Mother Tongue and Motherhood: Implications for French Language Maintenance in Canada

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how francophone mothers describe barriers to and supports for maintaining their mother tongue. It focuses on the experiences of women who have the primary responsibility for teaching French to their pre-school-aged children. The findings, based on data collected in semi-structured interviews with women residing in Greater Vancouver, show that, compared to before motherhood, the participants were much more motivated to communicate in French and to participate in the francophone community. However, the women felt that lack of resources in the community, lack of time, and having an English-speaking partner limited their ability to actively improve their French. This study highlights the complexity of preventing further language loss and, consequently, the challenge of promoting inter-generational language transmission, given the minority language status of French in British Columbia. The author underscores the need to advance the equal status of Canada's two official languages.