Monica Heller

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

Montréal and the discursive construction of la francité canadienne

Abstract

This talk will focus on debates over the construction of Canadian francophone space in general, and Montréal in particular, as a monolingual francophone, French-English bilingual or multilingual, as connected to political economic changes over the past fifty years which underpin ideologies of language, nation and State. I will discuss how this nexus of ideology, discourse and social space constrains people's access to linguistic resources, especially to French and to English, and how this political economy of language helps explain a variety of popular movements for and against different kinds of language education through schooling, as well as other strategies for gaining access to valued linguistic resources which are otherwise not easily available. Finally, I will use this example to argue for a critical, political economic approach to multilingualism and language education which takes into account the value and distribution of linguistic resources, on the one hand, and the positioning and interests of social actors, on the other.

Biography

Monica Heller is Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on critical ethnographic approaches to the study of multilingualism, and in particular on linguistic minorities, nationalism, globalization and the new economy, with a focus on francophone Canada. Recent books include Éléments d'une sociolinguistique critique (2002, Paris, Didier); Bilingualism: A Social Approach (ed., in press, Palgrave Macmillan); Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defense of Languages (ed. with A. Duchêne, in press, Continuum). She is co-editor (with R.J. Watts) of the book series Language, Power and Social Process ( Berlin / New York , Mouton de Gruyter).