02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 117

Article

Critique and Sociolinguistic

Analysis of Discourse
Monica Heller
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Abstract  My point of departure for this paper is that critique is fundamentally

about identifying and explaining the construction of relations of social difference and inequality (and then deciding what position to take about such processes, and what, if any, action that might lead to). I focus on one particular
theoretical and methodological dimension of this project; namely the linkage
between local linguistic practices and processes of social structuration
(Giddens,1984). This discussion is based on sociolinguistic ethnographic materials exploring how some very local processes (debates over organizational structure and vision in one small community association in Ontario, Canada) are
linked to broader concerns about social difference and inequality.
Keywords  agency  Canada  critique  language practices  structuration

Critique and structuration

My point of departure for this article is that critique is fundamentally
about identifying and explaining the construction of relations of social
difference and inequality (and then deciding what position to take about
such processes, and what, if any, action that might lead to). Sociology and
anthropology in general have long contained currents of critique; in the
1960s especially, one branch of that current began to focus on what an
analysis of language practices might offer to such a project. This interest
might be understood as being motivated by two concerns: one being to
identify the actual social processes involved, the other to understand the
reasons why language is so often explicitly a terrain of social struggle.
Since then, a variety of approaches (using labels like sociolinguistics,
linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, pragmatics) have worked away
at this project, making headway in some areas, while encountering roadblocks in others. In this article, I focus on one particular theoretical and
methodological problem which has emerged over the years, namely the
linkage between local linguistic practices and processes of social structuration (Giddens, 1984). I consider this problem to be important to the project
of critique insofar as the analysis of local linguistic practices can show us
some immediate consequences for the regulation of the production and
distribution of resources, and hence for the construction of social
Vol 21(2) 117141 [0308-275X(200106)21:2; 117141;016274]
Copyright 2001 SAGE Publications
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 118

118
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

difference (what criteria of inclusion and exclusion are used to regulate

access to resources?) and social inequality (who gets access to what?); but
without an ability to situate those local practices in time and space it is difficult to know what to make of them. A connected problem is the old social
science conundrum of the relationship between agency and structure; if it
is important to ask how action here is connected to action there and with
what consequences for whom, it is also important to understand how it
comes to pass that some kinds of people end up with more opportunities
for undertaking certain kinds of action while others end up with fewer.
Indeed, North American approaches, under the rubrics of linguistic
anthropology or interactional sociolinguistics, have tended to be very
successful in uncovering the fine-grained workings of locally situated discourse, and linking them to a mode of analysis which addresses social difference and social inequality (cf. contributions in Gumperz, 1982a;
Cook-Gumperz, 1986; Heller, 1988; Silverstein and Urban, 1996; Schieffelin et al., 1998). However, while these approaches are sensitive to the sociohistorical conditions of discursive production, they have not always
operationalized that sensitivity and they have sometimes shied away from
using their tools to develop social and political analyses and critiques of the
world immediately around us. At others, they have had difficulty in doing
so in ways which allow us to see the connections between the moment and
the big picture, with the constant danger of moving too quickly from one
to the other.
Within this approach, some have tried to make linkages through
examining linguistic practices in institutional settings, in law, medicine and
notably in education. These are, as Gumperz (1982b) and others have
argued, sites where it is possible to observe connections between local practices and institutional processes and structures, as well as, importantly, the
ways in which institutions act as agencies of social regulation, reproduction
and control (cf. e.g. Gumperz, 1982b, 1986; Cicourel, 1987; Mehan, 1987;
Mehan et al., 1985). Oddly, these institution-oriented approaches are often
understood as distinct from other interactional sociolinguistic or linguistic
anthropological work, perhaps as more problem- than theory-oriented;
this turns up, for example, in where you find papers at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Nonetheless, it remains
difficult even in these cases to get a sense of the social and material role of
institutions, and of the ways in which actors circulate within and among
them.
European approaches (notably under the rubric of critical discourse
analysis) have addressed some of these problems, in particular focusing
deliberately on certain kinds of actors and sites of discursive production as
a means of producing immediate political analyses and critiques connected
to observable problems of construction of social difference and social
inequality (cf. e.g. Van Dijk, 1993; Wodak, 1996). However, as other contributors to this collection have pointed out, these approaches have tended

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 119

119
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

to reduce and simplify the discursive processes which are the empirical
heart of the enterprise, and, more importantly, to marginalize as data the
actual conditions of discursive production and reception. Arguments are
often based on texts or segments of texts, the significance of which is
asserted rather than demonstrated, and while linkages are an important
concept (notably in Faircloughs notion of intertextuality; cf. Fairclough,
1992), it is rare to find empirical illustrations of how processes of construction of social difference and social inequality actually unfold over time
and space.
In my view, it is important at least to attempt to discover how these processes work, and how texts are linked to other sites of discursive production
and interpretation, as well as to demonstrable outcomes, precisely in order
to be able to figure out whose interests are at stake and why, to be able to
take a political position based on that reading, and to understand what
kinds of action on our part (including the very asking of questions and production of knowledge) are likely to have what kinds of consequences for
whom. My goal here, then, is to try to imagine a way to take the best of both
North American and European intellectual worlds: to think about how to
operationalize a critical sociolinguistics which is able to turn on a dime to
respond to the often rapid developments in the societies we live in (think
of the Ebonics debate in the United States [Collins, 1999; Ogbu, 1999; Rickford, 1999]; debates about language legislation in the European Union;
concerns over the spread of English; or debates about minority nationalism), while maintaining the commitment to social theory as well as to the
strong empirical basis of our claims which is in many ways the hallmark of
our work. Such a critical sociolinguistics must also be reflexive, of course;
we cannot engage in social and political (or, for that matter, economic or
cultural) debate without thinking about the nature and status of the knowledge we produce, our own interests in that knowledge, and the other interests we may wittingly or unwittingly serve (cf. the many discussions of the
role of linguists and anthropologists in language debates in Blommaert,
1999).
To illustrate some of these concerns, I will describe here an attempt in
which I am currently engaged to achieve some of these goals. This attempt
is a research programme which at the time of writing is nearing the end of
its 4-year run.1 I will briefly describe the research programmes broad goals
and then turn to an analysis of one particular process under way in one of
the regions we have been concerned with, as a way of exploring how some
very local processes (such as debates over organizational structure and
vision in one small community association) are linked to broader concerns
about social difference and inequality.
At its broadest level, this research is aimed at understanding nothing
less than the politics of language in my country (Canada), and in particular the politics of French and English. This is terrain which brings together
two major ways in which the study of language is relevant to the study of

