Pluricentric linguistic justice in Quebec
An attitudinal study of the politics of norm setting in French
With the emergence of the notion of Standard Quebec French, debates about linguistic usage in Quebec are today
largely shaped by two competing normative models: an exonorm defined for all intents and purposes in France and an endonorm
reflecting socially acceptable usage as determined by Quebecers themselves. While language attitude research has provided some
indication of the normative preferences of ordinary Quebecers, the picture remains largely ambiguous. This article seeks to
provide some clarity through a reconceptualisation of language attitudes intended to specifically elicit value judgments on norm
setting and enforcement. Building on research in political philosophy and theory, it further develops the notion of ‘pluricentric
linguistic justice’, proposed as a tool for assessing questions of authority and legitimacy concerning French in Quebec. It then
presents the results of an empirical exploration of this notion focused on the attitudes of a sample of francophone Quebecers
towards endonormativity, including as a function of key social variables. The study represents an innovative attempt to develop
and test a methodological instrument for interrogating questions of linguistic justice in pluricentric settings more broadly.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Attitudes towards pluricentric variation in Quebec
- Pluricentric linguistic justice
- Research questions
- Methods
- Instrument
- Data collection and participants
- Preliminary analyses
- Results
- Discussion
-
RQ1. Based on the moral arguments presented, what are the respondents’ attitudes towards endonormativity?
-
RQ2. How do the respondents’ attitudes differ according to social variables traditionally associated with language use and
linguistic variation in Quebec?
-
RQ3. How do the respondents’ attitudes correlate with their reported manner of speaking and degree of identification as
Quebecers, Canadians and francophones?
- Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
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