LINGUIST List 12.871

Wed Mar 28 2001

Review: Wright, French--An accommodating lg? (2nd rev)

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  • Bert Cornillie, Review: Wright, French - an accommodating language?

    Message 1: Review: Wright, French - an accommodating language?

     Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 21:09:13 +0200
    From: Bert Cornillie <bert.cornilliearts.kuleuven.ac.be>
    Subject: Review: Wright, French - an accommodating language?


    Wright, Sue (ed.) (2000) French - an accommodating language?/ Le fran�ais: langue d'accueil?, Multilingual Matters. Hbk ISBN 1-85359-504-7 GBP29.95/ US$49.95/ CAN$59.95

    Reviewed by Bert Cornillie, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

    DESCRIPTION This completely bilingual volume has its origin in a one-day Anglo-French colloquium held in May 1999 on the theme of recent developments in French attitudes towards language purism, borrowing and the incursion of English. This valuable book aims to foster the debate on French language policy and is intended for all scholars interested in linguistic exchanges through history, in language competition and language attitude. It is particularly valuable for non French-speakers because it provides access in English to French opinions and the reactions they provoke.

    The colloquium was organized and chaired by Sue Wright (Aston University) who translated some articles, which justifies her editorship of the book. Wright's main research interests are multilingualism and language policy. The heart of the book is a lecture by the French linguist Henriette Walter (Universit� de Haute- Bretagne), commented on by seven scholars affiliated to British Universities. Walter is a well-known media figure in France and her many interventions and books have brought French linguistic concerns before a wide audience. Her numerous publications include Les aventures des langues en Occident (1994), Les aventures des mots fran�ais venus d'ailleurs (1997), Le fran�ais dans tous les sens (1998) and Le fran�ais d'ici, del� et de l�-bas (1998). On the basis of this scholarly work, she has taken a stance in the current debate on the French language and to debunk the idea that the language is under threat. In her publications she points out that French has always been an accommodating language, taking in words from many different sources. In this way, Henriette Walter demythologizes the victim role some French and the French state have been playing in the globalization game of the last decades. And for this task she receives useful help from her UK-based French and English-speaking colleagues.

    1. In ''French - an Accommodating Language: The Chronology, Typology and Dynamics of Borrowing'', the central article of the book, H. Walter gives historical evidence for the fact that borrowing signifies enriching. A lot of common words in present-day French are well-integrated borrowings from Old German, Italian, Gaulish, Arabic, etc. She classifies the borrowed words according to geographical and chronological criteria, and adds some grammatical and phonetic analysis published before (Walter & Walter, 1998), acknowledging that classification and typography remain a problem that deserves a wider discussion. The article gives a well- documented overview of the different influences the French language has undergone and is still undergoing; in view of the current hegemony of English, the last part on English borrowings is the most relevant one. At the end of the 18th century the French admired the British parliamentary system, fashion and high society so much that we can speak of a real 'anglomanie', which contrasts markedly with the Anglophobia common in France today. Walter presents a typology for borrowings from English that consists of several types: 1) words with little changes in meaning -n�vrose/neurosis, 2) new derivations -influencer/influence-, 3) the -ing suffix - mailing/mailing-, 4) words with new meanings - zapper/zap-, 5) translations -liste civile/civil list-, 6) calques -libre penseur/free thinker-, 7) pseudo- anglicisms -lifting/face lift, 8) and particular cases such as patate-potato-pomme de terre. As the following parts will show, this study by Walter is a good basis for further discussion.

    2. In ''The Metaphor of Borrowing: Implications for a Theory of Language Evolution: A Response to H. Walter'', P�n�lope Gardner-Chloros (Birkbeck College, London University) argues that 'borrowing' may not be the most appropriate term, since the majority of 'borrowed' items are adapted. Instead, she proposes 'adoption' or 'cloning'. However, the use of 'borrowing' remains popular because, in her opinion, it fits in the image of a personalized language with stable and unalterable qualities. The clash between the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of language and the personalized and stable image of language has been the basis for linguistic purism/puritanism. Gardner-Chloros emphasizes the contact between languages on all levels and advocates not paying too much attention to the normalized and standardized language, since the process of development of a language is far more complex than that.

