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- Title
Bilingualism and the language of work: the Linguistic Work Environment Survey.
- Authors
Bourhis, Richard Y.
- Abstract
This article, using a multidisciplinary approach, aims to provide a novel framework for examining the dynamics of language choice in bilingual work environments. Following a brief account of Canada's language-of-work policy in the federal administration, the first part of the article will deal with an overview of factors likely to affect language use within bilingual work settings. The second part will present key findings obtained in a language-of-work survey conducted among 2,316 bilingual federal civil servants posted in the province of New Brunswick. The results of the survey clearly show that the ethnic membership and the bilingual skills of respondents along with their linguistic work environment played a role in affecting the language use of civil servants working within the Canadian federal administration. The strong group vitality position of the anglophone community in New Brunswick along with the corresponding high status of English relative to French also contributed to the intensive use of English as the language of work among both anglophone and Francophone civil servants. As expected, the ethnic group membership of the respondents was related to self-reports of language use in bilingual work settings.
- Subjects
SOCIOLINGUISTICS; LANGUAGE &; culture; LANGUAGE &; languages; ORGANIZATIONAL sociology; CORPORATE culture; WORK environment; BILINGUAL communication in organizations; PUBLIC officers
- Publication
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1994, Vol 1994, Issue 105/106, p217
- ISSN
0165-2516
- Publication type
Article