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Dissertation Information for Monica Sara Heller

NAME:
- Monica Sara Heller

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Linguistics

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Berkeley (USA) (1982)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: LANGUAGE, ETHNICITY AND POLITICS IN QUEBEC

Abstract: "This is a sociolinguistic case study of the process of language shift from English to French in a Montreal brewery. Private enterprise is currently at the centre of a general shift from English to French dominance in Quebec; the brewery is representative of this process.

Ethnographic description and sociolinguistic methods of analyzing language use in situated interactions are employed to show how large-scale processes of social change affect the basis of the social meaning and value of languages and linguistic alternates, and how, in turn, language itself can be used strategically in interaction to re-define the social meaning of language. This re-definition contributes to the re-definition of roles and role relations within and between ethnic groups.

An ethnographic description of the brewery, and a description of the distribution and nature of the linguistic codes used in it, motivate the choice of certain situations in one brewery sector for the purpose of micro-analysis of conversational interaction. This analysis reveals several major patterns: (1) the use of code-switching in interethnic interaction to neutralize underlying conflict and to legitimate access to and participation in certain work situations, while preserving ethnic boundaries; (2) the symbolic use of French formulas and routines by anglophones in intra-ethnic interaction, as a means of neutralizing tension between a need to preserve their ethnic identity and recognition of their loss of power; (3) a concern on the part of young upwardly-mobile francophones for ""good French"", revealed overtly in the rejection of English loanwords and calques, and the explicit discussion of proper forms, and revealed covertly in style-shifting and social stratification of some Quebec French forms. This is a process of legitimation of French and of francophones in business; (4) a similar process of legitimation of Quebec (vs. European) French is revealed in the expansion of use of many other of its features into these new arenas.

Through language the French are legitimating their new control, and the English are finding a place in the new order. Language is used to negotiate a new basis of ethnic relations, and a new meaning for ethnic identity in Quebec."

MPACT Scores for Monica Sara Heller

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:26:21

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