Language Policy in Quebec

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Book Notice:  Linguistic Conflict and Language Laws: Understanding the
Quebec Question

Publication Year: 2002 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
http://www.palgrave.com


Editor: Pierre  Larrive, Aston University


Abstract:

In a multilingual society, the role of each language is parallel to the
importance of the community that speaks it; change in power relations
between groups is linked to modifications in the status of their language.
The Quebec language laws provide a case in point of the relation between
social change and language planning. This comprehensive analysis of the
Quebec language issue exposes the material and symbolic causes of these
legislative measures and assesses their effects. This detailed appraisal
also provides answers to more general questions of the nature of language
laws and the conditions for their legitimacy.

Linguists, lawyers and political scientists interested in the role of
legislation to protect language diversity within a liberal democracy will
find this comprehensive and unified account of the 'Quebec language
question' fascinating. In a multilingual community the role and importance
of a language can shift with changes in the political power of the group
that seeks it. This book first puts the Quebec question within a more
general framework of language rights and language planning in multilingual
societies, then explores in detail the historical and current responses to
legislation in Canada, especially to the Federal Official Languages Act of
1969 and its subsequent amendments, and to the Quebec provinicial
government's French Language Charter of 1977. Issues of legislative rights
and policy are discussed in the light of passionate political and cultural
responses from the Francophone and Anglophone populations.

CONTENTS:

Notes On Contributors - Introduction - Language Policy and Planning Issues
in Multicultural Societies; C.Williams - The History of Quebec in the
Perspective of the French Language; J-P.Warren - Federal Language Policy
in Canada and the Quebec Challenge; C.M. MacMillan - A Language Policy for
a Language in Exile; M.Chevrier - Anglophones and Allophones in Quebec;
P.Larrivee - A Final Note on Culture, Quebec Native Languages and the
Quebec Question; P. Larrivee

Pierre Larrivee completed a PhD in Linguistics at Universite Laval (Quebec
City, Canada) in 1998. He is currently a lecturer in French Linguistics at
Aston University. His research is concerned with the construction of
meaning through language.

Hardback: ISBN: 0333968999, Pages: 216, Price: GBP45.00