Claudia
Hello, I am Claudia!
I am 18 years old and I come from a very French Quebecer family. I study Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, I love learning new languages because it allows me to see the world from a different perspective and because it is practical in various situations. It is also cool to be able to switch languages when the situation calls for it.
My goal for the future is to become an urban planner for a big city. I cannot wait to work on projects and to get to know that field better, but what I am most excited about is to build a model with small trees and buildings.
Topic ideas
Choosing one topic is hard for me, especially when I know how much work I will put on this project. I want it to be meaningful to me, I want to be invested in this project. The smart choice would be to find a topic in relation to the career path I am interested in, but there are not too many subjects that cover both the studies of language and urban planning. I could also focus on some of my hobbies. I love to paint, I also enjoy skiing and most other outdoor activities. Lastly, I could find inspiration in the people that surrounds me while incorporating aspects of previous ideas.
This morning, as I was crossing the Mercier bridge in the bus, I thought about the progress of my topic selection which, since last class, was still at "urban something".
My mother grew up on a farm, as the rest of her family did for many generations. My father drove cars from the scrap yard in the field behind his house. My mother ended up working in Montreal, so did my father a couple of years later. And here I am today, going to school in this big city, knowing little to nothing about living in the countryside.
And just like that, I found my "urban something". I want to do my project on the effect urbanization has on language.
Topic : Urbanization's influence on language
Now that I have my subject, the next step will be to do some research on that matter, I will then be able to get more specific in the area that I want to study. Here is what I am interested in;
- The effects of industrialization and globalization on language acquisition
- The impact of the industrialization in the province of Quebec on language and education
- The desire to learn a second and third language caused by industrialization
- Canadian accents and language variation
- Different accents, slang and particularities in the province of Quebec
- Languages spoken in Canada and Quebec through the years
Source #1 : Language Contact
Moura, Isabella Mozzillo de, and Gorovitz, Sabine. Language Contact : Mobility, Borders and Urbanization. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.
URL: https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=939569&site=eds-live&scope=site
(This is not really the first source I found, I am replacing the one I had before that did not work with this one.)
Authors : Isabella Mozzillo, professor of linguistics at the Pelotas Federal University in Brazil and Sabine Gorovitz, author of "Frontières linguistiques en contexte migratoire"
Type of source : E-Book
This book was published by Cambridge Scholar Publishing and is recent (2015), which makes me believe that it is reliable.
This E-Book is about language contact, more precisely language contact in Brazil. Language contact is when two languages that are in contact influence each other. This will not be my main source, but it will be an interesting factor to look at when I will look at the evolution of language with urbanization in Canada / Quebec. The situation of Montreal is probably subject to language contact since there is, in the same city, many French and English people cohabiting as well as many immigrants speaking different languages. There is a chapter on the Caribbean Hispanic youth in Montreal that will be useful.
This source from Statistics Canada shows various data on Canadians and Quebecers and their mother thongs from 1901 to 2016. It will be interesting to compare these numbers to the growth of each city.
Source #2 : Statistics Canada, Evolution of Language
The evolution of language populations in Canada, by mother tongue, from 1901 to 2016. Statistics Canada, February 21, 2018.
Source #3 : Culture, Language (Montreal and Toronto)
Polèse, Mario, and Shearmur, Richard. “Culture, Language, and the Location of High-Order Service Functions: The Case of Montreal and Toronto.” Economic Geography, vol. 80, no. 4, Oct. 2004, pp. 329–350.
URL: https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2182/stable/30032984?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Authors: Mario Polèse and Richard Shearmur, both from the "INRS Urbanization, Culture and Society, University of Quebec, 3465 rue Durocher, Montreal, QC "(Polèse and Shearmur, 329)
Type of source: Academic article
This source will probably not be my main source of information, but seemed relevant as it is about the influence of culture and language on metropolis, focusing on Montreal and Toronto. They examine how Toronto is gaining dominance over Montreal. It was published in 2004, so I assume that some information in that article will not be as relevant today as they were then.
