Philippe Hambye

The paradoxical visions of multilingualism in education: the ideological dimension of discourses on multilingualism in Belgium and Canada

Abstract In this article, we will examine some contrasted discourses on multilingualism that circulate nowadays in the field of education. Focusing on the cases of French-speaking Belgium and of the Franco-Ontarian community in Canada, we will show the existence of two discourses on multilingualism: one that insists on the positive value of multilingualism and that we consider as a consequence of social and economic changes brought by globalisation; and another that is much more a surrender of the purist conception of language rejecting ‘mixing’ and hybridism and that seems to support resistance towards unwanted consequences of this globalisation movements (especially migration movements). In our view, these discourses on multilingualism are ideological discourses aiming at legitimating or contesting the impacts of global capitalism and post-nationalism.

Le français dans la Communauté Wallonie-Bruxelles. Une variété en voie d’autonomisation ?

Cette etude examine la question du degre d’autonomisation de la variete de francais en usage dans la Communaute Wallonie-Bruxelles par rapport au francais standard. Nous proposons d’abord une revue critique des reponses apportees par certains auteurs a cette question, qui souligne des carences methodologiques recurrentes dans de nombreux travaux. Les elements de reponse bases sur l’etude des representations des locuteurs sont egalement pris en consideration. Nous montrons ensuite comment les enquetes menees actuellement par le centre de recherche VALIBEL tentent de depasser les limites des recherches anterieures et nous conduisent a reevaluer l’importance de la variation diatopique du francais en Belgique.

Contact and ethnicity in "youth language" description: in search of specificity

This article questions the specificity of the “contemporary urban vernaculars” (Rampton) usually called “youth languages”. Starting from a review of the different labels designating these language practices, it shows that many of them link them to the expression of ethnicity, hence the success of the category of “(multi)ethnolect”. After having criticized this recourse to ethnicity, the authors discuss the role of linguistic contact in contemporary urban vernaculars since their linguistic hybridity if one of their mostly noticed features. They argue for the necessity to take thoroughly into account the social context of these language contacts in a way to understand their outcomes. Henceforth, the authors examine the role played by factors in the shaping of heteroglossic urban vernaculars: social attitudes towards immigrant languages and identification processes on the one hand, and specific forms of verbal interactions within the speakers’ “street culture” on the other hand.