Copyright by Rozen Neupané 2020
The Dissertation Committee for Rozen Neupané Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:
A multidisciplinary approach to studying language attitudes and
language use in the Ottawa-Gatineau region
Committee:
Barbara E. Bullock, Supervisor
Carl S. Blyth
Patience Epps
Junyi Jessy Li
Almeida Jacqueline Toribio
A multidisciplinary approach to studying language attitudes and
language use in the Ottawa-Gatineau region
by
Rozen Neupané
Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin May 2020 Dedication
आमा कोिपला नौपाने र बुवा भगवान नौपानेलाई ! Acknowledgements
Comment commencer cette thèse sans remercier tous ceux qui m’ont appuyé durant cette épreuve. Above all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Barbara Bullock. Without your constant support and encouragement, I would have been unable to make it this far. Tu m’as accompagné durant les moments les plus ardus de ce processus et tu m’as guidé lorsque je peinais à trouver mon chemin. Pour cela et pour bien d’autres raisons, je t’en serai toujours reconnaissant. I am equally grateful to the Julia Walther Fund and the Department of French and Italian at the University of Texas at Austin for the generous support throughout my graduate career. I am also thankful to my committee members, Carl Blyth, Patience Epps, Jessy Li and Jacqueline Toribio. Your feedback and your guidance have been invaluable to me throughout my graduate career.
म मेरी आमा कोिपला नौपाने, मेरो बाबा भगवान नौपाने र मेरी िददी सनु नौपानेपित पिन आभार वक
गनर चाहनु। हजुरहरको पेरणा, आिशवारद र हौसलाले मलाई यँहासम पुराएको छ। हामा पदयाताका समझनाहर र िहमाल र पहाडका मनोरम काँखमा सँगै िबताएका कणहर नै मेरा जोस र साहसका सोत हन्।
Je suis également reconnaissant à ma douce moitié pour sa patience, sa bienveillance et sa présence à mes côtés. Je tiens aussi à remercier mes participant.e.s without whom this research would not have been possible. Finalement, merci à tou.te.s mes ami.e.s, tant à Austin qu’à Gatineau, à Ottawa, à Québec, à Katmandou, à Montréal, à Wheeling et ailleurs dans le monde. Merci de m’avoir accompagné dans mes folies, d’avoir partagé avec moi vos joies et vos tristesses et de m’avoir soutenu sans cesse ! v Abstract
A multidisciplinary approach to studying language attitudes and
language use in the Ottawa-Gatineau region
Rozen Neupané, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2020
Supervisor: Barbara E. Bullock
This dissertation focuses on the language behavior of individuals from the Ottawa– Gatineau metropolitan region (OGR) and the ways in which it correlates with their language attitudes as expressed in social media and in person. Although attitudes are believed to be intrinsically related to behavior, there is a lack of consensus among social psychologists regarding the nature of this relationship. Furthermore, there is a paucity of work exploring the link between language attitudes (LA) and language behavior. I intend to address this gap through my dissertation.
The OGR is a fertile ground for such a study. It is a largely stable bilingual region where a total of 48.5% of the population speaks English and 30.3% speaks French as their mother tongue (Statistics Canada, 2016). However, the region is not a homogenous linguistic community. It is linguistically divided by the Québec-Ontario provincial border with the largely francophone Gatineau on the Québec side and the mainly anglophone Ottawa on the Ontario side of the border. The two cities are also different in terms of
vi language policies and language planning measures adopted by their respective municipal and provincial governments. In this study, I established language use patterns through ethnographic observations in local cafés, farmer’s markets and grocery stores and through people’s use of French and English on Twitter. Language attitudes were assessed through a language attitude questionnaire (Kircher, 2009) distributed among people in different public spaces in the OGR and through a study of tweets from individuals in the region. The analysis reveals important differences in language attitudes and language use among francophones and anglophones. We also noticed that the two official languages do not enjoy the same status and that attitudes towards Québec/Canadian French (QF/CF) are more negative than attitudes towards European French (EF) or the French language in general. Finally, we discovered that language attitudes and language use had an important influence on each other, but this relationship was dependent on other factors as well.
vii Table of Contents
List of Tables ...... xiv
List of Figures ...... xvi
Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1
1.1. Introduction ...... 1
1.2. Problem statement ...... 2
1.3. Purpose of the study ...... 4
1.4. Research questions ...... 5
1.5. Organization of the dissertation ...... 6
1.6. Background and context ...... 7
1.6.1. Canada as an English colony ...... 7
1.6.2. Unification of Canada ...... 9
1.6.3. La révolution tranquille and its aftermath ...... 10
1.6.4. Language planning and policies in Canada outside Québec ...... 14
1.6.5. French and English in the Ottawa-Gatineau region ...... 17
1.7. Conclusion ...... 19
Chapter 2: Methodologies used in language Attitude research ...... 20
2.1. Attitude: ...... 20
2.1.1. The tripartite model of attitude ...... 21
2.1.2. The relationship between attitude and behavior ...... 22
2.1.3. Language attitude and the dimensions of solidarity and status ...... 25
2.2. Approaches to studying language attitudes ...... 27
2.2.1. Societal treatment approach ...... 28
viii 2.2.1.1. Analysis of pre-existing documents ...... 28
2.2.1.2. Participant observation ...... 29
2.2.2. Direct approach ...... 31
2.2.2.1. Questionnaire (design and precautions) ...... 32
2.2.2.2. Open-ended vs. closed-ended questions ...... 35
2.2.2.3. Scalar vs. non-scalar measures ...... 35
2.2.2.4. Interview ...... 37
2.2.3. Indirect approach ...... 39
Chapter 3: Language attitude research in French-Canada ...... 44
3.1. Historical account of attitudes towards Canadian French ...... 44
3.1.1. Anglicismes and Canadian French ...... 44
3.1.2. Purity of Canadian French and linguistic uniformity in French- Canada ...... 47
3.1.3. The archaic nature of Canadian French ...... 48
3.1.4. The myth of French-Canadian Patois ...... 49
3.1.5. Resistance and opposition to the myth of French Canadian patois ....51
3.1.6. The complex relationship between French Canadians and the English language ...... 52
3.2. Language attitudes in Québec since the 1960s ...... 53
3.3. Trends and patterns of language use in Québec ...... 65
3.3.1. Language behavior of Québec francophones ...... 65
3.3.2. Language behavior of Québec anglophones ...... 68
3.3.3. Language convergence and maintenance ...... 69
ix Chapter 4: Study 1 - Language attitudes expressed through questionnaire ...... 73
4.1. Research instrument ...... 73
4.1.1. Overview of the questionnaire ...... 75
4.2. Participant recruitment ...... 79
4.3. Methodology ...... 82
4.3.1. Choice of variables ...... 82
4.3.2. Statistical modeling ...... 85
4.4. Results of the questionnaire ...... 87
4.4.1. Background results ...... 87
4.4.1.1. Place of residence and mother tongue ...... 87
4.4.1.2. Place of birth ...... 91
4.4.1.3. Gender, education and age ...... 94
4.4.1.4. Variety of French ...... 95
4.4.1.5. Knowledge of different languages ...... 98
4.4.2. Language attitudes towards French and English ...... 101
4.4.2.1. Attitudes towards French ...... 102
4.4.2.1.1. General attitudes towards French ...... 102
4.4.2.1.2. Attitudes towards French along the status dimension ...... 103
4.4.2.1.3. Attitudes towards French along the solidarity dimension ..104
4.4.2.1.4. Summary of attitudes towards French ...... 105
4.4.2.2 Attitudes towards English ...... 107
4.4.2.2.1. General attitudes towards English ...... 107
4.4.2.2.2. Attitudes towards English along the status dimension ...... 107
x 4.4.2.2.3. Attitudes towards English along the solidarity dimension 107
4.4.2.2.4. Summary of attitudes towards English ...... 109
4.4.3. Attitudes towards French vs. English ...... 109
4.4.3.1. General attitudes towards the two languages ...... 110
4.4.3.2. Comparative attitudes along the status dimension ...... 111
4.4.3.3. Comparative attitudes along the solidarity dimension ...... 118
4.4.3.4. Summary of Attitudes towards French vs. English ...... 121
4.4.4. Qualitative analysis of attitudes towards the two languages ...... 124
4.4.4.1. The French language according to francophones ...... 125
4.4.4.2. The French language according to anglophones ...... 127
4.4.4.3. The French language according to allophones ...... 129
4.4.4.4. The French language according to early bilinguals ...... 131
4.4.4.5. The English language according to francophones ...... 132
4.4.4.6. The English language according to anglophones ...... 134
4.4.4.7. The English language according to allophones ...... 136
4.4.4.8. The English language according to early bilinguals ...... 138
4.4.4.9. Principal component analysis of words used to describe French and English ...... 139
4.5. Discussion and conclusion ...... 142
Chapter 5: Study 2 - The use of French and English in public spaces ...... 146
5.1. Description of the neighborhoods studied ...... 148
5.2. Fieldwork ...... 150
5.3. The linguistic landscape of Ottawa and Gatineau ...... 150
5.3.1. Government signs ...... 151 xi 5.3.2. Private signs ...... 153
5.3.2.1. Downtown areas ...... 155
5.3.2.2. Vanier and Aylmer ...... 158
5.3.3. Summary of the linguistic landscape of Ottawa and Gatineau ...... 163
5.4. The linguistic soundscape of Ottawa and Gatineau ...... 165
5.4.1. Co-existence of French and English in service encounters in Gatineau ...... 166
5.4.2. The almost exclusive use of English in service-encounters in Ottawa ...... 170
5.4.3. The priority of English during cross-cultural communication in Gatineau ...... 173
5.4.4. Code-switching and passive bilingualism in Gatineau ...... 178
5.4.5. English as the language understood by everyone in Gatineau ...... 180
5.4.6. Linguistic stand in Gatineau ...... 182
5.4.7. The use of English among francophones in Ottawa ...... 185
5.4.8. Le contrat social Ottawa-Gatineau ...... 188
5.4.9. Summary of the linguistic soundscape of Ottawa and Gatineau ...... 189
5.5. The relationship between language attitudes and language behavior ...... 191
Chapter 6: Study 3 - Language attitudes and language use on Twitter ...... 193
6.1. Corpus-assisted discourse studies ...... 194
6.2. Corpus creation ...... 195
6.3. Collocates and concordances ...... 198
6.4. Collocates and concordances in French tweets ...... 199
6.4.1. Collocates and concordances of ‘français’ ...... 199
6.4.2. Collocates and concordances of ‘anglais’ ...... 205 xii 6.4.3. Summary of language attitudes expressed in French tweets ...... 214
6.5. Collocates and concordances in English tweets ...... 215
6.5.1. Collocates and concordances of ‘French’ ...... 215
6.5.2. Collocates and concordances of ‘English’ ...... 221
6.5.3. Summary of language attitudes expressed in English tweets ...... 227
6.6. Positive and negative attitudes towards English and French ...... 228
6.7. Use of French and English on Twitter Timelines ...... 230
6.8. The relationship between language attitudes and language use on Twitter .....235
Chapter 7: Conclusion ...... 237
7.1. Language attitudes in the OGR: ...... 237
7.2. Language use in the OGR ...... 243
7.3. Language use in the OGR and its relationship with language attitudes ...... 245
7.4. Contribution to the field ...... 246
7.5. Limitations and future research ...... 249
Appendix A: Language Attitude Questionnaire (English) ...... 251
Appendix B: Language Attitude Questionnaire (French) ...... 271
References ...... 291
xiii List of Tables
Table 4.1: Crosstabulation of current city of residence and mother tongue...... 90 Table 4.2: Crosstabulation of place of birth and current city of residence...... 92 Table 4.3: Crosstabulation of place of birth and variety of French spoken...... 98 Table 4.4: Crosstabulation of mother tongue and knowledge of different languages. ....100 Table 4.5: Crosstabulation of city of residence and knowledge of different languages. 101 Table 4.6: Words used by francophones to describe the French language and their
frequency ...... 127 Table 4.7: Words used by anglophones to describe the French language and their
frequency ...... 129 Table 4.8: Words used by allophones to describe the French language and their
frequency ...... 130 Table 4.9: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the French language and their
frequency ...... 132 Table 4.10: Words used by francophones to describe the English language and their
frequency ...... 134 Table 4.11: Words used by anglophones to describe the English language and their
frequency ...... 136 Table 4.12: Words used by allophones to describe the English language and their
frequency ...... 137 Table 4.13: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the English language and their
frequency ...... 139 Table 6.1: Matrix of language of tweet and the city of origin of the Twitter user ...... 198
xiv Table 6.2: Strongest collocates of ‘français’ along with their frequency ...... 200 Table 6.3: Strongest collocates of ‘anglais’ along with their frequency ...... 206 Table 6.4: Strongest collocates of ‘French’ along with their frequency ...... 215 Table 6.5: Strongest collocates of ‘English’ along with their frequency ...... 222
xv List of Figures
Figure 4.1: Participants’ by neighborhood of residence ...... 88 Figure 4.2: The population make-up of the two cities based on place of birth ...... 94 Figure 4.3: Variety of French spoken across different educational levels...... 97 Figure 4.4: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a beautiful language”
across different mother-tongue groups...... 111 Figure 4.5: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that is well
suited to modern society” across different mother-tongue groups...... 112 Figure 4.6: Evaluation of the statement “Knowing French/English will increase my
opportunities to find employment.” across different age groups...... 114 Figure 4.7: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that is important to know in order to get far in life” across different educational
levels...... 115 Figure 4.8: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that is
important to know in order to get far in life” different age groups...... 117 Figure 4.9: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions” across different mother-
tongue groups...... 119 Figure 4.10: Evaluation of the statement “Knowing French/English is a significant
part of my personal identity” across different mother-tongue groups...... 120 Figure 4.11: Words used by francophones to describe the French language ...... 126 Figure 4.12: Words used by anglophones to describe the French language ...... 128 Figure 4.13: Words used by allophones to describe the French language ...... 130 Figure 4.14: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the French language ...... 131
xvi Figure 4.15: Words used by francophones to describe the English language ...... 133 Figure 4.17: Words used by allophones to describe the English language ...... 137 Figure 4.18: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the English language ...... 138 Figure 4.19: Representation of words used to describe French (blue) and English
(red)...... 141 Figure 5.1: Federal government sign in Gatineau (left) and in Ottawa (right) ...... 151 Figure 5.2: Street sign in Gatineau (left) and Ottawa (right) ...... 152 Figure 5.3: Cover-page of Paris Match on the storefront of a convenient store in
downtown Ottawa ...... 156 Figure 5.4: Bilingual signs on storefronts in downtown Gatineau ...... 157 Figure 5.5: Street banner in Vanier ...... 158 Figure 5.6: A trilingual sign in an Asian supermarket in Vanier ...... 158 Figure 5.7: Fading bilingual sign (left) and a newer monolingual English sign (right)
of Vanier Medical center ...... 159 Figure 5.8: Store with only French signs in Vanier ...... 160 Figure 5.9: Bilingual sign on a storefront in Aylmer ...... 161 Figure 5.10: Bilingual sign for a city-wide event ...... 161 Figure 5.11: Bilingual flyers in Aylmer ...... 162 Figure 5.12: Vandalized pro-French language sign in downtown Gatineau (left) and
in Aylmer (right) ...... 163 Figure 6.1: The distribution of positive and negative attitudes towards French and
English ...... 230 Figure 6.2: Percentage of tweets in French in the timeline of users who had
expressed a negative attitude towards the French language ...... 232
xvii Figure 6.3: Percentage of tweets in French in the timeline of users who had
expressed a positive attitude towards the French language ...... 233 Figure 6.4: Percentage of tweets in French among users who had expressed a positive
attitude towards the French language (divided by language background) .234
xviii Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. INTRODUCTION
Based on studies conducted in Montréal, Québec’s largest city, researchers have claimed that language planning measures adopted by Québec’s provincial government have led to positive attitudes towards the French language as well as its increased use in the province (Genesee and Holobow, 1989; Bourhis, 2001; Auger, 2003 and Kircher, 2009). However, we don’t know if this also applies in the case of border cities in Québec like Gatineau, which is situated in Québec but a stone’s throw away from English-speaking Canada, or in the case of English-speaking Canadian cities like Ottawa, which is right next to Gatineau but not subject to Québec’s language policies. Finding answers to these questions is one of the main motivations behind this work. Gatineau, Québec’s fourth largest city, is mainly inhabited by francophones whereas Ottawa, located in the province of Ontario, is primarily English speaking. Nevertheless, the proximity of the two cities, the status of Ottawa as the capital of an officially bilingual country, and the important size of its francophone population1 are likely to lead to a certain mélange of linguistic realities. The Ottawa- Gatineau region (OGR) was the object of Poplack’s (1989) seminal work where she compared neighborhoods in Hull, a sector in Gatineau, with neighborhoods in Ottawa to assess whether the degree of influence of the dominant language (i.e. English) could be attributed to the status of the recipient language (i.e. French) as official language (in Gatineau) or minority language (in
Ottawa). She observed important differences between the two cities but also observed overarching similarities in terms of language attitudes in general, attitudes to code switching and to the use of English borrowings and switches. Over 30 years after the publication of her work, I am revisiting the OGR to identify and compare language attitudes and language use in the region.
1 42.7% of French-speaking Ontarians live in Ottawa (Sylvestre, 2012)
1 1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT
This study also draws on important theoretical underpinnings as one of our primary objectives is to elucidate the link between language use and language attitudes. Most contemporary research on attitude is based on the tripartite model according to which attitudes consist of three components: cognition, affect and behavior (Baker, 1992; Garrett et al., 2003; Ajzen, 2005;
Edwards, 2009; Garrett, 2010). According to this model, the three components can be defined and measured independently but, at a more abstract level, they represent the same construct called attitude. Since the three components are parts of the same entity, the model implies that they should have at least some correlation with each other. Despite this implication and despite widespread use of the tripartite model, there is a great deal of disagreement among researchers regarding the interconnectedness between behavior on one hand and cognition and affect on the other. Numerous works in social psychology have shown that attitudes are poor predictors of behavior (see e.g. LaPiere, 1934; Wicker, 1969; Howerton et al., 2012) while others have argued that attitudes and behavior are fundamentally intertwined (see e.g. Breckler, 1984; Ajzen, 2005). Language attitude (LA) researchers often leave out behavioral measures altogether as many find them “complicated and very time-consuming to study” (Wang and Ladegaard, 2008). While some LA studies have explored language behavior, the field is still waiting for a consensus on the link between language use and language attitudes. On one hand, there are studies that have failed to identify any positive correlation between the two variables. For instance, speakers of minority languages in China and Paraguay with favorable attitudes to bilingualism and towards the local language reported using the minority language minimally (Choi, 2003; Wang and Ladegaard,
2008). On the opposite end of the spectrum, speakers of local dialect in Italy with negative attitudes to their in-group language were still found to use it frequently with their children (Ghimenton,
2015). Similarly, despite negative attitudes towards code-switching, Tunisians were found to frequently switch between French and Arabic (Lawson and Sachdev, 2000). On the other hand, there are studies that have identified a positive correlation between the two variables. For example, studies looking at cooperative behavior in Denmark and Wales
2 discovered that people were most co-operative when instructions were given in the standard register of their in-group language (Bourhis and Giles, 1976; Kristiansen and Giles, 1992). This finding has been used to imply a positive relationship between language behavior (co-operation) and language attitudes (generally believed as being more favorable towards one’s in-group language). In another study, Ladegaard (2000) discovered that young Danish males showed a clear preference for dialects and also reported using them more frequently than females even though the author failed to identify any correlation between dialect features used in speech and attitudes towards dialects. To further complicate matters, authors who have failed to identify strong correlation between language attitudes and language behavior still maintain that the two variables go hand in hand. Choi (2003) writes “A positive attitude towards a language may increase its use and can result in the maintenance of that language. Conversely, an unfavorable or negative attitude can hinder the diffusion and vitality of a language and may result in its abandonment or loss” (p. 82). In the same vein, Ghimenton (2015) argues that “[language attitudes and usage] reveal a dynamic relation, which is defined and reconfigured through interaction” (p. 122).
Garrett et al. (2003) believe that our inability to identify a link between attitudes and behavior likely stems from methodological flaws. They write:
Although there may be a gap between what we take to be someone’s attitude on the one hand, and what we know to be their behavior on the other, it may be the case that there is no discord whatsoever between their behavior and their ‘real’ or dominant attitude, but that we have simply failed to identify what their ‘real’ or dominant attitude is. (p. 9)
It is true that many LA studies have fallen prey to important methodological shortcomings.
Ladegaard (2000), Choi (2003) and Wang and Ladegaard (2000) all conducted their studies in a school setting. Language behavior recorded at schools can be problematic because the educational system is largely believed as favoring and perpetuating the standard language ideology (Lippi-
Green, 2011). Such ideologies favor production and use of the standard variety and often discourage local varieties of speech. Another important drawback in many LA studies is the use of
3 reported language, in lieu of actual language use, as a measure of language behavior. It has been argued that reported language is likely to be “a more accurate reflection of intergroup stereotypes and socially-desirable responses than of actual patterns of language use” (Bourhis, 1983, p. 170).
The third weakness in some of these studies is that the tools used are inadequate to measure language attitudes. Choi (2003), for instance, had twelve questions in her questionnaire only two of which measured language attitudes.
Even studies that have invested significant time and effort to measure language use across a variety of contexts have suffered in other ways; one of such problems has to do with sample size.
For example, Ghimenton (2015) only looked at a single family for her study, which makes it difficult to generalize her findings to the larger community. Finally, many past studies have focused on single actions instead of multiple actions to measure behavior. It is generally agreed that, “broad attitudes are poor predictors of very specific actions” (Baker, 1992, p.17). Ajzen (2005) places high importance on comparing attitudes and behavior at similar levels of specificity. He writes:
We have noted repeatedly that attitudes, as usually defined, represent very broad behavioral dispositions. It stands to reason that such broad dispositions can be validly inferred only from equally broad sets of response tendencies.” (p. 73)
In order to assess such broad sets of behavioral responses, Ajzen (2005) suggests that researchers look at aggregation of different types of behavior all pertaining to the same behavioral disposition across a variety of contexts. Since there is a paucity of LA studies that include language behavior, it goes without saying that very few of these studies have explored language behavior across more than one setting.
1.3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The objective of this dissertation is twofold. The first objective is methodological as I would like to find out if we can better elucidate the relationship between attitudes and behavior (as well as identify the nature of this relationship) by measuring these variables across a variety of
4 contexts and by correcting major methodological shortcomings in the existing literature. Secondly, I would like to explore these variables in the context of OGR to analyze if its particular situation
(as explained previously) has an effect on language attitudes and language use in the region. In order to do so, I employ a language attitude questionnaire to study LAs in physical spaces and I analyze tweets from users based in the OGR to explore LAs in online space. Similarly, I investigate language use in physical spaces by conducting in-situ ethnographic observations in cafés, downtown areas, libraries, shopping malls, farmer’s market and other venues of public life. For every Twitter user in my corpus who has expressed a positive or a negative attitude towards the French or the English languages, I analyze the use of these languages in the individual’s Twitter timeline to compare language attitudes and language use in an online setting. My dissertation combines the societal treatment approach with a direct approach in order to gain a global understanding of how language attitudes intersect with language use in the OGR. It is also one of the few LA studies not conducted in an academic setting. By focusing on language use and language attitudes in physical and online spaces and among people of different age groups and education, I expect that my work will add to our understanding of Canada’s language ecology as well as help us elucidate the link between language attitude and language behavior.
1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
I aim to answer the following questions in my data analysis: 1. What are people’s attitudes towards French and English? 2. What is the pattern governing the use of French and English in different physical spaces in Ottawa and Gatineau? 3. What are the ways in which language attitudes correlate with language use observed in different physical spaces? 4. What are people’s attitudes towards French and English on Twitter? 5. Is there a correlation between language attitudes of a Twitter user and the use of French and English in their Twitter timeline?
5 1.5. ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION
Chapter 2 is a review of methodologies used to measure language attitudes. In this chapter, I explore the concept of language attitude, the relationship between attitude and behavior and the dimensions of solidarity and status. Subsequently, I elaborate on the three main approaches that are historically used to measure attitudes, namely the societal treatment approach, direct approach and indirect approach. Chapter 3 provides a historical overview of attitudes towards Canadian French (CF)/ Québec French (QF) and to some extent English. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part analyzes the evolution of attitudes towards CF between the dawn of Nouvelle-France and the Quiet Revolution. The second part looks at language attitudes towards French and English between the Quiet Revolution and the present day. The third part focuses on language use patterns of Quebecers of different language and ethnic backgrounds. Chapter 4 details one of three studies that form this dissertation. In this chapter, I discuss the methodology and results of the language attitude questionnaire distributed to the public in different venues of the OGR. Language attitudes towards French and English are measured along the dimensions of status and solidarity and the results are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. In chapter 5, I analyze the linguistic landscape and the linguistic soundscape of Ottawa and Gatineau gleaned from in-situ participant observations. Subsequently, I explore the themes and patterns identified through these observations and compare them to findings from other stable bilingual regions of the world. In chapter 6, I discuss language attitudes of Twitter users based in the OGR using the corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) framework. I then look at the correlation between Twitter users’ attitudes towards French and English and their use of these languages on Twitter. Chapter 7 brings together major findings from all three studies and, based on these results, summarizes language attitudes and language use in the OGR and the ways in which they relate to each other.
6 1.6. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
In order to understand the context behind this dissertation and to demonstrate that the OGR is an ideal place for LA studies, it is crucial to discuss Canada’s linguistic duality and the history of the French and English languages in the country. In the following paragraphs, I intend to give a general overview of Canada’s linguistic history and of the struggle for power and survival between its two official language groups.
1.6.1. Canada as an English colony
Following a series of defeats in North America and Europe, France officially ceded Nouvelle-France to England during the treaty of Paris signed in 1763. As a result, England gained a new colony in the name of the province of Quebec, a colony that comprised primarily francophone settlers. Even though the Canadiens2 formed a majority in the province of Quebec, francophones formed a very small minority in the continent. During the conquest of Nouvelle- France, the francophone population in the territory was over twenty times smaller than the anglophone population in neighboring English colonies (Grenier, 2008, p. 89). Therefore, the possibility of linguistic and cultural assimilation was very likely. Surprisingly, until the American revolution, the demography of the province remained fairly unchanged with anglophone presence limited to a small number of merchants, artisans, bureaucrats, and soldiers in urban areas (Dickinson and Young, 2008). It is with the American independence in 1783 that a significant number of British royalists immigrated to the province of Quebec. In order to accommodate this English-speaking minority of British subjects, the Constitution Act divided the province into upper and Lower Canada in 1789. Lower Canada, which later became Québec, was largely populated by Canadiens who lived around the Saint-Lawrence river whereas Upper Canada, which later became Ontario, was largely English-speaking and was inhabited by British royalists.
2 The term Canadiens was initially used to refer to the French settlers in Nouvelle-France. It was only later that the term was adopted by English Canadians. Consequently, around 1840, French-speaking Canadians adopted the term Canadiens-Français to distinguish themselves from the English-speaking Canadiens anglais. Starting in the 1960s, the more recent term Québécois replaced the term Canadien français.
7 The Constitution Act did not address the language question, but the issue of language was already palpable in Montréal by the early years of the 19th century. This is apparent from the following back and forth between the anglophone newspaper, The Mercury, and the francophone newspaper, Le Canadien. On October 27th, 1806, The Mercury expressed its disdain for the French language in the following way:
Although this province is already too much a French province for an English colony. To unfrenchify it, as much as possible...should be a primary object, particularly at these times...
The article continued:
To a certain extent the French language is at present unavoidable in this province; but its cultivation, beyond what may be necessary, so as to perpetuate it, in English colony, can admit no defense, particularly in the present times.
Le Canadien defended the linguistic rights of the Canadiens in the following way:
You ask absurdly whether the (French) Canadians have the right to exercise these privileges in their own language. In what tongue could they exercise them? Did not the parliament of Great Britain know what their language was? (Cited by Dickinson and Young, 2008, p. 61) Anti-francophone voices were not limited to Montréal. In 1822, the union bill was introduced in West Minister to abolish the use of French as an official language in Canada. While the bill never passed, Dickinson and Young (2008) call the bill "a milestone" (p. 161) in the ill-fated rébellion des patriotes, which took place in Lower Canada between 1837 and 1838. It resulted in the arrest of 850 patriotes, 12 hangings and 58 deportations. Following the rébellion, the legislature of Lower Canada was suspended and Lord Durham, who was outspoken about his contempt towards French Canadians (more discussion on this in chapter 3 of this thesis), was named governor of all British North Americas. Despite the conquest and substantial immigration of English-speaking settlers following the independence of the United States, the anglophone population of Upper Canada was only two-
8 thirds the size of the francophone population of Lower Canada during the rébellion des patriotes (Conrick and Regan, 2007). While this important demographic position of French Canadians accorded their group some ethno-linguistic vitality, it led to fear among the British ruling class and to the adoption of different assimilationist measures. The act of Union adopted in 1840 was one such example. Following the act, Upper Canada and Lower Canada were united to form the province of Canada and article 41 of the act declared that all documents of the legislature be drafted in English only.
1.6.2. Unification of Canada
In 1867, the British North America Act (BNA) created the Canadian confederation uniting the province of Canada (which was divided into Québec and Ontario) with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Many Québec leaders believed the union to be advantageous for the protection of their cultural and linguistic interest. For instance, La Minerve wrote, "Comme Canadiens-Français, la position qui nous est faite dans la confédération est excellente. Nos droits ont été reconnus dans leur signification la plus large" (As French Canadians, we have been accorded an excellent place in the confederation. Our rights were recognized in their broadest sense) (as cited in Conrick and Regan, 2007). Others, however, were wary of the union suspecting it was a highly centralized government disguised in the name of confederation. The Lower Canadian liberals called the BNA an "anglifying bill" as they feared that the confederation would weaken the provincial government and give too much power to Ottawa leaving French Canadians "at the mercy of an Anglo-Protestant majority". (Miesel et al., 1999, p. 58) Later developments showed that "the desire to create a unified national spirit became associated with measures to promote anglicization and to curtail the use of French" (Miesel et al., 1999, p.62). In 1885, the francophone Métis leader, Louis-Riel, who led the rebellion of the Métis in Manitoba, was put to death by the federal government against protestations from Québec. Subsequently, despite having an important francophone population, Manitoba abolished French in schools in 1890 and put an end to the right to speak French in the legislature. Similarly, in 1892,
9 English was made the only language of education in the Northwest territories. In 1913, Ontario followed suit by adopting regulation 17, which restricted the rights of Franco-Ontarians to have their children educated in French. Ferguson, who later became the premier of Ontario, justified the regulation in the following terms, overtly flaunting its assimilationist goal:
The bilingual system encourages the isolation of races. It impresses the mind of youth with the idea of race distinction and militates against the fusion of various elements that make up the population... The experience of the United States where their national school system recognizes but one language simply proves the wisdom of the system.
(as cited in Conrick and Regan, 2007)
Compared to French Canadians in Canada, the English-speaking minority in Québec was in a much better position. For instance, McGill, an anglophone university in Montréal, was founded in 1829, twenty-three years before Université Laval, the first francophone university in the continent. In the words of Muller (2010), "for over one hundred years, Quebec remained the only part of Canada that made significant provision for bilingualism, in spite of the fact that its majority population was French-speaking." (p. 24). English language rights were not simply tolerated, English remained an important language in Québec and according to Conrick and Regan
(2007), "for economic reasons, it predominated" (p. 28).
1.6.3. La révolution tranquille and its aftermath
The century following the confederation saw important demographic changes in the francophone as well as the anglophone populations of Québec. Anglophone population in places outside Montréal had largely declined as Anglo-Quebecers moved to the West or to Montréal for mainly economic reasons (Rudin, 1985). While francophones still formed the majority in Montréal, its anglophone population had increased from 66,000 in 1871 to 600,000 in 1971 (Rudin, 1985). More francophone Quebecers had also started to move to Montréal following better job prospects in the city's factories. According to Levine (1990), 40% of Québec francophones lived
10 in Montréal by 1961 compared to 8.9% in 1871. This resulted in close contact between francophones and anglophones in Montréal. This proximity between the two communities was complicated by the fact that the anglophone minority owned most of the financial resources of the city while francophones largely struggled in poverty. For instance, in 1961, French Canadians were at the bottom of the salary scale among 14 ethnic groups, slightly above Italians and native Americans (Dion, 1991). By the 1960s, the francophone community in Québec was also worried about their long- term survival. Following the British conquest, higher birth-rate had allowed francophones to maintain their demographic weight and guarantee the survival of their language and culture. However, la revanche des berceaux (revenge of the cradle) was over by the 1960s. Furthermore, immigrant populations in Québec, largely settled on the island of Montréal, consistently chose to integrate into the English-speaking community and few of them learned French or sent their children to French-language schools (see eg. Levine 1990 and Dickinson and Young, 2008). This led to an increase in awareness among francophones of the importance of integrating immigrants into their community for the survival of their language and culture. This was the era of la révolution tranquille (the Quiet Revolution) and the French language had found itself at the very heart of this movement. The Quiet Revolution was centered around the objective of making francophones "maîtres chez nous" (masters of our own home) but it was hard to imagine francophones as masters of their home province if Montréal, Québec's métropole, continued to be dominated by anglophones and the English language (Levine,1990). The importance of the French language in francophone Québec was also bolstered by urbanization and increasing secularization of the population. In the post-catholic and increasingly Montréal-based Québec of the 1960s, "defense of the French language became the centerpiece of nationalism, replacing the church and legal institutions like the Civil Code as the essential sine qua non for the survival of francophone society" (Davidson and Young, 2003, p.305).
11 Two language laws were passed in Québec before the 1960s: the Lavergne law in 1910 requiring railway, telephone and electric power companies to use both English and French while communicating with the public and a short-lived law passed in 1937, and repealed the following year, giving primacy to French language texts in interpretations of laws and regulations in the province (Levine, 1990). However, the Quiet Revolution led to the adoption of language planning measures that were much more elaborate than any adopted in the past. The first of these measures was the formation of the Gendron commission in 1968 established to inquire into the status of the French language in Québec. However, the government had to take immediate action before the commission came up with its recommendations, as rife linguistic conflict started shaking the entire province with its epicenter at the Montréal suburb of Saint-Léonard. This conflict is now called la crise de Saint-Léonard (The Saint-Léonard crisis). Due to an increase in the number of Italian immigrants in the neighborhood, Saint-Léonard had witnessed a sharp decline in the francophone share of its population from 90% in 1960 to 60% in 1967 (Dickinson and Young, 2008). An increase in Italian immigration had also resulted in an increase in demand for bilingual classes.
This bilingualism led to anglicization as 90% of allophone3 children frequented these bilingual classes and 85% of them continued their secondary schooling in the English-speaking school system (Robert, 2008). In an effort to halt anglicization of immigrant children, the school board decided to put a stop to bilingual classes and replace them with unilingual French classes. This decision was met with much resistance from allophone and anglophone parents, leading to court cases, private English classes and violence between francophones and Italian immigrants. In an effort to ease language tensions, the government of Québec introduced Bill 85 in 1968, which made it obligatory for school boards to provide education in either English or French if requested but required all students to have working knowledge of French. This bill was not acceptable to francophones as most of them wanted immigrant children to integrate into the francophone school system. Consequently, the bill was withdrawn, and in 1969, the government
3 In Canada, allophones are individuals whose first language is neither English nor French.
12 adopted Bill 63, La loi pour promouvoir la langue française au Québec. Bill 63 made the teaching of French obligatory in the anglophone school system and established the priority of French in public signage, but it allowed immigrant parents to decide on the schooling of their children. This law was also unable to satisfy francophone Quebecers. At this point, the Gendron commission had also finalized its observations, which legitimized certain demands of the francophone community. According to the commission's report:
In (North) America, French is a fringe language. As such, its use is restricted even in areas where it is spoken by a majority of the population. This situation requires a clear policy: French can survive and flourish on the North American continent only with a maximum of opportunity and protection throughout Québec; and this can be accomplished only by making it a useful communication instrument for all the people of this area. (...) This government action should aim at establishing French as the common language of Quebecers by making it useful and necessary for everyone in work communication.
(Gendron, 1973, p. 151-152) Following the Gendron commission's report, Québec's government replaced Bill 63 with Bill 22 in 1974. This bill declared French to be the official language of Québec (Loi sur la langue officielle) and included measures to improve the status of French in all areas of public life. The bill also limited education in English to children who could demonstrate a sufficient knowledge of the language. Francophones did not find it to be strong or precise enough while anglophone and immigrant communities found it discriminatory and possibly harmful for the economy (Bourhis,
1984).
It was with the election of Québec's pro-independence party, le Parti-Québécois, in 1976 that a more well-planned and enduring language policy was adopted in the province. Loi 101 is arguably the most influential, but also the most controversial, language policy adopted in Québec. The bill, adopted in 1977, and accompanied by the charter of the French language (Charte de la langue française), reinforced French as the only official language of Québec and made French- school mandatory to all Quebecers unless their parents had received the majority of their primary
13 education in English in Québec4. Loi 101 largely satisfied francophone Quebecers while anglophone and allophone Quebecers were, at least initially, critical of the bill. This has resulted in numerous court-cases and changes to the charte de la langue française following court rulings. Levine (1990) calls opposition to Loi 101 "the touchstone of anglophone resistance" (p. 119) to Québec's new linguistic reality. However, Dickinson and Young (2008) argue that it is only a minority of allophones and anglophones who have persistently resisted the law. Regardless of significant opposition, Loi 101 is considered by many linguists as being successful in Québec for decreasing linguistic inequality and reducing linguistic assimilation of allophones into the previously dominant anglophone community (see eg. Bourhis, 2001; Conrick and Regan, 2007 and Bourhis and Sioufi, 2017).
1.6.4. Language planning and policies in Canada outside Québec
Language planning in Canada is not limited to initiatives taken by Québec's provincial government. The Canadian government has also adopted language planning measures at the federal level. Surprisingly, the language planning initiatives adopted by Canada's federal government and those adopted by Québec's provincial government have fundamentally different orientations (see e.g. Cardinal, 2008; Gervais et al., 2011 and Spolsky, 2012). At Québec's provincial level, the concept of territoriality is adopted with the French language designated as the official language throughout the territory of Québec whereas the federal government has adopted the personality principle, which focuses on individual rights instead of collective territorial rights. While different in approach, extensive language planning at the federal level in Canada, similar to language planning at the provincial level in Québec, started in the 1960s as a response to increasing demands from Québec francophones during the Quiet Revolution. In 1963, the Canadian federal government set up the Royal Commission on bilingualism and biculturalism (also referred to as the Laurendeau-Dunton commission) to investigate the state of bilingualism
4 This part of the charter was later modified to include all children whose parents had received the majority of their primary education in English anywhere in Canada.
14 and biculturalism throughout the country. The commission’s report shared some of the observations made by the Gendron commission. After establishing both languages as important world languages, the report acknowledged the minority status of French in the continent as well as in Canada in the following way:
In Canada, however, one of the two language groups begins with a considerable advantage. As the national language of the United States, one of the most powerful countries of the world, English has a massive preponderance in North America. Thus the English-language group in this country draws much of its strength from the English-speaking population of our neighbour. The French-language group is, on the other hand, a minority on the North American continent and suffers from its isolation not only from France but from the Other French-speaking peoples in the world.
(Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 1965; p. 15)
The report congratulated Québec for its "well-established tradition of respect for the rights of the English-speaking minority" (p. 141) but painted a gloomy future for francophones in Canada outside Québec. The authors noted that francophones living close to the border with Québec in Ontario and New Brunswick did not suffer from high assimilation rates as did francophones in other parts of Canada outside Québec. Nonetheless, they admitted that even in these places, "socioeconomic and educational institutions hardly favour living in French" (p.24). Following such observations, the commission recommended that New Brunswick and Ontario, due to a large presence of francophones in their territory, become officially bilingual. New Brunswick accepted the recommendation and passed the Official Languages of New Brunswick Act in 1969. Ontario, on the other hand, did not but it did adopt the French Language Services Act in 1986, which guarantees services in French from any central government agency or institution of the legislature in designated bilingual places. The province also recognized the right to French medium education with the Education Act and the Courts of Justice Act made English and French the official languages of the courts of Ontario. The Royal Commission also recommended that the federal government adopt a law on official languages and implement official bilingualism at the federal level. This resulted in the First Official Languages Act in 1968. This act made English and French official languages of Canada imposing federal institutions to give service in both languages. The
15 act also created the Commissioner of Official Languages who is charged with promoting and ensuring the equality between the two official languages in the country. Another important legislative action taken by the federal government was the Constitution Act of 1982, which incorporated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Among other rights, the charter placed linguistic rights at the forefront of its priorities with several sections dedicated to official languages of the country. The charter also included a section on education designed specifically to invalidate Québec's French Language Charter (Oakes and Warren, 2007, p.88). Provision 1 of section 23 of the charter states:
Citizens of Canada (a) whose first language learned and still understood is that of the English or French linguistic minority population of the province in which they reside, or (b) who have received their primary school instruction in Canada in English or French and reside in a province where the language in which they received that instruction is the language of the English or French linguistic minority population of the province, have the right to have their children receive primary and secondary school instruction in that language in that province.
The charter was unfortunately less helpful for many francophones in minority situation. Despite advocating for educational rights in the minority language, section 23 guarantees such right only when the minority language population is "sufficient to warrant the provision".
Similar provision based on population size was mentioned in the second Official
Languages Act adopted by the government in 1988. This Act guarantees federal services in English and French to all citizens but only when the demand is "significant" and guarantees the right of federal employees to work in the official language of their choice but only in pre-designated bilingual areas. As all of these bilingual areas are in and around the province of Québec, francophones who live in other parts of Canada are unable to enjoy these rights. Muller (2010) argues that the federal government's emphasis on numbers "places vulnerable francophone minorities in an 'unhealthy' relationship of dependence on the state and the federal legislation"
(p.29). It also places many francophone communities outside Québec in a precarious position as
16 Canada's francophone share of the population is constantly decreasing. For instance, Outside
Québec, francophones only represented 3.8% of the population in 2016 down from 5% in 1991 and 6% in 1971 (Statistics Canada 2016). Under such circumstances, many consider the federal government as being unable to promote vulnerable language minorities in the country. For instance, Spolsky (2012) blames language planning in Canada for failing "to address the more substantial issues facing francophone language communities, namely: unbalanced francophone- anglophone immigration, a unilingual private sector and inadequate cultural initiatives (p. 197).
Others, such as Cardinal and Denault (2008), believe that debates between Québec and Canadian governments about the legitimacy of their respective language policies have established language as a symbol of conflict rather than a symbol of national unity in Canada and they argue that
Canadian bilingualism and Québec's monolingualism should go together in today's globalized context.
1.6.5. French and English in the Ottawa-Gatineau region
The Ottawa-Gatineau region has had an important presence of speakers of French as well as English ever since the early days of English colonization of Canada. In 1859, French traveler Jean-Pierre-Oscar Comettant described the bilingual nature of Ottawa (known then by the name of Bytown) in following terms:
Au pied de la chute des Chaudières se dessine, admirablement placée sur une hauteur, la jolie ville de Bytown, moitié française, moitié anglaise. Tous les habitants d'origine française qui habitent Bytown connaissent les deux langues, mais le culte des souvenirs et amour invincible qu'ils portent à la France, malgré son ingratitude et malgré les événements politiques, leur font un pieux devoir de parler entre eux la langue nationale.
