethnolinguistic assimilation.</div>
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The preceding general considerations can be best understood if applied to a concrete case. In the Province of Québec, the majority of the population is French-speaking (some 83 % according to the latest census). Nevertheless, there was a marked tendency, especially after World War II, for the newly arrived immigrants to send their children to the English school, which according to some demographers in the late 60's could turn Montreal into an English city by the beginning of the third millennium as Francophones, because of their declining birth-rate, could not offset the number of immigrants that were swelling English-speaking ranks. Not only immigrants but also French-speaking Quebecers were more attracted to English schools than to French schools : in 1971-2, 85 % of immigrant youngsters attended English schools while only 15 % attended French schools (Saint-Germain, 1980) and in 1973 25,000 French-speaking youngsters were enrolled in English schools (Duchesne, 1973). The need was felt to intervene as French, which is a majority language in the Province of Québec, is a minority language at the Canadian level; the aforementioned question of "regional majority languages" (often in a federation) is a very acute one and requires special attention in language planning.</div>
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In order to reverse demographic trends unfavourable to French and taking into account the fact that Canada is a land of immigration, legislative action was taken. Laws were adopted by Québec's National Assembly : Bill 22 in 1974 and the Charter of the French Language (also informally called Bill 101) in 1977. These are two all-encompassing pieces of legislation. Their two main sectors of intervention are education and the workplace, which are the pivotal aspect of Québec's language legislation since it had already become obvious by the late 1960's that immigrants would only attend French schools if French were required on the job.</div>
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The Charter of the French Language is currently in force. In the area of fundamental rights the Charter sets forth the following principle : "Every person eligible for instruction in Québec has a right to receive that instruction in French" (section 6). The original (i.e. 1977) version of the Charter recognized the right to instruction in English of a child whose father or mother had received elementary instruction in English in Québec (section 73a), a child whose father or mother was domiciled in Québec when the Charter came into force and had received his or her elementary instruction in English outside Québec (section 73b), and a child, and his or her brothers and sisters, who, when the Charter was adopted, were already receiving instruction in English in Québec, in a kindergarten, elementary or secondary school (section 73c and d). These provisions were compatible with the Constitution of 1867 that guaranteed Protestant instruction in Québec (which at the time meant instruction in English, for all practical purposes).</div>
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These rules have had a number of repercussions on Québec's linguistic communities. Francophones (with the exception of those who attended English elementary school) no longer have the freedom to choose the language in which their children receive their education : they must send them to a French school. Anglophones still have the right to choose between French and English schools. Immigrants can no longer attend English educational institutions.</div>
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It should also be mentioned that the chapter of the Charter of the French Language devoted to the language of instruction gives all categories of citizens (no matter their maternal language) complete freedom in choosing the language of instruction at the Cegep (pre-university) and university levels. Parents may also choose the language of instruction at the elementary and secondary levels if they enroll their children in non-subsidized private institutions.</div>
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At the time the Charter of the French Language was discussed at the National Assembly, the Québec government proposed reciprocity agreements with the governments of the English-speaking provinces : people coming from these provinces would be granted permission to send their children to English schools in Québec provided these provinces gave their French minorities the same education facilities as those granted to its English minority by the Québec government (this was section 86 of the Charter : "The Government may make regulations extending the scope of section 73 to include such persons as may be contemplated in any reciprocity agreement between the Gouvernement du Québec and another province"). The reciprocity agreements were supposed to redress the historic denial of access to French education in many English provinces, for "since Confederation until relatively recently, <i>francophones outside Quebec</i> were systematically denied educational services that adequately reflected their linguistic needs and aspirations" (Mallea, 1984 : 229). No province has since accepted to sign such an agreement; but following the adoption of the Charter of the French Language the government of Québec decided to recognize that New Brunswick granted its French minority the same educational facilities as those enjoyed by the English-speaking minority in Québec and accordingly people migrating from New Brunswick were entitled to send their children to an English-medium school.</div>
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Certain aspects of the provisions contained in the Charter of the French Language were modified rather substantially when the Supreme Court of Canada noted, in July of 1984, that new constitutional rules (adopted without Québec's consent) had changed Québec's capacity to enact or enforce its own conditions for access to instruction in English. The Supreme Court recognized that a part of the 1982 Constitutional Act of Canada (particularly section 23) was designed to establish a different system of access to instruction in English. The judgment handed down opened the door to English instruction to two new categories of children : a child whose father or mother had received elementary instruction in English <i>anywhere in Canada</i>, and the brothers and sisters of a child of a Canadian citizen, who had received or was receiving elementary or secondary instruction in English in Canada. It should also be noted that the children of Canadian citizens whose mother tongue was English (even if these citizens had not attended English school in Canada) would be eligible for English instruction in Québec if so authorized by the Québec government under the provisions of section 59 of the 1982 Constitutional Act.</div>
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On a practical plane, the net result of the Charter of the French Language is that some 75 % children of immigrants are now enrolled in French schools.</div>
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On a more theoretical plane, the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada seem to imply that, as far as linguistic rights are concerned (at least insofar as they relate to education), the rules applying to immigrants are different from the rules applying to citizens. In other words, it has been accepted that immigrants from outside Canada may have to send their children to French schools in Québec whereas migrants from other provinces still have the choice between French and English schools. It should also be noted that the federal government and the other provincial governments when devising amendments to the Canadian Constitution in 1982 (without the presence of representatives of the Québec government) along with the Supreme Court of Canada in its decisions based on the new Constitutional Act of 1982 have in fact accepted the criterium of eligibility to instruction in English as established by Québec's authorities : eligibility is now determined on the basis of the language in which at least one of the parents has received his or her elementary education; this criterium is a manageable and objective one (it can be proved by documents) whereas eligibility based on the maternal language has proven to be inapplicable and the source of many social tensions.</div>
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<b>5. The Common Language Question</b></div>
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This is a moot question. People making efforts to promote a common language in a bi- or multilingual community take a risk to be called linguistic Jacobinists. Many nationalities in the Soviet Union have been resentful at what was perceived as Russian chauvinism trying to impose Russian as a lingua franca (under the name <i>jazyk mezhnacional'nogo obshchenia</i>); analogous reactions came from many Russian-speaking minorities when various Soviet republic passed language laws declaring official the language of the titular nationality. This question will only be touched on here; owing to its sensitivity, such an issue would need a much more thorough discussion.</div>
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In the case of what has been termed above "regional linguistic majorities", the need is felt, for the language to survive, to have it as the common language of the various groups making up the population. At the same time, this has to be done in due respect to the linguistic minorities.</div>
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As to Québec, the Charter of the French Language, in its preamble, declares that French should become the common language in the following way :</div>
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[...] the National Assembly of Québec recognizes that Québecers wish to see the quality and influence of the French language assured, and is resolved therefore to make of French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business; [...]</div>
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Having French as the common language of Québec could be best obtained, it was thought, through imposing it as the teaching medium of newcomers and as the normal language to be used on the job. Guarantees were given to the English-speaking historic community that it would retain its institutions and the right of the Amerinds and the Inuit (formerly, the Eskimos) was recognized to preserve and develop their original languages and cultures. The new status of French as the common language was thought to be best exemplified if French were the only language to be used on public commercial signs. This was so in order to send a clear signal to the immigrants that they were coming to live in a French-speaking society; the late premier René Lévesque justified French unilingualism on public signs in the following way :</div>
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In its own way, each bilingual sign says to the immigrant : there are two languages here, French and English, and you choose the one you want. To the Anglophone, it says : you don't need to learn French; everything is translated (quoted from Maurais, 1989 : 145).</div>
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Immigrants are offered the opportunity to learn French through a network of special institutions called COFI's ("<i>Centres d'orientation et de formation des immigrants</i>"). The public school system also offers the opportunity for the children to learn their ethnic language (PELO, "<i>Programme d'enseignement des langues d'origine</i>"). In a recent policy statement, Québec's Ministry of Immigration has introduced a new concept, that of a "moral contract" binding the immigrant and the host society. According to this moral contract, the immigrant must accept that French is the common language of public life in Québec. The policy statement adds that command of a common language is different from linguistic assimilation. It also explains that Québec, as a democratic society, does not interfere in the right of the individuals to use whatever language they want in their private life. Finally it is stated that ethnic languages are an economic, social and cultural asset for the whole population of Québec (Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l'Immigration, 1990 : 15-16).</div>
