Too much French? Not enough French?: The Vancouver Olympics and a very Canadian language ideological debate

Abstract

This paper discusses a language ideological debate that took place in Canadian national newspapers following the opening ceremonies for the 2011 Vancouver Olympics. Reports on the insufficient use of French during the opening ceremonies sparked protest from politicians, official commentators, citizens and online newsreaders alike. Previous research has suggested that language ideological ‘debates’ (i.e. overt manifestations of ideologies) are a useful site for studying the role that languages play in the construction of social groups (see Blommaert 1999a, b). In Canada, a national cliché is that Canadian identity is fractured both linguistically and geographically. Thus, the debate over the status of French in the Vancouver Olympics involves not only ideologies of language, but also ideologies of identity and belonging. An analysis of this language ideological debate, then, can shed light on the often naturalised and commonsensical understandings of Canadian national identity. The data consist of articles and commentary drawn from two national newspapers (The Globe and Mail and Le Devoir). The findings suggest some of the ways in which languages are represented as unifying and dividing characteristics of Canadian identity, representations of which often differ according to the language of the newspaper.