In this ted talk, the linguist Mandana Seyfeddinipur explores the effect of globalization, urbanization and climate change on language while focusing on endangered languages. People give up their mother tongues and teach their children the language that they feel would give them a better future with more opportunities. According to the linguist, out of the approx. 7 000 languages that are spoken in the world, 50 of them are spoken by half of the population of the world. She then talks about projects to record and film dying languages.
This short video by statistics Canada shows the amount of people living in rural and urban areas throughout the years in Canada, and the cities with the highest population.
What I found so far...
As the cities grow in population in Canada, the language spoken varies as new words are invented, but also with the influence of other cultures that we become exposed to with globalization. As the cities grows, more career opportunities present themselves and more people move to these cities. Some immigrants keep teaching their children their mother tongues, but many raise them with the official language of the city they moved in to give them a more successful future in the new environment. This tendency affects many endangered languages, they slowly disappear and get replaced by those more mainstream languages.
My next step will be to look at how the level of education of the population of Canada changed with time, to then compare these numbers to the amount of people living in rural and urban areas through the years. Once I gather enough information, I would like to make a timeline of the evolution of language and education in Canada, Quebec or Montreal. I would of course include the movement of the population and the major events that might have caused some major shifts.
Source #4 : The Sociolinguistics of Urbanization (Nordic Countries)
Nordberg, Bengt. The Sociolinguistics of Urbanization : The Case of the Nordic Countries. De Gruyter, 1994.
URL : https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=559959&site=eds-live&scope=site
Author : Bengt Nordberg, Linguist
Type of source : E-Book
"Urbanization thus has demographic, economic, social and ethnographic dimensions. Although all of these affect language, it is obvious that the last two aspects are of the greatest consequence for linguistics" (Nordberg, 1-2)
This is the first source I found that is on the exact subject of my studies! Although it is not about Canada, It will be very interesting to see how urbanization influenced Nordic countries. Already by looking at the titles, I know that this is a promising source for my subject:
- Language Use in Rural and Urban Settings
- Internal Migration, Biography Formation and Linguistic Change
- Linguistic Variation and Composite Life Modes
- From the Valley to the City: Language Modification and Language Attitudes
Source #5 : Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French
Lodge, R. Anthony. A Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
URL : https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=157927&site=eds-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_C
Author : Anthony Lodge, Professor of French Language and Linguistics at the University of St Andrews
Type of source : E-Book
This source treats the evolution of the French language in Paris throughout history with urbanization, immigration and social stratification from medieval times to today. Much like my source #4, it is equivalent to what I want to do but for another region. I will be able to compare these two sources and see how language varies with particular phenomenon.
Data From Source #2 : Language in Canada
According to : The evolution of language populations in Canada, by mother tongue, from 1901 to 2016. Statistics Canada, February 21, 2018.
- Share of people whose mother tongue is English
1911: 62.3%
1941 : 56,5% (all-time low)
1986 : 62,2%
2016 : 57%
Without Quebec, the numbers were between 74% and 80% before 1986, and decreased since then. In 2016, they were at 71,8%.
English as a mother tongue in Quebec :
1901 : 17,4% 2016 : 8,1% : decrease, like the amount of French people outside Quebec.
- Share of people whose mother tongue is not one of the official languages of Canada - Immigration
1901 : 8% 1986 : 13%
With no sustained migration, numbers went down from 1931 to 1951, during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. Since the early 1990s, high numbers of immigrants are admitted in Canada - 200 000 to 250 000 per year.
2016 : 22% (130 languages were recorded)
Since 1991, there are more people with non-official languages as a mother tongue than English in Quebec.
- State of other languages in Canada
1901 to 1941 : The population of non-official languages as a mother tongue is mostly German. Until 1981, they are mostly European languages. There was a wider variety of European languages after WWII (among those are German, Italian, Greek and Dutch).
The composition of immigrant languages changes drastically after 1970 and 1980 because of a change in immigration rules. There are more non-European languages, and an increase in language diversity. In 1971, less than 100 000 people have Chinese as their mother tongue; in 2016, that number got to 1,3 million people. The other languages grow steadily.
