The Dynamics of Language Shift in Canada

For people living in a multilingual environment, the language spoken at home may be the first language learned in childhood, or a different one, generally that of the surrounding community. Canada is an interesting country in this respect, as it has two official languages - English and French - and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Population (France) 2015-10, Vol.70 (4), p.727-757
Main Authors: Sabourin, Patrick, Bélanger, Alain
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Behavior
Canada
Census
Censuses
Foreigners
Immigrants
Immigration
Language
Language policy
Language shift
Linguistics
Native languages
Noncitizens
Population
Survival analysis
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Summary:For people living in a multilingual environment, the language spoken at home may be the first language learned in childhood, or a different one, generally that of the surrounding community. Canada is an interesting country in this respect, as it has two official languages - English and French - and is home to linguistic communities of different sizes. In this article, Patrick SABOURIN and Alain BÉLANGER examine the determinants of language shift - i.e. the adoption of a new language in the home - among immigrants and native-born allophones living in Canada, but also among official language minorities. Who shifts to one or other of the two official languages? And after how much time? Who continues to speak their native tongue? Analysing individual data drawn from four censuses conducted between 1991 and 2006, the authors show that these shifts can be estimated on the basis of a single census using the fictitious cohort method. They then analyse the extent of these shifts and their main determinants, such as age, level of education, country of birth and age at arrival in Canada.
ISSN:0032-4663
1957-7966
DOI:10.3917/pope.1504.0727