Typical French usages.

The strongest accent, and without any doubt the most difficult to understand comes from Quebec. In this area, people speak their own language, in a way explained in the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw5Re7k1KBA&feature=related

Inside France, some people don’t understand well each other, especially because of the differences of accent and pronunciation of certain words, and sometimes also because of vocabulary particularities/ special expressions. It could be the case in some rural area in the North of France, even though the following scene is quite exaggerated. The show starts here from 01:06:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY5cWL4SUmw

Here is an example of a French high level usage, characterized by several words from a high level vocabulary, as: “errer/ errance, aboutir, péril, s’expose, surgir”… This comes from a quite well-known Fench writer, Pascal QUIGNARD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KllcGBhHExo

The Globalization of Language

This reflexion comes from the article ”The Globalization of Language. How the Media Contribute to the Spread of English and the Emergence of Medialects” published in 2004 by Stig HJAVARD. This article makes an analysis of the role of the language of the media, around 3 main hypothesis.

Ad rarely translated into French

            The first one is for part of it implied by the title of the article, asserting that the language used in the media is spreading not only the English language, but also the American/ British culture. In fact, S. HJAVARD leans on the omnipresence of English in media to explain why more and more people speak, or at least understand this language. He adds that this process has known a new dynamism because of the emergence of Internet, a space where English is even more present than elsewhere. On the other hand, the spread of this language is accompanied by the spread of a culture coming from the English-speaking countries, United-Kingdom and even more United-States in the lead. To sum up, the spread of their language spreads their culture, their so well-known “way of life” all over the world, which determines what has become a kind of “global culture”.

            Then, the second hypothesis, also included in the title of the article, is that the media would create their own languages, which he calls by the following neologism: “medialects”. These languages can for instance come from the options or the restrictions given by each media, these particular conditions establishing a sort of structure for the communication. In this case, the language used depends on the type of the media and of the activity made on it. Moreover, those “medialects” often come from English, as the settings of each new media are generally first developed in this language and then translated, since the companies from English-speaking countries are leading the IT industry.

A symbol of the domination of USA Companies

The last hypothesis the author makes is that English would be putting away the other languages. He leans on the significant number of new words created from a more or less direct English origin, in the case of Danish, language considered as the ideal model to establish the growing and intrusive influence of English on the other languages. But this situation is not so brand new, and S. HJAVARD, making reference to the middle of the XX^th century, appoints other responsible than Internet or even the media in general, with the firms, and especially the multinationals, or with certain politicians. Therefore, this last hypothesis appears more such as a consequence of globalization in general,  and particularly

of   the   global   domination   of   the   United-States.  

Here is my commentary of “Mass media in Basque Language”

The Basque language has a reduced but relevant place in the media of the Basque country. It is present in all media: television, radio and press. The example of television is quite meaningful. The main channel broadcasting in Basque is ETB1. Its repartition of the genres it broadcasts is influenced by the fact that a certain number of people living in the Basque country still have a low knowledge of Basque. On the other hand, the diffusion of much more fictions by ETB2, a channel in Castellan, must be a consequence of the fact that standard Basque is not appreciated in fictions, which is a symptom of the still low-advanced and spread standardization of the Basque, as this process started only about 40 years ago. That could also explain why local media in general are so numerous and successful. To finish with television, the success of ETB3, a channel mainly dedicated to children, reminds us that young people are more and more numerous to speak the Basque. We could also take the example of the Basque press, to remind that speaking the Basque was and can still be taken as a sign of education, and means in no way an autistic withdrawal, as the quality and the opening of the main Basque newspaper shows it.

            As for the Basque, the use of Catalan has been prosecuted during the Civil war and the reign of Franco. Books in Catalan have been burnt and media in Catalan have been destroyed. However, it appears clearly that the “institutionalization” of Catalan, for instance through media, was developed before the Civil war, which explains why its process of standardization is more advanced nowadays. As for the Basque, the Catalan is now powered up by the local authorities, and has the same kind of tendencies to find its dynamism through local media, as well as to be reserved to a certain type of domains, such as cultural, academic or political ones.  On the other hand, Catalan seems to have a little advance on the Basque considering its presence on television (for instance with the success of TV3) and on the internet, which must come from its biggest number of speakers (estimated to 9 million, with “only” 2 million for the Basque), but shows also that Catalan speakers have the same tendency as Basque ones to be quite opened and well-connected to the world. Lastly, the Catalan knows the same dynamism as Basque, thanks to an education more and more given in those two minority languages.