Symbolic predispositions, interests and official languages legislation: exploring the principle-implementation gap in Canada

Abstract

Debates over official languages are often intrinsically linked to questions of national identity, prejudice, and intergroup relations. However, official language legislation also has consequences for the day-to-day affairs of many citizens. As such, it also brings to the forefront considerations of costs and benefits, or the ways in which the material interests of individual citizens and their linguistic groups might be affected by these laws. In this study, we explore the possibility of a principle-implementation gap when it comes to official language(s) legislation. While citizens may well support the recognition of a minority language as an “official language,” they might oppose specific measures enacted to implement this general principle. Drawing on a survey conducted in Canada, we determine first that such a gap does exist. Second, our analysis shows that symbolic predispositions primarily drive support for the principle of Official Bilingualism, while opposition to its implementation is highest among those whose interests might clash with the imposition of bilingualism requirements for senior federal public servants.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 4 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.