Managing France's Regional Languages
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MANAGING FRANCE’S REGIONAL LANGUAGES: LANGUAGE POLICY IN BILINGUAL PRIMARY EDUCATION IN ALSACE Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by Michelle Anne Harrison September 2012 Abstract The introduction of regional language bilingual education in France dates back to the late 1960s in the private education system and to the 1980s in the public system. Before this time the extensive use of regional languages was forbidden in French schools, which served as ‘local centres for the gallicisation of France’ (Blackwood 2008, 28). France began to pursue a French-only language policy from the time of the 1789 Revolution, with Jacobin ideology proposing that to be French, one must speak French. Thus began the shaping of France into a nation-state. As the result of the official language policy that imposed French in all public domains, as well as extra-linguistic factors such as the Industrial Revolution and the two World Wars, a significant language shift occurred in France during the twentieth century, as an increasing number of parents chose not to pass on their regional language to the next generation. In light of the decline in intergenerational transmission of the regional languages, Judge (2007, 233) concludes that ‘in the short term, everything depends on education in the [regional languages]’. This thesis analyses the development of language policy in bilingual education programmes in Alsace; Spolsky’s tripartite language policy model (2004), which focuses on language management, language practices and language beliefs, will be employed. In spite of the efforts of the State to impose the French language, in Alsace the traditionally non-standard spoken regional language variety, Alsatian, continued to be used widely until the mid-twentieth century. Whilst Alsatian has been spoken, the traditional language of writing and reference has been standard German. Today Alsace is a region of north eastern France, but it has existed under the political control of Germany for prolonged periods of time in the past, changing hands between the two countries five times between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Since the mid-twentieth century a significant language shift away from Alsatian has occurred in the region, with estimates that over 90% spoke the language variety in 1946 in comparison with only 43% of the population in 2012 (OLCA 2012a). Regional language bilingual education programmes were introduced in Alsace in the early 1990s in the private and public education systems. In both systems the language-in-education policy supported has primarily promoted the learning of and through French and standard German. The case study that forms the central part of the thesis seeks to examine current language policy in practice. It will analyse the place of Alsatian in the modern regional language bilingual classroom and examine the language beliefs of the key actors in the bilingual education programmes (namely parents, teachers and policy-makers at regional level). Finally, it will discuss what this means for efforts to reverse the language shift in twenty- first-century Alsace. 1 Acknowledgements The completion of this project would not have been possible without the generous funding offered to me by the University of Liverpool, for which I am very grateful. There are many people who have helped me in the preparation and writing of this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to thank my primary supervisor, Dr. Robert Blackwood, for his valued advice, support, encouragement, understanding and patience. I am also very thankful to my second supervisor, Professor Charles Forsdick, for his guidance, advice and support. Special thanks must be given to Dr. Stefania Tufi for all of her encouragement and advice. Thanks are also given to Dr. Kay Chadwick and Professor Sue Wright for their advice in the latter stages of writing up the thesis. The support of my mum, Eve Harrison, has been invaluable throughout my studies. I would not have been able to complete this thesis without her. I must thank the other members of my family who have also provided a source of encouragement, in particular my brother, Kevin Harrison, as well as my cousins Julie Monaghan and Tracy Woosey and their families, the extended Harrison family, and also Theresa Butler, Jean Carr and Katrina Keegan. I am thankful to my dear friends for all of their continued support through the years, in particular Miranda Haigh, Laura Devaynes, Samantha Fowler, Debbie Callender, Maria Chan, Gemma Aden and Kate Webster; I must add that there are other friends, including postgraduates and colleagues past and present from the Department of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at Liverpool, who