Social Influences

The decision of whether to use French or English in Montreal, Canada, is not always predetermined but must be negotiated by the interactants in conversation in ways that can be serious or humorous and have great potential for misunderstanding. The complex relationship between language choice and ethnicity is one factor involved the decision about which language to use. After a long period of social and geographic isolation of the francophone and anglophone communities, the francophones have become increasingly aware of their lesser economic and social opportunities and have as a community preferred solidarity and replacement of the anglophone community to assimilation into it. Protection of the French language is one aspect of this solidarity. Each language choice situation has its own set of norms, gcurally unspoken and sometimes governed by circumstance, as in the s--uation of a patient seeking medical care