Intergenerational language transmission in Quebec: patterns and predictors in the light of provincial language planning

ABSTRACT

The study presented here is the first empirical investigation of the patterns and predictors of the intergenerational transmission of French in Quebec. An online questionnaire was used to gather data from 274 parents from different mother tongue (L1) groups: L1 French, L1 English, L1 French and English, and L1 Other. The results show that L1 French-and-English-speaking parents and L1 Other parents displayed particularly low rates of French transmission. Three variables were found to be significant predictors of the intergenerational transmission of French: having it as one’s L1, high proficiency, and positive attitudes towards the language on the solidarity dimension. The same three variables were also found to be significant predictors for the intergenerational transmission of English in Quebec, indicating that they may not be merely language-specific. Not significant for either French or English were language used with partner, attitudes on the status dimension, Quebec-based social identity, migration background, and location within Quebec. Further research is needed to ascertain whether the identified predictors are context-specific, and what other variables are at play. The article discusses the implications of this study’s findings for theory as well as for language planning in Quebec, and especially the potential effectiveness of acquisition and prestige planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Language contact
• intergenerational language transmission
• language choices
• language attitudes
• language proficiency
• language planning

Acknowledgments

The data presented here were collected while I was an Eakin Visiting Fellow at McGill University, and I am thankful for the support I received from the Eakin family and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. I also gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of the Association Internationale des Études Québécoises, which allowed me to present this work at the International Symposium on Bilingualism in Edmonton. Moreover, many thanks go to Krista Byers-Heinlein, Sarah Surrain, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 It can be argued that the process of intergenerational language transmission also includes outcomes, e.g. to what extent children become proficient and active users of the language(s) transmitted to them. However, empirical sociolinguistic studies tend not to focus on this. Consequently, there is much potential here for collaborative research between sociolinguists and developmental psychologists focusing on language acquisition, to obtain an even more comprehensive understanding of the process of intergenerational language transmission.

2 Opinions vary regarding the point at which loadings become important to a factor, but many accept Comrey’s (1973) notion that anything above .44 can be considered salient (e.g. Acton et al. 2009). Consequently, this cut-off point was used here as well.

3 The participants with L1s other than French or English were a highly heterogeneous group, and classifying them as ‘L1 Other’ is not meant to veil this or to other them: this classification was merely undertaken to enable the necessary statistical analyses.

4 Each L1 group also includes ‘other(s)’ – L1 French includes L1 French and other(s), L1 English includes L1 English and other(s), L1 French and English includes L1 French and English and other(s), and Other includes other(s). Subdividing the L1 groups further would have resulted in too many insufficiently large cell numbers.

5 The linguistic repertoire is traditionally defined as ‘the totality of linguistics forms regularly employed in the course of socially significant interaction’ (Gumperz 1964, 137). It constitutes ‘a fluid set of linguistic resources’ (Benor 2010, 159).

6 It is unclear why some L1 French speakers would rate their proficiency in their own L1 as low as 3.8. One possible explanation for this is Francophone Quebecers’ well-documented linguistic insecurity due to the continuing monocentricity that surrounds the French language (e.g. Bouchard 2002; Kircher 2012). Further research would be necessary to ascertain this.

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Ruth Kircher

Ruth Kircher is a researcher at the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, which is part of the Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. Her research interests are in the fields of sociolinguistics, the social psychology of language, and applied linguistics. Her work focuses on societal multilingualism and language contact situations, and especially phenomena such as social identities, language attitudes, language practices, and language policy and planning. She is particularly interested in indigenous and migrant minorities.