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It should also be added that in 1986 the Québec government passed Bill 142 which guarantees social and health services in English. Many health services, especially in the Greater Montreal area, have taken steps to provide their patients with services in many foreign languages. This is most important since illness is a circumstance when a human being is most vulnerable.</div>
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5. Some basic sociolinguistic principles</div>
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Some basic sociolinguistic principles can be derived from Québec's experience in language planning. It remains to be seen whether they will hold true in every other circumstance. They will be presented here rather schematically.</div>
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(1) <u>Need for a prior sociolinguistic description</u></div>
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A language planning project must be based on a thorough sociolinguistic description. On the basis of that description realistic goals must be set.</div>
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(2) <u>Need for state intervention</u></div>
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When a language planning project aims at a massive switch-over (such as making French, instead of English, the usual language in the workplace), one must realize that the individual is helpless. An individual alone cannot bring about such a massive language change in a business firm, let alone in a whole society. In other words, one must do away with voluntarism. The state has to set the rules and to provide some sort of control (this, by the way, is in the opinion of the current author a major flaw in the 1989-1990 language laws of the Soviet republics as no state agency is entrusted with all the practical aspects of implementing the swith-over from Russian; see Maurais, 1991).</div>
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(3) <u>Need for visible change</u></div>
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The population must perceive that change has been made or is under way, otherwise the situation will be seen as hopeless. Speakers chronically suffering from linguistic insecurity must be driven out of their vicious circle. Three domains were selected in Québec in that respect : 1. Public commercial signs; 2. Terminology in the workplace (i.e. doing away with English and Franglais terms); 3. School enrolment (easily checked through official statistics). As Corbeil (1977 : 12; translation) wrote :</div>
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We have therefore chosen a number of highly visible, concrete manifestations of language and we have made them the subject of provisions in the Charter of the French Language. These manifestations are : company names, signs, advertising and terminology. The changes that are occurring and will occur in these areas are directly visible and actually modify what we perceive with our eyes and ears. This will be an obvious confirmation for everyone that the law is effective, that things are changing.</div>
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(4) <u>Domains of non-intervention</u></div>
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The law must define the domains where the official language is to be used, alone or with another language. All the other domains, and especially all private domains (including religion), are to remain untouched.</div>
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(5) <u>Special status of bilingualism</u></div>
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Everyone agrees that bilingualism is an asset for the individual. But when it comes to social bilingualism (which more often than not is synonymous with diglossia, that is a relationship between a dominant language and a dominated one), the situation is no longer so clear as bilingualism is usually an intermediary step to later unilingualism in the dominant language. In Québec, social bilingualism has been deemed to be detrimental to French : systematic bilingualism as used to be the rule before the language laws of the 1970's meant that immigrants, when offered the choice between French and English, usually opted for the second. Québec's language laws therefore provide for a certain regulation of bilingualism : for instance, business firms have to negociate with a specially commissioned government agency (<i>Office de la langue française</i>, "French Language Bureau") the list of positions that require the knowledge of a language other than French; these positions are indeed necessary in order to ensure communication with the departments of the firm situated outside Québec and with firms from outside Québec.</div>
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In other language planning projects, bilingualism plays a very different part. This is so in cases where the decline of the language is more acute than it was in Québec. In such instances requirements of generalized bilingualism may be the first step to restore the language. This is clearly the case in Latvia (where the titular nationality is on the verge to loose its status of majority). Section 22 of the Latvian Law on languages stipulates that citizens shall be reimbursed for any losses due to a failure of employees to speak Latvian or Russian and that this reimbursement may even be demanded from the guilty employee; according to section 23, infringement on a citizen's freedom of language choice shall bring the guilty party before court. These bilingual requirements must of course be evaluated in reference to the demolinguistic composition of the population. As ethnic Russians tend to be unilingual, such requirements are clearly set out in order to increase their knowledge of the majority language.</div>
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The preceding examples clearly show that the role of bilingualism can be very different from one language planning project to another.</div>
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(6) <u>Need to build consensuses</u></div>
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In order for a language planning project to develop some sort of support in the population, large consensuses must be built. Here are some consensuses which still hold in Québec : the immigrants must be enrolled in French schools; French must be the only language permitted on public commercial signs; and there is a need for state support for French, since this is clearly a minority language in the North American context.</div>
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<b>7. Concluding remarks</b></div>
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Preliminary works are currently under way in some circles in order to propose, through Unesco, a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. A preliminary version of the aforesaid Declaration was presented in April 1991 at the Colloquium on Plurilingualism in Europe held in Barcelona (amidst a row, as reported in the daily <i>Avui</i> of 7 April 1991). The actual version of the proposed declaration does not take into account many criticisms that have been voiced since this project was initiated in Recife. Judging from the document that this author has been able to get hold of (which is not the Barcelona Manifesto but a previous version adopted in Paris on 25 April 1989), the intended Declaration only mentions individual rights (including the right for an individual to identify himself with any linguistic community and to have this choice respected by the state or to have the freedom to choose among all the languages known by him or her the language which the state will have to use in its communications with him/her). No mention whatsoever is made of collective rights, which is a clear regression from the progress made in some UN organizations on the protection of indigenous minorities. In the case of aboriginal people, such a declaration would favour only the nationwide dominant language and would be tantamount to ethnocide. The Declaration in its actual wording could be detrimental most of all to the indigenous populations and to what has been called in this paper "regional linguistic majorities". The implementation of the provisions of such a Declaration might jeopardize many aspects of the language laws adopted over the last years by Québec, the autonomous regions of Spain and most (formerly) Soviet republics. In its actual form, this project is unacceptable and will only contribute to increase the dominance of the languages already dominant in the world, precisely those languages which are most widely taught as second languages. No wonder that such an initiative of a Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights should have come from the International Federation of Teachers of Living Languages.</div>
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Québec City, 11 September 1991</div>
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Revised 28 October 1991</div>
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BIBLIOGRAPHY</div>
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BILINSKY, Y. (1962), "The Soviet Education Laws of 1958-9 and Soviet Nationality Policy", <i>Soviet Studies</i> 14/2, 138-157.</div>
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BOURDIEU, Pierre & Jean-Claude Passeron (1964), <i>Les héritiers. Les étudiants et la culture</i>, Paris, Éditions de Minuit.</div>
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BOURHIS, Richard Y. (1984), <i>Conflict and Language Planning in Quebec</i>, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters.</div>
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CARRÈRE D'ENCAUSSE, Hélène (1978), <i>L'empire éclaté</i>, Paris, Flammarion.</div>
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CORBEIL, Jean-Claude (1977), "Principes sociolinguistiques de la Charte de la langue française", <i>Langues et usage des langues</i>, Québec City, Conseil de la langue française, coll. Notes et Documents No. 50.</div>
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DUCHESNE, Louis (1973), <i>La situation des langues dans les écoles du Québec et de ses régions administratives (1969-70 à 1972-73)</i>, Québec City, Ministère de l'Éducation.</div>
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GAUTHIER, François, Jacques LECLERC & Jacques MAURAIS (forthcoming), <i>Langue et constitution</i> (provisional title).</div>
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GUESPIN, L. & J.-B. MARCELLESI (1986), "Pour la Glottopolitique", <i>Langages</i> 83, 5-34.</div>
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HAMEL, Rainer Enrique (1990), "Lenguaje y conflicto interétnico en el derecho consuetudinario y positivo" in Rodolfo Stavenhagen & Diego Iturralde (eds.), <i>El Derecho Consuetudinario Indígena en América Latina</i>, Mexico City, Instituto Indigenista Interamericano & Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, 205-230.</div>
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MALLEA, John R. (1984), "Minority Language Education in Quebec and Anglophone Canada" in Bourhis (ed.) (1984 : 222-260).</div>