[At the foot of the Chaudières falls, admirably paced at an altitude, is outlined the beautiful city of Bytown, half French and half English. All inhabitants of Bytown who are of French origin know both languages, but respect for memories and invincible love for France, despite its ingratitude and despite political events, makes it a pious responsibility for them to speak French amongst each other]
17 (Comettant as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p. 267) Philemon Wright, the founder of Hull (one of five sectors that make the ville de Gatineau), was a British Royalist from Massachusetts who had moved to the area in search of fertile agricultural land in 1800. Hull and areas around it formed an anglophone settlement for a long time. Francophones gradually formed the city's majority as blue-collar French-Canadian workers migrated from Montréal and Trois-Rivières to work in the area. (Brault, 1981, p.253). Despite this sudden demographic change, the city continues to have an important bilingual presence. In the 100 years following the Canadian confederation, la vallée de l'Outaouais was also the only region of Québec, besides Montréal, to have registered a significant absolute increase of its anglophone population (Rudin, 1985, p.178). Today, a total of 48.5% of the OGR’s population are native English speakers while 30.3% are native French speakers (Statistics Canada, 2016). Even though the majority of francophones live in Gatineau and the majority of anglophones live in Ottawa, 16.2% (149,550) of Ottawans speak French as their first official language and 16.6% (45,420) of Gatinois speak English as their first official language. However, the two cities are very different in their recognition of this bilingual reality. According to Québec's French Language Charter, only municipalities where over 50% of the population are native English speakers can have bilingual designation. Since Gatineau does not meet this criterion, it is officially a French-speaking city. Ottawa does not recognize French as an official language, but it has made considerable effort in this direction. In 2001, the city published its Policy on Bilingualism, a detailed document, which provides specific regulations for communication with the public and language use in city administration. Among other provisions, the policy requires that written communication with the public be in English as well as in French. It also states that any citizen of the city has the right to communicate with and receive services from the city in either French or English. Following pressure from francophone and francophile groups demanding that the bilingual nature of the country's capital be officially recognized and the continuity of services in French be guaranteed (see eg. ottawavillebilingue.ca/en/about-us/), the province of Ontario passed Bill 177 in 2017 recognizing
18 Ottawa's bilingual character. Subsequently, the city of Ottawa adopted a by-law in this direction and also officially recognized the bilingual character of Ottawa.
1.7. CONCLUSION
An important part of English-Canada’s history is built on resistance to French. Québec, on the other hand, has made considerable investments to safeguard its language. The OGR is in the middle of these two worlds, one where the French language is the cornerstone of common identity and another where it has historically been the object of anglophone hostility. Although it is situated outside francophone Québec, Ottawa has shown an openness to French by adopting pro-French language measures as discussed in the preceding section. This makes Ottawa distinct from other cities in English-Canada and places it among the most French-friendly cities in the English- speaking part of the country. Gatineau, while unequivocally francophone in terms of its language policies, also has to face its anglophone reality. People in the OGR have to constantly navigate between resistance to French and its defense, between the dominance of English on one side and its lack of any official status on the other and between the status of French as the sole official language in Québec and its position as a minority language in Ontario. Such navigation is likely to have an impact on language use and language attitudes and yield results that will be important in understanding how these variables interact in points of geographic and linguistic contact.
19 Chapter 2: Methodologies used in language Attitude research
2.1. ATTITUDE:
Language attitude as a field of research garners interest from academics and non- academics alike. In places like Québec where more than one language is spoken and in competition, studies on language attitudes can make headlines (see e.g. Bélair-Cirino, 2019 and Koenig-Soutière, 2019). Because attitude is a term employed and understood by everyone, Baker (1992) argues that attitude research has higher chances than other forms of linguistic research of being communicated and applied. In one of the most cited definitions of the term, Oppenheim (1982) defines attitude as:
A construct, an abstraction which cannot be directly apprehended. It is an inner component of mental life which expresses itself, directly or indirectly, through such more obvious processes as stereotypes, beliefs, verbal statements, or reactions, ideas and opinions, selective recall, anger or satisfaction or some other emotion and in various other aspects of behavior. (p. 39) For Oppenheim, attitudes are not directly accessible and need to be interpreted through the individual’s comportment and the way s/he functions in the society. However, later in the same work, he is quick to point out that the relationship between attitude and behavior is complex, an idea that surfaces repeatedly in attitude studies, and one that is addressed in this thesis. Another definition of attitude by Garrett (2010) focuses on its relationship with the social world and its importance as a stable disposition. According to Garrett an attitude is:
An evaluative orientation to a social object of some sort, whether it is a language or a new government policy, etc. And, as a ‘disposition’, an attitude can be seen as having a degree of stability that allows it to be identified. (p. 20)
Garrett is not alone in believing that attitudes are fairly stable evaluations of objects of social importance. Consequently, attitude studies are widely employed in a range of
20 linguistic domains including but not limited to language maintenance and shift (see e.g. Baker, 1992; Bourhis, 2001 and Garrett et al., 2003), bilingual education (see e.g. Echeverria, 2005; Rydenvald, 2015 and Lee and Green, 2016) and language planning (see e.g. Bourhis, 1984, Newman and Trenchs-Parera, 2015 and Kircher, 2016).
2.1.1. The tripartite model of attitude
There are two main theoretical frameworks in attitude research, namely the mentalist and the behaviorist framework. The behaviorist framework considers attitude to be a dependent variable and defines it entirely in terms of observable behavior (Agheyisi and Fishman, 1970, p. 138). Bain (1928) writes “we cannot speak of the existence of attitudes or wishes or sentiments or any other phenomena of consciousness except as they are manifested in overt behavior” (p.950). On the other hand, according to the mentalist framework, attitudes are not directly observable but have to be inferred from the subject's introspection (Agheyisi and Fishman, 1970, p. 138). More recent studies have put into question the behaviorist’s belief that attitudes and behavior are related in a one-to-one manner. According to Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (2005), for instance, attitude is only one of three factors that influence behavioral intention, which is considered by the theory to be “the most important immediate determinant of that action” (p.117-118). According to the theory, the other factors that determine behavioral intention are subjective norm (i.e. the social pressure to perform or not perform an action) and perceived behavioral control (the means and ability to perform the action) (Ajzen, 2005). Unlike the behaviorist approach, the mentalist approach does not consider behavior to be a direct representation of attitude, but the mentalist approach still believes that attitude is a “precondition of behavior” (Allport, 1935, p. 805).
21 Many researchers working under the mentalist approach have categorized attitudes into three different components, which together comprise a tripartite model: cognitive, affective and readiness for action (Baker, 1992; Garrett et al., 2003; Edwards, 2009). According to this model, the cognitive component of attitude deals with thoughts and beliefs that people are likely to express in formal and public statements. For example, a person in French-speaking Canada might believe that it is important to learn English. This belief would not be surprising given the role of English as a lingua franca in many parts of the world and its importance for geographical and economic mobility in North America. However, this is distinct from the affective component of attitude, which looks at deep- rooted sentiments and private feelings of individuals. For instance, the individual might also find English to be a beautiful language or consider it elegant, which would suggest that s/he has positive feelings towards the language. The third component, readiness for action, is the intention or predisposition to perform a certain action. Someone might believe that it is important to learn English (cognitive), have positive feelings towards the language (affective) and be willing to attend language classes (readiness to action). However, this does not necessarily mean that the individual will perform the action (behavior). This possible discrepancy between attitude and behavior, a point raised previously in this work, will be explored in the next section.
2.1.2. The relationship between attitude and behavior
Although the tripartite model considers behavior to be one of the three components of attitude, there is much debate regarding the interconnectedness between the two. The obscure nature of this relationship is apparent in the way researchers talk about attitude. Garrett (2010) writes:
22 It is perhaps telling that we tend frequently to talk in terms of the relationship between ‘attitudes and behavior’ as if taking it for granted that attitudes are primarily related to cognition and affect combined, with a tendency to work independently of behavior much of the time. (p. 25)
Discrepancy between attitude and behavior has been observed in many studies. One of the earliest such studies was conducted by LaPiere in 1934. In the 1930s when racism towards Asian Americans was widespread in the United States, LaPiere (1934) conducted a study where a Chinese couple visited 251 establishments (restaurants, hotels and cafés) out of which they were refused entry in a single restaurant. However, when the same restaurants were later asked if they would refuse service to a Chinese couple, 92% of them responded with a ‘yes’. This example is often cited as one of the first studies of its kind showing such staggering discrepancy between attitude and behavior. This study was followed by a series of other studies that have discovered similar discrepancies (see Wicker, 1969 for an overview). In a more recent study conducted by Choi (2003) in Paraguay, the author discovered inconsistencies between students’ and parents’ attitudes to Guaraní and their actual use of the language. Despite a high level of interest in mastering the language and a high affective value associated with it, very few students used the language outside of classroom and even fewer students were dominant in it. Even though attitudes have been found to be poor predictors of specific behavior, some social-psychologists maintain that attitudes are still predictive of behavior in general.
Cohen (1964) writes “…attitudes are always seen as precursors of behavior, as determinants of how a person will actually behave in his daily affairs.” (p.138). Baker (1992) acknowledges this discrepancy and agrees that “broad attitudes are poor predictors of very specific actions” (p.17). He suggests that the discrepancy between attitude and external behavior stems from the fact that people’s actions depend on several factors, some of which are outside the realm of attitudes. For instance, for a French-Canadian individual
23 who has a positive attitude to learning English, the decision to learn the language also depends on several other factors such as time and financial constraints, availability of ESL courses in their area of residence as well as the collective attitude of their community towards learning English, a language that has been historically considered a symbol of British colonialism and a threat to the French fact in Québec. Despite this lack of one-to- one relationship between attitude and behavior, Baker (1992) argues that it would be “unjustified to ignore the accumulated experiences that are captured in attitudes and concentrate solely on behavior” (p. 16). The most important support for the tripartite model comes from Breckler’s (1984) highly cited snake experiment. In this experiment, Breckler studied people’s attitudes towards snakes in two closely related studies. In the first study, there was a real snake present close to the participant. In the second study, there was no snake present in the room, but participants were asked to imagine the presence of a snake as they answered different questions. Breckler used non-verbal (e.g. heart rate) as well as verbal measures to assess cognitive and affective aspects of attitude towards snakes among his participants. The behavioral aspect was measured in terms of how close in distance to snake pictures participants were willing or likely to approach or the extent to which they were willing or likely to engage with a live snake. In both studies, Breckler found moderate to high correlation between cognition, affect and behavior with the correlations being higher when there was no snake present in the room. This experiment not only finds support for the tripartite model, but it also shows that there might be a difference between behavioral intentions in hypothetical situations (e.g., when no snake is present) and people’s actual behavior (e.g., when taking a survey about snakes next to them in a cage). In linguistic terms, this can be likened to the difference between what language(s) people think they
24 would use in a given situation and the language(s) they actually end up using while faced with the situation.
2.1.3. Language attitude and the dimensions of solidarity and status
Language attitudes in Québec and elsewhere are often measured in terms of two evaluative dimensions: status and solidarity. A language with a high status enjoys a higher prestige in the society. It also benefits from greater institutional support and facilitates social mobility (Ryan, Giles, and Sebastian, 1982). On the other hand, the notion of solidarity deals with questions of group loyalty and togetherness. A language is attributed higher solidarity values if it “elicits strong feelings of attachment and belonging to a particular social group” (Kircher, 2014, p. 22). Many language attitude studies have used factor analysis to confirm the clustering of personal traits along these two dimensions thereby validating the dichotomy (see e.g. Ryan and Carranza, 1975; Woolard, 1989 and Echeverria, 2005). In places where there is a minority language present alongside a dominant or a majority language, the survival of the minority language is often dependent on this force of solidarity, a strong affective link that speakers have established with their in-group language. Consequently, “a minority language, is often valued because it is seen as a marker of ethnic ‘authenticity’, as the variety spoken by ‘true’ members of the community.” (Echeverria 2005, p.249). This would lead us to believe that, in multilingual situations, the local language of everyday life would be consistently rated higher in terms of solidarity and the more prestigious language of formal communication would be rated higher in terms of status. Different studies corroborate the association between in-group language and solidarity. Ghimenton (2015) observed similar trends in Veneto where Italian, the standard
25 language, was valued for its usefulness and importance (status domains) while most of her participants associated the local dialect with what could be understood as solidarity traits such as familiarity, cultural heritage and tradition. The fact that Veneto was the favored language for communication between family members further signals its importance in terms of solidarity. In her study in an ethnic Hungarian community undergoing a language shift to German in Austria, Susan Gal (1978) noticed that Hungarian was associated with the low status peasant profession. On the other hand, German enjoyed a higher status as it represented the worker identity, which was lucrative and attractive especially among women in the community. However, Hungarian continued to be used especially by peasant men and those with extensive peasant networks, possibly due to its role as the language of in-group solidarity. These observations are at odds with findings in Québec where the minority language (i.e. English) has historically enjoyed higher status than the majority language (i.e. French). Despite French being the only official language of the province as well as the mother tongue of most Quebecers, LA studies conducted in Québec have unanimously pointed out the lower status of French compared to English in the province (see e.g. Lambert et al., 1960; Genesee and Holobow, 1989 and Kircher, 2009) The dichotomy between status and solidarity dimensions is similar to the one between instrumental and integrative orientations used in the field of second language acquisition (Oakes, 2001, p.32). This dichotomy, first used by Gardner and Lambert (1959), has been extensively employed in the field of second language acquisition. The integrative orientation, similar to the solidarity dimension, is defined as an “attachment to, or identification with a language group and their cultural activities” (Baker, 1992, p.32). By contrast, instrumental orientation deals with the utilitarian value of learning the language (Gardner and Lambert, 1959). In their study among Montréal anglophones, Gardner and Lambert (1959), concluded that these second language attitudes were the 26 second most important factor (following language aptitude) in successful learning of a second language. Such findings bring to light the importance of attitude research not only in the field of sociolinguistics but also in second language acquisition.
2.2. APPROACHES TO STUDYING LANGUAGE ATTITUDES
It is generally believed that there are three main approaches to studying language attitudes: societal treatment, direct measures and indirect measures (see e.g. Ryan and Giles, 1982; Garrett et al., 2003 and Garrett, 2010). Each of these approaches incorporate different methods and each method has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Nevertheless, certain methods might be more appropriate in certain contexts. For instance, if we were to conduct a study in a community where most people are illiterate, using a method that requires participants to read or write down something is bound to fail. The choice of method also depends on “the topic of research and preference in methodology” (Baker, 1992, p. 19). For example, if we want to identify language attitudes prevalent in Québec in the 17th century, the societal treatment approach might be the only approach available to us as people who lived during this era are no longer available to answer attitude related questions or participate in a matched-guise test. It might similarly be wise to use methods, if any, that have been previously used in the community; this is especially true if we need to make comparisons between findings to measure evolution in language attitudes. Many researchers only use one of the three approaches to assess language attitudes. Others, however, recommend the use of two or all three approaches to tap into attitudes at different levels (see e.g. Lambert et al., 1960 and Kircher, 2009). Others still, like Kircher (2009), argue that “only the combination of different methods of attitude elicitation allows the achievement of full understanding of language attitudes” (p. 76).
27 2.2.1. Societal treatment approach
According to Garrett et al. (2003), “Studies falling under this heading typically involve observational, participant observation and ethnographic studies, or the analysis of a host of sources in the public domain” (p.15). In more precise terms, “all techniques which do not involve explicitly asking respondents for their view or reactions would be classified under this category” (Giles, Ryan and Hewstone, 1987, p.1068). In other words, the researcher in such studies is merely an observer. In this regard, among the different approaches available, “the societal treatment approach is the least obtrusive overall” (Garrett, 2010, p. 52). Due to the minimal, if any, interaction between participants and the researcher and the absence of direct elicitation of responses, this approach reduces chances of participants falling prey to social desirability bias or being influenced by the presence of a researcher, issues that Baker (1992) lists as some of the most prominent problems in attitude research.
2.2.1.1. Analysis of pre-existing documents
The societal treatment approach has an important place in situations where researchers have to make inferences about language attitudes based on historical documents. Garrett (2010) argues that societal treatment is unique in this regard because gaining historical insights about attitudes is generally beyond the limits of direct and indirect methods. Caron-Leclerc (1998) (see section 4) analyzed accounts of travelers who visited Canada between 1655 and 1891 in order to study language attitudes of the travelers and, through their accounts, language attitudes towards Canadian French prevalent in French-Canada and elsewhere at that time. This way of conducting language attitude research is also a viable substitute to more direct and indirect measures in places that are less accessible. Schmied (1991) cites underdeveloped services and infrastructure as well as
28 war as some reasons leading him to use the societal treatment approach for his language attitude work in Africa where he analyzed letters to the editor published in African newspapers to identify attitudes towards English and African languages. Another important advantage of the societal treatment approach is its role in studying how institutions and governments treat different languages and dialects. Consequently, Ryan and Giles (1982) call this approach “the first source of information about views on language varieties” (p.7). Finally, this approach is also valuable as it gives new scope to pre-existing documents that were not initially created for language attitude research, but that could, nevertheless, provide important insights to this end.
2.2.1.2. Participant observation
Participant observation (also known as ethnographic observation) is a promising method falling under the societal treatment approach that can be employed to study language attitudes. Dewalt and Dewalt (2002) define participant observation as “a way to collect data in naturalistic settings by ethnographers who observe and/or take part in the common and uncommon activities of the people being studied.” (p.2). Participant observation as a method is especially valuable in studying language behavior and for making inferences about language attitudes through observed behavior (Fasold, 1984). Similarly, according to Johnstone (2000), an important advantage of this method over other methods has to do with the insight it provides to human behavior. She writes that ethnographic observation offers “explanations of human behavior that cannot be uncovered through other kinds of research such as experimentation, explanations that have to do with how behavior counts as action.” (p. 83). Participant observation is sometimes broken down into five categories that form a continuum to reflect the different degrees to which an ethnographer might participate in
29 the community: nonparticipation, passive participation, moderate participation, active participation and complete participation (Spradley 1980; Dewalt and Dewalt, 2000). Nonparticipation suggests that the ethnographer is not physically present in the community. She might learn about the community in question through films, TVs, books or other methods. However, since she is not present in the community being studied, Dewalt and Dewalt (2000) say that this form of participation “doesn’t employ the method of participant observation”. (p.19). In passive participation, the researcher is on the spot as a spectator, but she does not interact with the community members or intervene in their activities. In this type of observation, “those being observed may not even know that they are under observation” (Dewalt and Dewalt, 2000, p.19). Lamarre (2002) and her team engaged in this form of participation in their research in Montréal where they made in-situ ethnographic observations to analyze the use of different languages in various urban settings in Montréal such as cafés, clinics, parks and government buildings. Moderate participation implies that participants are aware of the role of the researcher and of the fact that they are being observed but the ethnographer’s role is mainly limited to observation with little participation. According to Dewalt and Dewalt (2000), many new researchers start with moderate participation until they are familiar with the community and fluent in the language of the community members. An ethnographer who is engaged in active participation engages in most activities in the community and often stays in the same dwellings as the community members. Finally, a complete participation suggests that the ethnographer takes on the role of the community member being studied, be it a cab driver, dancer, musician or any other social role during the period of observation. The degree of participation adopted by the researcher might depend on their personality, the research questions being asked as well as the community under study, but researchers generally believe that, all things being equal, no strategy is better than another. Dewalt and 30 Dewalt (2000) write, for instance, that “successful researchers have employed a wide variety of strategies ranging from pure observation to full participation in culture” (p. 19). Despite the numerous advantages of the participant observation technique, it does have its drawbacks. Agheyisi and Fishman (1970) consider it insufficient by itself to collect attitudinal data and criticize traditional ethnographic methodology for “excessive subjectivity and privacy” (p. 150). Nevertheless, they admit that with amelioration to the methodology, observational data “can be subjected to the same rigorous standards of scoring, counting and rating as data collected through more formal methods” (p.150). Anthropologists often suggest using ethnographic observation along with other methods of data collection. Johnstone (2000) says that triangulation is important to improve reliability and validity of qualitative research. Similarly, Dewalt and Dewalt (2002) argue “for a mix of methods in which participant observation is just one of the tools that anthropologists use in order to find out the behavior of people they study.” In this thesis, the societal treatment approach is used in three ways. First, I will be discussing language conflict and language planning in Québec as well as the history of French and English languages in Québec and in Canada to establish the backdrop against which the results of my own research will be interpreted. Secondly, I will compile a corpus of tweets to explore language use and language attitudes expressed in the tweetosphere.
Finally, I will be using passive participant observation in order to assess the use of French and English in different public places in Gatineau and Ottawa through ethnographic observations.
2.2.2. Direct approach
The direct approach is often believed to be the “most dominant paradigm” (Garrett, 2010, p.159) used in language attitude research. This approach involves asking direct
31 questions to participants either in the form of questionnaires or interviews in order to gauge their attitude towards a language or a linguistic variety. In societal treatment studies, the researcher has to make inferences about attitudes from various sources and observations while “in the direct method, respondents themselves infer and report directly their own attitudes” (Garrett, 2010, p. 52); herein lies the fundamental difference between the two approaches. It is important to note that the direct approach has often been criticized as only dealing with the cognitive aspect of attitude and has been called a poor measure of the more personal and deep-rooted affective and behavioral aspects (Garrett et al., 2003; Giles and Billings, 2004; Garrett, 2010). Despite criticisms, it is, nevertheless, widely used either by itself or in conjunction with another approach. The importance of questionnaires and interviews in assessing overt attitudes should not be downplayed as their use, alongside other methods, could lead to particularly interesting comparisons between overt and covert attitudes.
2.2.2.1. Questionnaire (design and precautions)
Questionnaire is a common direct method used to gather attitude data. However, there are many things that need to be considered before designing one. Prior to designing a new survey and coming up with entirely new questions, it is important to look at methods that have already been developed. Baker (1992), for example, places high importance on adopting previously validated and reliable tools to measure attitude (p. 24). However, even when using previously developed methods, it is necessary to make sure that they are appropriate for the current population. Oppenheim writes (1992):
Sometimes we can borrow or adapt questionnaires from other researchers, but there still remains the task of making quite sure that these will ‘work’ with our population and will yield the data we require. (p. 47)
32 Whether we are adapting a previously developed questionnaire or designing a new one, it is necessary to keep a few things in mind so that we do not fall into traps. Oppenheim (1992) gives a list of basic rules to follow where he encourages the use of short questions, unambiguous and simple wording, attention to detail and the option to choose Not applicable/Don’t know category for factual as well as non-factual questions. The importance of the Not applicable/Don’t know category has to do with not forcing participants to give meaningless answers to questions that may not be applicable to them. He also asks researchers to avoid the use of proverbs as they could provoke participants to agree without reflection, double negatives due to their ambiguous nature and ‘leading’ questions because they tend to make assumptions about the participants and favor a certain answer. Baker (1988) gives an example of ‘leading’ question from MacKinnon’s 1981 survey in Scotland: “Do you think that the Gaelic language is important for the Scottish people as a whole?”. Baker (1988) finds the word important to be problematic in the question as it is suggestive of the researcher’s favorable attitude towards the Gaelic language. Garrett (2010) asks researchers to be equally careful and encourages them to avoid the use of strongly slanted questions, hypothetical questions and questions that might be asking multiple things. Since strongly slanted questions tend to encourage people to answer in a certain way, Oppenheim (1992) provides a list of terms to avoid for researchers working in a Western context. These terms include democratic, black, free, healthy, natural, regular, unfaithful, modern, Nazis, Reds, bosses etc. The issue with hypothetical questions comes from the discrepancy that has been observed between how people think they might react to a situation and how they actually react to it. This was apparent in the study conducted by LaPiere (1934) in American restaurants (study discussed previously in this chapter). Finally, multiple questions (also called double-barrelled questions) are to be 33 avoided because they can leave participants perplexed regarding which part of the question they are supposed to answer. Baker (1988) gives an example of this from MacKinnon’s 1981 survey: “Should children in any part of Scotland be able to learn Gaelic at school if they or their parents want it?”. Since the question is talking about parents as well as students, it is asking two different questions. Such questions could create confusion among participants and mislead data interpretation. Certain question formulations could also lead to acquiescence or social desirability bias. These biases are always of concern in attitude research. However, some researchers claim that they are more prevalent in interviews than in questionnaires (Oppenheim, 1992; Gass and Seiter, 2003 as cited in Garrett, 2010). According to social desirability bias, participants may answer a question in a way that they consider to be appropriate regardless of their more private opinions. Historical accounts as discussed in chapter 1 and 3 as well as findings from more recent studies (see e.g. “Propos racistes”, 2014; Groff et al., 2016; Trépanier, 2016) demonstrate that there is a long history of hostility towards French Canadians in Canada. However, a person with hostile attitudes towards francophones might still be reluctant to openly verbalize such attitudes because, in the Canadian context, it is not politically correct to display xenophobic and bigoted opinions. Similarly, acquiescence bias is the tendency to agree with the researcher regardless of deeply held personal attitudes. Both of these biases are harmful to an investigation as they favor answers that are, possibly, unfaithful to the participant’s real attitude. Garrett (2010) suggests guaranteeing anonymity and confidentiality as helpful strategies in reducing social desirability bias and Baker (1988) contends that acquiescence bias might be reduced by paying particular attention to question formulation and wording.
34 2.2.2.2. Open-ended vs. closed-ended questions
Another important issue that needs to be discussed during questionnaire development is whether we want to use open-ended or closed-ended questions. Open- ended questions can be a potentially rich source of data. However, their use can lead to complications as well. They are often criticized because the effort involved in writing might discourage some participants from expressing their opinions in length while other participants might end up not responding to the question in ways that would be useful to the research (Agheyisi and Fishman, 1970). Closed-ended questions offer an important alternative in this regard. They are also valued since they facilitate data analysis. However, this does not mean that open-ended questions are useless altogether. Oppenheim (1992) says, “all closed-ended questions should start their lives as open ones” (p. 129). He recommends that researchers ask these open-ended questions to participants in the pilot study so as to include all relevant answer categories as options in the final questionnaire. This is an attractive option because it would allow for a relatively rich set of responses without leading to complications during data analysis. Finally, for every question, even when worded in the most optimum manner, it is necessary to have a lucid understanding of its role in the survey. Oppenheim (1992) writes:
There should always be a clear answer to queries such as “Why are we asking this question? What is it doing here? How do we intend to use the response?” (p. 122) Being able to justify the pertinence of each question reduces the chances of ending up with unnecessarily long surveys.
2.2.2.3. Scalar vs. non-scalar measures
While the use of non-scalar measures is well attested in questionnaires, many language attitude studies make use of scalar measures. Non-scalar measures might consist of binary responses such as agree or disagree to statements. They might also entail asking 35 participants to assign adjectives to different languages or language varieties. On the other hand, scalar measures allow for a more nuanced response, a feature that has garnered them wide appreciation (see e.g. Oppenheim 1992). The Likert scale is often considered the most popular scaling procedure available for language attitude research (Baker, 1992; Oppenheim, 1992). The scale offers five (or seven) different answer options for every question and every option is mapped to a score from 1 to 5. Kircher (2009) made use of this scale in her model aimed at studying language attitudes towards French and English in terms of solidarity and status dimensions among anglophone, francophone and allophone youth in Montréal. She had several statements in her questionnaire such as “French is a language that is well suited to modern society”, a statement aimed at identifying the status accorded to the language, while other statements such as “Knowing French is a significant part of Canadian cultural heritage” aimed at assessing the language’s importance for group solidarity. For every statement, the respondents had to choose one out of five possible options ranging from completely agree which was assigned the score of 1 to don’t agree at all which was assigned the score of 5. The score for every response was added together to obtain a total score for every participant. The most important criticism of the scale pertains to this final score as the same score might be obtained in several different ways even if the participants had largely different responses to individual questions (Oppenheim, 1992). Nevertheless, Likert scale methodology is still applauded for its relative ease of construction and the precision by which we can measure individual responses. The wide use of this scale also introduces a certain uniformity in the field and allows researchers to easily compare their findings with findings from previous studies. Developed by Bogardus in 1925, the social distance scale has been revised and used in many studies looking at inter-group relations. Lambert et al. (1960) made use of the 36 scale as a part of their investigation on language attitudes towards French and English among Montréal anglophone and francophones. In this part of the survey, participants had to rate their preference for English or French Canadians as: marital partners, friends, neighbors, tenants, colleagues, and political candidates. According to this scale, willingness to accept a group member as a marital partner signifies the greatest level of closeness while only accepting them as tenants or colleagues signifies lesser degree of closeness. Some studies have also included options such as would exclude from my community/country, a category that might be pertinent in cases of extreme hostility between groups. Critics have mainly questioned the linearity and possibly unequal intervals of the scale (Oppenheim, 1992). The problem of linearity is also apparent in the survey by Lambert et al. (1960) because, for some people, accepting someone as a political candidate might require a higher degree of affinity with the other group than having someone as colleague. Similarly, people may not regard the social distance between neighbors and colleagues to be as important as social distance between these two groups and family leading to possibly unequal intervals between the categories.
2.2.2.4. Interview
Interviews are highly valued data gathering tools. The advantage to using this research method has to do with the possibility of successfully implementing open-ended questions, which leads to elaborate and rich answers, improved response rates, access to a wider range of participants including those who might be uneducated as well as the possibility of face-to-face contact between participants and researchers (Oppenheim, 1992). The benefits of interviews are especially undeniable for sociolinguistic research. Poplack (1989) and her team conducted sociolinguistic interviews in the Ottawa-Gatineau region of Canada with the aim of gathering speech samples from francophones living in
37 the area. Since they intended on measuring contact induced linguistic change in the French spoken in the region, it was important to interview speakers and record their everyday speech. Despite advantages, interviews could pose some important problems for attitude research. According to Agheyisi and Fishman (1970), the disadvantage of interviews mainly surfaces at the stage of data coding and processing. The large bulk of data might be extremely time consuming to analyze and, despite a solid analysis, it might be difficult to compare findings between different studies. In order to take advantage of the positive aspects of interviews without introducing complications in data analysis, many researchers adopt self-administered or group administered questionnaires. The presence of the researcher remedies possible misunderstandings and allows for some of the benefits associated with interviews such as face-to-face interaction with participants and better response rates. In this dissertation, I will be using a LA questionnaire to assess language attitudes towards French and English among people in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Since questionnaires have been frequently used in LA research in Québec and elsewhere, the use of this methodology allows us to continue this tradition and easily compare our findings with findings from other studies. Furthermore, it was important for us to include participants from different backgrounds, age groups and neighborhoods to provide a reasonable representation of the OGR population. The use of a questionnaire allowed us to meet this objective as we were able to easily recruit participants randomly in different public places of the two cities. Finally, various researchers have argued that using questionnaire in conjunction with other approaches is the best method of studying language attitudes (see e.g. Bentahila, 1983; Chakrani, 2010). By combining the societal treatment approach with a direct approach, we were able to follow this recommendation. 38 2.2.3. Indirect approach
As noted previously, deep rooted feelings that make up an individual’s language attitudes are often difficult to elicit through direct methods such as questionnaires and interviews. Hence, researchers often use indirect methods such as the matched guise technique (Lambert et al. 1960) to do a more fine-grained analysis of language attitudes. According to the MGT, perfectly bilingual speakers are recorded reading the same material in two language varieties. Participants listen to these recordings unaware that they are read by the same individual. The participants then judge what they perceive to be two different speakers in terms of different personality traits. The ‘verbal-guise technique’ is a variation of the MGT where instead of using the same speaker, different speakers are used to read texts in different language varieties. Instead of asking direct questions about a language or a linguistic variety, the indirect approach infers language attitudes from the way participants evaluate speakers of these varieties. The popularity of this approach can also be attributed to the belief that, unlike direct measures, it is less likely to result in social desirability biases or participant reflection (Cargile, Giles, Ryan, and Bradac, 1994). The matched guise technique (MGT) was developed by Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, and Fillenbaum in 1960 in order to assess attitudes towards French and English among Montréal anglophones and francophones. In this study, four bilingual male speakers were taped reading the same text in French and English. These recordings were then played to francophone and anglophone participants (called judges) without telling them that they were listening to the same voice twice. On the contrary, special attention was taken to hide this fact by allowing the maximum possible interval between the English and the French guise for every speaker and by using filler voices; needless to say, the evaluations of the filler voices were not used for data analysis. The participants were told that the study intended to study people’s judgement of someone based on their voice and that French and 39 English voices were used to give “greater scope to the experiment” (Lambert et al., 1960). After listening to a guise, participants had to rate the speaker for 14 traits on a 6-point scale ranging from "very little" (fort peu) to "very much" (beaucoup). Giles and Coupland (1991) call the MGT “a rigorous and elegant method for eliciting apparently private attitudes”. (p. 35). Other researchers appreciate it for being able to tap into covert language attitudes (Kircher, 2009). Consequently, the MGT and the verbal-guise technique have been widely used to measure language attitudes in multilingual areas all over the world such as Catalonia (see e.g. Woolard and Gahng, 1990), the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) (see e.g. Echeverria, 2005), Hong Kong (see e.g. Gibbons, 1987 and Lai, 2007), Singapore (see e.g. Cavallaro and Chin, 2009) and Québec (see e.g. Genesee and Holobow, 1989; Laur 2008; Kircher, 2009 and Oakes, 2010). Many of these studies have made modifications to the technique so as to represent the socio- cultural reality of the community being studied and/or to reflect the evolution in mentality in these places. In her study in Montréal, Kircher (2009) did not use some of the traits originally used by Lambert et al. (1960) in the MGT such as height, religion and general likeability. The omission of religion is likely motivated by the fact that the role of religion has largely changed in Québec between the 1960s and now. Echeverria (2005) added traits such as cool and progressive in the model when she conducted her study in the BAC. Laur
(2008) introduced a change in terms of the voices that were being rated. Even though the original MGT only used male voices, she included a female voice along with a male voice in her large-scale investigation of language attitudes in Montréal. Others like Gibbons (1987) have used recordings with code-switching along with monolingual recordings in order to be representative of real language practices. Still others such as Woolard and Gahng (1990) included speech samples of non-native speakers considering the fact that people encounter non-native speech very frequently in different multilingual societies. 40 The semantic differential scale is considered by some researchers as another indirect method. Garrett (2010) calls it an appropriate indirect method in situations where we want to look at snap responses. Baker (1992) values it for being able to “tap the affective component as well as the cognitive component of attitudes” (p. 18). According to this method, participants are given multiple scales with bipolar adjectives, such as beautiful/ugly, old/modern etc., at the two extremes and for every language, they have to say where they would situate the language on the scales. Unlike in the MGT, participants are not given any stimulus, which means that they are basing their judgement on their general ideas and beliefs about the linguistic varieties under study. This method is considered by some researchers as a better alternative to the MGT particularly when looking at accent variations (see e.g. Bernaisch and Koch, 2016). Despite its wide use, the MGT has been criticized for various reasons. According to Lai (2007), the teachers who piloted the MGT for her study “found it illogical to judge a person’s friendliness, wealth and intelligence by listening to one’s voice.” (p. 235) Many have also criticized the technique for being artificial (Agheyisi and Fishman, 1970 and Ryan and Giles, 1982) and for failing to represent actual language practices of diglossic societies in their speech samples (p. 146). Agheyisi and Fishman (190) criticize the MGT’s presupposition that “each population or sub-population is characterized or identifiable by a single language variety.” (p.146) They further write:
When we examine bilingual speech communities and networks, particularly within a diglossia setting, a lot of switching is found to go on - in the form of inter-dialect switching, or switching from standard to non-standard varieties, or even from one language to another - depending on factors such as domain, topic, location, role, interaction type, or network type” (p. 146) The point made by Agheyisi and Fishman (1970) has been supported by further research. The important role of domain, for instance, in determining language attitudes was observed
41 by Ryan and Carranza (1975) in their study conducted among Anglo-American and Mexican-American adolescents in Chicago by using the verbal-guise technique. The study used recordings of male speakers conversing in a home situation and another pertaining to a school situation in Mexican-accented English and standard American English. The authors discovered that all students, whether they be Mexican American or Anglo- American, rated the accented speech higher in the home context than in the school context, thereby, indicating that attitude towards a linguistic variety can depend on such factors such as the domain of use. Another problem with the MGT as used traditionally is the lack of authenticity. In the MGT, the only variable that is manipulated is the language. Lambert et al. (1960) write, “since we were interested in reactions that are attributable primarily to the language itself, we attempted to minimize the effects of both the voice of the speaker and his message” (p.44). Garrett (2010) criticizes this approach because he argues that features such as intonation and speech rate cannot be kept constant across languages and the recordings still be representative of “the kind of speech that people would typically encounter in such speech communities” (p. 58). Garrett (2010) also criticizes the inauthenticity of the MGT as it often involves someone reading aloud a written text, markedly different from spontaneous speech.
Furthermore, the matched-guise test is time-consuming in its traditional design since participants have to listen to several guises and evaluate them. Hence, they are usually carried out among multiple participants at the same time usually in a classroom; most MGT studies conducted in Québec were conducted at an educational institution. Consequently, important generalizations are made about the entire population based on a sample of participants from a similar background and frequenting similar educational milieus. Laur (2014) provided an important correction to this problem by conducting the MGT over the 42 telephone as she was able to recruit a diverse sample of participants. However, the study suffered due to the smaller number of guises and their short duration as it was not possible to use longer or multiple guises using the telephone technique. Laur (2014) herself admits to this as she writes that “(a) disadvantage of this administration mode is that the voice recordings had to be brief so that only four versions (two in English and two in French) could be used” (p. 5). Due to these drawbacks, we decided to not include this methodology in our project.
43 Chapter 3: Language attitude research in French-Canada
Following the treaty of Paris in 1763, France ceded Nouvelle-France to England and the French colonists living in the territory automatically became English subjects. This upheaval was not merely a critical point in Canada’s political history. It also proved to be a turning point for the history of the French language in Canada. Despite an abrupt separation from France and the subsequent English colonialization for over two hundred and fifty years, the French language continues to persist and even flourish in French- speaking Canada with Québec as its cultural and linguistic capital. However, it cannot be denied that the separation from France combined with close yet often strained contact with English speakers have largely shaped linguistic attitudes of the Québécois people not only towards English but also towards their variety of French.
3.1. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS CANADIAN FRENCH
3.1.1. Anglicismes and Canadian French
Popular belief in Québec has it that, prior to the English conquest, French Canadians spoke the same language as did the French royal court and that this language, previously untarnished, has been corrupted by contact with English following the English conquest (Poirier 1980; Caron-Leclerc, 1998; Saint-Yves 2006). Poirier (1980) writes:
La conception négative que les francophones du Québec entretiennent encore au sujet de leur parler s’appuie sur le préjugé que la langue apportée en Nouvelle- France par les premiers colons était un français pur, une sorte de tourangeau qui se serait détérioré peu à peu sous l’influence de l’envahisseur anglais.
[The negative conception that francophone Québecers have towards their speech is based on the belief that the French language brought to Québec by early French settlers was pure, a French variety spoken in Tourraine, that has steadily deteriorated due to English influence.] (p. 43)
44 As far back as the 1860s, some Québec essayists were referring to English as the language of the conqueror and holding it responsible for the corruption of Canadian French (CF) (Sainte-Yves, 2006). Jean-Philippe Boucher-Belleville’s Dictionnaire des barbarismes et des solécismes les plus ordinaires en ce pays (1855) warns francophones against the impending danger caused by the English language and encourages his readers to rid the French language of such perceived vulgarities. Similarly, in his essay “L’anglicisme, voilà l’ennemi”, Tardivel (1879) laments the degradation in the quality of French spoken in Canada and warns against Canadian French undergoing profound modifications and possibly becoming incomprehensible to French speakers from France. Such preoccupations regarding English influence in Canadian French is so present among French Canadians that Bouchard (1989) has termed it Québec’s obsession nationale (national obsession). More recent studies attest to the rejection of anglicisms in Québec in the 21st century. Walsh (2014) compared attitudes towards anglicisms in Québec and in France by using a cloze-test and an acceptability judgement task that she distributed over the Internet to two groups of monolingual francophones living in France and Québec. Both tasks aimed at assessing participants’ attitudes towards loanwords (assimilated as well as unassimilated), calques and other lexical items. She discovered that French respondents were significantly more likely to prefer unassimilated loanwords and less likely to prefer calques or assimilated loanwords when asked to choose between them. On the other hand, Québécois respondents were significantly more likely to choose a calque (either a loan rendition or a loan creation)5 when there was a choice between an assimilated loanword,
5 Walsh (2014) defines loan rendition as “the part translation of a foreign word or phrase, where one part is exactly translated and one part is created or freely translated into the native language” and loan creation as “the creation of a new word to express the meaning of a foreign word.” Examples of loan rendition include terms like sac gonflable (air bag) and position de tête (pole position) while jardinerie (garden centre) and logiciel (software) are examples of loan creation (p. 429) 45 an unassimilated loanword and a calque. Compared to French respondents, more Québécois respondents also found widely used unassimilated loan words to be unacceptable, a difference that was statistically significant. According to the study, Québécois respondents appear to display a stronger sense of external purism than the French do. This suggests that there is a certain level of negative attitudes towards English, or at least towards the influence of English in Québec French among Quebecers. Despite this generalized anxiety concerning the English language, the presence of English in Canadian French appears to be a largely subjective observation. In Boucher- Belleville’s dictionary, for instance, only about 6% of the total entries are considered to be influenced by English referred by him either as an anglicisme (anglicism), mot anglais (English word) or corruption de mot anglais (deformation of an English word). This is further bolstered by more recent findings by Poplack et al. (1988) in her Ottawa-Hull6 corpus. Even in this highly bilingual region, English origin words represented about 0.83% of the total verbal output in French among francophones (Poplack et al., 1988). Despite this fairly low rate of borrowing, she did notice that francophones in the cities of Ottawa and Hull reported that they spoke bad French calling it “anglicized and joual slang”; they also attributed higher status to European French (EF) and assigned higher instrumental value to English than to French (Poplack, 1985, p. 57).
The contradiction observed between French Canadians’ perception of their speech as highly anglicized, and thereby improper, and the actual presence of anglicisms in their language have led many researchers to explore different avenues hoping to isolate the principle reasons behind the negative language attitudes expressed by French Canadians towards their language. In her dissertation, Caron-Leclerc looked at accounts of travelers
6 Prior to 2002, Hull was a city of its own. In 2002, the city was merged with the municipalities of Gatineau, Aylmer, Buckingham and Masson-Angers to form le grand Gatineau. 46 who visited French-speaking Canada between 1775 and 1887 in order to compile a corpus of attitudes expressed by foreigners towards the French language in Canada. One of the objectives of her work was to understand if opinions of travelers who visited the territory could have helped shape negative attitudes that French Canadians have towards their language.
3.1.2. Purity of Canadian French and linguistic uniformity in French-Canada
Caron-Leclerc’s dissertation includes a total of 82 accounts from 73 travelers of various nationalities who expressed an attitude (be it positive or negative) towards Canadian French. The majority of these accounts (58 out of 82) come from French citizens most of whom demonstrated rather positive attitudes towards Canadian French. In particular during the French regime, Nouvelle-France is celebrated for the purity and elegance of its language. Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix writes in 1720 : « nulle part ailleurs on ne parle plus purement notre langue. On ne remarque même ici aucun accent. » [nowhere else does one speak our language more purely. One does not even notice any accent here.] (Charlevoix, as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p. 48). Others like Jean-Baptiste d’Aleyrac are struck by the linguistic uniformity of French-Canada. He writes in 1775: « il n’y a pas de patois dans ce pays. Tous les canadiens parlent un français pareil au nôtre. » [There is no patois in this country. Every Canadian speaks a French that is the same as ours] (d’Alyrac as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p. 62). The uniformity of French spoken in Canada is celebrated by many travelers including those who visited the country long after the English conquest. For instance, Frédéric Gerbié writes over a century after the English conquest in 1880:
Partout nous avons retrouvé la langue française parlée avec le même accent et la même pureté aussi bien par l’homme des villes et les gens de professions que par le plus humble pionnier perdu au fond des bois 47 [Everywhere we found the French language spoken with the same accent and the same purity as much by urban men and professional people as by the humblest pioneer lost deep in the woods]
(Gerbié as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p. 267)
3.1.3. The archaic nature of Canadian French
While French-speaking Canada was largely praised for its linguistic uniformity, it is important to note that many travelers who visited Canada during the English regime admitted that important differences existed between the French from France and Canada. For instance, Maurice Sand, the son of the famous French novelist George Sand wrote this to his mother in 1862:
L'esprit canadien est resté français ; seulement on est frappé de la forme du langage, qui semble arriérée d'une centaine d'années. Ceci n'a certes rien de désagréable, car si les gens du peuple ont 1'accent de nos provinces, en revanche les gens du monde parlent un peu comme nos écrivains du XVIIIe siècle, et cela m'a fait une telle impression dès le premier jour, qu'en fermant les yeux je m'imaginais être transporté dans le passé.
[The Canadian spirit has remained French; One is only struck by the form of the language which appears to be behind by a few hundred years. This has nothing unpleasant about it because if regular people have the accent of our provinces, more cultivated people speak somewhat like our writers from the 18th century, and this has left me with such an impression that, starting the first day, while closing my eyes, I imagined being transported into the past.]
(Sand, as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p. 142).
