Introduction - Anniversary Issue

The Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities (CIRLM) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote greater knowledge of the situation of the official language minorities of Canada, and a better understanding of the priority issues that concern them. CIRLM created the journal Minorités linguistiques et société/Linguistic Minorities and Society late 2010 to help increase knowledge within this research field. Its mandate or field of study would be disseminating research findings and reflections on the official language minority communities of Canada and on other linguistic minorities in Canada and elsewhere in the world, from a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective in the areas of language sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. Additionally, CIRLM wanted to respond to a growing interest in scientific research on official and co-official language minorities, and in publishing the results of this research in one or other of the official languages of Canada.

Since its creation, CIRLM has been responsible for operating the journal, providing essential financial support to cover costs of management, graphic design, linguistic revision, translation of texts, and the publication of issues, including making them available online on Érudit. CIRLM’s administrative assistant supports the journal management and acts as coordinator, in addition to looking after the journal’s budget. When it was first launched, the journal received financial and in-kind support from Canadian Heritage, the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Consortium national de formation en santé (CNFS) and the Institut d’études acadiennes. Taking over from the CNFS, the Association des collèges et universités francophones du Canada continues to be a partner of the journal, providing financial support.

The editorial direction of the journal is chosen by and reports to CIRLM leadership. An editorial board provides support for the journal management, and it can be asked to propose orientations and new themes. Editorial board members are called upon to decide on proposals for thematic issues, including themes, calls, and orientations. The members may also, on an optional basis, participate in blind peer review. The review’s direction has always sought their advice at various times, and intends to continue to do so.

Réal Allard was the first editor of the journal. Professor emeritus of education, he was professor and research associate at CIRLM at the Université de Moncton. After taking what he refers to as “formal retirement” in 1997, he remained active in postgraduate teaching, research, and community service. He was also director of the Centre de recherche et de développement en éducation from 1991 to 2003. His research has focused on education in minority language contexts, subjective ethnolinguistic vitality, the desire to integrate and ethnolinguistic identity, ethnolinguistic awareness, identity engagement and engaged behaviour, beliefs and ethnolinguistic behaviour in minority language environments, and education and bilingual development.

Jason Luckerhoff took over as editor in 2021. Previously, he co-founded the journal Approches inductives, as well as Enjeux et société, which is managed by the Université de l’Ontario français in Toronto. He also co-founded the collection Culture et publics at Presses de l’Université du Québec, and was involved in Coalition Publica, a partnership between Érudit and the Public Knowledge Project to promote research dissemination and digital scholarly publishing in Canada. To ensure a smooth transition in the journal’s direction, Réal Allard initially remained as co-editor, before becoming honorary editor.

Working toward more efficient XML processing

From the outset, the journal has been available as an open-access publication on the Érudit platform. Érudit has signed agreements with most of the world’s leading indexing and aggregation tools, allowing the journal to be referenced in Canada and internationally. Full XML processing, adopted with issue 20 in 2023, improves discoverability by making the entire content accessible and searchable on search engines. In fact, Érudit points out that encoding files in this format better meets the standards applied to long-term digital preservation and archiving. At the same time, the journal’s direction has ensured that authors are able to publish under the least restrictive of the proposed licenses, in order to specify the terms of use of the work, and to grant non-exclusive rights, while retaining the prerogatives of the author. The choice of a Creative Commons license means that the journal—which as mentioned had been published in open access on Érudit since its foundation—is now more closely aligned with open access best practices.

Languages of publication of the journal

Minorités linguistiques et société/Linguistic Minorities and Society has been a bilingual (French and English) publication since its foundation. CIRLM has stipulated that articles would be published in either English or French, but not in both official languages simultaneously. It has chosen to translate the introduction to the thematic issues and the summaries or abstracts into both official languages.