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MARTÍNEZ COBO, José R. (1987), <i>Study of the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations</i>, Volume V : <i>Conclusions, Proposals and Recommendation</i>, New York, United Nations.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1989), "Language Status Planning in Québec" in Christer Laurén & Marianne Nordman (eds.), <i>Special Language : From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines</i>, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 138-149.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1990), "Les législations linguistiques soviétiques de 1989", <i>L'Action nationale</i> LXXX/10, 1439-1450.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (1991), "Les lois linguistiques soviétiques de 1989 et 1990", <i>Revista de Llengua i Dret</i> (Barcelona) 15, 75-90.</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (forthcoming a), "La situation des langues autochtones d'Amérique" in Maurais (forthcoming b).</div>
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MAURAIS, Jacques (forthcoming b), <i>Les langues autochtones du Québec</i>, Québec City, Conseil de la langue française.</div>
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MINISTÈRE DES COMMUNAUTÉS CULTURELLES ET DE L'IMMIGRATION (1990), <i>Énoncé de politique en matière d'immigration et d'intégration</i>.</div>
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PUIG, Gentil (1983), "Criteris per a una normalització lingüística democràtica a Catalunya", <i>Treballs de sociolingüística catalana</i> 5, 25-39.</div>
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RANNUT, Mart (1989), <i>O Zakone o Jazyke</i>, Tallinn, Znanie.</div>
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SAINT-GERMAIN, Claude (1980), <i>La situation linguistique dans les écoles primaires et secondaires, 1971-72 à 1978-79</i>, Québec City, Conseil de la langue française.</div>
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SOLÉ i DURANY, Joan Ramon (1990), "El Tribunal de Justícia de les Comunitats Europees es pronuncia", <i>Llengua i Administració</i> 38, p. 6.</div>
<b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span></b><span style="font-family: Courier New;"></span><b></b><b></b><i></i><i></i><i></i><b></b><b></b><b></b><b></b><u></u><u></u><u></u><u></u><u></u><u></u><b></b><b></b><br />
<div align="JUSTIFY">
STAVENHAGEN, Rodolfo (1988), <i>Derecho Indígena y Derechos Humanos en América Latina</i>, Mexico City, El Colegio de México & Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos.</div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-83205936410493260712018-02-05T11:30:00.003-05:002018-02-05T23:36:31.395-05:00Two Principles of Sociolinguistics<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I attended
many conferences during my career as a linguist. For the last ten years in
particular, I attended conferences where the issue of the valorisation of
linguistic variation was discussed, in particular the legitimisation of non-standard
varieties and the recognition of national varieties of French.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The politically
correct reasoning is always the same: all languages are equal, all linguistic
varieties are equal to each other. From a theoretical point of view, all
languages are equal, of course. But that does not mean that they enjoy equality
of status or that they have the same value on the language market:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The analysis of the world linguistic situations shows that
languages are profoundly unequal. At first they are unequal from a statistical
point of view: some are widely spoken, others not [...]. They are unequal from
a social point of view: some are dominated [...] while others dominate and
perform official, literary, cultural, international, or vehicular functions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">– Louis-Jean Calvet,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Le marché aux langues : les effets
linguistiques de la mondialisation</i>, Paris, Plon<i>, </i>2002, p. 102-103.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This inequality
does not exist only between languages, but also between varieties within the
same language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I propose
to explain the paradox of equality and inequality of languages and language varieties
through two principles inspired by English science fiction writers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">First principle<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">All
languages are equal. What one language allows to convey, another allows to convey
it just as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The fact is
well known and hardly needs demonstration. The English possessive, e.g. <i>Peter’s book</i>, is not superior to its
Latin equivalent, <i>liber Petri</i>, nor its
Hungarian counterpart, <i>Péternek a könyve</i>
[= Peter-to + the + book + possessive suffix ]. And the same holds
for dialect variation within a language: <i>me
father</i> is equivalent (in terms of denotation) to <i>my father</i> (leaving aside the issue of connotation).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I propose
to call this first principle the principle of Huxley, because it is reminiscent
of equality between human beings as is presented in the novel <i>The Brave New World</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">"All men
are physico-chemically equal," said Henry sententiously. "Besides,
even Epsilons perform indispensable services."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">– Aldous
Huxley, <i>Brave New World</i>, chap. 5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">At the
level of phonemes and morphemes, all languages and all varieties of a language
are of equal value:<i><span style="background: white; color: #222222;"> All
languages are phonetico-morphogically equal.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Besides,
even substandard varieties perform indispensable services.</span></i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Second principle<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But as
everyone knows, some languages are more equal than others. How many parents in
Sept-Îles (on the northern shore of the St. Lawrence River) would ask for their
children to be taught the language of their Montagnais (Innu) neighbours? If
further proof were needed, one need only have to have a look at the second and
foreign language education market, where the value of English far overrides that
of other languages. This inequality is based on what I propose to call the
Orwell principle:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">All animals
are equal but some animals are more equal than others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">– George
Orwell, <i>Animal Farm</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In my
<a href="http://linguistiquement-correct.blogspot.ca/2012/02/deux-principes-de-sociolinguistique.html"><span style="color: blue;">original post in French</span></a> I exemplifed the working of these two principles from the point of view of the
French linguistic market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In the media
world interpreters know very well on which side their bread is buttered and
adjust according to the audience they target. Take the example of two very
popular Quebec film actors in recent years: François Arnaud and Marc-André
Grondin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On the
Quebec language market, François Arnaud uses the Quebec standard variety of French.
On the international language market, he has a brilliant career in English (he
was Cesare in the drama television series <i>The
Borgias</i>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On the
Quebec language market, Marc-André Grondin uses the Quebec standard variety of French
in a film like <i>C.R.A.Z.Y.</i> But in
order to break into the European French language market, he needed a language
coach (by the way a current practice among opera singers): on this market,
Marc-André Grondin speaks like a Frenchman of his generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-43647780150691068602017-11-12T23:10:00.002-05:002017-11-12T23:10:52.108-05:00Puigdemont out of a double bind<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While reading the book <i>Dir la realitat</i> by sociologist and sociolinguist Catalan LLuís
Vicent Aracil I came across the concept of <i>double
bind</i> introduced by American psychologist and anthropologist Gregory Bateson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This concept of double bind refers to an impossible
choice between two paradoxical or contradictory injunctions. One cannot comply
with the first without breaking the second. The two rules are accompanied by a
third constraint that forbids going out of this situation. Without this third
constraint, it would be a mere dilemma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It reminds one of the tale of the Greek tragedy Antigone. In order
to comply with her religious obligations, Antigone must bury her brother even
if he died in a rebellion against King Creon. But the king forbids her to
perform the funeral rites. Should she obey the gods, or obey the king? Antigone
decides to fulfil her religious duty. Creon resorts to violence and condemns
her to death. As Aracil writes, in a case of double bind "one must
choose between blind and desperate violence and the fatalistic acceptance of
disorder and helplessness."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That Greek tragedy was replayed this year in Catalonia.
Madrid invoked the Constitution to prevent the Catalan Government from holding a
referendum on self-determination. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont chose to act
according to his electoral mandate, held a referendum and went on to proclaim the
Republic of Catalonia. Madrid resorted to violence in order to prevent him from
holding this referendum, sent to gaol pro-independence leaders including eight Catalan
cabinet members, suspended regional autonomy and took control of the Catalan
Government. At this stage greater violence is not to be dismissed offhandedly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In a case of double bind, what can be done?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let us listen to what Aracil tells us: "... an
insoluble problem in the immediate and narrow context proves to be soluble in
the context of the context."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the case of Catalonia, what is the context of the context?
The European Union. This explains the exile of Carles Puigdemont to Brussels. In
that way one hopes that violence will be avoided and that the issue will be raised in a new and more favourable setting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-82243925292531619312016-12-03T23:00:00.000-05:002016-12-07T09:52:45.753-05:00Revitalising Aboriginal Languages<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Last week, the
Consulate General of the United States in Quebec City invited some people
interested in the future of Aboriginal languages to a videoconference organised
by the Department of State in Washington, D.C. Two experts from the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 200%;">Smithsonian Institution</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> talked about programmes to revitalise Aboriginal languages. This was a
multiplex conference between Washington, D.C., Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec
City. It appeared during the meeting that there were listeners in other countries
as well, at least in Ivory Coast and Bolivia. I am still not sure about the
objectives of such a meeting: perhaps the organisers sought to create a new right of
interference to protect endangered languages and cultures abroad.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The experts
first presented the situation of endangered languages around the world, making
the now common comparison with the disappearance of animal and plant species.