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 120

120
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

critique in anthropology: language is both a key domain of struggle over

difference and inequality, and a means of conducting that struggle. In the
spirit of this double concern, my collaborators and I have called our project
Prise de parole (or in English, Speaking out). The title is also meant to
convey a theoretical and methodological orientation: for us, language practices in Canada are primarily about struggles on a discursive terrain. They
are about people struggling to produce discourses and to impose them, and
to deal with discourses produced by others. (By discourses here I mean
principally ways of working at understanding the social world, how it operates, how to understand it and what to value in it. Discourses in this sense
are obviously linked to the notion of ideology, insofar as ideologies are
understood as means of structuring and orienting domains of activity, and
therefore inform discursive production and content; cf. Blommaert, 1999.)
Language practices are also about discourses informed by interests, interests related to controlling access to the production and distribution of symbolic and material resources (the echo here of Bourdieu is not accidental;
cf. Bourdieu, 1977, 1982). They are also about doing the business of discursive production under constantly changing conditions, to which, of
course, discursive struggles themselves contribute. Finally, in the end they
have to include our own language practices and discursive production,
which are scarcely removed from those of everyone else involved in this
game.
In Canada, of course, the specific role of language in the social construction of relations of difference and inequality is not only central, it is
highly visible and completely explicit. We engage constantly in public
debate over the relative merits of models of pluralism, over individual and
collective rights, and over the importance of multilingualism and of linguistic norms as means of realizing our sometimes conflicting visions of
society (cf. Taylor, 1992; Kymlicka, 1995; Bouchard, 1999; Heller, 1999a; Le
Devoir, 1999). The best-known and often most salient of these debates
opposes Trudeauian ideologies of Canada as a bilingual state to Qubcois
nationalist concerns about bilingualism as a means of exercising anglophone power and as a step towards assimilation, although there are other
views on this particular issue, and many other important debates as well
(such as the debate about the relationship between language revitalization
and the development of new ideas about the organization of Native Canadian communities, or the debate about whether learning French or
English or both is in any way connected to achieving and exercising
citizenship). The fact that there is a public debate about language makes a
difference, but only, I think, a relative one, since it is clear that discourses
about language in Canada flow easily over into discourses about all kinds
of other things, which are also connected to the construction of social
difference and social inequality (these can range from, say, jobs, as sites
where linguistic proficiency is connected to access to employment and to
professional advancement, to, say, painting, which is often linked to the

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 121

121
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

construction of national, ethnic and linguistic ideologies), while in other

places it may be only those covertly language-related debates that are
evident. In any case, Canada serves as a useful terrain for examining processes relating language practices to shifts in political and economic conditions in the context of debates about language and nation in the new
globalized economy. The material I present of course deals with the particular manifestations of those issues in Canada, but can shed light on
similar processes elsewhere.

Prise de parole
Our research has started from the principle that a major means of organizing difference and inequality in Canada is connected to the construction
of categories that are linked to ethnicity and language. In particular, what
it means to speak French and to be francophone (or French Canadian, or
Franco-Canadian, or any number of other labels too numerous to list here),
is a window on to major dimensions of difference and inequality. We have
chosen to examine ways in which discourses of la francit are connected to
the problem of categorization and power by examining the conditions of
production of those discourses and the positioning of actors with respect
to the production, circulation and reception of those discourses. This is also
a question of current social and political importance as this discursive
terrain is currently undergoing a major shift, a shift accompanied by tensions and conflicts which so far have been contained in the verbal sphere
but which can be none the less violent for that. We set out to map this shift,
and to try to understand what lies behind it.
Our assumption, which so far seems relatively on target, was that the
relationship of language practices to the production and distribution of
symbolic and material resources has been shifting because of some fundamental political economic transformations which position people differently with respect to the impact on their lives, especially in terms of the
changing value of the resources they possess, and their relative ease of
access to these and other resources. We started with Ontario and Acadie,
as the two major zones of concentration of francophones outside Quebec,
and as two areas with very different positions politically and economically,
and with respect to ties to other parts of the French- and English-speaking
worlds. By examining francophone minority areas, we also had not only the
advantage of doing research where we actually live and work, but also the
possibility of being able to identify sites of discursive production which are
relatively manageable, being located primarily in specific institutions and
organizations of a relatively small scale (which is not the case in Quebec).
We started out with a focus, then, on sites of production of discourse about
French and la francit (in its various forms), both supra-regionally and
regionally.

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 122

122
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

We chose different regions of Ontario and Acadie as examples of varied

manifestations of some common patterns of transformation, and in particular we were interested in the relationship between the traditional heartlands of French Canada and the new areas into which it is being drawn. Our
idea was to see, first, what kinds of discursive struggles were emerging in
these main sites of construction of what it means to speak and be French,
and then to ask both what and who lie behind these struggles? Why are
there competing visions at this moment of what it means to speak and be
French? What kinds of people participate in redefining this basic social category, and what kinds of people find themselves marginalized, voluntarily
or otherwise? In other words, who gets to decide what speaking and being
French mean in these contexts? And why them? In the end, what kinds of
discourses, if any, emerge as dominant new ways of defining la francit? And
what kinds of consequences do such newly hegemonic discourses have for
the construction of social difference and social inequality? Who benefits
and who loses? And how, in the final analysis, do we feel about what we claim
to be seeing?
The corpus of data, collected over the period 19962000, is based on
the following: (1) over 400 interviews conducted in five regions of Ontario
and five in the Maritime provinces; (2) ethnographic observation in a
variety of towns and villages, associations, workplaces and institutions, and
local, provincial and national events in the private, public and para-public
sectors; (3) tape-recordings of association or institution meetings; and (4)
text and visual documents produced by francophone and anti-francophone
associations, organizations and institutions in the private, public and parapublic sectors. What I want to describe here is, first, the broad outlines of
the competing discourses we have identified and the changing political
economic conditions which we understand to explain the origins and trajectories of these discourses; and, second, a specific example of one site
where these discourses intersect and compete. While the discourses identified of course are constructed on the basis of data analysis, which therefore
ought to be presented first, the constraints of academic writing make it
more efficient to present things the other way around (discourses first, data
second). I will then go on to consider who gains and who loses what from
the ways in which events are unfolding in these sites, and what this tells us
about minority francophone society in Canada in general. I will end with a
brief consideration of where this leaves us, as a set of researchers engaged
directly with the subject and object of our research. In a fuller exposition
there would be room for the development of more fine-grained analyses of
specific discourse practices than I can present here. I have chosen to place
my emphasis elsewhere, since, for the purposes of this article, I want to concentrate on breadth and linkages.