Steps have been taken to increase the number of English-language publications on the Anglophone minority of Quebec. In partnership with the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), the journal set itself the goal of working more closely with the English-speaking communities of Quebec to solicit articles and proposals for thematic issues to be published in English. Lastly, out of respect for official and co-official language communities that have been the subject of articles, it has been agreed that the abstracts of nos. 15–16 will be published not only in English and French, but also in the language of the minority community, i.e., Basque, Catalan, Finnish, Welsh and Swedish.

Issues facing Indigenous communities

As Rémi Léger and Timothy van den Brink mention in their article in this anniversary issue, it had been hoped that the journal would publish research on the official language minorities of Canada, while at the same time expanding its scope to include the First Peoples of Canada, other Canadian linguistic minorities, and international studies. Publications have therefore been devoted to the official language minorities of Canada, international studies (nos. 12 and 15–16), and Indigenous issues (no. 18) in an article entitled “La Décennie des langues autochtones (2022-2032): la Convention sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles de l’UNESCO peut contribuer à la préservation et à la revitalisation des langues autochtones.” A call for papers on the preservation, revitalization and promotion of Indigenous languages was circulated, and an issue is due to appear shortly. A member of an Indigenous community will co-direct the issue. In addition, a member of an Indigenous community now sits on the editorial board of the journal. With its openness to comparative and international studies, the journal should, in years to come, welcome more articles on the situation of linguistic minorities outside of Canada.

Editorial committee

The journal has taken care to ensure regional representativity within Canada, international representativity, as well as representativity by discipline, specialization and gender. Recently, the editorial board was renewed, ensuring representativity of not only the above criteria, but also of Indigenous communities. The members of the editorial board are regularly invited to express their views on subjects discussed by the direction at meetings held on the Internet and by email. Their wealth of expert input has provided important insights for decision-making.

All journal issues are now thematic, and include a Varia section for the publication of off-theme articles. The editorial board is consulted, on presentation of a complete dossier, whenever a thematic issue is proposed.

The journal’s mandate was recently clarified. The journal welcomes contributions on official language minorities and language policymakers. At the heart of the calls for papers for the thematic issues are research papers that can support the various official-language-minority stakeholders and public policymakers in the language field, as well as research papers that provide a better understanding of official language minority communities (OLMCs). These articles should contribute to the production of new knowledge on OLMC issues, or enable comparisons with other minority language groups in Canada (First Nations, Métis, Inuit and non-official language populations) or elsewhere in the world. The direction of the journal has clarified that it is particularly interested in receiving proposals on minority populations, community development, the political realm, influence and governance, language rights, recognition and legitimacy, as well as memory, identity and diversity. It has also clarified that, whereas interdisciplinarity is valued, the objects of study must have a direct link with linguistic minorities. For example, immigration and diversity are relevant themes if considered from the perspective of linguistic minorities. The media may also be a pertinent object of study for the journal if, for example, the situation of the media in minority language communities or discourses concerning language or language rights in the media are to be studied.

The license used by the journal was recently updated. In accordance with the best practices of open access and Plan S, the journal is now distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 License. It offers continuous publication, with articles uploaded up to three times per issue. The issues are fully processed on Érudit, and the function for automatically generating PDFs from XML is available. Articles are therefore available in PDF and HTML formats. Continuous publication and the Varia section in each issue allow the MLS/LMS journal to reduce release periods considerably.

Four types of text may now be published. The journal Minorités linguistiques et société/Linguistic Minorities and Society publishes peer-reviewed scientific articles in thematic issues approved by the editorial board and the journal editor, and in issues or some of their sections which include a variety of articles on various subjects (Varia). A third section, Perspectives, allows researchers and professionals to publish research notes, critical reviews of written works, or reflective texts that are not scientific articles, but that offer a quality of argumentation and reasoning of interest to the journal. For instance, this section includes research issues, critical reviews, research in progress, synthesis papers, and interviews with key figures in the field of research. Articles in the Perspectives section are not peer-reviewed, but rather are evaluated by the editor, who can call on members of the editorial board as required. A fourth section includes book reviews, which are evaluated by the person in charge of reviews and by the journal’s direction. Initially, Éric Forgues was responsible for reviews. Subsequently, political science professors Rémi Léger of Simon Fraser University and Stéphanie Chouinard of the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University were responsible for reviews submitted for publication in the journal. François-René Lord, professor at TÉLUQ, is currently in charge of reviews.