The Breath of Life programme for language revitalisation was also presented.
Examples were given of children brought to a museum to show them pieces of
pottery and to teach them at the same time the vocabulary of the natives who
had made them. Rather a backward-looking approach to revitalise languages, I
would say. But, after all, the Smithsonian is primarily known for its museums.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">But first a
remark on a technical aspect. Images during this multiplex conference were
often blurry when they did not freeze. Not at all the quality of images that the pilots have at their disposal with remote-control drones in the <i>Homeland</i> TV series. I wondered <i>in petto</i> what it is like for the drones that
are currently sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The conference
began at 2 pm and abruptly ended at 3 pm although we had been informed that it would last an
hour and a half. This was a blessing in disguise because the Quebec City group
continued the discussion – which was more interesting, I would venture to say, than the videoconference
itself. Our group was composed of Wendat (Huron), an Abenaki, an Algonquin,
perhaps an Innu (or Montagnais as they were formerly called, here I have a memory lapse), and a few
Euro-Canadians. There were also three contributors to my book <i>Quebec’s Aboriginal Languages</i> (French
edition 1992, English edition 1996).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Few know that
the Wendat are trying to revive their language which ceased to be spoken more
than a century ago. One of them pointed out the necessity, in order to revive
the ancestral language and to use it in everyday life, to find equivalents for
words as common to us as <i>sidewalk</i> or <i>fan</i> (for this object, he argued that the
solution would be to use a term that would be equivalent to a periphrasis in English –
<i>she pushes the wind</i> – adding the
further explanation that there is a preponderance of the feminine in the Wendat
language). This intervention would seem at odds with the backward-looking (or
even purist) vision that seemed to be presented during the videoconference. For the Smithsonian expert did not address the theme of language modernisation,
an essential feature if endangered languages </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">are to be used again fully in
everyday life. Let me add here that this topic has been studied at length and extensively exemplified in the six-volume serie</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">s <i>Language Reform: History and Future</i> edited
by István Fodor and Claude Hagège (1983-1994).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">For my part I
quoted from Statistics Canada's <a href="http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-314-x/98-314-x2011003_3-eng.cfm"><span style="color: blue;">analysis</span></a> of the 2011 Census questions on
Aboriginal languages: "According to the 2011 Census, almost 213,500 people
reported an Aboriginal mother tongue and nearly 213,400 people reported
speaking an Aboriginal language most often or regularly at home". A mere
difference of only 100 between the two figures. This sentence calls for two
comments. First, it is unlikely that Aboriginal languages </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">do not show linguistic
assimilation. Secondly there is no mention of linguistic assimilation as such.
On the contrary, it is suggested that English or French speakers would switch
to Aboriginal languages: "In 2011, almost 213,400 people reported speaking
an Aboriginal language at home. While 82.2% of them reported that same
Aboriginal language as their mother tongue, the other 17.8% reported a
different language, such as English or French, as mother tongue". These
data are astonishing in the light of the <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">situation prior to 2011. Here is what Louis-Jacques Dorais wrote in
my book <i>Les langues autochtones du Québec</i>
(published in 1992; at that time, the 1991 census data were not yet available):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The comparison between mother tongue and home language
makes it possible to calculate the conservation rate of Aboriginal languages (home
language / mother tongue). In 1971, this rate was 85.4% among Aboriginals
in Quebec. This means that of all Aboriginal speakers, 83.8% spoke their
ancestral language at home, 14.7% spoke English, 1.3% spoke French, and 0.2%
spoke another language (Bernèche and Normandeau, 1983). The linguistic
transfers from Aboriginal languages were therefore massively towards English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In 1986, the conservation rate of Aboriginal languages
(excluding Mohawk) was 95.8%, a figure probably close to that of 1971. That same
year, the rate of conservation of Aboriginal languages spoken outside the
Montreal area was estimated at 94%. It is also probable that in 1986 linguistic
transfers continued to be directed mainly towards English, but probably to a
somewhat lesser extent than in 1971, the influence of French having then
increased slightly in Aboriginal communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Among the Inuit, the Inuktitut conservation rate was
98.6% in 1986, probably the same as in 1981. Few transfers were registered, mainly
to English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Demographers
should therefore undertake serious analyses of the 2011 census data on
Aboriginal languages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-71167568297758611892016-11-08T10:12:00.001-05:002016-11-08T10:47:18.810-05:00Presence of French on Store Fronts and Language Attrition<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This interesting comment on my preceding post, from
That Nerdy Girl Who Is Skinny, seems to have mysteriously disappeared. I hereby
reproduce it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The prominence of French takes another degree of
importance when the process of language attrition is taken into account.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Language attrition happens when a speaker
becomes more exposed to a language than another or certain words over others.
Eventually, the most used language and vocabulary starts affecting the use of
the lesser used languages and vocabulary by causing word retrieval problems and
structural changes. This happens because the brain is plastic and reorganizes
itself to make the most used language and vocabulary easier to access. This
happens at the cost of making the lesser used languages and vocabulary harder to
access. Language attrition, like language acquisition, is a matter of
EXPOSITION and USE.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">L1 attrition is often seen in bi(tri,
etc)linguals and especially in people who move abroad and don't get to use
their L1 often.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The most blatant manifestation of language
attrition we can see here is Frenglish speakers. Next time you converse with a
Frenglish speaker, ask them to redo the whole sentence in French and watch them
struggle to retrieve the proper words even though French is their L1. Frenglish
speakers foster Frenglish speakers by increasing and solidifying the EXPOSITION
and the USE of English words over their French counterpart. That's aside from
the fact that the rules of communication dictate that to be understood, 2
people have to use the same code, which encourages further the use of Frenglish
among Frenglish speakers. That's why, dozens of years later, we still use English
terminology for all things mechanic and tools. It has become harder to
understand what people refer to when they use the French terminology for those
things. Again, a matter of exposition.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Over generations, this causes permanent language
loss.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 35.4pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So where does French prominence on signs come
into play? It's about exposition. French prominence on signs ensures that
French is the language the most readily seen and as such, increases the chances
that it will be the one used. People want a name for things, they will pick the
first thing they see, because people are lazy. That's how we got English
speakers to use "Dépanneur" over "Convenience store" ;)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> – That
Nerdy Girl Who Is Skinny<o:p></o:p></span></div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-54286452243195347382016-11-06T10:06:00.000-05:002016-11-06T10:47:20.759-05:00Ups and Downs of English in Montreal<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The issue of
English increasing its presence on commercial signs in the Montreal area has
come periodically to the forefront. French lobbies have been active in filing
complaints with the OQLF. In 2009-10, 39.1% of the complaints filed at the OQLF
dealt with the language of commercial signs, up from 26.4% in 2008-09 (OQLF,
2010: 70) and 10.5% in 2006-2007 (OQLF, 2007: XIII).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A series of
reports on the language of commercial signs in Montreal made public by the OQLF
on 1 June 2012 went almost unnoticed, since it was released in the wake of
massive student protests and social unrest. It should not come as a surprise
that these reports were published at a time when they would pass almost unnoticed.
