Language Policy, Biculturalism and Bilingualism

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 2,3, Technical University of Braunschweig (Englisches Seminar), course: Language Contact and Language Conflict, language: English, abstract: This paper will examine the chances and limitations of successful language policy, exemplified by a close look at the language situation in Canada, to answer the question of to what extend language policy can be a helpful means to support biculturalism and bilingualism in a heterogeneous society. In order to do so, this paper will present an outline of the history of as well as the social situation in Canada, and give definitions of crucial terms. Then it will dwell on federal and provincial language policies as well as on education issues. The afterwards worked out possible parallels between both will eventually lead to a conclusion about the chances of successful realization of an advanced multicultural society through language policy. As Canadian language policy is designed to almost exclusively effect the status of English and French, this paper will focus on the language conflict between these two languages and only shortly touch the topic of non-official and native languages.