All texts undergo professional linguistic revision. A study committee was set up by the directions of the journal and the Institute to reflect on good practice in bilingualism within the Institute and the journal as organizations, and another to monitor changing sensitivities and standards regarding inclusive writing. The publication of abstracts in minority languages other than French and English was also the subject of committee discussions, in addition to decisions to allow it.

This anniversary issue, edited by the first editor of the journal and his successor, is an idea both had, to invite contributors to take part in a collective review and look to the future. It was an opportunity to take stock of how far we have come, and the role of the journal in this field of research. The exchanges surrounding the contributions that make up this issue also informed strategic discussions and decision-making.

Presentation of texts in the anniversary issue

Éric Forgues has written an article entitled “Les modèles de gouvernance des communautés francophones en situation minoritaire,” where he looks back on his career as a researcher on the governance of Francophone minority communities (FMCs). Éric Forgues was hired by CIRLM in 2003, in its second year of existence, and became its director in 2012. In returning to his field of investigation some fifteen years later, he paints a portrait of governance mechanisms across Francophone communities in the provinces. He presents the origins of Francophone community governance, and then presents the aim of his text: to contribute to a better understanding of the bodies that are at the heart of Francophone community governance, and of the modalities for collective decision-making and the creation of FMC development plans.

“Language, Federalism and Canadian Diplomacy,” written by Graham Fraser, looks back at the historical events that have marked federal-provincial relations in Canada. According to Fraser, Canadian diplomacy performs two essential functions: promoting the interests of Canada in a complex global environment, and projecting the nature of the country in a world that often sees us as second-class Americans. The author considers language skills, and in particular knowledge of the two official languages of Canada, to be essential to the interpretation of national interests. They play an important role in intercultural communication and in the representation of the country. He asks how the history of Canadian diplomacy reflects the bilingual and bicultural nature of the country, and how Canadian debates on language and Quebec nationalism have affected Canadian diplomacy. Graham Fraser argues that Francophone diplomats played a key role at one time, but that this role has become less visible over time: As debates over language and national unity faded into the background, so did the role of Francophones in Canadian diplomacy.

In the article “Six millions de solitudes: les francophones du Québec dans l’État fédéral canadien,” Michel Seymour identifies sources of concern regarding the future of French as a common public language in Quebec. Seymour points out that official language minority communities are protected, but that the situation of Francophones outside Quebec is far more difficult than that of the Francophone majority of Quebec. For this author, asserting that French is the official language of Quebec is compatible with supporting the English language, the institutions of the Anglophone community in Quebec and its heritage, and with recognizing the 11 Indigenous peoples as having equal status with the Québécois. He affirms that to form a community, it is not necessary to have a specific ethnic identity. It is possible to share a common public identity while having different cultural backgrounds and mother tongues. He believes that the Québécois people have a collective right to a Charter of the French language, but that Québec’s Indigenous peoples and the Anglophone minority also have rights. The surge in immigration to Quebec is reducing the number of people whose mother tongue or primary language spoken at home is French. But, in his view, this is nothing to be alarmed about, as long as French remains the common public language. The key indicator for measuring common public identity is the first official language spoken (FOLS). The author presents a number of data that enable us to analyze the situation on the basis of this indicator. In particular, he raises the question of whether the attention paid to Francophones outside Quebec is motivated by objectives aimed at ensuring the national unity of the country, rather than by the desire to strengthen Francophone identities across the country.