For indeed their findings tend to confirm the apprehensions of those complaining
that English is coming back in force in the Montreal area (see testimonies
posted on French language advocacy sites such as vigile.net and imperatif-francais.org).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">According to
this 2012 report, in 1997 and 2010 French was present on respectively 96% and
94% of business names and signs; this means a slight decrease of the presence
of French on commercial signs in the whole Montreal area from 1997 to 2010 and
it is statistically significant (OQLF, 2012b: 39). In 2010 some 82% of signs
posted on shops and businesses were in French only, some 3% were bilingual but
with a marked predominance given to French. The OQLF report acknowledges that
French is indeed predominant in the linguistic landscape of Montreal; and in
some areas it is even the only language used on commercial signs (OQLF, 2012b:
41). However in the West Island area 11% of commercial signs have no French
wording (OQLF, 2012b: 44).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The OQLF report
also concludes that English is “stable” on commercial signs though its presence
went down from 43% in 1997 to 41% in 2010 (OQLF, 2012b: 9-10). The statement
that the presence of English is stable is dubious and even misleading
considering that from 43% in 1997 it went up to 49% in 1999 and then down to
41% in 2010. The figures rather show that English is far from being stable and
suggest that it might indeed be retreating. These figures are not concealed but
the report prefers to play down this potential decrease of English on
commercial signs. Such behaviour is puzzling and one may wonder why the OQLF
prefers not to highlight this relative decrease in the presence of English in a
context where this agency is frequently reproached to be weak in its defence of
French. The explanation for this behaviour might be that it was not socially and
politically acceptable to suggest that English might be less present on
commercial signage. Especially at a time when the linguistic insecurity of
French-speaking Montrealers ran high and when other reports published
simultaneously attested to a decrease in the use of French (see my <a href="http://linguistically-correct.blogspot.ca/2016/03/bonjour-hi.html"><span style="color: blue;">post on the use of French</span></a> in attending customers in shops and retail stores). Moreover it
should be reminded that the report was published in a pre-electoral climate
(elections were called a few weeks later on 1 August 2012) and that English
speakers and more generally people who do not have French as their native
language constitute the hard core of the Quebec Liberal Party electorate (so
much so that political opinion poll data are regularly disaggregated between
native speakers of French and native speakers of all other languages). It
should therefore not come as a surprise that the then Liberal government (and the sovereignist Official Opposition) would choose to play down this relative
decrease in the use of English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The 2010 survey
was updated in 2012 but only for a section of downtown Montreal (St.-Catherine
Street between Papineau and Atwater). The scope of this new survey was
restricted to business names. The OQLF found that 81.7% of businesses complied with
the requirements of Bill 101 while 18.3% did not (OQLF, 2012c: 25). But
according to a survey made the same year by Radio-Canada in the same section of
downtown Montreal and with the same target, more than 25% of business names did
not comply with Bill 101 (Faits et Causes, 2012). It is reasonable to assume
that the figures given by the OQLF survey are more accurate owing to the agency
legal expertise, whereas the Radio-Canada findings would be more consistent
with popular feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">_________</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For
references, see preceding posts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-91278510157878606102016-05-03T08:47:00.001-04:002016-05-03T08:47:56.354-04:00The Language of Commercial Signs<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The language of
commercial signs, or more exactly the place of French on commercial signs, is
an issue that has been rampant since at least the 1960’s. From 1977 when Bill
101 was passed till 1993, French was the only language to be used on commercial
signs (there were exceptions for signs advertizing cultural activities, for
ethnic shops, for political or religious messages, etc., see Maurais 1989:
146). This French-only policy was deemed necessary because it was to symbolize,
in the eyes of all, that linguistic change was under way and that French was
regaining ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">These
provisions were challenged before the courts and in 1993 Québec’s National
Assembly passed a new law allowing for bilingual (or multilingual) commercial
signs provided that French was given a marked predominance. This concept of a
marked predominance of French was suggested and approved of by the Supreme
Court of Canada in its 1988 ruling though it did not define it. Neither did the
law passed in 1993, which simply states that “Public signs and posters and commercial
advertising must be in French. They may also be both in French and in another
language provided that French is markedly predominant [...]” (section 58 of
R.S.Q., chapter C-11; 1993, c. 40, s. 18). In practice French is deemed
markedly predominant when messages in French are twice as numerous or written
in characters twice as large as in any other language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The issue of
English increasing its presence on commercial signs in the Montreal area has
come periodically to the forefront. French lobbies have been active in filing
complaints with the OQLF. In 2009-10, 39.1 % of the complaints filed at the
OQLF dealt with the language of commercial signs, up from 26.4 % in 2008-09
(OQLF, 2010: 70) and 10.5% in 2006-2007 (OQLF, 2007: XIII).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">To be continued… </span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maurais 1989 = Maurais,
Jacques (1989), Language Status Planning in Quebec. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In Christer Laurén and Marianne Nordman (eds.), <i>Special Language:
From Humans Thinking to Thinking Machines</i>. Clevedon UK and Philadelphia
USA: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 138-149.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">OQLF, 2007 = Office
québécois de la langue française (OQLF) (2007), <i>Rapport annuel de gestion
2006-2007. </i>Montreal: Office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">OQLF, 2010 = Office
québécois de la langue française (OQLF) (2010), <i>Rapport annuel de gestion
2009-2010. </i>Montreal: Office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-83077906215261497682016-04-01T09:40:00.001-04:002016-04-03T08:22:14.450-04:00Some Thoughts on Language Politics and Regional Integration<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizX0L0dv_1x9Lla5LhLOhqP8ldriP8ERPrrKFhjisohpSKFjfhyphenhyphenfpo6GtyVgkMGxiQk4re8w-yi9h42uaMVNSh0akfzFatrYbSGiIbxoHoMPAMOHrbZykV-DdsUUz0-Qk6T8nZNJ9wo4Ka/s1600/morris+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizX0L0dv_1x9Lla5LhLOhqP8ldriP8ERPrrKFhjisohpSKFjfhyphenhyphenfpo6GtyVgkMGxiQk4re8w-yi9h42uaMVNSh0akfzFatrYbSGiIbxoHoMPAMOHrbZykV-DdsUUz0-Qk6T8nZNJ9wo4Ka/s320/morris+cover.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Michael A. Morris,
emeritus professor at Clemson University (South Carolina), has recently
published </span></b><b><i><span lang="EN-CA">Language Politics of Regional Integration: Cases from the Americas</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-CA"> (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016).</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In a world globalising across boundaries and cultures,
where economic interdependence increases dramatically, languages may come to be
seen as non-tariff barriers to free-trade flow. Assessments need to be made of
the measures taken by various states and/or implemented through particular
free-trade treaties to manage (be it implicitly or covertly) the relationships
between the de facto imperial lingua franca and various national languages not
to mention aboriginal languages. Economic forces and, it must be added, also
military alliances and intelligence networks (like the so-called Echelon or
Five Eyes network which includes only English-speaking states) promote the
dominance of English. Inevitably tensions and conflicts arise at various levels
and they need be analysed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In his book Michael A. Morris sets out to rate a
number of cases of language politics in the Americas with the help of a
multi-level analysis. He compares various North and South American groupings
and whenever possible introduces parallels with extra-American groupings (in
particular the European Union). His aim is to provide a conciliatory strategy
allowing consensus to be forged and tensions lessened. His book is a tool that
could help reduce or solve problems arising from a hegemonic lifestyle imposed
at the expense of biodiversity and cultural diversity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Whereas a country like Canada imposes Canadian content
quotas on cultural productions (and quotas on the use of French songs on
radio), one should be reminded that cultural protectionism is not exclusive to
Canada: the US practice of film remakes is a clear example of cultural
protectionism favouring the Hollywood film industry. This instance of a covert
cultural and linguistic policy shows a lack of respect for cultural diversity.
In most countries films in foreign languages are either dubbed or subtitled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">But even greater social forces are at play and
jeopardise the promotion of various national languages or even the preservation
of most aboriginal languages in a context where parents tend to see the use of
the ancestral tongue as hindering social upward mobility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-2300250580586189592016-03-28T07:27:00.002-04:002016-03-28T07:42:10.068-04:00Bonjour! Hi!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Language Used in Greeting Customers in Shops and Retail
Stores</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #4f81bd; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In 2010 the OQLF (Office
québécois de la langue française) carried on a survey in downtown Montreal on the
language in which customers were greeted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This survey was
replicated in 2012 but on a smaller scale. Its scope was restricted to downtown
St.-Catherine Street (between Papineau and Atwater).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Results show a significant
decrease over a two-year period in the use of French as the only language to greet
customers in shops and retail stores, from 89% in 2010 down to 73% in 2012.