- Share of people whose mother tongue is an Aboriginal language
1901 : 1,4% (this data is probably incomplete, the number would be higher)
2016 : 0,6% (213 225 people)
Several Aboriginal languages are now endangered. As stated by Statistics Canada, the vitality of these languages was harmed by residential school systems (1870s to 1990s)
For more information about residential school system, I would suggest this booklet written by the Union of Ontario Indians based on research compiled by Karen Restoule:
- Share of people whose mother tongue is French :
1941 : 29,3%
2016 : 21%
The share of population with French as their mother tongues was affected by the waves of immigration (in the early 20th century and after WWII), but the percentage was maintained because of high fertility rates.
In 2016, there is a higher population with mother tongues other than the two official languages (22%) than those whose mother tongues are french (21%).
In Quebec from 1901 to 2001, the share of people with French as their mother tongues is stable with around 80%. In 2016, this number is at 78%.
French as a mother tongue outside Quebec :
1901 : 8,2% 2016 : 3,8%
More charts and a complete description of the charts are available on the Statistics Canada Website. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2018001-eng.htm
Belshaw, John Douglas. Canadian History: Post-Confederation. BC Campus, 2015
Author: John Douglas Belshaw, PhD is a former professor of history at the Thompson Rivers University. He wrote books mainly about Vancouver, British Columbia and their history.
This source is reliable, the author studies in this field and the goal of this book is to give more accessible information to the students in British Columbia. The sources are listed at the end of each chapter.
"Between 1871-1911, the population of Canada nearly doubled, from 3,689,000 to 7,207,000. Most of that growth was in urban areas as the share of the workforce engaged in non-agricultural pursuits rose from 51.9% to over 60% in the same period. [2] Even in Nova Scotia, where the benefits of industrialization were not long lasting nor very deep, the impact on the scale of urban settlements was very dramatic: in the decade after Confederation, Halifax grew by 22%, New Glasgow by 55%, Sydney Mines by 57%, and Truro by 64%. From 1891-1901, a decade of immigration strongly associated with the growth of population and farm settlement in the West, Sydney tripled in size, emerging as the second largest city in the province " (Belshaw)
This is the first paragraph of this chapter, which deals with the industrialization of Canada from 1867 to 1920. Although it does not contain data from more recent dates, it will be useful to see causes for the movement of the population. I will also be able to make links with the numbers and percentage of population here with those of my source #2 from statistics Canada that looks at the evolution of language in Canada.
Urbanization in Canada : some numbers and explanations
The information comes from Statistics Canada's video that I posted on my page earlier (link to video on the right), from another Statistics Canada page called "Canada goes urban" (That I will call Statistics Canada 2) and from the source #6, in the chapter "Urbanization and Industry".
1861 : 3,2 million people live in Canada, 84% in rural areas. Canada's economy is based on primary sectors. (Statistics Canada 2)
Urbanization in Canada seems to have been boosted by the Confederation (1867): "Larger factories replaced smaller shops and these factories, of course, were located in towns. Opportunities to earn cash wages attracted young people off the land, especially those who were unlikely to inherit the family farm. Newcomers from abroad, naturally, came ashore in large port cities and those port cities were the outlets for manufactured goods. The ability to consolidate dumps of fuel, whether wood or fossil fuels, was greater in cities that had port and rail, or even canal facilities. The cities, too, were centres of finance, and industrialism was nothing without capital." (Belshaw)
As cities get bigger and have more credibility, companies are more tempted to relocate and to take advantage of it. (Belshaw)
1871 (after confederation) : Most live in rural areas. There is no metropolitan regions. In the West, Victoria is the largest urban centre with about 3000 people. Ottawa has 22 000 people. (Statistics Canada)
The population of Canada nearly doubles from 1871 to 1911 according to professor John Douglas Belshaw, going from 3 689 000 to 7 207 000. The growth is felt all over the country, and is mainly concentrated on urban areas as the percentage of people working non-agricultural jobs go from 51,9% to 60%.
Population growth is fastest in the west : the population of Calgary counts 4000 people in 1901, and has 1,4 million in 2016. (Statistics Canada) The growth started in the early 1900s, when the industry was mainly built around distribution, food processing and housing materials. Every city growing rapidly at this time is doing so with the help of Canadian Pacific Railway : "Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, and Winnipeg each had important rail yards and repair shops associated with the CPR" (Belshaw). The industrialization of the production of food, housing materials and the distribution of goods are common factors of growth in Western and central Canada. Heavy industry; textiles, steel and machinery were seen in central Canada, while the automobile industry was in Montreal and Walkerville. (Belshaw).