In “Les chemins de la recherche sur les minorités : minorités linguistiques et société en comparaison,” Rémi Léger and Timothy van den Brink take stock of the first decade of the journal Minorités linguistiques et société/Linguistic Minorities and Society. Which minorities have been the subject of research and reflection in the various articles published? What about the diversity of the authors? Has the possibility of publishing in English or French led to publications in both official languages of the country? These are just a few of the questions that guided Léger and van den Brink in writing this retrospective article. The authors drew freely on similar exercises carried out for the journals Francophonies d’Amérique and Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française. They also offer a comparison with journals that share a similar profile: Béascna, Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, Glottopol, Letopis and Revista de Llengua i Dret. Their review shows that the journal published an average of seven articles and four reviews per issue, for a total of 139 scientific articles published from 2012 to 2022. According to these authors, the journal has positioned itself as the journal of choice in the field devoted to the study of Francophone minorities in Canada. One hundred and fourteen of these articles were written in French and 25 in English, leading the authors to assert that Minorités linguistiques et société/ Linguistic Minorities and Society is a journal that publishes primarily French-language articles on the Canadian Francophonie. Between 2012 and 2022, authors affiliated with 45 different universities, 21 of them international, have published in the journal. Readership has grown steadily since the inaugural issue.

Lorraine O’Donnell and Patrick Donovan have contributed a text on the English-speaking communities of Quebec and their vitality: “Resources on English-Speaking Quebec: A Field Map.” QUESCREN enters its fifteenth year in 2024. This article, published in the anniversary issue of CIRLM (20 years) and the journal (10 years), therefore also serves to commemorate an organization that is also dedicated to language issues. The article aims to identify the characteristics of English-language resources in Quebec, as well as trends and gaps. An analysis of the themes, titles, abstracts and references in over 14,000 resources listed in the “Bibliography on English-Speaking Quebec” provides insight into a little-known field, which is not, in their view, a priority within Quebec research institutions. This bibliography is intended to help anyone studying English-speaking Quebec to find documentation on the nature, history, contributions and concerns of this highly diverse official-language minority community. It unearths the wealth of documentation available and catalogues it in a useful way, in the hope of stimulating research on Anglophone Quebec. Ninety-four percent of this database is made up of master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, books, book chapters and scientific journal articles. Some ethnocultural groups within the English-speaking population of Quebec receive greater attention. O’Donnell and Donovan see this field of research as diverse and expanding, but also as neither uniform nor coherent. In fact, in their view, it is rather uneven and fragmented. To some extent, this is a reflection of the fact that Anglophone research institutions in the province do not focus on English-speaking Quebec.

“L’apport du CREFO dans le développement et la diversification des champs d’études sur les francophonies canadiennes” is an article by Diane Farmer, Normand Labrie, and Emmanuelle Le Pichon-Vorstman. The authors of this contribution take advantage of the anniversaries of CIRLM and Minorités linguistiques et société/Linguistic Minorities and Society to look back at the work carried out by the Centre de recherches en éducation franco-ontarienne (CREFO) for close to half a century. From the outset, CREFO has sought to highlight diversity in its analyses of the Canadian Francophonie. CREFO is approached as an institution and a place of knowledge production, where researchers have focused on the varieties of French in Ontario, the study of educational, social and language practices, and the fight against marginalization. Accents, languages involved, race, religion, social origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, and stages of life are linked with a plurality of viewpoints to highlight the importance of the societal and historical context in which Canadian Francophone communities evolve. Language, education, and immigration remain key themes for CREFO. Pedagogy in a minority Francophone context, the development of resources for minority schools, multilingualism, and cultural diversity in a minority context are just some of the subjects of research promoted by CREFO, which strives to build bridges across the many spaces of the Francophonie in Canada and elsewhere in the world. The study of language, education and immigration, the fight against anti-black racism, the study of multilingualism as a teaching approach, pedagogy in the context of minority Francophone communities, and mobility and the Francophonie in the world are among the themes of current CREFO projects.