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 123

123
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

Traditionalist, modernizing and globalizing discourses

Elsewhere, we have described the major discourses we have identified as traditionalist, modernizing and globalizing (Heller and Budach, 1999). What we
intend to convey by these labels is an anchoring of discourse development
in specific socio-historical conditions, and a relative discursive dominance
at various historical points. These points take their significance from shifts
in the kinds of resources available, and in the ways in which ethnolinguistic categorization (here, specifically, what it means to be French Canadian,
or Qubcois, or Acadian, or francophone, and so on) is tied to the organization of the (unequal) production and distribution of those resources
(through other kinds of institutional structures and processes as well, such
as education, health care, finance, etc.). However, I do want to point out
that all three are present today in francophone discursive space, and have
in some ways surfaced periodically over the course of Canadian history.
What we have labelled a traditionalist discourse has its origins in the
spiritual nationalism which was long the French-Canadian response to
domination by the English (Harvey [1999] argues that it emerged as a
response to the failure of the 1837 rebellion which had aimed at establishing modern, state-like political structures in Quebec). The discourse is
traditionalist in the sense that it refers explicitly to the importance of reproducing practices which are identified as embodying significant and historically continuous activities and values. In content, it focuses on the spiritual
superiority of French-Canadian over English-Canadian society, a resignation to economic and political marginalization as a necessary price to pay
for survival and spiritual rewards, and on the solidarity of a homogeneous
group understood as an organic body. While resisting submission, it
nonetheless recognizes the necessity of some accommodation to English
power.
The political economic conditions of the time provided little in the way
of a power base for most francophones, who were mainly involved as labour
in primary resource extraction. Bilingualism has a value here as a means of
making ones way in an English-speaking world, while retaining the rewards
of community solidarity. English is about success in the material world,
French is about community and family. In many cases, the individual hallmark of an ability to retain both is a bilingualism in which traces of contact
are evident. Mastering English is something to be proud of. The elite of
course had a power base, one based on acting as brokers between anglophone power and francophone communities; for them, bilingualism was an
essential means of exercising what power flowed from that position.
The modernizing discourse has its main origins in 1960s Qubcois state
nationalism (although one can see earlier manifestations, notably in the
vision held by the leadership of that 1837 failed rebellion). The conditions
for this shift seem to have resided in increasing emphasis on industry after
the Second World War, and, as a result, an increasing wealth base in

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 124

124
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

Quebec, coupled with a Western expansion of anglophone-dominated

economic activity, which drew English-speakers westward, leaving open the
possibility of creating a French-dominated regional market based in
Quebec (Clift and Arnopoulos, 1979). It also profited from the growing
importance of the state in post-war life.
The modernizing discourse focuses on the importance of the state in
creating French monolingual bases of power from which to enter the
modern world. One can see how the notion of the organic body laid the
foundations for a new discourse which retains the same notion, but for a
different purpose: the naturalness inherent in that notion legitimates new
goals of collective political organization, of control over the political
apparatus for those who can be included in what is essentially an ethnic category. Just as the nation is understood as homogeneous, so is the social and
political space it inhabits, or needs to inhabit. The political, economic and
social goal of gaining access, as francophones, to the resources controlled
by anglophones, is predicated on clear ethnolinguistic, or at least linguistic, separation of domains, from territorial and institutional separation, to
separation in individual linguistic practice, to structural distinction of
posited pure and whole linguistic systems. Bilingualism is important, but
requires constant surveillance in order to keep it from flowing over into
assimilation. (Modernizing values of democracy militate against too
ethnic an interpretation of these processes, but using language as a criterion of inclusion and exclusion accomplishes much the same goals of
reproduction and protection of corporate interests, while appearing democratic.)
The globalizing discourse is only just now emerging, and is a direct consequence of the relative success of modernization. The main thread is an
interest in using the notion of the nation and its language as a basis for
political and economic success. The difference is that those notions are now
increasingly both commodified and transformed into debates about citizenship in which ideas of the organic group, of ethnicity, are removed. There
are several reasons for this. One is that political success has entailed the
construction of political institutions which necessarily have a membership
beyond the bounds of the ethnic legitimizing discourse, and which themselves also rest on democratic values of inclusion. A second is that the neoliberal state is withdrawing from its role in sustaining many community-level
structures, among them francophone associations and institutions. A third
is that successful entry into national and international markets has coincided with a transformation of those markets. These days French-English
bilingualism is an interesting path to new jobs in service and information
economies with markets in which both or either are useful (somewhat ironically, Quebec being first among them). At the same time, globalization
seems to be creating a market for old-style authenticity, manifested in new
kinds of heritage tourism, for example, or in trends towards various kinds
of cultural fusion in fashion, music and other cultural domains (cf. Le

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 125

125
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

Menestrel, 1999, on the commodification of Cajun identity in Louisiana).

The problem is to figure out what kinds of language practices are valuable;
we are seeing emphasis both on local authenticity and uniformizing standardization, on hybridity and on purity.
These discourses represent ideological orientations which can be
understood as strategies in which ethnolinguistic categorization is used as
a means to organize the production and distribution of resources, and to
defend social, political and economic interests with respect to the regulation of resources, which can vary according to the positioning of individuals or groups with respect to resources and to boundaries, and
according to political economic conditions. In what follows I will sketch out
the relationship between these discourses and the political economic conditions of one area of Ontario, and show how different kinds of social positions interact with different interests and possibilities with respect to the
production and reproduction of those discourses. I will focus, that is, on
how sites of discursive production change over time, and on how understanding the process and conditions of production can help achieve a
deeper understanding of the texts produced there.

Discourses of la francit in an Ontario county

A brief history
The area I want to focus on is located in central Ontario. The information
I have about its history comes from a variety of oral and written sources; the
oral ones are from our interviews, and can be understood as oral history;
the written ones are mainly documents produced by local historians,
notably Marchildon (1984). We have been given access to some primary
documents, mainly newspaper articles from the post-war period, but we
have preferred to concentrate on history as it unfolds before our eyes, using
historical sources as a background rather than as a primary focus (this is
mainly a question of intellectual preference and limitations on resources,
not a judgement of relative merit, but it does raise the issue of the practical constraints on an ethnographic method which wants to take history seriously).
Nonetheless, the locally produced historical texts of course have to be
treated as historically and socially situated themselves, and it is important
that they were produced at or in the wake of moments of political crisis and
consciousness-formation, have played an important role in the production
and reproduction of a modernizing discourse, have been produced by
people with an investment in francophone institutions, and take largely the
same form whether spoken or written. That is, a certain modernist narrative has emerged, and is documented in some of our interviews (with
people occupying important positions in local francophone associations
and institutions) and in much of the written text produced locally (by many

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 126

126
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

of the same people). This narrative constructs a historical tradition which

legitimizes struggles over current interests, and which is understood as a
series of obstacles which a unified community has had to overcome in its
struggle against anglophone domination, by means of a modernist strategy
involving the establishment of autonomous institutions.
This is exemplified in the first paragraph of Sylvestre (1980: 9), a book
produced as a text meant to commemorate, and therefore legitimize, a
modernist stance during a crisis over just such an issue in 1979 (discussed
further below). It is an excellent example of the kinds of texts I refer to
above, a text created to construct a certain narrative, a text which creates
the reality it purports to reflect. The school crisis in question (a debate
within the community as to whether or not to fight for a French-language
high school, and struggles with anglophone authorities over the resources
to create it) is linked in this text to a long history of glorious struggle, waged
by a group whose legitimate presence is established by historical right of
first arrival. (The French original is in italics, the English translation follows
in regular typeface. Where English was used in the original, it appears there
in regular typeface, and is underlined in the text of the English translation.)
Sur les bords de la Baie Georgienne, que Champlain visita en 1615, slve P., la plus
ancienne ville de lOntario, la premire dexpression franaise. Ce deuxime titre danciennet se garde au prix de nombreux sacrifices, de querelles politico-religieuses, voire mme
de luttes piques. Les pionniers travaillant sous le zle du Pre Laboureau, ds 1873, les
parents francophones dirigs par le Pre Brunelle, au dbut du sicle, et les tudiants
franco-ontariens opposs aux volonts assimilatrices de leur conseil scolaire en
19791980, tmoignent tous dune vie franaise enracine en Huronie, parfois en
difficult mais toujours tenace.
(On the shores of Georgian Bay, which Champlain [a key figure in the colonization efforts of France] visited in 1615, lies P., the oldest city in Ontario, the
first to be of the French language. This second title of seniority is kept at the
price of many sacrifices, of politico-religious quarrels, even of epic struggles.
The pioneers working under the zeal of Father Laboureau, from as early as
1873, the francophone parents directed by Father Brunelle, at the turn of the
century, and the Franco-Ontarian students opposed to the assimilationist
efforts of their school board in 19791980, all bear witness to the French life
rooted in Huronia, sometimes in difficulty, but always persistent.)

