La langue comme marqueur d'identité

Abstract

The mother tongue as an identity marker. Jacqueline BILLIEZ The pedagogical problems created by the children of migrant workers have stimulated linguistic and sociolinguistic research which aims at answering two basic questions : 1) Is the bilingualism of migrant children a cause of school failure ? 2) What place should the mother tongues occupy at primary school level ? Analysis of the way Algerian, Portuguese and Spanish adolescents regard their own bilingualism reveals the particularly important role which the mother tongue plays as an identity marker.