In the Perspectives section of this issue, Éric Forgues and Jason Luckerhoff interview Rodrigue Landry and Yvon Fontaine. Éric Forgues, Director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, and Jason Luckerhoff, Director of the journal Minorités linguistiques et société/Linguistic Minorities and Society, met with Rodrigue Landry and Yvon Fontaine in the context of the 20th anniversary of CIRLM and the 10th anniversary of the MLS/LMS journal. Rodrigue Landry was director of CIRLM for ten years, from 2002 to 2012, after founding the Centre de recherche et de développement en éducation de l’Université de Moncton and serving as professor and dean at the Université de Moncton. Yvon Fontaine was president of the Université de Moncton from 2000 to 2012, after occupying the positions of professor, vice-dean, dean, and vice-president of the same institution. Two meetings lasting just over an hour were supplemented by archival research, email exchanges, and a final conversation to complete the interview text prepared by Éric Forgues and Jason Luckerhoff. Landry and Fontaine looked back at the events leading up to the creation of CIRLM, as well as the years they worked together as director and board chair. This interview helps us understand that the original idea was to create an institute for the Canadian Francophonie. It was only later that Anglophones in Quebec sought to obtain the equivalent and, eventually, a place in the institute now dedicated to the linguistic minorities of Canada. This led to the creation of QUESCREN, which maintained links with CIRLM, but also gained autonomy. Today, Rodrigue Landry considers it to be a partner of CIRLM. In retrospect, Landry and Fontaine feel that this has allowed the Institute to take an interest in all linguistic minorities, particularly those of the official languages of Canada.

Also in the Perspectives section, Marie-Hélène Gaudreault presents the results of a research study on leadership in a Francophone minority context conducted in 2021. She interviewed eighty Francophone executives across the country, with the exception of Quebec. In particular, she examines the main challenges facing Francophone leaders.

The final text in the Perspectives section is by Marc L. Johnson, consulting sociologist and adjunct professor of social communication at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. It deals with the federal government's commitment to minority education, and more specifically to lifelong learning, including learning in formal, non-formal and informal contexts. At RESDAC's initiative, the National Education Table undertook to redefine the education continuum to include lifelong learning. The National Summit on Learning for Canada’s Francophonie, an action-oriented reflection on lifelong learning, brought together 300 francophone leaders in Ottawa in March 2024. Marc L. Johnson focuses on this paradigm shift.

In the Varia section, two off-theme articles are published. “L’obligation de communiquer en anglais dans les communautés francophones en contexte minoritaire : des futures infirmières issues de l’immigration témoignent de leur expérience en stage” is by Claire Duchesne, Catherine E. Déri and Josée Benoit. They conducted research interviews with Francophone nurse trainees from immigrant backgrounds, examining possible solutions to support the socioprofessional integration of future nurses. Annabel Levesque, N’deye Rokhaya Gueye, Étienne Rivard, Danielle de Moissac and Hélène Archambault have contributed the text entitled “Collective Identity Profiles: The Case of Francophones in Manitoba.” This quantitative study explores collective identity profiles: Bilingual Optimist, Franco-Dominant Optimist, Indifferent Pessimist and Anglo-Dominant Pessimist.

Eight book reviews have also been published: “Langues, discourses et identités au prisme des réseaux sociaux numériques” (2023), “Pourquoi la loi 101 est un échec” (2020), “Dire le silence: insécurité linguistique en Acadie 1867-1970” (2021), “Fédéralisme et légitimation des langues minoritaires : le cas de la Lusace et des pays catalans” (2023), “L’anglais en débat au Québec: mythes et cadrage” (2021), “Le Canada français: écrits de Philippe Garigue” (2022), “La société acadienne sous la loupe du chercheur: parcours sociologique en Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick” (2022) and “Délier la langue : Pour un nouveau discours sur le français au Québec” (2022).