Here, Sylvestre contributes materially (by providing the words) to the

legitimization of the community through history and tradition, and to the
construction of an ideology of struggle and resistance which is understood
as historically continuous. The community is constructed as unified, and
the text thus underscores criteria for inclusion and exclusion with respect
to that community as well as guidelines for appropriate conduct on the
part of its members.
At the same time as we have to understand the discursive, ideologically
narrativized nature of many of the data we have to work with, we have also

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 127

127
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

pieced together from these same sources our own account (for the most
part not narrativized in local sources) of the areas political economic
history, an account which can be understood as a set of empirically verifiable hypotheses requiring better primary source confirmation than we can
provide at this time. I will only provide here the elements I consider necessary for the development of my own narrative (leaving aside for example
the existence in the 17th century of a French Catholic mission, which has
great importance for the establishment of authenticity and legitimate presence of the francophone population, as seen in Sylvestres text cited above).
My account here begins with the in-migration of French Canadian farmers
from Quebec in the mid-19th century. The community they established,
and which still exists, represents almost an archetype of the traditional
French-Canadian community: rural, isolated, Catholic, homogeneous. The
area was mainly farmed (subsistence, and potato monoculture), but
farming existed side by side with, and was often supplemented by, fishing
and lumberjacking (a common economic complex across Ontario,
although the relative importance of each activity varied from place to place;
cf. Welch, 1988).
The local elite, drawn from families who were able to do relatively well
out of farming, began to organize itself around the parish in the late 1800s
and early 1900s. The Catholic Church actively contributed to the development of this elite, providing elementary education, arranging for promising youth to be sent away to convents and seminaries for higher education,
and organizing discussion circles which can be seen as embryonic forms of
later community associations, and which also established the groundwork
for community activism, for example, in the founding of insurance companies and credit unions which were essential for the financial stability of
the community. The Church also contributed to the development of elite
social networks, whose mission was to safeguard the central values of the
community (language, ethnicity and religion), and thereby ensure its own
reproduction. This process was active well into the 1960s, and produced
major clerical and lay figures of importance today (such as a bishop, and a
lawyer responsible for suing the province in the mid-1980s in a landmark
lawsuit on francophone rights). We can already see here the ways in which
institutions like the Church and its education system were linked to other
institutions (like credit unions), and to the organization of voice in the
community, that is, the organization of who gets to speak about what, and
therefore who gets to define central values and practices, and access to
resources.2 Major sites of discourse would have been Church services (our
interviews contain, for example, verbatim quotes from some particularly
influential sermons of the 1950s, which the older generation still vividly
recalls), discussion circle meetings, organized meetings of the local male
elite, the local Church-run school, as well as a variety of other less structured sites such as social gatherings in neighbours homes on winter
evenings, the credit union and so on.

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 128

128
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

Those who were unable to make a living from agriculture, or a combination of agriculture and forestry or fishing, went to work for anglophones
in nearby English-dominated towns, at first in sawmills, and later in other
manufacturing industries. These families were marginal to the major sites
of discourse production in the francophone community; they had fewer
means for producing a traditionalist discourse, and fewer reasons for doing
so. They are still often held up by others as examples of the ravages of
assimilation.
The early part of the century saw the beginning of the development of
a property-based tourist industry, in which local skills in construction (and,
for women, cooking) were seasonally put to use by rich anglophones from
Toronto or the United States seeking to build weekend and summer
retreats. Agriculture became untenable as a family-based business in the
1960s, as a result of mechanization and changes in production systems. Displaced sons either followed their uncles into town, or became entrepreneurs in the cottage tourist industry; the latter is a major source of male
employment to this day, creating conditions which allow networks of relatively poorly educated but often highly skilled male francophones to reproduce language and local identity, without participating in the structures
and discourses of the elite. Some women work in towns, in industry, shops
or health care; many turn their own country skills to profit selling bakery
products, preserves and crafts, and providing various other forms of services (such as cleaning) to tourists in the summer.
The Church also began to lose influence in favour of the state, a shift
which of course had specific effects on the francophone population, since
the state was anglophone. This can be seen most clearly in struggles over
French-language education, which I will discuss further below.
The regional industrial base suffered greatly in the 1980s. Only now is
it beginning to be replaced by attempts to develop heritage and environmental tourism, marrying the regions undeniable natural beauty to its
complicated English, French and indigenous history and its identity as
country. There is an explosion of interest among certain francophones in
the Mtis heritage many of their ancestors spent a great deal of effort
denying, at a time when social categorization and inequality was organized
differently. Perhaps more importantly, in the last few years, a nearby urban
centre has experienced tremendous economic and demographic growth,
drawing many people south, as well as drawing into the region francophones from other parts of the country, who often have different ideas
about being francophone and speaking French from those of the local
population. Finally, the new globalized economy has produced a new crop
of wealthy people (from farther and farther afield) seeking to build country
estates, touching off a small construction boom.
This brief history provides some background for understanding who
might have had some interest in resisting anglophone power, and who not,
and what likely sites of discourse production might have been. It also

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 129

129
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

provides some sense of why the discourses produced took the shapes they
did. In the next section, I will examine in greater detail three crises which
played an important role in the development of local discourses, and which
also reveal some of the processes underlying discursive shifts.
Three crises
The three crises I wish to discuss are pivotal to the shift from traditionalist
to modernizing and from modernizing to globalizing discourses. The first
two occurred in the 1940s and the late 1970s; the third is under way today.
The kinds of data we have about each period of course vary. The first two
crises are documented in our corpus mainly in the form of local written histories, some primary sources mainly in the form of newspaper clippings
made available to us by local historians and recorded narratives in the
context of ethnographic interviews with community members (some of
whom were alive at the time, others of whom were born later). It is important to note that these crises emerge regularly and spontaneously (in the
sense that we did not specifically ask about these periods or events or actors)
in the narratives provided by certain kinds of community members about
their community and their region, namely those who are currently or who
have been centrally involved in francophone institutions and associations,
or who are linked to families with such a tradition of involvement. They thus
seem to constitute key elements in a certain local narrative of la francit, a
narrative which is dominant and which represents certain interests and
certain perspectives. I should add that, in addition to these sorts of data,
we also have our own observations of the physical traces left behind of those
periods, often in the form of buildings and photographs which remain on
display in institutional spaces. Since there is no room here to present the
full range of data, I will construct my account of these three crises around
data which helps me make the point relatively efficiently.
The first crisis I want to discuss here shook the community in the 1940s,
when the local priest (ironically himself of French Basque origin, a point
most narrators do not hesitate to make) apparently encouraged the francophone population to assimilate to English for its own good. Many followed his advice. The local elite, however, fought back, refusing to abandon
its power base, and thereby laying the seeds for later forms of political consciousness. Important actors at that time included the main insurance agent
and others in the liberal professions, as well as members of the main wealthy
farming families.
Two key texts on local history present this period as a crucial one in
laying the grounds for the political mobilization of the population. The first
is Sylvestre (1980); the second is Marchildon (1984), produced not long
afterwards as part of a province-wide attempt to institutionalize FrancoOntarian history in the context of the increasing state organization of
Franco-Ontarian schools. While both treat this era as key, I will focus here
on a passage from Sylvestre (1980: 17):