It is after WWI that Montreal and Toronto's populations went over half a million people.
According to Belshaw, "it was the ability of Canadians and immigrants to move from town to town in search of work that made industrialization possible."
1941 Montreal is the first city to reach a population of 1 million people, but Ottawa becomes the most populated city in 1976 and still is today. (Statistics Canada)
"While urbanism was spreading alongside industrialism and capitalism, the power of Montreal and Toronto was growing greater with each passing generation. In 1871, there were slightly more than 100,000 people in Montreal; Toronto — at 56,092 — was slightly smaller than Quebec City. By 1891, Montreal had a population of nearly 220,000 and Toronto was three-times the size of Quebec City at 181,000." (Belshaw)
2011 : 18,9% Canadians live in rural areas. (3rd lowest proportion among G8 countries) The Atlantic provinces and territories have the largest share of people living in rural areas. (Statistics Canada 2)
2016 : 83% of Canadians live in metropolitan areas and their agglomerations. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver Together : more than 12 million people (more than 1/3 Canadian) (Statistics Canada)
Structure of the essay
With the sources I have and the research I did, here is how I could divide my essay;
Thesis: In Canada and around the world, industrialization affects the way languages evolve and how they are spoken.
Topic sentence 1 : Languages spoken by Canadians in different provinces changed a lot since the Confederation in 1867, these shifts are fuelled by industrialization.
Topic sentence 2 : Today, laws and population shifts affected the language spoken by Canadians.
Topic sentence 3 : Similar phenomena as the one seen in Canada can be observed around the world, notably in Northern countries.
Language in Canada Today
The data used is mainly from 2016, there are probably some changes to these numbers in 2020.
Bilingualism
As we can see in the picture to the left from Statistics Canada's "Bilingualism among Canadian children and youth", Quebec and New Brunswick are the two provinces with the highest rate of bilingualism among children and young adults, with 66% of the cohort of children picked being bilingual in 2016. The average in Canada is 27%.
According to Statistics Canada, a bit less than half of the population of Quebec use some English at work, which could contribute to this high level of Bilingualism.
"In 2016, 3,958,860 persons reported being able to sustain a conversation in English, either exclusively or in combination with French. As a whole, they represented 49.1% of Quebec’s total population that year." Statistics Canada
Some Numbers...
(Mother tongues in Canada in 2016)
English : 57% (without Quebec : 71,8%)
French : 21% (only Quebec : 78%)
Non-official languages : 22% (160 languages recorded)
Aboriginal languages : 0,6% (many aboriginal languages are endangered, mainly due to the residential school system)
What might have caused the languages shifts
Laws
After the Confederation in 1867, it was up to the provinces to choose their language of proceedings when dealing with offences under provincial legislation.
In the section 133 of the Constitution Act, it is confirmed that French or English can be used in any pleading in the courts of Canada or Quebec.
In 1969, with the Official Languages Act, French and English became the two official languages of Canada. With that law, all federal institutions must be able to provide services in either of those languages on request.
"While all of the federal political parties supported the Official Languages Act when it was introduced, the provincial response was much more tepid. New Brunswick passed its own Official Languages Act in 1969, introducing official bilingualism, while Ontario settled for providing French-language services in limited areas on an ad hoc basis. In 1979, 10 years after the federal Official Languages Act was passed, the Supreme Court of Canada found that Manitoba, which had officially been a monolingual anglophone province since 1890, had to comply." (Laurendeau, Paul)
In 1977, The Charter of the French Language of Quebec, or the Bill 101, attempted to make french the language used in courts. That bill can be considered unconstitutional, since it goes against the section 133 of the Constitution.
In 1982, in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the English and French languages are said to be of equal status, rights and privileges in all institutions of the parliament or the government.
In 1988, since there was some gaps in the 1969 version, there was the New Official Languages Act of Canada. This act is limited to the federal courts.
