Current Issues In Language and Society
|
Volume: 6 Number: 3 Page: 289–296
|
|
|
|
|
Is French in Belgium More Susceptible to English Influence?
|
|
Emmanuelle Labeau
|
|
The French language has been progressively moulded through contact with neighbouring languages. However, the Anglo-Saxon tidal wave that followed the Second World War has provoked numerous reactions of
defence and promotion of French. This paper studies the specificities of the link to English in French-speaking Belgium. First, it seems that from a linguistic point of view, French in Belgium shows a higher
degree of tolerance towards English on lexical and phonetic levels. Moreover, if the Belgian language legislation is strongly influenced - in its spirit and in its words - by the French example, it has
acquired more autonomy in the 1990s, for example in the decree of 21 June 1993 concerning the feminisation of profession names, functions, ranks and titles. The action of public bodies in favour of the
French language is then evoked. Given the attention devoted to community problems, these initiatives have appeared fairly late and evolved from a defensive attitude towards a policy of promotion of French.
Ashort conclusion discusses the possible future place of English in the Belgian linguistic situation.
© Multilingual Matters 1999
Full text PDF
|
