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- Title
WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY? EXPLAINING THE DIVIDE BETWEEN CANADIANS' DESIRE FOR BILINGUALISM AND THEIR ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH AND FRENCH.
- Authors
Jedwab, Jack
- Abstract
Canada describes itself as a bilingual country as reflected by federal policy which extends government services to the population in both English and French. However, it would be difficult to describe the country as bilingual based on the degree to which its population is able to speak the two official languages notably outside of Quebec. While the availability of services in both official languages is an important criterion in deciding whether to confer bilingual status on a country, the author contends that the lack of individual bilingualism on the part of the majority language group will have an impact on the vitality of the language minority. There is a sizeable gap between the population's high level of interest in learning a second language and the relatively limited extent to which it possesses knowledge of two languages. The author contends that the gap between the interest in second language learning and the actual acquisition of French in the majority-anglophone population outside of Quebec arises from both a lack of incentive for learning the language and a lack of opportunity to use the language.
- Subjects
QUEBEC (Province); CANADA; LANGUAGE policy; FRENCH-Canadians; BILINGUALISM; LANGUAGE planning; COMMUNICATION policy; SOCIOLINGUISTICS; MULTILINGUALISM
- Publication
Canadian Issues / Thèmes Canadiens, 2008, p35
- ISSN
0318-8442
- Publication type
Article