"In short, the 1988 OLA is innovative in that it allows for trials to be held in one language in the courts and quasi-judicial tribunals established by the Parliament of Canada, by guaranteeing the right to be heard by a judge who understands the language of the trial without an interpreter and requiring that the federal prosecutor speak the language of the parties or both official languages. " (Justice Canada)
Sections 530 and 530.1 of the Criminal Code came in 1985 and 1990, specifying a number of obligations. There has been plaints that these sections were not applied in all of Canada, but the section 530 has been in place since January 1st of 1990.
- In Ontario, hearings are held in English, evidence is translated into English and the documents are filled in English with a certified translation.
- In Alberta, the use of French is limited to oral communications in certain courts (Section 4 of Alberta Languages Act). The court of appeal held that Alberta has the right to repel section 110 (every person can use French of English in the courts).
Other Factors
This information is taken from the Canadian Encyclopedia "Language Policies".
- Language policies influenced education policies across Canada, and second-language instruction was extended and improved. The most efficient minority language education system is in Quebec, but there is an increase in the number of students in English provinces that apply for French Immersion programs.
On the French Language:
- With the main language for North American commerce being English, the use of French declined as the continental economy expanded. (The Canadian Encyclopedia, Language Policy)
- The use of French and the policies supporting it took a toll with the Canadian expansion and modernization. "During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several public Acts, such as the abrogation of official bilingualism in Manitoba in 1890 (see Manitoba Schools Question), the abolition of French schools in Ontario in 1912 (see Ontario Schools Question) and the strict limitations imposed on French-language instruction in other provinces, were deliberately aimed at repressing the use of French." (The Canadian Encyclopedia, Language Policy)
- The French language in Quebec was strengthened with the bill 101, making French the main language of work, commerce and community life.
- In the 1970s and the 1980s, French elementary and high schools were seen more and more across the country.
On the English language
- In Quebec, it is only permitted for a child to attend an English high school if one of the parents went to an English school.
On Aboriginal languages
- The 50 or more Aboriginal languages have been put at a risk of extinction
- In the early grades of some schools in Northern regions, Inuktitut and Cree are used as language of instruction
- In the Northwest Territories, Aboriginal languages are official languages along with English and French.
- To revive and maintain some of these languages, there are Aboriginal language immersion in some Southern communities.
Waves of Immigration
- International events and changes in the Immigration Act allowed immigration to be widely international rather than mainly Caucasian and European. Hence, there are speakers of a wider variety of languages.
- Most immigrant children receive government funded classes to learn the language of instruction of their schools.
- "The multiculturalism policy (1971) and Act (1988) have provided some support for ethnolinguistic groups to promote their languages. " (The Canadian Encyclopedia, Language Policy)
Outline, 27/03/2020
Thesis Statement
Urbanization in Canada led to the number of languages spoken being increased while others got endangered, it also affected the distribution of English and French speakers. Urbanization tends to come with language contact and a change in our use of language, as we can see in Northern countries and in different parts of America.
Paragraph A
Main idea 1:
Since the confederation, the number of languages spoken in Canada increased due to laws on immigration and urbanization while others got endangered.
A1 As different laws on immigration are passed through the years, we can see a change on the languages spoken in Canada.
A2 Urbanization attracts immigration as it brings new jobs that need to be filled, and as the cities it creates attracts people wanting a more successful life.
A3 Today, mainly because of residential schools, most native languages are endangered and the amount of people having them as a mother tongue dropped.
Paragraph B
Main idea 2:
In certain regions of Canada, urbanization affected the distribution of French and English speakers.
B1 Several laws have been passed in Canada to restrict the use of the French language.
B2 In Quebec, the bill 101 helps to preserve the use of the French language.
B3 Today in Canada, people with French as their mother tongues are less frequent outside Quebec and there are fewer people with English as a mother tongue in Quebec.
Paragraph C
Main idea 3:
Urbanization tends to come with language contact and a change in our use of language, as we can see in different parts of America and in Northern countries.
C1 In multilingual societies, language contact leads to different languages influencing each other and to more people becoming bilingual, as seen in Brazil and in Montreal.
C2 Minorities are more prone to change the language they speak in an urban setting rather than a rural one, but the opposite can happen; a case study of the Swedish-speaking district Vantaa shows it.