    3. In line with the preceding reference to stability, Jean-Marc Dewaele (Birkbeck College, University of London) discusses the main cultural, linguistic and philosophical underpinnings of French resistance to globalization and English dominance. In ''Is it the Corruption of French Thought Processes that Purists Fear? A Response to H. Walter'' Dewaele brightly shows that the myths of the genius of French and of French clarity, which allow for a discourse on French as a clear, immutable, rich, universal and pure language, are backed by a long linguistic tradition, specifically by renowned French linguists such as Guillaume and Damourette & Pichon. Furthermore, he argues that, in spite of Walter's welcoming attitude, she does not define the criteria which make borrowing acceptable in one case and not in another.

    4. In ''The Political Dimension of Borrowings and French Reactions. A Response to H. Walter'', Dennis Ager (Aston University) makes two points, both related to politics. First, he claims that the typology of borrowing could be enriched by political relationships between groups and the discourses and the words used by them. He mentions the following parameters: colonialism, immigration, import, cultural contact and music, scientific or technical contact, war and religion. The second point of his contribution is based on two of his previous studies (Ager 1996, 1999) and deals with the fact that purists defend the French of the elites (Loire and Paris). Ager gives evidence for the intimate links of the language with the Republican values and a clear manifestation of Frenchness. From this viewpoint, Anglophobia and the discourse on the instability the 'English invasion' engenders, is stimulated -if not organized- by the French Administration.

    5. In ''Is French Really Open to Outside Influences? A Response to H. Walter'', Anne Judge (Surrey University) deals with France's prescriptive and protectionist tradition by questioning if French, as its only national language, is really a 'langue d'accueil'. She describes how the Academy made the concept of 'good French' into an abstract ideal. However, the French tradition of prescriptivism and preservation of their own French tradition, both supervised by the State, contrasts considerably with the linguistic attitudes of many French citizens (borrowing foreign words in French is 'useful' and 'very modern'). The climate has changed and French should not be seen as a fortress that can be defended by policies, since prescriptivism turns out to be an impoverishing policy. Judge concludes: 'the concept of French as an ideal language is rapidly losing ground to that of French as a living language'.

    6. More comments on the process of borrowing can be found in ''Etymological Routes. Some Supplementary Remarks'' by Malcolm Offord (Nottingham University). He speaks of 'routes' since the words pass from one language to another without the words being an active tool by their own. Offord defends the view that words can be brought (by the Franks, for instance), fetched (French presence in the Maghreb) or sent (Latin or Greek culture as a superior influence, or today's Internet). Each of these three processes can be applied to English in France. As for the reasons for lexical borrowing, it is stated that words may be imported from a language with more cultural prestige out of need, but also out of intellectual snobbery. Finally, onomasialogical evidence illustrates that most of the words borrowed from a language reflect the typical products of its society.

    7. In ''Spelling Reform in France and Germany: Attitudes and Reactions'', Rodney Ball (University of Southampton) compares the French and German attitudes towards their own spelling reform. Though they were not drastic at all, both debates are heavily influenced by public conservatism and by a number of important opinion makers. In addition, some contradictions in the reform resulted in the reformers coming under attack. Obviously, in societies with near-universal literacy there is fierce resistance to 'minority' groups said to be attempting to control the language. As a matter of fact, spelling seems to be an emotional and private issue as much as a political and public one. The public 'majority' rejected the French reform because it was considered illegitimate. Don't touch an age-old language!

    8. In the last contribution, Emmanuelle Labeau (Aston University) tackles the following question ''Is Belgian French More Susceptible to English Influence?''. Can the hostile attitude of French and American English also be found in francophone Belgium? Even though the French- speaking community has several influential language institutions, the lack of a tradition of national prestige linked with the language makes the permeability to foreign languages greater than in France. This is tied up with the international multilingual climate of Brussels and the policy of the French-speaking community's resistance to all too dominant supervision by France.

