Quebec’s new language dynamic

French fading fast

Charles Castonguay | University of Ottawa

Census data are used to monitor the efficiency of Bill 101 in reorienting language shift more favourably for French. Immigration from former French colonies or Romance-language countries is shown to be the major factor driving the increase in the share of French in the assimilation of Allophones since 1991. The schooling provisions of Bill 101 are seen to play a significant supporting role in this respect, but not those promoting French as language of work. It is further shown that the corresponding trend towards a greater share for French in overall assimilation has become seriously compromised by a growing Anglicization of Francophones themselves, notably in the Montreal metropolitan area. The resulting consolidation of the superiority of English as language of assimilation in Quebec is seen to explain in large part the emergence of a new language dynamic since 2001, combining a record decline in relative weight of Quebec’s French-speaking majority with a mild but equally historic increase in weight of its English-speaking minority.

Keywords: language vitality, language shift, assimilation, language policy, Quebec, Bill 101

Published online: 22 July 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.00038.cas

References

Casesnoves Ferrer, R., & Sankoff, D.

(2004) Transmission, Education, and Integration in Projections of Language Shift in Valencia. Language Policy, 3, 107–131.

Castonguay, C.

(1994) L’assimilation linguistique au Québec : mesure et évolution 1971–1986. Quebec, Qc: Conseil de la langue française.

(2005a) Les indicateurs généraux de vitalité des langues au Québec : comparabilité et tendances 1971–2001. Montreal, Qc: Office québécois de la langue française.

(2005b) Incidence du sous-dénombrement et des changements apportés aux questions de recensement sur l’évolution de la composition linguistique de la population du Québec entre 1991 et 2001. Montreal, Qc: Office québécois de la langue française.

Houle, R., & Corbeil, J.-P.

(2017) Language Projections for Canada, 2011 to 2036. Ottawa, On: Statistics Canada.

Henripin, J.

(1974) Immigration and Language Imbalance. Ottawa, On: Information Canada.

Joy, R.

(1967) Languages in Conflict: The Canadian Experience. Ottawa, On: the author. Reprinted in 1972 by McClelland & Stuart, Toronto, Ontario.

Laurin, C.

(1977) La politique québécoise de la langue française. Quebec, Qc: Éditeur officiel.

Ostler, N.

(2010) The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel. New York, NY: Walker & Company.

Termote, M., & Gauvreau, D.

(1988) La situation démolinguistique au Québec. Quebec, Qc: Conseil de la langue française.

Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Bousmah, Ibrahim & Gilles Grenier

2021. Immigrant linguistic integration in the multilingual context of Montreal. Language Problems and Language Planning 45:1 ► pp. 80 ff.

Flors-Mas, Aveŀlí, Natxo Sorolla, Miquel Àngel Pradilla & F. Xavier Vila

2021. The recent evolution of first languages in Catalonia. Language Problems and Language Planning 45:1 ► pp. 31 ff.

Ridala, Svetlana

2020. Language skills and labour market returns. Language Problems and Language Planning 44:2 ► pp. 200 ff.

Taylor Reid, Kym, Pavel Trofimovich, Mary Grantham O’Brien & Aki Tsunemoto

2021. USING TASK PRACTICE TO REDUCE SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON LISTENER EVALUATIONS OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACCENT AND COMPREHENSIBILITY. International Journal of Listening ► pp. 1 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 august 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.