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This essay is intended to introduce English-speaking readers to the growing body of work in France on ‘the politics of language’ - the standardization of French as a national language; the suppression of the vernaculars of region, locality, class and occupation; the role of language education in the reproduction of a ‘national’ culture; the function of school grammar and spelling as forms of social discipline; linguistic competence as a criterion of selection for employment, promotion and social mobility. The article raises questions which are familiar and urgent to any language teacher in the primary and comprehensive system. It also invites historians to think again about the formation of national states in terms of the creation of national languages and the linguistic colonization of regions, localities and hinterlands. Students of state formation in the Third World countries will also recognize the crucial place of linguistic issues for new post-colonial regimes - whether to continue using the ‘colonial’ mother tongue, and how far and how fast to press the linguistic unification of tribal societies. All of these dimensions are suggested, at least, by Pierre Achard's essay, which we are delighted to make available to English-speaking readers.
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