Es pot justificar l'unilingüisme des del punt de vista de l'ordenació lingüística?

Resum

In order to analyze the role of monolingualism in linguistic normalization, Maurais, from the point of view of theory, draws mainly from the thinking of Catalan sociolinguist, Lluís Aracil, on the situation of minority groups, and from the point of view of practical cases, from Quebec, a region where all public signs have been written in French since 1977. The Chart of the French language makes French monolingualism mandatory where public signs are concerned. As an exception, signs in French can be accompanied in some cases by a translated version in another language, as when related to cultural activities of a specific ethnic group. If someone who does not speak French needs information that is only available in French, they will have to learn the language. If the information is also available in English, then the person needing it will not have to learn French. However, in 1993, the government of Quebec modified linguistic regulation regarding commercial signs, allowing, with some exceptions, a bilingual practice. Aracil, basing his argument on T.S. Eliot's view, whereby a satellite culture is one which for a number of different reasons, maintains a permanent relationship with a stronger culture, reflects upon the fact that, for instance, a Welsh person must always resort to English in order to access scientific, literary, or any other kind of international production. Such interposition, to use Aracil's terminology, is a common situation in the case of minority languages. In a bilingual context, such interposition will render it only theoretical the choice of language by an immigrant, since social pressure will favor the use of the interposed language, English in the case of Quebec. With a monolingual political strategy, however, as in the case of public signs, an effect is produced which the author suggests should be called a counterposition, whereby French becomes the interlanguage thanks to "positive discrimination", which is both ethically and juridically acceptable as a compensatory measure.