Maurice Sand is not alone in celebrating Canadian French for its archaic features. Although no such mention of archaism is present in accounts of travelers who visited the country during the French régime, a finding not at all surprising given the close contact and movement of people between France and its colony, archaism appears to be a recurring theme in travel accounts after the English conquest, where 38 out of the 62 travelers discuss the archaic nature of the language. Not all of these authors, however, express favorable
48 attitudes towards the perceived archaic nature of the language. The Englishman John Lambert writes in 1814:
Previous to the conquest of the country by the English, the inhabitants are said to have spoken as pure and correct French as in old France: since then they have adopted many anglicisms in their language, and have also several antiquated phrases, which may probably have arisen out of their intercourse with the new settlers. For froid (cold) they pronounce frète. For ici (here) they pronounce ici te (sic). For prêt (ready) they pronounce parré; besides several other obsolete words which I do not at present recollect. Another corrupt practice is very common among them, of pronouncing the final letter of their words, which is contrary to the custom of the European French. This perhaps may also have been acquired in the course of fifty years communication with the British settlers; if not, they never merited the praise of speaking pure French.
(Lambert as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p.74)
3.1.4. The myth of French-Canadian Patois
In overall terms, Caron-Leclerc argues that most travelers from France demonstrated favorable attitudes towards Canadian French whereas anglophone travelers appeared to be harsher in their critic of the language. An important demonstration of negative attitudes present among anglophones towards Canadian French comes from an account of the Frenchman, Emmanuel Blain de Saint-Aubin in 1871. He cites his interaction with an anglophone lady in Québec who hires him to teach French to her children. She asks him if he was from France and spoke Parisian French because she is told that the French Canadians speak an abominable patois (un patois abominable). To this Blain de Saint-Aubin responds in the following way:
Tout Canadien-Français instruit, parle aussi bien sa langue qu'un homme de la même instruction en France. Dans la classe ouvrière et dans celle des agriculteurs en [sic] Canada, on parle, en général, beaucoup mieux français que dans les classes correspondantes en France
[Every educated French Canadian speaks his language as well as any person of the same education in France. In the working class and among the farming class 49 in Canada, in general one speaks a lot better French than the corresponding classes in France.]
(de Saint-Aubin, as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p.186) Numerous examples of negative attitudes among anglophones including Britons, Americans and English Canadians towards Canadian French have been documented ever since the beginning of the English colonization of Canada. In 1810, the Irishman Thomas Moore recounts his boat ride in French Canada in the following way:
Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung beautifully together. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadian.
(Moore, as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p.714)
Similarly, Lord Durham’s report to the Queen in 1839 following the Lower Canada rebellion (la guerre des patriots) is another such example. He writes:
There can hardly be conceived a nationality more destitute of all that can invigorate and elevate a people than that which is exhibited by the descendants of the French in Lower Canada, owing to their retaining their peculiar language and manners. They are a people with no history, and no literature. The literature of England is written in a language which is not theirs, and the only literature which their language renders familiar to them is that of a nation from which they have been separated by eighty years of a foreign rule, and still more by those changes which the révolution and its consequences have wrought in the whole political, moral, and social state of France.
(Durham, as cited in Caron-Leclerc, 1998, p.104)
According to Bouchard (1990), the negative judgements from Anglo-Canadians and Americans towards Canadian French have played a significant role in the development of Québec’s sense of linguistic insecurity. She argues that American and English-Canadian press perpetuated the myth that Canadian French was some sort of patois incomprehensible to the French; she calls this le mythe du French-Canadian Patois and puts this forward as one of the leading causes behind the negative attitudes that French Canadians have towards 50 their language. While it is very difficult to identify with precision the ways in which such attitudes from the outside could have influenced the meta-linguistic development of the Québécois people, it does suggest that language attitude studies conducted in French- speaking Canada should include language attitudes of anglophones, including anglophones who do not speak any French and those who do not live in Québec.
3.1.5. Resistance and opposition to the myth of French-Canadian patois
Negative comments from foreigners regarding the so-called poor quality of Canadian French have led to strong manifestations of opposition in Québec for a long time. According to the travel account of Auguste Foubert from 1875 (Foubert, as cited in Caron- Leclerc, 1998), a magazine published in New-York claimed that the Norman patois was disappearing everywhere else except in Canada. This claim, he writes, led to an uproar among the French-Canadian elite so much so that the newspaper had to issue a public apology. Another example of such upheaval comes from 1968 when the then justice minister of Canada, the Québec born Pierre-Elliott Trudeau, who later became prime- minister of the country, called Canadian French “lousy” during a television interview in Ontario. He said that some Québec nationalists spoke “awful” French and accused them of wanting to “impose their lousy French on the whole of Canada”. (“Trudeau to Québec”, 1968). Jean-Noël Tremblay, Québec’s ministre des Affaires culturelles (Québec’s cultural affairs minister) called the comment an example of “degrading opportunism” while the Québec premier of the time, Daniel Johnson, accused Trudeau of trying to please English- speaking Canadians (“Tremblay fires verbal salvo”, 1968). Although Trudeau did not mention the term “anglicism” in his comment nor did he elaborate on why he considered Canadian French to be “lousy”, his comment is one of many suggesting that Canadian French was impure and inappropriate. Bouchard (1990) argues that such linguistic attacks
51 led Québécois people to adopt language planning and policies in the 60s and 70s to protect their language from further contamination from English.
3.1.6. The complex relationship between French Canadians and the English language
As a group, French Canadians appear to demonstrate an aversion towards anglicisms (see eg. Walsh, 2013), possibly due to the societal pressure exerted among them to “correct” their speech. On the other hand, their rapport with English appears to be quite complex. During her study, Poplack (1985) discovered that French speakers in the Ottawa- Hull region “commented freely on the unfairness of having to learn English when anglophones rarely make the effort to learn French”. (p.57). However, they were also found to engage frequently in code-switching, especially in the context of French speakers in Ottawa, where they form a linguistic minority. Similar contradictions are apparent when it comes to attitudes regarding the quality of French spoken in Québec. As a response to comments by Pierre-Elliott Trudeau regarding the so-called “lousy” nature of Québec French, Jean-Noël Tremblay retorted that poorly spoken French was only a marginal phenomenon in Québec, where the language of Quebecers was international French (“Tremblay fires verbal salvo”, 1968). However, the same article pointed out that Tremblay had previously criticized Québec French in front of French linguists in the following way:
The language of the government is bad, the language of teachers is bad, the language of business is bad, the language of information media is far from being above reproach and the language of the elite, infected by English, isn’t much better. How can the people’s language be better? The contradiction found in the remarks made by Tremblay is an instantiation of deep-seated negative attitudes present among French Canadians towards their language. The existence
52 of such attitudes has been consistently demonstrated and explored in language attitude studies carried out in Québec (mainly in Montréal) beginning in the 1960s.
3.2. LANGUAGE ATTITUDES IN QUÉBEC SINCE THE 1960S
Québec has been a fertile ground for language attitude research following the implementation of various pro-French language policies that started during the Quiet Revolution (la Révolution tranquille) in the 1960s. Prior to language planning in favor of the French language, English was clearly the dominant language in Montréal, Québec’s largest city. The majority of the city’s population spoke French as their native tongue, but English dominated in the city’s linguistic landscape and knowledge of English was primordial for francophones who wanted to find attractive jobs (Auger, 2003). Following la Révolution tranquille, the status of the French language became officially elevated in Québec (see e.g. Auger 2003; Dion, 1991 and Levine, 2006). In this light, many studies have monitored if this progress has been translated in terms of people’s language attitudes. The origin of modern language attitude studies can be largely traced to the seminal study conducted by Lambert et al. (1960) in 1958-59 among 130 anglophone and francophone college students in Montréal. In this study, the authors used a matched-guise technique where participants had to rate guises in European French, Québec French and English in terms of fourteen traits. While the authors did not use the terms status and solidarity, they grouped the traits into those “commonly considered necessary for social and economic success” and “personality characteristics generally considered of greater value such as likability and kindness”, a dichotomy similar to the one between status and solidarity. The authors demonstrated that both anglophone and francophone participants evaluated the speakers in their English guise more favorably than in their French guise for most traits. Furthermore, francophone participants evaluated English guises more
53 favorably than did the English participants for leadership, intelligence and self-confidence (status traits) and English participants evaluated the French guises more favorably than did their French counterparts for nine out of the fourteen traits. In other words, not only did both groups of participants appeared to value English speakers significantly more, French participants also seemed to evaluate English speakers more favorably and French speakers less favorably than did English participants. The researchers also reported that the speaker’s accent in French influenced participants’ attitudes as the speaker with a typical European accent was evaluated more favorably by both participant groups compared to speakers who spoke Québec French while the speaker with the most pronounced Québécois accent was evaluated the least favorably in his French guise by both groups of participants. Anisfeld and Lambert (1964) conducted another matched-guise experiment with the aim of studying whether unfavorable attitudes towards French observed by Lambert et al. (1960) among college-aged French-Canadian students were also present among younger members of the community. The study included 150 ten-year old French-Canadian children from Montréal of which 79 were monolingual and 71 were bilingual. Participants listened to voices of four ten-year-old bilingual girls in French and English and rated the voices for fourteen traits similar to the ones used by Lambert et al. (1960). In overall terms, French guises were evaluated more favorably than English guises for most traits. However, significant differences were observed between monolingual and bilingual children. While monolingual children clearly favored French guises (regardless of the variety of French used by the speaker) over English guises for 12 out of 15 traits, they also favored Canadian French guises over European French guises. On the other hand, bilinguals demonstrated very little difference in their evaluation of the two languages. This was particularly true for French-Canadian guises as children evaluated these guises very similarly to English guises for all traits except for height. They did, however, show preference for European-French 54 guises over English guises for some traits such as good-looking, amusing, religious and interesting. Simply put, ten-year-old French-Canadian children did not demonstrate the same negative attitudes towards their in-group language as did college-aged French Canadians. On the contrary, monolingual ten-year-old French Canadians clearly favored Canadian French over English and over European French. In order to identify the age at which negative attitudes towards French starts to take- hold among French Canadians, Lambert et al. (1966) conducted a matched-guise experiment among 375 bilingual and monolingual French-Canadian girls ranging from the age of 9 to 18 and belonging to different social class backgrounds. Participants evaluated guises by adult males, adult females and someone of their age in Canadian French and English. The authors discovered that preference to English appeared around the age of 12. However, there were important differences between upper middle class and working-class girls. While the outgroup preference was more marked and durable among upper middle- class girls, it was less pronounced among the working class. It was further observed that working-class girls eventually preferred French-Canadian guises by the time they reached late teens. The studies conducted by Lambert and his team in the 50s offer a window to language attitudes prevalent in French-Canada before the Quiet Revolution. It appears that back then, French Canadians internalized negative attitudes towards their group and their in-group language by age 12 (at least for girls) and that such attitudes continued to persist at least until college for some French-Canadian men. Genesee and Holobow (1989) tried to replicate the original matched-guise experiment conducted by Lambert et al. (1960) among a sample of francophone and anglophone college students in Montréal in order to assess the impact of language planning and policies that were adopted in Québec during the Quiet Revolution. Their sample consisted of 61 francophone and 50 anglophone high 55 school students. The recordings were made by three ‘trilingual’ men in middle-class variety of Québec French, European French and Canadian English. For each guise, participants rated the voice for a number of traits, which were divided into solidarity and status traits with five items under solidarity (kind, warm/cold, likable, boring/colorful, sense of humor), five under status (intelligent, dependable, educated, ambitious, qualities of a leader) and three items as others (religious, tall and tough). Results of the Genesee and Holobow (1989) study indicate that, similar to the findings by Lambert et al. (1960), anglophones as well as francophones continued to rate English higher than French in terms of status traits. As for solidarity traits, francophone students evaluated English and French guises equally favorably for all traits (except for the trait colorful)7, thereby largely showing neutrality in their attitudes instead of out-group favoritism that was observed in the late 1950’s. Anglophones, on the other hand, were more favorable to English guises than French guises for six out of 8 traits in late 1980’s compared to 4 out of 9 traits in the late 50’s suggesting an increase in in-group solidarity. The authors also noticed important differences between their francophone sample and the francophone sample by Lambert et al. (1960) as their francophone participants did not evaluate French guises as negatively as did Lambert et al.’s participants in the 50’s. While francophone participants in Lambert et al. (1960) evaluated Québec French guises less positively than did their anglophone respondents for a majority of traits, francophone participants in the Genesee and Holobow’s study showed this pattern of negative evaluation for only 15% of the traits. For 85% of the traits, francophone participants evaluated Québec-French guises same as or more positively than did anglophone students. The authors attributed this evolution of attitudes for both groups along the solidarity dimension to language legislation
7 Francophones considered speakers in their English voice as significantly more colorful than in their French voice. 56 in Québec and in Canada. According to them, these legislations offered some ethnic and linguistic security to francophones but led Québec anglophones to feel like a threatened minority who, in a struggle to safeguard their ethnic and linguistic vitality, started to attribute more value to members of their ethno-linguistic group along the solidarity dimension. As for the low status ratings attributed to Québec French guises by francophones despite improvements in the status of French in Québec, the authors call this “an inherent and pervasive aspect of their [francophone’s] group identity that is independent of their perceptions of Québec-French-speakers’ likely socio-economic attainments” (p.35). Questions pertaining to language attitudes among francophones continue to raise interest among researchers in Québec well into the 21st century. Consequently, Oakes (2010) conducted a study using questionnaire among students from four French language universities situated in Montréal, Québec city and Sherbrooke. The final sample of the study consisted of 463 participants of which 201 were recruited in Montréal, 172 in Québec City and 90 in Sherbrooke. Along with questions about language use and competence, the survey consisted of 30 statements relevant to current debates surrounding the English language in Québec. For each statement, participants had to rate whether or not they agreed with the statement using a 5-point Likert scale. Results indicate that young francophones demonstrate a complex set of attitudes towards English. Multiple statements garnered very high level of agreement. For instance, 93.9% of participants agreed that francophone politicians in Québec should master English, 90.7% believed that English gave access to attractive culture for young people (music, cinema etc.) and 81.4% agreed that the knowledge of English helped one climb the socio-economic ladder. Despite these positive attitudes, 85.3% said that it bothered them when one insisted on serving them in English,
57 83.3% believed that legislation (e.g. Loi 101) was necessary to protect French from English and 83.6% rejected the idea of English immersion in French schools. Oakes (2010) also discovered important differences between cities. Montrealers agreed more than the other groups that English should be more intensively taught in French schools, that English helped one climb the socio-economic ladder and that young Quebecers would be handicapped in tomorrow’s working world if they did not know English. They also disagreed to a larger extent that one could succeed in life without knowing English. Similarly, while the majority of participants rejected the idea of Québec becoming a bilingual province, the idea was less vehemently rejected by Montrealers. Montrealers were also less bothered by the use of English in public signage compared to Quebecers from other cities. The reaction of Quebecers in general and Montrealers in particular corroborates findings from previous studies claiming the high status enjoyed by English in Québec. Findings from this study support the idea that Quebecers consider English to be important for largely instrumental reasons. On the other hand, the high level of support for pro-French legislation, disapproval of the use of English in service encounters and rejection of Québec becoming a bilingual province signals positive attitudes towards French not along the status dimension but along the dimension of solidarity suggesting a positive affective link between Quebec francophones and the French language. Language attitude studies conducted in Québec in the last century focused primarily on anglophones and francophones. This has resulted in a serious gap in the literature given that about 33.5% of Montrealers are allophone (Statistics Canada, 2016) and the allophone share of the population is constantly increasing. Consequently, language attitudes and language choices of allophone Montrealers are believed to be crucial in determining the future of the French language not just in Montréal but also throughout Québec (see e.g. 58 Oakes and Warren, 2007). In order to explore language attitudes among francophones, anglophones and allophones alike, Kircher (2009) conducted a study among 147 anglophone, francophone and allophone students in different French and English-speaking cégeps (collèges d’enseignement général et professionnel) in Montréal. Cégeps are a type of post-secondary education unique to Québec. All students who have completed primary and secondary education must attend cégep in order to start university. The author used a questionnaire along with the matched-guise technique with the aim of studying both overt and more covert language attitudes. The sample consisted of about 70% male and 30% female participants. The author used the same recordings used by Genesee and Holobow (1989) for the matched-guise part of the study. Participants had to evaluate every guise for ten traits using a 16-point scale with 0 meaning “not at all” and 16 meaning “very”. Out of ten total traits evaluated, five pertained to status (intelligence, dependability, education, ambition, and leadership) and five others to solidarity (kindness, humor, warmth, likeability, and sociability). The questionnaire, on the other hand, included various attitude statements pertaining to French and English. For each statement, participants had to respond using a 5-point Likert scale where 1 meant “completely agree” and 5 meant “don’t agree at all”. Statements intending to measure the status of the two languages dealt with topics of employability, modernity and upward social mobility. Statements intending to measure the solidarity ratings of each language looked at questions of self-expression, attachment and belonging, as well as personal identity. The results of the matched guise test and the attitudes reported in the questionnaire were somewhat different. The results of the matched-guise test unequivocally showed that participants favored English over French in terms of solidarity as well as status. Participants, regardless of their first language, considered speakers in their English guise to be more intelligent, more dependable, more educated, more ambitious and more 59 leaderlike. They also considered English voices to be significantly kinder, funnier, warmer, likeable and sociable. However, answers in the questionnaire paint a more nuanced picture. Questionnaire results indicate that, in general, all three groups considered English to be more important than French along the status dimension. Even though attitudes towards French were fairly positive, English was considered to be more well suited for modern society than French by all three groups. Francophones and allophones also evaluated English as more important for employability and allophones considered English to be more important than French to get ahead in life. However, it is to be noted that anglophones did not differ significantly in their evaluation of French and English for employability. Moreover, neither anglophones nor francophones considered English to be significantly more important than French to get far in life. Such indifference in evaluations does signal a more positive status evaluation of French than could be believed at first sight. As for the solidarity dimension, results indicate that anglophones and francophones held more favorable attitudes towards their L1 compared to their L2 while allophones were largely neutral in their evaluations. Anglophones and francophones considered their L1 as lending itself significantly better in expressing feelings and emotions and they claimed their L1 to be a more significant part of their personal identity than their L2. However, only francophones considered French to be a more important part of Canadian cultural heritage compared to English while anglophones did not differ significantly in their response to this statement. The findings by Kircher (2009) regarding her participants’ positive evaluations of English along the status dimension is not all that surprising as this finding is very much in line with findings by Lambert et al. (1960) and Genesee and Holobow (1989). However, it is quite surprising that, unlike Genesee and Holobow’s participants in the 80’s, participants in the recent study demonstrated more positive attitudes towards English than towards 60 French along the solidarity dimension. This suggests a rupture in the evolution of language attitudes in Québec that was observed by Genesee and Holobow following several language planning initiatives. On the other hand, since all participants seemed to hold more positive attitudes towards English than towards French at least covertly, the findings by Kircher (2009) bear an important resemblance to those by Lambert et al. (1960). As a possible explanation of this finding, Kircher (2009) stipulates that young Montrealers might consider English instead of French as their common in-group language since one’s in-group language is usually rated more favorably in terms of solidarity. Another possible explanation, according to her, is the rise of English as the global youth language, a phenomenon also observed in other countries, which could lead to the adoption of this language as the language of in-group solidarity among the youths of today, irrespective of their national origin or mother tongue. In their study conducted among Quebecers of diverse age-group, ethnic origin and location, Pagé and Olivier (2012) also discovered that Quebecers consistently attributed a high utilitarian importance to English, but participants were also numerous in expressing a strong attachment to the French language. The sample consisted of 6689 participants and was drawn from different cities in Québec in order to be as representative of Québec population as possible. Questions in the survey aimed at assessing the perception of French and English among Quebecers, attitudes towards the priority of French in Québec and a section on linguistic competence and cultural origin of the participants. According to the results, 84.6% of their participants believed that one should speak French all the time or often to be a true Quebecer (Québécois in French), 87.4% believed that everyone in Québec should speak French all the time or often for the Québec society to function well, 92% believed that one should speak French all the time or often with immigrants who are learning French, 87.8% believed that it is preferable to be able to speak French in order to 61 have an interesting social life in Québec and 95.8% believed that it was valuable to be able to speak French in Québec. However, the high instrumental value assigned to English is apparent from the fact that 86.6% of participants also believed that it was valuable in Québec to be able to speak English and a similarly high proportion of participants (82.4%) believed English to be important in order to find a job in Québec albeit this rate was lower than the proportion of people who believed French to be important (85%). Moreover, a higher proportion of participants (91.9%) believed that Québec children would succeed more in life if they knew English compared to 77.2% who believed the same to be true for French. According to the authors, such high importance attributed to English could reveal a general assumption that English will be even more important in Québec in the future than it is today, or it could also be due to the importance of English for a global career. A majority of participants in the Pagé and Olivier (2012) study also believed that French should be given priority in public exchanges between francophones and individuals whose language preference is unknown and that a store-keeper should welcome their clients in French unless the linguistic preference of the later is known to the vendor. When analyzed in finer terms, the authors discovered important group differences. As a group, francophones were mostly favorable to the priority of French in Québec society and had more positive attitudes towards French compared to English. They were closely followed by allophone francotropes (ie. allophones whose mother tongue is a Latin-based language or a French-based creole). Non-francotrope allophones, on the other hand, were closer to anglophones than to the first two groups in terms of their attitudes. These two sub- populations believed rather in an equal treatment of French and English in Québec society instead of priority to French. The authors also discovered an intricate relationship between language attitudes, age, mother tongue, the city of origin education, bilingualism and national belonging as participants who attributed a lower priority to French were more 62 likely to be under 35 years-old, have English as their mother-tongue, live in the island of Montréal, be less educated, more bilingual and have a stronger sense of belonging to Canada. The studies discussed in the preceding paragraphs clearly demonstrate the seemingly unshakable position of English as the language of status and (in the case of Lambert et al. (1960) and Kircher (2009)) that of solidarity in Québec. However, it is important to note that some of these studies suffer from significant drawbacks. For instance, most language attitude studies using the matched-guise technique only use male voices in their recordings. Similarly, most of these studies, regardless of the research methodology used, recruit their participants exclusively at educational institutions and assume, without explication, that the first language of the participant is an important variable in explaining language attitudes. Laur (2014) offered an important change to this pattern by using a male voice as well as a female voice in her matched-guise test, which she distributed at random to participants from Montréal. Similar to other matched-guise studies, participants in the study had to use a Likert-type scale to evaluate 12 traits that were selected based on the original study by Lambert et al. (1960) and the ones that followed. Results indicate that the only remarkable language-based distinction observed arose from the fact that anglophone participants tended to give higher ratings to all voices compared to francophones and allophones. This finding was true regardless of the gender of the speaker or the language of the stimulus, but mother tongue alone explained only 3% of the variation and mother tongue along with language spoken at home and language spoken at work accounted for no more than 10% of the variation. In other words, language background of participants was far from being the most important variable in explaining variation in language attitudes. Furthermore, irrespective of first language, Montrealers of
63 all origin evaluated the man’s voice more favorably in English for all traits while the female voice received more favorable ratings in French. The only other matched-guise study that had identified more positive attitudes towards French than towards English among French Canadians was conducted by Anisfeld and Lambert (1964). This was also one of the few studies that had used female voices in their recordings, but the authors of the study did not discuss if the gender of the speaker could have had a role to play in their findings. Most researchers conducting language attitude studies in Québec assume without much reflection that the first language of the participant is important in explaining language attitudes. However, many of these studies, including the seminal study by Lambert et al. (1960) and the more recent survey by Kircher (2009), found that Montrealers, regardless of first language, had similar language attitudes, at least at a more covert level. Therefore, the study by Laur (2008) raises important questions regarding the reliability and generalizability of the much-discussed results of earlier matched-guise studies. It also brings to attention important variables in the field of language attitude studies in Québec by exploring some of the variables and viewpoints left fairly unexplored by previous researchers. Similar to Laur (2014), Beaulieu (2003) also argued that differences in perception based on ethnic group and mother tongue is less significant now than it was for previous generations of Quebecers. The study she reported on was conducted among 1025 participants recruited at random from the greater Montréal region who were immigrants themselves or children of immigrant parents. Since these students had completed at least two years of schooling in the francophone school system, a direct implication of the Loi 101, and had grown up in the Québec of post language planning, they are commonly called la Génération 101 (the 101 Generation). According to the results of the study, the 101 generation largely considered that Québec formed a nation distinct from the rest of Canada 64 and 40% of them were in favor of Québec’s sovereignty (souveraineté du Québec), comparable to the proportion of Quebecers, as a whole, who are in favor of sovereignty8. Similarly, 63% of them stated that they would choose to send their children to French school if they had the choice between French and English-medium instruction for their children, and 84% of them considered it necessary to defend the French language, thereby, displaying rather positive attitudes towards the French language. The findings discussed in this section suggest that there are important differences between covert language attitudes as demonstrated by the matched-guise technique and overt language attitudes explored through the use of questionnaires among Quebecers. At a more conscious level, francophones and anglophones appear to have more positive attitudes towards their mother tongue than towards the other official language and allophones appear to have equally positive attitudes towards the two official languages. On the other hand, at a more subconscious level, all groups appear to have more positive attitudes towards English than towards French even though covert attitudes seem to be highly dependent on variables such as gender of the speaker, age of the participants and their socio-economic level.
3.3. TRENDS AND PATTERNS OF LANGUAGE USE IN QUÉBEC
3.3.1. Language behavior of Québec francophones
Even though French is the sole official language of Québec today, French and English have co-existed in the province ever since the English conquest of the territory. Today, English is used not only by the anglophone minority of the province but by native francophones and allophones alike. However, this bilingualism is not without problems as
8 According to a survey conducted by Léger marketing in 2003, 48% of Quebecers between the age of 18 and 34 were in favor of Québec’s sovereignty. 65 it sometimes leads to conflict, in particular, when English appears to supplant French as the common language between Quebecers. An example of such conflict occurred in 2017 when the multinational company, Adidas, was under fire in Montréal during the opening ceremony of their new store on Sainte-Catherine, the main alley in downtown Montréal. According to the Journal de Montréal, who first reported the story before it went viral on social-media, the store manager, the francophone Alexandre Des Roches started his opening speech with « Je vais dire un mot en français, pour accommoder la Ville de Montréal et les médias francophones » [“I am going to say a few words in French to accommodate the city of Montreal and the francophone media.]”. The entire program then took place in English including several minutes of conversation between Des Roches and the creator-designer of Adidas shoes, Jean Khalif who himself is French (Orfali and Legendre, 2017). This led to manifestations of opposition from Québec public figures and politicians alike. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said: “It’s a flagrant lack of sensitivity, a lack of respect for the fact that in Quebec, we’re in a francophone province” while the Québec premier Philippe Couillard said “I will say very firmly that if the words we read this morning were pronounced, they are unacceptable”. He then added that the language of the workplace in Québec was French. (“Adidas store manager’s comments”, 2017) Some people claim that the use of English among francophones is a novel phenomenon in Québec and criticize the new generation of francophone Quebecers for using English with each other frequently and indiscriminately (see eg. Dufour, 2008). Surprisingly, even historically, young French Canadians appear to have used English among each other even in the absence of anglophones. This is apparent in the following conversation between two French Canadians reported in the early years of the 19th century:
-[…] ma bonne parente […] me demanda qui étoient ces messieurs, sans doute, ajouta-t-elle, ce sont des étrangers qui se trouvent ici par hasard. Je fus obligé de
66 lui répondre en rougissant un peu, que l’un d’eux étoit le fils d’un cousin à elle[…]L’autre, le fils d’un ancien Marchand[…]
[My dear relative asked me who those gentlemen were, certainly, she added, they are foreigners who found themselves here by chance. I was obligated to respond, blushing slightly, that one of them was the son of her cousin. Another, the son of the ex-merchant.]
-Mais comment se fait-il qu’ils ne parlent qu’anglois ? [But how come they only speak English?] -[…] Nos jeunes gens aiment à s’exercer à parler en anglois. [Our young people like to practice speaking English] -Fi donc, ils ne sont pas ici à l’école. -[Yuck ! They are not in school here.] (« O mores ! », Le Canadien, 1808, as cited in Bouchard 1989, p.81) Almost ninety years later, the Belgian Georges Käser criticized the extensive use of English in French-Canada calling it deplorable. He wrote:
Tous ceux qui vous abordent parlent anglais et donnent l'illusion d'un peuple de race anglaise. Quatre-vingt-dix fois sur cent pourtant, il suffit de la question : Parlez-vous le français ? pour amener la réponse : Si je parle le français ! Mais je suis Français, mon cher monsieur, je suis Canadien français. …Après quelques jours d'expérience, on ne choisit plus sa langue : on parle anglais, certain d'être compris en tous cas.
[Everyone who addresses you speaks in English and gives the illusion that he is of the English race. Ninety percent of the time, it suffices to ask: Do you speak French? To get the response: “of course, I speak French! I am French, my dear sir, I am French-Canadian….” After some days of experience, one no longer chooses his language; he speaks English, certain to be understood in any case.]
(Käser (1897) as cited in Caron-Leclerc 1998, p. 438)
The attraction of English is still apparent among francophones in Québec. This was demonstrated by a study by Valenti (2014) among francophone students at an anglophone university in Montréal. Francophones in the study used English borrowings and code-
67 switching more frequently than their anglophone peers used French borrowings and code- switching and considered speaking English to be, “a sign of intelligence (relative to monolingual francophones) that they were eager to emphasize.” (p. 288)
3.3.2. Language behavior of Québec anglophones
Even though English is a minority language in Québec including in Montréal, it is feasible to live entirely in English in the city. Consequently, Anglo-Montrealers are often found to use English as the principle language of everyday life (Gérin-Lajoie, 2014). The use of English is equally widespread among Anglo-Quebecers who live outside Montréal. A study in the 90s suggested that anglophone students in primarily francophone regions such as Québec City were as likely to use French as anglophones in the primarily anglophone neighborhood of West Island in Montréal (Landry et al., 1997). According to a more recent report by Corbeil et al. (2007), the quasi totality of anglophones in Québec declared English to be their primary language of use, regardless of where they lived in the province, while only 23% of francophones living outside Québec reported mainly using French in their daily life. Other studies have observed important shortcomings in French proficiency among anglophones from non-French speaking homes in Montréal (see e.g. Blondeau and Fonollosa, 2009; Gérin-Lajoie, 2014) and, at 61%, Anglo-Quebecers are also less bilingual than francophones outside of Québec as the rate of bilingualism among the latter group is 87%. (Statistics Canada, 2011). It is also observed that Anglo-Quebecers, unlike Franco-Canadians living outside Québec, are less likely to use code-switching and French-borrowings while speaking English. In their sociolinguistic interviews conducted among anglophones, Poplack et al. (2006) discovered that their participants used very few French borrowings. Similarly, the authors reported that code-switching among these participants was “exceedingly rare, even
68 when compared with rates for other bilingual communities, calculated from data collected using similar methodology” (Poplack et al., 2006, p.209).
3.3.3. Language convergence and maintenance
Up until the 1970s, bilingualism was very much a one-sided affair in Québec. French Canadians had to learn English for socio-economic reasons and were found to generally accommodate to anglophones during public encounters. Anglo-Quebecers, on the other hand, did not have the necessity to learn and/or use French in their daily life (see e.g. Taylor et al., 1978). Language-planning initiatives adopted in Québec have aimed at reducing such linguistic inequality. The primary objective of these initiatives was to improve the status and use of the French language in public domains. However, it was also hoped that there would be a carry-over effect favoring the use of French during private encounters between friends, family and strangers. Richard Bourhis and his team conducted several studies beginning in the 70s using what they later called the face-to-face version of the matched-guise test (Moïse and Bourhis, 1994) to monitor this carry-over effect in Montréal. The studies employed virtually the same research design according to which a perfectly bilingual female speaker approached participants, unaware that they were taking part in a study, and asked them for directions. The first study was conducted in shopping malls in the French-speaking and in the English-speaking neighborhoods of Montréal. The following studies were conducted in four different locations that included an anglophone university (McGill) and a francophone university (Université de Montréal) in downtown Montréal as well as the shopping malls from the 1977 study. Once the confederate approached a pedestrian, she asked them the location of the nearest metro station or the closest college bookstore, depending on whether the encounter took place in downtown Montréal or at one of the two universities, in French or English. After the encounter, she
69 noted the language in which the response was provided including whether or not the response had a mixture of French and English. If the participant provided the response in their second language or with a mixture of French and English, it was considered to be an act of convergence. If the response was provided in the native language of the pedestrian, it was considered to be an act of maintenance. To account for differences in competence in the outgroup language, even participants who only used a single word in the outgroup language were considered to have converged. The first of these studies was conducted in 1977 (reported in Bourhis, 1984), merely two and half months following the adoption of the Loi 101 by Québec’s National Assembly. A total of 80 pedestrians were approached of which 40 were anglophone and 40 were francophone. When pedestrians were approached in their native language, the response was always in that language. However, an interesting pattern was observed when the pedestrians were approached in their non-native language because, in these cases, francophones converged more to the language of the confederate at 95% than did anglophones who only converged at 60% by responding either completely or partially in French. These results indicate that anglophones were more likely to maintain their language during intergroup communications than francophones despite the government’s attempts at increasing the status of the French language in Québec and despite the demographic superiority of francophones in the province. Another study was conducted by Bourhis and his team in 1979 (also reported in Bourhis 1984). A similar process of recruitment was used in the 1979 study as in the 1977 study. The confederate asked pedestrians in the malls to provide her with directions to the nearest metro while the university participants were requested to give directions to the university bookstore. There were important differences between the results at the universities and results from the malls. In shopping malls, francophone pedestrians 70 converged to the language of their interlocuter 100% of the time while anglophone pedestrians only converged 70% of the time. The pattern is similar to the one observed in 1977 but it is important to note that there was an increase in convergence for both groups. On the other hand, francophone and anglophone college students were more similar in their language behavior compared to older Montrealers from the malls as the rate of convergence in this group was 83% for the anglophones and 84% for the francophones. These findings suggest the development of new accommodation norms in Montréal among college-aged Montrealers. While older francophones continued to accommodate to anglophones and older anglophones continued to maintain their language, younger francophones were as likely to converge or maintain their language as were young anglophones. The third study in the series was conducted in 1991 (reported in Moïse and Bourhis, 1994) with a total of 541 pedestrians recruited at the same four locations and following the same recruitment technique as the 1979 study. The authors discovered that, in downtown- Montréal, francophones converged slightly less in 1991 (86%) compared to 1979 (100%) and 1977 (95%). Anglophones also converged less in 1991 (63%) compared to 1979 (70%) but the rate of convergence was comparable to the one observed in 1971 (60%). For the university setting, the rate of convergence was similar for the two groups at 80% for francophones and 77% for anglophones, a result similar to the one observed in 1979. The lower rate of convergence observed among francophones in downtown-Montréal compared to observations in the 70s could be the result of language planning laws favoring the use French language in Québec (Moïse and Bourhis, 1994). Similarly, the authors attribute the lower rate of convergence among anglophones to language tensions following the passage of Bill 178 in 1988, which would have encouraged anglophones to affirm their linguistic identity in an increasingly francophone Québec (Moïse and Bourhis, 1994). The higher rate of maintenance of English observed among anglophones is also in line with the 71 rhetoric of Alliance Québec, a group formed to lobby on behalf of English Quebecers, and whose president, Reed Scowen, had stated in 1991:
English Quebecers should insist, politely but firmly, on their right as consumers, in the stores and on the telephone, to be served in their own language, and to use their own language at work. We should not feel the least bit guilty about speaking English. We should use and enjoy the language and encourage others to speak it as well. […] Quebec does not require a law to ensure the use of English on the streets of our province. It will be there if people insist, politely but firmly, on using it.
(Scowen, 1991, p.106-107) The fourth field study conducted by Bourhis and his team in 1997 (reported in Bourhis et al., 2007) came up with somewhat surprising findings. The rate of language maintenance that was found to be in steady increase among francophones was now absent as 95% of downtown francophones and 100% of college francophones converged in the 1997 study. Similarly, the lower rate of convergence among anglophones observed in the past studies was also absent in the 1997 study as 100% of downtown anglophones and 93% of college anglophones converged to French in 1997. Bourhis et al. attributed this finding to the success of Loi 101 as they wrote, “after twenty years of implementation, Bill 101 may have had its intended effects of improving the status and use of French by Quebec Anglophones” (2007, p.217). At the same time, the high rate of convergence among Québec francophones could be reflective of “the enduring status of English relative to
French in Quebec”. (Bourhis et al., 2007, p.216).
72 Chapter 4: Study 1 - Language attitudes expressed through questionnaire
This section discusses the first of three studies that make up this dissertation. This study aims to identify and analyze attitudes towards French and English among residents of the Ottawa-Gatineau region through results obtained from a questionnaire distributed to members of the community. Attitudes are primarily evaluated according to the dimensions of status and solidarity (discussed in Chapter 2). Through statistical analysis, I then try to extrapolate the ways in which these attitudes are related to other social variables. I will start the chapter with a discussion of the research instrument. I will explain the steps that were undertaken to adapt the questionnaire to the current population, and I will discuss the questions that were present in the questionnaire. This will be followed by a section that describes how participants were recruited for the study. Results of the study are discussed under different subsections. In order to understand the demographics of the two cities and the ways in which they compare to each other, I will dedicate a few sections to consider the city of residence, place of birth, gender, education, and age of my participants. I will also discuss the variety of French spoken in the two cities. The sections on background results will be followed by sections on language attitudes towards each of the two languages. Subsequently, I will compare attitudes towards the two languages. Finally, in order to enrich my analysis, I will reveal qualitative findings from the study, gleaned in part from participants’ response to open-ended questions.
4.1. RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
The questionnaire adapted here was originally designed and used by Kircher (2009). Using a research instrument that was previously employed had multiple advantages. Kircher (2009) designed the questionnaire in order to study language attitudes
73 in Montréal. It was, therefore, conceived to identify language attitudes in the Canadian context. Given that most language attitude studies conducted in Canada have been conducted in Montréal, it is valuable to use the same tool such that language attitudes in Montréal can be directly compared with those observed in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Uniformity in research instrument makes this comparison straightforward. Finally, the questionnaire by Kircher (2009) measures language attitudes using the dimensions of status and solidarity. While this is the norm in language attitude research using a matched-guise technique (see Lambert et al., 1960), researchers using questionnaires rarely investigate these dimensions of language attitudes. Since the matched-guise technique was invented in Montréal and has been used multiple times in the city to study language attitudes, a questionnaire that targets the same dimension of attitudes as the matched-guise facilitates data interpretation and comparison. Using a pre-existing questionnaire meant that it was vital to adapt it to the current research context. Kircher (2009) aimed to identify language attitudes among college-aged students and the relationship between language attitudes and mother tongue. While mother tongue has been consistently identified as the principle variable influencing language attitudes in Québec (see e.g. Lambert et al., 1960; Genesee and Holobow,1989; Kircher, 2009) and will be included as a variable in this study, another important goal of this study is to determine whether the place of residence (Ottawa vs. Gatineau) has an effect on languages attitudes. Therefore, questions were added asking participants to name their city and neighborhood of residence and the length of time they had been living in the region. Another important difference between the two studies pertains to the varieties of French being evaluated. One of the principle research objectives of Kircher (2009) was to elucidate differences in attitudes towards European and Canadian French. Since the goal of the current study is to identify attitudes towards the French and English languages in general, 74 only terms like “French” and “English” were employed when assessing attitudes. All but one question in the survey included terms like Québécois/Canadian French and European French. Finally, care was taken to avoid giving an impression that the questionnaire was simply translated from the other language or originally geared towards the other language group. For instance, if the language of the survey was French, questions pertaining to French preceded those pertaining to English; if the survey language was English, questions regarding English preceded those regarding French. A similar pattern was followed throughout the survey. For example, the French version systematically put the word français before anglais while the English version did the opposite. Ottawa and Ontario preceded Québec and Gatineau in all questions and answer choices in the English version while Québec and Gatineau appeared first in the French version. After making all necessary changes to the English and the French versions of the survey, a native speaker of Québec French trained in translation and linguistics revised the final version of the French survey.
4.1.1. Overview of the questionnaire
Every participant was verbally briefed about the research before participating in the survey. Once they agreed to participate, they were asked to fill out the survey electronically on Qualtrics using the researcher’s iPad. It took between seven to ten minutes on average for the participants to complete the survey. Oppenheim (1992) suggests that researchers order questions intended to elicit biographical information at the end of the survey rather than at the very beginning. The author argues that the presence of mundane questions at the very beginning of the survey can lead to disappointment as respondents, after being briefed about the research, are awaiting interesting questions dealing with more exciting
75 topics. Consequently, attitude statements were presented at the very beginning of the survey followed by a section on knowledge of different languages while questions intended to elicit biographical information were asked at the very end of the survey. Item 1 of the survey provided an overview of the research, confirmed that participants were going to receive five dollars in the form of a gift card for their participation and asked if they agreed to participate. Once participants agreed to participate in the survey, they were presented with items 2 and 3 which dealt with attitudes towards English and French. For every attitude statement, participants had to rate whether they agreed with the statement using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (meaning completely agree) to 5 (meaning don’t agree at all). Attitudes were measured in terms of status and solidarity dimensions. A language that enjoys high status is considered to be important for socio-economic mobility. Items 2.1.2 and 3.1.2 (English/French is a language that is well suited to modern society), items 2.1.4 and 3.1.4 (Knowing English/French will increase my opportunities to find employment) and items 2.1.7 and 3.1.7 (English/French is a language that is important to know in order to get far in life) intended to measure the importance accorded to the two languages in terms of status. On the other hand, a language imbued with high solidarity values is generally felt to be an intrinsic, highly personal part of one’s identity. Items 2.1.3 and 3.1.3 (English/French is a language that lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions), items 2.1.6 and 3.1.6 (Knowing English/French is a significant part of Canadian cultural heritage) and items 2.1.8 and 3.1.8 (Knowing English/French is an important part of my personal identity) intended to measure the importance of the two languages along the solidarity dimension. Items 2.1.1 and 3.1.1 (English/French is a beautiful language), item 2.1.5 (English is richer than French) and item 3.1.5 (French is more elegant than English) were retained from the original survey because they allowed us to see how participants evaluated the two languages based on 76 qualities that are commonly attributed to these languages. Furthermore, since no language is inherently more beautiful, more elegant or richer than another (see e.g., Giles et al., 1974 and Giles et al., 1979), evaluations along these criteria give us an idea of “societal norms and mainstream beliefs” (Kircher, 2009, p. 127). The attitude statements were followed by item 2.2 and item 3.2. For these questions, participants had to write down one or more words to describe the French and the English languages. Along with verbal feedback from the respondents, these two questions provide a small (yet insightful) qualitative orientation to the survey. The second section of the survey pertained to the participants’ knowledge of different languages. Participants had to evaluate their competence in English, French and a third language (if any) using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (meaning not at all) to 5 (meaning perfectly) (4.1). Every language had to be evaluated in terms of understanding, speaking, reading and writing. The participant was also asked to identify whether they considered themselves to be monolingual, bilingual, trilingual or multilingual (4.2). Together, these questions attempted to assess the participant’s proficiency in different languages. While self-evaluation on its own may not allow us to identify the real ability of the person in their second languages, it was not feasible to have participants take a language test to identify their real language abilities. Furthermore, self-assessed language ability is often used in studies on bilingualism and many studies have found it to be an accurate representation of proficiency in second language (see e.g. Marian et al., 2007; Goto Butler and Lee 2010; Brantmeier et al.,2011) Item 4.3 aimed at finding out whether participants considered their French to be closer to European or to Canadian French using a 5-point Likert scale. Given past findings on linguistic insecurity in French-speaking Canada (as discussed in chapter 3), this item aimed to identify how residents placed their variety of French in a continuum between 77 European and Canadian French. Item 4.4 and 4.5 asked participants to provide the age at which they started learning French and English. The final questions in this section (4.6 and 4.7) aimed to identify the places, media and activities (namely home, school, work, popular culture, social media, leisure activities, travel and community) through which participants had learned the language. Together, items 4.1, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 were employed to identify the participant’s mother tongue in accordance with the definition of mother tongue provided by Statistics Canada. According to this definition, the mother tongue of a person is “the first language a person learned at home in childhood and still understands”. The last section of the survey intended to elicit biographical information from the participants. This section had two subsections. The first subsection asked participants to provide information about themselves while the second subsection asked them to answer questions about their parents. Participants were asked to identify the highest level of education they had completed and to select their age and gender (items 5.1-5.3). One of the main objectives of this subsection was to identify whether the participant was an international immigrant or a Canadian-born citizen. Thus, item 5.4 asked the participant if they were born in Canada and if so, to identify the province/territory and the city of their birth (items 6.1 and 6.2). Additional questions probed whether the participant resided in Ottawa, Gatineau or elsewhere (item 7.2) and the length of time they had been living in the
Ottawa-Gatineau region (item 7.3). The second subsection of the biographical section intended to identify language background of the participant’s parents (items 8.1 and 8.3) and their place of birth (8.2 and 8.4). If the parent was born in Canada, the participant was asked to name the province/territory and city where the parent was born (items 10.1, 10.2, 12.1 and 12.2). If the parent was born outside the country, the participant was asked to write down the main
78 language of their parent before they moved to Canada (items 9.1 and 11.1) and the length of time they had been living in the country (items 9.2 and 11.2).