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 130

130
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)
Jean-Marie Castex, Franais dorigine mais francophobe de nature, arrive au Canada
en 1910 et stablit P. en 1939, aprs avoir tabli quelques coles catholiques anglaises
M. En 1942, il invite les Grey Sisters diriger lhpital. En 1954 il suscite la cration
du Parents and Teachers Association, mais les parents francophones nen veulent
point, et crent, en octobre 1959, leur propre Association de parents et instituteurs. Castex
refuse de leur nommer un aumonier, et lorsque forc de le faire par son vque, il dlgue
dabord un prtre unilingue anglais.
( Jean-Marie Castex, French by origin but francophobe by nature, arrives in
Canada in 1910, and comes to reside in P. in 1939, having established some
English Catholic schools in M. (a nearby town). In 1942, he invites the Grey
Sisters to run the hospital. In 1954 he encourages the creation of the Parents
and Teachers Association, but the francophone parents want nothing to do
with it, and create, in October 1959, their own Parent Teacher Association.
Castex refuses to name a chaplain for them, and, when forced to do so by his
bishop, he first names a monolingual anglophone priest.)

Sylvestre uses a number of devices to construct the opposition of Castex

and the francophone community. In both content and form (by using the
English version of the names of institutions which do have French names),
he shows how the priest uses his position to establish anglophone control
over local institutions. He also constructs the francophone community as
unified in opposition by using the definite article (les parents francophones),
and emphasizes the concept of community control over local institutions
by using the possessive article (leur propre Association). Other accounts we
have collected indicate that in fact the community was divided over the
actions of Msgr. Castex, but the construction of homogeneity fits in with
Sylvestres overall goal of providing a narrative of collective, difficult, but
ultimately victorious struggle.
At the same time, Sylvestres text does point to the ways in which this
crisis laid the groundwork for further investment in committee structures
and local associations as an important power base for the advancement of
francophone elite interests. The structures established at that time remain
important, notably a local chapter of an international benevolent society.
Members of the local elite have been meeting for years twice a month for
the club dinner, to which a speaker is always invited. Who is invited to speak,
and what they speak about, are crucial matters. In local histories, many
important events and institutions are often linked to such talks (where, for
example, someone might explain how a credit union works, or might
present an idea for a local newspaper). The dinner always acts, therefore,
as an important site for production and legitimation of discourses, as well
as contributing to the construction and reproduction of the local networks
which are the basis of their diffusion and development.
In other narratives about this period, speakers also construct this crisis
as one which served to raise consciousness, consolidate a political position
and lay the groundwork for struggles to come. It is also presented as a
moment of recognition of the increasing dangers of assimilation facing the

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 131

131
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

community, of division within the community with regard to how to handle

the power of English and, significantly, of the complexity of the relationship with the Church, now understood as potentially having a different set
of interests from those of the lay elite. Sylvestre constructs a tight narrative
in the voice of that elite; other accounts (even those of members of that
elite) point to nuances and complexities which, however, are constructed
mainly as mystifying; no one can explain either what motivated Msgr.
Castex, nor why anyone should have paid attention to him. Ethnographically, those voices remain to be identified, although we have some glimpses
as to the reasons for their marginalization.
The second crisis occurred in the late 1970s, when members of the
local elite continued a fight which had begun many years before over access
to French-language education (see also Welch, 1988; Heller, 1994). The
details of the crisis are too complicated to go into here, but essentially
involve convincing local education authorities to act on the right established by law in Ontario in 1968 to high schools in which French is the language of instruction. The events of that period (concentrated between 1979
and 1981) were triggered by the closure of a French-language village school
and the opening of a large, supposedly bilingual high school in a nearby
town. Institutional rationalization, part of a long historic process of centralization and the growth of the state, became an instrument for reproducing anglophone power in the region. This occurred at the same time as
Qubcois nationalism necessitated new ways of thinking about what it
might mean to be francophone in Ontario (cf. Heller, 1994), as well as providing some new discursive means for doing just that.
Some responded by developing a discourse of accommodation, a
valuing of bilingualism, or simply a valuing of English over French (what
certain actors would call assimilation). For those who were already
invested in a more nationalist stance, and who had the local francophone
associations as a site for discursive production, the schools symbolic
importance as a site of social and cultural reproduction increased as other
means of reproduction faltered, while the reorganization of education
necessitated shifting discursive ground and social action to engage the state
as principal interlocutor. This crisis can be seen as the moment of completion of a shift from traditionalist to modernizing discourses, under the
influence of changing political economic conditions. It is worth noting that
almost identical crises and discursive conflicts were occurring across
Ontario from the mid-1960s, and are still occurring today in other parts of
Canada, notably, at the moment of writing, in Nova Scotia and Prince
Edward Island.
Bernard Desormiers (all personal names have been changed) was a
central figure in this crisis. His story is interesting in part because he was
not a member of the traditionalist elite, and, indeed, as he describes below,
was not initially oriented to the new modernizing discourse. He became
involved in the local crisis, and found a path that apparently struck him as

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 132

132
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

more interesting and worthwhile than the one he had been pursuing.
Indeed, for many years afterwards, Bernard continued to define himself,
and to make his living, as a francophone activist (until current discursive
shifts displaced him, as we will see). Below, Bernard describes to me and
one of my colleagues his own discursive transformation at that time
(Ronald, referred to in the extract below, is a member of the local elite,
and played an important role in defining strategy in the construction and
management of the crisis):
Et je sais dans ce temps-l cest ce que je trouvais cest quils poussaient trop fort. Moi
jtais en faveur des coles bilingues jtais embarqu dans la grande mentalit canadienne, tsais le bilinguisme On va tous tre bilingue p(u)is tout va fonctionner bien
jai t pogn dans ce courant-l. Alors l je me suis impliqu sur la scne scolaire. Ici on
commenait parler dune cole de langue franaise. Mais voyons donc, des stupidits
(de) pareilles sortes cest comme a que je considrais. Cest en mettant les Anglais et les
Franais ensemble dans des coles bilingues, cest a quon va sauver le Canada avec.
Mais aprs que je me suis impliqu dans dans quelques mois cest moi qui est devenu le
radical puis les gens comme Ronald me disaient Oh, oh, oh, arrte Bernard!
(And I know that at that time what I felt was that they were pushing too hard.
I was in favour of bilingual schools, I was on the bandwagon of the great
Canadian mentality, you know bilingualism Were all going to be bilingual
and everything is going to work I was in that current of thought. So I got
involved in the school scene. Here they were starting to talk about a Frenchlanguage school. Come on, what kind of stupidity, thats the way I thought.
Its in putting the English and the French together in bilingual schools, thats
what well save Canada with. But after I got involved, in in a few months, I was
the one who became a radical, and people like Ronald said to me Oh, oh, oh,
stop it Bernard!)

