CPF Magazine Winter 2020 Issue

What Are Immersion Students?
Francophone, Francophile or “In-between”?1
BY CATHERINE ELENA BUCHANAN OLBI ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND FRENCH LANGUAGE PROFESSOR
In 2017, the Régime d’immersion en
français 2 of the University of Ottawa
celebrated its 10th anniversary,
at which the Official Languages and
Bilingualism Institute (OLBI) organized
a symposium. All stakeholders were
present – professors, researchers,
politicians, administrators and students
– and a roundtable was organized where
four immersion students spoke about the
shaping and reshaping of their linguistic
identity. The discussion touched on the
confusion that often surrounds certain
key concepts linked to the identity of
learners of French as a second language
(FSL), not only for students but also for
their parents.
How does your child self-identify?
Does she see herself as an anglophone
learning French? Does he consider himself
to be a francophone, a francophile, or
perhaps an “in-between”? What about
the perception of others? The good news
is that concepts of identity are everchanging.
Your child will constantly move
between languages and cultures and be
the richer for it. The bad news is that
they may carry strong feelings about this
linguistic branding.
Francophone
When the etymology of the prefix franco
is analyzed, it is clear that it indicates
either French ancestry or the use of
the French language, often in a specific
region. The suffix phone, which comes
from the Greek phôné, means voice or
sound (Le Petit Robert, 2003). Le Petit
Robert, a dictionary from France, defines
a francophone as a person who, in certain
circumstances, usually speaks French as
either a first or second language (Le Petit
Robert, p. 1125, 2006). This would include
all Canadian FSL speakers, regardless of
their school programs. According to the
Multidictionnaire from Quebec, where
language is a major political issue, a
francophone is someone “whose mother
tongue or language of use is French:
there are more than five million
francophones in Quebec” (p. 663, 2003).
This would exclude most FSL learners.
Finally, from a more official perspective,
Statistics Canada (2010) summarizes the
situation well:
There is no established definition
of Francophone. For historical
reasons, Statistics Canada has
generally used the criterion of
mother tongue, that is, the first
language learned at home in
childhood and still understood
at the time of the census.
Accessed August 23, 2018 at
www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/
89-642-x/2010001/article/
section1-eng.htm
Francophile
As a result, FSL learners are sometimes
labeled Francophiles, which also causes
confusion. Le Petit Robert defines a
Francophile as someone who “loves
France and the French, supports French
politics "(p. 1124). The Multidictionnaire
broadens the definition to include the
love of francophones. Some academic
institutions have taken it to include FSL
learners. At the University of Ottawa,
a Francophile is defined as someone
who comes from the English-speaking
community, but enjoys both French
culture and language (Knoerr, 2016, p.50).
This entanglement of francophonefrancophile
affects not only FSL learners,
but also those who teach French. For
example, a Franco-Ontarian professor,
who is an established researcher in the
CPF MAGAZINE WINTER 2020 3