Curiously enough, this finding is not mentioned in the summary published by the
OQLF (OQLF, 2012a: 5 where the figure given is 74% for 2012 and the 2010 figure
is omitted).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">There is a
corresponding increase in the use of bilingual greetings from 1% in 2010 up to
14% 2012. However there was no difference in the impossibility to get services
in French over this two-year period (OQLF, 2012b: 16 and 22). These findings
lend weight to the popular perception that the overall use of French in
Montreal is indeed decreasing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">OQLF, 2012a, <i>Bilan
de l’évolution de la situation linguistique au Québec, Langue du commerce et
des affaires, Faits saillants</i>. Montreal: Office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">OQLF, 2012b, <i>La
langue d’accueil, de service et d’affichage des noms d’entreprise des commerces
de détail du centre-ville de Montréal en 2012 selon les observations. </i>Montreal:
Office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-6834963248578919192016-03-09T09:34:00.000-05:002016-03-10T15:38:09.339-05:00Dangerous Liaisons at Downton Abbey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUscIzpFhHtHDFKruCBBLBFm9bCiaJNM9FtrJSIM4S-Z9q4N-uGc1-_b_8sURzqDDF2_0u2jwPgRXbfQv9TVNoQRJ4j2MflzN_abDUJZ6N83g9sgRvT33nL1QjshDJbozm0sEFMpF0THKs/s1600/downton-abbey-mary-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUscIzpFhHtHDFKruCBBLBFm9bCiaJNM9FtrJSIM4S-Z9q4N-uGc1-_b_8sURzqDDF2_0u2jwPgRXbfQv9TVNoQRJ4j2MflzN_abDUJZ6N83g9sgRvT33nL1QjshDJbozm0sEFMpF0THKs/s320/downton-abbey-mary-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;"> –This text was first <a href="http://linguistiquement-correct.blogspot.ca/2014/02/dangereuses-liaisons.html"><span style="color: blue;">published in French</span></a> on 21 February 2014 –<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">In
one episode of season 4 of <i>Downton Abbey</i>,
Lady Mary is heard to say: “papa r’and mama”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">This
kind of linking phenomenon is called “intrusive R”. It appears after the vowels
/</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "ms mincho"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">ɑ</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">:/, /ə/ or /</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "ms mincho"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">ɔ</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">:/ when followed by a word beginning with
a vowel sound:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">China <sup>r</sup>and India<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">law <sup>r</sup>and order<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">pasta <sup>r</sup>and sauce<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">This
linking R can even be heard within a word between a root morpheme and a suffix
as in <i>draw<sup>r</sup>ing room</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">This
kind of sandhi is a characteristic of Estuary English, the variety of English
spoken along the Thames river and estuary though it reaches beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">It
seems that intrusive R comes from the popular speech of London. Here is Márton
Sóskuthy’s conclusion of his synthesis on the emergence of intrusive R:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">All sources from before 1870 describe the
phenomenon as a vulgar feature of Cockney pronunciation that should be avoided,
as opposed to sources from around the turn of the 20th century, which all admit
that it is present even in the pronunciation of educated speakers, and take a
much less negative attitude towards it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">According
to sociolinguist <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/trudgill.htm"><span style="color: blue;">Peter Trudgill</span></a>, intrusive R is now part of standard English
pronunciation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">A
similar phenomenon exists in Quebec French, especially as spoken in Montreal: it
is intrusive L, as in <i>ça l’arrive souvent</i>.
According to linguist <a href="http://www.erudit.org/revue/rql/1982/v11/n2/602486ar.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">Yves-Charles Morin</span></a> who published a study on linking L the
frequency of non etymological L’s might depend on social class (this
pronunciation might be heard more frequently in impoverished neighbourhoods)
and perhaps also on age and geographical origin (this pronunciation seems to be
peculiar to Montreal French, at least it seems to have started there).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">In
Quebec French intrusive L is stigmatised whereas in British English intrusive R
is now considered standard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-19626151761869514072016-03-01T08:02:00.000-05:002016-03-01T09:14:04.179-05:00Which Standard Language for Quebec?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The “Quality of Language” Issue (Corpus Planning)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Charter of
the French Language stipulates that French is the official language of Quebec
(section 1). But it says nothing about which variety of French should form the
basis of its norm. It has been commonly assumed that it was the variety
described in the most commonly used dictionaries and grammars (former deputy minister Jean-Claude
Corbeil, personal communication). At the time the Official Language Law (1972)
and the Charter of the French Language (1977) were passed, this meant
essentially dictionaries and grammars made by Europeans and published in Europe
(Commission des états généraux, 2001: 81). In litigious cases where there was
no consensus on which term was to be used in French or when there was no
agreement on what the proper translation was for an English term or phrase,
Quebec’s language agency, the Régie de la langue française (the name of the
language agency from 1972 to 1977</span><span lang="EN-GB">),</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> explained in 1976
(Régie, 1976: 9) that it was empowered by the law to officialise a French
equivalent and make its use compulsory in certain circumstances (in state
documents, in public advertising, in textbooks, etc.).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Nevertheless allowing
French to become Quebec’s official, common, and working language has meant an
increased preoccupation with social and regional variation. A debate developed
on which kind of French should be the official one: was it to be the
international standard historically based on Parisian French but increasingly
tolerant of local peculiarities (as evidenced by the introduction of many
‘Belgicisms’, ‘Quebecisms’, ‘Africanisms’, etc., in the major dictionaries
published in Paris)? Or was Quebec to establish its own standard variety placed
at the pinnacle of a series of hierarchised colloquial registers (as proposed
by the Conseil de la langue française, 1990: 30 and 50 and in various papers by
Cajolet-Laganière and Martel, e.g. 1996)?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For those
adhering to the second proposal, Quebec French is considered as an autonomous
language variety possessing its own standard, a standard that is said to
reflect the linguistic uses of the new French-speaking middle class, which
arose after World War II (Gendron, 1986). As linguist Jean-Denis Gendron (1986:
95) adds, this new predominant linguistic standard appears in public and
official discourses, both spoken and written. In 1990, the Conseil de la langue
française proposed to launch a comprehensive description of Quebec French uses
(at times abbreviated as... FUQ ‘français en usage au Québec’), including
standard uses. This led to the creation of the Franqus project based at the
Université de Sherbrooke; the project has received substantial funding from the
state (more than $3 M as of 2005, cf. Meney, 2005).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Others propose
to view the linguistic situation of Quebec as diglossical (e.g. Lamonde, 1998:
96-103; Barbaud, 1998; Maurais, 2008a, chapter 1; Meney, 2010). Typically,
diglossia means a situation where two language varieties are in contact, each
of them having certain spheres of social interaction assigned to it. The
relationship between the two language varieties is hierarchical: one has high, the
other has low prestige. According to this view, the high variety in Quebec
would be ‘international French’, used for example in official, commercial, and
scientific communications, while the low variety would be Quebec colloquial
French used mainly but not exclusively in non formal circumstances (see the
discussion by Meney, 2010: 102-122, esp. p. 106). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There is
therefore a two-fold division on the topic of which linguistic norm should be
favoured: on the one hand, those who hold that international standard French
should be the variety taught in schools; on the other hand, ‘endogenists’ who
propose that Quebec should officialise its own linguistic norm. ‘Endogenists’
have maintained for years that there is a consensus among Quebec linguists and
the general public on an endo-normative standard (e.g. Commission des états
généraux, 2001: 84 and Conseil de la langue française, 1990).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A proposal was
sent to the 2008 sovereignist Parti québécois convention asking that ‘the
teaching of French should be reoriented toward the acquisition of spoken and
written standard Quebec French’ (quoted by Paquot, 2009). Linguist Annette
Paquot intervened in the media before the proposal was discussed at the
convention (Paquot, 2008). She pointed out that the proposed new standard
differs only marginally from the established international norm (mainly easily
understandable lexical items) and that even supporters of this new standard
write their books and publish their papers in international standard French (Paquot,
2008 and 2009). The Parti Québécois convention finally made no move since
promoting a new language standard in schools was clearly not supported by
public opinion (this is of course reminiscent of the ‘Oakland Ebonics
controversy’ in the USA).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The rejection
of the proposal on standard Quebec French by the 2008 Parti Québécois
convention shows that there is obviously no consensus on the adoption of an
endo-normative standard in the public at large. Moreover many prominent
linguists (e.g. Barbaud, Meney, Nemni, Paquot) disagree on the existence of the
consensus peremptorily proclaimed in some official reports. Admittedly the
opponents just mentioned are foreign-born but many native Quebecers also
discourage the establishment of a local norm (for instance opinion leaders
Lysiane Gagnon at the daily <i>La Presse</i>
and Denise Bombardier at <i>Le Devoir</i>).
