The Study Of French Language Policies In Light Of Cultural Diversity

Language planning as a human activity appeared a long time ago,but it has not been viewed as a research direction of sociolinguistics until last century.The second part of twentieth century witnessed the flourish of the study of language planning and policies,with the hard work of numerous talents,such as Haugen,Ager and Fishman.Then,many countries began to pay attention to the study of language planning and policies,and since the end of the 20th century,that study has been thriving all the way.France takes a tough stance in terms of language protection and management.For a long time in the past,the focus of French language policies had been the purification and popularization of French.But in recent decades,due to the spread of American culture and English language,which makes the whole world faced with the threat of regularization and unification of languages,the emphasis has shifted to the combat with English.On one hand,French government has passed the Bas-Lauriol law and the Toubon law to confront the attack from American culture,and has also formulated a basic language policy of domestically standardizing the use of French and defending its status as the world's official language as well as vigorously promoting the use of French and French culture overseas.The French language policy overseas is one of the most successful policies in language promotion and is of great significance in the study of language policies.On the other hand,the awareness of and work done for protecting dialects in France are far away from enough.Standard French was selected as the official language in France starting from French Revolution.French dialects suffer from low status and tough environment for developing because of the domination of standard French.France has always respected the cultural diversity in Europe and even all around the world,but turns a blind eye to it in the country.However,at the beginning of the 20th century,actions were taken to protect dialects,and many dialect protection organizations popped out,whose appeals later received much attention from the government.Eventually,French government passed the Deixonne law in 1951,and acknowledged the status of dialects for the first time.Unfortunately,despite the enactment of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1999,the government has never brought it into force,and the situation of dialects is still quite gloomy.Apart from introduction and conclusion,this thesis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter approaches French language policies from the perspective of cultural diversity in a horizontal way.It reviews the change of French language's international status in history,and uses the loanwords as an example to demonstrate the interaction among French and other languages.It also points out these loanwords'influences upon French since the 20th century by discussing some examples of English culture's loanwords.Depending on this,the threats and challenges that French language is now facing are presented.Besides,it demonstrates French government's efforts to meet the challenges.First,analyzing French government's the language policies made since 20th century and mainly discussing the Bas-Lauriol law and the Toubon law.Second,listing up and introducing organizations that French has set up for language promotion and protection.The second chapter concentrates on the discussion of French language policies from the perspective of cultural diversity in a vertical way.It first describes the current situation of the dialects in France,and further analyzes the threats posed by the French-oriented language policy to the dialects,and the relationship between French and other dialects.Besides,it sorts out various dialect protection actions and organizations in France since the 20th century.Moreover,it focuses on the Deixonne law and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages to study the dialect policies in France,and further elucidates the factors of the shift from a tight dialect policy to a loose one.The third chapter presents the outlook for the future.It first reflects on the achievements and defects in the protection of the French language,and then discusses how language policies affect the use and development of languages.Furthermore,considering the current problems,it predicts the possible direction of the language policies in France and proposes three possible ways for the French language to better confront the challenges,namely the establishment of a positive image of the French language to strengthen its attraction,the equality among nationwide languages,including dialects and languages of immigrants,and the stimulation of internal creativity of the French language.