• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 525

Part of Session 122: In the Shadow of Empire (Other abstracts in this session)

Lessons from the 'Canadian Model' of Minority Language Protection

Authors: Dunbar, Robert
Submitted by: Dunbar, Robert Douglas (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI, United Kingdom)

This paper attempts to discern whether it is meaningful to refer to a
'Canadian' approach to minority language protection, and to situate
the Canadian experience in comparative context. The paper focuses on
the regimes developed by the Canadian federal government, the Province
of Quebec, and the territory of Nunavut. The analysis is informed by a
broader theoretical and wider analytical framework, which draws in
particular on sociolinguistics and governance as well as law. By
taking Nunavut into consideration, it will examine a new and
innovative legislative model for languages of aboriginal (i.e.
'indigenous') peoples.

The paper will begin with a brief description of Canadian
constitutional arrangements, which set the broad framework for
language legislation, and then address the federal, Quebec and Nunavut
regimes in turn. Each assessment will focus on key pieces of
legislation (e.g. the Official Languages Act 1969; the Official
Languages Act 1985; Quebec's Law 101, the Charter of the French
Language; and Nunavut's Official Languages Act 2008 and Inuit Language
Protection Act 2008) and the case law which has interpreted it.
Following this, the context for the enactment of this legislation will
be considered: what were the political, ideological and practical
imperatives underlying the legislation, what were the key assumptions
which policy-makers made, what are the deeper goals of the enactments,
particularly in language policy terms, and how have these various
goals and imperatives changed over time? The paper will then consider
questions of implementation, focusing not only on enforcement
mechanisms such as language commissioners and other public monitoring
and enforcement bodies, and on judicial remedies, but also on wider
issues of implementation, such as language acquisition, training and
other capacity-building strategies developed by various branches of
government, and on the role of language communities themselves. The
actual impact of the legislative model will then be assessed, in terms
of patterns of language vitality, social accommodation of different
groups of speakers, political stability, economic performance, and so
forth.