The influence of Quebec's language planning policy abroad: Wales
Colin H. Williams, professor and researcher in the Welsh Department of the Cardiff University, in Great Britain.
Canada and Quebec took three decades to provide themselves with an infrastructure establishing linguistic rights at the federal and provincial levels and ensuring the arbitration of the disagreements between the two (Williams, 1998). Wales has known for only eight years the repercussions of the Welsh Language Act of 1993, which consecrated the equality of English and Welsh in the public sector. The country also adapts itself to the new reality of a bilingual national Parliament (established in May 1999), which intends to tackle on the issues of linguistic planning in a much more resolute manner than former governments. The influence exerted by the linguistic policy of Quebec on the practise in Wales is the result of a curious mixture of boundless admiration for the achievements in professional linguistic planning and a deliberate effort to avoid analyzing their detailed consequences on the sociolinguistic behaviour in Quebec. One could conclude from this that symbolism has more importance than practical knowledge to draw from. That is due mainly to the lack of maturity of linguistic planning in Wales and the reluctance of politicians and British senior civil servants to give up their pragmatic and reactive approach with regards to linguistic policy. When Quebec is used as an example, it is generally in comparative analysis adopted by Welsh academics and dissenting politicians rather than in the deliberations of the responsible government agencies (Williams, 1994). Nevertheless, following important reforms carried on over a decade, the Quebec experience will probably have more and more importance in the implementation of a more global Welsh linguistic planning.
For reasons easy to understand, many Welsh analysts feel an affinity with the French-speaking resistance in North America and particularly that of Quebec. The two communities underwent the obvious discrimination of the British State and felt the same feeling of running up against the hegemony of the English language. Both also inherited the traditions and the form of government of the British Commonwealth (Williams, 2000a). They are also concerned with social bilingualism, in particular in the field of education where Welsh specialists benefit from the applied research undertaken at Laval University in the 1960s on the teaching methods and the organization of bilingual school systems, research still which continues today (Baker, 1985, 1996). More precisely, the linguistic policies in Wales were defended by the nationalist intelligentsia which took as a starting point the the Quebec context, among others. The Welsh newspapers and popular magazines attentively followed the discussions on linguistic planning and the first linguistic laws adopted by Quebec, especially starting at the end the 1970s. After 1976, the rise to power of the Parti Québécois was greeted in Wales as a very positive event worthy of emulation. The particular lessons followed in Wales which stem from the experience of Quebec touch the following grand stakes:
1. The acquisition of detailed census data and explanatory facts aiming at clarifying the public discussion
As Bourhis and Marshall (1999 : 261) sustain, the Official languages Act of Canada and the Charter of the French language of Quebec have in common a frequent concern of democratic States - the linguistic policies were adopted following scientific research and vast public consultations - which raises the legitimacy of the linguistic planning efforts. The government of Wales invested very little in data analysis of linguistic matters, and our legislation is based on intense political pressures and parliamentary debates, but on very few research specifically carried out in this field. The strategists of the linguistic policy neglected research a lot and do not have any study comparable to the excellent detailed analysis, often prepared under the auspices of the Office de la langue française, like those of Maurais (1987, 1988) and of Castonguay (1994). However, during its meeting of March 23, 2001, the Welsh Language Board committed to constituting a complete sociolinguistic database to support its strategy and the advices it gives to the government and the other organizations.
2. The linguistic legislation
The Welsh Language Act, 1993, is a unique British law in its kind. It imposes the equality of Welsh and English in the public sector in Wales. It also guarantees to the people of Welsh expression the absolute right to speak Welsh in front of the courts and creates the Welsh Language Board, which became one of the principal instruments of linguistic planning (WLB, 1999). The operation of the Office de la langue française and other organizations of linguistic planning was studied, as were the various linguistic laws adopted in Quebec (CLF, 1988; Maurais, 1992) in order to determine the practices best suited to consolidate the effectiveness of the Welsh Language Board established by the said Act. However, the Act of 1993 does not correct the legislation on employment to make it possible for employers to designate offices requiring the capacity to speak Welsh. The law does not impose any obligation on organizations outside the public sector and does not contain any statement giving to Welsh the status of official language. It should be stressed that, contrary to French in Quebec, Welsh is currently spoken by less than one fifth of the population. Thus, whereas the Charter of the French language (Bill 101, 1977) declares French the only official language of Quebec and sanctions the right of French-speaking people to communicate in French in their relationship with the administrative, health and social services of the province, as well as with semi-public agencies, trade unions and of retail sale, the Welsh Language Act does not contain any provision of similar scale imposing the use of Welsh in the private sector. The detractors of the law see a great gap there, and the pressure is done increasingly sharp in favour of a new law obliging the voluntary organizations and the sector deprived to hold account of the rights of the workers and the customers. This requirement is based on the precedent of Bill 101, which established the right of French-speaking people to work in French. Francization programs were worked out to lead the companies more than cash fifty employees to adopt French as the language of work and to obtain a Francization certificate. The adaptation of such a project to the Welsh context would have major effects on the development of a bilingual economy; it seems however that small and medium-sized businesses would be more affected than the large ones by the legal obligation to recognize the rights of their employees express themselves in the language of their choice.
3. The iconography of the linguistic landscape
To be translated
Un élément important du marketing linguistique consiste à créer un environnement favorable donnant la priorité à l’affichage bilingue et au rôle de la sémiologie pour influencer l’iconographie du paysage linguistique. Le pays de Galles a étudié l’expérience du Québec en matière d’affichage public et commercial en français. Encore une fois, les nuances détaillées et les conséquences prévues de la législation nous intéressaient moins que les études professionnelles qui en ont découlé, surtout en ce qui a trait à la surveillance des panneaux routiers et de la signalisation, à la réaction du secteur privé à l’affichage commercial et au rôle joué par le bilinguisme et la traduction pour légitimer de nouvelles formes de communication.
4. The progress in the teaching of the Welsh language
Tout comme au Québec, la réforme de l’enseignement a été l’un des piliers les plus importants de la revitalisation de la langue au pays de Galles (Jones et Ghuman, 1995; Williams, 2000b). Pendant trois décennies, le programme d’enseignement bilingue était limité à une minorité desservant une minorité au sein d’une minorité, et cela limitait évidemment la visibilité et la pertinence sociale du bilinguisme pour les 80 % de la population qui ne parlaient pas le gallois. Toutefois, à la suite de l’Education Reform Act de 1988, un programme national d’enseignement ainsi qu’un programme national d’évaluation ont été instaurés pour le pays de Galles. Ces programmes accordent au gallois le statut de matière principale et reconnaissent le bilinguisme du pays de Galles. Les relations gallo-québécoises sont principalement axées sur l’enseignement efficace des langues dans un contexte multiculturel et sur les méthodes d’apprentissage à distance.
5. Les représentants du secteur public
Comme les francophones ont pu le constater durant les années 1970 et 1980, les droits des individus et des groupes à certains services ont beau avoir été reconnus, leur application peut demeurer en suspens si la langue utilisée à chaque point de contact n’est pas réellement laissée au choix du citoyen. Les responsables actuels de la politique galloise sont très sensibilisés au besoin de surveiller de telles situations et ils étudient l’expérience québécoise de francisation de l’Administration et du monde des affaires (Vaillancourt, 1985, 1996).
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