LINGUIST List 13.3384

Fri Dec 20 2002

Books: Sociolinguistics: Larrivee (ed.)

Editor for this issue: Marisa Ferrara <marisalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. f.kennedy, Linguistic Conflict and Language Laws: Larrivee (ed.)

		
Title: Linguistic Conflict and Language Laws
Subtitle: Understanding the Quebec Question
			
Publication Year: 2002
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
 http://www.palgrave.com
			
Availability: Available
		
Editor: Pierre Larriv�e, Aston University 
				
Hardback: ISBN: 0333968999, Pages: 216, Price: GBP45.00
Comment: 216x138mm
			
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.
			
Lingfield(s): Sociolinguistics
			 
Subject Language(s): English (Language Code: ENG)
			French (Language Code: FRN)

Written In: English (Language Code: ENG)