The result of this crisis was the creation of the school the modernizers
were after, and the marginalization of those who had accommodated to
anglophone structures. Sylvestre (1980: 60) cites some interviews conducted by anglophone newspapers from neighbouring provinces covering
the school crisis, in which one student, happy with the status quo, was
quoted as saying Leave us out of it. It seems significant that the only voices
of such unpoliticized students that we hear should come from such a
source, and in English.
This second crisis is alive in local memory, but it holds different places
in different peoples narratives. For people like Bernard, it was a formative
period, and it is a key element in the narratives provided by those who play
a role in local francophone associations and structures. Others at best will
recall, like one woman now in her 40s, that they wondered at the time what
all the fuss was about; the woman in question, who recounted her memories
of this period to us in an interview in 2000, remains unclear as to what the
actual outcome was. In many ways, this crisis institutionalized a split
between the dominant, institutionalized modernizing discourse, and those
who sought other ways of orienting to the local sociolinguistic relations of
power.

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 133

133
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

The third crisis involves what may have been the second most important institutional legacy of this period (after the school): a cultural and
lobbying association, one of many established across Ontario in the 1970s
and 1980s. The association was active throughout the 1980s, not without
some controversy and difficulty, notably over whom it did or did not represent. However, it ran into some serious trouble in the 1990s, for reasons
which have in part to do with the dissolution of the political economic basis
of the modernizing discourse, and in part with the kinds of paradoxes it
created itself. Thus, part of this trouble had to do with the fact that the
associations funding came from government sources, which were rapidly
drying up. Indeed, in 1996, the government announced a new reduced
funding plan which required province-wide consensus, thereby triggering
a massive struggle for access to the limited resources left, in each and every
province affected. Part of the trouble had to do with the still disaffected traditionalists, who were ostensibly represented by this association but who
stubbornly refused to turn up for all but local, cultural and social events.
Finally, part of the trouble had to do with the major shifts in the economic
organization of the region, which was increasingly drawn into larger economic circuits, into the orbit of demographically exploding urban centres
farther south, and into new ways of making a living for which it was unprepared. The economy increasingly turns on new service and information
activities based in the larger towns farther south, despite a building boom
fuelled by the newly rich or almost retired (mainly from Toronto, but also
from as far away as Russia) who are building themselves expensive vacation
or retirement homes in a region felt to be particularly bucolic, and despite
new attempts to invest in local community development, notably through
tourism.
The local association is still trying to come to grips with what this means
for the population it aims to represent, but recent events are telling. The
associations council is redefining its mandate and its structure and functioning. The councils membership has generally been drawn from the
local elite; increasingly, it draws less from local families (although they too
are present) and more from professional past and present members of educational institutions, as well as other public sector domains and, to a certain
extent, from the private sector, with some members from outside the community altogether. It does not include, for example, industrial, farming or
construction workers, the unemployed, the poorly educated (this is scarcely
a surprise, but it bears repeating.) The Church collaborates, but does not
participate directly: this is a modern, lay association.
Over the last two years, the council has focused on the development of
a more bureaucratized regime, drawing up job descriptions for paid staff,
and contracts for them to sign. Activity which, although paid, had emerged
out of volunteer labour for la cause, is being turned into wage labour in a
service economy. The council also focused on its own role, and on the
mandate of the organization, introducing the new idea of understanding

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 134

134
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

itself as a service organization. This resulted in some conflict with its longtime director-general (DG), Bernard Desormiers, who, as we have seen, had
a very personal investment in the organization as a political lobbying association, and who understood its (and his) activity as a struggle for la cause,
not as the provision of service via wage labour. The modernizing and globalizing discourses clashed very directly in this arena.
We followed these developments quite closely, and have a number of
tape-recordings of council meetings (usually held on a monthly basis) and
some copies of minutes, interviews with all council members, and copies of
position papers and consultation documents. The council members
engaged in this activity in quite an intense way over a period of close to two
years, not only hashing things out in meetings, but circulating draft documents for commentary between meetings, and frequently consulting by
telephone or in person. There is no space here to examine the detailed
ways in which these new discourses of the organization were constructed,
but I will provide three examples here.
The first example comes from the draft mission statement, published
in a consultation document in January 2000: L(Association) est un organisme
catalyseur au service de la communaut francophone (The Association is a catalyzing organization at the service of the francophone community). It is significant that the association even feels the need to publish a mission
statement, a genre with origins in the private sector. Such a statement
makes the most sense in the context of the kind of discourse of public
service and accountability which is typical of the new economy. And, of
course, the content points directly to the same notions of service. Thus, in
what is probably the most significant single sentence for the establishment
of its orientation, the association sends a clear message.
The second example is from a council meeting held in early 1998. In
this meeting, the council debates what kind of council it wants to be, based
on some management training documents the members have studied and
discussed. The models provide for varying degrees of power to be concentrated in the hands of the council or the director-general, and therefore are
closely linked to the specific relationship between this council and its DG,
Bernard Desormiers. As the discussion unfolds, one member raises the
issue of this relationship and how to handle it in the context of broader
ideological orientations; specifically, the problem is that the council is
raising the possibility of curtailing the DGs independence for reasons
which are stated as bureaucratic and democratic (better to have elected
members make decisions; the council remains but DGs come and go; the
council is legally responsible for the organization in ways the DG is not),
and which certainly have the effect of concentrating power in the hands of
the (elected) council. However, the DG, who, it is known, has a different
view on how things should be run, is sitting in the meeting. A makes it clear
that of course it is not a question of not having confidence in Bernard, but
an association planning for its future cannot count on the eternal presence

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 135

135
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

of one DG. (In this transcript, A and B are council members; C is the DG,
Bernard Desormiers.)
A: . . . on peut choisir la structure qui se rapporte nous. Le DG quon a
tout de suite ou si jamais le DG venait changer, on aurait pas le choix,
tsais? On ne pourrait plus rviser quelle sorte de structure on veut.
Donc . . .
B: Oui.
C: Bon mais vu que . . .
A: Bien si on peut [faire?] beaucoup de confiance comme cest l
Bernard, on peut choisir un modle, tu sais, plus simple. Mais si le
prochain qui va le remplacer, on ne peut pas le faire confiance, bien
on ne voudra plus avoir le mme non plus.
B: Mais a pourrait changer.
A: Oui?
B: Si on adopte une structure cest pas a quon cherche en ce moment?
Une structure fixe pour le CA? On nest pas pour commencer
changer chaque fois quon a un diffrent DG.
(A: . . . we can choose a structure which has to do with us [which fits us].
The DG (Director-General) which we have right now or if ever the DG
came to change, we wouldnt have a choice, yknow? We wouldnt be
able to revise what kind of structure we want. So . . .
B: Yes.
C: OK, but seeing as how . . .
A: Well yes we can [have?] lots of confidence as it is now with Bernard, we
can choose a model, you know, a simpler one. But if the next one who
replaces him, we cant trust him, well we wouldnt want the same one
either.
B: But that could change.
A: Yes?
B: If we adopt a structure isnt that what were looking for right now? A
fixed structure for the council? We arent going to start changing every
time we have a different DG.)
In addition to the face work accomplished here in aid of the councils
achievement of its goals, there are other dimensions worth commenting on.
The actual discursive work is accomplished by A and B, providing a basis for
the council to present itself as united and democratic, not under the thumb
of its president or any one other member. Indeed, earlier in the transcript
the elected president lays the groundwork for both supporting the

