Language practices of children in francophone families living in a minority linguistic environment
Conclusion
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The main purpose behind our study was to describe the language practices of children living in a francophone minority community. Through descriptive analyses, we also wished to identify the determining factors in the language choices such children make in their personal, extracurricular or recreational activities. Lastly, we wanted to determine whether there was any overlap between the factors associated with the language practices of these children and those identified in the literature as being associated with language transmission.
General findings: Language practices of these children
To begin, we note that the descriptive analyses of the language practices of these children showed that the use of English was prevalent in four of the five activities in the study. First, we found that the use of English was very dominant when children were browsing the Internet or watching television. Even when they were immersed in a francophone environment (for example, when French was the language spoken most often at home, when the parents composed an endogamous francophone couple or when the children lived in a community in which the francophone minority concentration was strong) the children used more English than French when accessing media. There were even a number of situations in which the use of English for browsing the Internet or watching television exceeded 90%. This finding confirms what has previously been observed in the literature, that English holds a great deal of appeal for media use, regardless of the region of residence or the francophone minority concentration in a particular community.Note 1
Second, the descriptive analyses showed that these children used English more often than French when participating in sports and non-sports-related activities. The use of English for such activities was nonetheless less dominant than for television and the Internet. It is important to note that the data relating to organized sports and non-sports-related activities indicates a significant number of non-responses and respondents who did not participate in such activities. There are two factors that could serve to at least partially explain this lack of participation: the children’s ages and the availability of organized sports and non-sports-related activities in French in a particular community. It is obvious that the availability (or lack thereof) of sports and non-sports-related activities in a community may limit the practice of such activities in French.Note 2
Finally, the analyses we performed revealed that the language choices of these children (or their parents) with regard to reading differ from those associated with other activities. French is more likely to be used for reading compared with other activities, a finding that confirms those of Bernard (1991) and Bernier et al. (2014), who had shown that the appeal of English for reading was less strong and more adaptive than in the other activities in which these children took part in francophone minority communities. The comparative tables and charts in section 3.2 show that the language behaviours of these children for reading are more varied than those adopted when they are watching television and that they fluctuate more widely depending on the explanatory variables taken into consideration. Bilingualism and the predominant use of French in such activities are more prevalent than in the children’s other personal, extracurricular or recreational activities.
Factors associated with children’s language practices
The analyses conducted in this study also enabled us to identify a set of factors associated with the language practices of these children in their personal, extracurricular or recreational activities. Those factors are largely consistent with the ones identified in the literature as being associated with language transmission in a minority situation. The first of these is the critical role of the regional and linguistic context of these children in the languages they choose in their activities. The SVOLM data allowed us to confirm and expand upon what had been observed previously in the literature,Note 3 that is, that the predominant use of French by these children is largely concentrated in parts of New Brunswick and Ontario (many of which are close to Quebec) in which there are strong indicators of the presence of French in the community. Not surprisingly, our analyses have enabled us to conclude that the language these children used for reading and for participating in sports and non-sports-related activities was particularly sensitive to the regional linguistic context.
The second factor that is worthy of note in terms of its influence on the children’s language practices is also a key factor in the transmission of the mother tongue in a minority setting, namely the language composition of the family. Through our study we found that the predominant use of French by these children was mostly a characteristic of endogamous francophone families. We also showed in our analyses that the predominant use of English was less prevalent when the mother was the francophone parent within a linguistically exogamous couple. These results are consistent with what has previously been observed in studies on transmission of mother tongue.Note 4 Our study thus confirms that the predominant use of French by these children in their personal, extracurricular or recreational activities is linked to the language composition of the family, within which the mother plays a critical role.
A number of studiesNote 5 have previously shown that the French school in a minority community holds special status because of its exceptional contribution to the maintenance and transmission of the French language. Our analyses, based on a synthetic variable relating to the linguistic trajectory of these children in school, also revealed the pivotal role played by the school in the adoption of French as the preferred language in activities. Our analysis of language practices based on the children’s ages also revealed that the predominant use of French for reading decreased as the use of English increased for the older children. This shift in the language that older children use for reading can partly be explained by the fact that they are attending school. Corbeil and Lafrenière (2010) showed that there is a transition from French school to English school when children move on from elementary school to secondary school. This movement towards English-language schooling could thus explain the increase in reading in English and the decrease in reading in French starting at age 12.
Finally, the factors addressed in our study should be looked at seriously in subsequent analyses in which the causality of children’s language behaviours would be examined. Our study is essentially descriptive in nature. We note that a multivariate approach is difficult to carry out because of the strong concomitance of the children’s trajectories: for example, it is very difficult to separate the effects of schooling from the effects of age or of interactions with friends. A longitudinal approach, such as that made possible by the Youth in Transition Survey, would definitely be the most suitable approach in this context.
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