Abstract:

In New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, French and English both vie for dominance on official/formal linguistic markets. In this contact situation, non-standard French varieties have had no place in these markets and have been traditionally relegated to the more informal/private markets. Speakers of these non-standard varieties have long hesitated to speak out on public markets for various reasons. First, the dominant discourse, produced by the press for instance, has systematically denigrated non-standard varieties. Second, the negative image of these varieties projected by the dominant discourse have been interiorised by these speakers who have come to believe that their speech is sub-standard, all the while believing nonetheless that they are French speakers. In recent years, a counterdiscourse has developed in reaction to the ideology of the standard, and new public markets have been created, i.e. community radio stations, where non-standard varieties are accepted, thereby giving new meaning to the concept of linguistic policy.

Author: Annette Boudreau, Lise Dubois