When bilingualism isn't enough: perspectives of new speakers of French on multilingualism in Montreal

Abstract

ABSTRACTMontreal, the largest city in the province of Quebec, Canada, is where most newcomers settle down. Many will attend one of the ‘francization’ (French as a second language) courses offered by the provincial government. Learning French and its adoption as a common language are essential conditions to gain social inclusion through participation in public life and the labour market. However, Montreal is by no means a monolingual city with about a third of the population having a language other than French as their first language. Research shows a clear trend toward French/English bilingual elitism [Lamarre et al. 2015. La socialisation langagière comme processus dynamique : suivi d'une cohorte de jeunes plurilingues intégrant le marché du travail. Québec, QC: Conseil supérieur de la langue française] and towards plurilingual elitism. This ethnographic study investigates the experience of newcomers who attend the ‘francization’ programme as new speakers of French [O'Rourke, Pujolar, and Ramallo 2015. “New speakers of minority languages: the challenging opportunity - Foreword.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2015 (231): 1–20. doi:10.1515/ijsl-2014-0029]. It analyses the use of their linguistic resources to access eliteness and social inclusion. In a context where public discourse strongly promotes a monolingual ideology, the plurilingual repertoires of newcomers are not always recognised as a valuable resource. However, newcomers’ language practices show that their plurilingual repertoire has symbolic and material value beyond the elite French/English bilingualism, thus challenging the boundaries between elite and non-elite linguistic groups in Montreal.