|
Abstract: While phrases such as ‘Capitaine Crounche’ and ‘beurre d’arachide’ are familiar to, and easily taken for granted by, most English Canadians, who tend to encounter linguistic duality in their daily lives in a number of ways, the politics underlying such seemingly harmless words are significant. Indeed, no other issue has played as central a role in Canadian social and political development as has language, with French-English linguistic tensions and considerations affecting numerous aspects of Canadian life, including foreign policy, the awarding of government contracts and indeed, the labelling of food packaging. While much public and scholarly attention has been paid to the language issue and the francophone population of Québec, less has been paid to language and francophones outside of the main concentration of Canada’s French speakers. While geographically dispersed, and vastly outnumbered, Canada’s francophone minority communities and their identities are nevertheless an impor
|