have also encouraged me whom I have not been able to list here. In southern Alsace, I am especially grateful for the support given to me by Liliane Puchta-Burysz and Irma Fuchs since I first spent time in the region in 2003. In Strasbourg, I would like to thank Christine Hélot for all of her help and encouragement in my studies, and Britta Bernert for her assistance whilst I was carrying out my fieldwork. The help offered to me by Astrid Ruff and Pierre Kretz in preparation for the fieldwork went above and beyond the call of duty, for which I am very thankful. Finally, I must thank Anita Marchal from the Académie de Strasbourg and Pascale Lux from the ABCM school network for their participation in my research, as well as all of the head teachers, teachers, trainee teachers, school support staff, pupils and parents who participated in the classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews. I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my dad, David Harrison. Although he has not been able to share in my university experience, his overwhelming pride in my early school achievements has encouraged me throughout my studies. All of the translations contained within this thesis are my own unless it is stated otherwise. 2 Table of Contents Page Abstract ...……………………………………………………………………….... 1 Acknowledgements ...…………………………………………………………….. 2 Table of Contents ...………………………………………………………………. 3 List of Figures and Tables ...……………………………………………………... 7 Chapter 1: Introduction: Research Context and Outline of Thesis 1.1 Introduction ...……………………………………………………………….. 8 1.2 Research Context and Existing Literature ………...…………………………. 8 1.3 Research Questions ...……………………………………………………… 9 1.4 Thesis Structure ...……………………………………………………….... 10 1.5 Conclusion ...……………………………………………………………….. 12 Chapter 2: Language Policy 2.1 Introduction to Language Policy ...…...……………………………………… 14 2.1.1 Language Management ....………………………………………………. 16 2.1.2 Language Beliefs .……………………………………………………….. 21 2.1.3 Language Practices ……………………………………………………… 22 2.2 Fishman’s Reversing Language Shift ...……………………………………… 24 2.3 Language Policy in France ...………………………………………………… 28 2.3.1 The Beginning of a French Language Policy …………………………… 28 2.3.2 Pre-Revolutionary French Language Policy ...…...……………………… 29 2.3.3 The Revolution and the Creation of the French Nation-State …...………. 31 2.3.4 The Nineteenth Century: Establishment of French Obligatory Education ...……………………………………………………………… 34 2.3.5 Late Nineteenth-Century France ...……………………………………… 36 2.3.6 The First and Second World Wars ....…………………………………… 37 2.3.7 The Deixonne Law ...……………….…………………………………… 39 2.3.8 The Decolonisation Process and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie ...…………………………………………………………. 40 2.3.9 The Defence of French against English: Etiemble’s Parlez-vous franglais?, the Bas-Lauriol and Toubon Laws ...….……………………. 43 2.3.10 French Language Agencies ...………………………………………….. 45 2.3.11 Progress for the RLs in education ...…………………………………… 47 2.3.12 1992: An Amendment to the French Constitution ...……...…………… 49 2.3.13 The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages …………... 51 2.3.14 2008: The Constitutional Recognition of the RLs ...………..………….. 55 2.4 Conclusion ...………………………………………………………………… 56 Chapter 3: A Historical Sociolinguistic Overview of Alsace 3.1 Introduction .....……………………………………………………………... 60 3.2 The Establishment of Germanic Peoples in Alsace ……..………………….. 62 3.3 Alsace, a Region of France …………….…………………………………… 64 3.3.1 The French Revolution: The Beginnings of a Linguistic Revolution 3 in Alsace ..……….……………………………………………………… 65 3.3.2 The Impact of the French Revolution .....……………………………….. 68 3.4 The Return of Alsace to the Control of a Newly Unified Germany .….……. 69 3.4.1 Alsatian Regionalism …..……………………………………………….. 71 3.5 The First World War ......……………………………………………………. 73 3.6 A Return to France ...…...…………………………………………………… 74 3.6.1 The Exceptional Status of Religion in Alsace ….……………………….. 76 3.7 The Second World War: The Annexation of Alsace to Nazi Germany .......... 76 3.8 Post-1945: Alsace, Region of France ...……………………………………... 80 3.8.1 Language-in-Education Policy in Alsace ...…………………………….. 82 3.8.2 Strasbourg: Home of the Key European Institutions ..…..……………… 86 3.8.3 1968: A Turning Point in the Cultural Life of Alsace ......……………… 87 3.8.4 The RL in the Press and Media ..………………………...……………… 88 3.8.5 OLCA and E friejohr fer unseri Sproch ...……………….……………… 92 3.8.6 Alsatian Theatre ..………………………………………..……………… 94 3.8.7 The Vitality of Alsatian at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century ...……. 95 3.8.8 Learning the RL outside of the Home and School ..……………….…… 98 3.8.9 Alsatian: A Tool to Learn English ..…………………………………… 100 3.8.10 Employment across Borders: Motivations to Maintain Bilingualism in Alsace