Bénédicte SNYERS / Philippe HAMBYE
Université catholique de Louvain
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Linguistic Legitimacy among ‘Peripheral’ Speakers: The Case of Belgian French

Key Words: Belgian French, linguistic norms, linguistic legitimacy, methodological issues.

This presentation deals with the Belgian non-dominant variety of French (henceforth ‘Belgian French’).  For documentary and comparative purposes, we will begin by focusing on Belgian French from a descriptive viewpoint. Building on Muhr’s preliminary framework for the documentation and description of the language situation of non-dominating varieties of pluricentric languages, we will provide an overview of the status of French in Belgium as well as a typological classification of its most salient lexical and phonologic features. In the same vein, we will examine French-speaking Belgians’ attitudes towards their own language from a socio-historical perspective. We will thereby show that these attitudes have shifted from early 19th c.–late 20th c. purism and subsequent linguistic subjection to France (fuelled by a widespread feeling of linguistic insecurity; see Francard 1993) to increasing acceptation of endogenous traits and rejection of the absolute legitimacy of the French model in more recent years (Hambye & Francard 2008; Francard 2010). Nevertheless, we will attempt to nuance the implications of this general tendency by pointing to the ‘double distance’ (i.e. not only from standard, Parisian, French but also from local, regional forms) that has been found to characterize French-speaking Belgians’ language attitudes and practices (Moreau, Brichard & Dupal 1999). Moreover, we will discuss the idea that French is now viewed by its Belgian speakers as a polycentric/polynomic language: do they really consider that there is a legitimate Belgian variety of French? What is the actual relevance of the national criterion in the way they define linguistic norms?

These questions will lead us to initiate a general discussion on the criteria that lie behind the definition and legitimization of linguistic norms. We will argue that addressing these issues requires exploring new methodological pathways and we will suggest some guidelines in this endeavour.

References

Hambye, Ph. & Francard, M. 2008. “Normes endogènes et processus identitaires. Le cas de la Wallonie romane”. In Cl. Bavoux, L.-F. Prudent & S. Wharton (eds.), Normes endogènes et plurilinguisme. Aires francophones, aires créoles. Lyon: ENS Éditions, 45-60.

Francard, M. 1993. L’insécurité linguistique en Communauté française de Belgique. Brussels: Service de la langue française.

Francard, M. 2010.  “Variation diatopique et norme endogène. Français et langues régionales en Belgique francophone”. Langue française 167/3, 113-126.

Moreau, M.-L., Brichard, H. & Dupal, C. 1999. Les Belges et la norme. Analyse d’un complexe linguistique. Brussels: Service de la langue française.

Muhr, R. 2012. “Linguistic dominance and non-dominance in pluricentric languages: A typology”. In R. Muhr (ed.), Non-dominant Varieties of pluricentric Languages. Getting the Picture. In memory of Michael Clyne. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 23-48.