Language evolution in Northern countries
"Basically, a language shift always means that an individual starts using a language which is not limited to a local community or minority group but fulfills an increasing number of communicative functions (Mackey 1967 passim, 1976:171)." (Nordberg, 247)
According to Nordberg, a high degree of geographical mobility can bring more bilingualism in a society, this was the case for Finland. The direction of the migration of one group towards another brought changes in the balance between linguistic groups, which led to a language shift. Language shift always comes after bilingualism.
"The hypothesis has been that the members of a linguistic minority will show a greater tendency to shift language in an urban setting than in a rural one. The urban milieu provides causes and opportunities for greater contact with speakers of the majority language, which requires bilingualism and can also result in an increasing number of exogamous marriages. The latter factor is central, since a language shift more often means a change over two or more generations than a transition to a new language for an individual during his or her lifetime." (Nordberg, 247)
Urbanism = change from previous isolation
Most often, only the minority language is expected to become bilingual.
The case study of the Swedish-speaking district Vantaa (Sw. Vanda) in the Helsinki:
- The monolingual Swedish-speaking generation was followed by bilingual generations, and today they are a monolingual Finnish-speaking generation. (Nordberg, 249)
- The case study observes the relationship between the two languages in the last 400 years. It is based on a typical Swedish-speaking family that became bilingual with time, and Finnish-speaking in the end. The information collected covers a total of 69 people from various generations. It is a small number, but the roots of the family are traditional, they do not differ from most Swedish families in Vantaa.
- "Here it is my intention to use this basic material to describe the manner in which the development of the municipality from a rural periphery to an urbanized suburb involved a complete change of the area as a speech community. For this purpose I have chosen to focus on three points in time: one before the process of urbanization had begun (1880), one when it was culminating (1950), and one when it had progressed so far that the municipality was no longer distinguishable from its neighboring municipality, Helsinki, with respect to its degree of urbanization (1980)." (Nordberg, 250)
- Both macro and micro levels are observed.
1880 : Urbanization in Finland has begun, after this date the number of inhabitants in Vantaa starts to rise. This leads to the rising of the proportion of Finnish speakers. Most people lived from agriculture or trades related to such practices at the time. Finnish was sometimes used in work situations, but mostly in Finnish-speaking homes. Swedish was the main language, it was used everywhere. The first generation had very limited contacts to Finnish, and those came late for the second generation (B). However, in this second generation, they all had some levels of proficiency in Finnish.
1950 : The process of urbanization in Finland is slow, but it accelerated after the war. In 1960, about half of the population lives in an urban milieu. There were linguistic conflicts in the 1930s, but it was resolved before the Second World War. In 1931, Vantaa was designated as a bilingual municipality. In 1950, about a quarter of the population of Vantaa were Swedish speakers. This population doubled since 1880, now with 16 751 inhabitants. A lot of people who moved to the city were from monolingual Finnish-speaking backgrounds. Because of the arrival of a large Finnish-speaking population, the Swedish-speakers were prone to bilingualism.
1980 : At this point, Vantaa, is an urban community. Now, less than 1% of the population is pursuing a traditional agricultural livelihood. Only 5% of the population is Swedish-speaking, this percentage is higher in more rural, old villages. The resources in the city are now mostly in Finnish, same goes for the schools. However, Vantaa is still considered a bilingual city. We do not really see any adult being monolingual Swedish anymore. Even at home, bilingual people tend to speak in Finnish.
More on language contact
I presented this source before, but I have not explored it enough yet. This information is taken from the e-book "Language Contact : Mobility, Borders and Urbanization" by Isabella Mozzillo, professor of linguistics at the Pelotas Federal University in Brazil and Sabine Gorovitz, author of "Frontières linguistiques en contexte migratoire". The link is at the end of this blog entry!
The text focuses on the social effect of language contact. It mainly looks at Brazil and its borders, which can be interesting although it is not what I am focusing on in my research. The chapters I will be looking at are the introduction of course, "the borrowed language", "the language of Caribbean youth in Montreal", "linguistic contact in Brazil" and "the role of language in social integration of refugees".