4.2. PARTICIPANT RECRUITMENT
The present study differs from the study conducted by Kircher (2009) in terms of the method of sampling. She conducted her study in cégeps in Montréal, which allowed her to recruit a large sample of young population. The present study is not age-restricted. Consequently, passersby in multiple locations in different neighborhoods of the two cities were targeted for the present survey. Some of these places were in primarily francophone neighborhoods in Gatineau while others in primarily anglophone neighborhoods of Ottawa. Historically francophone neighborhoods in Ottawa (such as Orléans) and historically anglophone neighborhoods in Gatineau (such as Aylmer) were also included along with downtown locations of the two cities. Participants were recruited in downtown Gatineau (also known as centre-ville de Hull) and downtown Ottawa. These downtowns are within walking distance from each other and each receives a significant number of people from the other city either in the form of public servants who work for the federal government or in the form of shoppers, bar hoppers and restaurant goers. The linguistic profile of different neighborhoods in the two cities are discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. The period of the questionnaire distribution was mid-August through mid-October of 2018. In Gatineau, participants were recruited in public spaces in three of the five secteurs of the city: Hull, Aylmer and Gatineau. In Hull, most participants were recruited at the local farmer’s market, downtown streets close to the city center and at the food court of a local shopping center. Participants in Aylmer were recruited outside the public library and by a local park, both of which are on la rue Principale (the main street). In Gatineau proper, participants were recruited outside the Centre sportif de Gatineau (the sports center
79 of Gatineau), outside the local library, and outside a local café. In Ottawa, participants were recruited in various public spaces in four wards (out of the 23 wards in the city): Rideau- Vanier, Orléans, Capital and Somerset. In Rideau-Vanier, most participants were recruited in and around Byward farmer’s market. In Orléans, most participants were recruited around the local shopping center and around the old-downtown area. In Capital, participants were recruited just outside the local farmer’s market and most participants in Somerset were recruited in and around downtown Ottawa. Many wards in Ottawa and many neighborhoods in Gatineau are excluded from my sample as they are suburban with limited places where people gather. Because participant recruitment was carried out in centrally located-places, I was able to recruit a diverse group of people who live in many of the neighboring suburbs as well as in the urban core. Passersby were approached with a greeting either in English or in French. The language used to greet people depended on several factors. If the perspective participant was heard speaking to someone prior to the greeting, they were greeted in the language they were using as long as the language used was either French or English. If no prior information was available about the person’s language of preference, the principle of territoriality was adopted. According to this principle, people in Gatineau were greeted in French so as to not raise any concern or upset people by addressing them in both languages.
This decision was influenced by the recent resolution unanimously adopted by Québec’s national assembly urging merchants to welcome clients only with bonjour instead of the bilingual bonjour/hi that is often heard in some areas of Québec such as downtown Montréal (Authier, 2018). This approach was also in line with the common practice of greeting people in French at business establishments in Gatineau. Some people replied in English although the majority replied in French. The language used by the potential participant became the language of the conversation. In Ottawa, people were initially 80 greeted in English. Even in very bilingual places like the ByWard Market or Orléans, nobody replied in French (unlike many participants in Gatineau who returned my greeting in English). Consequently, I decided to use the bilingual form hi/bonjour in these bilingual places in Ottawa so as to let people know that I spoke both languages and that it was for the person to make a choice. Once the person returned the greeting (many replied in French once I had started greeting people with hi/bonjour), they were asked whether they had some time to participate in an academic research. Approximately 50% of the people solicited accepted to participate. The participants were subsequently informed that the researcher was a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas interested on language attitudes of people in the region towards French and English. The language preference of the participant was respected throughout the survey. The characteristics of the researcher is sometimes believed to influence survey results by creating an Interviewer’s Paradox (Garrett, 2010), a concept similar to Labov’s Observer’s Paradox (1972). For instance, Webster (1996) reported that the ethnicity and gender of the interviewer had an important influence on the quality of response obtained. She discovered that male respondents were likely to “give more effort to a survey situation” (p. 71) when the interviewer was female while female respondents were less affected by the gender of the interviewer. At the same time, men were likely to give misleading information when interviewed by a female interviewer. Similarly, response qualities were better when the interviewer and the respondent shared the same ethnicity, in particular when the survey had a cultural component and when the survey participants were Anglo- American. Davis et al. (2010) agree that the race and ethnic background of the interviewer is likely to influence survey results, but they argue that “significant race and ethnicity effects appear to be the exception rather than the rule” (p.20). As an allophone researcher of South Asian origin affiliated to an American university who speaks English and French 81 with similar level of competence, it is likely that my presence as an interviewer influenced survey results. At the same time, since I belong to neither of the two principle ethnic groups being surveyed and since all participants were surveyed by me, it is reasonable to assume that this influence was constant, at least for the two main ethnic groups. Furthermore, it was impossible to match interviewer and respondents ethnically in the current study because, simply based on looks, it is impossible to distinguish French and English-speaking Canadians. This makes it challenging to differentiate one group from the other in public spaces.
4.3. METHODOLOGY
4.3.1. Choice of variables
The score attributed to each attitude statement was taken as the dependent variable while mother tongue, city of residence, age (in terms of whether the person was born before or after Loi 101), level of education and gender were used as independent variables. It is possible for the language of the survey to influence language attitudes as words do not always have the same connotations in different languages (Price et. al, 1983). However, French native speakers almost always responded to the survey in French and English native speakers almost always responded to the survey in English. Due to the high collinearity between mother tongue and survey language, I did not use survey language as an additional independent variable. The large importance attributed to mother tongue in past language attitude studies in Québec (as elaborated in Chapter 2) require that we consider it as one of the independent variables. Since this study looks at language attitudes and language use in Ottawa and Gatineau, the city of residence was taken as another independent variable. Most language attitude studies in Québec have been conducted among college students. Consequently, much is unknown about the effect of age and education on 82 language attitudes. However, some studies that focused on language attitudes among a wider group of participants do point to important age-related differences. Studies conducted by Lambert and his team in the 1960s show that ten-year old monolingual francophones in Montréal had significantly more positive attitudes towards French compared to English (Anisfeld and Lambert, 1964). However, by age 12, a bias in favor of English had emerged at least among female francophones (Lambert et al., 1966) and this preference for English was also present among college-aged francophone men (Lambert et al., 1960). A more recent study conducted by Pagé and Olivier (2012) revealed important differences between older and younger Quebecers. Francophones and anglophones under the age of 35 were more likely to consider French as more important than English compared to older members of their linguistic group. At the same time, compared to older Quebecers, younger Quebecers were less likely to favor the priority of French over English in Québec society (p.84). Results from studies conducted in countries where English is not spoken as a native language also suggest that youngsters in many parts of the world assign high solidarity values to the language and consider it an important aspect of the global youth identity (see eg. El-Dash and Busnardo, 2001; Broermann, 2007 and Leppanen, 2007). There tends to be an important correlation between age and education level at least among younger people. For instance, the 10-year-old participants in the study conducted by Anisfeld and Lambert (1964) had completed less time in school compared to the 12- year-old’s or the college-aged participants in later studies conducted by Lambert and his team. Some studies show that children start developing language attitudes at least towards the standard and the non-standard varieties of their language when they start formal education (Garret et al., 2003). Consequently, the difference in attitudes that was observed between the groups studied by Lambert and his team might have to do with the difference in educational level instead of difference in age. Furthermore, Pagé and Olivier (2012) 83 discovered subtle yet significant differences in language attitudes between Quebecers based on their educational level. Quebecers who had completed cégep level education or lower were less in favor of priority to French in Québec society compared to Quebecers who had completed a university degree. Compared to the more educated group, the less educated group was also more numerous in considering English to be more important for their children’s economic success than French and less numerous in believing that the knowledge of English was rewarding in Québec society. Some of these findings also find echo in studies conducted in French-speaking Ontario where francophone parents with lower education are more likely to send their children to English-speaking schools compared to francophone parents with a higher level of education (Mougeon, 2014). Similarly, according to Laflamme (2004), francophone adolescents in Ontario, and to a lesser extent in Montréal, develop a sense of resistance towards French and appreciation of English around the tenth grade, but postsecondary education, especially at the university level, leads to an acceptance of the francophone heritage (p.121). In bilingual and bidialectal societies, women have been found to have more positive attitudes towards more prestigious language forms (see eg. Gal, 1978; Labov, 1990; Bilaniuk, 2003). In French-speaking Canada, women have been found to value standard language forms in French more so than men (Mougeon and Beniak, 1987; Mougeon et al.,
1988). In cases of exogamy, francophone women are also found to be more likely to transfer French to their children than francophone men (Mougeon, 2014). Laflamme (2004) argues that there is an intricate relationship between gender, education and language attitudes among Franco-Ontarians. He writes,
L'imaginaire franco-ontarien est donc en grande partie en tension entre, d'une part, une admiration de l'Anglais et une négation de soi, et, d'autre part, une méfiance de l'Anglais et une estime de soi. L'admiration de l'Anglais et la négation de soi font partie de l'imaginaire des moins instruits, qui sont en grande partie des 84 hommes, tandis que la méfiance vis-à-vis de l'Anglais et l'estime de soi sont le fait des plus instruits, qui sont le plus souvent des femmes.
[Franco-Ontarian imaginary is largely in tension between, on the one hand, an admiration of English and self-negation, while on the other hand, a mistrust of English and self-esteem. Admiration of English and self-negation form a part of the imaginary of the less educated, who are usually men, while the mistrust of English and self-esteem are a part of the more educated, who are most often women.] (p.119)
Given the important role of the aforementioned variables in determining language attitudes in French-speaking Canada and elsewhere, I decided to analyze the effect of each of the five variables (mother tongue, city of residence, age, level of education and gender) by itself on language attitudes as well as possible interaction between the variables.
4.3.2. Statistical modeling
Results of the questionnaire were analyzed using the software R3.5.2 (R Core Team, 2018). Frequency tables and crosstabulations with Chi-square tests were used in order to analyze background data. The correlation between age and variety of French spoken was calculated using the Spearman rank correlation. The effect of education on the variety of French spoken was calculated using one-way between subjects ANOVA where education was the independent variable while the variety of French spoken was the dependent variable. An independent sample t-test was used to compare the reported ability of participants in French and English. The function t.test on R assumes unequal variances and thereby, conducts Welch Two sample t-test by default. Therefore, every time a t-test was conducted for this study, it was Welch Two sample t-test. The summary statistics were computed using the dplyr package from R (Wickham et al., 2019). Attitudes towards French and English were calculated using between subjects ANOVAs where mother tongue, city of residence, gender, age and education were independent variables and response to the attitude statement was the dependent variable. 85 For every attitude statement, a model without interaction between the five independent variables was compared to a model with interaction between the variables using a likelihood ratio test. For all but two attitude statements, there was no significant difference between the two models. Furthermore, mother tongue was the only independent variable that had a significant main effect on at least one of the attitude statements. Consequently, I analyzed the effect of mother tongue on each of the attitude statements using one-way between subjects ANOVA. The R package car (Fox and Weisberg, 2019) was used to conduct Levene’s test which tests for homogeneity of variance. Levene’s test is used to see if “the underlying populations have a common variance” (Gastwirth et al., 2009). Results from Levene’s test showed that there was significant difference in variances between groups based on mother tongue for five out of the sixteen attitude statements. Consequently, I used Welch’s ANOVA to take into account the heteroskedastic variance while analyzing the effect of mother tongue on these language attitude statements. The Welch adjustment corrects for the difference in variance between input vectors by adjusting the degrees of freedom (Baayen, 2008). If the result from the ANOVA was statistically significant, post-hoc analysis was conducted using Tukey HSD to see which groups were significantly different from each other.
Attitudes towards French vs. English were calculated through repeated measures ANOVAs with the White-Huber adjustment (White, 1980). Since Levene’s test indicated that there was a significant difference in variances between groups based on mother tongue for five out of the sixteen attitude statements, the use of White-Huber adjustment was necessary to correct for the heteroskedastic variance. Parallel attitude statements for French and English were grouped together. For instance, attitude statement 2.1.1 and 3.1.1were paired because they pertain to the evaluation of French and English in terms of beauty. In 86 the same vein, statement 2.1.2 was paired with statement 3.1.2, statement 2.1.3 was paired with statement 3.1.3, statement 2.1.4 was paired with statement 3.1.4, statement 2.1.6 was paired with statement 3.1.6, statement 2.1.7 was paired with statement 3.1.7 and statement 2.1.8 was paired with statement 3.1.8. Statement 2.1.5 and statement 3.1.5 could not be paired because one of them pertains to the evaluation of French in terms of elegance while another pertains to the evaluation of English in terms of richness. This resulted in seven pairs of attitude statements. For each of the seven pairs of attitude statements, the language evaluated (French or English) was the within-subjects variable. Mother tongue, city of residence, age, education and gender were taken as between subjects variables. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted for each pair of attitude statements using afex (Singman et al., 2019) and car packages from R and the emmeans package (Lenth, 2019) from R was used to decompose significant two-way interactions. The interactions of the between- and within-subjects effects were explored through a series of Bonferroni- corrected pairwise comparisons. The interaction of the between-subjects variables was not analyzed. The R package ggplot2 (Wickham, 2009) was used to visualize the repeated measures ANOVA.
4.4. RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE
4.4.1. Background results
4.4.1.1. Place of residence and mother tongue
A total of 151 participants completed the survey of which 77 lived in Gatineau and 70 lived in Ottawa. Response from four participants were discarded in the final analysis as they were not the from the circumscribed region. The map below depicts the neighborhoods represented in the survey based on the answer for the open-ended question 7.2. The
87 darkness of the pointer is directly related to the number of participants from the neighborhood. For instance, the darkest pointer indicates that that there were 29 participants from the neighborhood whereas the faintest pointer means that there were 1 or 2 participants from the neighborhood.
Figure 4.1: Participants’ by neighborhood of residence
About 73% of respondents from Gatineau answered that they were either from Hull, Aylmer or Gatineau proper. Each of this sector includes different neighborhoods but very few participants answered with the name of their neighborhood/quartier. Participants from Ottawa were more precise in their answers: nine participants wrote Centertown, 6 wrote Nepean, 5 wrote Orléans and 5 wrote Lower town/Basse ville as their neighborhood/quartier of residence. It is difficult to say with certainty the reason for this difference. In terms of Gatineau, it is likely that the differences between the three sectors are perceived as being more pronounced than the differences between neighborhoods in
88 each sector. Consequently, residents might think of the division between the three sectors, rather than neighborhoods, as the more significant geographical division in the city. Most participants from Gatineau claimed French as their mother tongue and those from Ottawa chose English as their mother tongue. To reiterate, French mother tongue participants learned French as their first language at home and still understood it at the time of the survey and English mother tongue participants learned English as their first language at home and still understood it at the time of the survey. In this dissertation, these groups will be referred to as francophones and anglophones respectively. Individuals who acquired another language as their first language instead of French or English are called allophones. Finally, those individuals who learned both languages (French and English) as their first languages at home and still understood them at the time of taking the survey are called French-English bilinguals. For brevity, the term early bilinguals will be employed to refer to this group of participants. In this thesis, the terms early bilingual and bilingual refer to two different realities. The former refers to people who learned French and English from birth while the latter refers to people who consider themselves to be bilingual regardless of the age at which they started learning their second language and regardless of the second or first language(s) spoken.
Despite this categorization method, it was difficult to determine the mother tongue for four out of the 147 participants. Two participants had learned French as their first language and still understood it perfectly but claimed for question 4.6 that they had learned the language at school instead of home. Upon discussion with some French Canadians, I came to the conclusion that the word apprendre (learn) in the prompt could have confused the participants as some individuals might consider the French language, learned at school, distinct from the variety of French acquired at home. Given the presence of linguistic 89 insecurity that has been documented in French-speaking Canada, such understanding is certainly plausible. Since the participants did not speak a third language and had learned English later in life, I decided to categorize them as francophones. Two other participants had also learned French as their only first language. However, they reported that they understood French minimally (2 out of 5) and could not read, write or speak the language anymore (each was attributed the score of 1 out of 5). On the other hand, they understood English perfectly (5 out of 5) and had taken the survey in this language. They were, therefore, categorized as anglophones. The final result is demonstrated in the table below.
CCity of Mother tongue
residence Francophones Anglophones Early bilinguals Allophones
N NE % N NE % N NE % N NE %
Gatineau 46 28.8 83.6 6 22 14.3 13 9.4 72.2 12 16.8 37.5
Ottawa 9 26.2 16.4 36 20 85.7 5 8.6 27.8 20 15.2 62.5
Total 55 55 100 42 42 100 18 18 100 32 32 100
X-squared = 51.66, df = 3, p-value = 0.000
Table 4.1: Crosstabulation of current city of residence and mother tongue. Observed numbers (N), expected numbers (Ne), percentages (%) and results of Chi- square test
As demonstrated in Table 4.1, 83% of francophones who participated in the survey lived in Gatineau and 85.7% of anglophones lived in Ottawa. We also see that the majority
90 of early bilinguals (72.2%) lived in Gatineau and the majority of allophones (62.5%) lived in Ottawa. A chi-square test of independence was performed to examine the relation between first language and city of residence. The relation between these variables was significant, X2 (3, N = 147) = 51.66, p < .01. In other words, anglophones and allophones participants were more likely to live in Ottawa while francophones and early bilinguals were more likely to live in Gatineau.
4.4.1.2. Place of birth
The participants were grouped into five categories based on whether they were born in Ottawa, Gatineau, in Québec outside Gatineau here referred as rest of Québec (ROQ), in rest of Canada outside the province of Québec or the city of Ottawa (ROC), or outside Canada (OC). Subsequently, I decided to cross tabulate place of birth with current city of residence in order to further analyze the population make-up of the cities.
91 Place of Current city of residence
birth Gatineau Ottawa
N NE % N NE %
Gatineau 21 11.5 27.3% 1 10.5 1.4%
Ottawa 3 7.9 3.9% 12 7.1 17.1%
ROC 9 18.8 11.7% 27 17.2 38.6%
ROQ 28 17.3 36.4% 5 15.7 7.2%
OC 16 21.5 20.7% 25 19.5 35.7%
Total 77 77 100% 70 70 100%
X-squared = 50.37, df = 4, p-value = 3.024e-10
Table 4.2: Crosstabulation of place of birth and current city of residence. Observed numbers (N), expected numbers (Ne), percentages (%) and results of Chi- square test
As demonstrated in Table 4.2, in Gatineau, the largest group of people were the ones born in ROQ (36.4%) followed by people born in Gatineau (27.3%). Immigrants formed the third largest group of individuals in Gatineau (20.7%). At 11.7%, people born in ROC represented the second to smallest group of people living in Gatineau followed by people born in Ottawa who represented only 3.9% Gatineau population
92 For Ottawa, the largest group of people were those born in ROC (38.6%) followed by the OC group, which represented over one third (35.7%) of the city’s population. The third largest group of people in Ottawa were those born in Ottawa itself (17.1%). At 7.2%, people born in ROQ represented the second to smallest group of people living in Ottawa (note: this is the largest group in Gatineau). Finally, people born in Gatineau represented the smallest group of people in Ottawa as only 1.4% of people born in Gatineau lived in Ottawa. Results from Chi-square test of independence showed that place of birth was significantly related to current city of residence, X2 (4, N = 147) = 50.37, p < .01. In other words, Quebecers and especially participants born in Gatineau were least likely to live in Ottawa and most likely to live in Gatineau. On the other hand, participants born in ROC and especially those born in Ottawa were most likely to live in Ottawa and least likely to live in Gatineau. This finding has as important linguistic implication. Gatineau and ROQ can be considered pre-dominantly francophone while Ottawa and ROC can be considered pre-dominantly anglophone spaces. Therefore, this finding suggests that francophones are most likely to live in Gatineau and least likely to live in Ottawa while anglophones are most likely to live in Ottawa and least likely to live in Gatineau.
93
Figure 4.2: The population make-up of the two cities based on place of birth
4.4.1.3. Gender, education and age
Out of the total participants, 63 participants selected their gender as male, 83 selected their gender as female and two individuals selected their gender as other. Due to the small number of participants who had selected their gender as ‘other’, response from these participants were not considered while analyzing the effect of gender on any of the dependent variables. Seven participants had not completed high school, 28 had completed high school (école secondaire), 27 had completed an associate’s degree or equivalent
(cégep), 50 had completed a bachelor’s degree (baccalauréat), 26 had completed a master’s degree (maîtrise), 7 had completed a doctoral degree (doctorat) while 2 participants chose the category ‘other’ without elaborating their response. Due to the smaller number of participants who had not completed high school and those who had completed a doctoral degree, the former was grouped with participants who had completed high school and the latter was grouped with those who had completed master’s degree.
94 This resulted in four categories: high school or less (n = 35), associate’s degree (n = 27), bachelor’s degree (n = 50) and advanced degree (n = 33). Answers from the two participants who had selected “other” as their response were not considered while analyzing the effect of education on any of the dependent variables. The oldest participant was 83 years old while the youngest was 18. The mean age of the participants was 39.6 years old with a standard deviation of 16.1. Due to the important social and political changes following language policies in Québec and in Canada in the 70s, the population was divided into two groups based on whether the participant was born before or after the adoption of Canada’s most important and controversial language law in the form of Loi 101 in 1977. Throughout the analysis, the first group of people (those born before Loi 101) will be referred to as the younger group and the second group (those born after Loi 101) will be called the older group. The younger group comprised 86 participants and the older group consisted of 61 participants.
4.4.1.4. Variety of French
Participants were divided into three categories based on their answer to question 4.2 (If French is one of the languages you know, is the kind of French you speak closer to Canadian French or European French?) Those who had answered with point 1 or point 2 were grouped under the category “close to CF”, those who had answered with point 4 or point 5 were grouped under the category “close to EF” while those who had answered with point 3 were grouped as “in-between variety”. A total of 131 participants responded to this question of which 84 participants (64.1%) answered that their variety of French was close to CF, 30 participants (22.9%) answered that their variety of French was close to EF while 17 participants (13.0%) answered that their variety of French was an in-between variety. This result bears an important resemblance with findings by Kircher (2009) as 62.7% of
95 participants in the study claimed to speak a variety of French close to CF. However, unlike participants in the current study, more participants in the study conducted by Kircher (2009) claimed to speak an in-between variety (23.6%) with only 13.7% claiming to speak a variety of French that was close to EF. Since Kircher (2009) had conducted her study among college-aged students, I decided to test whether age and educational level had a significant influence on the variety of French spoken by the participants. Results of the Spearman rank correlation failed to show significant correlation between age and variety of French spoken. A one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted to compare the effect of education on the variety of French spoken. There was a significant effect of education on the variety of French spoken at the p < .05 level for the four conditions [F(3, 125) = 3.41, p = 0.0197]. Post hoc comparison using the Tukey HSD test indicated that the mean score for people with an associate’s degree (M = 1.67, SD = 1.18 ) was significantly different from the mean score for those who had a bachelor’s degree (M = 2.53, SD = 1.41) or a master’s degree (M = 2.62SD = 1.47) at p < .05. Taken together, these results show that participants with a bachelor’s or an advanced degree considered their French to be significantly closer to European French compared to participants with an associate’s degree or equivalent (cégep in Québec). Boxplots of the variety of French spoken across the four groups is demonstrated in Figure 4.3.
96 5
4
Education
Advanced
3 Associates Bachelor's
French.variety HS or less
2
1
HS or less Associates Bachelor's Advanced Educational.level
Figure 4.3: Variety of French spoken across different educational levels. Means: 1 = completely Québécois/Canadian and 5 = European French.
The high number of speakers of European French in the current study can also be attributed to the presence of immigrant population in the sample, as 28% of the sample was born outside Canada (OC). Among this group of participants, 51.4% claimed to speak a variety of French close to EF (points 4 or 5) while only a minority of participants (12.5%) born in Canada claimed to speak a variety close to EF (Table 4.4). Results from Chi-square test of independence show that the variety of French spoken was significantly related to whether the participant was born in Canada or elsewhere, X2 (2, N = 131) = 22.48, p < .01.
Participants born outside Canada were significantly more likely to speak European French compared to those born in Canada. There was no significant difference between 97 participants born in Québec and those born elsewhere in Canada in terms of the variety of
French spoken.
Variety of French Place of Birth
Canada OC
N NE % N NE %
Close to CF 71 61.6 74 13 22.5 37.1
In-between variety 13 12.4 13.5 4 4.5 11.4
Close to EF 12 22.0 12.5 18 8.0 51.4
Total 96 96.0 100 35 35 100
X-squared = 22.48, df = 2, p-value = 1.312e-05
Table 4.3: Crosstabulation of place of birth and variety of French spoken. Observed numbers (N), expected numbers (Ne), percentages (%) and results of Chi- square test
4.4.1.5. Knowledge of different languages
The overall competence in French and English of the participants was calculated using the average of the self-reported scores for French and English for each participant provided in question 4.1 (Please judge your level of competence in the language(s) you know. For each aspect of the language(s), i.e. understanding, speaking, reading and writing). An independent-samples t-test assuming unequal variances was conducted to compare the competence in the two language. There was a significant difference in mean for competence in French (M = 3.9, SD = 1.4) and competence in English (M = 4.5, SD =
98 0.9); t (251.11) = -4.23, p < 0.01. In other words, the respondents judged themselves to have above average competence in French and almost perfect competence in English. According to the answer for item 4.1, a quarter of respondents (n = 35) considered themselves to be monolingual, over half of them (n = 75) considered themselves to be bilingual and a quarter (n = 36) considered themselves to be trilingual or multilingual. Based on text answers to question 4.2 where participants specified the languages they spoke, 92% (34 out of 37) of trilingual and multilingual participants spoke French along with other languages and 94.5% (35 out of 37) spoke English along with other languages. Similarly, 90.6% of bilinguals (68 out of 75) mentioned French as one of the two languages they spoke and 93.3% (70 out of 75) mentioned English as one of the two languages they spoke. In other words, most bilingual, trilingual and multilingual speakers in the region spoke French and English. As illustrated in the Table 4.4, 91% of francophones in the sample were bilingual, trilingual or multilingual and only a minority of francophones (9%) considered themselves to be monolingual. On the other hand, the majority of native English speakers (about 60%) considered themselves to be monolingual but an important minority (33%) considered themselves to be bilingual. Anglophones comprised 71% of the monolingual population of the sample. Results from Chi-square test of independence showed that the number of languages spoken was significantly related to the participant’s mother tongue, X2 (9, N = 147) = 59.17, p < .01. Francophones were more likely to be bilingual and less likely to be monolingual while anglophones were more likely to be monolingual, and to a lesser degree, bilingual. Allophones were more likely to be bilingual, trilingual or multilingual.
99 Knowledge Mother tongue
of different Francophones Anglophones Early bilinguals Allophones
languages N NE % N NE % N NE % N NE %
Monolingual 5 13.1 9.0 25 10.0 59.5 1 4.3 5.6 4 7.6 12.5
Bilingual 38 28.1 69.1 14 21.4 33.3 12 9.2 66.7 11 16.3 34.4
Trilingual 9 8.6 16.4 1 6.6 2.4 4 2.8 22.1 9 5.0 28.1
Multilingual 3 5.2 5.5 2 4.0 4.8 1 1.7 5.6 8 3.1 25.0
Total 55 55 100 42 42 100 18 18 100 32 32 100
X-squared = 59.17, df = 9, p-value = 1.942e-09
Table 4.4: Crosstabulation of mother tongue and knowledge of different languages. Observed numbers (N), expected numbers (Ne), percentages (%) and results of Chi-square test
As demonstrated in Table 4.5, only 10% of residents in Gatineau were monolingual,
66% of them were bilingual and 23% were trilingual or multilingual. In Ottawa, a slightly higher percentage of residents (27%) were trilingual or multilingual and slightly over one third of the residents (34%) were bilingual. However, almost 39% of the Ottawa population sampled was monolingual. Results from Chi-square test of independence showed that the number of languages spoken was significantly related to the participant’s city of residence, X2 (3, N = 147) = 21.98, p < .01. In other words, participants who lived in Ottawa were
100 most likely to be monolingual, but they were also likely to be bilingual and trilingual. Participants who lived in Gatineau were most likely to be bilingual and least likely to be monolingual.
Knowledge Cities
of different Gatineau Ottawa
languages N NE % N NE %
Monolingual 8 18.3 10.4 27 16.7 38.6
Bilingual 51 39.3 66.2 24 35.7 34.3
Trilingual 9 12.1 11.7 14 11.0 20
Multilingual 9 7.3 11.7 5 6.6 7.1
Total 77 77 100 70 70 100
X-squared = 21.98, df = 3, p-value = 6.584e-05
Table 4.5: Crosstabulation of city of residence and knowledge of different languages. Observed numbers (N), expected numbers (Ne), percentages (%) and results of Chi-square test
4.4.2. Language attitudes towards French and English
As previously discussed, mother tongue was the only independent variable to show significant main effect on attitude statements. Therefore, for every attitude statement, a
101 one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted with mother tongue as the independent variable and response to the attitude statement as the dependent variable. In order to concentrate on the most important findings, only results that were statistically significant will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
4.4.2.1. Attitudes towards French
4.4.2.1.1. General attitudes towards French
General attitudes towards French were explored with the help of two attitude statements (3.1.1 and 3.1.5.). Together, these statements aimed to identify whether French was valued in general esthetic terms. All mother-tongue groups considered French to be a beautiful language (average between 1.07 and 1.56). Results from Levene’s test showed statistically significant difference in variance between different mother-tongue groups for statement 3.1.1, F(3,143) = 5.45, p = 0.0014. Therefore, Welch’s ANOVA was conducted to assess the effect of mother tongue on the attitude statement. Results from Welch’s ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on how beautiful French was considered to be at the p < .01 level [F(3,143) = 5.95, p = 0.0014]. Post hoc comparison using the Tukey HSD test indicated that there was significant difference between francophones (M = 1.07, SD = 0.33) and anglophones (M = 1.55, SD = 0.94) and between francophones and allophones (M = 1.56, SD = 0.84). In other words, even though all groups considered French to be a beautiful language, francophones considered the language to be significantly more beautiful than allophones and anglophones. Participants also agreed with the comparative statement 3.1.5, which compared French and English in terms of elegance (means between 1.83 and 2.62). Results from one- way between subjects ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether French was considered to be more elegant than English at the p < .01 level 102 [F(3,143) = 2.76, p = 0.0446]. However, post hoc comparison using the Tukey HSD test did not show significant difference between any two groups. Hence, we cannot say if any of the two groups were significantly different from each other. Despite significant difference between group means, the results suggest that participants considered the two languages to be either equally elegant or they considered French to be more elegant than English. Because no group disagreed with the statement, it can be deduced that none of the groups considered English to be more elegant than French.
4.4.2.1.2. Attitudes towards French along the status dimension
Attitude statements (3.1.2, 3.1.4 and 3.1.7) aimed to identify the importance accorded to French along the status dimension. All mother-tongue groups considered French to be well suited to modern society (means between 1.4 and 2.33). Results from one-way between subjects ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether French was considered to be well suited to modern society at the p < .01 [F(3,143) = 11.25, p = 0.001].Post-hoc analysis using the Tukey HSD showed that there was significant difference between francophones (M = 1.4, SD = 0.53) and anglophones (M = 2.31, SD = 1.09) between francophones and allophones (M = 1.94, SD = 0.84) (p < 0.05) and between early bilinguals (M = 1.33, SD = 0.97) and anglophones. In short, even though all groups considered French to be well suited to modern society, early bilinguals and francophones considered it to be significantly more suitable to modern society than did anglophones and allophones. For statement 3.1.4, participants mostly agreed that knowing French would increase their opportunities to find employment (M = 1.49) and there was no significant difference in means between groups. Participants agreed less with statement 3.1.7 (M = 2.52) that
103 French is a language that is important to know in order to get far in life. Again, there was no significant difference in means between groups.
4.4.2.1.3. Attitudes towards French along the solidarity dimension
Attitude statements 3.1.3, 3.1.6 and 3.1.8 aimed to identify the importance accorded to French along the solidarity dimension. Results from Levene’s test showed significantly unequal variances between different mother-tongue groups for statement 3.1.3 [F(3,143) = 4.33, p = 0.0059] and statement 3.1.8 [F(3,143) = 13.252, p = 0.000]. Hence, Welch’s ANOVA was conducted to assess the effect of mother tongue on the two attitude statements. Results from Welch’s ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether French was considered to be a language that lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions at the p < .01 level [F(3, 59.57) = 4.94, p = 0.009]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that francophones (M = 1.18, SD = 0.47) agreed significantly more than allophones (M = 1.66, SD = 0.83) with the statement. In other words, even though all groups agreed with the statement (means between 1.18 and 1.66), francophones agreed significantly more than allophones that French lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions. Similarly, all groups agreed with the attitude statement 3.1.6 (means between 1.31 and 1.81). However, results from one-way between subjects ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether knowing French is considered to be a significant part of Canadian cultural heritage at the p < .05 level [F(3, 143) = 3.299, p = 0.022]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that francophones (M = 1.31, SD = 0.69) agreed significantly more with the statement than anglophones (M = 1.81, SD = 0.833). In other words, while all groups considered French to be a significant part of
104 Canadian cultural heritage, francophones agreed significantly more with the statement than anglophones. Finally, statement 3.1.8 resulted in important differences between groups. Here, anglophones were more or less undecided about the importance of French for their personal identity (M = 3.12) while francophones (M = 1.33) and early bilinguals (M = 1.44) considered French to be a very important part of their personal identity. Results from Welch’s ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether knowing French was an important part of the participant’s personal identity at the p < .001 level [F(3, 56.76) = 21.79, p = 0.009]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that francophones (M = 1.33, SD = 0.795) agreed significantly more with the statement than anglophones (M = 3.12, SD = 1.43) and allophones (M = 2.62, SD = 1.50). On the other hand, early bilinguals (M = 1.44, SD = 0.856) agreed significantly more than allophones and anglophones. The difference in means between anglophones and allophones and between francophones and early bilinguals was not statistically significant.
4.4.2.1.4. Summary of attitudes towards French
Overall, we see that attitudes towards French were positive among the participants. This was true for general statements, as well as for statements that intended to measure the importance accorded to the language along the dimensions of status and solidarity. Despite significant difference in means between francophones on one hand and anglophones and allophones on the other, all groups considered French to be a beautiful language. Participants also considered French to be either as elegant as or more elegant than English. There was no significant difference between groups for two out of three statements pertaining to the status dimension. All participants believed that French increased their chances of finding an employment. On the other hand, participants considered French to
105 be slightly less important to succeed in life. Only one attitude statement resulted in significant difference between groups as francophones and early bilinguals considered French to be significantly more appropriate to modern society than did anglophones and allophones. There were important differences between groups for statements targeting the solidarity dimension. All groups believed that French lent itself well to expressing feelings and emotions. However, francophones believed it to be the case significantly more than allophones. Similarly, while all groups considered French to be an important part of Canadian cultural heritage, francophones agreed significantly more with the statement than was the case for anglophones. Evaluations to statement 3.18 show that French was a more important part of their personal identity for francophones and early bilinguals while it was less the case for allophones. Anglophones showed a sense of indifference or uncertainty towards the role of French in their personal identity. In sum, while participants gave similar responses regarding French along the status dimension, there were important group differences along the solidarity dimension. These findings suggest that francophones and early bilinguals have more strongly positive attitudes towards French than do anglophones and allophones, whose attitudes towards French are also positive but less so compared to francophones and early bilinguals. It is also noteworthy that the standard deviation is larger for these questions among anglophones and allophones compared to francophones and early bilinguals. This suggests a general consensus among the later groups in terms of their attitudes and a broadness in range of attitudes among the former groups.
106 4.4.2.2 Attitudes towards English
4.4.2.2.1. General attitudes towards English
General attitudes towards English were explored with the help of two attitude statements (2.1.1 and 2.1.5.). Together, these statements aimed to identify whether English was valued in general esthetic terms. All participants agreed (M = 1.76, SD = 0.86) that English was a beautiful language (2.1.1) and disagreed (M = 3.50, SD = 1.03) that English was richer than French (3.1.5). For each of the two attitude statements, a one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted to identify the effect of mother tongue on the attitude statement. Results from the ANOVAs did not show any statistically significant difference between group means.
4.4.2.2.2. Attitudes towards English along the status dimension
Attitude statements 2.1.2, 2.1.4 and 2.1.7 aimed to identify the importance accorded to English along the status dimension. Participants largely agreed with statement 2.1.2 (M = 1.33, SD = 0.55) that English was a language well suited to modern society and with statement 2.1.4 (M = 1.13, SD = 0.46) that knowing English would increase their opportunities to find employment. Participants also agreed with statement 2.1.7 (M = 1.59, SD = 0.82) that knowledge of English was important in order to get far in life. Results from one-way between subjects ANOVAs indicated no significant effect of mother tongue on any of the three attitude statements.
4.4.2.2.3. Attitudes towards English along the solidarity dimension
Attitude statements 2.1.3, 2.1.6 and 2.1.8 aimed to identify the importance accorded to English along the solidarity dimension. Results from Levene’s test showed significantly unequal variances between different mother-tongue groups for statement
107 2.1.3 [F(3,143) = 2.99, p = 0.03]. and statement 2.1.8 [F(3,143) = 6.06, p = 0.0006]. Hence, Welch’s ANOVA was conducted to assess the effect of mother tongue on these attitude statements. All mother-tongue groups agreed with statement 2.1.3 (means between 1.40 and 2.22) that English lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions. Results from Welch’s ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether English was considered to be a language that lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions at the p < .01 level [F(3, 54.4) = 9.79, p = 2.88e-05]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that anglophones (M = 1.40, SD = 0.59) agreed significantly more with the statement compared to francophones (M = 2.16, SD = 0.90) and early bilinguals (M = 2.22, SD = 1.17). In other words, even though all groups agreed with the statement (means between 1.40 and 2.22), anglophones agreed significantly more than francophones and early bilinguals that English lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions. Participants generally agreed with the attitude statement 2.1.6 (M = 1.56, SD = 0.88) that knowing English was a significant part of Canadian cultural heritage. Result from one-way between subjects ANOVA indicated no significant effect of mother tongue on the attitude statement. Participants also largely agreed with the attitude statement 2.1.8 (means between 1.40 and 2.73) that English was an important part of their personal identity.
Results from Welch’s ANOVA showed that there was a significant effect of mother tongue on whether knowing English was considered to be an important part of the participant’s personal identity at the p < .01 level [F(3, 56.34) = 14.37, p = 4.57e-07]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that francophones (M = 2.73, SD = 1.24) agreed significantly less with the statement compared to anglophones (M = 1.40, SD = 0.73), allophones (M = 2.06, SD = 1.16) and early bilinguals (M = 1.94, SD = 1.21).
108 4.4.2.2.4. Summary of attitudes towards English
The survey results revealed that attitudes towards English, like those towards French, were positive among the participants. Attitudes between groups were significantly different for only two out of the eight statements. For general attitudes, participants agreed that English was a beautiful language. On the other hand, they generally disagreed that English was richer than French. For attitudes along the status dimension, participants unanimously considered English to be highly suited for modern society, believed that knowledge of the language increased their employability and considered it important to get far in life. There was no significant difference between groups. Participants unanimously agreed that English was an important part of Canadian cultural heritage. On the other hand, there were important differences in means between participants for the two other statements in the category. Anglophones agreed significantly more compared to francophones and early bilinguals that English lent itself well to expressing feelings and emotions. On the other hand, anglophones, allophones and early bilinguals considered English to be a significantly more important part of their personal identity than it was the case for francophones. We previously saw that francophones and early bilinguals had similar attitudes towards French. This pattern was still true for one of two attitude statements towards English where mother tongue had a significant main effect. However, early bilinguals were significantly different from francophones and more similar to anglophones and allophones when they evaluated the importance of English for their personal identity.
4.4.3. Attitudes towards French vs. English
Survey results show that participants had positive attitudes towards both French and English. In this section, I will analyze whether participants evaluated the two languages
109 significantly differently for each pair of attitude statements. As mentioned previously, repeated measures ANOVA was performed on every attitude statement pair with language evaluated (French or English) as the within-subjects variable and mother tongue, city of residence, age, education and gender as between subjects variables. Results showed significant main effect of language evaluated for five out of the seven pairs. Similarly, there was significant interaction between mother tongue and language evaluated for four pairs, significant interaction between age and language evaluated for two pairs and significant interaction between education and language evaluated for one pair.
4.4.3.1. General attitudes towards the two languages
Even though participants considered both French and English to be beautiful languages, there was a significant main effect of language evaluated (F (1, 135) = 19.72, p = .0001, generalized eta squared = .05). French (M = 1.32) was evaluated as significantly more beautiful than English (M = 1.76) in general. There was also a significant interaction between mother tongue and language evaluated ((F (3, 135) = 3.73, p = .01, generalized eta squared = .03). Francophones considered French to be significantly more beautiful than English (diff. = -0.72, t(135) = -4.58, p < 0.0001). Early bilinguals also considered French to be significantly more beautiful than English (diff. = -0.878, t(135) = -3.524, p = 0.0006). There was no significant difference among allophones and anglophones between their evaluations of English and French in terms of beauty. This is evidenced by Figure 4.4.
110 2.00
1.75
Language
English
Mean 1.50 French
1.25
Anglophone Allophone Early bilingual Francophone Mother tongue
Figure 4.4: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a beautiful language” across different mother-tongue groups. Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all.
Statements 2.1.2 and 3.1.2 were inherently comparative as they compared French and English in terms of elegance and richness. I have previously discussed attitudes towards these statements. Therefore, these statements will not be discussed further in this section.
4.4.3.2. Comparative attitudes along the status dimension
Generally speaking, participants evaluated both languages favorably in terms of status, but English was evaluated even more favorably than French. Even though participants agreed that French and English were both well-suited for modern society, there was a significant main effect of language evaluated (F (1,135) = 17.34, p < .0001, 111 generalized eta squared = .05). In general, participants considered English (M = 1.33) to be significantly more well-suited to modern society than French (M = 1.76). There was also a significant interaction between language evaluated and mother tongue (F (3,135) = 6.43 p = 0. 0004, generalized eta squared = .05). Allophones considered English as significantly more well-suited to modern society than French (diff. = 0.546, t(135) = 3.075, p = 0.0025). Anglophones also considered English as significantly more well-suited to modern society than French (diff. = 1.04, t(135) = 5.919, p < 0.0001). On the other hand, francophones and early bilinguals were not significantly different in their evaluations of the two languages. This is illustrated in Figure 4.5.
2.1
Language
1.8 English Mean French
1.5
Anglophone Allophone Early bilingual Francophone Mother tongue
Figure 4.5: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that is well suited to modern society” across different mother-tongue groups. Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all. 112 In general, participants considered that knowledge of English (M = 1.14) increased their opportunities of finding employment significantly more (F (1,135) = 12.29, p = .0006, generalized eta squared = .04) than knowledge of French (M = 1.49). There was also significant interaction between age and language evaluated (F (1,135) = 4.33, p = .04, generalized eta squared = .01) as younger participants believed that knowledge of English increased their employability significantly more than knowledge of French (diff. = 0.474, t(135) = 4.341, p < 0.0001). This is illustrated in Figure 4.6.
113 1.5
1.4
Language
English 1.3 Mean French
1.2
1.1
Old Young Age
Figure 4.6: Evaluation of the statement “Knowing French/English will increase my opportunities to find employment.” across different age groups. Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all.
Finally, participants considered that the knowledge of English (M = 1.58) was significantly more important to get far in life than the knowledge of French (M = 2.5). There was a significant main effect of language evaluated (F (1,135) = 47.77, p < .0001, generalized eta squared = .12). There was a significant interaction between education and language
114 evaluated (F (3,135) = 4.57, p = .004, generalized eta squared = .04). Participants who had completed an associate’s degree or above considered knowledge of English to be significantly more important to get far in life than knowledge of French (diff. = 1.097, t(137) = 8.094, p < 0.0001). This is evidenced by Figure 4.7.
2.4
Language
English
Mean 2.0 French
1.6
HS or less Associates Bachelor's Advanced Education
Figure 4.7: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that is important to know in order to get far in life” across different educational levels. Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all.
