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- Title
English in French Commercial Advertising: Simultaneity, bivalency, and language boundaries.
- Authors
Amos, H. William
- Abstract
In recent decades, sociolinguists have begun to challenge the traditional view that multilingualism is fundamentally composed of discrete systems known as 'languages'. Supporting the assessment that languages are not bounded entities but sociocultural and ideological constructions, this article explores commercial advertisements in France, which are subject to language policies assuming that 'French' is easily separable from 'foreign languages'. Employing the Bakhtinian‐influenced notion of bivalency developed by Woolard (1998), the article argues for a special consideration of mixed‐language advertising in France, rooted not only in linguistic form, but also in the specific contextual tension produced by the socio‐political statuses of French and English. The resulting creativity challenges the monolectal assumptions within French language management, indicating a clash of segregational language ideology with integrational language practices. The article further argues that this language mixing is bidirectional, as advertisements may both erase and emphasise the assumed boundaries between codes.
- Subjects
LANGUAGE in advertising; ENGLISH language usage; FRENCH language -- Usage; MULTILINGUALISM; CODE switching (Linguistics); LANGUAGE policy
- Publication
Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2020, Vol 24, Issue 1, p55
- ISSN
1360-6441
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/josl.12386