    CRITICAL EVALUATION This book is an excellent and consistent summary of the many discourses on the relation existing between French and English. Moreover, it is a successful attempt to combine linguistic description with more sociopolitical considerations. Indeed, Walter's analysis of the borrowings in French throughout history provides a very suitable and solid foundation both for a fruitful theoretical discussion on the modalities of borrowing and for the far-reaching debate on the position of language in state organization and the repercussions on the opinions of its citizens. Since one by one the articles contain very convincing arguments, the encounter can be called very successful.

    Although the conference theme was French language attitudes and although the participants were specialists in French, the question remains whether the elements mentioned before are typical of French only. The discussion unfortunately turns out to be rather unidirectional since Walter does not reappear at the end of the book to comment on the other contributions. Moreover, in a discussion between the French tradition and British scholars, one would expect more interventions by French scholars formed in the French tradition. I agree with the best part of the observations, but it would have been appropriate to let defend the French point of view, both hard-liners and others. Moreover, an extension of the topic to the British, Spanish, German or Russian national language tradition could shed light on similar processes. The French and their officials do not have the monopoly of linguistic stubbornness and protectionism. In 1995, France launched the proposal that each citizen of the European Union should learn two languages in addition the mother tongue. It was also in the mid 1990s that French began to be presented as a means of preserving linguistic diversity (Ager 1999), a point that is frequently repeated (Hag�ge 1996, Cerquiglini et al., 2000). Although only a diversity of national languages is meant, it increases the contacts with foreign languages, and, willy-nilly, the introduction of borrowings or clonings. It is somewhat odd that this point is not dealt with in the book. In addition, it struck me that each paper is published both in French and in English, instead of having a mixture of articles respectively in French or English according to the author's preference. If reading French or English is considered a problem, how can you expect the public to understand the debate on language attitudes? Monolingual French or English-speaking scholars might take into account the fact that the normative and prescriptive tradition could only defend its extreme theses because of the inability or unwillingness to read work in other languages.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY Ager, Dennis (1996) Francophonie in the 1990s. Problems and Opportunities, Multilingual Matters

    Ager, Dennis (1999) Identity, Insecurity and Image. France and Language, Multilingual matters.

    Cerquiglini, Bernard, Jean-Claude Corbeil, Jean-Marie Klinkenberg and Beno�t Peeters (2000) <<Tu parles!? Le fran�ais dans tous ses �tats, Flammarion Paris.

    Hag�ge, Claude (1996) ''Une certaine mani�re de concevoir et de dire le monde'', Coop�ration, 12, 26. http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/label_france/FRANCE/FRAN CO/HAGEG/hageg.html

    The Economist (2001) ''English is still on the march'' London, Feb 24th-March 2nd, p.32-33.

    Walter, Henriette and Andr� Martinet (1988) Le fran�ais dans tous les sens, Laffont Paris.

    Walter, Henriette and Andr� Martinet (1994) L'aventure des langues en Occident: leur origine, leur histoire, leur g�ographie, Laffont Paris.

    Walter, Henriette (1997) L'aventure des mots fran�ais venus d'ailleurs, Laffont Paris.

    Walter, Henriette (1998) Le fran�ais d'ici, de l�, de l�-bas, Latt�s Paris.

    Walter, Henriette and G�rard Walter (1998) Dictionnaire des mots d'origine �trang�re, Larousse Paris.

    REVIEWER INFORMATION Bert Cornillie is research and teaching assistant in Spanish Linguistics at the KU Leuven. He has a degree in Romance Languages and is conducting a syntactic-semantic analysis of complex verbs in Latin American Spanish (Ph.D.). In addition, he is specifically interested in language policy, linguicide, multilingualism and globalization. Currently he is one of the organizers of the SLE 2001 conference ''Towards the integration of cognitive, cultural and historical approaches of language''.