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 136

136
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

particular model A and B are hinting at, namely a fixed structure independent of the particular personalities involved, and for building a consensus in support of such a structure. He does this explicitly: Jaimerais plus
un consensus que consensus ouais? au lieu dun vote majoritaire (I would prefer
a consensus to consensus yeah? rather than a majority vote). He also does
this through control over turn-taking and topic introduction, and through
the frequent use of personal disclaimers which situate the decision as a collective, not an individual one. He frequently uses Je (I), and framing devices
such as suggesting and giving my opinion as a means of stating his own
position, which he makes available to the group without imposing it. He
does not position himself as speaking for the group. In this excerpt, the
building of the consensus is taken over by A and B, who do the actual
framing of the models to be discussed and the face work needed to accomplish a collective decision with Bernards consent.
The next turn in the sequence is the presidents; he speaks at length
about the importance of arriving at an informed collective decision. A few
minutes later, he calls for a motion. A responds: Mhm, quest-ce que tu veux
que je dise? (Mhm, what do you want me to say?). It is the president who
formulates the formal motion which will then be reiterated and entered into
the minutes as having been proposed by A and seconded by B. The association moves toward a more bureaucratized organization, less dependent on
the charismatic leadership characteristic of the battles of the modernist discourse, more focused on service to the community than fighting the communitys battles with the dominant anglophone majority. Significantly, it
does so by eschewing charismatic models of leadership, preferring to accomplish its goals as a consensual bureaucratic organization.
The third example illustrates what kinds of services might be involved
in the Associations new vision of itself. While the Association still focuses
mainly on social and cultural activities, it also uses a discourse of community development. This community development is framed as being
designed to develop and maintain pride in francophone identity, but also
as being about the advancement of shared interests (this is indeed one of
the ways the Associations consultation document actually defines community; the other defines community as a collection of people with
shared resources). The Association has worked in close collaboration with
a small organization it in fact helped set up, an organization that has the
mandate of dveloppement de biens et de services novateurs et de cration dentreprises et demplois (development of innovative resources and services and
creation of companies and of jobs) (as cited in an article in the local
French-language newspaper, the Got de vivre, 20 January 2000: 6). The discourse of resources (biens) and services is shared by both organizations. In
this discourse, language is less about identity and pride, about rights and
struggles, and more about market value. In the same text, the sentence
about resources and services ends thus: dentreprises et demplois qui montrent
la valeur ajoute des francophones et des bilingues de la (rgion) o lon reflte leur

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 137

137
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

impact considrable sur la vitalit de la rgion (of companies and of jobs which
show the added value of the francophones and the bilinguals of the . . .
region and where their considerable impact on the vitality of the region is
reflected). French is important because it will help the entire region
emerge from its economic slump. French is important because it has economic added value. And francophones are important because, without
them, the region would have no claim to being able to provide that added
value.
The crisis of the Association, triggered by changing political (withdrawal of the neo-liberal state) and economic (shift from primary and
secondary to tertiary sector economic activities) conditions, is being
resolved in a globalizing kind of way. The Association is reinventing itself
as a service organization linked to activities which are marketable, and
which indeed can be seen as providing the authenticity which the tourist
industry can effectively exploit (as well as contributing to the maintenance,
even to the sense of maintaining, the bilingual linguistic proficiency which
internationalized markets value). The discursive debates within and around
the Association can be tied both to the changing political and economic
conditions of its existence, but also to changes in the organization of voice
in some highly observable ways. For example, a few months after the
meeting discussed above, Bernard was dismissed from his position by the
council, whose members one evening asked him for his keys and escorted
him outside the building (the building which, it will be recalled, had served
as headquarters for the school crisis of 197981 in which Bernard had
played such an important role). As of this writing, months later, the Association is still looking for a new DG, one who most likely will have a job
description and a contract, the content of which will certainly describe
activities somewhat different from those undertaken by Bernard. While
there are many more things going on in this situation than I can recount
here, I think it is possible, and necessary, to draw attention not so much to
Bernard and the council members as individuals, but as actors with historically and socially constrained and contingent possibilities and interests,
both in terms of being able to speak out (prendre la parole) and in terms of
what they are likely to want to, and be able to, say.
The three moments of crisis illustrate some of the ways in which political and economic conditions create possibilities for the emergence of
certain kinds of discourse about language and identity in Canada, and help
explain why those discourses emerged when and where they did. This one
small area shows us how complex the battle over language in Canada can
be, and usually is. Clearly, all along the line there are those who have benefited from seeing things a certain way and imposing that vision on others
(always in the interests of the collective good). Looking at these issues as
discourses, and as struggles over domination of discursive space, has
allowed us, I think, to get some purchase on what is happening. In order
to explain why, we have had to look further, into the political economic

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 138

138
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

conditions of discursive production and reception, at what makes it possible to look at things a certain way, at what makes it make sense for some
people to do so, but perhaps less so, or not at all, for others. This is clearly
not about what is right or wrong in any absolute sense, but rather about
what is right or wrong for whom, and when.
In this case, we can see how the elite has maintained a vested interest
in reproducing a notion of francophone community, although how that
community has been understood, and therefore its criteria of inclusion and
exclusion, have changed over the years. Language has come into sharper
and sharper focus as the major terrain, so that now the value of linguistic
proficiency in French and English is understood as underlying the very
future of the community. The question remains as to who will decide what
counts as linguistic proficiency in both languages, and who will have access
to them, and, indeed, current battles (for example, over access to Frenchlanguage schools, literacy training, employment; cf. Heller, 1999b) reflect
just that. Those who no longer speak French, or whose families have never
been part of the francophone community, have to struggle for legitimacy
if they want to be part of the networks defined by the professional elite. The
kind of French you speak, and how you organize French and English in your
linguistic practices, also become salient indices of social position and discursive orientation, and hence criteria of inclusion and exclusion in this
struggle.