There was also significant interaction between age and language evaluated (F (1,135) = 4.27, p = .04, generalized eta squared = .01). Younger participants considered knowledge of English to be significantly more important to get far in life than knowledge of French (diff. = 1.091, t(135) = 7.067, p < 0.0001). Older participants also considered
115 knowledge of English to be significantly more important to get far in life than knowledge of French (diff. = 0.623, t(135) = 3.451, p = 0.0007). Furthermore, younger participants considered French to be significantly less important to get far in life than older participants (diff. = 0.384, t(263) = 2.193, p = 0.0292). This is evidenced by Figure 4.8.
116 2.4
Language
2.1 English Mean French
1.8
Old Young Age
Figure 4.8: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that is important to know in order to get far in life” different age groups. Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all.
117 4.4.3.3. Comparative attitudes along the solidarity dimension
In general, francophones and anglophones evaluated their mother tongue more favorably than the other official language for attitude statements along the solidarity dimension. In general, participants considered French (M = 1.39) to be significantly better than English (M = 1.90) in expressing feelings and emotions as there was a significant main effect of language evaluated as (F (1,135) = 29.60, p < .0001, generalized eta squared = .08). There was also a significant interaction between mother tongue and language evaluated (F (3,135) = 4.92, p = .003, generalized eta squared = .04). Francophones considered French to be significantly better at expressing feelings and emotions than English (diff. = -.0.939, t(135) = -5.713, p = 0.0001). Early bilinguals also considered French to be significantly better at expressing feelings and emotions than English (diff. = -.0.974, t(135) = -3.739, p = 0.0003). Anglophones and allophones did not differ in their evaluation of the two languages in terms of expressiveness. This is illustrated in Figure 4.9.
118 2.25
2.00
Language 1.75 English
Mean French
1.50
1.25
Anglophone Allophone Early bilingual Francophone Mother tongue
Figure 4.9: Evaluation of the statement “French/English is a language that lends itself well to expressing feelings and emotions” across different mother-tongue groups. Attitude statement, Language evaluated, mother tongue, Means, degrees of freedom (df), t.ratio and level of significance (sig.). Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all.
The knowledge of both official languages was considered to be a significant part of Canadian cultural heritage. Although the interaction between language evaluated and mother tongue approached significance (F (3,135) = 2.46, p = .07, generalized eta squared = .07), there was no significant difference in the evaluation of the two languages. Francophones and anglophones considered their mother tongue to be more important than the other official language for their personal identity. There was a significant interaction between mother tongue and language evaluated (F (3,135) = 16.88, p < 0.0001, generalized eta squared = .14). Francophones considered French to be a significantly more important 119 part of their personal identity than English (diff. = -1.21, t(135) = -5.024, p < 0.0001). On the other hand, anglophones considered English to be a significantly more important part of their personal identity than French (diff. = 1.668, t(135) = 5.869, p < 0.001). Early bilinguals and allophones did not differ significantly in their evaluation of the two languages. This is shown in Figure 4.10.
3.2
2.8
2.4 Language
English
Mean French
2.0
1.6
Anglophone Allophone Early bilingual Francophone Mother tongue
Figure 4.10: Evaluation of the statement “Knowing French/English is a significant part of my personal identity” across different mother-tongue groups. Means: 1 = completely agree, 2 = partially agree, 3 = undecided, 4 = don’t really agree, 5 = don’t agree at all.
120 4.4.3.4. Summary of Attitudes towards French vs. English
Francophones and early bilinguals considered French to be a more beautiful language than English. French also seems to be evaluated as a language that is either as elegant and as rich as English or even richer and more elegant than English. In other words, it appears that French maintains a stronger position than English in esthetic terms and this positive attitude towards French appears to be more pronounced among francophones and early bilinguals. On the other hand, participants unanimously attributed a higher status to English than to French. This is in line with findings in studies conducted among college students in Montréal (see eg. Lambert et al. 1960.; Genesee and Holobow, 1989; Kircher, 2009). In other words, the higher status attributed to English appears to be a common phenomenon extending to the people in the Ottawa-Gatineau region surveyed here. Allophones and anglophones considered English to be significantly more suitable to modern society than French. We also discovered a relationship between age, level of education and the status attributed to English. People with an Associate’s degree or higher, regardless of their mother tongue, considered knowledge of English to be more important to get far in life than knowledge of French. Similarly, younger people considered knowledge of English to be more important to get far in life than knowledge of French and they believed knowledge of English increased their employability significantly more than knowledge of French. The interaction between age, education and language attitude is less frequently explored by language attitude studies conducted in francophone Canada and elsewhere as many of them limit their participants to college-aged students. However, as discussed previously in the chapter, studies that have explored this link have reported that francophones with pre- university education value English more than their mother tongue. Findings from the current study appear to be in contradiction with previous studies as our results show that 121 younger participants and participants with higher education attributed a higher status to English than to French. One of the possible reasons behind the positive relationship between education and attitude towards English along the status dimension might have to do with the increasingly dominant position of English as the lingua franca of higher education (see eg. Jenkins, 2014; Phillipson, 2009). People who have completed higher studies might be more aware of this important position of English compared to those who do not have a university degree. Consequently, they might consider the knowledge of English as more important to get ahead in life. The high status attributed to English among younger people is also in line with findings from other parts of the world including places where English is not an official language but where it has established itself as a marker of global youth identity. Furthermore, as younger people are likely to be in the starting phase of their career and more familiar with the job market, they might be more aware of the importance of English for social and economic mobility. Future research should explore the link between education, age and status attributed to English in Canada. French was considered to lend itself better to expressing feelings and emotions compared to English, but this was only true for francophones and early bilinguals who favored French significantly more than English. Participants in general considered the knowledge of both official languages to be an important part of Canadian cultural heritage but francophones and anglophones considered their mother tongue to be slightly more important. Finally, the cleavage between francophones and anglophones persisted when they evaluated the role of the two languages for their personal identity as each mother- tongue group thought that the knowledge of their mother tongue was significantly more important for their personal identity. These results suggest that francophones and anglophones attributed higher solidarity ratings to their mother tongue.
122 The present findings regarding the importance of the two languages along the solidarity dimension are in contrast with findings by Lambert et al. (1960) and Genesee and Holobow (1989). Francophone participants in the study conducted by Lambert et al. (1960) evaluated English guises more favorably than French guises along most solidarity traits while anglophone participants were largely neutral in their evaluation. Genesee and Holobow (1989) identified an evolution of attitudes among their participants along the solidarity dimension compared to findings in the 1960s as francophone participants in their study were equally favorable to French and English guises along the solidarity dimension while anglophone participants were significantly more favorable to English guises than towards French guises. The authors attributed the change in attitude to “considerable language planning efforts by the Québec government, and other noteworthy sociopolitical changes that have occurred in the province” (p. 36). The positive solidarity ratings towards French identified in the present study are less likely be a continuum of the evolution identified by Genesee and Holobow (1989) and more likely to be the result of methodological differences. Unlike the present study that uses direct technique in the form of a language attitude questionnaire, Lambert et al. (1960) and Genesee and Holobow (1989) used an indirect technique (the matched-guise test) to assess language attitudes. As outlined in the literature review, direct techniques are believed to assess conscious attitudes while indirect techniques provide access to underlying subconscious attitudes. Consequently, “direct and indirect methods lay claim to quite different layers of experience and as such manifest sometimes quite contradictory, yet highly rational, attitude constellations” (Ryan et al.,1987, 1076). The contradiction in findings from direct and indirect measures of attitude elicitation was apparent in the study conducted by Kircher (2009). The author employed a language-attitude questionnaire and the matched-guise technique to assess language 123 attitudes among her participants in Montréal. Results from the matched-guise study indicated that young Montrealers, regardless of mother tongue, evaluated English guises more favorably than French guises on status as well as solidarity traits. On the other hand, questionnaire results in the study were similar to results obtained in the current study. Similar to participants in the current study, participants in the study conducted by Kircher (2009) evaluated English more favorably than French for status traits regardless of their mother tongue while francophones and anglophones evaluated their mother tongue more favorably for solidarity traits. Findings from the current study are also in line with findings by Oakes (2010) and Pagé and Olivier (2012) who also employed a questionnaire. It is likely that the results of the current study would have been different had I used indirect methods like the matched-guise test. This is an avenue of research that could be explored in future research.
4.4.4. Qualitative analysis of attitudes towards the two languages
Word clouds were created using the wordle program (Feinberg, 2009) based on answers that were provided to the open-ended question 2.2 and 3.2 (What words do you think are the most suitable to describe the French/English language?) Word cloud is a method that represents words with higher frequency with a bigger font size (Hearst and Rosner, 2009). Therefore, some terms were manually substituted with their more frequent synonyms as participants often used similar words to describe the languages. For instance, some anglophone participants used the word employment to describe the French language while others used the word job. Since the word employment was more frequent among anglophone participants, all occurrences of the word job were changed to its synonym, employment, for the anglophone group. Since language background was the most important variable in explaining differences in language attitudes, separate word clouds were created
124 for each mother-tongue group. Following the classification schema of Kircher (2009), the terms were divided into four categories: solidarity-related, status-related, general-positive and general-negative. Terms that are related to the status dimension were categorized as status-related words while terms that are related to the solidarity dimension were categorized as solidarity-related words. Words that could not be categorized either as solidarity-related or status-related were categorized as general-positive or general-negative words. This categorization allowed us to efficiently compare findings from this section with quantitative findings discussed previously in this chapter. The discussion in the paragraphs that follow will focus on words that occurred more than once for each language group.
4.4.4.1. The French language according to francophones
A total of 72 tokens and 47 types were used by francophones to describe the French language. Among them, about 75% of types only occurred once. Among the words that occurred more than once, the most commonly used word by this group was a general- positive word, belle (beautiful), which represented about 14% of responses. Other general- positive words such as poétique (poetic), précis (precise), culture, romantique (romantic) and facile (easy) were also used multiple times while complexe (complex) was the only term that could possibly be categorized as general-negative to have occurred more than once. Some solidarity-related words such as héritage (heritage), vivant (alive) and expressif (expressive) were also frequently used whereas no status-related term was used more than once by members of the group.
125
Figure 4.11: Words used by francophones to describe the French language
126 Words Frequency
belle (beautiful) 10
héritage (heritage), complexe (complex) 4
poétique (poetic), précis (precise), culture, vivant (alive), romantique 3 (romantic), expressif (expressive)
riche (rich), facile (easy), Québec/Québécois 2
identité (identity), passion, amour (love), vie (life), histoire (history), 1 succès (success), sophistiqué (sophisticated), Acadie (Acadia), mélodie (melody), fierté (pride), franco, merveilleux (marvelous), diversité (diversity), nuance, spectaculaire (spectacular), justiciable (accountable), colorée (colorful), utile (useful), merci, langue_maternelle (mother tongue), important, intéressant (interesting), approprié (suitable), magnifique (magnificent), complet (complete), émotions (emotions), artistique (artistic), important, fragile, politique (politics), nuage (cloud),
capricieux (capricious), élégant (elegant), perfect, endangered
Table 4.6: Words used by francophones to describe the French language and their frequency
4.4.4.2. The French language according to anglophones
A total of 62 tokens and 38 types were used by anglophones to describe the French language. Among them, about 68% of types only occurred once. Among the words that occurred more than once, beautiful (a general-positive term) and complicated (a general- negative term) occurred most frequently. Other general-positive terms used by anglophones were elegant, flowing, classic, poetic and eloquent. Alongside complicated, pompous was another general-negative term that was used more than once. Members of
127 the group also used two status-related words (government and employment) more than once to describe the French language.
Figure 4.12: Words used by anglophones to describe the French language
128 Words Frequency
beautiful, complicated 6
elegant, flowing 4
government 3
employment, emotions, classic, pompous, culture, eloquent, poetic 2
expressive, pretty, sophistication, useful, ew, lovely, magnificent, garbage, 1 exquisite, easy, specific, romance, nice, byzantine, baroque, expansive, stilted, proper, precise, descriptive, beneficial, bias, prejudice, regulated, wordy, fast
Table 4.7: Words used by anglophones to describe the French language and their frequency
4.4.4.3. The French language according to allophones
A total of 46 tokens and 29 types were used by allophones to describe the French language. Among them, about 76% of types only occurred once. Among the words that occurred more than once, complicated (a general-negative word), was the most frequently used word to describe the French language followed by beautiful (a general-positive word). Other general-positive words that occurred more than once were romance and elegant. Two status-related words, international and career, and one solidarity-related word, expressive, were also used more than once by group members to describe the French language.
129
Figure 4.13: Words used by allophones to describe the French language
Words Frequency
complicated 7
beautiful/belle 5
romance 4
career, international, expressive, elegant 2
comprehension, marvelous, poetic, culture, respect, mélange (mix), 1 musical, good, opportunity, eloquent, aristocratie (aristocracy), bien (nice), official, bonjour, flowing, compassionate, oui, essential, flowery, precise, useful, not_international
Table 4.8: Words used by allophones to describe the French language and their frequency
130 4.4.4.4. The French language according to early bilinguals
A total of 32 tokens and 23 types were used by early bilinguals to describe the French language. Among them, about 70% of types only occurred once. Among the words that were used more than once, poetic (a general-positive word) and complex (a general- negative word) were most frequently used to describe the French language by early bilinguals followed by other general-positive words such as precise, rich, romantic and beautiful. The only solidarity-related term that occurred more than once was ma langue while no status-related word had a frequency higher than one.
Figure 4.14: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the French language
131 Words Frequency
poétique (poetic), complex 3
précis (precise), riche (rich), romantique (romantic), ma_langue (my 2 language), belle (beautiful)
poutine, clarté (clarity), héritage (heritage), franche (frank), spontanée 1 (spontaneous), chantante (melodious), sexiste (sexist), hétérosexiste (heterosexist), genré (gendered), fierté (pride), romance, bon (good), international, extraordinaire (extraordinary), France, Ottawa
Table 4.9: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the French language and their frequency
4.4.4.5. The English language according to francophones
A total of 63 tokens and 35 types were used by francophones to describe the English language. Among them, about 60% of types only occurred once. Among the words that occurred more than once, pratique (practical) and simple (both general-positive terms) occurred most frequently followed by internationale (international) (a status-related word). Other status-related words that occurred more than once were nécessaire (necessary), utile (useful), universel (universal) and business. General-positive words such as facile (easy), directe (direct), bien (good) and belle (beautiful) also occurred more than once. The only general-negative word that occurred more than once was froid (cold) while no solidarity- related word occurred more than once. Some members of the group also associated the word rapide (fast) with English. It is difficult to say with certainty whether they were using the word to refer to the pace of speech among English speakers or implying that the knowledge of the language allowed them (francophones) to do things more rapidly. Since
132 many francophone individuals also considered English to be practical, simple or easy, it is likely that the word rapide was used to mean the latter.
Figure 4.15: Words used by francophones to describe the English language
133 Words Frequency
pratique (practical), simple 6
internationale (international) 5
nécessaire (necessary), rapide (quick), facile (easy) 3
direct, froid (cold), riche (rich), business, bien (good), universel 2 (universal), utile (useful), belle (beautiful)
passe-partout (all purpose), difficile (diffcult), bilingue (bilingual), 1 anglophone, much, émotions (emotions), fonctionnelle (functional), justify, thank_you, compliqué (complicated), concis (concise), important, pas naturel (not natural), omniprésente (omnipresent), menaçante (threatening), technologie (technology), house, ouverture (openness), connaisances (knowledge), imprécise (imprecise), boring
Table 4.10: Words used by francophones to describe the English language and their frequency
4.4.4.6. The English language according to anglophones
A total of 67 tokens and 50 types were used by anglophones to describe the English language. Among them, about 82% of types only occurred once. Among the words that were used more than once, the word straightforward (a general-positive word) was the word that was most frequently used by the group to describe the English language followed by universal (a status-related word) and complex (a general-negative word). Surprisingly, the group registered the most frequent use of the word complex (or its synonym) to describe the English language. This is probably because, as native speakers, anglophones are more familiar with the idiosyncrasies and subtleties of their language of which non-native speakers are probably unaware. Plain was another general-negative word that occurred
134 more than once. Other status-related words that occurred in the answers were useful and practical. It was difficult to categorize the words, common and everywhere. While common can be used to mean universal, it could also be used to mean trivial. Similarly, everywhere can mean that the English language is universal. It could also imply that the language is too present and, thereby, hegemonic.
Figure 4.16: Words used by anglophones to describe the English language
135 Words Frequency
straightforward 5
universal, complex 4
common 3
useful, practical, plain, everywhere, simple 2
familiar, communicate, good, versatile, helpful, historic, clear, modern, 1 multiculturalism, bold, minimally_descriptive, dope, diverse, heritage, short, old, confusing, vital, widespread, weird, beautiful, pretentious, business, relatively, adaptable, living, inconsistent, adequate, expansive, limiting, many_influences, necessary, blunt, descriptive, easy, comprehensive, accessible, forgiving, rich, nonphonetic, detailed
Table 4.11: Words used by anglophones to describe the English language and their frequency
4.4.4.7. The English language according to allophones
A total of 47 tokens and 33 types were used by allophones to describe the English language. Among them, about 79% of types only occurred once. Among the words that occurred more than once, the status-related word, business, was most frequently used to describe the English language closely followed by another status-related word, international. The third most frequently used word by members of the group was another status-related word, modern. Three general-positive words, beautiful, practical and easy were also used more than once to describe the English language along with one solidarity- related word, fun.
136
Figure 4.17: Words used by allophones to describe the English language
Words Frequency
business 6
international 5
modern 3
beautiful/belle, fun, practical, easy 2
pratique (practical), froide (cold), populaire (popular), particulier 1 (peculiar), riche (rich), technologie, common, love, complex, necessary, efficient, culture, traditional, bringing_people_together, comprehensive, expressive, everyday_language, obtuse, simple, evolving, important, rich, inconsistent, pragmatic, versatile
Table 4.12: Words used by allophones to describe the English language and their frequency 137 4.4.4.8. The English language according to early bilinguals
A total of 28 tokens and 25 types were used by early bilinguals to describe the English language. Practical (a general-positive word) was the only type that occurred more than once.
Figure 4.18: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the English language
138 Words Frequency
pratique (practical) 3
learn_french, générale (general), économique (economic), fonctionnelle 1 (functional) , populaire (popular), simple (simple), universel (universal), imprécis (imprecise), sec (dry), directe (direct), moins_genré (less gendered), froid (cold), essentiel (essential), utile (useful), ok, sonorité (sound), arbres (trees), facile (easy), accessible, easy, flexible, basic, common, North_America, England
Table 4.13: Words used by early bilinguals to describe the English language and their frequency
4.4.4.9. Principal component analysis of words used to describe French and English
In this analysis, I use word embeddings and principal components analysis (PCA) to create a two-dimensional visualization of the words used to describe French and English under question 2.2 and 3.2. Word embeddings are vectoral representation of words where syntactically and semantically similar words are represented by similar vectors and are, therefore, close to each other in the vector space. PCA is a tool used for dimensionality reduction. PCA aims to “reduce the number of dimensions required for locating the approximate positions of data points” (Baayen, 2008, p.120). It does so by reducing a vector to its most important components called principal components. The principal components thus extracted account for at least 5% of the variance (Baayen, 2008, p.121). In order to prepare the data for PCA, all words used to describe the two languages were grouped together into a single corpus. Words in the resulting corpus that were initially in French were then translated into English. Translating from one language to other leads
139 to a loss of certain nuance. For instance, the words belle and beautiful do not always mean the same thing nor do they have the same connotations. A single term in the host language might also have multiple mappings in the target language. An example of this is the term belle-mère in French, which can mean either mother-in-law or stepmother in English. Despite such limitations, we decided to translate all terms into English before running the model because the training model used for this analysis was in English and also because translating all the terms into one language facilitated data uniformization and visualization. Subsequently, the word embedding tool, word2vec (Mikolov et al., 2013) was used in conjunction with the Python library, genism (Rehurek and Sojka, 2010) to convert each word into a vector. Every word in the corpus was cross-checked with the pre-trained Google word2vec model9. If the word in the corpus was present in the model, the corresponding word vector was stored in an array format. Subsequently, PCA was conducted using scikit-learn library on Python (Pedregosa et al., 2011) and each word vector was reduced to its two main components. The resulting set of principal components were plotted on a two-dimensional plane using Python library matplotlib (Hunter, 2007). The graph is illustrated in Figure 4.19. As noted earlier, words that are syntactically and semantically similar have similar word vectors. As a result, while plotted in the X-Y plane, similar words are likely to form a group close to each other while words that are different are likely to occur farther apart. In the figure below, the size of the data point representing the word is directly proportional to its frequency in the corpus. Words used to describe French are represented by blue dots while those used to describe English are represented by red dots. Only words with frequency higher than 1 are labelled.
9 The model is trained on Google news data; it contains 3 million words and phrases and each word vector has 300-dimensions. source: https://code.google.com/archive/p/word2vec 140
Figure 4.19: Representation of words used to describe French (blue) and English (red).
As can be evidenced in Figure 4.19, most words used to describe the French language form a cluster on the right-hand side of the graph while those used to describe English form a cluster on the left-hand side. This graph shows that the words used to describe the two languages are fundamentally different and that the two languages have
141 different connotations. French is described as beautiful, romantic and expressive. It is also considered poetic, elegant, flowing and expressive. The occurrence of these words suggests that the French language is valued in terms of aesthetics, a finding in line with results from the quantitative part of the questionnaire. A lot of these identifiers such as poetic, precise and complex have been historically associated with the French language. This association goes, at least, as back as Antoine de Rivarol in the 18th century who famously said, “what is not clear is not French”. After the word beautiful, complicated was the word that was most frequently used to describe the French language. We see that French is also associated with pride, culture, heritage and Québec. The substantial occurrence of status-related terms such as government, employment and career suggest that French is valued for its important role in finding an employment in the public service sector where bilingualism is necessary for many positions. While French has significantly less status than English, it is likely that the important role of French in Canadian public service has increased its status in the society. The words that were most frequently used to describe the English language were status-related such as business closely followed by international. Other words that were frequently associated with the language were also status-related such as modern, universal, common, practical and necessary. The high frequency of these words show that English is valued for its role as the global lingua franca, which adds to its high status.
4.5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
We see that the two cities of Ottawa and Gatineau have important demographic differences. However, mother tongue, and not the city of residence, was the most important variable in explaining language attitudes. Mother tongue has been consistently identified as the most important variable in explaining language attitudes in other parts of Québec; this appears to be true for the Ottawa-Gatineau region as well. Francophones and early
142 bilinguals attributed higher solidarity ratings to French while allophones and anglophones attributed higher solidarity ratings to English. Participants unanimously attributed higher status to English than to French. We also saw an effect of education and age for some language attitude statements as people with higher education and younger people evaluated English more favorably than French along the status dimension. Results from the qualitative analysis further attest to the important position of English as the global lingua franca and portray it as simple and straightforward. On the other hand, French is valued for its beauty, elegance and clarity, traits historically associated with the language. Comments from survey participants indicate that not all varieties of French are regarded as being equally beautiful. An anglophone participant remarked that she found the French language from France to be “beautiful” but called the French spoken in Gatineau “garbage”. A francophone survey participant originally from a very francophone community in Eastern Québec mentioned that she was shocked when she first heard her francophone peers in Gatineau say things like “m’as sortir le garbage” (I’m going take out the ‘garbage’) instead of the form that she would normally use, “je vais sortir les vidanges”10 (I will take out the trash). Upon moving to Gatineau as a teenager, she remembered some of her peers asking her if she was from France and others telling her “on parle pas comme ça par icitte” (we don’t speak like that in here). She pointed out that they did not say the standard form “ici” but the vernacular form “icitte”. She elaborated that Québec French was too “slangy”, but she did not consider her French to be European either. She said that her French was “soigné” (polished) because she said “moi et toi” (me and you) instead of the more vernacular form (albeit attested in many parts of Québec), moé et toé.
10 The word « vidanges » to mean garbage is not used in standard European French. This usage is however common in Québec even in more formal occasions. 143 It was not just French spoken in Gatineau that was poorly regarded as some participants appeared to look down upon Québec French in general. One of my allophone participants was also critical of the “moé et toé” used in Québec. A native speaker of Yiddish, she compared Québec French to low German and called Québec French “impossible à comprendre” (impossible to understand) “with all the moé et toé”. Another participant, a francophone from Ontario, said “Ils parlent mal au Québec” (They speak badly in Québec). He talked about a francophone colleague, originally from a town in Eastern Québec, who had found it difficult to work for the federal government in Gatineau because “Il a fallu qu’elle apprenne deux langues en même temps ” (she had to learn two languages (meaning French and English) at the same time). Several people were critical of vernacular French spoken in Québec but, as pointed out by survey results and by comments from participants, very few of my participants appeared to believe that they spoke European French. This suggests that, at least among francophones, there is a way to speak French that is “soigné” without it being European. While many participants enjoyed talking about their observations and opinions regarding the quality of French in Québec in general and Gatineau in particular, no one opined about the quality of English spoken in Ottawa or in Canada. One of my anglophone participants found it difficult to respond to some of the questions as she had never “thought about the (English) language”. According to her, English was something natural that she used without ever thinking about it. In some regards, it appears that the two languages are imbued with opposing traits. French (at least some variety of it) is esthetically pleasing while English enjoys higher status; French is complicated and complex while English is straightforward, simple, and accessible; French is Québécois while English is universal; French finds its value in heritage and culture while English is modern and technologically
144 oriented; French is scrutinized, its alleged deviation from the standard criticized, while English requires no discussion.
145 Chapter 5: Study 2 - The use of French and English in public spaces
This chapter pertains to the second of three studies that make up this dissertation. In this chapter, I analyze the use of French and English in different public spaces in Ottawa and Gatineau. In the first part of this chapter, I discuss the presence of the two languages in the linguistic landscape of the two cities. Subsequently, I look at the linguistic soundscape of the two cities to compare the use of French and English in their public spaces.
The concept of linguistic landscape first emerged in language planning studies conducted in Québec and Belgium (see eg. Verdoodt, 1979; Corbeil, 1980; Landry and Bourhis, 1997). The signs that make up the linguistic landscape of a place have an important communicative function as they provide crucial information about government and private enterprises, such as their opening hours and their name. Linguistic landscape also has a significant symbolic function as it often reflects the status and role of different languages present in the community. This symbolic function is considered to be even more pronounced in places where language has emerged as the most salient part of ethnic identity (Sachdev and Bourhis, 1990) as it is the case in French-speaking Canada. According to Spolsky and Cooper (1991), the choice of language in signs is dictated by three conditions, which bring together communicative efficiency and symbolic values associated with the languages. The first and the second conditions ask that signs be written in a language that the signer knows and that intended readers understand. The third condition asks that signers “prefer to write signs in their own language or in a language with which they wish to be identified” (p. 84). Many studies have demonstrated the validity of this theory. In his study in Tokyo, Backhaus (2006) found that most signs in the largely monolingual city were unsurprisingly in Japanese. However, English also occupied an important place in the
146 linguistic landscape of the city. About 20% of signs he analyzed were multilingual and 97.6% of multilingual signs were in English. The use of English was interpreted by the author as a desire to be associated with the English language and the values it conveys such as American culture and internationalization. In this way, signs in the linguistic landscape can help us answer which languages are used and understood in the community as well as which languages have a high symbolic importance. Leclerc (1989) makes a distinction between government signs and private signs (also known as top-down and bottom-up signs respectively). The former includes signs used by national, regional or municipal governments. Private signs, on the other hand, include “commercial signs on storefronts and business institutions, commercial advertising on billboards, and advertising signs displayed in public transport and on private vehicles” (p.26). Together, government signs and private signs form the linguistic landscape of a place. Government signs are often regulated by the state’s language policies while private signs are influenced to a smaller degree (Landry and Bourhis, 1997, p.26-27). Consequently, we expect to see a greater uniformity in government signs and a greater diversity in private signs. The limited government regulation of private signs and the greater diversity among them also means that they “most realistically reflect the multilingual nature of a particular territory, region or urban agglomeration” (Landry and
Bourhis, 1997, p. 27). The term “linguistic soundscape” was initially employed by Schafer (1977) to describe “any acoustic field of study” (p.7). However, the term is now commonly used to refer to the use of different languages in public spaces (see e.g. Scarvaglieri et al. 2013; Backhaus, 2015). Previous studies have used the concept of linguistic soundscape to study a wide range of issues pertaining to language use in the public domain such as linguistic diversity (Scarvaglieri et al., 2013), the presence of English as lingua franca (Sifianou 147 2010; Backhaus, 2015) and the vitality of minority languages (Bernie, 2018). Other studies have looked at the linguistic soundscape of bilingual places to analyze the ways in which the languages are used in inter-group communication (see eg. Brohy 2005). In many of these studies, the authors have studied the linguistic soundscape of the place in conjunction with its linguistic landscape. I follow on these footsteps and analyze the linguistic landscape of the Ottawa-Gatineau region in conjunction with its linguistic soundscape to elucidate the patterns governing the use of the two languages in the region.
5.1. DESCRIPTION OF THE NEIGHBORHOODS STUDIED
La ville de Gatineau is divided into five secteurs (sectors) and each secteur is divided into multiple quartiers (neighborhoods). I distributed my questionnaire and conducted ethnographic observations in three of the five secteurs: Hull, Aylmer and Gatineau. Aylmer has a very strong anglophone presence as 42.1% of anglophones in the city live within three neighborhoods in Aylmer (Statistics Canada, 2011). Aylmer is also the most English-speaking secteur of the city as 32.4% of residents in Aylmer proper are native English speakers (Statistics Canada, 2011). People in the region appear to be aware of the important anglophone presence in Aylmer as many of my survey participants in Gatineau called Aylmer “bilingue” (bilingual) or “très anglais” (very English/anglophone). Another participant, a native English-speaker, described her neighborhood in Aylmer as the United Nations where English was the language used between neighbors. Hull is particular in terms of its bilingual character. It has a smaller proportion of anglophone residents compared to Aylmer. The largest proportion of anglophones in Hull can be found in the quartier Hull-Wright, where 15.5% of residents are native English speakers (Statistics Canada, 2011, p. 21). However, there are many buildings of the federal government located in the secteur, which brings in a lot of public servants from Ontario.
148 This makes downtown Gatineau (in Hull)11 an ideal location to meet not just the local population but also residents from Ottawa who cross the provincial border every day to work on the other side of the Ottawa river. Lastly, Gatineau proper is the most francophone secteur in Gatineau. Neighborhoods in Gatineau proper have smaller anglophone presence as there are no quartier in the secteur where native English speakers make over 10% of the population (Statistics Canada, 2011, p. 21). It is also farther away from Ottawa compared to Hull or Aylmer and, with a smaller presence of federal institutions, monolingual anglophone workers are infrequent. Ottawa is bigger than Gatineau and is divided into 23 wards. I went to four of these wards to distribute my questionnaire and conduct ethnographic observations: Rideau- Vanier, Orléans, Capital and Somerset. These wards have rather different linguistic profiles. Orléans and Rideau-Vanier are among the most francophone wards in Ottawa as 30.8% of citizens in Rideau-Vanier and 30.5% of citizens in Orléans declare French to be their mother tongue (Statistics Canada, 2011). Orléans and Rideau-Vanier are, therefore, similar to Aylmer in terms of the proportion of their residents who are native speakers of the other official language. Capital and Somerset have less francophone residents than Orléans or Vanier as 12.8% of residents in Somerset and 11.2% of residents in Capital declare French to be their mother tongue (Statistics Canada, 2011). It should also be noted that there are several federal government institutions in downtown Ottawa (in Somerset). Similar to its Québec counterpart in Hull, downtown Ottawa, therefore, receives an important number of residents from Gatineau who cross the river every day to work for the federal government.
11 Downtown Gatineau is situated in secteur Hull. It is also known as Vieux-Hull or centre-ville de Hull. 149 5.2. FIELDWORK
Since the objective of my project was to compare language attitudes and real language use among people, I distributed my questionnaire and conducted ethnographic observations in the same neighborhoods albeit at different times. I started my ethnographic observations in May 2018 and continued it through October 2018. Some of the pictures for the study were taken in fall 2018 while the majority were taken in spring 2019. These observations were conducted in cafés, restaurants, shopping malls, public libraries, government offices, farmer’s markets and public transportations. I often went to these places and spent several hours each time with either my laptop, my cell phone or my notebook writing down my observations. I carried a notebook of approximately 3x5”, a laptop and a smartphone everywhere with me during the five months of participant observation. In cafés and libraries, I sat down at a table with my laptop and typed my observations on the spot. In markets, downtown areas and public transportation, I took notes in my notebook or on my cell phone and entered my observations in detail on my computer as soon as I was able to do so, usually within a few hours. In some cases, it was not feasible to take notes immediately after overhearing a conversation. Therefore, I had to rely on memory to write down my observations later. This was usually done within a few hours. Speakers were never aware that they were being observed and my presence was always that of an unratified overhearer (Bell, 1984). A total of 75 conversation extracts and almost two dozen pictures make up the final corpus.
5.3. THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF OTTAWA AND GATINEAU
I will start the section with a discussion of government signs in the two cities in order to establish the pattern observed among these signs. However, a bigger part of the section will be dedicated to private signs observed in the two cities as these are more likely
150 to be influenced by language attitudes and language use patterns present in the communities.
5.3.1. Government signs
Following the Official Languages Act, all public signs that pertain to the federal government (i.e. its offices or facilities) have to be in both official languages. Due to the presence of a large number of federal buildings in the region, in particular in downtown Gatineau and downtown Ottawa, a significant part of the linguistic landscape is prominently bilingual in both places. It is important to note, however, that there is a slight difference in bilingual signs present in the two cities. In Gatineau, the French text systematically precedes the English text in signs while in Ottawa, the order is reversed. Other than this reversal of order, both languages are represented with the same font size and the same font style. As an example, two signs are displayed in Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1: Federal government sign in Gatineau (left) and in Ottawa (right)
At the provincial level, signs in Ottawa and Gatineau are very different. As mentioned earlier in this dissertation, Ottawa recently “recognized its bilingual nature”
151 officially but the use of bilingual provincial and municipal signs in the city predates this recognition. Similar to federal government signs outside Québec and parts of New Brunswick, English systematically precedes French in public signs in Ottawa barring some exceptions that have to do with the syntactic rules of the two languages. As shown in Figure 5.2, street names in Ottawa have the word “rue” followed by the street name which is then followed by the word “street”. This is because, in French, the word “rue” precedes the name of the street (e.g. rue Wilbrod) while in English, the word “street” comes after the name of the street (e.g. Wilbrod Street). Such cases of portmanteau constructions are also attested in other bilingual communities (see e.g. Hicks, 2012 and Chan, 2015) In Gatineau, following the Charte de la langue française of Québec, municipal and provincial signs are exclusively in French. This can be seen in Figure 5.2. The street sign in Gatineau (left) only has the French word “rue” before the street name while the street sign in Ottawa (right) is bilingual.
Figure 5.2: Street sign in Gatineau (left) and Ottawa (right)
152 Ottawa and Gatineau also have two different transportation companies: OC Transpo (Ottawa-Carleton Transportation Commission) and STO (Société de Transport de l’Outaouais). OC Transpo serves Ottawa including a few liaisons between Ottawa and downtown Gatineau while STO serves Gatineau with several liaisons to downtown Ottawa. Since many people from Gatineau work in Ottawa, most STO buses go to downtown Ottawa. On the other hand, only a few OC Transpo buses go to Gatineau. All signs (excluding advertisements) on the OC Transpo buses are bilingual and stops are announced in English and French. All signs on STO buses are in French and services are announced uniquely in French. Based solely on government signs and signs on public transit, Gatineau appears to be francophone while Ottawa appears to be bilingual.
5.3.2. Private signs
Government signs in Ottawa and Gatineau consistently follow the pattern described in section 6.3.1. However, private signs in the two cities are rather different from government signs. I analyzed signs on storefronts on two streets in Ottawa and two streets in Gatineau. Bank Street in Ottawa is the main street in downtown Ottawa. It includes numerous restaurants, cafés and government and private offices. Rue Eddy in Gatineau is the main street in downtown Gatineau. While it is much smaller and less dense than Bank Street in Ottawa, it does house a number of restaurants, cafés and government offices. The section of Bank Street that was observed is located in Somerset ward while the section of rue Eddy observed is located in the secteur Hull. I also visited Montreal Road, the main street in Vanier and la rue principale, the main street in Aylmer. As discussed previously, Aylmer (Gatineau) has an important presence of anglophone residents (32.4%) and Vanier (Ottawa) has an important presence of francophone residents (30.8%). Aylmer is more
153 affluent than Vanier and feels more like a village, but both neighborhoods have had an important history of bilingualism and biculturalism. Following Gilbert’s (2010) study on linguistic landscape in French-speaking Ontario and Cormier’s (2015) study in the French quarter of Saint-Boniface in Manitoba, I categorized storefronts into five categories based on the presence of French and English in each store’s storefront. Category 1 included storefronts where the signs were uniquely in English while category 5 meant that the signs on the storefront were uniquely in French. If signs on the storefront were primarily in English with some French, it was grouped under category 2. Similarly, category 4 included storefronts where signs were primarily in French with some English and Category 3 included storefronts where signs in both languages were equally present. For a given store, everything visible from the street was analyzed such as the store window and the door to the store. Every store (and not every sign) was counted as one unit. It should be noted that la Charte de la langue française, requires all public signs (including non-government signs) in Québec to follow strict regulations. While signs in other languages are permitted, they also have to be available in French and the French version of the sign has to be “markedly predominant” (Charte de la langue française, 1977). No such regulation exists in Ottawa. This leads to my first hypothesis. I hypothesize that storefronts in Gatineau will rarely belong to category 1 or category 2 (i.e. exclusively
English or English dominant) while we can expect to find more stores that belong to category 4 and category 5 in Ottawa (i.e. exclusively French or French dominant). Despite the difference in official language policy, downtown Ottawa is similar to downtown Gatineau and Aylmer is similar to Vanier (for reasons explained previously in this chapter). Therefore, my second hypothesis is that the use of minority and majority languages (French or English depending on the city) in private signs should be comparable between the two sets of places. 154 5.3.2.1. Downtown areas
I analyzed the storefront of a hundred stores on Bank Street situated between Wellington Street and Somerset Street. Out of all the storefronts analyzed, the majority of them (88%) only had signs in English (category 1). Nine stores (9%) had most of their signs in English with some French (category 2). Some of the stores in this category had their opening hours in French while others had the sign “ouvert” (meaning open) on their front door. Usually, these were the only French signs present on the storefront. Others such as the French microbrewery “Les 3 Brasseurs” had the name “The 3 brewers” facing the main street while the French name “Les 3 Brasseurs” faced a smaller side street. Three stores (3%) had approximately equal proportion of French and English signs on their storefront. One of them was a bank that, similar to Les 3 Brasseurs, had put its English signs along the main road while the French signs were along the side street. Another was a tea shop, which had a bilingual name with the name in both languages displayed on the storefront along the main street. The third was a restaurant whose menu was displayed outside the front door in French as well as in English. The same proportion (3%) of establishments had about equal proportion of signs in English and another language. In all three cases, these were Asian restaurants with signs in English and an Asian language (Japanese and Korean). There was no establishment on Bank Street with signs uniquely or pre-dominantly in French. Six stores had placed hiring announcements on their storefront. With the exception of Les 3 Brasseurs, all of the other establishments had written their announcement entirely in English and none (including Les 3 Brasseurs) mentioned anything about the prospective employee’s competence in French.
155
Figure 5.3: Cover-page of Paris Match on the storefront of a convenient store in downtown Ottawa
On rue Eddy, I analyzed the storefront of 43 establishments. A total of 31 storefronts (72%) had signs uniquely in French (category 5). Eight stores (19%) had signs that were pre-dominantly in French with some English (category 4). Some of these stores provided their opening hours in French as well as in English; others included requests to the clients in the form of hand-written messages (image included in Figure 5.6) and some displayed information on products that were sold in the store. Four stores (9%) had about equal presence of French and English in their signs. One of them was a vegetarian restaurant with signs in French appearing along the main street and signs in English appearing along the side street (a pattern that was also observed in downtown Ottawa).
156 Others included a fitness center (image included in Figure 5.4), a convenient store and a store for used appliances. There was no establishment on rue Eddy with signs uniquely or pre-dominantly in English.
Figure 5.4: Bilingual signs on storefronts in downtown Gatineau
As hypothesized, there were no stores in downtown Gatineau that fell under category 1 or 2. However, despite the lack of any language regulation, there were no stores in downtown Ottawa that fell under category 4 or 5 either. Therefore, my first hypothesis was only partially supported. Furthermore, we see that over a quarter of stores in Gatineau (28%) had some degree of bilingual signs on their storefront while this was only true for 12% of stores in downtown Ottawa. A chi-square test of independence was performed to examine the relation between presence of bilingual signs and location. The relation between these variables was significant, X2 (2, N = 143) = 5.4478, p < .05. In other words, English was significantly more present in the linguistic landscape of Gatineau compared
157 to French in the linguistic landscape of Ottawa. My second hypothesis was, therefore, not supported.
5.3.2.2. Vanier and Aylmer
I observed 43 storefronts on Montreal Road in Vanier situated between North River Road and Lacasse Avenue. As soon as one enters Vanier, they become aware of the important francophone heritage of the place. The streets are adorned with banners that say “quartier français” or “French quarter” (as demonstrated in Figure 5.5) and many street names are in French.
Figure 5.6: A trilingual sign in an Asian Figure 5.5: Street banner in Vanier supermarket in Vanier
158 There were more storefronts with French signs on Montreal Road compared to Bank Street. However, the majority of storefronts (70%) had signs uniquely in English. Six of the stores (14%) had predominantly English signs with some French signs. For example, in one of the stores, a chain restaurant, there was a sign in French “service au volant” along with the English version “drive through”. Everything else was in English on the storefront. In another store, an Asian supermarket, there was a warning in Chinese, English and French (Figure 5.6) while, at another establishment (a health center), the older bilingual sign had almost faded away and the new sign was entirely in English (Figure 5.7).
Figure 5.7: Fading bilingual sign (left) and a newer monolingual English sign (right) of Vanier Medical center
Six stores (14%) had about equal proportion of signs in English and French. Among these stores, there was the Québec drugstore chain, Jean-Coutu, a funeral home, a Caribbean restaurant and some banks. Only one establishment (a Caribbean/South American store) had signs entirely in French. This is demonstrated in Figure 5.8. It is noteworthy that the only store with uniquely French signs in Vanier was a store 159 (presumably) aimed towards an immigrant population. The local francophone population appears to not to be willing to display uniquely French signs on their storefront even though the city has no regulation against such action. Francophones in Canada outside Québec have been found to identify with a bilingual identity instead of a uniquely francophone identity (Landry, Allard, and Deveau, 2010; Freynet and Clément, 2015). This can help explain the lack of unilingual French business signs in Vanier.
Figure 5.8: Store with only French signs in Vanier
In Aylmer, I observed the storefront of 34 stores on la rue Principale situated between boulevard Wilfrid-Lavigne and rue Dalhousie of which 21 stores (62%) belonged to category 5 (uniquely French signs), 7 (20%) belonged to category 4 (primarily French signs) and 6 (18%) belonged to category 3 (equal number of signs in French and English). Unlike Vanier, there were no stores in Aylmer that belonged to category 1 or 2. Chi-square test of independence failed to identify significant difference in the number of bilingual
160 signs between Aylmer and Vanier, X2 (2, N = 77) = 0.7949, p = .37. Both of my hypotheses were, therefore, supported.
Figure 5.9: Bilingual sign on a storefront in Figure 5.10: Bilingual sign for a city- Aylmer wide event
Despite similar proportion of bilingual signs on storefronts, there was a marked difference in the ways in which the two languages were represented in brochures and flyers found in public spaces of the two neighborhoods. A high number of bilingual flyers and brochures were present in different parts of Aylmer while such bilingual usage was a rarity in Vanier. Some of these flyers also explicitly mentioned that the services they proposed were bilingual. One of them was a flyer for yoga instruction (Figure 5.11), another pertained to bilingual theatre class for young children (Figure 5.11) while a third was a 161 local city-wide event (Figure 5.10). The quasi-majority of flyers I encountered in Aylmer, many of which seemed to be put by the locals, were bilingual. Some, such as the flyer on yoga instruction (Figure 5.11), did not mention if the classes were provided in French or English. The instructors have francophone names but since no information is provided on the language of instruction, it appears that there is a community-wide consensus on language use in situations where members of both language groups are present. The study on linguistic soundscape, discussed later in this chapter, will elaborate more on this linguistic consensus. The presence of such announcements in Aylmer also suggests that English is present in social interactions and exchanges in the community.
