On the other side of the “Bonjour/Hi” controversy currently raging in Quebec (The Canadian Press, 2017, Nov 30), there is French Immersion (FI); suffice to say, perspectives on bilingualism differ within our province.
Québec
What accent sells the most cars? (by Michaela Salmon)
When we first started the blog, the BILD group discussed the types of topics and ideas that we wanted to discuss here. Alison spoke about the concept of “sociolinguistic noticing”; here we have a platform to share the little instances of language use that we notice around us in the day-to-day, from our perspective as critical sociolinguists (for example, see Lauren’s post from Australia last year, where she a business was promoting “accent training”, or a collection of Alison’s sociolinguistic noticings here). I would like to contribute something I recently noticed myself, and encourage all of you to consider your own response to this instance. Continue reading
Pas devant les enfants: when is a language dangerous for children to hear? (by Dr. Mela Sarkar)
Language policy is part of the air we breathe, here in Quebec. In our BILD blog posts, most of us have taken our musings about how Quebec language policy affects our lives, and woven them into our writing.
In fact, we are presenting our collective thoughts on “Micro-level case studies of policy as lived experience” at an upcoming conference at McGill May 5, 6 and 7, called For and against models of official multiculturalism and multilingualism (here’s the program). However, we won’t have time to tell very many or very long stories. So in case there isn’t time there, I will tell mine here. Continue reading
Histoires de Familles (by Patricia Houde-Leclerc)
L’été est une époque de l’année où les gens au Québec sont beaucoup plus détendus et en profitent pour se reposer et prendre les choses plus relaxes. C’est pour plusieurs l’occasion de sortir de la routine habituelle, de participer à des évènements spéciaux, d’aller passer du temps au chalet, de profiter du beau temps, d’assister à des festivals, de se réunir entre amis et de revoir la famille. L’été au Québec c’est tellement merveilleux! Depuis déjà plusieurs année
s, chaque été c’est la tradition d’organiser un rassemblement familial sous prétexte de se revoir, tant du coté de ma mère que du côté de mon père. Continue reading