Migration movement causes multilingualism which has linguistic, social and cultural effects. "The interaction between linguistic and extralinguistic variables reveals some of the speakers profiles: those who produce preferably in their mother tongue, considering their bilingualism as a factor of social mobility; those who are asymmetrically competent in both languages; and those who have a use of languages divided into functions depending on the specificities of the task, whether at work, school, home, or administration." (1,2) There are nearly 200 languages spoken in Brazil. At the border between Uruguay and Brazil, we see code switching between Portuguese and Spanish. There are also around 4 500 refugees in Brazil who have to adapt to this new environment. Another interesting group is the Japanese immigrants in Brazil. There is so much uniqueness in every culture and language, it is interesting to see how they merge together in multilingual situations.
This is a very interesting video showing the possible outcomes of language contact, it is easy to understand thanks to the linguistics class we had ;). The subjects explored are borrowing, diglossia, Multilingualism and of course pidgins and creoles. He gives interesting examples in various languages.
Source #7 : The Dynamics of Language Shift in Canada
Sabourin, Patrick and Bélanger, Alain. The Dynamics of Language Shift in Canada. Population (00324663), vol. 70, no. 4, Oct. 2015, pp. 727–757.
URL : https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=frh&AN=114968145&site=eds-live&scope=site
Author : Patrick Sabourin and Alain Bélanger
Type of source : Academic Article
This source looks at the dynamics between the French and the English language. It will be interesting to look at it and compare its information with those of my other sources, the laws related to language in Canada and the numbers I collected from Statistics Canada. The text mentions the outcome of low fertility and high immigration rates in Canada, it brings major changes to the population and the languages spoken. It is a trustworthy source, as it is peer reviewed.
Immigrants who come to Canada and who initially did not speak French nor English tend to go through a language shift within three generations. That is if they are not totally isolated, many scientific studies support this theory. In Canada, of course, almost all language shifts are towards English. In Montreal, where 80% of Quebec's immigrants stay, Half of them shift towards French.
Many variables are significant to track the language shift of Immigrants in Canada. The age of the person upon arriving in Canada will largely influence the chances of going through a language shift; the younger you are, the more likely you will change language. The probability for someone who is 40 or older of switching language is almost nil, but someone who arrives at the age of 10 or younger has almost the same probabilities as a person born in Canada. School socialization impact these numbers a lot. French Canadians tend to shift to English throughout their life if they are outside of Quebec, about 3/4 will be English by they are 50. However, French people in Northern New Brunswick and in Ontario have a higher persistence. Education plays a role for allophones; with a higher level of education, they have more chances to undergo a language shift. In Quebec, about 70% of immigrants undergoing a language shift will go to French, the rest choose English. The proportion of those switching to French is much higher for francotropes, people whose native language has affinities to French. It is interesting to note that the attractiveness of French in such situation increased gradually since the 1970s.
Sources Recap
1. Language Contact (Academic)
2. Evolution of language, Statistics Canada
3. Culture, language, Montreal and Toronto (Academic)
4. Urbanization in Nordic Countries (Academic)
5. Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French (Academic)
6. Urbanization and industry (Academic)
7. Language shift in Canada
This is the useful sources I found and presented in my blog so far. To see them more in details, we can easily find them in the table of contents. However, I have not used my source #4 in details yet and I might not use it! My next plan will be to find one more academic source that fits with what I already found, that completes it all. I will then have to find at least 4 more sources to get to the 10 I need. My concern with this last step is that I already used a lot of different sources when I presented subjects without digging too deep in them, many of those are from statistics Canada. Do these count? We'll see!
Here are the links to the other sources that I used throughout the blog (10!!!):
Conclusion ...
I am proud of my performance throughout the course, I added information to my blog every week. Focusing on one subject was fun and interesting; it makes it easier to remember everything and it is always nice to work on a subject that I chose. I had some difficulty choosing my subject because I was focusing too much on urbanism. I should have chosen a clear subject in the field of languages instead. I found it easy to work on the blog, I liked arranging it to make it prettier and adding information to interesting sources. It was harder to take the time to read every one of them, and then to realize that I had too much information for my essay. However, I know that my time was not wasted since the blog is graded and it was interesting to work on it. Comparing it to the others, I see that my blog is very long with a lot of information. I also like how I arranged the information in different formats. However, I could have added more interesting videos, slides and other functions that I did not explore.