Also, this raises the issue of the discrimination that a new standard could
bring to immigrant citizens, a great number</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">of whom are selected by the Department of Immigration
on the criterion that they already have a working knowledge of French – a
knowledge usually acquired abroad at school where the only variety of French
taught is ‘international French’. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This argument was developed by Maurais
(2008b) who advised choosing the standard that would create the least
discrimination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The absence of
a consensus on a new local linguistic norm is also evidenced by the results of
opinion polls: in surveys done in 1998 and 2004 about half the respondents felt
that they spoke Québécois while the other half felt that they spoke French
(Maurais, 2008a: 19).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On the basis
of the opinion poll results published by Maurais (2008a), it has been argued by
Paquot (2009) and by Meney (2010) that if there is at all a consensus on the
linguistic variety to be taught in Quebec’s schools, it does not tend to
support the claim made by the proponents of an autonomous norm. Quite the
reverse: 76.8% of respondents (all native French-speakers born in Quebec) think
that international French should be the standard variety taught in schools
while 88.3% think that it is advisable that reference books used in schools
(such as grammars and dictionaries) should be the same in all French-speaking
countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span class="systrantokenword"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Despite the above</span></span><span class="systrantokenpunctuation"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">,</span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></span><span class="systrantokenword"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">the</span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></span><span class="systrantokenword"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">OQLF’s <i>Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique</i> (Grand Terminological Dictionary,
hereafter GDT)</span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">has maintained its new orientation adopted in the early 2000's, which
favours </span><span class="systrantokennumeric"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">the acceptance of colloquial words (including loan-words and loan-translations)</span></span><span class="systrantokenpunctuation"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The GDT merely tags
them with the label “langue courante”,</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">but this is not done
systematically. This approach, in its core more lexicographical than
terminological, was denounced in a manifesto by 19 former OQLF’s
terminologists. These terminologists were supported by more than a hundred
other terminologists, translators and copy-editors (Manifesto, 2011; for a
critical assessment of the GDT, see Meney, 2010: 405-443).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">All in all,
the debate over which variety of French should prevail still goes on but
supporters of ‘international French’ have made headway and the former
chairperson of the Conseil supérieur de la langue française Conrad Ouellon
declared his preference for international French (CSLF, 2010: 2).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">_______<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Bibliography</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Barbaud, Philippe
(1998), Dissidence du français québécois et évolution dialectale. <i>Revue québécoise
de linguistique </i>26/2, 107-128.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cajolet-Laganière,
Hélène and Pierre Martel (1996), <i>Le français québécois: usages, standard et
aménagement. </i>Quebec City: Presses de l’Université Laval and Institut québécois
de recherche sur la culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Commission
des états généraux (2001),<i> Le français, une langue pour tout le monde.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Conseil de la
langue française (1990),<i> L’aménagement de la langue: pour une description du
français québécois. </i>Quebec City: Conseil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">CSLF (Conseil
supérieur de la langue française) (2010),<i> Rapport annuel de gestion 2009-<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2010</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.
Quebec City: Conseil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gendron, Jean-Denis
(1986), Aperçu historique sur le développement de la conscience linguistique
des Québécois, <i>Québec français </i>61, 82-89.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Lamonde, Diane (1998),
<i>Le maquignon et son joual, l’aménagement du français québécois</i>. Montreal:
Liber.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="systranseg"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Manifesto (2011):</span></span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Au-delà des
mots, les termes</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
<i>Le Devoir</i>, 12 February 2011 and <i>Le Soleil</i>’s online edition, 14
February 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maurais, Jacques
(2008a),<i><span style="color: #222222;"> Les Québécois et la norme, l’évaluation
par les Québécois de leurs usages linguistiques</span></i><span style="color: #222222;">. Montreal: Office québécois de la langue française.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maurais, Jacques (2008b),</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Le
français correct plutôt que le français québécois, <i>Le Soleil</i>, Quebec City,
1 November 2008.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Meney, Lionel (2005), Un autre dictionnaire québécois, pourquoi?
<i>Le Devoir</i>, 7 January 2005.</span><span class="systranseg"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span class="systranseg"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Meney, Lionel
(2010),</span></span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Main basse sur la langue</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, Montreal: Liber.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paquot, Annette (2008),
Non à la ‘langue québécoise standard’, <i>Le Devoir</i>, Montreal, 12 March
2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paquot, Annette
(2009), Pourquoi notre langue doit rester le français international, <i>Argument
</i>11/1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Régie de la
langue française (1976),<i> La normalisation terminologique</i>. Montreal: Official
Printer of Quebec.<span class="systranseg"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-90987018140112383462016-02-12T06:37:00.000-05:002016-02-12T06:45:44.677-05:005th Anniversary of a Manifesto<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">On 12 February 2011 the Montreal-based daily newspaper
<i>Le Devoir</i> published a manifesto
written by nine former terminologists at the Office québécois de la langue
française (OQLF, <i>French Language Bureau</i>). In the following days the first</span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> signers were joined by ten other former OQLF’s terminologists. They were
eventually supported by more than a hundred other terminologists, translators
and copy-editors.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This manifesto denounced the OQLF’s new orientation
adopted in the early 2000’s and favouring acceptance</span><span class="systrantokennumeric"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></span><span class="systrantokennumeric"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">of loan-words and
loan-translations over proper standard terms already in use in French. The
joint signers argued that the new approach is </span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">in its core more lexicographical
than terminological. They complained that the OQLF had given up its time-proven
methodology. They also questioned the appearance in a terminological dictionary
</span></span><span class="systrantokennumeric"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">of colloquial words; it could be added that the tag “langue
courante” – colloquial language –, already an oddity in such a specialised work, is not even systematically appended
to them.</span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Five years later, the OQLF has not
modified its approach. </span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Its terminological dictionary (GDT, <i>Grand
Dictionnaire Terminologique</i>) </span></span><span class="systranseg"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">continues to propose loan-translations that have </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">long</span><span class="systranseg" style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> been criticised,
for example these word-for-word translations from English: </span></span><i style="line-height: 200%;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">comptoir
de cuisine</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> (< kitchen
countertop, instead of <i>plan de travail</i>),
<i>glace noire</i> (< black ice,
instead of <i>verglas</i>), etc.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Compared with the GDT, Google’s automatic translator
would appear almost as reliable, providing at times the same word-for-word
translations, as evidenced by these examples:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8avhELtR5AU4Grmt8GwPBVeCa2tyd_ygcBbJW9KubbBKFv2GlVqjTK4i8cTIRo1Xzq8nZtWsQw31j15ICLdCaIIMm8ZcUIykPtsIGOWbxVkk1sQtOSDBjKVgWHFCs_LT7LYoRQwsRf-G/s1600/kitchen+countertop+Google.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8avhELtR5AU4Grmt8GwPBVeCa2tyd_ygcBbJW9KubbBKFv2GlVqjTK4i8cTIRo1Xzq8nZtWsQw31j15ICLdCaIIMm8ZcUIykPtsIGOWbxVkk1sQtOSDBjKVgWHFCs_LT7LYoRQwsRf-G/s320/kitchen+countertop+Google.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRbkyH_J5ZqdDm_mXMs-zOStheIRalswWEvO7rbEO64_NPfPo49ACwJMJ-uK3g99lq61Wut8TDJ6VyD6tSoD54FM_R86waUPK1eMJTjwfASWXPHybsRQrHaANqQ8iHmWEmlLv1VN2jYIkL/s1600/black+ice+Google.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRbkyH_J5ZqdDm_mXMs-zOStheIRalswWEvO7rbEO64_NPfPo49ACwJMJ-uK3g99lq61Wut8TDJ6VyD6tSoD54FM_R86waUPK1eMJTjwfASWXPHybsRQrHaANqQ8iHmWEmlLv1VN2jYIkL/s320/black+ice+Google.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In the latter case, Google’s automatic translator is
even more reliable than the GDT. Besides the word-for-word translation of </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">black ice</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> as </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">glace noire</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">, it suggests the standard word </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">verglas</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjo4B4LPJUGCU-oja7U_fSP_ju2huL6ipI9aBmZYbhzcErqQhW6JjbHFn0ToelzLUXMVE2F7QpXX8eiiNo0g-p-XaXO7o0d9owM_Tjw-w0nRzx174u-Ebb0cJyk3YMgrUz5B73rxO_DpU/s1600/black+ice+Google+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjo4B4LPJUGCU-oja7U_fSP_ju2huL6ipI9aBmZYbhzcErqQhW6JjbHFn0ToelzLUXMVE2F7QpXX8eiiNo0g-p-XaXO7o0d9owM_Tjw-w0nRzx174u-Ebb0cJyk3YMgrUz5B73rxO_DpU/s1600/black+ice+Google+2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">As a matter of fact, over the years the OQLF chose to
correct only the most obvious spelling or grammatical mistakes that have been
pointed out to them. That is indeed the least that could be expected from
Quebec’s language watch dog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-69501054080572335752016-02-04T06:40:00.000-05:002016-02-04T06:40:14.849-05:00Cause Célèbre, or just one more petty case of mean Québec bashing?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b>On
21 December 2015 Toronto’s <i>Globe and Mail</i>
published an editorial that is ultimately another example of Quebec bashing, be
it soft bashing in this case. It ridiculed the proposal made by a French
language defence group, ASULF, to pronounce <i>à
la française</i> initials used in proper nouns, asking for instance the
initials in P.K. Subban’s name to be pronounced Pay Ka, not Pee Kay.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><b>Here
are some passages of this editorial followed by the reply made by ASULF founder
and former president. This reply has still not been published by the sheet that
prides itself as being Canada’s national daily newspaper.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="selectionshareable" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">Last week’s
linguistic <em>cause célèbre</em> surrounding the pronunciation of the name of
a Montreal Canadiens hockey player is not exactly a scandal. No one is calling
it Subbangate. But it is still instructive about the absurdities of Quebec’s
language-law regime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="selectionshareable" jquery17202582863007423222="12" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">The hockey player in question is P.K. Subban,
the all-star defenceman known to everyone as “Pee-kay” – the English
pronunciation of his initials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">[...]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="selectionshareable" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">The Association
pour le soutien et l’usage de la langue française (ASULF) wrote a letter to
French-language sports commentators asking that they start pronouncing Mr.