Figure 5.11: Bilingual flyers in Aylmer
Even though English appears to be more present in Gatineau than is the case for French in Ottawa, it would be incorrect to say that the presence of English in Gatineau does
162 not lead to any conflict. In Aylmer as well as in other sectors of the city were signs like, “Au Québec, c’est en français que ça se passe” (We do things in French in Québec). The presence of such signs suggests that some fraction of the local population has been at some time unhappy with the usage of languages other than French in the province. Many of these signs appear to have been vandalized but it is not clear whether the damage was intentional.
Figure 5.12: Vandalized pro-French language sign in downtown Gatineau (left) and in Aylmer (right)
5.3.3. Summary of the linguistic landscape of Ottawa and Gatineau
In conclusion, we saw that Aylmer had a higher proportion of stores with bilingual signs than any other neighborhood. Since there lacked any significant difference between the proportion of bilingual signs in Aylmer and Vanier, the higher proportion of bilingual signs in Aylmer should be taken more as a trend rather than an important statistical figure on its own. However, the presence of flyers announcing services in English in Aylmer
163 suggests an important role for English as a community language in Aylmer. On the other hand, despite demographic similarities between downtown Gatineau and downtown Ottawa, bilingual signs were present to a much smaller extent in downtown Ottawa than in downtown Gatineau. These findings suggest that the two linguistic minorities do not have the same capacity to influence the linguistic landscape of their neighborhoods. Compared to the francophone minority, the anglophone minority appears to enjoy better representation of their language in the linguistic landscape of their neighborhood. A substantial anglophone minority also appears to be more able to ensure the presence of services in their language while the francophone minority, with a comparable demographic force, cannot assume the availability of services in French. Past studies have shown that English is increasingly present in the linguistic landscape of places around the world even where it is not natively spoken. In their study comparing two streets in the Spanish Basque country and in Friesland, Cenoz and Gorter (2006) discovered that English was present in 37% of the signs in Friesland and 28% of the signs in the Basque country. In Friesland, English was present significantly more than the minority language, Frisian, which was only present in 5% of signs (p.72). Similarly, in Bangkok, Huebner (2006) discovered that English was present (to a varying degree) in the linguistic landscape of all neighborhoods studied with the presence of English being more pronounced in neighborhoods that were considered more “modern” and “upper-class” (p.46). Given these findings, the important presence of English in the linguistic landscape of Gatineau is not at all surprising. It appears that anglophones in Canada have a significant advantage over francophones when it comes to the representation of their language in the linguistic landscape. On one hand, the important position of English in the world today, along with its association with modernity and globalization, makes the language more attractive for 164 non-native speakers and, therefore, more likely to be incorporated in the linguistic landscape. On the other hand, as anglophones in Canada are more likely to be unilingual and francophones in the country are more likely to be bilingual (statistics Canada, 2016), English is likely to be perceived as “sufficient enough” to convey a message. Therefore, it is not surprising that English has been consistently found to occupy the dominant position in the linguistic landscape of historically francophone areas outside Québec such as Saint Boniface in Manitoba (Cormier, 2015), the officially bilingual city of Moncton in New- Brunswick (Boudreau and Dubois, 2005), and cities in francophone Ontario (Gilbert, 2010).
5.4. THE LINGUISTIC SOUNDSCAPE OF OTTAWA AND GATINEAU
The concept of linguistic soundscape is inspired from the concept of linguistic landscape. Bernie (2018) defines it as “the audibility and salience of a spoken language in a given space, with the extent to which a particular language is used as an indication of the vitality of the language in that speech community”. An analysis of the linguistic soundscape coupled with an analysis of the linguistic landscape enables us to understand the pattern of language use in the community (or communities) under study. Through a closer analysis of this language use pattern, we can name the forces that shape language use. I conducted my ethnographic observation and data analyses simultaneously. When questions emerged as I analyzed my data, I tried to find answers to these questions through further observation. Following data collection, I closely studied my observations in order to discover a pattern. This observation resulted in the emergence of multiple themes that were related to each other. These themes were not pre-established but rather emerged from the data itself. Each of these themes will be discussed in detail in the following paragraphs.
165 French was the language that was most widely heard in all three sectors of Gatineau although English was frequently heard in downtown Gatineau and downtown Aylmer. In some establishments in downtown Gatineau such as cafés and restaurants close to the federal government buildings and in some restaurants and cafés in Aylmer, English speaking clients appeared to constitute over one-third of the clientele. In Ottawa, English was most frequently heard. In some areas of downtown Ottawa (eg. ByWard Market and restaurants close to the federal government buildings) and some places in Vanier and Orléans, French was present in a proportion similar to the proportion of English present in establishments in downtown Gatineau and downtown Aylmer. In particular, restaurants in downtown Ottawa around the ByWard Market had an important presence of francophone clients. Since the market is in walking distance from downtown Gatineau and offers a wider choice of shopping options than downtown Gatineau does, it seems to receive a significant number of francophone clients from across the river. The movement of francophones and anglophones between the two cities and the important presence of official language minorities in the cities lead to a wide range of interaction among and between francophone, anglophone and allophone individuals. The paragraphs that follow will focus on themes that emerged from my observation of these interactions.
5.4.1. Co-existence of French and English in service encounters in Gatineau
The majority of service encounters in Gatineau took place in French although English was often heard in such encounters, particularly in downtown Gatineau and downtown Aylmer. In some of the encounters, even people who were discussing with their friends in English spoke to the vendors in French. In no case did an individual have a noticeable anglophone accent while speaking French. In at least three of these observations, the individuals did not have any accent in either French or English. This suggests that most
166 of them were competent speakers of both languages who chose to speak French with the vendors/service providers in Gatineau. Others seemed to be francophones who spoke in English with their anglophone peers but spoke French with the vendors. The use of French, therefore, seems to be the norm in all service encounters in Gatineau at least among francophones. Other individuals, however, conversed in English and the use of English was also prevalent during service encounters, particularly when the individuals were receiving service. Not all individuals speaking French had a French-Canadian accent as accents from a wide variety of immigrant backgrounds were heard in Gatineau, but an anglophone accent was rarely one of them. In Gatineau, clients in business establishments are almost always welcomed with a greeting in French. Most people respond in French. It seems, however, that many anglophone and allophone clients reply in English and the rest of the conversation takes place in the language of the client. No one during my observation asked the vendors in Gatineau if they spoke or understood English. It seems to be taken for granted that they did. There appears to be a consensus according to which the client simply has to reply in English to a French greeting to be served in the language. Example (1) illustrates a case where a young French-speaking cashier switches to English for an English-speaking client: (1) Cashier: Bonjour, Voulez-vous un sac avec ça ? [Would you like a bag with that?] Client: Yes please (The cashier grabs a couple of bags from under his desk) Client: Just one is enough Cashier: No problem Client: Thanks Cashier: Thank you
-Thrift store, Hull, Gatineau
167 At first glance, one could assume that the normality associated with the use of English in service encounters in Hull and Aylmer is limited to neighborhoods with an important presence of anglophones, either employed as public servants for the federal government or as residents who live permanently in the neighborhood. Therefore, I decided to spend more time in establishments in Gatineau proper to see how people negotiated the use of English in neighborhoods with little anglophone presence. In these neighborhoods, the use of English was rather rare. During my observations in these neighborhoods, I heard English only once or twice per observation. However, the pattern I noticed in Aylmer and Hull during service encounters was prevalent in these neighborhoods as well: the customer replies in English to the initial French greeting by the vendor/service provider and the rest of the conversation takes place in English. The observation below (2) was made at a local CLSC (Centre local de services communautaires; a type of community health center in Québec) in a very francophone neighborhood in Gatineau proper. The conversation takes place between a francophone receptionist at the health center and a client who has a slight non-native accent in English. (2) Receptionist: Bonjour Woman: Hello. I need to get a card Receptionist: (with a French-Canadian accent): You need to came (sic) after 1:30 pm. They are gone now. Client: Ok (the conversation continues in English) Receptionist: Your husband needs to sign this letter ummm (slight hesitation) devant moi [in front of me] Client: Ok I understand
-CLSC, Gatineau proper, Gatineau
I did not notice any unease or awkwardness from either the service providers or the service receivers during these language negotiations. At times, the francophone service 168 provider showed some hesitation (like in example (2)), but these hesitations appeared to be a result of word searching difficulties rather than the result of annoyance or internal conflict. In some cases, it was not clear whether the client’s response was in French or English. For instance, many francophones greet people with allo instead of bonjour or salut. Since the English hello is phonetically close to the French allo, it is sometimes difficult to discern between the two, especially when there is a lot of noise. In cases of confusion, vendors often interpreted silence from the client as a request to switch to English. This is illustrated in example (3). (3) Cashier: Bonjour Client: Allo/Hello (not clear which language it was) Cashier: Voulez-vous un sac ? [Do you want a bag?] (The client does not say anything) Cashier: Do you want a bag? Client: Thanks love (The lady pays and signs her bill) Client: Merci
-Pharmacy, downtown Gatineau, Gatineau
Vendors at the local farmer’s market in Gatineau also used English to draw attention of possible clients when they were unable to do so with greetings in French. In example (4), the francophone vendor is unable to grab the attention of her potential clients in French; therefore, she automatically switches to English even though it is quite apparent that she has limited skills in the language. (4) Vendor: Bonjour (The man and the woman continue walking past the stand) Vendor: You want taste? I can give you taste (sic)
- Farmer’s market, downtown Gatineau, Gatineau 169
Only twice did I hear clients verbally declare that they did not understand French. In both of these cases, the clients appeared to be immigrants since they had a non-native accent in English, and at least one of them appeared to be a recent member of the community. Example (5) illustrates a conversation between two French-Canadian women12 (woman A and woman B) and a gentleman at a community center. (5) Woman A: Vous travaillez ici ? [Do you work here?] Gentleman: Sorry only English or (pause) Spanish (Hispanic accent in English) Woman B: ¿trabajas aquí? [Do you work here?] (The conversation takes place in Spanish)
-Community center, Aylmer, Gatineau
5.4.2. The almost exclusive use of English in service-encounters in Ottawa
In terms of languages used during service encounters, Ottawa can be divided into two categories: the majority of establishments where English is the only language that is used during such encounters and a few establishments (such as the ByWard Market) where one can receive services in French. Regardless of the neighborhood or the sector visited, English was often the only language that was employed during service encounters in the various establishments of the city. This was in contrast with the practice in Gatineau where an elaborate system of linguistic negotiation has been established. Even clients who were clearly francophones, including those who seemed to have some difficulty in English, spoke in English with service providers, including in establishments close to federal government buildings in downtown Ottawa and in establishments in neighborhoods with a
12 I had previously spoken to the two women and knew that they were French Canadian. 170 strong francophone presence such as Vanier and Orléans. This is illustrated in example (6). Here, the cashiers are two anglophone women in their 40s’ and the client is a francophone woman who appears to be slightly older. She is trying to pickup an order she made online. The entire conversation takes place in English. The client has a French-Canadian accent in English and often replies with “oui” rather than “yes” to the clerk’s queries. (6) Clerk: Did you order all the items from Montreal? Client: Oui. I did Clerk: Let me call the store to find out what happened? Client: Ok (The clerk finds the client’s information on her computer screen) Clerk: Your name is Col... (has difficulty pronouncing the client’s name) Client: Colette
- Shopping center in Orléans, Ottawa
Apart from a handful of establishments, I rarely heard francophone clients use French with service providers. I did observe a few people who tried but most of those attempts were met with a response in English. One such observation is demonstrated in example (7). The Conversation takes place between a French-Canadian young man in his 20’s and a bus driver in Ottawa. (7) Man: Vous allez à la gare de train ? [Do you go to the train station?] Driver: “I don’t speak French”. Man: Do you go to the train station? (French-Canadian accent) Driver: No, the next bus does. (Once the bus leaves, the man looks at his interlocuter) Man : C’est pour ça que je parle pas français à Ottawa. Il a même pas dit « sorry » [This is why I don’t speak French in Ottawa. He did not even say sorry]
-Bus station by the university of Ottawa, Ottawa
171 As mentioned earlier, city buses in Ottawa have bilingual signs and make all their announcements in English and French. This is different from city buses in Gatineau where all announcements and signs are in French. However, there is an important discrepancy between the language of the signs and the language used with the drivers. For instance, people taking the bus in Ottawa rarely addressed the driver in French. Some people did say “merci” while leaving the bus, but this almost always resulted in a response in English from the driver. It is possible that francophones in Ottawa are unlikely to request services in French because it is likely that these services do not exist. One of my francophone survey participants lamented that it was never clear whether one could receive services in French so even her mother, whom she called “très fière d’être francophone” [very proud to be francophone], had stopped trying. Even though it appears to be difficult to receive services in French in most establishments in Ottawa, some do serve clients in French. In such establishments, it is made explicit that the services are provided in both languages with the use of bilingual greeting (hello/bonjour) often (but not always) accompanied with signs in both languages. Such establishments include local branches of some Québec businesses (e.g. Jean Coutu or Cora), business catering to French speakers such as francophone bookstores, community centers in Vanier and Aylmer and the local farmer’s market (ByWard Market). ByWard
Market, in particular, provides an important exception to the language use pattern observed in the city. Most vendors at the market are French-speaking farmers from Ontario who welcome clients in English and French. Some vendors appear to welcome their clients uniquely in French. Many clients respond in French while others respond in English. The language of the client eventually becomes the language of the conversation. In other words, the pattern of language negotiation observed in Gatineau is also employed in such
172 situations in Ottawa. In the example below, a francophone vendor addresses an English- speaking client and her child. (8) Vendor : Est-ce que je peux vous aider ? Client: Yes, you can help her (points to the little girl). Vendor: What do you want today? Girl: tomatoes please
-ByWard Market/Marché By, Ottawa
A minority of vendors in ByWard Market are anglophones, but similar to the francophone vendors, most of them provide services in French and English. ByWard Market was one of the few spaces in Ottawa where many francophone clients initiated conversations in French with the vendors. It should be noted that, although most vendors at the outdoor farmer’s market offered services in both languages, only a small minority of shops surrounding the market offered services in French.
5.4.3. The priority of English during cross-cultural communication in Gatineau
Even though I rarely heard people with an anglophone accent speak French with friends or when they were clients in a business setting, most anglophone vendors in Gatineau (and in ByWard Market in Ottawa) appear to willingly serve people in French. However, some francophone clients used English with the vendors as soon as they noticed some hesitation. In example (9), the vendor is an anglophone man in his 60s with a slight anglophone accent in French. A woman of about the same age stops by the stand and makes her request in French but uses English as soon as she notices hesitation from the vendor. The woman does not have any non-native accent in French and has a French-Canadian accent in English.
173
(9) Buyer: Donc je vous prends ces tomates pour 4 dollars et bien…[So I will take four dollar worth of tomatoes and...] (The vendor is counting money from a previous transaction. He finishes counting the money and looks at his client.) Vendor : Excusez-moi, vous m’avez perdu. [I am sorry, I am confused] (The client hands the vendor 8 dollars) Buyer: Four for these (pause) et quatre pour ceci [and four for these]
-Farmer’s market in downtown Gatineau, Gatineau
In another incident at a Christmas market in downtown Gatineau, many francophone clients used exclusively English with an anglophone vendor even though the vendor used the bilingual greeting Bonjour/hi to welcome them, making it known that he could speak both French (albeit with an anglophone accent) and English. Some of my acquaintances from Mexico in Gatineau who had an upper-intermediate level of proficiency in French also admitted to having difficulties using French in the region. They found that francophones frequently switched to English with them even when my acquaintances had started the conversation in French. The use of English as the common language during cross-linguistic interactions in Québec has been previously documented in the literature. Heller (1978) discusses an article published in a local Montréal newspaper where an anglophone woman expresses her frustration at being constantly answered in English whenever she tries to speak French during service encounters in the city. Based on her observations at an anglophone hospital in Montréal, Heller (1978) noted that Québec francophones were very likely to use English while communicating with non-francophones or to francophones who did not speak
174 Québec French. She writes, “the (non-francophone) speaker may be a fluent, even native speaker of French, but if his accent is not typically Québécois, that will engender a switch to English as fast as, if not faster than, an English accent will” (p.592). This trend experienced by Heller in the 70s appears to have slightly changed in recent decades. I did notice that francophones were likely to switch to English when conversing with anglophones and allophones who are (or appear to be) less competent in French, but I never heard francophone Quebecers speak in English with French speakers from other countries unless English speakers were present during the discussion. Many individuals chose to use English as soon as an English speaker became a part of the conversation. In one of many gatherings I attended in Gatineau, there were about six francophones and three allophones all of whom spoke French. The conversation, therefore, took place in French. Later in the evening, two anglophones joined the group. They were visiting from Montréal where they had been living for over ten years. As soon as the English speakers arrived, the majority of francophones started speaking to each other and to the visitors in English. The francophones and the allophones had varying degrees of proficiency in English and some seemed to have more difficulty in English than others. I also observed that some francophone participants made the use of “listener-oriented regrets” (Simard et al., 1976), an accommodation strategy where an individual apologizes for his (limited) competence in the outgroup language during interaction with members of the outgroup. For instance, at one point during the evening, one of the native French speakers was having difficulty describing her dish in English to an English speaker. After some hesitation in naming some of the ingredients in English, she apologized for her hesitation as she said, “Sorry I only know my herbs in French”. Another francophone participant apologized to one of the anglophone visitors seated next to him for having used too much French with another guest. 175 The almost exclusive use of English in cross-cultural communication involving anglophones was a pattern that was frequently observed. Francophones and allophones appear to accommodate their anglophone interlocuters by speaking in English with all interlocutors in the presence of anglophones. The pattern is illustrated in extract (10). In this example, three women are talking to each other in English. One of the women seems to be in her 60s while the two women appear to be in their 40’s. One of the younger women (woman A) has a French-Canadian accent. The other woman in her 40’s (woman B) and the woman in her 60s (woman C) have no audible non-native accent in English. It appears that the women lived in the same neighborhood because they are talking about some of their neighbors as if everyone knew who they were referring to. (10) Woman A: She put the well (hesitation), the poubelle Woman B: Garbage can? Woman A: Yeah, the garbage can outside. It attracts animals and what not. Woman C: That’s right.
(A few minutes later...)
Woman A: I ask “Comment ça va?”. And she says (looks at woman B) “normal”. (Looks at woman C) “normal (with an anglophone pronunciation). Like the norm.
-Café in Aylmer, Gatineau
At some point in the conversation, woman C leaves to go to the bathroom. Once the woman leaves, woman A and woman B converse with each other entirely in French. Some past studies show that English Canadians (in Montréal) are less likely to accommodate to French Canadians even when they have sufficient linguistic ability to make the accommodation (Bourhis 1984, Bourhis and Moïse, 1994). French Canadians, on the other hand, have been found to accommodate to English Canadians even in cases when
176 English Canadians did not accommodate to them linguistically (Simard et al., 1976, p. 383). Simard et al. (1976) argued that French-Canadians often attribute non- accommodation from anglophones to their limited knowledge of French instead of attributing it to a lack of effort. According to the authors, this is a strategy to attenuate negative judgement. The authors further write:
The rationale for this may be that people could be inwardly aware of the function of accommodation and thus to attribute non-accommodation to a lack of effort implies that the speaker does not value the listener’s approval. Such an attribution would of course be deleterious to a person’s self-image and arouse cognitive dissonance.
(Simard et al. 1976, p. 379)
The asymmetric pattern of linguistic accommodation observed in previous studies in Québec is replicated in my observations in the OGR. One of my francophone survey participants from Aylmer said, « C’est rendu une blague ici. Dès qu’il y un anglophone à la table, tout le monde se met à parler en anglais » [“It’s become a joke here. As soon as there is an English speaker at the table, everyone else starts speaking in English”]. Similarly, another francophone participant who had moved to Gatineau from Eastern Québec and considered herself to be a monolingual French speaker expressed her frustration, « S’il y a un anglophone à la table, tout le monde se met à parler en anglais mais ils vont pas faire la même chose pour un francophone » [If there is an English speaker at the table, everyone starts speaking in English but they won’t do the same for a French speaker]. Some anglophones also appear to be critical of this linguistic accommodation. During my observations in a café in downtown Ottawa, I over-heard a young anglophone female complain about not being able to practice her French because she found francophones to be impatient. She said, “the problem with French is that fluent speakers have no patience for beginners.”
177 5.4.4. Code-switching and passive bilingualism in Gatineau
Code switching was rarer in Gatineau than in Ottawa. Code-switching was present among people who spoke both languages without any audible non-native accent. Code- switching, in the form of crutching (Zentella, 1997) was also present among people who appeared to have a harder time with their L2. In all of my observations, this involved francophones who were using English switches in their conversation. In example (11), Woman A has a French-Canadian accent in French and an English-Canadian accent in English. Woman B has a French-Canadian accent in English as well as in French. Woman B starts her sentence in English (her L2) but she switches to French as she appears to be more comfortable in the language. The use of suis comme as a quotative observed in (11) is likely a calque of English “be like”. (11) Woman A : Fait que je suis comme (so I am like) does that include chickpeas? Woman B: Did I told you (sic) about my experience? So pendant mes vacances... (so during my vacation)
- Downtown Gatineau, Hull, Gatineau
Some people in the region also engaged in a form of language use where every individual spoke, for the most part, in one of the two languages. This sometimes resulted in conversations where one person spoke mostly in French while another person spoke mostly in English. In example (12), two young men are having a conversation at a café. One of the men (man A) orders an iced tea in English (with an English-Canadian accent). They go and sit at a table. Man A speaks mostly in English while man B speaks mostly in French although he also uses English borrowings such as bro which he pronounces with an anglophone accent. Both men speak French with a French-Canadian accent.
178
(12) Man B: Il y a pas de travail, hein ? [There is no work, eh?] Man A : Je sais [I know]….(looks outside) It’s going to rain Man B: Sinon, bro qu’est-ce qu’on fait?
-Café in Aylmer, Gatineau
Participants in these bilingual exchanges did not limit themselves to one language. While they mainly used one of the two languages, switches involving the other language was also employed. Example (13) illustrates a conversation between two young women with no audible non-native accent in either English or French. They arrive at a café and place their order in French. (13) Woman A: I like the sauce. I can taste the corn. Thank you for showing me the place! Woman B: You’re welcome (Few seconds later) Woman A: Je t’ai marché dessus ? [Did I step on you?] Sorry, I lost my balance.
-Café in downtown Gatineau, Gatineau
The pattern described above bears important resemblance to what Lamarre (2002) calls “passive official bilingualism” in Montréal. During her ethnographic observations, she observed cases where “each person spoke in their first language and took for granted the other person's French/English bilingualism” (p.18). She writes, “it is increasingly common for both speakers in an anglophone/francophone exchange to "converge," each taking a short foray into the other person's language” (p.28). I was unable to ascertain whether this form of bilingualism was present among anglophones in the Ottawa-Gatineau
179 region. Most people who engaged in the practice either lacked any form of non-native accent in either French or English or had a French-Canadian accent in English. However, the presence of such practice among francophones and possibly early bilinguals’ in the region signals that it is a phenomenon not just limited to Montréal but one that is also present in other areas of Québec with an important anglophone presence.
5.4.5. English as the language understood by everyone in Gatineau
Frequent use of English during cross-cultural interactions as well as the wide- spread use of English by individuals in service encounters in Gatineau signal the tacit assumption that everyone in the region has the capacity to understand and participate in discussions in English. In Gatineau, it appears that the use of English, although rare, is also normal when conducting small-talk or elaborate interaction with strangers. Conversation (13) takes place on the bus in a very francophone neighborhood of Gatineau. A young man (man A) is carrying a kitchen appliance in his hands as another man on the bus (man B) tries to strike a conversation with him. (13) Man B: Those things are cool, eh? (English-Canadian accent) Man A: Yeah these are nice (French-Canadian accent)
-Public bus, Gatineau proper, Gatineau
In another event, a cinq à sept (happy hour) at a pub in downtown Gatineau where all participants spoke French, a woman in her late fifties was giving her business card to other people. She had a French-Canadian accent and a francophone name, but her business card was exclusively in English. The assumption that everyone understood English was also noticed in other social events. Extract (14) comes from a paint night organized in
180 Gatineau as a fundraiser by two francophones. The program was announced on the internet in French without any mention regarding the language it would be conducted in.
(14) Organizer: Hi everyone. Bonjour et bienvenue tout le monde… (Alternates her speech between French and English) (Introduces the artist who was leading the paint night) Artist: Hi everyone. I am sorry I only speak English……
-Paint night, downtown Gatineau, Gatineau
During the course of the evening, most people converse with the artist and the anglophone individuals in English while they converse with other francophones in French. Only one of the participants (a young woman) responds in French to the artist’s individual questions asked in English (15). However, it is difficult to know whether it was a linguistic stand (Lamarre, 2002) or if she did not feel comfortable speaking in English. (15) Artist: Are you having fun? Young woman: Oui, c’est amusant [yes, it’s fun]
-Paint night, downtown Gatineau, Gatineau
It appears that the general assumption of English as a language understood by everyone is accompanied by the ideology that English should be understood by everyone. In the observation below (16), a francophone woman (woman A) tells an anglophone woman (woman B) the importance of speaking English:
181 (16) Woman B: So Steven’s daughter Veronique was here Woman A: Does she speak English at all? Woman B: No Woman A: Well she has to. And living here, it will happen easily. English is a European language.
-Restaurant, Aylmer, Gatineau
Some of my survey participants also attested to the important place attributed to English in Québec. While talking about an ex-premier of Québec whose inability to speak English made headlines in several newspapers in Canada including in Québec, a survey participant said, “C’est comme si on avait une obligation morale de parler anglais.” (It’s as if we had a moral obligation to speak English). Sometimes, the inability to speak English seems to lead to frustration (from non-francophones). The conversation below (17) takes place between a woman who is hailing for a taxi and the taxi driver. (17) Woman: Taxi (francophone accent) (Taxi stops) Taxi: You go Ottawa? (has an Indian accent) Woman: Excusez ? [Sorry] Taxi: You go Ottawa? Woman: C’est quoi ? C’est quoi ? (What’s that?) (The woman tries to approach the taxi) (The cab driver looks angry and/or frustrated and leaves while murmuring something inaudible.) -Downtown Gatineau, Gatineau
5.4.6. Linguistic stand in Gatineau
As mentioned previously, during public encounters in Gatineau, either French or English might be the language that is used, and the language negotiation generally takes 182 place without any conflict. However, there were a few situations where the individuals appeared to a take a stand on language use. As mentioned previously, during service encounters, it was rare for a vendor/service provider to not respond back in English to a client who had made his language choice known by responding to the vendor’s greeting in English. Even when the service provider did not initially catch onto this subtle request to be served in English (or decided not to), the conversation eventually took place in the language. One such observation is illustrated in observation (18). In this extract, three middle-aged women are shopping at a plant store. One of the women (woman A) speaks mainly in French but switches to English (rather rarely), another woman (woman B) regularly switches between English and French and the third (woman C) only responds in English. They are all wearing an identity card that says they work for the federal government possibly in one of the nearby buildings. Since both languages are being used, it seems that woman C has at least a passive understanding of French. Once the women choose their plants, they come to the cash desk for check-out. The cashier speaks very little English and seems to have difficulties in explaining things in English. Women A and B converse in French with the cashier but woman C consistently speaks in English. (18) Cashier: Bonjour [Hello] Woman C: Hi Cashier: Ça va être onze et cinquante [it’s going to be eleven fifty] Woman C: Sorry how much? Cashier: It is eleven and fifty cents (French-Canadian accent) (Woman C pays) Cashier: You want a (pauses turns to cashier 2) Comment tu-dis reçu en anglais ? [How do you say reçu in English?] Cashier 2: bill ou [or] receipt Cashier: Do you want a receipt? Woman C: No thanks
-Shopping center, Hull, Gatineau
183
I also noticed a few vendors (and servers) in Gatineau who only served their clients in English despite some of the clients trying to speak to the personnel in French. No one explicitly asked to be served in French but, by replying consistently in the language, they appeared to take a linguistic stand. In all of such cases, the French speaker ended up eventually switching to English. Example (19) illustrates this case. The cashiers in the coffee shop are two Asian women who speak English with a slightly foreign accent. Cashier A (in her 50’s) speaks some French while cashier B (20’s) speaks no French though she appears to understand the orders in French. Most people (Security guard, other store persons and some clients) come and speak to the women in English. Cashier A especially seems to have regular contacts in the mall who stop by to say ‘hi’ or chat. Some of these people have a strong French-Canadian accent while speaking English. Everything in the café is written in French including the list of drinks, food and opening hours of the place. At some point, a male client in his 30’s comes to buy a coffee. (19) Cashier B: Hi sir. How are you? Client: Ça va et toi ? [I’m well and you?] (Shopowner B smiles) Client : Un sandwich aux œufs [an egg sandwich] Shopowner B: That’s all? Client: Oui [yes] Shoppwner B: Five sixty. (The client pays) Shop owner B: Thank you Client: Thanks
-Shopping mall, Aylmer, Gatineau
184 5.4.7. The use of English among francophones in Ottawa
English is the uncontested language of use during service encounters and during cross-cultural communication in Ottawa. Therefore, francophones in Ottawa frequently use English outside the home. One of my survey participants pointed out that English was her main language of use in public domains “parce que c’est plus facile” [because it is easier], but she placed high importance on transferring French to her children primarily through education in French. I did notice that some parents spoke exclusively in French with very young children while they used code-switching or primarily used English while speaking with other adults. In example (19), two women who appear to be mother and daughter speak to each other mostly in English mixed with some French. They have a standard English Canadian accent in English and Franco-Ontarian accent in French. They are with a tiny girl who appears to be the grand-daughter. Although the two women speak exclusively in English with the store person and mainly in English with each other, they speak to the tiny girl mainly in French. (19) Mother (to the child): Come, viens (come), come Grandmother (to the child): Tu veux de la crème glacée ? (Do you want ice-cream?) (The young girl follows them) (They buy their ice-cream and sit down to eat it.) Grandmother: (looks at her daughter) it is even better with pralines Mother: I know Grandmother (to the child): Tu veux de l’eau? On va te laver le visage [Do you want water? Let’s wash your face]
-Ice-cream shop, Orléans, Ottawa
Despite the importance accorded to transferring French to children, the exclusive use of French at home appears to be more of an exception than the norm among
185 francophone families in Ottawa. One of my survey participants expressed the difficulty of maintaining French during family events among her francophone family members. She said “Des fois on dit qu’on va se parler en français mais cinq minutes plus tard on se rend compte qu’on est en train de parler en anglais” [Sometimes we say that we’ll speak to each other in French but five minutes later, we realize that we are speaking in English]. Example (20) illustrates extensive code-switching between family members. A family of five (3 kids and two parents) is shopping at the mall. The older kids look like they are teenagers while the youngest child looks like he is around 7 to 10 years old. The woman and the kids have no non-native accent in either English or French. The woman mostly speaks in English; the man only speaks in French (with a French-Canadian accent) and the kids speak in French and English. It is unknown whether the man speaks any English.
186 (20) Woman: I am going to get a panini Daughter: Je peux venir ? [Can I come] Woman: You sit! Daughter: ok (The woman leaves) Daughter (to the older son): T’as acheté le chocolat aussi ? [Did you buy the chocolate one too?] Older son: Ouain13 (The woman comes) Woman to the man: You bought him food? Man: Il avait faim [He was hungry] Woman: On s’est dit qu’on allait manger à la maison [We said that we were going to eat at home] Man: oui mais… [yes but...] Woman :I am trying to put limits on these kids Man: Mais c’est pas ça [but it’s not that] Woman: So what is it? Tell me I am listening (The man says something inaudible) Woman: C’est pas ce que j’ai dit [that’s not what I said]
-Shopping mall, Orléans, Ottawa
Census data from Statistics Canada also shows that English is used extensively in the private domain among francophone families in Ottawa. According to the 2011 census report, 15% of the Ottawa population had French as their mother tongue and 16.4% had French as the first official language spoken (Statistics Canada, 2011). However, only 6% of the residents spoke exclusively French at home. Another, 4.4% spoke most often French and 1.8% spoke French and English. Overall, only 12.2% of residents spoke French (by itself or along with English) at home even though 15% of the residents were native French speakers.
13 Ouain is a variation of oui in vernacular Canadian French. 187 5.4.8. Le contrat social Ottawa-Gatineau
Studies show that many bilingual places develop linguistic consensus that govern the use of different languages during inter-group communication. In their study in the officially bilingual city of Biel/Bienne in Switzerland, Conrad, Matthey and Matthey (2002) identified a linguistic convention that they termed le Contrat social biennois (the Bienne social contract). According to the contrat, the two main language groups of the city, francophones and germanophones, frequently accommodate each other linguistically in public spaces regardless of their competence in the second language. This system of complete reciprocity is not true for all bilingual places. In another Swiss city, Fribourg/Freiburg, Brohy (2005) observed very little linguistic negotiation during public encounters. Similar to English in Ottawa, French was observed to be the dominant language in public encounters between members of the two language groups in Fribourg. The author observed that during 75% of encounters, francophone interlocutors in the study simply “played ostrich” by responding in French to queries made in German (p.120). Le contrat social Ottawa-Gatineau bears important resemblance to the unspoken linguistic contract in Fribourg/Freiburg where the use of the dominant language can be usually imposed and is generally accepted by the other language group. Francophones and anglophones in Canada’s capital region have fundamentally different vécu linguistique and function under different sets of rules governing language use. During service encounters, French speakers follow a binary system by primarily using French in Gatineau and primarily using English in Ottawa. While in Ottawa, they are unlikely to use French in stores or request services in the language unless it is clear that such services are available. Francophones while in Ottawa are also less likely to initiate conversations in French with strangers. At the same time, in places in Gatineau with important anglophone presence, francophones are likely to eventually accommodate to English speakers (including during 188 service encounters as clients) by switching to their language. English speakers, on the other hand, are likely to use English in both cities and have the possibility of living in either cities without having to use French. In this way, even though the “two solitudes” (MacLennan, 1945) interact and inter-group relations are significantly less tense when compared to the 60s and the 70s, little seems to have changed in terms of the language in which these interactions take place.
5.4.9. Summary of the linguistic soundscape of Ottawa and Gatineau
In terms of government signs and official recognition of its bilingual minority, Ottawa appears to be considerably more bilingual than Gatineau. However, our observation of actual language practices in the two cities paint a completely different picture and demonstrate that the two languages do not have the same value in the linguistic market (Bourdieu, 2001). In most service encounters in Gatineau, the client selected the language to be used. However, in some areas of Gatineau with an important anglophone presence, some vendors insisted on providing their services uniquely in English regardless of the language preference of their client. In other cases, francophone clients insisted on using English with anglophone vendors even when the vendor was willing and able to offer their services in French. Service encounters in Ottawa almost exclusively took place in English. The use of French in service encounters was limited to places where service providers made it explicitly known that they provided services in both languages (mostly in the form of a bilingual greeting). In interactions of all sorts, English was the language of use par défaut during cross-cultural interactions involving anglophones in Ottawa and Gatineau. Furthermore, whenever English speakers were present in a group, the interactions were likely to take place in English including interactions between French speakers. These observations suggest that English has a privileged status in the OGR. French is the normal
189 language of everyday usage in Gatineau in private as well as public domains, at least between francophones. The language has a more limited usage in Ottawa outside a handful of establishments and the family life of francophones, where in many cases French and English are both present. Cities globally have made efforts to incorporate English in their linguistic soundscape. For instance, Sifianou (2010) and Backhaus (2015) reported that English was extensively used in public transportation in Athens and Tokyo. Given such findings coupled with the bilingual reality of Gatineau’s linguistic soundscape, it is surprising to see the absence of English in Gatineau’s public transportation and the presence of primarily monolingual French signs in the city’s linguistic landscape. At the same time, such seemingly incoherent practice is likely the outcome of a linguistic co-existence that inherently favors one language over another. In their study in the French-German language border in Belgium, Van Mensel and Darquennes (2012) identified a similar pattern in the Belgian city of Eupen, in the officially German-speaking part of the country. Even though Belgium is officially trilingual, the German speaking population represents a fraction of the Dutch or French-speaking population of Belgium. Their minority status appears to have created a linguistic practice among germanophones in Eupen comparable to the one observed among francophones in Gatineau. The authors discovered that German speakers in Eupen considered knowledge of French to be normal and expected to use French with francophones in both sides of the language border without requiring that francophones speak their language. Despite this linguistic accommodation, the linguistic landscape of Eupen was “dominantly monolingual German- speaking” (Van Mensel Jeroen Darquennes, 2012, p. 175) possibly “as a means of symbolically marking the territory” (p.178).
190 5.5. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE ATTITUDES AND LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR
Findings from the previous chapter show that English enjoys higher status in the Ottawa-Gatineau region among all language groups. In this chapter, we observed that English is used extensively during service encounters in Ottawa and Gatineau while the use of French in service encounters can only be taken for granted in Gatineau (barring some exceptions) and at the historic ByWard Market in Ottawa. It is logical that a language imbued with high status be an unmarked code choice in commercial domains. At the same time, since francophones and anglophones attribute a higher solidarity value to their native language, we can expect that they use the ingroup language among members of their language group and desire to transfer the language to their children even when the parents themselves are competent users of both languages. This was found to be the case for both language groups in the region. It is, however, noteworthy that francophones eventually always accommodated anglophones and some of them went as far as using English among each other instead of the language they identify with. The reason behind such practice can be explained through language attitude data. Findings from the previous chapter show that our participants considered English to be simple and practical while French was evaluated as complicated. The use of English in cross-cultural communication might be the result of francophones’ reticence to impose the use of a language that they and the community as a whole consider to be “complicated”. On the other hand, since English is considered accessible and universal, it is likely that its use be taken for granted during cross-cultural communication. It is likely that language use patterns are dictated by forces that include but go beyond language attitudes. For instance, since most anglophones are monolingual, using French with strangers, in places where anglophones form a majority, can result in frequent communication breakdown. Therefore, even individuals with highly positive attitudes 191 towards French might use English while approaching strangers in Ottawa. Similarly, since francophones are more likely to understand English than anglophones are likely to understand French, the use of English during cross-cultural communication is sometimes the only viable option. Interestingly, competence in a language also appears to be correlated with language attitudes. In their study in Wales, Morris (2014) observed that positive attitude towards the Welsh language (NW) was moderately correlated with speaker’s ability, which in turn was highly correlated with language use (p. 86). Similarly, in their study in the Basque country, Lasagabaster (2005) identified competence in Basque to be the most important predictor of attitudes towards the language so much so that the effect of the individual’s L1 was minimal compared to the effect of their language competence (p. 308). Studies conducted in Ottawa among francophones and anglophones have also shown that an increase in competence leads to a greater identification with the L2 group (Noels and Clément, 1996; Rubenfeld et al., 2006). We have identified that francophones in the OGR are more competent in their L2 compared to anglophones. Many francophones also must use English whereas anglophones rarely have such obligation. Consequently, francophones are more likely to develop positive affiliations with English and the anglophone community than are anglophones towards French and the francophone community.
192 Chapter 6: Study 3 - Language attitudes and language use on Twitter
This chapter pertains to the final study that makes up this dissertation. In the two previous studies, we have focused on language attitudes and language use in physical spaces. In this study, I will continue to explore the link between language attitudes and language use, but the focus of the study will move from physical spaces to online space. In this chapter, I will use Paul Baker’s corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) framework
(Baker, 2006) to analyze attitudes towards the French and English languages expressed by
Twitter users based in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Subsequently, I will analyze the use of the two languages in Twitter timeliness to draw comparisons between the two variables under study.
As mentioned previously, one of my primary objectives in this dissertation was to measure language attitudes and language use across a variety of settings. In previous chapters, I have reported on my study on language attitudes conducted through a direct approach and another study on language use conducted through participant observation.
We decided to analyze language attitudes and language use on Twitter to further enrich and diversify our data. Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms and an inexhaustible source of data for any form of public opinion research. Yet I am not aware of any studies that have compared language attitudes and language use among Twitter users. In this regard, this study will introduce a novel approach in the field of language attitudes that can be exploited by future researchers.
193 6.1. CORPUS-ASSISTED DISCOURSE STUDIES Recent studies have shown that quantitative tools from corpus linguistics (CL) can be successfully combined with qualitative tools from discourse analysis (DA) to enhance data analysis and interpretation (Stubbs, 1996; Baker, 2006; Partington, 2008; Freake et al., 2011). The CADS framework brings together tools from CL and discourse analysis where CL tools (such as collocates and clusters) are used to establish main patterns and trends in the corpus while subsequent use of tools from DA allows for a closer analysis of these patterns and trends (Baker et al., 2008). The CADS framework has been previously employed by researchers to analyze language attitudes in written discourse. In French- speaking Canada, Freake et al. (2011) used the framework to identify attitudes towards the
French language and the Québec nation in briefs submitted by Quebecer s to the Bouchard
Taylor commission. The authors were able to identify dominant discourse through the use of CL tools while the subsequent use of DA tools allowed them to discover counter discourse and minority discourse. By combining the two approaches, the authors were also able to identify the atypicality of minority discourse (Freake et al., 2011, p38-39).
In this study, I will use a corpus of tweets where Twitter users based in Ottawa or
Gatineau have expressed an attitude or an opinion towards either the French or the English language. The analysis will be conducted using the CADS framework and will be divided into three main phases. In the first phase of the analysis, I will identify collocates that occur significantly often with the terms French, français, English and anglais in the corpus. This will allow us to identify the main patterns in the corpus. In the second phase, I will look at concordances to closely analyze attitudes towards the two languages. Finally, for every
194 Twitter user who has expressed either a positive or a negative attitude towards one of the two languages, I will analyze the use of French and English in their Twitter timelines. This will allow us to compare language attitudes and language use in our targeted population of
Twitter users.
6.2. CORPUS CREATION Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms where users can post up to 280 character-long messages about all sorts of topics. Twitter was created in 2006 as a minimalist microblogging service. In just over a decade, it has become a popular social networking site with wide interactive functionality (Dayter, 2014). I decided to use Twitter data for this study because of the popularity of the social media platform and the possibility of collecting a large number of pertinent tweets over a long period of time. Furthermore,
Twitter’s imposed character limit was a further motivation behind using Twitter data as this requires users to be relatively concise and straightforward (Longhi, 2013). Tweets were collected using TAGS (https://tags.hawksey.info/), a freely available Google Sheet template used for collecting Twitter data. The program queries Twitter Search API for user defined search terms and stores tweets containing these terms on a Google Sheet archive.
The program also offers the option of automatically updating the archive. I decided to use
TAGS to automatically download all tweets containing relevant keywords and subsequently filter them for location. After trying numerous sets of keywords, I came up with the following list:
195 (Quebec AND French) OR (Quebec AND English) OR (quebecois AND French)OR (anglais AND Québec) OR (français AND Québec) OR (langue AND française AND Québec) OR (langue AND anglaise AND Québec) OR (Joual) OR (français AND Québécois) OR (Gatineau AND français) OR (Gatineau AND anglais) OR (Gatineau AND English) OR (Gatineau AND French) OR (Ottawa AND French) OR (Ottawa AND English) OR (Ottawa AND français) OR (Ottawa AND anglais) OR (Canada AND French) OR (Canada AND English) OR (Canada AND français) OR (Canada AND anglais).
For every group of keywords (X AND Y), Twitter API looks for tweets that contain the keywords but not necessarily next to each other. For instance, the tweet “People in
Quebec speak French”, will match our keyword search because it contains both search terms (Quebec AND French). On the other hand, the tweet “French president visits Japan” will not match the query because it only contains one of the two terms we are looking for.
Search condition (X AND Y) OR (A AND B) prompts the API to look for tweets containing the keywords X and Y as well as tweets containing the keywords A and B. For example, if our search terms were (Québec AND French) OR (Canada AND English), the tweet
“English is an official language of Canada” and the tweet “French is the official language of Québec” will both match the criteria and, thereby, be downloaded automatically. I started archiving tweets in March 2018 and continued the process until June 2019. Every tweet tweeted between March 1st, 2018 and June 18th, 2019 containing our search terms were downloaded and archived automatically.
Once all tweets containing one or more of the target keywords were downloaded, I wrote an algorithm on Python to extract tweets tweeted by users based in Ottawa, Gatineau and surrounding suburbs. I used Twitter’s location metadata to identify these tweets.
