Plurilinguisme et minorisation en belgique : D́'etranges rapports aux langueś etraǹgere

Abstract

In plurilingual countries like Belgium, the relationship that ethnolinguistic communities have with the various languages may often reflect their status as majority or minority languages. In this article, we seek to show what the public policies - particularly in education - towards the plurilingualism of Belgium's two principal language communities reveal about how linguistic marginalisation works and has developed in these two groups. We show that the economic and political success of Flanders in recent decades has modified the way French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians approach language learning and language coexistence. Certain elements suggest that Belgium's francophones do not in fact constitute a marginalized group, despite being demographically outnumbered. French-speaking Belgians, though in a minority, are not in a truly minority context; this unusual situation throws light on the factors inherent in situations of language marginalization. © Maison des sciences de l'homme.