Conclusion
While I have only sketched the outlines of what a fine-grained analysis of
discourse production might look like (as in Sylvestres use of personal pronouns and of contrast between French and English to construct voices and
oppositions; or Bernards account of how he came to change perspective;
or in the Association council meetings construction of collective consensus to achieve discursive shift), it seems clear that such analyses allow us to
see how speakers draw on their linguistic resources to accomplish the construction of viewpoints, of legitimating arguments and other discursive
functions in ways that can be explained given who they are, what kinds of
resources they have access to, and what kinds of struggles are relevant to
their concerns. Discourses are grounded, and emerge from political economic conditions that frequently entail differences of interest, and concomitant, albeit often lop-sided, struggle. As such, analysis of specific
practices or processes is aided by linking them to other kinds of practices
which may be ethnographically harder to grasp (such as late-night telephone calls, or e-mail messages to which we are not privy) but which remain
conceptually important to include.
The final issue that needs to be raised has to do with the problem of
who is producing what discourse, and who is deciding who benefits and who

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 139

139
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse

loses out. If that applies to the people of this county, then surely it also
applies to us. Just wandering around asking about these issues is participation in the production and reception of discourses. Our interviews are
precisely occasions for discourse production which feed into the discourse
which we eventually produce in articles like this one. The fact that a team
of university researchers wants to know about these things accords the
question public status and possible importance, raises the possibility of
a struggle over narrative legitimacy (who produces a better, more credible
narrative, us or them?) and provides a new set of resources (us and
our work) which can be potentially marshalled in the service of one or
the other set of interests, including our own. Publicly announcing our
interpretations, which we are beginning to do, is even more directly a contribution to discursive struggle, especially since we are often called upon to
act as commentators in the media and as consultants to those who distribute resources (for example, government agencies, although of course they
have fewer and fewer resources to distribute).
Nonetheless, I understand this to actually be our role, one to embrace,
not to shy away from. It is difficult, especially since the issues are never clear
cut, and anyway taking sides is not really what this work is about. Instead, I
want to argue for a role for our work which focuses on providing critique
of the kind I have tried to develop here: laying bare the discourses, the conditions of their production, and therefore the reasons why they exist, why
they take the shape they do, why they emerge where and when they emerge,
why certain categorizations of actors emerge as relevant, and why different
social positions are linked in certain ways to certain discourses. Such an
analysis should provide a basis for position-taking, mine as much as anyone
elses, but how I feel about a situation is connected to my political position,
and that might not be the same as that of other readers.
This is a stance which attempts to marry analyses of local ecologies of
discursive production to a concern for interests and positioning, for outcomes and consequences. It is an attempt to remain located in empirically
observable local processes, while aiming at a construction of a somewhat
broader narrative in which language practices are understood as political
processes and elements of structuration. It is meant as a way to find a place
also to speak as an observer and analyst about processes which are of both
local and more general concern without having to embrace an identity as
an objective expert, but rather as a certain kind of participant in the construction of discursive space.

Notes
1

I am co-principal investigator of the project, along with Jrgen Erfurt

(University of Frankfurt) and Normand Labrie (University of Toronto).
Collaborating colleagues include Annette Boudreau and Lise Dubois (Univer-

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 140

140
Critique of Anthropology 21(2)

sit de Moncton), and Claudine Mose (Universit dAvignon). Research assistants are: Gabriele Budach (Frankfurt), Karine Gauvin and Stphane Guitard
(Moncton), Marcel Grimard, Jose Makropoulos, Sylvie Roy, and Carsten Quell
(Toronto). The research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the German-American Academic Council
Foundation and the Association universitaire de la francophonie.
My thanks to Jan Blommaert for pointing this out.

References
Blommaert, J., ed. (1999) Language Ideological Debates. Berlin, New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Bouchard, G. (1999) La nation qubcoise au future et au pass. Montral: VLB.
Bourdieu, P. (1977) Lconomie des changes linguistiques, Langue franaise 34:
1734.
Bourdieu, P. (1982) Ce que parler veut dire. Paris: Fayard.
Cicourel, A. (1987) Cognitive and Organizational Aspects of Medical Diagnostic
Reasoning, Discourse Processes 10(4): 34768.
Clift, D. and S. Arnopoulos (1979) Le fait anglais au Qubec. Montral: Libre Expression.
Collins, J. (1999) The Ebonics Controversy in Context: Literacies, Subjectivities and
Language Ideologies in the United States, in J. Blommaert (ed.) Language Ideological Debates, pp. 20134. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Cook-Gumperz, J., ed. (1986) The Social Construction of Literacy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Gumperz, J. (1982a) Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Gumperz, J. (1982b) Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gumperz, J. (1986) Interactional Sociolinguistics in the Study of Schooling, in J.
Cook-Gumperz (ed.) The Social Construction of Literacy, pp. 4568. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Harvey, F. (1999) Le Canada franais et la question linguistique 18501960, MS.
Heller, M., ed. (1988) Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives.
Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Heller, M. (1994) Crosswords: Language, Education and Ethnicity in French Ontario.
Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Heller, M. (1999a) Heated Language in a Cold Climate, in J. Blommaert (ed.)
Language Ideological Debates, pp. 14370. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Heller, M. (1999b) Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography.
London: Longman.
Heller, M. and G. Budach (1999) Prise de parole: la mondialisation et la transformation des discours identitaires chez une minorit linguistique, Bulletin
Suisse de Linguistique Applique 69(2): 15566.
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Le Devoir (1999) Penser la nation qubcoise, 28 August11 September.
Le Menestrel, S. (1999) La Voie des Cadiens. Paris: Belin.

02 Heller (jr/d)

17/5/01

11:34 am

Page 141

141
Heller: Sociolinguistic Analysis of Discourse
Marchildon, D. (1984) La Huronie: trois sicles et demi dhistoire franco-ontarienne dans
la rgion de Penetanguishene. Ottawa: Le Centre franco-ontarien de ressources
Pdagogiques.
Mehan, H. (1987) Language and Power in Organizational Process, Discourse
Processes 10(4): 291302.
Mehan, H., A. Hartweck and J. Meihls (1985) Handicapping the Handicapped.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ogbu, J. (1999) Beyond Language: Ebonics, Proper English, and Identity in a
Black-American Speech Community, American Educational Research Journal
36(2): 14784.
Rickford, J. R. (1999) The Ebonics Controversy in My Backyard: A Sociolinguists
Experiences and Reflections, Journal of Sociolinguistics 3(2): 26775.
Schieffelin, B., K. Woolard and P. Kroskrity, eds (1998) Language Ideologies: Theory
and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Silverstein, M. and G. Urban, eds (1996) Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Sylvestre, P.-F. (1980) Penetang: cole de la rsistance. Sudbury: Prise de Parole.
Taylor, C. (1992) The Politics of Recognition, in A. Gutman (ed.) Multiculturalism
and The Politics of Recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Van Dijk, T. (1993) Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Welch, D. (1988) The Social Construction of Franco-Ontarian Interests Towards
French-Language Schooling, unpublished PhD thesis, Graduate Department
of Education, University of Toronto.
Wodak, R. (1996) Disorders of Discourse. London: Longman.

 Monica Heller is Professor of Sociology of Education at the Ontario Institute for

Studies in Education/University of Toronto. She has conducted numerous sociolinguistic ethnographies of bilingualism in Canada. Her publications include
Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, Crosswords: Language, Education and Ethnicity in French Ontario, and Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography. Address: CREFO, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6, Canada.
[email: mheller@oise.utoronto.ca]