Subban’s initials based on the French alphabet. In other words, Pee-kay becomes
Pay-ka.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="selectionshareable" jquery17202582863007423222="14" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">ASULF framed its request as constructive
criticism. We’d call it a publicity stunt, something groups like ASULF pull
when Quebec’s language wars fall too quiet for their liking. It’s a neat trick
singling out Mr. Subban, too, because he is immensely popular in Montreal and
any story involving him gets good play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="selectionshareable" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">But,
really? Mr. Subban’s name is P.K. If it was Peter, would ASULF insist he be
called Pierre?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="selectionshareable" jquery17202582863007423222="16" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 70.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA">And what are we getting at here, anyway? The
mispronunciation of the French, English, Russian, Swedish, Czech and Finnish
names of NHL hockey players is as Canadian as wheat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b>*
* *</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 261.0pt 269.35pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The Editor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 261.0pt 269.35pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">The Globe and Mail<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 261.0pt 269.35pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">444 Front St. West <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 261.0pt 269.35pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Toronto, ON M5V 2S9<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 78.0pt 261.0pt 269.35pt; text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;">Re : Pay Ka and Pee Kay SUBBAN<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 78.0pt 219.75pt 261.0pt 269.35pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 78.0pt 219.75pt 261.0pt 269.35pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="LetArial11" style="line-height: 150%;">
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Dear Sir:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A friend of mine sent to me a few days ago
your editorial dated December 20th, 2015 concerning P.K. Subban. So, I am
a little bit late to send my comments on your article. Nevertheless, I think it
worthwhile writing now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What a surprise! A great Canadian
newspaper of Toronto (imitating The Montreal Gazette?) is asking the question :
“P.K. Subban: Is that Pee-kay? Pay-Ka? Pfft.” How comes such a question?
Everybody who speaks English says Pee-Kay. There is no reason at all to
question this usual pronunciation in English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To have an answer, we must read your
article. We discover, after a few lines, that it is an ordinary invitation,
made by the ASULF to the French-speaking population, to pronounce in French the
abbreviation (two letters of the alphabet) of the first names Pernell Karl,
when they speak that language. Curiously, this invitation addressed to the
French-speaking community has become a subject of scandal and mockery in some
English medias with an aggressive tone against the nationalists in Québec.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Frankly, we cannot conceive that you blame
our association for having invited the French community to pronounce the
letters of their own alphabet according to the common practice in French. Are
you going to tell us how to speak French? It would be the height of absurdity.
Is there a hidden motive to explain such aggressiveness? Moreover, did you
really think that your readership was interested by such a subject?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I hope that you would have never written
such a caustic editorial and ridiculed our group in a great newspaper like
yours, had you been well-informed about the objective of our association
founded 30 years ago, its means of action and the nature of its suggestion
concerning the initials of Mr. Subban. I would bet that your Montreal
correspondent had never seen or heard the word ASULF before. Here are some
pertinent facts for your information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First of all, our association is the only
one whose sole objective is the promotion of a French language of quality. It
has nothing to do with the defense of the legal status of that language. Some
other groups do that. If you read the enclosed leaflet, you will see that this
fact was recognized by the Conseil supérieur de la langue française. Moreover,
if you cast a look on our main interventions in the past, you will see that
they have absolutely nothing to do with the English language or the English-speaking
people. They concern the quality of the French language spoken or written in
our community, period. So, our recent suggestion is not “instructive about the
absurdities of Québec’s language-law regime”, as you write.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I also point out that Asulf is not “one
French-language rights group” as you write, because our association deals with
quality (linguistics) and not rights (politics). Is it clear? So, our message
was not “a publicity stunt”, as you write, but a “constructive criticism”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At the beginning of our association in
1986, there were still few people in some parts of Canada arguing that the
Quebecois did not speak pure French, but something close to a dialect. It was a
poor excuse for them not to learn our uninteresting idiom. The objective of our
association was then very pertinent. You agree?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even if it means repeating myself, I
invite you to remember the difference between the pronunciation of a name and
the pronunciation of the abbreviation of that name represented by a letter of
the alphabet. When we criticize the pronunciation of Pee and Kay in French, we
are aiming at two letters of the alphabet and not the names behind these
letters. According to our point of view, Mr. Subban having not been
informed correctly by the English-speaking medias, we wrote to him on that
question. A copy of that letter is enclosed, it could help you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You wonder on what would be the answer of
Asulf if Subban was named Peter. Would it be Pierre? Not at all. You are asking
that question after having written that “Mr. Subban’s name is P.K.” What a
confusion! P.K. is not a name, it is the abbreviation of two first names. Now,
to answer your question, we would say logically Peter like we say Pernell, but
we would pronounce, in French, Pay for the letter P. in both cases. It’s so
simple!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While ending this letter, I am thinking a
moment to the leader of the Opposition in Québec, Pierre Karl Péladeau. If you
call him Pee-Kay, I won’t tell you what to say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-tab-span"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yours
truly,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-tab-span"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">RA/ac <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-tab-span"> </span>Robert AUCLAIR <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">c.c.<span class="apple-tab-span"> </span>Letter to Mr. Subban <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-tab-span"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Leaflet Asulf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-940565802660337510.post-60498711952714186932016-02-03T09:57:00.000-05:002016-02-03T10:02:50.555-05:00Presentation<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">In this blog I aim to fight against some misconceptions about language,
especially stereotypes concerning French in Quebec, its status and how it is
spoken.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">My inspiration stems from two sources:
firstly Geoffrey K. Pullum, a professor at Edinburgh University whose language
chronicles were collected in 1991 in the book <i>The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, and Other Irreverent Essays on the
Study of Language</i> (University of Chicago Press).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">The name of my blog – Linguistically
Correct </span><span style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 40px;">–</span><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;"> reveals my second source of inspiration, Jean Sévilla’s book </span><i style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">Historiquement correct, Pour en finir avec
le passé unique</i><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">; that is: Historically Correct, To get over with one-sided
visions of past (Paris, Perrin, 2003).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 200%;">Posts will be uploaded on an irregular
basis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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J Mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05889943749462006552noreply@blogger.com0