Previous studies have demonstrated that a user’s profile location does not necessarily 196 reflect their actual physical home location (Hecht et al. 2011; Cheng et al. 2010). However, since these individuals chose to list either Ottawa or Gatineau as their place of residence, we can expect that they at least have some affiliation with the place. It should also be noted that only 2-3% of all tweets are geo-tagged (Guo and Chen, 2014). This means that the set of tweets that form the present corpus do not form an exhaustive set of language attitude related tweets coming from the Ottawa-Gatineau region. However, the corpus offers us a reliable subset of such tweets. Since it is unlikely that the decision to include locational information on one’s Twitter profile is related to the individual’s language attitudes, we can assume that this does not compromise the representativeness of our dataset.
Before analyzing the tweets for language attitudes, the corpus was manually screened to remove spams and advertisements. Once this was done, Python’s off-the-shelf language identification tool, langid.py (Lui and Baldwin, 2012) was used to identify the language for every tweet. As shown in Table 6.1, the resulting corpus consisted of 5,769 tweets of which 2,486 were in French and 3,283 were in English. Similarly, 4,897 tweets were from Ottawa while 872 tweets were from Gatineau. Since langid.py is not designed to work with bilingual data, all tweets were categorized as either French or English in this phase.
197 Language
English French Total
Ottawa 3,063 1,834 4,897
City Gatineau 220 652 872
Total 3,283 2,486 5,769
Table 6.1: Matrix of language of tweet and the city of origin of the Twitter user
6.3. COLLOCATES AND CONCORDANCES Firth (1957) famously wrote “You shall know a lot about a word from the company it keeps”. Following this line of thought, I used Python’s Natural Language Toolkit
(NLTK) (Bird, Loper and Klein, 2009) to identify words in my corpus that occurred frequently within 5-word window of the target words (French, français, English and anglais). However, frequency is not the same thing as saliency (Baker, 2006, p. 101). Some words, especially function words, occur frequently with all words so raw counts do not necessarily provide us pertinent information. Therefore, I decided to transform raw counts into association weights using point-wise mutual information (PMI). PMI is the probability that word1 and word2 co-occur. It is expressed as the ratio of observed and expected co- occurrence probability of the two words. This is demonstrated in the formula below:
PMI (word1, word2) = log ( , ) ( ) ( )
The PMI of two words is the logarithm of the ratio between the observed co-occurrence probability and the expected co-occurrence probability of the words. “The log of the ratio corresponds to a form of correlation, which is positive when the words tend to co-occur 198 and negative when the presence of one word makes it likely that the other word is absent.”
(Turney and Littman, 2003, p.320). For every target word, I decided to identify ten collocates with the highest PMI. Some collocates with very high PMI only occurred once or twice in the corpus. Hence, I decided to select collocates that occurred five times or more in the periphery of the target word. Even though PMI is sensitive to frequency, other statistical tests also have their own sets of limitations as “each technique gives some sort of trade-off between frequency and saliency” (Baker, 2006, p 102) and he argues that none of the available statistical tests are inherently better than another in this context. In the tables for collocates reported in the following sections, I have ordered collocates according to their PMI value. Collocates with a larger PMI value are placed before the ones with a smaller PMI value. The PMI value is directly related to the strength of the collocation. In other words, higher PMI value means stronger collocation.
6.4. COLLOCATES AND CONCORDANCES IN FRENCH TWEETS
6.4.1. Collocates and concordances of ‘français’ In French tweets, the strongest collocates of the word ‘français’ were 110,000
(francophone population of Manitoba), Amérique (America), disponible(s) (available), erreur(s) (errors), faute(s) (faults), l’anglais (English), stigma (or stigmatisation), Québec,
Ottawa-Vanier and apprendre (learn) (or a conjugation of the verb). The ten strongest collocates of français along with their frequency are demonstrated in Table 6.2.
199 Target word Collocates (frequency in parenthesis)
Français 110,000 (7), Amérique (10), disponibles (8), erreurs (8), fautes
(6), l’anglais (63), stigmatisé/stigmatisation (10), Québec
(116), Ottawa-Vanier (7), apprendre/apprend/apprennent (35)
Table 6.2: Strongest collocates of ‘français’ along with their frequency
A closer analysis of the corpus of French tweets reveals that many Twitter users were unsatisfied with the status of French in Ontario. Many users re-tweeted tweet (1) that criticized the absence of a francophone university in Ontario. Despite being home to the largest francophone community in the country outside Québec, francophones in Ontario do not yet have a unilingual French university.
(1) Allons-nous capituler ou nous battre? 1,500,000 parlants français en Ontario n'auront pas leur université alors que le Manitoba avec ses 110,000 parlants français ont la leur?
Are we going to capitulate or fight? 1,500,000 French speakers in Ontario will not have their university even though Manitoba with 110,000 French speakers have theirs.
Furthermore, Twitter users also considered Ontarian government’s French versions of texts to be filled with errors (erreurs/fautes) and generally unsatisfactory (2).
(2) L’Ontario émet une « alerte jaune », dont la version en français est truffée de fautes, avec près de 30 minutes de retard vis-à-vis celle en anglais.
Ontario sent out a “yellow alert”, where the French version was filled with faults and it was sent out almost 30 minutes after the alert in English.
200 It was not just the provincial government of Ontario that was criticized for the poor quality of French. As demonstrated in tweet (3), a Twitter user was also critical of the quality of the French language used by Québec’s government.
(3) Dans ses communications écrites, l’appareil de l’État québécois doit utiliser en tout temps un français de qualité irréprochable, selon la politique en vigueur. Apparemment pas...
In its written communication, Québec state apparatus must use, at all times, a French of irreproachable quality, according to existing politics. Apparently not...
An analysis of the corpus further suggests that some francophones criticized the general quality of French used in Québec and considered European French to be of superior quality.
Tweet (4), (5), (6) and (7) are examples of such tweets.
(4) je comprend que le francais est plus dure a apprendre, sans aucun doute, en plus qu on le scrapp pas mal au québec :)
I understand that French is more difficult to learn, without a doubt. Moreover, we butcher it pretty badly in Québec :)
(5) L’accent québécois hyper deg
Québec accent is too disgusting
(6) L’accent québécois il m’avait pas manqué
I did not miss Québec accent �� (7) J’ai grave honte mais j’ai l’accent québécois
I am ashamed but I have a Québec accent.
While some francophone Twitter users were critical of QF, others, albeit less numerous, defended the language variety. Tweets (8) and (9) offer examples of such counter discourse. In particular, the user in tweet (8) shows an advanced level of meta-
201 sociolinguistic ability as he likens the difference between QF and EF to the difference between the varieties of English spoken in Newfoundland and Ireland.
(8) J'essaierai pas de vous CONVAINCRE que le Français au Québec est pareil que ce qu'on utilise en France. C'est si différent que l'anglais en Irlande ou Terre- Neuve: un accent et quelques mots, mais peut-on dire "Vive la difference"? Même les Anglos parlent français au Québec!!
I will not try to CONVINCE you that the French in Québec is the same as the French used in France. It is as different as English in Ireland and Newfoundland: accent and some words, but can we say, “long live diversity”? Even Anglos speak French in Québec.
(9) Les langues ont toujours évoluer, changer à cause de multiples influences. 30% du vocabulaire anglo viens du français je ne crois pas que la langue anglaise est en périle. Qu'on parle notre langue correctement ou en joual, l'important est de la parler si on veut la sauver.
Languages have always evolved, changed due to multiple influences. 30% of English vocabulary comes from French I don’t believe that the English language is in danger. Whether we speak our language correctly or in joual, what is important is to speak it if we want to save it.
The most frequent collocate of the term ‘français’ was Québec and many Twitter users commented on the fragility of the French language in the province due to its location in the largely English-speaking North America (10).
(10) Tjrs les deux solitudes hein mon David. Toi, anglophone, ne comprend pas cette quête des francos du Québec - majoritaires chez eux mais minoritaires en Amérique du Nord - de vouloir assurer l'avenir du français dans cette mer anglo.
Still two solitudes right, my David. You, an anglophone, do not understand the quest of Québec’s francophones - majority in their province but minority in North America- to safeguard the future of French in this anglophone ocean.
Others felt that the French language was stigmatisé (stigmatized) in largely anglophone
Canada. Concordance analysis shows that many francophones report a sense of linguistic inequality in the country between the French and the English languages and, by extension, 202 between the two language groups. There were 54 tweets in French pertaining to this sense of linguistic inequality of which 53 reported that English was given a privileged position in the country while the use of French was marked or even stigmatized. In tweet (11), the user is critical of the dominance of English in Ottawa. In another tweet (13), the user laments the absence of services in French at the intercity transportation company,
Greyhound, which provides bus services between Montréal, Ottawa and some American cities.
(11) Ici à Ottawa tout se passe en anglais et le français y est constamment stigmatisé. Welcome in Ottawa!
Here in Ottawa, everything happens in English and the French fact is constantly stigmatized. Welcome in [sic] Ottawa!
(12) Le commandant du régiment s’est contenté de parler uniquement en anglais, pas un mot en français. La stigmatisation des francophones s’applique même aux morts. Funérailles militaires pour le soldat québécois mort en Bulgarie.
The regiment’s commander spoke uniquely in English, not even a word in French. The stigmatization of francophones holds true even for the dead. Military funeral for the Québec soldier dead in Bulgaria.
(13) Essayer de se faire servir en français, et même dans un français acceptable, chez @GreyhoundBus est un rappel que les francophones sont vraiment des citoyens de seconde classe au Canada, et même au Québec!
Trying to receive service in French, including in any form of acceptable French, at @GreyhoundBus is a reminder that francophones are really second class citizens in Canada, including in Québec.
We also observed a generalized sense of unsatisfaction regarding the use of French by federal institutions. In tweet (14), a Twitter user denounces the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police’s (RCMP) recent decision to abolish its only francophone troop and replace it with
203 a bilingual troop. He further adds that the RCMP has abolished its last unilingual French positions in Québec.
(14) À la GRC (plutôt la RCMP...), la seule troupe francophone annuelle de 32 cadets est abolie et remplacée par une troupe bilingue... Au Québec, les derniers postes unilingues français de la GRC sont abolis...
At the GRC 14(or rather RCMP), the only francophone annual troop of 32 cadets is abolished and replaced with a bilingual troop. In Québec, RCMP’s last unilingual French positions are abolished...
Air Canada was another federal institution criticized for failing to meet its obligation to offer services in French. Out of all federal institutions that are obliged to offer services in both official languages, the Canadian airline company has consistently received the highest number of complaints for failing to meet such obligations (see eg. Bonenfant, 2019 and LeBlanc, 2019). In tweet (15), a user reports that she was unable to receive services in French during her flight with Air Canada. When she filed a complaint about the situation to Air Canada, the company responded to her in English.
(15) Très déçu, @AirCanada ont toujours de la difficulté en fait de bilinguisme. Je n'ai reçu aucun service en français lors de mon vol et j'ai fait plaint à Air Canada. Voici la réponse (EN ANGLAIS) qu'ils m'ont envoyée. Par la suite j'ai fait une plainte @CLOduCanada @melaniejoly
Very dissapointed, @AirCanada still has a hard time with bilingualism. I did not receive any service in French during my flight and I filed a complaint with Air Canada. Here is the response (IN ENGLISH) they sent me. After this, I filed a complaint @CLOduCanada @melaniejoly
Apprendre (along with its conjugated forms) was the only positive collocate to occur with ‘français’. Concordance analysis demonstrates a wide-spread belief that it is
14 The RCMP is called GRC (Gendarmerie Royale du Canada) in French. 204 important to learn French in Canada especially due to its status as an official language of the country (16). Non francophones in Québec appear to be especially interested in learning
French as demonstrated in (17). A certain mastery of the language is also considered important for career in politics as demonstrated in (18) where Andrea Horwath’s decision to not learn French, should she be elected prime minister, becomes material for political discussion.
(16) Il est important d'apprendre le français parce qu'il est la deuxieme langue officiel au Canada. Vous pourrez appliques à plusieurs emploi avec rémunératuon plus élevée dans la gouvernement, et en plus, vous serez un candidate très souhaiteable dans la region d'Ottawa.
It is important to learn French because it is the second official language of Canada. You can apply to many jobs with higher salary in the the governement. Morever, you will be a desirable canadidate in the region of Ottawa.
(17) Les anglophones de l'Outaouais demandent plus d'aide pour apprendre le français.
Anglophones in Outaouais ask for more help to learn French.
(18) Andrea Horwath ne compte pas apprendre le français si elle est élue première ministre
Andrea Horwath does not intend on learning French if she is elected prime minister.
6.4.2. Collocates and concordances of ‘anglais’ The strongest collocates of the word ‘anglais’ were seulement (only), postsecondaires (postsecondary), affichage (signage), unilingue (unilingual), études
(studies), débat (debate), fédéral(e) (federal), Canada, parler/parle/parlent (speak) and services. The ten strongest collocates of anglais along with their frequency are shown in
Table 6.3.
205 Target word Collocates (frequency in parenthesis)
Anglais seulement (20), postsecondaires (10), affichage (6), unilingue
(8), études (10), débat (9), fédéral(e) (5), Canada (45),
parler/parle/parlent (17), services (45)
Table 6.3: Strongest collocates of ‘anglais’ along with their frequency
Seulement and unilingue were some of the most prominent collocates of anglais in our corpus. Both terms were largely used to criticize the exclusive use of English in
Canada. In tweet (19), the user writes that most celebrations on Canada Day take place uniquely in English and that francophones celebrate their belonging to the country in
English only (seulement). In another tweet (20), a Quebecer feels insulted due to
Environment Canada emitting an emergency tornado alert exclusively in English on francophone television channels. Similarly, the author of tweet (21) criticizes Memorial
Cup for awarding the trophy almost exclusively in English to a hockey player from Québec.
(19) Le 1er juillet, fête du Canada, vous réalisez que tout se passe en anglais (sauf dans certaines communautés bien précises). Faut le répéter: on fête notre appartenance a ce pays seulement en anglais!
On July 1st, Canada Day, you realize that everything takes place in English (except in certain very precise communities). One must repeat: we celebrate our belonging to this country only in English!
(20) Environnement Canada vient d’interrompre toutes les chaînes de télé françaises pour diffuser en anglais seulement une alerte à la tornade en Outaouais... Insultant...
Environment Canada just interrupted all French TV stations to diffuse a tornado alert in Outaouais exclusively in English...Insulting...
206 (21) La Coupe Mémorial fut remise 98% en anglais seulement! À : M. Gilles Courteau, Commissaire de la Ligne de hockey junior majeur du Québec
The Memorial cup was awarded 98% in English only! To: M. Gilles Courteau, commissioner of Québec major junior hockey league.
In tweet (22), the user is upset that the Facebook page for the Canadian Tulip Festival, one of the most important tourist events in Canada’s capital, is exclusively in English.
Similarly, in tweet (23), a resident of Ottawa finds the signage (affichage) in his neighborhood to be exclusively in English and considers Ottawans to be generally hostile towards the French fact.
(22) Encore une fois cette année le titre de la page du @CdnTulipfest est bilingue, mais la page unilingue anglais sur FB. J’avais porté plainte sans conséquence car cela est géré par un consortium privé. Je vous laisse deviner pour ici. #onfr #ottawa
Once again, this year the title of the page @CdnTulipfest is bilingual, but the page is unilingual English on FB. I had complained but without any results because it is managed by a private consortium.
(23) J’habite le quartier du Marché By d’Ottawa depuis 20 ans. Chaque jour des milliers de francophones traversent le quartier. Pourtant le fait français est stigmatisé: affichage unilingue, service en anglais seulement, regard agressif lorsque l’on demande à être servi en français.
I’ve lived in the ByWard Market neighborhood of Ottawa for 20 years. Every day, thousands of francophones visit the neighborhood. Nonetheless, the French fact is stigmatized: monolingual signage, service only in English, aggressive look when one asks to be served in French.
Another user also believed that the commercial signage of Ottawa was pre-dominantly
English and they argued that the commercial signage of Orléans, Ottawa’s primarily francophone neighborhood, was following the same route.
(24) Orléans ressemble de plus en plus au centre-ville d’Ottawa: l’affichage commercial est unilingue anglais.
207 Orléans is becoming increasingly like down-town Ottawa: commercial signage is monolingual English.
Service(s) was another collocate that occurred frequently with anglais. As shown in (23) and (25), Twitter users generally decried the presence of services exclusively in
English (anglais seulement). In (25), the user compares francophones in Ottawa to anglophones in Montréal. According to him, anglophones in Montréal are able to receive services in their language while the same is not true for francophones in Ottawa. Another
Twitter user makes similar comparison between Ottawa and Montréal (26), mainly citing linguistic inequality between the two cities in terms of education and health care.
(25) Ce matin à la succursale de Banque Royale située sur la rue Rideau à Ottawa. Service in English only. De quoi à réjouir @fordnation! Pendant ce temps à Mtl les anglos sont servis dans leur langue
This morning at the branch of Royal bank on Rideau Street in Ottawa. Service exclusively in English. Something to make the @fordnation happy! In the meantime, in Montréal, anglos are served in their language.
(26) Mtl une ville où se trouvent trois collèges, deux universités et un immense centre hospitalier universitaire qui offrent tous leurs services en anglais. Ici à Ottawa tout se passe en anglais et le français y est constamment stigmatisé.
Mtl a city where there are three colleges, two universities and an immense univerisity health center that offers all their services in English. Here in Ottawa everything takes place in English and French is constantly stigmatized.
In a similar tweet (27), the author comments on the linguistic inequality between anglophones and francophones in Ottawa and Gatineau. Albeit highly essentialized, the remark bears important resemblance with patterns observed in my study outlined in the previous chapter. I also observed that francophones were more likely to speak English than
French while in Ottawa while anglophones were likely to speak English in both cities.
208 (27) Pour un francophone, parler en anglais à Ottawa est "normal". Pour un anglophone, parler en français à Gatineau n'est même pas dans ses pensées.
For a francophone, speaking in English in Ottawa is “normal”. For an anglophone, speaking in French in Gatineau is not even in his mind.
Parler (or a conjugated form of the verb) was often used to highlight the necessity of speaking English in Québec (28 and 29) or to comment on the extensive use of the language in the province (27).
(28) mm au Québec si tu parles pas anglais t’est mort en faite mdr Even in Québec if you do not speak English you are dead LOL
(29) Mme regarder l'assimilation des francophones hors Québec. On a pas le choix de protéger notre langue.8 000 000 de québécois dans près de 400 000 000 de population anglophone .Que nos enfants sachent parler anglais est cependant une necessité
Madame look at the assimilation of francophones outside Québec. We must protect our language. 8 000 000 Quebecers within almost 400 000 000 of anglophone population. Nevertheless, it is a necessity that our children know how to speak English.
In another tweet (30), the author compliments Quebecers for their competence in English even though she seems to be critical of their accent in French. This sense of criticism towards QF has also been discussed previously in this chapter.
(30) Mdr on peut vanner les québécois sur l’accent certe mais eux quand ils parlent anglais ils parlent vrmt anglais exactement comme les ricains wlh c pas comme un français qui parle anglais on dirait y’a un chewing-gum qui est bloqué dans sa gorge
LOL We can certainly make fun of Quebecers for their accent but when they speak English, they really speak English exactly like Americans. It’s not like a French person who speaks English like there was a chewing-gum blocked in his throat.
209 As seen earlier with collocates of ‘français’, the absence of a unilingual francophone university in Ontario was at the heart of Twitter discussions. Many Twitter users retweeted tweet (31) to express the need of a francophone university in the province.
In this tweet, the user believes that the absence of post-secondary education in French forces francophones in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario to choose English for post-secondary education. However, in another tweet (32), the user argues that many francophones choose to complete postsecondary education in English due to a sense of linguistic insecurity.
(31) Oui, à l’UFO à Toronto. Mais, à Ottawa et dans l’Est les besoins sont criants. Beaucoup d’élèves de 12ème des deux régions décident de poursuivre leurs études postsecondaires en anglais parce que le programme choisi n’est pas offert en français
Yes to UFO15 in Toronto. But demands are urgent in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. Many students in the 12th grade from the two regions decide to pursue their post- secondary education in English because the selected program is not offered in French.
(32) Trop souvent les élèves francophones décident de poursuivre leurs études postsecondaires en anglais parce qu'il vivent une forme d'insécurité linguistique
Too often francophone students decide to pursue their post-secondary education in English because they live a form of linguistic insecurity.
Canada was one of the most frequent collocates of the term anglais. Often, the term
Canada anglais was employed jointly as users compared and contrasted Canada anglais
(English-speaking Canada) with mainly French-speaking Québec. In (33), the user argues that Québec’s “myth” about English and French Canadians being the “founding peoples” of the country was understood differently in English Canada compared to Québec and in
15 Université de l’Ontario français (L’UFO) is a proposed unilingual francophone university of Ontario. 210 tweet (34), the user doubts that English Canadians are aware of francophone realities in
Ontario. In another tweet (35), the author re-iterates the difference between Québec and
English Canada as he asks another commenter to leave the province and move to English
Canada due to her perceived contempt towards Québec and the French language.
(33) Depuis des décennies, le mythe québécois du « pacte fondateur entre deux peuples » fait hurler de rire les élites du Canada anglais
For decades, the Québec myth of “founding pact between two peoples” makes the elites of English Canada cry of laughter.
(34) À partir des textes lus sur les sites de @CBCNews, @globeandmail, @TorontoStar, @OttawaCitizen, etc., je crains que demain, le Canada anglais ne soit pas au courant de l'indignation que suscite chez les francophones l'attaque frontale de Doug Ford contre les Franco-Ontariens.
From texts read on the website of @CBCNews, @globeandmail, @TorontoStar, @OttawaCitizen, etc., I am afraid that tomorrow, English Canada will not be aware of the indignation provoked among francophones by Doug Ford’s frontal assault against Franco-Ontarians.
(35) Vous êtes d’une vulgarité sans bornes. Avec votre mépris envers le Québec et la langue française, vous devriez aller vivre au Canada anglais.
Your vulgarity knows no bounds. With your contempt towards Québec and towards the French language, you should go live in English Canada.
The collocate fédéral(e) was often employed to discuss the association of the capitale fédérale (Ottawa) with English Canadians (36) or to describe the predominance of English in the federal government of Canada (37). In tweet (36), the author also plays on the difference between English Canada and Québec and argues that Québec does not need any lesson from anglophone media from Ottawa.
211 (36) Selon l'@OttawaCitizen, nous devrions avoir honte de notre nouvelle loi sur la laïcité de l'État... Je suis né et j'ai grandi à Ottawa, et je peux vous assurer que le Québec n'a pas de leçon à recevoir des médias anglais de la capitale fédérale...
According to @OttawaCitizen, we should be ashamed of our new law on secularity of the (Québec) state... I was born and grew up in Ottawa, and I can assure you that Québec does not need to receive any lesson from anglophone media of the federal capital.
(37) Alors qu'Ottawa se flatte d'être une capitale bilingue, la langue de travail dans la fonction fédérale demeure l'anglais.
While Ottawa brags about being a bilingual capital, English remains the language of work in the federal public service.
Québec’s decision to conduct a debate in English between party leaders before the most recent provincial election also led to a debate in the Twittersphere with marked differences between francophones in Québec and Ontario. Francophones in Québec generally considered the debate to be unnecessary. Furthermore, the uproar was intensified due to New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province of Canada, not conducting a debate between leaders in French prior to their most recent provincial elections (see e.g. 38 and 39).
(38) Élections... Un débat en anglais au Québec où le français est la seule langue officielle, mais pas de débat en français au Nouveau-Brunswick où les deux langues sont officielles... Trouvez les erreurs...
Elections... A debate in English in Québec where French is the only official language but no debate in French in New Brunswick where both languages are official... Find the error...
(39) Si le Québec peut offrir un débat des chefs dans leur langue aux Anglo-Québécois, le Nouveau-Brunswick devrait pouvoir offrir un débat des chefs en français aux Acadiens et francophones.
212 If Québec can offer a debate between party leaders in English to Anglo-Quebecer s, New Brunswick should be able to offer a debate between party leaders in French to Acadians and francophones
It appears that the opposition to the debate is also motivated by the historically present fear surrounding the vitality of the French language in Québec. For instance, in tweet (40), the author is wary that conducting a political debate in English in Québec makes French less attractive to non-francophones and gives the message that everything ends up by being offered in English anyway.
(40) La tenue d’un débat en anglais est la plus belle démonstration que ce n’est pas nécessaire d’apprendre le français au Québec. Tout finit par être offert en anglais.
Conducting a debate in English in Québec is the most beautiful demonstration that it is not necessary to learn French in Québec. Everything ends up by being offered in English.
On the other hand, some francophones from Ontario seem to see Québec’s debate in a different light. In tweet (41) and (42), the authors argue that there was a political debate in
French in New Brunswick and Ontario prior to their provincial elections. Even though neither of the two provinces had organized a debate between party leaders entirely in
French, there was indeed a televised debate in French between francophone members of different political parties in Ontario (Élections en Ontario..., 2018) and between party leaders in New Brunswick where unilingual anglophone leaders had used simultaneous interpretation services (Élections Nouveau-Brunswick..., 2018).
(41) Radio Canada a organisé un débat en français pendant l'élection provinciale ontarienne pour les francophones comme moi, même si nous formons une minorité plus petite que les anglophones québécois. Non mais il est où le problème?
213 Radio Canada organized a debate in French during the Ontarian provincial election for francophones like me, even though we form a minority smaller than Québec anglophones. Where is the problem?
(42) Il y a un débat en français au NB cette semaine. Nous avons eu un débat en français lors de la dernieee élection en Ontario. L’ignorance crasse des Québécois à l’égard du reste du Canada ne cesse de me surprendre.
There is a debate in French in New Brunswick this week. We had a debate in French during the last election in Ontario. Quebecer’s crass ignorance about the rest of Canada never stops surprising me.
6.4.3. Summary of language attitudes expressed in French tweets French language tweets show that francophones in our corpus generally considered existing services in French to be unsatisfactory and insufficient. On the other hand, they pointed that English monolingualism dominates in Canadian public institutions and in the city of Ottawa. Some francophones also felt stigmatized in largely anglophone Canada and threatened due to their status as a minority group in the North American continent.
Furthermore, most francophones considered Anglo-Quebecers to be a privileged minority in Québec contrary to Franco-Ontarians in Ontario. Even though francophones believed that it was important for non-francophones in Québec and Canada to learn French, they nonetheless demonstrated negative attitudes towards QF. In short, we notice that francophones act like a threatened group with a deep sense of linguistic insecurity. The sense of linguistic insecurity observed in our corpus has been previously discussed in this dissertation and documented by other researchers as well, so much so that Sioufi et al.
(2016) called francophone Quebecers “an objectively dominant high-vitality majority still imbued with the psychology of an insecure linguistic minority” (p. 396).
214 6.5. COLLOCATES AND CONCORDANCES IN ENGLISH TWEETS
6.5.1. Collocates and concordances of ‘French’ The strongest collocates of the word ‘French’ were learn, France, elimination, 2- tier, Ontario, bilingual, commissioner, Paris, training and version. The ten strongest collocates of French along with their frequency are demonstrated in Table 6.4.
Target word Collocates (frequency in parenthesis)
French learn (71), France (31), elimination (12), 2-tier (8), Ontario
(91), bilingual (22), commissioner (31), Paris (10), training
(10), version (15)
Table 6.4: Strongest collocates of ‘French’ along with their frequency
Learn (along with its conjugated forms) was the strongest collocate of French in our corpus of English tweets. We noted a similar pattern with the word apprendre in our corpus of French tweets where the word (along with its conjugated forms) was identified as a strong collocate of ‘français’. As shown in tweets (43) and (44), there was a wide- spread understanding among anglophones in our corpus that it is important to learn French in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. This appears to be especially true for government jobs as shown in tweet (45) and for anglophones living in Gatineau (46).
(43) Honestly, in Ottawa - learn French or sharpen your French. Most places will prefer to teach you skills over you being unilingual. Otherwise - get the experience by any means necessary - volunteer, etc.
(44) UUGH MOVING BACK TO WHITBY IS MY ACTUAL ADULT DREAM I AM SO JEALOUSSSSSSSS and don’t come to Ottawa unless you learn French first, that is real life solid advice.
215 (45) If its work related trust me: I know ALL the ups and downs. Also when you get to ottawa learn french. Youre smart enough to do a lot of government work if you pass french.
The high importance accorded to learning French also explains the frequent occurrence of the collocate training. French training is especially important for jobs with the federal government, where a certain level of bilingualism is necessary for many positions (47).
(46) I am an Anglo living in #Gatineau. I need French training. Please DM me or provide a contact.
(47) Plus to work for the federal government here in Ottawa you need to pass a French test, they will give you language training if you are hired but you don’t get to actually work until you pass
Despite increased importance accorded to learning French, some anglophones appear to have difficulty with learning the language (48 and 49).
(48) Sadly I know almost no French because I grew up in Western Canada and we didn't learn it. I'm a terrible Canadian.
(49) I have barely learned French, most of what i have learned is through listening to people around me speak it and i've been in Canada for my whole 22 years.
As evidenced in tweets (50), (51), (52) and (53), some anglophones reported difficulty in practicing their French due to constant accommodation from francophones. I have elaborated on this form of linguistic accommodation in the previous chapter. We noted previously that francophones found it difficult to receive services in French in Ottawa.
Surprisingly, some anglophones in Québec also found it difficult to be served in French
(50-53).
(50) � French people are something else. I have lived in Quebec 5 years, and everytime I speak in French they answer back in English! 216
(51) Many of us anglos are ok w/ the Loi 101. It’s been law for 42 years. I’ve never felt unwelcome or ostracised in Quebec & have never had an issue getting service in English - actually frustrating when people assume I don’t speak French. On peut- tu passer à autres choses un mom’né? (Can we move to other things at some point)
(52) I live in Quebec. I make an effort to speak french everywhere, the moment I mispronounce something the switch to english and it's done. pfff smh
(53) As an Anglo in Quebec I think the opposite is the problem: I order in French, but get reply in English (b/c they're trying to be nice & accommodate my poor grasp of the language!). Often I lie and say "désolé ... je ne parle pas anglais" so I can practice my French more! �
While some anglophones were frustrated at not being able to practice their French with francophones, others were upset when francophones responded to them in French
(54). Still others were openly hostile towards the French language (55 and 56).
(54) People from Quebec are so racist, it's a bilingual country. If I prefer to speak English than talk to me in English...Tabrnak!!
(55) I’m from Canada and we learn French cause of Quebec/Montreal and I was never good at that shit that’s why I hated French but in high school they offered Spanish aswell so I’m like lit this gone be easier right.. naw same feminine masculine shit
(56) And to add we are expected to learn their guttural version of French while our language is treated as a pariah in their province. Until Quebec plays ball with the rest of the country they can fuck right off and hopefully the separatists win there.
A user (57) also commented that, despite requirements to be bilingual, not all employees of the federal government had positive attitudes towards French language training.
(57) I’m a francophone, and i was a public servant for 19.5 years in thr regions and in Ottawa. I never felt so shitty about being french as when i worked in Ottawa. It was clear that being sent on French training was a punishment and something to suffer through.
217 Anglophone Twitter users often commented on the perceived difference between
QF and European French. Most instances of the words Paris and France occurred in such contexts. This is demonstrated in tweets (58), (59) and (60).
(58) I learned the Paris French as an Anglo in Canada, oddly enough, and can understand Parisians and Quebec presenters very well. Colleagues not as much.
(59) not sure who announcers are but they said “Ivanisevic speaks Croatian & Milos is from Montenegro, even tho language dialects are different - they have learned to understand each” .. its like French in Quebec/France it English in Canada/UK lol “different dialects”
(60) I think accent makes more of a difference in contexts of learning Québec French vs France French, or certain regional dialects. Where there's pronounciatiom variation that alters meaning significantly (like with Mandarin). I could be wrong though?
We had noticed earlier that some francophone Twitter users harbored unfavorable attitudes towards QF and considered it inferior to EF. This sentiment appears to be amplified among anglophone Twitter users. Out of 45 tweets in English that addressed the difference between EF and QF, 28 were unfavorable to QF (see e.g. 61-65). Many anglophone users
(eg. 61 and 62) spoke for French speakers from France and used perceived ostracization of QF by the French as a justification for their own negative attitudes.
(61) France isn't really impressed with Quebec's French either.
(62) My condo building in downtown Toronto. It is full of French people, and other immigrants from countries where French is regularly spoken. Not one crappy Quebecois accent in the bunch to make the French laugh.
(63) When a crew of hot dudes walk in and then you hear them speaking Quebec french and it kills the mood.... #AMood
(64) People from Quebec make French sound so ugly smhhh
(65) No you're right, but im talking quebec french which contrary to what they want people to believe is a complete bastardization of the language. 218
Even users who appear to have fairly positive attitudes towards QF preferred “to not speak like that” (66).
(66) I think I genuinely love Quebec French a whole lot? I don't know why but it has a beautiful and sexy flow to it...Hah just kidding on that last part. But Quebec French is definitely my comfort zone even though I would prefer to not speak like that.
The collocate “version” was mostly used in reference to French versions of audio-visual material (eg. 67 and 68) or as a synonym for language variety (eg. 68). Again, we confirmed that attitudes towards the version of French spoken in Québec was generally negative (e.g. 70), but many users applauded the Québec dubbed version of certain television shows (68). In particular, many users complimented the Québec dubbed version of the popular American show, The Simpsons (68 and 69).
(67) Can you share the source files (not pdf)? I’ll like to do a french/bilingual version in order to use this in Government of Canada.
(68) As someone who grew up with both the English and the Quebec French version, the Quebec dub is superior
(69) I watched both the Quebec French dub of The Simpsons and the normal Simpsons, and y'all I cannot stress how unbelievably good the Quebec French Simpsons was.
(70) Which version of "Francais"? Real French, Gatineau Slang, QC City High French, Montreal Street French, Eastern Townships Puritan French or Persian French?
Ontarian government’s recent decision to cancel funding for the province’s proposed unilingual French language university as well as its French language commissioner led to much uproar on Twitter. Three of our top ten collocates (Ontario, elimination and commissioner) were primarily used in reference to this decision. Many users re-tweeted tweet (71), (72) and (73) which suggests that this issue was of high 219 interest. Many users criticized the decision (eg. 74 and 75). The decision also aroused hostility towards Franco-Ontarians (76).
(71) Quebec government worried about elimination of Ontario's French Language commissioner
(72) Ford, Legault to discuss elimination of Ontario's French Language commissioner
(73) ‘Proud of my culture': Thousands protest French-language service cuts
(74) I just read this and I’m sobbing. My hometown of Sudbury has the highest population of French people outside of Quebec. I’m a proud franco-ontarienne and Ford Nation has just killed our future.
(75) Parts of Canada were predominantly settled by the French. Others not. NL where I am from, the French dabbled but didn’t stick it out. My point is simply that Canada has two official languages and ON a large Francophone population. I do not support Ford’s initiative at all.
(76) Man if you're this proud of the French culture you should probably just move to Quebec..you would be welcomed as hero
Ontario’s French immersion program was a recurrent theme in English tweets.
Many users re-tweeted tweet (76), which suggests that Ottawa’s immersion program might be causing inequality among students. A few Twitter users demonstrated positive attitude towards French immersion, especially as it is regarded as an effective way to gain fluency in French (see eg. 77). On the other hand, many (eg. 79 and 80) were not convinced that the current system was optimal.
(77) Upcoming @OCDSB study: Is French immersion creating a 2-tier education system in #Ottawa?
(78) I wish I was in French immersion so I could have a chance at government of Canada jobs
220 (79) The mythology surrounding French Immersion in Ontario is mind-boggling. In Ottawa in particular, the hyper focused often misplaced obsession with FI is beyond belief. J’adore le français (I love French) but sustaining the 1979 model of it in 2019 is really shortsighted
(80) I have SO many strong feelings about the elevation of Immersion to ridiculous heights. French Immersion should never be an elitist program in Canada.
Finally, bilingual (and bilingualism) was an important collocate of French in our corpus. We noted previously that francophones often associated English with English unilingualisme. However, it appears that for many anglophones as well as francophones,
French automatically correlates with bilingual (eg. 80, 81 and 82).
(81) I am a perfectly bilingual French Canadian. I often get French and Quebec bashing when people don't know my last name.
(82) I am French and fully bilingual and I was born and live in Ottawa!
(83) Yeah, was thinking french canadian with somewhat distant north african descent. If I set Audrey's stuff in Ottawa for convenience, she was probably born across the river in Hull, and grew up bilingual, probably speaking english with a bit of an accent.
6.5.2. Collocates and concordances of ‘English’ The strongest collocates of the word ‘English’ were college(s), board, Ottawa, accent, Canada, debate, leader(s), Quebec, service(s) and sign(s). It is noteworthy that very few collocates of English had a PMI over 1. Even the strongest collocates of English were sometimes stronger collocates of French. However, since French had more collocates with high PMI than English, not all of its strong collocates figured as one of its top ten collocates. For instance, college(s) and accent were stronger collocates of French than of
221 English (more on this later). The ten strongest collocates along with their frequency are demonstrated in Table 6.5.
Collocate Frequency
English college(s) (10), board (29), Ottawa (64), accent (9), Canada
(130), debate (43), leader(s) (20), Quebec (157), service(s) (32),
sign(s) (10)
Table 6.5: Strongest collocates of ‘English’ along with their frequency
The collocate college occurred most frequently with English as users commented on the presence of English-speaking colleges in Québec (84 - 86) often as a response to claims that anglophones could not receive services in English in Québec or were otherwise mis-treated in the province (see e.g. 87 and 88).
(84) As an Anglo-Quebecker I can say that I don’t feel discriminated against whatsoever and the org that represents us has denounced Ford’s cuts to French services. In Quebec we have 3 world class English universities, 10 English colleges, and at least 5 English/bilingual hospitals.
(85) Anglophones have tbeir own school boards (ie Western Quebec School Board in the Outaouais), english college or cégep (ie cégep Heritage College "- Your Anglophone College"),their own Universities (ie McGill)...... need more?You should travel more.
(86) Anglos are doing well in Quebec, IMO - don’t use us to justify cuts to French services in Ontario. We have 3 world class English universities, 10 English colleges, and at least 5 English/bilingual hospitals. Thanks for the concern, but direct it towards Ford.
(87) I'm sure glad the Quebec Premier didn't succeed in getting Doug Ford to change his mind. How does English get serviced in QC? Not as well as French in Ontario.
(88) Meanwhile English in Quebec is outlawed. And total silence. If you want french services move to Quebec! 222
College was one of the terms that was a stronger collocate of French than of English even though it was not one of the ten strongest collocates of French. Some users argued that
Ontario already had enough French colleges and French language institutions. (see e.g. 89 and 90).
(89) Which community is better served by it's government? The English Minority in Quebec or the Franco Minority in Ontario? Be honest and fair. We have French Colleges in Ontario and Ottawa University is a bilingual institution. Quit your whining about French rights, you're equal.
(90) University of Ottawa...heavily bilingual and some say more French then English. Hearst university which is a French university...plus several French colleges in Ontario. Enough of this bitching
The collocate board was used in reference to English school boards in Ontario and
Québec. Several users tweeted about Ontarian government’s cuts for Ottawa’s English school boards (e.g. 91) while others were concerned about Québec’s plan to abolish English school boards in the province (92). Still others blamed francophones for Ottawa’s English school board’s budget cuts (93).
(91) Both our English school boards are getting more than $6 million in cuts, the province has lost more than 80,000 jobs in August, and Ford's threatening attack our city council next.
(92) I completely support minority language rights in Canada. Has anyone heard anything from any political party about the Quebec governments move to abolish the 9 English school boards in Quebec and infringe upon English minority rights in Quebec Unbelievable silence.AGAIN.
(93) yah they are cutting funding for English board and disabled so yah they can afford more schools for French and others why not !
223 The collocates Québec, services and signs were primarily used in reference to
Québec’s treatment of its anglophone citizens. Many Twitter users were vehemently against the absence of French road signs in Québec or about Québec’s French Language
Charter in general (eg. 94-97). Most of these Twitter users appeared convinced that francophones in Ontario had it better than anglophones in Québec.
(94) There's a real proportionality problem here. Ford has cancelled a French university in a province that has three bilingual universities -- Ottawa, Laurentian and Glendon. No one is outlawing French on menus (or French signs, or changing French place-names).
(95) Ontario has bilingual road signs. Quebec has unilingual French road signs only! When I drive from Ontario into Quebec I am met with French only signs. Don’t know what they say. It is dangerous and unwelcoming!
(96) You do realize that Quebec still has laws limiting the use of English. Laws that mandate French be twice the size of English in signs. Laws that limit the use of English in private business. When can I expect to hear you denounce this?
(97) What a surprise, French people complain again... go to Gatineau and you’ll barely see a word of English on any sign.
The collocates debate and leaders appeared largely in reference to Québec’s first- ever televised English language debate between party leaders. As with francophone users, there appeared to be a lot of interest surrounding this issue. Many users received the news positively (see eg. 98-101).
(98) So far, this is a pretty solid debate. Quebec leaders should discuss issues in English more often, less filler language.
(99) I need more sleep I thought this was about New Brunswick and I didn't realize Quebec was actually holding an English language debate. This is an interesting move.
(100) Provincial party leaders in Quebec recently agreed to do something extraordinary: have a debate in English. 224
(101) If Québec agrees to an English debate, why can’t we get a French one in Ontario?
Although less numerous, some users were against the debate. In tweet (102), the user argues that Québec is French-speaking and, therefore, should conduct the political debate in French only. Similarly, the author of tweet (103) considers the debate useless while another user calls it a trap (104).
(102) I came to Quebec BECAUSE it's French, and I wanted to speak French. There are 9 other provinces if you want to speak English FFS. #Qc2018 #qcpoli #debate
(103) Will voters change their votes after this english debate? No. Will it decide voters? No. Should we have another english debate in the next election? No. We all agree Quebec is a french speaking nation
(104) "I call the English debate "The trap""--how leaders cater to English speakers in 1st ever #QcElxn leaders' debate will be chopped and diced for french-language news -- & risk becoming fodder for nationalists: #CAQ has "most to lose'
As with French tweets, users frequently used the term English Canada to note the differences between English-speaking Canada and Québec. Many tweets commented on the existing difference between the “two-Canadas” (see eg. 105 and 106) along cultural and social dimensions. However, the French-English divide sometimes took a xenophobic turn as evidenced in tweets (107) to (109).
(105) One of the shows I miss most since leaving the Province: The Most Important TV Show In Quebec Has No Equivalent In English Canada
(106) #ONbudget2018 thoughts: free childcare for 2.5 yo to 4 yo is great! This moves the bar in English Canada.But we only have 12 - 18 months of parental leave, and infant care is harder to find and more expensive. �
(107) Speak for yourself. Quebec is the anchor holding English Canada back.
225 (108) Take the pricks to the woodshed Kenney. Quebec is a yoke on the necks of English Canada.
(109) It’s ok it’s better for English Canada anyway . All immigrants are welcome in English Canada specifically Ontario . Property values in Quebec will take a hit and will rise in Ontario from people leaving that shit hole Quebec anyway . Great for us ! We win they lose!
Accent was a stronger collocate of French than of English even though it was not one of the ten strongest collocates of French. In both cases, accent was often used to discuss non-native accents of English (especially French-Canadian accent in English)
(111, 111, 112, 113 and 115) or to underline how French-Canadians have an accent in
French (113 and 114). As seen previously with comments regarding QF, most tweets that addressed QF accent were generally negative.
(110) I can hear that the girl has a very strong accent. I ask if she lives in Ottawa. "no, I'm from the Netherlands" she replied. I was surprised, because her English was near perfect."Oh!" I replied, "Do you take English classes at school?".
(111) It doesn't seem that strong to me, compared to many, but I live in Ottawa, where many French Canadians have accents as strong or stronger than yours.
(112) Watching my guilty pleasure and laughing at all the American girls thinking Benoit's french-Canadian accent is sexy. Omg, not up here.
(113) They speak in an accent as if they're vomiting. They mix English with french and it actually sounds like someone throwing up
(114) Yes I’m not french but In Quebec people speak french with a accent �
(115) I don't hear an accent from my mother. But I hear a mild French accent from my dad. I am told I have an accent when speaking English, and one when speaking French in Québec. �
226 6.5.3. Summary of language attitudes expressed in English tweets We noted that anglophone Twitter users in our corpus often associated French with
Québec and bilingualism. Anglophone participants generally believed that it was important to learn French, but many anglo-Quebecers found it difficult to practice their second language with native speakers, mainly due to constant accommodation from francophones.
At the same time, we also noticed substantial hostility towards francophones and pro-
French language policies, especially when it came to French-language rights in Ontario.
