Francophonies Nord-américaines: Langues, Frontières Et Idéologies by France Martineau et al. (review)

Readers may be familiar with Le français en Amérique du Nord: état présent (Valdman et al., 2005), a compilation of texts featuring descriptive and functional analyses of North American varieties of French and the social contexts in which they have been spoken. Recently, some of the same authors, and others, too, have formed international research teams, collaborating on large-scale, multiregional corporabased projects. The volume reviewed here is the fruit of one such project: Le français à la mesure d'un continent: un patrimoine en partage (Martineau, 2009, <continent. uottawa.ca>), with 13 co-investigators and 88 collaborators and partners representing 40 North American and European universities. Contributors to this volume include its four editors, along with many of the project's collaborating investigators, including variationist sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, dialectologists, sociologists, and historians. The data analyzed in this volume are drawn from the FRAN (Français d'Amérique du Nord) Corpus compiled through this research collaboration. Martineau, in her introduction, describes the project's conception as centered on a fluid understanding of French, not as a static standard, but as a language of migration, in contact with other languages, and thus evolving. Under this conception, linguistic boundaries and identities of French speakers are not easily delimited. Acknowledging the complexities engendered by such a perspective, the editors are careful to include studies representing a variety of analytical approaches: macro and micro synchronic methods—addressing current language practices, linguistic representations, and multicultural and multifaceted Francophone identities; and macro and micro diachronic methods—tracing historical migratory patterns along with the formation of social networks, subsequent language contact and change, and the evolution of language ideologies through these historical processes. A variety of regions are represented: Acadie, Québec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Louisiana, Connecticut, Haiti, the French Antilles, and France. Chapters include eleven relatively long texts, of which four written by the editorial team provide deeper discussions of the volume's theoretical foundations. Also included are 23 shorter portraits of Francophones from various regions in North America and France, which detail the integration of French into their personal identity. With an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches, the volume's texts contextualize the historical, social, and ideological complexities surrounding the evolution of North American varieties of French and their speakers' multifaceted linguistic identities, invoking both Francophone and Anglophone theoretical traditions. The wealth of citations throughout the volume is useful to newcomers and experts in the field alike. The Francophone portraits incorporate linguistic representations and identity and could be integrated into undergraduate linguistics or civilization courses at the upper-division level of French language study. In sum, just as Valdman et al. is regarded an invaluable contribution to the field of North American French linguistics, likely so will be Francophonies nord-américaines. It is essential reading for students and scholars alike of Francophone sociolinguistics and will be an important addition to private and public collections.