You are here: Home :: Area CULI :: Linguistics and literature :: Communication science

Joseph Yvon Thriault

Ethnolinguistic minorities and national integration in Canada

In the light of the other contributions to this issue, which offer various perspectives on ethnolinguistic minorities — Anglophones in Quebec and Francophones in Canada outside Quebec — this article explores the question of how the identity process unfolds in these minority groups. These processes do not reflect pure definitions of types of identity groups, such as nation, minority nationalism, or ethnic groups. They are, instead, an interlocking pattern of these different types, which produces a dynamic determined, in large part, by historic modes of national integration particular to the Canadian context. The specific dynamic, rather than leading us away from our understanding of ethnolinguistic identities, leads us towards the possibility of a better understanding of how contemporary societies are constructed by the interweaving of ethnolinguistic and ethnocultural groups, national minorities and nations.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0165-2516
Volume: 2007, 05/2007
Pages: 255 - 263

Show full article (external site)

Show all available items of this journal

 

Area CULI