Attitudes towards French, English and code-switching in Manitoba
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Date
2020-11-13
Authors
Rodrigo-Tamarit, Maria
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Abstract
This thesis constitutes the first experimental study to investigate bilinguals’ attitudes towards French and English in Manitoba, and it also the first of its kind in Canada to incorporate French-English code-switching as a linguistic variable. A total of 105 French-English bilinguals residing in Manitoba participated in a matched- and a verbal-guise test in which they evaluated the voices of several females using English, Manitoban French and code-switching, and also Manitoban, Quebec, European or Sub-Saharan African French on eight status and solidarity traits. Results from the matched-guise test show that participants hold positive attitudes towards the local French and English varieties, while mixed attitudes emerge towards code-switching. For instance, participants identifying as Franco-Manitobans find the English guise less intelligent and the code-switching guise more intelligent than those who do not identify as such, and older participants tend to perceive code-switching and English guises more successful and intelligent than younger participants. Contrary to previous attitudinal work in Manitoba (Hallion, 2011) and Quebec (Kircher, 2012) the verbal-guise test shows that not only participants hold more positive attitudes towards the endogenous French variety when it comes to solidarity traits, but also a preference for exogenous varieties only emerges for the intelligent trait. Overall, results suggest that recent political and social measures to promote the use of French in the province may be contributing to social attachment and prestige associated to local language varieties, whereas speakers of code-switching and other non-local French varieties are viewed more negatively compared to the former ones among bilinguals living in Manitoba.
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Keywords
Attitudes, French, English, Code-switching, MGT