Anglicisms and Students in Quebec: Oral, Written, Public, and Private—Do Personal Opinions on Language Protection Influence Students' Use of English Borrowings?

Abstract

What is the influence of students' assessment of the official language protection regime in Quebec and their usage of English borrowings in oral and written language, as well as in the private and public spheres? Hypothesizing that survey participants, who deem Bill 101 and the language protection policy as too lax, use fewer English borrowings in any setting than do students who deem the policy to be adequate or too strong, we evaluate students' usage of five of the most frequent English borrowings found in three newspapers of the Canadian francophone written press in 2014, namely coach, condo, fun, look, and performer. With the help of a large-scale survey conducted in various universities in the Province of Quebec and the national capital region of Canada and using various quantitative techniques, we find that there is a difference in the students' usage of anglicisms between the oral and the written language and between the private and the public realms. However, we do not find any major differences in the usage of the five borrowings in any of the two domains (i.e., oral vs. written and private vs. public) between students who advocate a stricter language policy and students favouring a laxer language policy.