What is it about?
In multilingual Switzerland, Francoprovençal (often called “Patois”) is still spoken in parts of the cantons of Fribourg and Valais, but has (almost) disappeared from other cantons. The archives of the Journal de Genève illustrate the evolution of linguistic representations, ranging from acceptance of the extinction of Patois to conservation efforts, and, more recently, to hopes of revitalization.
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Perspectives
This analysis is based on texts that reflect identity construction based on language at a regional, national or transnational scale. This has rarely been done for Francoprovençal, a language that is too often "forgotten" when it comes to studying plurilingualism in Switzerland.
Manuel Meune
Universite de Montreal
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Du patois à l’« harpetan », entre (petite) patrie et nation imaginée: le discours sur le francoprovençal dans le Journal de Genève (1826–1998), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, November 2017, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/ijsl-2017-0048.
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