While talking about Canadian history and language politics, Marcel Martel and Martin pâquet (2012) wrote:
“The Anglo-Saxon majority tolerated the French presence in Québec, as long as it accepted the Anglo-Saxon’s vision of the world. As soon as French Canadians left Quebec to settle elsewhere in the country, they had to accept that they would from then on be living in a territory dominated by a community of English-language speakers and culture.” ( p. 49)
It appears that this is still true to an extent. As a result, pro-French language movements in
English-speaking Canada (including Ottawa) are often met with resistance. A significant fraction of the English-speaking population also appears to question the primacy of French in Québec itself. The dominance of French in Québec’s linguistic landscape and the almost exclusive use of the language in government and road signs in the province is perceived as discriminatory by many anglophones. Attitudes towards QF were especially negative.
While unfavorable attitudes towards QF were observed among francophones, they were more frequent and less nuanced among anglophones.
227 6.6. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH AND FRENCH All the tweets that formed our corpus were manually analyzed for sentiment. In order to identify tweets where the author had clearly expressed a positive or a negative attitude towards the English or the French language in general (and not to specific language varieties), only tweets that allowed us to positively answer the following questions were selected:
1. Does the tweet make a clear reference to the French or the English language?
2. Does the author clearly express a favorable or an unfavorable attitude towards one
of the two languages?
3. Is the attitude object the French or the English language in general and not
particular varieties of the languages (such as Canadian/Québec French or Canadian
English)?
Even though attitudes towards QF were more negative than positive, attitudes towards the
French language in general were more positive than negative. Overall, there were 153 tweets where the user had clearly expressed a positive attitude towards the French language
(60 in French, 80 in English and 13 in French and English). At the same time, there were
45 tweets that expressed a negative attitude towards the language (44 in English and one in French and English (116)).
(116) We don’t give a fuck about this whole french thing, jean. On s’en fucking calisse des esti de québécois qui pense juste au français dans leurs esti de province séparatiste, Jean
During my field observations, many of my participants had commented on the
French language in Canada or the quality of French spoken in the country while no one
228 had ever commented on or criticized the English language. This continued to be true in online discussions. English was discussed less frequently than French and very few tweets had expressed a negative or a positive attitude towards the language. We only identified
10 tweets that clearly expressed a positive attitude towards English (3 in French and 7 in
English) and 12 tweets that expressed a negative attitude (8 in French and 4 in English) towards the language. While many commented on QF and its supposed “deviation” from
European French, only one, very subtle, comment was made about Canadian English
(117).
(117) English is a superfluity rarely used correctly, even by them what's born here, if you catch my drift
All Twitter users who had demonstrated a negative attitude towards the French language indicated Ottawa as their city of residence. Among Twitter users who had demonstrated a positive attitude towards the French language, only 20 were based in
Gatineau. Since a majority of our Twitter users were from Ottawa (or at least indicated
Ottawa as their location), we decided to not include city of residence as a variable. The distribution of positive and negative tweets by language is shown in Figure 6.1.
229 Positive and negative attitudes towards French and English 250
200
150 Negative Positive 100
50
0 French English
Figure 6.1: The distribution of positive and negative attitudes towards French and English
6.7. USE OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH ON TWITTER TIMELINES Twitter API allows client applications to automatically download up to 3,200 most recent tweets tweeted by a user; this includes retweets as well as replies. Therefore, we decided to use Python to download and archive the timeline of users who had expressed either a positive or a negative attitude towards the French language as identified in section
6.6. Since very few users had expressed a positive or a negative attitude towards English, only users who had either expressed a positive or a negative attitude towards the French language were analyzed in this section.
Some users had tweeted multiple messages while others had deactivated their
Twitter account or made their accounts inaccessible. Once our list of users was adjusted for these Twitter handles, we had a total of 26 users who had expressed a negative attitude 230 towards the French language and 120 users who had expressed a positive attitude towards the language. After archiving the timeline of each of these users, we used langid.py (Lui and Baldwin, 2012), Python’s stand-alone language identification tool, to identify the language of every tweet in the user’s timeline. For every user, I decided to identify the total number of tweets in French and in English in their timeline. Tweets in other languages were not considered. Therefore, in the paragraphs below, if we see that a user had tweeted
10% of the time in French, it is to be understood that 90% of tweets analyzed in their timeline were in English.
As shown in Figure 6.2, French was minimally used by users who had expressed a negative attitude towards the French language. Only one user had tweeted more than five percent of tweets in their timeline in French. This user had tweeted about 10% of their tweets in French and it was the same individual who had tweeted (116).
231 Use of French in Tweets (%) 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Figure 6.2: Percentage of tweets in French in the timeline of users who had expressed a negative attitude towards the French language
As shown in Figure 6.3, there was a lot of variation in the use of French in tweets among users who had expressed a positive attitude towards the language. Some users tweeted almost exclusively in French while others tweeted almost exclusively in English.
Only few users had tweeted almost equally in both languages.
232 Use of French in Tweets (%)
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 41 46 51 56 61 66 71 76 81 86 91 96 101 106 111 116 121
Figure 6.3: Percentage of tweets in French in the timeline of users who had expressed a positive attitude towards the French language
In order to analyze the variation in the use of French in tweets among users who had expressed a positive attitude towards the language, I decided to explore the intersection between language use and language background. In chapter 4, we had identified mother tongue as a strong indicator of language attitudes. Twitter does not offer the option of identifying its users’ mother tongue. However, it is possible to find out the language in which the user uses Twitter. Assuming that this is related to the user’s primary language, we divided users who had expressed a positive attitude towards the French language into two groups: users who used Twitter in English and those who used the application in
French. This resulted in a neater picture.
233 Use of French in Tweets (%) 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82
Francos Anglos
Figure 6.4: Percentage of tweets in French among users who had expressed a positive attitude towards the French language (divided by language background)
As shown in Figure 6.4, the majority of our users who used Twitter in English (considered anglophones for this purpose)16 tweeted less than 10% of the time in French. Only 9 anglophone users (out of 83) had tweeted over 20% in French. Among users who used
Twitter in French (considered francophones for this purpose), 18 out of 29 users had tweeted over 20% of the time in English. In other words, a majority of francophone users tweeted in English as well as in French while the majority of anglophone users tweeted
16 It is unlikely that all users considered anglophones in this section speak English as their first language and that all users considered francophones speak French as their first language. This approach was nonetheless adopted due to the absence of a more reliable method to identify first language of Twitter users. 234 primarily in English. An independent sample t-test assuming unequal variances was conducted to compare the use of French in Twitter timeline of anglophone and francophone users. There was a significant difference in means among francophones (M = 68.8, SD =
28.4) and anglophones (M = 9.09, SD = 20.2); t (109.09) = 0.00, p < 0.01 with positive attitudes towards the French language. In other words, among Twitter users who had positively evaluated the French language, francophones tweeted significantly more in
French than did their anglophone counterparts. On average, francophones also tweeted almost one third of the time in English while anglophones tweeted less than 10% of the time in their second official language. Surprisingly, based on results from independent sample t-test, we failed to identify significant difference in means among anglophones who had positively evaluated the French language and those who had had evaluated the language negatively.
6.8. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE ATTITUDES AND LANGUAGE USE ON TWITTER We identified an important correlation between language attitudes and language use on Twitter. As identified in previous chapters for language attitudes and language use in offline spaces, this relationship was also influenced by other factors. In general, individuals who had explicitly expressed negative attitudes towards the French language tweeted very little in the language. There was a significant interaction between language background and language use for individuals with positive attitudes towards the French language. Anglophones with positive attitudes towards French also tweeted little in the language and they were not significantly different from users with negative attitudes
235 towards the language. On the other hand, francophones with positive attitudes towards
French used it significantly more than anglophones with similarly positive attitudes towards the language but they also tweeted in English about a third of the time.
It appears that the status of a language as minority or majority has an effect on the use of the language. Our results show that the use of the minority language can be met with much resistance and powerful majorities might be less inclined to use the language even when they have positive attitudes towards it. Consequently, the burden of bilingualism falls on the minority group. One of the tweets in my corpus succinctly described this linguistic inequality in Canada in following terms:
(118) this is a thing I see in native english speakers in Canada when we have to speak French. Most of us have the basics, but we clam up because we're embarassed, afraid to fuck up. What helps me is remembering french native speakers don't get the choice. they have to face that fear.
Such cases of asymmetric bilingualism have also been documented in places sometimes referred to as European internal colonies like Brittany in France and Wales in the UK (see e.g. Hechter 1975, McDonald 1990) and in offshore colonies of European countries
(Naregal, 1999; Errington 2008). In these places, bilingualism is expected of members of the local community (i.e. the less powerful group) without any such expectation on behalf of members of the dominant group.
236 Chapter 7: Conclusion
This dissertation had two objectives: to establish the relationship between language attitudes and language use and to explore these variables in the context of the Ottawa-
Gatineau region. More specifically, I started this dissertation by asking five research questions and I conducted three studies to answer them. The first study consisted of a language attitude questionnaire distributed to 151 participants recruited randomly at various public places in the OGR. For the second study, I conducted ethnographic observation in different public spaces of the two cities. This observation, which lasted 5 months, focused on identifying patterns governing language use in the region. The third study was conducted on Twitter. LA related tweets coming from the OGR were collected and archived for a period of over 15 months. Subsequently, these tweets were analyzed automatically and manually to identify language attitudes towards Canada’s two official languages on Twitter and the use of these languages among Twitter users. Results from these studies complement each other and, together, they provide a broad understanding of the issue at hand. Since each of my research questions pertained to a particular study but findings from the studies were inter-connected, I will refrain from answering each research question individually. Instead, questions on language attitudes will be grouped together and those on language use will form another group. In the following paragraphs, I will answer these categories of questions based on results from my studies.
7.1. LANGUAGE ATTITUDES IN THE OGR We asked two questions pertaining to language attitudes:
237 What are people’s attitudes towards French and English? (RQ1)
What are people’s attitudes towards French and English on Twitter? (RQ4)
Survey results show that people from Ottawa and Gatineau are not significantly different in terms of their language attitudes. Important group differences existed mainly in terms of mother tongue as francophones and early bilinguals were usually very different from anglophones and allophones in their attitudes towards the two languages. We could not gather enough tweets from people who self-identified Gatineau as their place of residence, so we were unable to analyze the influence of city on language attitudes among
Twitter users. However, results from our study on tweets also showed important differences in language attitudes between francophones and anglophones. In studies conducted in Montréal, mother tongue has been historically considered an important variable in explaining language attitudes (Lambert et al., 1960; Genesee and Holobow,
1989; Kircher, 2009). My results are consistent with these studies. We have shown that the important influence of mother tongue on language attitudes is not limited to Montréal and is likely present in more bilingual places in the country.
According to survey results, French is evaluated more favorably than English in terms of aesthetic values such as beauty, elegance, richness etc. College students from Montréal who participated in the study conducted by Kircher (2009) also evaluated French more favorably than English along these traits. However, comments from survey participants in the present study pointed out that this favorable attitude might be limited to European
French. Results from the study on tweets helped us confirm this theory. We observed that
QF was often the object of disdain. While such sentiments were present among 238 francophones, they were particularly pronounced among anglophones. Some anglophones questioned the status of French as the primary language of Québec and many did not consider QF a legitimate variety of the French language.
As discussed in chapter 3, an important number of English Canadians have historically looked down upon the French language spoken in the country labeling it
‘patois’, ‘peculiar’ or ‘lousy’ (see Caron-Leclerc, 1998 and Bouchard, 1990). Findings from my dissertation show that rejection of Canadian French is still present among some fraction of the English-Canadian population. Despite themselves speaking a North-
American variety of a European language, many anglophone subjects in my studies were unable to accept North-American French as a normal and legitimate variety of the French language. The denigration of Canadian French also appears to be immune to extensive language planning at the provincial and federal levels. Albeit seemingly insurmountable and apparently tenacious, some individuals and organizations have attempted to change such sentiments. In this regard, the works of Anne-Marie Beaudoin-Bégin in Québec merit particular mention. Trained in sociolinguistics, Beaudoin-Bégin makes sociolinguistic literature accessible through her blogs and essays to help francophones in Québec understand and accept their variety of French. She has published three essays (Beaudoin-
Bégin, 2015, 2017, 2019) and is the author of an online blog
(https://www.facebook.com/linguisteinsolente/) with almost 33,000 followers. Similarly,
Radio-Canada17 recently published a series of videos to raise awareness on linguistic
17 Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcasting organization that operates national radio and television in French. 239 insecurity among French Canadians in minority situation. Despite such initiatives, current findings show that a lot remains to be done to improve attitudes towards Canadian French, in particular among anglophones in the country.
Quantitative results from the LA questionnaire shows that English has a higher status than French in Ottawa as well as Gatineau. Overall, all mother tongue groups considered English to be more important than French for socio-economic mobility. There was also an important age and education factor involved as younger participants and participants with more advanced degrees were likely to consider English as more important than French. Results from the qualitative part of the questionnaire helped us elaborate this understanding. We saw that English was often described as international, universal or modern and associated with business. These are mainly traits that can be associated with the status dimension. Status-related words were employed rather rarely to describe French but words such as career, employment, government and international were used more than once. This finding provides further weight to our quantitative analysis that, although
French enjoys lower status than English in the OGR, it is not completely deprived of such status.
Language planning measures at the federal and provincial levels have most likely elevated the status of the French language. According to the Charte de la langue française, clients in Québec have the right to be served in French in business establishments. French is also the work language in most institutions in Québec. This means that proficiency in
French is necessary for most jobs in Gatineau. Similarly, Canadian federal government requires employees in many positions to be bilingual. According to a recent report 240 published by the Library of the Canadian Parliament, 67.7% of posts in the federal government located the OGR were designated bilingual (Hudon, 2017). Hence, it is necessary to be competent in French in order to find a job in Gatineau or with the federal government in either Gatineau or Ottawa. Results from our study on tweets further support this relationship as both anglophones and francophones considered it necessary to learn
French to find a job in the OGR, particularly with the federal government. This reality of the job market also explains the use of the terms like career, employment and government by survey participants in association with the French language.
As noted in a previous chapter, in bilingual places, minority languages are often attributed a lower status compared to the language of the majority. Therefore, it is surprising that people in Gatineau attribute a higher status to English than to French even though French is the majority language in the city. Previous studies conducted in Montréal and elsewhere in Québec have consistently shown this to be true in other parts of Québec as well (Lambert et al., 1960; Genesee and Holobow, 1989; Kircher, 2009; Pagé and
Olivier, 2012; Oakes, 2010). Even though French is the majority language in Québec and
Gatineau, it is a minority language in Canada. It is possible that the status of French as a minority language in the Canadian confederation outweighs its status as the majority language in Québec. This would explain the lower status attributed to French in Québec despite it being the mother tongue of an overwhelming majority of Quebecers. Kircher
(2009) further believes that the higher status attributed to English in Québec is likely due to “globalization and Quebec’s proximity to the world’s largest anglophone markets” (p.
199). Provincial and federal governments in Canada should take into account this unequal 241 status between the two languages and the increasing power of English as a global lingua franca while designing new language policies and revising existing ones.
Quantitative results from the survey showed that francophones as well as anglophones preferred their mother tongue along the dimension of solidarity. These findings are in line with previous findings, which show that speakers usually associate higher solidarity values with their in-group language. Qualitative results from the survey allowed us to analyze attitudes towards the two languages outside the dimension of status and solidarity. Based on the visual representation following principle component analysis, we noted that the words used to describe French and English formed two separate clusters.
This suggests that Canadians associate fundamentally different values with their two official languages.
One of the words most frequently associated with the French language was
“complicated" (or complex). Participants from all mother-tongue groups used this adjective more than once in reference to the French language. On the other hand, some of the most frequently used words to describe the English language were easy, straightforward and practical. Linguists agree that no language is inherently difficult or easy. This being said, the French language has a history of linguistic purism and prescriptivism (see e.g. Paveau and Rosier, 2008 and Walsh, 2012). The existence of linguistic agencies such as l’Académie française, which proclaims to be «chargée de définir la langue française» (in charge of defining the French language) (Académie-française, 2020) further attests to this prescriptivism. French is also considered a largely mono-centric language that hardly accepts linguistic variation (see e.g. Wernicke, 2016). It is possible that prescriptivism and 242 mono-centric ideology have contributed to French being viewed as a difficult language. It is also possible that complexe and complicated are not used to mean the same thing by francophones and non-francophones as French might be perceived as complex or complicated by non-francophones in terms of questions of learnability. More studies need to be conducted for more conclusive answers.
7.2. LANGUAGE USE IN THE OGR We asked a single question pertaining to language use in the OGR:
What is the pattern governing the use of French and English in different physical spaces in
Ottawa and Gatineau? (RQ2)
I studied the linguistic landscape and the linguistic soundscape of different public places in Ottawa and Gatineau to elucidate the patterns of language use in the two cities.
Municipal and provincial signs in Ottawa were always bilingual while those in Gatineau were exclusively in French. In stark contrast to this finding, downtown Gatineau included significantly more private signs in the other official language than downtown Ottawa.
Neighborhoods in Gatineau with a significant presence of anglophones also displayed extensive presence of bilingual flyers and announcement of bilingual services. On the other hand, bilingual private signs and announcement of bilingual services were present to a much smaller extent in neighborhoods in Ottawa with important francophone presence.
The two cities were also very different in terms of their linguistic soundscape.
English was almost exclusively the language of use during service encounters in Ottawa including in historically francophone neighborhoods whereas French and English were
243 both used in Gatineau including in neighborhoods with very few English speakers. English was also the language of communication during inter-group interactions involving anglophones even in situations where the majority of people in the group were speakers of
French. This was true for Ottawa as well as Gatineau. Given these observations, we believe that there exists an implicit social contract in the OGR. We call it le contrat social Ottawa-
Gatineau (term inspired from Conrad, Matthey and Matthey’s (2002) le contrat social
Biennois). This social contract can be resumed in three sentences: i) Francophones can mostly use French during public encounters in Gatineau. ii) Francophones systematically use English in public encounters in Ottawa unless it
is explicit that their interlocutor is a French speaker. iii) Anglophones are almost always accommodated by francophones and they almost
exclusively use English during public encounters in both cities.
As discussed in a previous chapter, the pre-dominant use of English among anglophones is a more wide-spread phenomenon in Québec (see e.g. Landry et al., 1997;
Gérin-Lajoie, 2014; Corbeil et al., 2007). Findings from our Twitter study helps us explain this finding, at least in the context of the OGR. We saw that some anglophones were hostile to the idea of using French. At the same time, as demonstrated by our tweets, an important number of anglophones are willing to learn the language but have difficulty practicing it due to constant linguistic accommodation from francophones.
244 7.3. LANGUAGE USE IN THE OGR AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH LANGUAGE ATTITUDES We asked two research questions focused on the relationship between language use and language attitudes:
What are the ways in which language attitudes correlate with language use observed in different physical spaces? (RQ3)
Is there a correlation between language attitudes of a Twitter user and the use of French and English in their Twitter timeline? (RQ5)
Our results show that, along with mother tongue, the influence of language attitudes is crucial in explaining language use. For francophones in our study, LA seemed to be more directly related to language use than for anglophones. Results from the Twitter study show that anglophones use very little French on Twitter regardless of their attitudes towards the language. In other words, there was no difference between anglophones with positive attitudes towards French and those with negative attitudes towards the language in terms of their use of French on Twitter. On the other hand, francophones with positive attitudes towards French used both languages on Twitter and, on average, used French more often than they used English.
Language attitude data also helps explain language use in physical spaces. Since anglophones and francophones displayed favorable attitudes towards their language along solidarity dimension, we could expect that they used their in-group language more often than the out-group language at home and with members of their in-group. This was indeed found to be true. Even in Ottawa, where many francophone participants admitted to using
English extensively, the use of French was highly prevalent in intra-group communication
245 among francophones. Le contrat social Ottawa-Gatineau can also be explained by putting together findings from our language attitude studies. Firstly, we identified that English in the OGR enjoys higher status than French. We also found that Canadians, regardless of mother tongue, rarely tweeted negatively about English and none of my participants questioned its legitimacy. On the other hand, French was often criticized and sometimes regarded with contempt. Therefore, the default use of English in Ottawa by francophones and during inter-group communication in both cities could be motivated by an attempt, in the part of francophones, to avoid situations of possible hostility. As speakers of a low status language, francophones also lack the capital that anglophones in the region have to impose the use of their language.
Findings from the three studies that form this dissertation complement and explain each other. Every study gives us new information, like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Put together, these individual pieces help us acquire a global understanding of attitudes towards and use of French and English in the OGR.
7.4. CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIELD This dissertation makes methodological as well as theoretical contributions.
Methodologically, it is the first study to my knowledge to have employed the Corpus-
Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) framework (Baker, 2006) on tweets for language attitude research. It is also one of the few studies to have investigated the relationship between language use and language attitudes by measuring these variables across a variety of contexts. Despite the extensive availability of language attitude data on social media,
246 blogs and the internet in general, this source of data is under-exploited in language attitude research. Through the use of Twitter data, I hope to have brought into attention the richness of this data source. Finally, this dissertation is novel in its use of tools from digital humanities for data analysis and visualization.
There is a lack of consensus in the field of attitude research on the relationship between language use and language attitudes. Through results from three different studies, we have identified that the two variables strongly influence each other, even though this relationship is neither straightforward nor independent of other factors. Measuring the variables across different contexts has allowed us to understand language attitudes as well as language use more globally. Our findings suggest that the status of the two languages in a bilingual community has an impact on their use during inter-group interactions while the solidarity values associated with the languages influence their use in intra-group interactions. In the context of the Ottawa-Gatineau region, we established that English has a higher status than French on both sides of the linguistic border. Language planning efforts have granted some status to French, but the two languages have yet to enjoy a similar level of status. Moreover, language planning measures have been unable to eradicate negative attitudes towards Canadian French especially among anglophones. Bilingualism in the region is largely uni-directional and the social convention requires francophones to be efficient users of both languages while anglophones do not have such obligation.
Results from my dissertation are applicable to understanding bilingualism more generally at a global scale; speakers of less powerful languages have to develop strategies to navigate their bilingualism whereas their dominant-language neighbors have no such 247 need. In some cases, it appears that minority-language bilingualism can become
“subtractive” (Cummins, 1979), a step to linguistic assimilation for the speakers of the less powerful language. For instance, 16.4% of the Ottawan population spoke French as their first official language but only 12.2% of its residents spoke French by itself or along with
English at home (Statistics Canada, 2011). The francophone share of Ottawa’s traditionally francophone neighborhoods have also consistently declined. When Poplack conducted her study, Vanier was overwhelmingly francophone and only 21% of its population spoke
English as their mother tongue (Poplack, 1989). Current figures show that French is a minority language in Vanier and its use is limited in the public domain. This suggests that, in the absence of policies that favor the minority language, its use as well as its presence can become increasingly marginal over time. Québec’s pro-French language policies appear to only have been successful in avoiding complete assimilation of its francophone population in Gatineau and in guaranteeing the use of French in the public domain within the city.
It is likely that the position of English as the most powerful language in the world exacerbates linguistic inequality in Canada. In countries where it is not natively spoken,
English is sometimes known to function as a neutral language that facilitates communication between different language groups. This is the case in the Indian subcontinent and many parts of English-speaking Africa. However, the linguistic equation is entirely different in Canada as English is the mother tongue of the country’s majority and its historically dominant group. As a result, the country’s francophone population has to constantly negotiate linguistic rights with the country’s increasingly monolingual 248 majority. Due to the powerful position of English all over the world, native speakers of
English are also unlikely to be aware of issues faced by speakers of less powerful languages. This could lead to resistance among anglophones to the protection of minority language(s) and minority language rights in their country as they have likely never experienced such need for their language group. Given such findings, majority English- speaking countries that want to protect and promote minority languages in their territory have an added responsibility of increasing awareness among their population regarding bilingualism, linguistic privilege and linguistic inequalities.
7.5. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH One of the major limitations of this work has to do with the lower number of tweets from Gatineau. As most of our tweets came from Ottawa, we were unable to analyze differences in attitudes expressed on Twitter between people from Ottawa and those from
Gatineau. Since most of our survey participants from Gatineau were francophones and most of our survey participants from Ottawa were anglophones, we were also unable to compare language attitudes between francophones in Ottawa and anglophones in Gatineau.
This study also focused on an urban setting. Similar studies in largely francophone villages in Ontario and largely anglophone villages in Québec will enhance our understanding of the Canadian linguistic border. Similarly, it would have been highly informative if we could have followed some of the survey participants on Twitter and in face-to-face interactions in daily life to compare language use and language attitudes on Twitter and in
249 physical spaces for the same set of individuals. These shortcomings should be considered in future studies.
Similar studies should also be conducted in other bilingual cities of Canada like
Moncton, New Brunswick and Sudbury, Ontario so that these findings can be compared with those from the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Future studies should also investigate language attitudes and language use in other countries where English is natively spoken and those where English is not natively spoken but where it functions as a link language.
Results from these studies will be helpful in understanding if and how the English language competes with local languages in various domains. This will also allow us to make predictions on how globalization and the popularity of English will impact the use of and attitudes towards other languages.
250 Appendix A: Language Attitude Questionnaire (English)
Start of Block: Consent Form
Q1.1 Consent to Participate in Internet Research You are invited to participate in a research study, entitled “A multidisciplinary approach to studying language attitudes and language use in the Ottawa-Gatineau region” by completing a survey. The study is being conducted by Rozen Neupane, a doctoral student in the Department of French & Italian at The University of Texas at Austin. Completing the survey should take about 15-20 minutes of your time and you will receive a $5 compensation for your participation. The purpose of this research study is to examine attitudes and opinions towards French and English languages. Your participation in the study will contribute to a better understanding of the interrelation between language attitudes and language use. You are free to contact the investigator at the address and phone number given at the end of the attached document to discuss the study. You must be at least 18 years old to participate. Please read the consent to participate form and click on the arrow to participate.
o I agree to participate in the study (1)
End of Block: Consent Form
Start of Block: ABOUT FRENCH
Start of Block: ABOUT ENGLISH
251 ABOUT ENGLISH
Q2.1 Here are some statements about the English language. For each statement, please say if you agree or not by selecting the option which most corresponds to your point of view.
252 completely partially undecided don't really don't agree
agree (1) agree (2) (3) agree (4) at all (5) English is a beautiful language. o o o o o (2.1.1) English is a language that is well suited to modern o o o o o society. (2.1.2) English is a language that lends itself well to expressing o o o o o feelings and emotions (2.1.3) Knowing English will increase my opportunities to find o o o o o employment. (2.1.4) English is richer than French. o o o o o (2.1.5) Knowing English is a significant part of Canadian o o o o o cultural heritage. (2.1.6)
253 English is a language that is important to know in
order to get o o o o o far in life. (2.1.7) Knowing English is an important part of my
personal o o o o o identity (2.1.8)
Q2.2 What words do you think are the most suitable to describe the English language?
______
______
______
______
______
End of Block: ABOUT ENGLISH
254 ABOUT FRENCH
Q3.1 Here are some statements about the French language. For each statement, please say if you agree or not by selecting the option which most corresponds to your point of view.
255 completely partially undecided don't really don't agree
agree (1) agree (2) (3) agree (4) at all (5) French is a beautiful language. o o o o o (3.1.1) French is a language that is well suited to modern o o o o o society. (3.1.2) French is a language that lends itself well to expressing o o o o o feelings and emotions. (3.1.3) Knowing French will increase my opportunities to find o o o o o employment. (3.1.4) French is more elegant than English. o o o o o (3.1.5) Knowing French is a significant part of Canadian o o o o o cultural heritage. (3.1.6)
256 French is a language that is important to know in
order to get o o o o o far in life. (3.1.7) Knowing French is an important part of my
personal o o o o o identity. (3.1.8)
Q3.2 What words do you think are the most suitable to describe the French language?
______
______
______
______
______
End of Block: ABOUT FRENCH
Start of Block: ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGES
ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGES
Q4.1 For the following questions, please judge your level of competence in the language(s) you know. For each aspect of the language(s), i.e. understanding, speaking, reading and writing, please rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning ‘not at all’, and 5
257 meaning ‘perfectly’. Please choose the option that best corresponds to your competence in the language(s) you know.
258 1 (not at 5 (perfectly) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) all) (1) (5)
I understand English (4.1.1) o o o o o I speak English (4.1.2) o o o o o I read English (4.1.3) o o o o o I write English (4.1.4) o o o o o I understand French (4.1.5) o o o o o I speak French (4.1.6) o o o o o I read French (4.1.7) o o o o o I write French (4.1.8) o o o o o I understand ______(please specify) o o o o o (4.1.9) I speak ______(please specify) o o o o o (4.1.10) I read ______(please specify) o o o o o (4.1.11)
259 I write ______(please specify) o o o o o (4.1.12)
Q4.2 Would you consider yourself to be:
o monolingual: specify language (1) ______
o bilingual: specify languages (2) ______
o trilingual: specify languages (3) ______
o multilingual: specify languages (4) ______
Q4.3 If French is one of the languages you know, is the kind of French you speak closer to Canadian French or European French? Please rate your variety of French on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning ‘Canadian French’ and 5 meaning ‘European French’. 1 5 (European (Canadian/Québécois 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) French) (5) French) (1)
Your French (1) o o o o o
End of Block: ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGES
Start of Block: Place of learning
260 Q4.4 At what age did you start learning French?
▼ Since birth (1) ... I don't speak French (6)
Q4.5 At what age did you start learning English?
▼ Since birth (1) ... after the age of 20 (5)
261 Q4.6 Where did you learn French? (You can choose multiple options)
▢ Home/family (1)
▢ school (2)
▢ work (3)
▢ popular culture (internet, music, films etc.) (4)
▢ social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) (5)
▢ leisure activities (reading, video games etc.) (6)
▢ travel (7)
▢ community (8)
▢ I have never learned French (9)
262 Q4.7 Where did you learn English? (You can choose multiple options)
▢ home/family (1)
▢ school (2)
▢ work (3)
▢ popular culture (internet, music, films etc.) (4)
▢ social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) (5)
▢ leisure activities (reading, video games etc.) (6)
▢ travel (7)
▢ community (8)
End of Block: Place of learning
Start of Block: ABOUT YOURSELF
ABOUT YOURSELF
Please answer a few general questions about yourself. For those questions which require written responses, write in the box provided.
263 Q5.1 What is the highest level of education that you have completed?
▼ Less than high school diploma (1) ... Other (7)
Q5.2 How old are you? (in years)
▼ 18 (1) ... 100 (83)
Q5.3 Gender
o Male (1) o Female (2) o Other (3) ______
Q5.4 Where were you born?
o Canada (1) o Other (please specify) (2) ______
End of Block: ABOUT YOURSELF
Start of Block: Born in Canada
Q6.1 In which province/territory were you born?
▼ Ontario (2) ... Yukon (13)
264
Q6.2 In which city were you born?
o Ottawa (2) o Gatineau (1) o Other (3)
End of Block: Born in Canada
Start of Block: Current living
Q7.1 In which city do you currently live?
o Ottawa (2) o Gatineau (1)
End of Block: Current living
Start of Block: Neighborhood Ottawa/Gatineau
Q7.2 In which neighborhood or secteur do you live?
______
265 Q7.3 For how many years you been living in the Ottawa/Gatineau region ?
o since birth (1) o less than 1 year (2) o between 1 and 5 years (3) o between 5 and 10 years (4) o 10 years or more (5)
End of Block: Neighborhood Ottawa/Gatineau
Start of Block: ABOUT YOUR PARENTS ABOUT YOUR PARENTS
The questions in this section concern your parents’ languages, birthplace and how long they have been living in Canada for.
Q8.1 What is/are your mother’s main language(s)?
▢ English (2)
▢ French (1)
▢ Other (please specify) (3) ______
266 Q8.2 Where was your mother born?
o Canada (1) o Other (please specify) (2) ______
Q8.3 What is your father's main language?
▢ English (2)
▢ French (1)
▢ Other (please specify) (3) ______
Q8.4 Where was your father born?
o Canada (1) o Other (please specify) (2) ______
End of Block: ABOUT YOUR PARENTS
Start of Block: Father born outside
267 Q9.1 What was/were your father's main language(s) before he moved here?
▢ English (2)
▢ French (1)
▢ Other (please specify) (3)
▢ He has never lived in Canada (4)
▢ I don't know (5)
Q9.2 How long has your father been living in Canada?
o Since birth (1) o not since birth: (specify the approximate number of months or years) (2) ______
o never (3) o I don't know (4)
End of Block: Father born outside
Start of Block: Father born in Canada
Q10.1 In which province/territory was your father born?
▼ Ontario (2) ... Yukon (13)
268
Q10.2 In which city was your father born?
o Ottawa (2) o Gatineau (1) o Other (3)
End of Block: Father born in Canada
Start of Block: Mother born outside
Q11.1 What was/were your mother's main language(s) before she moved here?
▢ English (2)
▢ French (1)
▢ Other (please specify) (3)
▢ She has never lived in Canada (4)
▢ I don’t know (5)
269 Q11.2 How long has your mother been living in Canada?
o Since birth (1) o not since birth: (specify the approximate number of months or years) (2) ______
o never (3) o I don’t know (4)
End of Block: Mother born outside
Start of Block: Mother born in Canada
Q12.1 In which province/territory was your mother born?
▼ Ontario (2) ... Yukon (13)
Q12.2 In which city was your mother born?
o Ottawa (2) o Gatineau (1) o Other (3)
End of Block: Mother born in Canada
Start of Block: Thank you!
Thank you for filling in this questionnaire – your help is very much appreciated
270 End of Block: Thank you!
Appendix B: Language Attitude Questionnaire (French)
Start of Block: Consentement
Q1 Consentement pour participer à une étude sur Internet. Vous êtes invité(e) à participer à une étude de recherche qui s’intitule « A multidisciplinary approach to studying language attitudes and language use in the Ottawa-Gatineau region » en remplissant un sondage. Cette étude est menée par Rozen Neupané, étudiant au doctorat dans le département de français et d’italien de l’Université du Texas à Austin. Le sondage prend environ 15-20 minutes à compléter et vous recevrez une compensation de $5 pour votre participation. L’étude vise à comprendre les attitudes et les opinions vis-à-vis des langues française et anglaise. Votre participation nous aidera à mieux comprendre la relation entre les attitudes linguistiques et l’usage de différentes langues. Si vous avez des questions sur l’étude, n’hésitez pas à communiquer avec le chercheur par courriel ou par téléphone (coordonnées dans le document ci-joint). Vous devez avoir au moins 18 ans pour participer à cette étude. Veuillez lire le fichier «consentement pour participer» et cliquer sur la flèche pour participer à la recherche.
o J'accepte de participer à l'étude (1)
End of Block: Consentement
Start of Block: LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE
271 LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE
Q2.1 Voici quelques remarques sur la langue française. Pour chaque proposition, veuillez dire si vous êtes d’accord ou non en cochant la case qui correspond le mieux à votre point de vue.
272 pas tout à fait plutôt indécis(e) pas du tout tellement d'accord (1) d'accord (2) (3) d'accord (5) d'accord (4) Le français est une belle langue. (1) o o o o o Le français est une langue qui est très appropriée o o o o o pour la société moderne. (2) Le français est une langue qui se prête à l’expression des o o o o o sentiments et des émotions. (3) Connaître le français augmentera mes chances o o o o o de trouver un emploi. (4) Le français est plus élégant que o o o o o l'anglais (5)
273 Connaître le français constitue une partie significative o o o o o de l’héritage culturel canadien. (6) Il est important de connaître le français pour o o o o o réussir dans la vie. (7) La connaissance du français est une composante
importante de o o o o o mon identité personnelle. (8)
Q2.2 Quels sont les mots qui vous paraissent les plus appropriés pour décrire la langue française ?
______
End of Block: LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE
Start of Block: LA LANGUE ANGLAISE
274 LA LANGUE ANGLAISE
Q3.1 Voici quelques remarques concernant la langue anglaise. Pour chaque proposition, veuillez dire si vous êtes d’accord ou non en cochant la case qui correspond le mieux à votre point de vue.
275 pas tout à fait plutôt indécis(e) pas du tout tellement d'accord (1) d'accord (2) (3) d'accord (5) d'accord (4) L’anglais est une belle langue. (1) o o o o o L’anglais est une langue qui est très appropriée pour la o o o o o société moderne (2) L’anglais est une langue qui se prête à l’expression des o o o o o sentiments et des émotions. (3) Connaître l’anglais augmentera mes chances o o o o o de trouver un emploi. (4) L’anglais est plus riche que le français. o o o o o (5) Connaître l’anglais constitue une partie significative o o o o o de l’héritage culturel canadien. (6)
276 Il est important de connaître l’anglais pour o o o o o réussir dans la vie. (7) La connaissance de l’anglais est une composante
importante de o o o o o mon identité personnelle. (8)
Q3.2 Quels sont les mots qui vous paraissent les plus appropriés pour décrire la langue anglaise?
______
End of Block: LA LANGUE ANGLAISE
Start of Block: LES LANGUES QUE VOUS CONNAISSEZ
LES LANGUES QUE VOUS CONNAISSEZ
Q4.1 Pour les questions suivantes, veuillez juger de votre niveau pour la ou les langue(s) que vous connaissez. Pour chacun des aspects de la langue / des langues, à savoir, la compréhension, le parler, la lecture et l’écriture, veuillez vous évaluer sur une échelle de 1
277 à 5: 1 correspond à « pas du tout » et 5 à « parfaitement ». Pour chacune des langues que vous connaissez, choisissez l'option qui correspond le mieux à votre niveau de langue.
278 5 1 (pas du 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) (parfaitement) tout) (1) (5)
Je comprends le français (1) o o o o o
Je parle le français (2) o o o o o
Je lis le français (3) o o o o o
J’écris le français (4) o o o o o
Je comprends l’anglais (5) o o o o o
Je parle l’anglais (6) o o o o o
Je lis l’anglais (7) o o o o o
J’écris l’anglais (8) o o o o o Je comprends ______(préciser)
(9) o o o o o Je parle ______(préciser)
(10) o o o o o Je lis ______(préciser)
(11) o o o o o J’écris ______(préciser)
(12) o o o o o
279
Q4.2 Vous considérez-vous comme :
o monolingue: précisez la langue (1) ______
o bilingue: précisez les langues (2) ______
o trilingue: précisez les langues (3) ______
o multilingue: précisez les langues (4) ______
Q4.3 Parlez-vous un français plutôt québécois/canadien ou plutôt européen ? Veuillez l’évaluer sur une échelle de 1 à 5 : 1 correspond à « tout à fait québécois/canadien » et 5 à « tout à fait européen ». 1 (tout à fait 5 (tout à fait québécois/canadien) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) européen) (1) (5)
Votre français (1) o o o o o
End of Block: LES LANGUES QUE VOUS CONNAISSEZ
Start of Block: Lieu d'apprentissage
280 Q4.4 À quel âge avez-vous commencé à apprendre le français ?
▼ depuis ma naissance (1) ... après l'âge de 20 ans (5)
Q4.5 À quel âge avez-vous commencé à apprendre l'anglais ?
▼ depuis ma naissance (1) ... Je ne parle pas anglais (6)
Q4.6 Où avez-vous appris le français ? (Vous pouvez choisir plusieurs options)
▢ famille/maison (1)
▢ école (2)
▢ travail (3)
▢ culture populaire (musique, films etc.) (4)
▢ réseaux sociaux (Facebook, Twitter etc.) (5)
▢ loisirs (lecture, jeux vidéos etc.) (6)
▢ vacances/tourisme (7)
▢ communauté (8)
281
Q4.7 Où avez-vous appris l'anglais ? (Vous pouvez choisir plusieurs options)
▢ famille/maison (1)
▢ école (2)
▢ travail (3)
▢ culture populaire (musique, films etc.) (4)
▢ réseaux sociaux (Facebook, Twitter etc.) (5)
▢ loisirs (lecture, jeux vidéos etc.) (6)
▢ vacances/tourisme (7)
▢ communauté (8)
▢ je n'ai jamais appris l'anglais (9)
End of Block: Lieu d'apprentissage
Start of Block: À PROPOS DE VOUS-MÊME
À PROPOS DE VOUS-MÊME
Veuillez répondre à quelques questions générales à propos de vous-même. Pour les questions qui demandent une réponse écrite, répondez dans l'espace attribué à cet effet
282
Q5.1 Quel niveau de formation avez-vous complété ?
o école secondaire non terminée (1) o école secondaire (2) o CÉGEP/DEP ou équivalent (3) o baccalauréat (4) o maitrise (5) o doctorat (6)
Q5.2 Quel âge avez-vous ? ______ans
▼ 18 (1) ... 100 (83)
Q5.3 Genre :
o masculin (1) o féminin (2) o autre (3) ______
283 Q5.4 Où êtes-vous né(e) ?
o Canada (1) o à l'extérieur du Canada (précisez) (2) ______
End of Block: À PROPOS DE VOUS-MÊME
Start of Block: Né(e) au Canada
Q6.1 Dans quelle province êtes-vous né(e) ?
▼ Québec (1) ... Yukon (13)
Q6.2 Dans quelle ville êtes-vous né(e) ?
o Gatineau (1) o Ottawa (2) o autre (3)
End of Block: Né(e) au Canada
Start of Block: Ville actuelle
Q7.1 Dans quelle ville habitez-vous actuellement ?
o Gatineau (1) o Ottawa (2)
End of Block: Ville actuelle
Start of Block: Quartier Gatineau/Ottawa 284
Q7.2 Dans quel secteur/quartier habitez-vous ?
______
Q7.3 Depuis quand vivez-vous dans la région d’Ottawa-Gatineau ?
o depuis ma naissance (1) o depuis plus de 10 ans (2) o depuis moins de 10 ans (3) o depuis moins de 5 ans (4) o depuis moins d'un an (5)
End of Block: Quartier Gatineau/Ottawa
Start of Block: VOS PARENTS
VOS PARENTS
Les questions de la section suivante concernent les langues que connaissent vos parents, leur lieu de naissance et depuis combien de temps ils vivent au Canada.
285 Q8.1 Quelle(s) est/sont la langue/les langues principale(s) de votre mère ?
▢ français (1)
▢ anglais (2)
▢ autre(s) (préciser) (3) ______
Q8.2 Où est née votre mère ?
o Canada (1) o à l'extérieur du Canada (préciser) (2) ______
Q8.3 Quelle(s) est/sont la langue/les langues principale(s) de votre père ?
▢ français (1)
▢ anglais (2)
▢ autre(s) (préciser) (3) ______
286 Q8.4 Où est né votre père ?
o Canada (1) o à l'extérieur du Canada (2) ______
End of Block: VOS PARENTS
Start of Block: Père né hors Canada
Q9.1 Quelle(s) était/étaient la langue/les langues principale(s) de votre père avant d’emménager ici ?
▢ français (1)
▢ anglais (2)
▢ autre(s) (préciser) (3) ______
Q9.2 Depuis quand votre père vit-il au Canada ?
o depuis sa naissance (1) o pas depuis sa naissance: (précisez à peu près combien de mois/d’années) (2) ______
o jamais (3) o je ne sais pas (4)
End of Block: Père né hors Canada
287 Start of Block: Père né au Canada
Q10.1 Dans quelle province/territoire est né votre père ?
o Québec (1) o Ontario (2) o Alberta (3) o Colombie-Britannique (4) o Île-du-Prince-Édouard (5) o Manitoba (6) o Nouveau-Brunswick (7) o Nouvelle-Écosse (8) o Saskatchewan (9) o Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador (10) o Nunavut (11) o Territoires du Nord-Ouest (12) o Yukon (13)
288 Q10.2 Dans quelle ville est votre père né ?
o Gatineau (1) o Ottawa (2) o autre (3)
End of Block: Père né au Canada
Start of Block: Mère née hors Canda
Q11.1 Quelle(s) était/étaient la langue/les langues principale(s) de votre mère avant d’emménager ici ?
▢ français (1)
▢ anglais (2)
▢ autre(s) (préciser) (3) ______
Q11.2 Depuis quand votre mère vit-elle au Canada ?
o depuis sa naissance (1) o pas depuis sa naissance: (précisez à peu près combien de mois/d’années) (2) ______
o jamais (3) o je ne sais pas (4)
End of Block: Mère née hors Canda
289 Start of Block: Mère née au Canada
Q12.1 Dans quelle province/territoire est née votre mère ?
▼ Québec (1) ... Yukon (13)
Q12.2 Dans quelle ville est votre mère née ?
o Gatineau (1) o Ottawa (2) o autre (3)
End of Block: Mère née au Canada
Start of Block: Merci !
Merci d’avoir rempli ce questionnaire ! Votre collaboration nous est précieuse !
End of Block: Merci !
290
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